Google Chrome – Zen in the Art of Surfing

Last night I got frustrated with Internet Explorer. It was slow, and getting slower, and there were times when I’d click on links – especially in Yahoo mail – and nothing would happen. A few weeks back I had tried Safari, but it hadn’t seemed much different, and I didn’t like it’s style. It left me unimpressed, so I had gone back to Explorer. Last night, in an effort to fix things, I installed IE 8. The installation took forever (I took a bath in the middle) and when it was finally finished … things were noticeably worse. It was even slower than 7 had been. Then I remembered that Google had a new browser (maybe not so new anymore) called Chrome. Chrome. That’s kind of a cool name, I thought, so off I went to download it.

The first thing I liked was all the promises on the download page that the download and installation would be FAST. It was. It was super fast. No chance for a second bath; it installed in a minute or two. Then I started playing with it.

Google Chrome is sexy. It’s fast, easy to use, efficient, and the way it saves your most visited websites as thumbnails on the load screen is really cool. I spent a while going to one page, closing the browser, and then re-opening the browser just so I could see that webpage waiting for me as a thumbnail. It also smoothly imported all my old favorites and bookmarks. The way it’s tabs function, when you have multiple pages open, is much smoother than IE. It was about 1 a.m. when I finished installing and experimenting with Chrome. I went to bed looking forward to waking up and playing with my new web browser. That’s impressive.

Try Google Chrome. Maybe it will change your life. Or maybe you’ll just have fun playing with your web page thumbnails. Either way, I think it’s worth a try.

My New TV

High Definition television. You know, the fact is, I never knew what this really meant. I’d seen high def screens, plasma or LCD or something, in cafes, in movie theaters, at friends’ houses. But I’d never really paid much attention. I hadn’t given much thought to how much better such a TV might be than my 27” Sony at home. Since moving to Vietnam though, I’ve become an X-Box 360 gamer. On rainy nights, or nights when I just don’t feel like going to the movies or a cafe, I can stay home and relax with some video games. The games look great on my Sony 27” regular old TV. Nonetheless, it was always in the back of my mind that the AV cable for my Xbox 360 ended in six prongs, not three, and that the remaining three prongs were for use only with high definition TVs.

As a result of those extra cables, it’s been in the back of my mind to get an HD TV for a long time. Nonetheless, it always seemed impossible to choose. Flat screen TVs come in many varieties such as LCD, plasma, and who knows what else, plus they come in a staggering price range, from something like 9 million VND all the way up to 150 million VND. It seemed impossible to make a decision. Reading on the Internet, I learned of little more than the fact that I would need a TV that had full HD (not HD ready or no HD) in order to take full advantage of the graphics capabilities of my Xbox 360. Whatever that meant. I mean, the Xbox 360 games already looked fabulous. I was amazed by them. How much better could it possibly get?

Yesterday, I was window-shopping at Vincom Tower here in Hanoi, and noticed there was an LG LCD Full HD TV on sale for about 9 million. I milled around for a few hours, staring at it. I’d been saving up for a new laptop, and I had 9 million I could spend on this TV, if I decided not to eat any Western food or take any trips for … the rest of the year. Late in the day, I made my decision. Buy it. The shop promised they’d have it delivered to my house sometime after 8 p.m. It was sort of an impulse buy, but it was an impulse that had been pulsing for a few months. Why not, right? You only live once. The shop promised to deliver it by around 8 p.m.

At 8:45 I was at home, having dinner, and panicking. No sign of the TV. My roommates Vietnamese friend said, “They’re not gonna bring the TV today. If you get that TV today, I’ll buy you a beer.” I began to despair. But it must’ve been my lucky day, because 5 minutes later, my TV arrived, and someone owed me a beer.

Boldly, I told the delivery guy that I didn’t need any help setting up the TV. Pretending to be young and strong (I’m neither), I carried the TV up the two flights of stairs to my bedroom, which I’d completely redecorated after getting home from Vincom, to create a space for my lovely new LCD TV. Now there were two odd-looking Vietnamese tables in my bedroom, one with my old TV, now opposite the bed, where a friend or girlfriend could sit watching Vietnamese television shows, while opposite my fabulous red couch (also purchased at Vincom for about the same price as the TV, a year earlier) a newly cleared off desk awaited the TV.

Rom brought down a set of tools. Rom is a go-get-‘em kinda guy, and the tools he brought down from his room were sufficient for building a spaceship. I hoped we wouldn’t need them. I used my toe-nail scissors to cut open the box, and Rom helped me pull out the remarkably light and thin TV. Placing it face down on my bed, we attached the stand. Four screws were required, and Rom handled the screwing with a manual screwdriver, while I stood beside him helping by making electric screwdriver noises: Buzzzz. Buzzzzz. Buzzzzz. Moments later, the stand was attached. I lifted the TV and placed it in its new spot. I connected the power supply. I put batteries in the remote control. Then I connected the cables from my Xbox 360 to the TV, noticing that there were no longer six cables, but only three. Oh, yeah, I remembered. My Xbox 360 had gotten the red rings of death and was now in pieces on the floor of Ben’s house. This was a new Xbox 360, and it only had three cables.

