Shanghai Bob

Although I posted almost every day I was traveling, I spent no time cleaning up spam comments, so the unreviewed comments built up to over 3000 entries.  There’s no mass delete function in the WordPress interface, so I used phpMyAdmin to delete them manually with this SQL:

DELETE FROM wp_comments WHERE comment_approved != 1

[Update:  I just updgraded to WordPress 2.7.1 and it allows bulk deletes.  It doesn't allow you to invert selection flags, though, so if there are some comments you want to keep without publishing, the following SQL is still useful:

DELETE FROM wp_comments WHERE comment_approved != 1 and comment_author_email not in ('friend1@example.com', 'friend2@example.com')

]

In less than 24 hours after I started looking, I signed a contract on an apartment in Shanghai.  The rent is expensive by local standards, but almost a third of what I paid for my Tokyo and London apartments.  6000 RMB/month gets a one-bedroom apartment of around 55 square meters in a “serviced” building.  Serviced means they have guards downstairs, maids if you need one, and a bilingual concierge who can send faxes and registered mail, and help with other things that require Chinese language ability.

Update:

It’s fully furnished, in the same building as Andrew’s place, directly across the street from the university, on the tenth floor, south-facing, very clean and quiet, but poorly insulated like all Shanghai buildings, so I wear a ski hat and fleece vest in the house.  I am looking forward to spring!

I also got a mobile phone (I have to break myself of the habit of calling it a “keitai”) for 1000 RMB, an eight-month gym membership for 500 RMB (less than $100!), and some personal name cards with the Chinese name Yi Mao (no relation to the Chairman) gave me:

罗博特 = luóbótè = Robert

I left Germany on Friday the 13th and arrived in Shanghai on Valentine’s Day, February 14th.  I had a great time in Freiburg and am looking forward to spending some more time there this summer.  Thanks, Imme!

I am staying in the same windowless hotel I stayed in during my reconnaissance mission, only this time they are replacing the sidewalks:  both sides of the street at the same time so that workers, construction equipment, cement trucks, cars, scooters and pedestrians all compete for a lane!

I don’t want anyone to say I haven’t been making good use of my time off.

I was reading the Economist online and saw a comment in the business section that YouTube was changing people’s lives — for example by teaching them how to tie their shoelaces. I was dubious.

I did a search for “how to tie your shoes” on youtube.com and found over a thousand relevant tutorials.  Many of them demonstrated a method that is at least twice as fast as the (three) methods I already knew.

Let’s say I wasted a second a day for the years I’ve been tying my shoes using the less efficient method.  That’s about two wasted weeks, if I don’t account for the years I lived in Japan (during which I wore mainly shoes without laces).  That’s two weeks that I could have devoted to watching other “youtubetorials” on how to make my life even more efficient. That could count as life-changing.

I have been on vacation for exactly six months.  Andy sent me this link about taking a year off:

http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/2009/01/11/120-taking-a-year-off/