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narom
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Name: Mark
Metro:
Gender: Male
Interests: Wushu, Comptuers, Games, Books, Movies and Languages.
Expertise: I suppose web design ... oh .. and nan quan ... and um ... well, that's pretty much it.
Occupation: Computer related (Internet)
Industry: Computers (Internet)
Message: message meEmail: email me
Website: visit my website
AIM:  naromkram
Member Since:
1/21/2003
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| It is a pity that Xanga doesn't allow feed importing. Otherwise you guys could actually be kept up to date with what I am doing. In the meantime, you can go to narom.net.
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| It's been almost 4 years that I've been blogging on Xanga, and even though I've tried to leave from time to time, I usually come back since there are so many folks from wushu on here. But I've decided to consolidate my blogging and put my eggs in one (and a half) basket(s). My blog will be at alive not dead (specifically, http://www.alivenotdead.com/?narom) which, by no small coincidence, is also where I work. Several of my friends from Rotten Tomatoes and I started up this company here in Hong Kong and it's been going quite well so far. What is alive not dead? It's a social networking site (much like this one or myspace, etc.) with a focus on artists and their community of friends and fans. We're building up a nice set of tools for the site and have signed up a lot of great artists so far including (naturally) Jet Li. But even aside from him there are a lot of other great people on there and we've been working hand-in-hand with them on a lot of projects both in Hong Kong and other locales. It is quite exciting. In any case, if you have some time, you're welcome to venture on over there and take a gander. And heck, as long as you're there you might as well register too. Feel free to add me too. it's my gmail address plus my first and last name (and if you don't know those two things, then ... do you even know me at all?? lol.) But if you're registered you can also sign up to receive a feed from Jet Li's blog (he's video blogging now, y'know) Dan Wu's, Wu Di's (although he's on Xanga too), and a whole host of other neat people. So, it's been nice being on Xanga all these years, but it's time to move on to other things. I'll still receive my digest so I'll know what people are up to, but you won't really know what is going on with me unless you visit my alive not dead profile page. Take care! And don't be a stranger! I encourage everyone to check out alive not dead! (If for no other reason, than even just to support me and my friends would be nice.) Plus, I'm going to be blogging about China Men's Nationals next weekend from WenZhou, so you might want to check that out too. - Mark | | |
| I'm a few weeks behind on blog updates but just wanted to post this up since I have a minute or two. Currently
I'm at Zoka Coffee House next to Greenlake in Seattle, Washington,
U.S.A. I came here to get work done, but lo and behold I can't do
anything right now. Gmail is down ... but for some reason only on my
account. I can access my other gmail accounts, just not the one I need.
I keep seeing this: 
Which
is annoying to no end. I have a crap-load of work to do too.
Hopefully it will be back up soon. But I've been waiting over an hour
so far. This is a strong argument for me to switch to an email
client for my computer. I just don't know if I want to do that because
if my computer kaputs then I'm really out of luck. So ... do I want to
keep all my email on the web where a server might go out randomly ...
or do I want to keep all my email on my computer, where my hard drive
my fry randomly.
Meh ... Up until now this hasn't been a problem so I'll assume
this is an isolated incident. (besides, downloading the current cache
of emails on my gmail account would take the better part of a day, even
with a good connection.) But .. enough about email. What have I
been up to? I went to the Bay Area for 2 days, now I'm in Seattle for
2 days. Tomorrow I go to New York for 3 days, then L.A. for 1 day, the
Bay Area again for 1 day and then back to Hong Kong. Very whirlwind.
I'm going to blog more stuff and put up pictures at a later date. I
have too much stuff to do in the immediate future so you will have to
wait for the details.
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| Saturday I had arranged to meet up with X-Tina at the Jusco in Tai
Woo around 11 a.m., but I was running late in the morning so we
rescheduled for noon. After we met at the MTR station the first order
of business was lunch, so we grabbed some food at the McDonald's above
the station.
X-Tina brought her daughter along with her too. It was kinda neat
pushing the stroller around and getting a feeling for what it might be
like to have a kid, but I came to realize something. Well, two things.
First, if you're a guy and you're pushing your friend's baby around,
and your friend is female, most people are going to assume you're the
father. Second, I have like ZERO energy when it comes to children. I
suppose once you have one you manage to find it, but I get tired just
standing still, let alone taking care of a child.
I realized that at some point in my life my energy levels severely
dropped. I remember as a child that running around wasn't tiring at
all. And then at some point it suddenly became exhausting to be
upright. What happened there? Is it so gradual that you just don't
notice it until it's too late? Or is it just because i'm so out of
shape? Maybe a combination of the two?
In any case, as I was sitting next to two senior citizens (who had
apparently come to Jusco to fall asleep on benches for extended periods
of time), waiting for X-tina and her daughter to finish their "meal", I
realized that, at least this week, I'm in no shape to have any
Children. I suppose that's a good thing since I wasn't planning on
having any kids this week.
Maybe next week ...
It also made me realize how important it is to stay consistent with my exercise.
Of course, I was super sore most of the weekend too, so that might have something to do with my lack of physical energy.
