"Your blog is now so boring!!"

HEY!

You think every single day of your life is filled with exciting police car chases ending with precarious cliffs and then sailing your pirate boat over turbulent choppy waters is it??

LIFE GOT BORING DAYS THEN BLOG ALSO WILL HAVE BORING DAYS LA!!

Idiots.

I'd blog again when I got something interesting to write about.

Would also appreciate it if people who know where to buy garden swings let me know, wanna get one for the new place.

I WANT IT WHITE AND ENTWINED WITH GREEN VINES!!!



Chio!!

AH! I thought of something interesting to write about!!!

INSULTS THAT DON'T WORK!!!!!!

WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE??

Wanna throw insults at me to break me down? Perhaps, also stop me from blogging so that I can't lead the perfect life I am leading right now? To throw in a bonus, maybe also kill myself in the process?

NO, NOT GONNA WORK.

Besides the usual no-thinker insults like,

- I am fat
- I am boring
- I am ugly


recently there are also some new interesting insults I have received:



1) I stay in a HDB flat.

Errrrrrr....... And so I stay in a 3-room hdb flat cos my family is not rich. SO WHAT?

Honestly, if you think about it, so rich for WHAT? People will keep trying to borrow money from me lor!

I then don't want that sort of burden. I think it's way better to act poor. =D

LOL... It's so funny that people would tell me stuff like they stay in some shittyass private house and I am inferior to them.

Trying to justify your life now aren't you?

Why I wonder? Is it because you are ugly and lead a damn sad life? I won't trade a beautiful house for that. =)



2) Mike will dump me soon

Yes, he will definitely listen to you guys and dump me.

That is why he had forsaken everything that is familiar to him in the US, got a mass reduction in his expected US salary, and come to Singapore to live in our terrible weather.

;)



3) My neh nehs are very small.

NABEH NEH SMALL ALSO KENA!

BIG say I look like slut, SMALL then say I airport - I can never win lor.



Whatever, you guys. Comments disallowed, don't bother leaving any, they won't be approved.

Good day!!
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ME ON BUDDHIST GEEKS

Yup. I'm up on Buddhist Geeks. Just go to www.buddhistgeeks.com. I get interviewed by Gwen Bell, who showed up at one of my retreats in Shizuoka a couple years ago. I did this interview maybe a month ago. Now here it is!

Starting this weekend I'll be all over creation. Here is the list yet again:

I'll be profiled in the June issue of LA YOGA magazine. So look for that next month.

AND, an excerpt from SIT DOWN AND SHUT UP! will appear in WHOLE LIFE TIMES magazine in June as in CONSCIOUS CHOICE magazine in Chicago and Seattle, and COMMON GROUND magazine in San Francisco.

Here's where I'll be at:

Barnes & Noble Desert Ridge - 21001 N. Tatum Blvd. - Phoenix, AZ on Sunday June 3, 2007 at 1 pm

Changing Hands Bookstore - 6428 South McClintock Dr. - Tempe, AZ - on Monday June 4, 2007 at 7 pm

AND I'll be all over the San Francisco Bay Area the following week. Here's what's lined up so far:

Tuesday June 12th at 6PM at the VIRGIN MEGASTORE in San Francisco
Thursday June 14th, 7PM at GATEWAYS in Santa Cruz
Friday June 15th After Dinner Talk at the SAN FRANCISCO ZEN CENTER Talk at 7:30 PM, Dinner at 6:30 PM
Saturday June 16th 7 PM at COPPERFIELD'S BOOKS 140 Kentucky St., Petaluma, CA 94952
Sunday June 17th at San Quentin Prison (this isn't open to the public, but all inmates reading this are invited!)

AND on Wednesday July 25th, 2007, my movie CLEVELAND'S SCREAMING! will have its world premier at the EGYPTIAN THEATER in Hollywood. So mark your calendars!
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"Hell of a Sack of Potatoes"

I recently reconnected with an old college friend, Mark Norris, on MySpace who is now living in England. We were in the Singing Hoosiers together at IU and he is an amazing dancer. I always hated standing next to him onstage because everyone in the audience would be watching him and not me.

Anyway, I received the following email from Mark after he saw the play, Equus, starring Daniel Radcliffe. He had the following to report about the naked Harry Potter.
"I went to see Equus last night and I'm pleased to say that the show is about more than just a naked boy. It is a brilliant play about a young lad who has an abnormal obsession with horses and winds up mutilating them. It's a great script and brilliant executed. The stage was minimal and the dancers used to represent the horses were stunningly beautiful, showing how an attraction can develop with horses.