I checked the manual, as there were many, many, places I might connect these three cables, and found the place for video game connections. I connected the three cables and turned the TV on. Snow. Static. The TV wanted to search for channels, but my cable for cable television was connected to the older TV. I cancelled out of that menu, grabbed the controller for the Xbox and turned it on.

Ugh. It looked … weird. Going into the settings for the Xbox, I went to the display set-up and told the Xbox I now had an HD TV. It told me I needed HD cables. My cables were at Ben’s house. Thinking quickly, I convinced Rom to get the cables from his Xbox upstairs and trade with me. After all, Rom didn’t have an HD TV, but he did have the six cables I needed.

I turned everything off and switched the cables. Then I noticed that three HD cables on Rom’s cord were blue, green, and red. I found matching blue, green, and red connectors on the TV, and we were ready to go again. I turned everything back on. Wow. The Xbox looked amazing. The picture … unreal. We quickly loaded a game, and we all sat back in awe. It looked … incredible. Moments later, we noticed that there was no sound. Shit.

“That’s Vietnam for you – broken speakers,” Rom said, perhaps happy on some level that my ostentatious plan to have a super-TV had failed. For my part, I had faith in Vietnam, faith in god, faith this TV, and was sure the problem more likely resided in well-known and familiar territory – my own incompetence. I began feverishly reading the manual to see what I’d done wrong. Ten minutes later, I was sure I had done everything right. I decided to connect the cable television to the TV and, sure enough, I had sound. The problem was the Xbox.

Checking the cables again, I was struck by the fact that there were still three cables (the cables I used to use with my old TV) that were not connected. Hmm, I wondered. Did I need to connect them all? I tried it. Sure enough, all three of those HD cables were just for the amazing picture, and I had still needed to connect the other audio cables. Once done, everything worked perfectly.

We sat back to try out some games, and I was amazed. The clarity of the picture was unbelievable. I could read every little character in the subtitles, see every detail on all the robots and monsters and spaceships and longswords and whatnot in every game. I had been playing Xbox 360 games like a man with cataracts. Now my eyes had been opened. The difference was so profound that I not only wanted to play new games but also wanted to play every old game I had again, just to see what it was really supposed to look like.

Rom and I tried some cooperative Halo 3. It was a completely new experience. We could see everything in total detail. Instead of running around shooting at vague enemies and wondering where each other was, we could see each other clearly. We could cover each other, shooting enemies that were closing in, without risk of hitting each other. I threw a hand-grenade and watched gleefully as it hit Rom in the shoulder (I’m bad a throwing grenades) bounced off, hit a wall, and exploded somewhere up near the ceiling. I had been able to watch the entire path of the grenade, whereas on my old TV, when I’d thrown a grenade it had disappeared from sight as soon as it left my hand and I’d had to wait for the explosion to have any idea where I’d thrown it. Amazing.

I suppose this isn’t news to most people. However, if you’ve been playing PS3 games or Xbox 360 games on a regular television, go buy a full HD TV now. You haven’t seen anything yet. It really is an amazing experience.

This week I’ve got a bunch of new classes to worry about, so the LCD TV and the Xbox will have to rest until next weekend. But next weekend is going to be a gaming extravaganza. I can’t wait. I love my new TV.

Goodbye Yahoo 360

I received an e-mail from Yahoo telling me that 360 is going offline. This does not include 360+, but I’m not a 360+ user. Yahoo 360, this page included, will be gone by July. As such, I was instructed to create a yahoo profile and transfer my blog there, which I did.

The Yahoo profile looks kind of vaguely facebookie, although it has blogging features. At this point, I don’t think I’m going to use my yahoo profile much. From now on I will connect with my friends via Facebook, and do my blogging on my wordpress blog, that’s http://csoffer.wordpress.com. So … if you want to stay in touch with me, please add me as a friend on Facebook, and if you just want to read my blog, please visit the wordpress blog.

Goodbye, Yahoo 360. Yahoo’s decision to discontinue you will always have a special place on my short list of amazing corporate blunders.

Selamat Langkawi

I take, I think, exactly two vacations per year. I get three breaks from work: Christmas and New Year’s at the end/beginning of the year, then Tet, and then a 4 day weekend at the end of April for some other Vietnamese holiday … I think it’s independence day or something. (I’m not too good at Vietnamese holidays yet.) The rest of the time I spend teaching. I think this year my teaching schedule is going to be more intensive than ever, because Oxford English UK is introducing more intensive courses – courses that study 12 or 6 hours per week and are really demanding on both the students and the teachers. So it looks like this year I’m going to be working harder than ever. That’s why I knew I needed a good vacation. Hmm, I think all my students know I really, really did need a vacation.

I never get to go away for the Christmas/New Year’s thing, as tickets and hotels and everything are just too expensive at that time of year. But I usually do manage a trip for the holiday in April, and a longer trip for Tet. Last year I went back to America. This year I headed off, rather blindly, to Langkawi, an island in the Andaman Sea, part of Malaysia.