After we did some shopping (I bought a cheap, but good, DVD player,
as well as a crock pot and a rice cooker/steamer -- which will both be
delivered Wednesday "some time" in the afternoon) we headed over to her
home where I saw her hubby and step-son again.
We did our Cantonese vocab session, which is basically where I bring
a list of the phrases that I really wish I knew over the past week and
she shows me how to say them in Cantonese, which I record on audio,
stick on my mp3 player, and listen to all day at work. By the next time
we meet in another week or so (this was the first time) I should have
most of the vocabulary memorized.
After that it was time for me to leave. I grabbed the MTR back home
and worked through most of the evening setting up my computer, DVD
player and various A/V equipment to try to get my home entertainment
system in peak, optimal shape.
One disturbing thing was that I saw the biggest cockroach of my life
sitting behind my computer. It was literally bigger than my thumb
(which ain't no small thing) withOUT the antenna. I left home, walked
to the store, bought about a billion roach poison traps and the biggest
can of Raid I could find. When I got back it had moved to the kitchen
but the Raid pretty much made it the last kitchen he would ever visit.
I also put the little roach traps all over the place. DEATH TO ROACHES!
I took some video and a picture of it, but it was so gross i don't even want to download the IMAGE of it into my computer.
Anyway, I went to bed kinda late that night and slept in the next morning.
Sunday was pretty relaxing. But mainly because my body was SO SORE
from Friday night's return to wushu. I got a haircut, and went to eat
dinner at an Indian restaurant just down the street from my home. (Holy
Cow, it was delicious! -- no pun intended.) I spent most of the evening
watching my American Idol downloads on my new computer / TV. Oh .. did
some laundry and cleaning too.
And that was pretty much my weekend. More and more I really like just
relaxing at home and not going out. Either I'm introverted or I'm
getting old ... but this really is my little fortress of solitude, and
it's nice to just be here by myself and doing my own thing.
I'm not trying to be anti-social. It's just the way things turn out when I stay home all the time.
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| There are actually no pictures from this entry. I haven't been
carrying my camera around as much as before and even when I do it's
usually in my bag and I forget to bring it out. Anyway, as I
mentioned before I went back (again) to wushu on Friday evening. After
the previous week's observation of Pat's class I was feeling like I
should get back in to gear with some training so I, as well as Stephen,
joined in on the teen wushu class at Li Fai's school. Li Fai
was actually there too, participating in the class which was being lead
by Liu Yan. Stephen and Pat did much more working out than I did (I
guess one of the benefits to being thin(ner) is that no matter how out
of shape you are, you'll never be as out of shape as someone who has an
additional 40 pounds of fat on their body. But I guess I managed to
hang in okay. A few times my ankle or knee would give me a little bit
of a reminder that I'm not 20 years old anymore so I'd sit out, but I
would try to make use of that time by stretching or doing wall sits. I
got to do a bit of nanquan too. It was a bit embarassing when Li Fai
was using me as an example when talking to this nanquan girl. Yeah, I
have like 10 years of nanquan practicing under my belt (give or take),
but when it's your first day back at wushu after more than a couple
months, the only thing I felt like I could be an example for was a
"Let's see who can throw up the fastest while practicing wushu"
contest. It usually happens like this. At first my muscles
have atrophied and I don't have the core strength anymore ... so all my
waist power and stance work is shot to heck. After a couple months
there is more snap in my footwork and I can generate more power in my
movements, connecting things together, but right now I'm just happy if
I can hold a horse stance for more than 15 seconds. Even wu bu quan is
a major challenge right now, so for the time being I'm really going to
be focusing on building up more core strength and leg strength,as well
as flexibility. That's what will help my wushu the quickest at this
point in the game. I was able to push out a lot of sit ups (5
sets of 20) and back lifts (4sets of 20) at the end of class. That
wasn't too bad considering my complete lack of core strength right now,
but afterwards it hurt so bad that I couldn't even cough without having
an abdominal cramp. After we hobbled out of wushu all we could
think about was food. So we grabbed a taxi to Fat Angelo's off the
escalators and partook of lots of dense carbs. It was just what I
needed. I was severely out of it after that class. I wasn't sore yet
(that would be a couple more days yet) but I was certainly "out of
it". Sort of the feeling you get when your arm is asleep when you wake
up because you slept on it. Then you try to move it around and you
look like Ed Sullivan introducing the Beatles. Hmm .. I wonder how many people reading this will actually know who Ed Sullivan is ... Anyway,
after we ate I went over to Pat and Stephen's (and Boon's at the
moment) to check out their Wii game console. It was pretty fun. We
played some Tennis, bowling and boxing. It helped me get my mind off
my body's lack of energy and also kept me moving, which probably helped
a bit with the soreness. After a few hours of hanging out with
them I decided it was time to go home, so I grabbed a cab down the hill
to Kennedy Town (or "Gi nei dei shing" for you Hong Kongers) and called
it a (very painful) night. Of course, now that I've started
again, I really have to work to make sure I stay consistent. I don't
have to train once a day like I was doing in China, but at least a few
times a week to maintain would be a good idea. If not wushu, then at
least go to the gym to do a bit of strength and stretching work. But
yeah ... I guess we'll see what happens. Right now I just want to
enjoy the process of doing wushu with friends again. After that we'll
see what develops ...
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