But I know you don't care about all of that. Here is the answer to the question you're all asking; his wanker is average to small, but he's got a hell of a sack of potatoes!"

Baby Cheney

Mary Cheney gave birth yesterday to her first child, Samuel David Cheney, whom she will raise with her longtime partner, Heather Poe. I am just sorry that Sam has to deal with these two as grandparents. Poor guy.

Although a lot of people have given Mary crap for not being more active in promoting the "gay agenda," I have to admit, she does makes a good point:
"This is a baby. It is not a political statement. It is not a prop to be used in a debate by people on either side of an issue. It is my child." But she also went on to declare that "every piece of remotely responsible research" had demonstrated "no difference between children who are raised by same-sex parents and children raised by opposite-sex parents."
You go Mary.

All the Gays are Adopting

As I was checking in for my flight back to the US, I saw several gay couples with newly acquired Chinese babies in tow. But what really caught my eye was a story in the China Daily that detailed the story of two gay flamingos that adopted an abandoned chick. Apparently, Carlos and Fernando have been together for six years. While flamingos are generally monogamous during annual breeding periods, they tend to swap partners each year. Therefore, claim the birds' keepers, their enduring love is somewhat unique. Given that they had been desperate to start a family for years, even chasing other flamingos from their nests to take over their eggs, they now finally have their own baby chick. Congratulations.

NUFFNANG!!

Advertorial

For those of you who thought I just wrote some gibberish as my title, well, you are horribly mistaken!

Nuffnang actually means Real Cool/Good in Jafaikan, in which I have no idea what Jafaikan is, so it is still kinda gibberish.

But good gibberish.

Thus begins the story of Nuffnang.com.sg.

Some months ago, my friend Ming gave me a call, saying he would like to treat me (+ Mike whom he also wants to meet) to a meal to discuss a business idea he has.

I was a bit jaded about people wanting to share "business ideas" with me, but Ming was very persistent and insisted on treating us at his (dad's) country club + picking us up so I didn't reject him... haha.

When we met up, he told me an idea that I actually thought of before: An agency for bloggers.

Well, KINDA like an agency you know... The idea is that to get all the bloggers together and sell their combined hits to advertisers - this way, even the small bloggers get a share of the advertising pie. :)

Xiaxue = 30,000 daily hits = Advertisers think it's too little for big scale advertising

Xiaxue + hundreds of bloggers with 200 daily hits = 100,000 daily = Advertisers pay


But there's so much involved in this, like how much each blogger should get, how you know how much hits a blogger gets anyway, and it's not even known if advertisers would be interested because this is not tried before, etc...

SO...

I thought Ming was just talking out of his ass, albeit in a very excited dreamy tone.

(Sorry la Ming, it did sound like a ridiculously grand plan what!)

Two months later, Nuffnang Malaysia, Asia's first blog advertising agency, was launched.



Hundreds of Malaysian bloggers rushed to sign up (1,700 so far), and Nuffnang was even the 4th most searched topic on technorati at one point!

(BTW Nuffnang is founded by Ming, who is Singaporean, and his friend Timothy, who is Malaysian, so the company is half M'sian and half S'porean.)

When Ming told me about me, I can't help but say "Wow...", because honestly, lots of people have smashing ideas, but how many of them do execute it?

And Ming, being resourceful as usual, actually had Nike Singapore as his first advertiser!!

Now, the top earning Malaysia blogger (Ahem Mr Sia!) is getting like RM1,000 per week, and the average small-time bloggers get like 20 buck per week too!!

BU HUI SHIOK???????

If I get 1,000 per week hor I will be damn rich can?! I'd be earning like, like, at least 6k a month????????

(I said at least - that's not to be saying I earn only 2k per month, idiots)

I KNOW ALL OF YOU WILL WANT TO BE MY FRIEND!!

Must start to pay taxes already! Buy car! Learn to drive first! Get platinum credit card! IPL armpits!!

Back to serious topic.

Ming's philosophy for the company is that it is not only getting money for bloggers (as well as earning a bit on the way la), it is also BY BLOGGERS FOR BLOGGERS.


Their little side aim is to forge a stronger community among the bloggers.

Although I despise a lot of the Malaysian bloggers who signed up, I must still say it's a good effort.


The hard-working Nuffnang team


250 Nuffnangers were invited to go watch Pirates of the Caribbean 3 in KL yesterday!! (BTW it's a bit slow, the movie. I watched it in Singapore yesterday with Mike)

Hiyah!