I discovered Langkawi on the Internet, pretty much by accident. The pages I came across described it as a real up and coming resort area in Asia, and at still low prices. It sounded good to me, so I booked a ticket on Air Asia. I couldn’t book a hotel though; there just weren’t any available on any of the Internet booking sites. Still, I figured I’d find something once I got there.

The scariest part of the trip was when the Air Asia flight attendant told me at the check-in counter that there are no assigned seats on Air Asia flights; it’s first come, first serve. I almost panicked. I pictured people fighting and clubbing each other in the airplane aisle, struggling to get a seat. So I gently told the attendant what I thought of the policy. He answered, coldly, by telling me that I could fly Air Asia if I liked, and if I didn’t like that policy I was welcome to choose a different airline. I wondered if his manager knew that this young man’s approach to customer service was to suggest that the customers go to other airlines? I’d heard this “if you don’t like it, go somewhere else” approach to customer service from many waites and shop-assistants over my five years in Vietnamese, but it was a really embarrassing surprise to hear it from stuck-up Air Asia representative. At any rate, it turned out to be no problem. Both of my flights, to Kuala Lumpur, and then from KL to Langkawi, were only about 90% full, so finding a seat was no problem.

At the KL airport, I had a chance to eat McDonalds … which was just as terrible as I remembered from America, and maybe even worse, and … I loved it. Such is the love/hate relationship one has with McDonalds. My flight was delayed 40 minutes or so by a sudden torrential downpour of rain, but it ended as quickly as it started, so it was no problem.

At the Langkawi airport, I grabbed a Starbucks, and it was fabulous. I’ve come 180 degrees on Starbucks. When I first came to Vietnam, I was glad Starbucks wasn’t here; now I hope they show up as soon as possible. After five years of drinking Vietnamese coffee, I’ve decided that it’s the kind of drip coffee they serve in Starbucks that I prefer.

At the airport in Langkawi, I spent about thirty-minutes haggling with the guys at the hotel desk, trying to find a hotel room. Ultimately, they booked me into a resort on the beach at a somewhat higher price then I planned on paying. It seems like every hotel room has three prices: the published price, the discount price, and the price I get, while there is a fourth, more mysterious price, called the price everyone else gets. The price I got was almost 300 ringgit (3.35 ringgit to 1 dollar) less than the published price, but I’m still afraid it was 100 ringgit more than anyone else had to pay.

Beware of Langkawi is you don’t speak English well. I didn’t meet a single Vietnamese person while I was there, and didn’t hear a word of Vietnamese being spoken anywhere. I had to use my English for everything … hmm, luckily my English is still pretty good.

The resort turned out to be fabulous. A big, beautiful, green, sprawling place with a fantastic beach, the whole spread of the resort completely blanketed with free Wifi. It wasn’t too crowded, the staff was friendly, the air was fresh, and, at night, the sky was clear enough to see Venus in the heavens, seemingly right beside the moon. At least, I think that was Venus.

I spent most of my time reading Steven King’s “Just After Sunset” in which the short story titled “N.” particularly disturbed me. Ooh, spooky. It was about the possibility of OCD, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, being contagious. By the time the story was over, I was pretty sure I was becoming a little OCD myself.

The food in Langkawi was not that great. I failed to find any good traditional Malaysian spots, the Indian food I tried was only so so, the Thai likewise just so so, and the Italian not as good as many Italian places in Hanoi. One restaurant, called Orchid Ria or something like that, did serve delicious lobster at very low prices.

In the final analysis, I would say I prefer Nha Trang in Vietnam to Langkawi. This resort and its beach have only one advantage over Nha Trang – it’s less crowded. And that’s a good thing. It’s good to be away from noise and crowds for a while. At the same time, it’s also cool to visit another country, hear different languages, and see different people. Still, I miss Vietnam already, so I won’t be too sad when I get on the plane tomorrow to go home.

Tonight’s mission: buy presents for everyone I know with the very little bit of ringgit I have left.

See you all on Monday.

Vietnam, the Champions!

There’s nothing better in sports than the amazing, last minute victory, where the underdogs come from one goal down to score a miraculous, amazing point in the final seconds of a game and catapult themselves, their fans, and their country into the history books! That’s how it was with Cong Vinh’s amazing header into the goal, smooth as butter and twice as sweet, coming just as I – a foreign guest in Vietnam – and all the millions of Vietnamese people, had already mostly given up. Watching the game, we were all certain that it was all over; that it was just another disappointing loss, where at least Vietman had played well for the first hour. Then, a trip, a fall, a kick, and a brilliant header later, and the whole country explodes into a frenzy of cheering and joy.

We ran out onto the street to stand at the Lang Ha/Thai Ha Intersection, where four or five boys had overturned the … what do you call that thing that everybody drives around that they keep in the middle of the street … anyway, they’d turned it over and were using it a giant drum, pouning on it to the cheering of thousands of people packed three and four rows deep on all four corners. Cheering fants carrying flags raced by at death-defying speeds (the new helmet law thrown out the window for at least one night), and every taxi had flag-bearing poles sticking out of every window.

