Days 7, 8 and going on 9 ... Sleep Deprived

The last few days I have been running on fumes a bit. And for those of you who have done that, it means alternating between falling asleep while someone talks to you and being unable to shut your mouth at odd hours of the night.

The Chinese look to have the Gold Medal count locked down. I can't imagine the US getting any more than 25 gold medals. I have been trying to analyze why the Chinese team annoys me so much. It is definitely not the athletes. I mean sure people can say the Chinese cheated here and there with the little girls, questionable calls in the B-Ball Games and maybe some unproved allegations of doping and such for the swimmers and weightlifters ... but if you watched Chinese women's tennis and archery, you will notice that extreme focus and skill also play a slight role ...

The crowds are also overwhelmingly Chinese; the nation spent millions and millions training the athletes for these two weeks and in a autocratic-nationalist system like China, you will be able to meet these types of macro-State-Sponsored goals.

I guess its the collective Borg element that gets to me. For real. I am down with the athletes, and any individual i meet and talk to presents just another bond between me and this nation. So all I can think of is the collective "Illusion of China" that annoys me and makes my tummy boil. Not just because I am not Chinese, but because this illusion also dupes, stupifies and homogenizes a vast vast country. Nationalism irks me, not just because it is not my nation, but because it is infectious and causes me to mirror it in myself: nationalism breeds nationalism because it speaks only one language: Borgish.

i hate my dependence on a medal count for happiness. But like i said a while back, One Last Roast over the Spit of China. This is all just spices. I will come out of here with a clearer philosophy.

The scalping business is still going strong and yours truly might actually make it on some TV later ... when it happens i'll set a link. But don't worry, aint nothing gonna happen to me. I don't sell big numbers of tickets and I don't make ridiculous cash. Basically I hustle between contacts and scrape off a little fat in the taxi ...

The news is catching on, but they dont have the scoop. A Dutchie is getting deported today for taking 100 tickets to the stadium and trying to slang em. Fool. He took down about 100 Henan Peasants down with him when the cops got him. Otherwise everyone just turns a blind eye. Its the beauty of international exchange: this one being cash based exchange.

"We all are speaking different languages, but everyone speaks money"

Some great images -- as I am sure you have seen -- were Usain Bolt chillin his way across the line for a World Record and some Gold; Phelps winning his seventh by the fuzz on his fingernail; USA B-Ball stompin on all pretenders; Li Na riding a wave of love to the semifinals in tennis ... taking out Venus along the way; me flirting with the UN of fly women at the Holland House bashes these past few days.

I saw one Dutch girl standing about 6ft 4, fly as hell, built like an Amazon. Really put my skinny Turkish ass in perspective.

Now for the next few days my goal is a basketball ticket and a ticket inside the Bird's Nest. I am not tripping on the Water Cube, it looks more beautiful from outside anyway.

"Can it be done?
"He will join us, or die, my master."

A few days ago i mentioned the terrorism story and how it is underreported, here are a few links that speak on the issue. Here are some Chinese sources: one of them BS, the other more real ...

Here is a good story about the coming crackdown.


HAHA apropos here is a story on being bocogged -- which for the rest of us just means living in China.