GRIZZLY PEAR

written snapshots

Category: Notes

  • Quick hits while in China

    So during near the end of the trip I took some notes of things that struck my attention. I’ve finally gotten around to going over them (very lightly) and added a couple at the end. I wish I had gone over the list earlier, I’d bet I had have more things to add, but here it is.

    1. Shanghai is denser than anything you see in Manhattan, the first ring of burbs around Hangzhou comes close, and brand new luxury burbs just a little less.
    2. They don’t ever just make a residential tower out here….they make several at a time.
    3. Suburb seems to mean four units stacked on each other instead of a seven story apartment complexes.
    4. Hangzhou suburbs, while dense, are definitely trying their best to be utterly boring like those in the good old USA.
    5. But damn there’s a lot of cars and they drive like utter madmen!
    6. Walking (and driving) around Shanghai and Hangzhou is an almost contact sport.
    7. Food is fresher out here…bound to be when they’ve got live chickens and ducks in your supermarkets
    8. But their supermarets don’t have don’t have aloe vera lotion tissue papers.  That makes it close to a barbarian society to me.
    9. Other than that you can basically buy anything you want out here…and most things will be a little cheaper than the states but not nearly as much as you’d think since all the stuff in the states had to get shipped across the pacific ocean.
    10. The US really needs to get its act together and start making $1 and $2 coins.
    11. I wonder how obviously american I am to these folks.
    12. Not knowing what the hell anyone is saying is both not nearly as bad and much worse than it may seem when you think about it.
    13. I really dislike a lot of the fashion choices made by the women out here.
    14. That said, Chinese TV is full of ads for skin lotions…which is a step up from being full of ads for beer and cars.
    15. Guys don’t like to cut their hair too short and very few people have facial hair.
    16. Chinese bed (woven strings) really is a great system.  Not sure why others don’t emulate it.  But I can still sleep on anything (pulled out sofa bed with a big cross bar running down the length of it.
    17. People are very energy conscious…they all unplug their small devices.  Hell they even turn off the water heaters at night.
    18. A lot of people play cards out here.  I think it must be more convenient than Mahjong or something.
    19. Weddings involve a lot of firecrackers.
    20. There are a lot of people standing around.  And its awfully wierd to be saluted when driving out the complex.
    21. I’d love to hear how great US capitalism is compared to Chinese capitalism with a retirement age around 55 and reasonable health costs.
    22. That said, the air here is WAY worse than anything I’ve seen in the states
    23. I think grandma is taking this as a time to brainwash my girlfriend into making babies.
    24. It was quite an amusing lunch with Grandma and Jo-Ma watching them pressure her to make baby.
    25. Food sure is fresher and better.
    26. If in Hangzhou, definitely make a point to visit the Ling Yi Temple out here.  It costs 45 RMB to get into the park…skip the extra 30 RMB to get into that temple proper and go visit the other two temples that come for free with the park entry.
    27. There are Chinese people selling things everywhere in this country, even at the top of a  hill accessible only by trails.
    28. Chinese people are willing to buy things anywhere they are sold, even if they are silly little tchoskies on the top of a hill accessible only by trails.
    29. Custmomer service is an utterly non-existant concept around here…so its quite shocking the one time we received great customer service (buying prepacked ramen!)
    30. Yikes, at 58 RMB it seems that Starbucks will have been one of our most expensive “meals” out here…for a mango smoothie and a hot choc!
    31. There’s a cable stayed bridge in Shanghai on the way to the airport that is almost as awesome to drive across as the Golden Gate.
    32. The high speed rail on a viaduct elevated above the agricultural landscape is  a wonder to behold, it must be as impressive as the Eisenhower interstate system was to visitors from war torn Europe.  Three hours by bus, fortyfive minutes by train.

  • Nciku Chinese-English Dictionary

    I’ve been looking around a bit about chinese-english online dictionaries and www.nciku.com seems like one of the best. It seems to have some trouble doing some searches cause their servers are overloaded, but you can search with english or chinese text, pinyin, and even drawing in characters. The definitions come out pretty thoroughly and include audio and stroke order animations and a rudimentary character composition chart (which is the weakest feature of the bunch). Throw in easy to manage vocab lists and a lot of sample conversations and stuff and it’s one hell of a package.

    Plus it’s all for free at the moment. The other site of note is skritter but it’s a pay site and not as much a dictionary.  In the end, I’ll most likely default to flashcards on quarter size index cards, but it’s amazing what online stuff is coming out now….and once phone and touchscreen apps become mature it will be a sea change in how this stuff is taught.

  • How to Stop Worrying and Start Living, Dale Carnegie, 1948

    This is a tour de force in the quintessentially American genre of self help literature. A mix of down home wisdom and stuff pulled from the classics and the bible. Optimistic and upbeat with a pull yourself by the bootstrap message. All of it written in very plain simple English with plenty of takeaway points at the end of each chapter.

    And hey there’s a few good ideas in there too!

