Return

I haven't posted anything to my blog in about a month now. It's not that nothing interesting has happened. It's a combination of me being lazy and forgetting to take my camera with me, or buying worthless batteries (for my camera).

So about a month ago I did finally move into my new apartment, and I will take a video tour of it, but that'll be the next post.

About 2 weeks ago Wayne (of the group of 3 Chinese that came over for pizza and poker a while back) invited Ellis and I over to his family's home for dinner and to teach us how to play the Chinese game of Ma Jiang. So we went over there, helped them make baozi (Chinese dumplings) by hand and after dinner, they taught is the “Huzhou” brand of Majiang. By the way, his family have a very nice home, and a 65” TV, but I didn't have my camera with me, so I don't have any pictures.

Apparently in China there are several different flavors of Majiang in different regions (kind of like how each region has its own dialect), each with its own rules, but the version we played was actually somewhat similar to rummy, and was rather fun.

So that weekend I was excited about the SEC Championship game coming up: Florida vs Alabama. Now, for those that don't know, I'm able to watch American TV using a device called Slingbox. It's connected to my father's cable and his internet at his house. Then over the internet I can watch cable TV, actually controlling that cable box. The whole reason I even bought the device was for football. And I mostly pay attention to college football this year because it's on at a time when I can watch. If a college game is on at 6pm Eastern time on a Saturday, that is 7am Sunday morning for me. So any evening games I'm able to watch. However pro games, specifically the Buccaneer games, are usually on a 1pm Sunday, which is 2am Monday morning for me, so I can't watch them.

Anyhow that Saturday morning (Friday evening back home) I woke up, and my internet connection was out. Usually its not that big a deal, and there was nothing I really needed to do at that time. However, a few seconds later it hit me that if the internet was not back up by the next morning, I would miss the game! So after shouting a few profanities in no general direction, I began to think, “What can I do?”

My gym has internet, and so do some local coffeehouses. The problem was, however, that the game was on at 4pm ET, or 5am my time. Those places wouldn't be open.

So, I knew it would be a bit of an imposition, but I had missed so many football games this year, and I get to watch so few, I really wanted to see this game, so I called up Wayne, and asked him what he was up to Sunday morning. He said he was free, and then I explained my predicament to him. He said “Sure you can come over. I had no plans, and my fiancee and my parents are out of town this weekend, so its no problem.” He even said if it would be easier (since the game was on so early, 5am) that if I wanted to I could just stay the night.

Anyways, later that evening, my internet still had not come back on, and so I went over to Wayne's and we played some video games (on the DS), went to bed, and the next morning, watch the Gators win the SEC Championship game. I owe Wayne a huge debt of gratitude for that. Plus, we were able to connect my computer to his 65” TV, so it worked out pretty well.