Its been about a year and a month since I returned to Beijing with my shiny, new Apple Powerbook G4. For a while there (in the last year), I was waiting for a new Apple Mac Mini to come out that was (even) more home entertainment center friendly. Well, Apple finally released it last month (I think), and i have zero interest in spending ~US$700 on it. phew.. In fact, the more that I think about it, I don’t even use my powerbook as much as I used to.

I have decided that it is probably a good idea if I file for U.S. Federal Income Taxes and Michgian State Income Taxes. Chances are (and this had better be the case), I won’t owe anything due to the fact that I live and work overseas. But to remain legal, I’ll submit a tax return even if it has $0 taxible income. Now, living and working overseas makes filing U.S. taxes a bit more complicated.

I supposed this was bound to happen. A pretty-much exact copy of a popular international community Website for the China market. We all know and love Flickr. Now let’s all welcome it’s half brother that was separated at birth and flown half-way across the earth: Yupoo! As my colleague Olly told me, the design is shit. Hmm, Yu poo. Poo = shit. Why You Shit? flickr, yupoo, Chinese Copies

Whew! It has been a while since I posted. Here is a quick update: - I am back in Beijing, returned 2 weeks ago or so - I moved into a new apartment with Melanie - I am going to start home brewing my own beer - I had a quick one day trip to Dalian yesterday - early flight to dalian yesterday, early flight back today ok, that’s about it…

It’s been a while since my last post. The road is fixed, took a bit longer than 3 days, but still quick! I am celebrating Chinese New Year in Singapore with Melanie and her family/friends. I got ~S$ 140 in red packets (hong bao). (That’s about 700 RMB). Nice! Enjoying the food and clean air, will write in a few days.

Ouch! This is a road collapse caused by an underground sewage pipe burst. The crapy thing is this is a major road that we take all the time. They say on the radio it will take about 2 days to fix. I love China! Note, my good friend Oliver, over at Salted Lolly beat me to the punch this time. Read his post here: Beijing Third Ring Roads Collapses.