    Well worth the read.

  • Ecological Democracy, Randy Hester, 2006

    There is a lot of information in this book, but the basic thesis that a city is best designed with the twin principles of democracy and ecology is powerful. 

    It is not immediately applicable to architects (as opposed to urbanists and landscape architects) but the book is well worth pondering.

    Form follows the flow of everyday life. Even the form of a radical future follows the flow of everyday life.

    page 299

    No landscape can be more beautiful than it is just.

    page 95

  • Books worth re-reading regularly

    I just picked up a copy of Invisible Cities by Calvino and it made me wonder…what books are worth re-reading regularly? I looked over my bookshelf and I have to admit I don’t actually see any other book that fits the bill.  Maybe the Sandman series by Gaiman, but beyond that I’m having a hard time thinking of any. Maybe one of my architecture books, but nothing I can think of at the moment….

  • Cool! A wee bit loud but it almost makes me wanna buy the CD.

    With no link, I can’t remember what it was a decade later since the embed came up blank. Maybe the Asteroids Galaxy Tour? If so, I never did buy the CD.

  • Converted into Houses, Charles A. Fracchia, 1977

    Exactly what you would expect if you physically pick up the book.  A cute, thin book with a short paragraph and a couple pages of images about each house. The decor is very much of its time, but still worth flipping through every once in a while.

  • The Empty City, Andrew Looney, 2002

    This is a fun silly little book.

    It’s nothing special and the writing is just ok. But it is worth a read for people who are into the Icehouse pyramid games.

    The story is just about four dudes that play the Icehouse game and the world that happens around and happens to them. The charm is found in its focus on mundane life in all its glorious weirdness.

    This novel is an interesting example of how fiction can be a muse to jumpstart a creative endeavor which has now turned into Looney Labs.


  • The Mother Tongue, Bill Bryson, 1990

    There was a guy who triple-posted a highly negative review on a book that I liked quite a bit. So I ended up writing this counter review.  Maybe this book isn’t perfect, but I think it’s an well written introduction to the subject.

    This book is an incredibly fun read and does not take itself too seriously. If you want to read a book about the English language, and you don’t want one that is too scholarly, this is it.

    There are plenty of really scholarly works out there – many of them are unreadable. And in fact, one of the things this book points out repeatedly is how various theories come in and out of fashion. In linguistics, it seems a lot of the oral history of our words are based off of ideas that are hard to prove. I have no doubt there are mistakes in the book some of which the angry reviewer has noted, but I trust that he has tried to be as accurate at possible.

    Instead of trying to write a definitive work, I think Bill Bryson set out to write a mirror for us to have a laugh at ourselves and our wonderful language. He’s not a linguist – but he’s not a hack either. He is exploring this language and seeing how it stands in this world – among other languages and in its point in history (1989) relative to its lengthy past.

    I find the book a great read. If you’re gonna write a dissertation or looking for a definitive work (or a book that takes Esperanto seriously), this isn’t it. But if you want to have an enjoyable read chuckling at our idiosyncrasies and learning a little bit more at how we got here, I think you’ll have a great time!

  • The Big-2 I learned in San Jose

    As y’all may know, I have been on a big game kick lately and so I looked up one of my old favorites. Unfortunately, apparently the folks at Board Game Geek and Pagat.com (one of the best links for boardgame rules anywhere) haven’t heard of this version. If you can get four guys sitting around the table with a deck of cards, whether at the lunch room or in a train or really anywhere with a squarish table, this is the version of Big-2 I’d play. We used to play this in junior college and I’ve always tried to teach it to anyone I could. But when you get three other opponents who know what they are doing, it’s an amazing time! I learned the game from the Vietnamese kids at the college so the are the rules I prefer, and definitely much more than the ones that involve Poker hands.

    SETUP
    Deal out (a pack of 52 standard cards) evenly to each player (for 3 players, deal out 17 to each, the person with the 3-spades can exchange the remaining card).

    Winner of the previous throws out the first set. If there was no “previous round” then the player with the 3-spades may start by throwing out a set with the 3-spade or pass (play would pass to the next player).

    GOAL
    Get rid of your cards (first).

    The game ends when all but the last player has gotten rid of all their cards. When someone plays his last set, the next player continues to play, beating the set if she chooses to. If all the remaining players pass on that set, the next player just starts a new set (as if she had one the previous set).

    Etiquette has always dictated that you reveal the number of cards in your hand if asked.

    CARD RANKING
    3 (lowest)     4 5 6 7 8 9 10 J Q K A & 2(highest) Aces are always “14” never “1” Note: runs end at Ace high (2’s may not be used in runs).
    The suit order is Spades, Clubs, Diamonds, Hearts. Hearts are the highest.