Certainly, we have to see this victory as a good omen. It seems that 2009 is going to be a great year for Vietnam, and hopefully for all of us living here.

Congratulations, Vietnam! You are the champions!!!!!

This Week’s Movie Recommendation

I recently watched the movie Aeon Flux. I liked this movie. I thought Charlize Theron looked great as the lead character. Also, the action scenes were well filmed well with many cool ideas for new weapons. The look and feel of the movie was quality science fiction, and I think everyone involved with the film tried hard to make it meaningful also. Overall, it was a nice way to relax for about an hour and a half, and in the end I found I had enjoyed it. I recommend this movie, not because it’s brilliant, but because it’s certainly fun.

Entry for October 26, 2008

It’s with some sadness this weekend that I compose this blog entry, as I’ve noticed people seeming to go a little crazy around me. Some examples:

I leave my blog public so that as many people can find it as possible, so now some companies and even other English language centers (usally small, low quality centers that only exist to steal students’ money) have started posting comments on my blog that are only advertisements to lure you to their page and their company. What a shame. I have to waste my time deleting these comments, and I am embarrassed for the people who stoop to such a low level in an effort to trick people into buying their products. I suppose I may have to limit my blog to friends only, or friends of friends, but somehow I doubt that will stop the advertisers.

I’ve noticed that more and more telephone and laptop shops have installed large size speakers in front of their storefronts. Now they blast music into the street all day and night, or have an MC get a microphone to play some kind of silly game of giving away prizes to lure customers into their shops. The noise from these speakers adds tremendously to the noise pollution in Hanoi, and I think the practice is reprehensible. I would like to ask all of my friends and students to never, ever buy anything from any shop that does this. Why? Because usually such a ploy (loud music to lure in customers) is only necessary for a place with bad products and high prices. Buying decisions should be made on careful product comparisons and should be informed decisions. Don’t let yourself be led, like the rats in the story of the Pied Piper, into one of these noisy, obnoxious shops. Boycott them, as it is one way to help reduce noise pollution in Hanoi.

Peace and quiet, and the right to not have our communications hijacked by advertisers, are two important rights. We need to be able to communicate freely with each other without being bombarded by ads, and we need peace and quiet so that we can think, learn, and grow. If we start fighting to create a fresh, quiet, and peaceful environment in Hanoi now, we will all benefit from more investment in this wonderful country and more high quality places to shop, work, and study.

One last note: As everyone knows, I hate my motorbike helmet. It sits uncomfortably on my very big ears, gives me a headache, flattens my already too-flat hair, and is downright uncomfortable. At the same time, I wear one all the time, because it’s the law in the city where I’m living. I have noticed that some of you have taken to following this law in a pretty strange way: you are wearing a helmet, but you’re not closing the chin-strap.

I guess this is some kind of semi-protest, right? Wear the helmet, but don’t close the chin-strap to show your individuality? Well, this is a REALLY bad idea. First of all, if you do have an accident the fact that your chin-strap is open will transform the helmet from a protective device into a weapon that will rip your own head off. The helmet will go bouncing away down the street and your head will still be in it. That’s bad. Now, of course, you will tell me you’re not worried about this because “chet co so” (death has a number, or somesuch). Fine. My death also has a number, and I don’t want the number to be written on your helmet. Three times now I have had to dodge a flying helmet because some idiot was driving way too fast after having not fastened his chin-strap – so the helmet came flying off his head and turned into a missile that almost killed me. Close your chin-strap … if only to protect me! It will be bad for investment in Vietnam if we have to put up street signs that say “Beware of Flying Helmets.”

Those are my feelings: Don’t advertise on other people’s blogs (it’s really lame). Don’t give your money to shops that create unnecessary noise pollution by playing “I’m so lucky, lucky, lucky” all day long for no reason – especially when they have no special sale, no special prices, no special products and nothing but a noisemaker to give people a reason to shop there. Lastly, close your chin-strap – if you need to protest the helmet law, then skip the helmet altogether. Wearing a helmet with the strap open is MORE dangerous than not wearing one at all.

On deck for this week: Lesson #2 with my super new advanced writing class, during which Diep has promised to teach me the difference in the meaning of the sentence “Em dang lam gi?” and “Em dang lam gi day?” I can’t wait to learn this secret!

Have a great week everyone. Work hard, study, and relax a bit … life is good.

What’s Been Happening

Wow, I have been incredibly busy since before the Tet holiday. Work has been swamped as usual, and for Tet I went back to New York. That had its good points and its bad points. The good points were basically getting to meet my little nephew. His name is Tyler and he’s very cute. He has big ears, just like me. He is 2 years old but he can’t talk yet. He just makes very informative noises. Waaaaahhhh means put me down. Gahhhhh means pick me up. Things like that. I think he’s going to be a good little boy, but there’s one problem. His father always teases him about his ears. His father is, of course, my sister’s husband, and he’s a nice guy. But he keeps telling his son things like, “Son, where’d you get those giant ears? Those aren’t your Daddy’s ears! Something must have gone wrong. We better get you some surgery on those ears.” I think if his father doesn’t stop doing that, the poor kid will grow up with a psychological complex about his ears. Just like his uncle.