To cut the long story short, I've just got good news for you mediocre bloggers!! (I know, I am so deliciously arrogant)

No longer do you have to sigh and complain about how you can't earn from your meagre amount of hits!

As long as you have more than 20 unique hits a day, you can get a share of the pie too!!

Of course your share will not be as big as mine la teeheeheehee.

If you want to try signing up, there is even a chance of winning a PSP!



Shiok or not?

You can sign up here!

You guys can thank me later for the recommendation. =D

p/s: Yes I know that's two advertorials in a row. Although you are doing nothing but reading a blog you think might be updated with something interesting, you still feel like you have the right to tell me I am cheating you. Shut up, I'll be updating my NY pictures soon. Been fucking busy.

Red Flute Cave

After climbing on Elephant Hill, we cabbed to Red Flute Cave. We were the only Westerners on the cave tour, so the guide gave the tour first in Chinese and then in English, giggling in the same spots in both languages.

Red Flute Cave is amazing and quite beautiful with many different formations that they have lit up with bright neon lights. The long descriptive names of the formations made us laugh with names like "Caterpillar Scared at Reflection in Mirror Covered with Silk."

I have been in a few limestone caves in my life, given that Southern Indiana has several of them, but I have never seen one as large and fascinating as Red Flute.


After 30 minutes of walking and giggling at our tour guide saying "silk" as "thilk", we arrived at the most spectacular setting in the cave. This picture is mostly water, reflecting the ceiling of the cave. Given that it was so hot and humid outside, it felt so wonderful in the cool and damp cave. As soon I walked outside, I wanted to turn around and go back inside.

*Travel Hint: If you go to Red Flute Cave, there is a sign for "international tourists" and "domestic tourists." Use the domestic tourist route because the international route puts you in a shopping center where you get hounded by aggressive, loud, screeching women to buy something.

Afternoon Swim in the Li River

It was really hot and humid in Guilin today, so after touring all day, we all went and got foot massages. When we walked out of the massage parlor, it seemed the whole town had gotten into the river to cool off. It was the perfect way to end a perfect trip to China.





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Elephant Hill

Guilin is known for its rivers, hills and caves. The most famous hill is Elephant Hill located in the heart of Guilin. Looking at the picture, you can see the elephant drinking the water through its trunk. Given the long descriptive names everything in China has, I bet it used to be named, "Big Elephant with Long Trunk Drinking Water from the Peaceful Li River."

Dan, Chuck and I climbed to the circular hole in the hill to get a better view. Chuck used to be an Eagle Scout so he climbed and hiked over everything. Although Chuck said that he does it all the time, I think he was just trying to impress Dan.

If you would like, I would be willing to sell this photo to you guys for your engagement picture in the New York Times. Don't they make a cute couple?

Twin Pagodas

I don't know anything about the purpose or history of these pagodas in Guilin, I just thought that they looked cool at night.

According to one sign, the copper pagoda is the "largest copper pagoda in China with a working elevator." It made me think there might be a larger copper pagoda without a working elevator somewhere in China.

They are connected by an underwater tunnel and Ralph and I took the elevator to the top of the copper pagoda to see the entire city.

I am not sure if all pagodas are shrines to Buddha, but these appeared to be. Ralph and I both lit incense and bowed to Buddha like we saw them do at the Lama Temple in Beijing.

Ralph also rang a bell and beat this drum, and a Chinese person promptly appeared to request money for the privilege. I am not touching anything for fear I will be charged.

Yangshou

The Li River cruise ended in the historic town of Yangshou. With a history over 1,400 years, Yangshou is a calmer, more picturesque city than Guilin with a beach town feel.

This man was standing on landing as soon as we got off the boat. He is dressed in traditional fishing clothes with a long bamboo pole, carrying his fishing birds. Apparently, when fisherman go out on their bamboo boats, the birds help them fish. I snapped his picture not realizing that he was charging 5 Yuan. It seems like nothing is free in this area, including photographs.

The heart of the city, beyond its scenic views, is shopping. There are thousands of little shops, booths, sidewalk stands in every part of Yangshou. We could not walk two steps without hearing, "Herro, I give you best price."

The vendors spoke very little English, so bartering was done on paper or on a calculator. Negotiating with them was like a sport. They would start high, and would take almost any price you would name. They would give their best price several times, and in most situations, all you had to do was start to walk away and they would take your price.

