Newley Purnell

Joseph Epstein says:

I was recently asked what it takes to become a writer. Three things, I answered: first, one must cultivate incompetence at almost every other form of profitable work. This must be accompanied, second, by a haughty contempt for all the forms of work that one has established one cannot do. To these two must be joined, third, the nuttiness to believe that other people can be made to care about your opinions and views and be charmed by the way you state them. Incompetence, contempt, lunacy�once you have these in place, you are set to go.

In no particular order:

–Like the shirt says, any questions?;
–You heard it here first: “toothing” is here to stay;
–In soccer news, this is really cool. But this is not.

To: Newley Purnell, Mr. Smartypants International Traveller

From: Your 401(k) (Remember Me?)

Date: April 17th, 2004

Subject: What am I, Chopped Liver?
——————————————————————————–

You had better freaking hope this is true.

That is all.

“The implication is that to kick back with a liter of Night Train is to be a wino. No one wants to be a wino. Winos are dirty and vulgar and lacking in teeth. There’s death on their breath and evil in their eyes. Right? Maybe. Bur most of the winos I’ve met were decent people. One escorted me to an ATM at 3am, didn’t mug me, and sold me a suede jacket.”

An unconventional, and quite hilarious, wine review. (Via The Agitator.)

This is a good place to live if, like me, you enjoy food. So far, Jill and I have gleefully explored the culinary landscape from high to low–we’ve sampled everything from McDonald’s to fancy Chinese hot pot restaurants. So far, our favorite meals have been at Japanese-style Teppanyaki joints. (I know these exist stateside, but I’d never really checked ’em out.)

They’re exceptional here in every way: the food is delicious, consisting usually of beef or pork sauteed with ample amounts of garlic and hot peppers and served with rice and been sprouts; it’s cheap (typically about US$1.50 or $2.00 per person); it’s relatively healthy; and perhaps best of all, it’s cool to watch the Teppanyaki guys slice and dice work their magic.

…is neverending fun. Though I’ve yet to win. (In truth, I’ve been tossing out my receipts. But I’m gonna start collecting ’em.) Check out the details here.

I’m back online, baby. It took two visits from computer technicians to get my laptop hooked up to the Web. But now we’re Internet-enabled at our apartment.

(The technical details, for you geeks who might be interested: the techs were confused and it took ’em a while to figure out that you don’t need software like Enternet, which we installed on my machine, to interface with my new Taiwanese ISP, Hinet. Apparently my iBook, which is running Mac OSX, is set up to use the Built-in Ethernet feature and PPPoE to dynamically assign IP addresses when I fire up the ADSL line. Or something like that.)

More posts to come soon. Stay tuned…

We’re making some progress on the at-home Internet connection, so posts will continue to be limited. But here’re some links to check out for now:

—Laura P. sends word about a worthy organization: Right to Vote, a group raising awareness about barriers to voting for those convicted of felonies. Seems to me that if you’ve done your time, you shouldn’t continue to be punished for your crime.

—Wilco, my favorite band, has a new record due to hit stores June 22nd. But, predictably, the album’s already available for free via the Web. Ronen Givony, a Wilco fan in Boston (and owner an excellent Wilco lyrics site), set up JustAFan.org, where, if you’ve downloaded the album and want to show your appreciation, you can donate money to Doctors Without Borders, a charity the band picked. (Story via Wendy H.)

–Newley.com political analyst Jack W. writes to say he’s let his mind stray from the upcoming US presidential election long enough to ponder whether he could retrofit his Ducati to resemble the urban warfire motorcycles being sold in Baghdad.

–Just in time for opening day, Scott D. suggest I replace my link to the fantastic Braves Journal Weblog, which chronicles the travails of my beloved Atlanta Braves, with a blog devoted to a “REAL team,” the San Francisco Giants. Okay, Scotty boy, I’ll throw you a bone. Here, if you’re interested, dear readers, is an equally great Weblog: Across the Seams. (I still hate Barry Bonds, though.)

–Good God please help us. Reeves H. is guest blogging at Number One Hit Song.

A couple more funny teaching anecdotes to relate:

1) Here’s a conversation I had with one of our Chinese secretaries yesterday:

Me (between classes, after seeing a student’s badminton racquet sticking out of his bag): “Oh, badminton. I like badminton. Do you like badminton?”
Chinese secretary: “No, I don’t like badminton. I don’t like exercising.”
Me: “Oh, I do. Last year, in Ecuador, I lost about 10 kilograms.”
CS: “Really? That’s a lot of weight to lose from badminton!”
Me: “No, no, not from badminton. Just from being in a different place and eating better food.”
CS: “Wow. No, I don’t like badminton.”

2) Jill assigned a journal topic to one of her classes of teenagers that read: “If you could have dinner with one person, living or dead, who would it be?”

The first line of one of her students’ journals was: “I want the alive person.”

…for being slow to post stuff here. Also, to the many people I owe emails, I say this: please hang in there.

I’ve been quite busy of late and haven’t had much time for Internet stuff. But we’re hoping to have a Web connection established in our apartment in the coming week or two, and when that happens I’ll be back with a vengeance. Hopefully I can get some photos posted, too.