The trip to New York was a nightmare. I had to fly from Hanoi to Singapore, then sit in the Singapore airport for 9 hours, then fly about 10 hours to Germany, sit in that airport for 2 hours, and then fly 9 hours to New York. Oh, god. On the trip from Singapore to Germany I had to sit next to an incredibly fat German fellow, who kept elbowing me in the side while he was sleeping. He used his entire chair, half of his wife’s, and half of mine. I tried leaning over into the aisle to get out of his way, so the flight attendants kept crashing their food-cart into my head. It was a nightmare. At one point, I even imagined myself opening the emergency door and jumping off the plane. In contrast, the trip from Germany to New York was great. I had three chairs to myself and slept most of the time. Singapore airlines is terrific. The Flight attendants were really pretty, the food was decent, and the in-flight movie selections were pretty cool. I even watched an old episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The flight back was pretty much the same in reverse, but at least I got to sit next to smaller people.

In New York it was super-cold, and it snowed while I was there. That was kinda fun, as it was the first time I’d seen snow in four years. I got to see some old friends, who all looked surprisingly good. I was happy about that. I was afraid all my friends would look really old, but they were still the same handsome devils they used to be. One of my friends is addicted to the online game World of Warcraft. He wakes up in the morning and plays for an hour to get extra gold. After work he plays all night, going on missions with a team of people from around the United States. And he goes on even bigger missions at the weekend. He doesn’t seem to read much, or go out much, or even eat much. He’s totally addicted. I’m kind of jealous. I don’t have time to get into a video game like that, and I have never played these online games … at least not since the technology became as advanced as it is now. I bet I would really like it if I tried it, but I’m too busy with ‘more important grown-up stuff’. Yuck.

In New York I hit a bunch of museums, and spent a lot of time at the bookstore. I also got to eat a lot of my favorite foods that I can’t get in Hanoi, like bagels and donuts and real NY pizza. Mmmmmm. Spending time with my mother was nice too, although we argued a lot, just like we used to do. Arguing with my mother made me homesick for Hanoi.

Since getting back from NY I’ve been incredibly busy, and I’ve also been getting fatter. I brought a lot of cheap American chocolate back with me, and I’ve been eating way too much of it every day. Ugh.

Now that I’m over the jet-lag and Tet is behind me, I’m just waiting for Woman’s Day to be over. Once Woman’s Day is over, I’m going to start working out again. I am going to eat bun, pho, and com, and exercise every morning. Right now I am as fat as any two Vietnamese guys put together. So I have to try a Vietnamese diet in order to become Vietnamese-fit.

Of course, I’m really busy with work … so maybe I’ll just keep eating chocolate, drinking coffee, smoking cigarettes, and working 14 hour days. Everyone has his or her own version of how to stay healthy, and that health-plan has been working for me for the past few years. Ahem.

Probably the best thing about being back is seeing my students again. Right now I have a TOEFL iBT class with a lot of great students who are a bit older, so our discussions are really interesting. They are very intelligent and knowledgeable people, so I learn a lot from them too. My TOEIC class is very hard-working, and everyone seems to come to just about every lesson, so the room is packed with students. I just hope all that business English isn’t killing them, as preparing for TOEIC means learning a lot of new vocabulary we need for business. My Elementary A class is my laziest class – it’s hard to get them to do homework and they only come to class when they don’t have dates. I will have to get tough with them. I have a new SAT-Writing class, and all the students are superstar High School students planning to go to America for University. They’re all so smart and good at English that they make me feel good about the future of Vietnam and the world. And of course my Pre-Intermediate B class is still the best evening class at my center, with a lot of super students from FTU who are all about the same age and are all hard working. The first week back they did presentations, and one group presented a compelling talk about why a person should choose single life over falling in love and getting married. They made some very good arguments and just about convinced me that maybe being single is the best way for young men to go. Of course, they said, “Teacher, you’re so old, you really shouldn’t listen to our advice.” There were three boys in that group, and I think the only thing they are going to do for Woman’s Day is … save money.

I, on the other hand, have got to go buy flowers now. A lot of flowers.