I enjoyed watching these two women making silk. The woman on the right had the silk worm cocoons and would dip them in the tub of water. Then she would turn them inside out and pick the silk worm out. She handed the wet cocoon to the woman on the left who would stretch it out on the wooden frame. After doing this dozens of times, she would remove the silk pouch and hang it from the ceiling to dry. It was a fascinating process.

This family brought fruits and vegetables from their farm a few miles outside of town to sell on the street. I bought an apple, and it was incredibly delicious, although they were not that happy that I took their picture.

Overall, I bought way too much stuff, but was spending so little money it was hard to stop. Ralph and I took a bus back to Guilin for about $2 US, while the rest of the gang went bike riding, river rafting, and spent the night in quaint and beautiful Yangshou.

Li River Cruise

Today we all took a tour bus to the Li River for a 4-hour boat cruise. "Cindy," was our tour guide for the bus ride through Guilin and rode with us on the boat, although I am not sure why. I would suggest for those traveling to Guilin not to pay for the boat cruise through the Sheraton, because the up-charges are ridiculous and unnecessary. But, Cindy was sweet and giggled quite frequently.

Most people take the tour from Guilin to Yangshou, and then bus back. I would suggest busing to Yangshou and cruise to Guilin because there will be less people and boats. That said, it really was not that bad the way we did it.

Each boat had a kitchen in the back where they prepared a traditional Chinese lunch. I pretended not to notice when they dipped a bucket into the river for the cooking water and when the cooks peed off the side of the boat and did not wash their hands.

The scenery was stunningly beautiful, and is the inspiration for many Chinese scroll paintings and poems. The 20 Yuan currency has the mountains of the Li River on the back. That was a big deal to the tour guides and they told us to keep a 20 Yuan to take back to the US.

As we cruised down the river, we saw the local people fishing on the river in bamboo boats. Some had motors, others used long poles to propel them down the river.

Along the way, we saw several water buffalo wading in the water. It was comforting to know that the water was not that deep in case there was an emergency, because the life jackets looked like they were older than me.


It was a very hot day and very humid and sticky. After 3 hours in the sun, Ralph and I retired to the cabin to play a game of Scrabble. He got a bingo on the first play and won the game. I was told that the Chinese people believe that mosquito bites bring you good luck, so Ralph must have been covered with welts.

This is the Guilin crew; Leslie, Maureen, Chuck, Dan, Sara, Nicole, Ralph and me. They were great travel companions, even though we all seemed to have control issues.

If you find yourself in Guilin or Yangshou, I would highly recommend a cruise on the Li River. Make sure to try the Osmanthus wine, it is sweet, but good. I would skip the snake wine, though, it tasted like ass.

Buddha Eby

I think I figured out why all of the Chinese people keep staring at me. They think I am their god, Buddha.

Guilin at Night

I am in Guilin with Ralph, Chuck, and Mo and group of women who work at the Kennedy Center, Leslie, Sara, Nicole, and Dan. We all went to dinner tonight at "The Good Luck," which to me felt like the TGI Fridays of China, but came highly recommended by the concierge at the Sheraton. Our table had a lazy susan and we all ordered way too much food, but it was delicious. Pork, oysters, beef, noodles, rice, eggplant, tofu, fish. I have never been so full before on $6.

The women decided to go shopping, so Ralph and I walked around Guilin. The city at night is lit up with multicolored lights on buildings, trees, bridges, hills, and caves. The lights on the river make the area very romantic, too bad I was with Ralph.

People are on the river bank with bamboo boats that take you up and down the river during the day or night for very little money. We paid $6 for 30 minutes on the river with our guide, I will call him Chang, since he spoke no English.

After our tour, we went to a shop next to our hotel for massages. I got a $5, hour-long foot massage from "Charlene" who also wanted to come to my hotel to give me a "sexy oil massage."

Guilin, China

We left Beijing today for Guilin, China, which is located in the northeast of Guangxi, one of the most beautiful and picturesque provinces in China. Guilin is a scenic city with green hills, clear water, and well-preserved caves, along with lots of people, bikes, scooters, and traffic.

Guilin has a cultural history of over 2,000 years. Poets and scholars have left behind poems and stone inscriptions that detail the beauty of the area. As Guilin is located in a subtropical zone, it is often warm, humid, and full of rain.

Guilin is named for the Osmanthus trees that dominate the city. In the fall, the Osmanthus trees blossom with tiny red, yellow, or orange flowers and supposedly make the town smell sweet. All I can say, is that when we landed at the Guilin airport, all I could smell was mold and mildew from all the humidity and the "pickles and feet" smell of the locals' breath. The Chinese people really need to do something about their stinky breath.

