The excitment of the NCAA Tournament just isn't the same when you can't watch the actual game. Instead, I find myself watching the numbers change on the computer screen every time the screen refreshes in 30 second intervals.

At least they make helpful descriptions of the way in which the score changed ... i.e., "Jones dunks the ball". An exclamation point would have been nice, though. "Jones dunks the ball" conjures up an image of a nice, gentlemanly throw down ... like what Barry Sanders would have done if he played basketball. Exciting but anti-climatic. Now ... "Jones dunks the ball!" allows me to picture a huge, from-the-free-throw-line jam ... breaking the backboard, covering the cheering crowd in shards of glass

Anyway. It was all working well until this point ... at the end of the game ... with the score tied ... and the internet froze. I mean ... the internet froze! Madness indeed

Wandering

White Beach, originally uploaded by StrudelMonkey.

“Not all those who wander are lost.” ~ J. R. R. Tolkien

Ubud, originally uploaded by StrudelMonkey.

Today was the day ... THAT day ... the one where I wake up and can sense an end to winter ... I look forward to THAT day every year. Its not that it was particularly warm ... it wasn't. But the sun was out this morning and it was out earlier ... didn't have to turn the light on in the kitchen when I got my bowl of corn flakes.

So I was munching on my corn flakes ... basking in the almost-spring sun coming through the window ... and i started thinking about bugs. don't ask me why ... I don't know ... it was early. anyway ... I started thinking about how FEW bugs I actually come across in Shanghai. Not that I expect it to be like 'Temple of Doom' or anything, but its a pretty warm climate without deep winter freezes ... so I would expect there to be the usual spiders in the corners, centipedes on the sidewalk, etc. Now ... we do get our fair-share of summer mosquitoes around here, but 'buggy' Shanghai is not.

It made me think back to my college days. We rented a house in Flint ... it was a typical college house ... pizza boxes left on the table, good layer of grime on the floor, etc. For some reason, though, we never had bugs in the house. Weird. There must have been something deadly in the paint.

Enough has been said about the pollution here in Shanghai ... and most of it is true. Perhaps Shanghai's air is like the deadly paint on my old house in Flint. Are bugs like little canaries in the coal mine? Scary when you think about it. Spring is a great time of year in Shanghai ... I really look forward to breathing in the fresh spring air ... just not too deeply!