Stuff I Miss

What do I miss?
I miss fresh New York City bagels with lox and cream cheese. Poppyseed, sesame seed, even those very “mat” salt bagels I could never decide if I liked or not.
I miss New York City pizza. Big and hot and oily and slathered with tomato sauce.
I miss New York City tap water. I miss just coming home and sticking my face under the faucet and drinking my fill of that icy cold New York City reservoir water straight from the tap and clean as can be.
I miss American gummy bears and potato chips which taste so much better than Vietnamese “chip chip” and “bim bim” it’s sad what these kids here have to put up with.
I miss my old, black, Infinity G20 with the tan leather seats and the great stereo system and the power everything and that smooth, smooth ride. I miss driving 75 miles an hour on a perfect stretch of newly paved highway in the middle of the night, not caring where I’m going.
I miss donuts. I miss big, fresh, jelly-filled, frosting-topped American donuts that can make you fat as a whale overnight but taste soooo good with a cup of sweet black coffee.
I miss Eddie, Gregory, Clarence, Derrick, Seth, Chris, Darryl, and Derek … who died last year … most of all.
I miss having a truly super-fast cable-internet connection with blistering transfer rates.
I miss satelite TV with 400 channels, and I miss watching the best new shows of the main stations’ fall line-ups.
I miss the local comic book shop, and being able to catch-up on the X-Men, Spiderman, Thor, Iron Man, the Avengers, and all the rest, whenever I wanted.
I miss big book stores with more books than I could ever afford to buy or ever hope to read. I miss reading the NY Times book review and going to B&N to just pick up the ones on the bestseller list that sound the best.
I miss Peter Lugers steak house … where the steak is like nothing you’ve ever eaten … nothing you’ve ever imagined.
I miss playing speed chess with Nate and the way we could play a thousand games and I would still never beat him once.
I miss being that naive, innocent, somewhat younger guy, who thought all the stories he’d heard about Vietnam, Thailand, and Cambodia, weren’t true, and I miss being the me I was, a few broken hearts ago. I miss things I’ve lost recently … and I miss the people in my family like my Mom, my three sisters, my step-father, and my brother. It’s all connected.
Four years is a long time. Long enough to get disconnected, such that I rarely miss home, and spend most of my time missing the things I’ve already lost that I had first gotten here in Hanoi.
Is it time to go home for a visit? I’m not sure. If I went home for three weeks or so – say around the Tet holiday – I’d probably miss what I have here, and what I’ve lost here, so much that I wouldn’t be able to enjoy the tap water, bagles, pizza, and donuts.
We’ll see. Time will tell.

Robot Weekend

I love robots. Always have. I’m a science fiction fan, so I love classic robot stories like Aasimov’s “I, Robot” and I love wild robot stories. I love robots in films, and I love them in real life. This weekend I got both.
On Saturday most of the office staff and some of the teachers went to see “Transformers.” It was, essentially, a giant commerical to sell Transformer toys in America to kids. But the movie was still fun, if only to see just how far special effects technology has come.
On Sunday I went to Robocon. My student Ha (super smart, super beautiful) works for VTV, and she found a way to send some tickets my way. Robocon was great. Well, the sitting around for hours while nothing was happening wasn’t so great, but watching the teams from all over Asia compete – watching the robots in action – that was exciting. I know exactly 0 about robotics and engineering. I can barely get an electric pencil sharpener to work. But I know enough to know that the designers of those robots are some brilliant, hard-working young students.
Still, seeing all those robots left me a bit melancholy. Well, I’m melancholy because of my personal life right now, but there’s a robot thing going on, too. You see, for a few weeks there, I was watching the three and only three seasons of “Battlestar Galactica” on DVD. This is a TV program based on the old series that aired when I was a kid. But this new Battlestar is nothing like the old – it’s brilliant television writing and totally captivating, with great acting and great special effects (for a TV show anyway).
The storyline is that long ago humans mastered robotics, and created robots to serve us. The robots rebelled, a war ensued, and the robots almost wiped us out. It ended with a treaty and the creation of a neutral zone in space. 40 years later, the robots have changed. They’ve created a new model – that looks completely human. The new model now commands the older model – basically armored killing machines. In a stroke of writing genius, there are only … what is it … 10? Jezz I forget, a limited number of models. So there are all these “people” walking around, who are actually Cylons (what the robots are called) but look human. Now, many of them look alike, since there are only 10 different kinds. Anyway, they manage to nuke the 13 human colonies (worlds) and all that’s left is one battleship (called Battlestar Galactica) and a ragtag fleet of other ships that the Battlestar has to protect. Instead of fighting, they run away … to try to find Earth.
Of course, the Cylons are after them, and not only are they after them, but many of the human-looking Cylons have infiltrated the Battlestar and the other surviving ships from the colonies.
Because the Cylons look human, and are effectively human, but are man-made (or robot made) many issues arise. These issues center around the nature of what it is to be human, the nature of god, of the soul … fascinating stuff. There is, of course, forbidden human-Cylon romance, involving a number of the female Cylon models, but most especially Boomer – shown in the picture I included with this entry.
If Boomer’s a robot, I guess it’s easy to see why I love robots…
Anyway, I recently watched all of the episodes at least twice, and now it’s done … no more Battlestar Galactica. So seeing Transformers and Robocon was at once fun and at once a bit sad.
I will miss watching Battlestar Galactica, as I’ll miss many things that are ending around this time in my life. But as with all endings, I suppose there will be new beginnings – and I hope that means a Battlestar Galactica movie in the near future. If there is, I’ll take all my friends and students to see it at Megastar.