    In cases where there is a number tie the set containing the higher suit wins (ie a pair of 4-clubs&4-diamonds would lose to a pair of 4-spades&4-hearts)

    SETS
    Single Card
    Pair
    Three of a Kind
    Four of a Kind*
    Run of three or more consecutive cards (suit does not matter except for largest card, aces high, runs cannot include 2’s)
    Run of Three or more consecutive pairs (ie 44,55,66)*
    *these are sets are also called Two-Bombs

    TYPICAL ROUND
    Each player may play cards to beat the initial initial set or pass. As mentioned previously, the only card that matters is the highest card in a set. Note there is no “rank” between sets – if someone leads with a pair, the round ends with a pair – you can not beat a set with a differnt type of set. So if someone leads with a pair-3 and all you’ve got a J-Q-K in your hand, you get to sit helplessly by until the round ends.

    You may also chose to pass. However, if you pass, you must sit out the remainder of the round and may not jump back into this round.

    The round ends when three players pass (or have passed in previous turns). At that point, the winner of the set may “pile on” and play additional higher sets of that round (since the other players have passed, they can’t contest his higher sets). For example, the other three players had passed at pair-10, the winner may stack a pair-Jacks, pair-Kings, and pair-Aces before officially ending the round.

    The winner of the previous round then begins the next round by playing another set of his choosing. He may choose to play a different kind of set, or play the same type.

    TWO-BOMBS
    There is only one exception to the rules of “Follow Set Types” and “Sit out of a Round after Passing” and that is the “Two-Bomb”. There are two types of two bombs – a four of a kind and/or a consecutive run of three pairs. Of course a “Two-bomb” set could always be used to start a round, but they can also be played when someone lays a single 2. When that happens, a player (even if she had passed a previous turn in the round), may jump in and drop a two bomb to defeat the 2.

    Following players may then defeat the “Two-Bomb”. They must defeat the “Two-Bomb” with the same type of set as the first “Two-Bomb.” In other words, the singles set has now been hijacked by this “Two-Bomb” set and the following players must follow the initial bomb’s set.

    Since there are only four of the same number in a deck which limits four of a kinds to bombing a single 2, but one may have more than three consecutive pairs. As such, a run of four pairs would beat a pair-2, and a run of five pairs beat a three-2’s, and presumably a run of six pairs would beat a four-2’s though I imagine the odds are next to impossible for that to happen.

    VARIANTS
    If playing several rounds consecutively, we usually play that the worst loser has to give up their seat if there is a fifth player waiting.

    If people aren’t being shuffled in and out, we usually play that the worst loser has to give their highest card to the winner of the previous round (and the winner gives the loser a card of her choosing).

    There are times where we have played with 5 or more players using a combined deck. Generally we’ll deal out thirteen and 5 of a kind can bomb a pair-2.

    This game really shines with 4 players – and while I have not tried it yet myself, I’d suggest checking out Dou Di Zhu (Big 3) for three players. For some reason, Big 2 with 17 cards (in a 3 player game) just doesn’t feel right. If anyone has a good climbing Big-2 type game for two people, I’d love to hear about it!

    And finally, there are various ways to keep score, but our group never kept track. I heard of some of the guys playing for a 25cents a game, but I don’t gamble so I never played that way.

    LAST THOUGHTS

    What makes this game strong – and I admit that maybe this works best with me and my playing partners due to extreme familiarity – is that this game is light and fast. It is not a hard game, and you really don’t need to keep track of more cards other than the 2s and the red Aces which are not too many cards. Even so, the game provides situations where you have to make a “hard” decisions. And while individual decisions aren’t particularly hard (I’ve never played this game for money) there are plenty of times when you end up regretting a play because you’ll have to break up a good set to make a decent set.

    For example, if you have 4 10 J J Q K A(spade) in your hand and someone plays a pair – do you play the pair-J (which are relatively weak) or do you hang on and wait for someone to play a run? If you don’t jump in at some point you may never get to play a run. And even if you do win with a pair-J, you still have a 4 10 and a QKA(spade) run. If you play the run, there is a good chance that the run will be still be beaten since you have a low ace – if that happens you’ll be sitting there with a medium and really low card. If you play the 4 there’s a good chance that you can get rid of a couple cards, but you’ll most likely still be stuck with a single Q or 10 and watching the table mop up their hands with combo sets. And of course, your opponents are making similar types of choices at the same time. Of course, occasionally you’ll draw a hand that is pretty obvious and plays itself – but even then, there is a thrill of making sure you don’t screw it up.

    Unlike big-2 games with poker hands, you never get to just “dump trash” as part of a play – so you often get a great draw that will have just a couple crap cards that will end up forcing how you play your hand. Furthermore, the Two-Bombs create a constant level of uncertainty and surprise that can keep things interesting even if one player is running ahead. Being able to jump in and drop half your hand in one move is a nifty play – but even so, odds are that you had to screw up a couple sets to play the Two-Bomb.

    Once you get a group who knows what they are doing – and knows to play fast (and loud!) – you have the perfect recipe for a fun game that is stimulating in that sweet spot of being neither brainless nor brain burning. And I think that’s the definition of a great filler game.