SUICIDE GIRLS TONIGHT AT MIDNIGHT!

Just a reminder, I'll be the guest on the SUICIDE GIRLS RADIO SHOW tonight from Midnight to 2AM Pacific Time on Indie 103.1 KDLD in Los Angeles and KDLE in Orange County. For those of you outside of Southern California, there is a PODCAST AVAILABLE. I'm not a listener-to of Podcasts. I'm too old to understand the concept. But I can see on the page that you can either listen to the show live or download it. If it don't work, maybe you can try writing to Suicide Girls or Indie 103.1 directly. Won't do a lot of good to ask me because I am mucho stupid about this kind of computer techno stuff.

Thanks to everyone who showed up at the Bodhi Tree on Thursday. We had a good turn out, though I know a few of you are looking forward to future lifetimes as cabbages. Sorry about that. But I did warn you.

I'm terribly uncomfortable with the rockstar hucksterism involved in promoting a book. But I figure my book is way better than pretty much anything else out there on the market. So if you're gonna buy books, you oughta buy mine. In Los Angeles it's perfectly socially acceptable to be promoting yourself constantly, whereas where I grew up in Akron it isn't. I'm gradually getting used to this. It's just part of the job.

As far as Buddhism is concerned, it presents some dilemmas. We're always told to avoid fame and wealth. Now, wealth I have no trouble at all avoiding. You would be shocked to know how poorly most writers are paid. The few that make truckloads of money get a lot of press. But most of us are barely getting by. I'm OK because I have a real job too. But there's no way I could quit that job and live on what I make from writing.

But fame, on the other hand, is creeping up on me rapidly. As a Buddhist dude I get a lot of the downside of fame with not a whole lot of the perks. I mean I ain't getting rich. Legions of hot girls do not throw their panties at me when I speak. But I do get viciously criticized by people I don't know, I get asked personal questions by strangers who assume they know me and there are lots of demands on my time. I'm not complaining, really. I do this of my own free will and I could stop if I wanted (sounds like an alcoholic, but honest, I could).

I have some actors who attend my classes and they're usually worried about this kind of thing too. But if you're an actor a certain degree of fame is required. If you're a Buddhist teacher it's the same. Dogen left Kyoto because he was getting too famous and the other teachers in town didn't like that. He didn't move out to Fukui prefecture to avoid the spotlight, though. He moved out to avoid the bullshit he was getting from those dudes down in Kyoto. He didn't write the things he wrote just to stuff them in a closet to rot away. He wrote because he felt strongly that he had something of value to contribute to society. Buddha himself was very popular in his lifetime and he did nothing to try and shun that popularity.

The big problem with fame is in courting fame in order to be famous or in order to be rich. That road leads nowhere. On the other hand, if you're an artist who believes in your art then there is no sin in promoting it.

So listen up tonight and see if I get any undergarments thrown at me live on the radio. I wonder what would happen if I did...
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The Great Wall

Ralph and I hired a car to take us to a remote part of the Great Wall called "Huanghuacheng" to avoid all of the tourists at "Badaling," because we were getting a little tired of being pushed and shoved by all the Asians. They are not a rude people, they are just used to pushing. If they want to see something, it doesn't matter if you are standing there, they will shove you out of the way.

I am glad that there were few tourists, because the most spectacular section of the wall begins across this reservoir. You must walk across the top of this dam, several hundred feet tall to reach the wall. The walkway on top of the dam is only about 2 feet across in some sections, which makes it quite perilous when people are coming from the opposite direction. Ralph nearly had a nervous breakdown when he looked down.

I must admit that I was also a bit nervous, but I did stop and snap this picture in the middle of the dam which shows the river and the small town that caters to the tourists who come here for the wall.

After paying a small fee, about .25 cents US, we walked up a steep dirt and rock path that ended in front of these two bamboo ladders. We had to climb up the ladders to hike up the wall to its highest point.

As you can imagine, the Great Wall is the single greatest tourist attraction in China, receiving up to 5 million visitors a year. The construction visible today dates mostly from the 15th century and stretches for some 2,500 miles. It stands as a symbol of the tyranny of imperial rule, the forced use of mass labor, and the human desire to build structures for immortality. I kept asking myself and Ralph, "How did they build this thing?" Neither of us had an answer, but I am sure glad they did. Now if they could only figure out a way to get the people to stop shoving and spitting.