Nha Trang

As I usually do when I want to take a trip, I found myself driving over to Handspan travel on Ma May Street. They specialize in local trips to places like Ha Long Bay and Sa Pa, but I’m so comfortable dealing with them that I usually just ask questions until they come up with somewhere for me to go. My first thought this time around was to head to Laos, as I’ve never been there, but that was out because I wanted to travel with a Vietnamese friend who doesn’t have a passport yet. The next thought was Ho Chi Minh City, again, but … been there, done that. I didn’t even consdier asking about Nha Trang, as I was sure the plane tickets would be all sold out. But, as it turned out, there were two tickets on a 6 a.m. flight leaving Sunday morning. I booked it.
Handspan’s affiliate hotels didn’t have any rooms, so I left with tickets but no place to stay. I drove over to Trang Tien Street and bought the newest copy of the Lonely Planet, then went home to start calling hotels. At 10 p.m. at night on Friday, I wasn’t able to find a single hotel with a room. Luckily, Saturday morning was a different matter. I booked a room at the La Paloma Hotel, the first listing in the Mid-Range section of hotels. According to the guide book, there were two spectacular resorts in Nha Trang: the Amarana something-or-other, and Vinpearl, but they were out of my price range. If I’m not going to stay at a serious 4 or 5 star resort, then I avoid 4 and 5 star hotels – they’re expensive, and you don’t get anything for your money. The budget places are a little to no-frills for me. La Paloma sounded perfect. Mid-Range. That’s me.
Saturday night I packed and arranged a taxi to pick me up. Sunday, I woke up at 3 a.m. to get ready to go. It was raining. The taxi, due to pick me up at 4:00 a.m., got lost and couldn’t find my house. This is probably because my house is nestled in a twisting warren of alleyways. After spending a half an hour making myself look beautiful for my plane flight, I had to get on my motorbike and drive out in the pouring rain to find the taxi and lead him to my house. By the time I got the bike put away and the raincoat put away, I was soaking wet and in a foul mood.
The airport was busy, even at 4:30 in the morning, but I made it to my flight with time to spare and the plane took off on time despite the rain. As we neared Nha Trang, I looked out my window and noticed one huge island with a giant sign, like the “HOLLYWOOD” sign in the Hollywood Hills of California, only this sign said, “VINPEARL.” Alas. Vinpearl, even though it was obviously big and spectacular and the most important place in Nha Trang (since no other place had a giant sign I could see from my plane), was out of my price range. I was headed to La Paloma.
A nice man with a sign that said “Crayg” met me at the airport. I thought that was a cool way to spell my name, and I’m considering changing my name to that spelling. The taxi took me straight to the hotel, about a half an hour drive. I was getting excited. Nha Trang looked like a cool place, not as modern as Hanoi, but the sea was beautiful, the moutains in the distance alluring, and I was on vacation!
After settling into my big room in the very nice hotel (that didn’t have wifi) I pulled out the lonely planet to figure out where to go for some lunch. They gave high marks to a place called “Lac Canh” and I rented a motorbike to head over there.
The motorbike I rented was a red and black Yamaha Nouveau – one of the bikes I’ve long admired for its looks. What a piece of junk! I don’t know if it was this Nouveau, or all Nouveaus, but I hated driving this thing. First of all, the kick stand is so far back on the bike that I couldn’t put it down without twisting my whole body around. Second of all, there’s this big hump between your legs that makes carrying stuff with you really difficult. Third of all, it handles like crap. So I drove off, missing my new Future Neo, which was sitting at home, very much.
Lac Canh was awesome. It doesn’t look like much, just a bia hoi kinda joint with plastic chairs and whatnot, but the food was great. They “nuong” (grill) everything right at your table in these wooden pots filled with charcoal and everything is marinated in this really spicy sauce. I had beef nuong, and squid nuong, and mixed vegetables nuong, and some Chinese style mixed fried rice, and I had to drink four Saigon beers because it was so spicy. I had to drink those beers. Really. Because it was spicy. I didn’t want to drink four beers. I was forced. Because it was so spicy. Really.
After that, I headed back to the long strip of road, Tran Phu Street, that fronts on the beach. Beautiful. The sun fried my head and arms a bright, bright red in what seemed like minutes. Dizzy from the sun and the beers, breathing fire from the spicy food, I pulled into a cafe on the beach called “Louisiane,” a word that might mean something in French Creole, or might not. What a great place. It’s a bar/restaurant/cafe with a pool table (spotted from the salt in the air) and a small swimming pool right in the middle of the place. So you can have a coffee and go swimming right there, or you can walk past the pool and right out onto the beach where they have lounge chairs and big bamboo umbrellas and full service right on the beach. I settled in for some sun and some swimming and some people-watching. The only problem was that nobody knew what a “nau da” was. They kep thinking I was ordering “no ice,” but I quickly figured out that if I ordered “sua da” I’d get exactly what I wanted.
The Vientamese language in Nha Trang is pretty hard to understand. People sound like they’re speaking the Vietnamese I’ve studied, but with their tongues stretched out, widened, and nailed to the table in front of them. Everything is kind of syrupy and whiny and high-pitched and kind of runs together. Still, amazingly, I’m getting so good at this Vietnamese stuff, I was actually able to understand much of what was being said to and around me.
After a couple of hours on the beach, I decided to go parasailing. I got myself hooked up to a big parachute, and then a speedboat took off and dragged me high into the air. We flew around for a while, staring down at the sea and looking out over the city, when I began to realize I hadn’t asked anyone how this trip actually ended. I assumed they would let me float down into the water, and I wasn’t worried about this – I’m a good swimmer. Then the boat turned, swiniging us high over the beach, and the boat slowed down. Down. Down. I was going down. Straight at the beach. This was going to hurt. I imagined my legs getting jammed up around my ears. I was going down pretty fast, headed straight for some hard looking sand. I considered screaming. At the last minute, a half-dozen Vietnamese people came racing out of nowere, and there were hands catching me, and I was guided into a non-painful, relatively soft landing! What I learned from this experience is that, were I to become Superman, I would probably do very little flying. I’d be too afraid of my powers failing or turning off at the wrong moment. When you’re high up in the sky, it’s hard to think about anything other than the upcoming landing.
I’m a decent teacher, but I’d be an excellent resort-bum. Forget Craig the teacher. I want to be Crayg the resort-bum.
After the beach, we moved to the gigantic swimming pool. Stealing a few people from the water aerobics class, we got into a serious game of … gee, I don’t really know what we were playing. There were two nets on opposite sides of the pool, and we just kinda tried to kill each other as we fought to throw a volleyball into the nets. I played very well, since I was taller and stronger than everyone else in the game, and I was feeling proud of myself. Pride goeth before the fall though, as I am still in pain from my first afternoon of athletic activity in about four years. Owwww.
After spending the entire afternoon and evening at the resort, and taking a great shower in the beautiful bathroom in the beautiful hotel room, we finally had to give up the resort to go find a place to eat. After a lot of confusion, we ended up going all the way back to Lac Canh, for more beer and more beef nuong. Mr. Quang’s boss brought along a bottle of “black Vodka,” whatever that is, and I think we drank the whole thing. Oooohhh. At least it made my aching muscles feel better.
The next day, I decided on a tour of some of the local islands. We took one of those tour buses to a nearby pier, where we boarded a little boat with a large group of Vietnamese tourists, including some funny girls from Hue (whose Vietnamese was even harder to understand), and headed out to Monkey Island.
Monkey Island was … weird. It was covered with monkeys, nasty little obnoxious food-grubbing hairy terrorists. It was kind of scary. I fed one of them, and tried to ask it if it wanted to sign up for English training, but it just stole the entire bag of food and scrambled up the nearest building. Nasty bugger.
At the next island, there were more animals: A depressed looking little Elephant you could ride, chained up little black bears, and a pen of ostriches that you could ride too. The conditions for all of these animals seemed kinda lousy, and the whole thing seemed to border on animal abuse. And yet, when in Rome … so I can now say that I have a fed a monkey from my hand, sat on elephant, and ridden a giant ostrich.
I feel particularly bad about having ridden the ostrich. At first, I didn’t want to go, but everyone kind of insisted. Then the ostrich-handlers refused to let me ride one of the birds that had been giving rides to everyone else. They ran off to get a different bird. A much, much, bigger bird. Only Godzilla-Ostrich, apparently, would be strong enough to carry my big, American butt around. I managed to make friends with this scary giant bird, and we had a nice ride together. I spent the whole time wondering if some kind of rescue mission was in order, but I couldnt’ imagine what I’d do with six or seven giant Ostriches rescued from an island in Nha Trang. Oh, well.
The next day was a relaxing day back on the beach, which included a disastrous jet-ski ride. Not ony did I fall off the jet-ski a few times before getting it underway, but it actually managed to run out of gas while I was out to sea. So I had to sit in the boiling hot sun, atop the roiling waves, precariously balanced on a jet-ski I’d already fallen from twice, waiting for a rescue ship. There was no ship though, just a rescue jet-ski, and transferring from the dead jet-ski to the new one while the waves were smashing into us and my jet-ski partner was screaming her lungs out was … well, it was fun. I mean, I swim really well, so how scared could I get?
Lunch on the final day was at Truc Linh, a seafood restaurant also noted in the Lonely Planet guidebook. It was terrible. Expensive, and there were flys everywhere, and I spent more time killing bugs than eating the food. Since lunch was so bad, I had a giant lobsert grilled right on the beach for an afternoon snack, and that was much better.
Dinner at the night market, where I tried a bunch of local specialities, and then, alas, back to Hanoi.
I love the beach, and I love the sea. So the new plan is to work three to five years more, save enough money to retire, and become a resort-bum.
I will make a very good resort-bum. A resort-bum named Crayg. Yeahhh….
Still, it’s nice to be home, and it was great seeing my students again yesterday. Back to business as usual, with the plan to go back to Nha Trang next year, but not before I make it to Laos.
To a resort in Laos.
A very, very big resort in Laos.

Superman Returns

Not much new to report today.  The blog at wordpress has my little review of Superman Returns, so check it out if you’d like.

Yesterday we finished painting at OE, and my office got redecorated in the process.  It’s now much too big and much too nice for me, and it’s a very lonely place.  I plan to sit in the teachers lounge with everyone else and let that nicely painted, but lonely, box sit empty.  For now though, I’m still at Amigo cafe, finshing up a “nau da.”