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In most of the other countries that we’ve been to, it was either relatively easy to tour a city on foot or taxis were suitably cheap.  Unfortunately, South Africa is both sprawling and comparatively expensive and now that we’ve been living here, our transportation standards have changed.  I’m no longer willing to walk the 35 minutes each way to the beach with a 7″ surf board in hand.  Within our first two weeks in this country, we quickly realized that a car would a necessity.

Renting proved to be far too expensive for the 3 months that we wanted the vehicle for, and leasing vehicles is simply unheard of in South Africa.  There were a few dealers that would sell a new vehicle with buyback guarantees, but it required a tremendous up front investment.  The only realistic option, I decided, was to find  a beater of a car that had some resale value so I could recoup most of my costs.

That’s when I met the Beast - 1.7 glorious metric tons of gold and vinyl shrouded German steel.

At the time, purchasing this 1988 Mercedes Benz 200 seemed like a great idea.  There aren’t a lot of cars you can find in the US or South Africa for R12,000 (equal to $1,600 at the time), and it showed less than 200,000 km on the odometer.  Plus, Mercedes is known for making cars that last.  What could possibly go wrong?

The Mechanic
The guy who sold me the vehicle was a mechanic, and claimed he had been maintaining the vehicle for its only owner for the past 20 years.  He was a friend of a friend, so I was inclined to believe him.  He also said he would ensure the vehicle passed inspection or cover any costs associated with getting the vehicle past inspection.

It took him 2 months and plenty of harassing on my end to finally get the Beast in road worthy condition.  When we were finally sitting down to sign the ownership transfer papers, I discover the cars records indicated the car was actually a 1981 vehicle.  Oops.

The Bureaucracy
All foreigners that purchase automobiles in South Africa are required to acquire a Traffic Registration Number with the Motor Licensing Board.  This effectively provides the government with an ID which can link the vehicle to your passport.  Time wasted: 4 hrs

In my first attempt to transfer ownership, the MLB official declared that the Beast’s logbook and papers were outdated.  Therefore I had to go to the police station, have an officer examine the serial number etched in the chassis and verify that the car hadn’t been stolen.  After that, I had to send the verification off to the provincial capital to get a new logbook authorized.  Time wasted: 6 hrs

Two weeks later, I finally got confirmation that a new logbook had been issued and I would be permitted to wait in yet another queue and have the Beast formally be placed under my ownership. Time wasted: 3 hrs

The Economy
By the time the Beast was officially mine, we would only have 2 weeks remaining in South Africa, which meant I had to pretty much sell it immediately.  With the time crunch, I was forced to accept the first offer I got - an unfortunate R8,000.  The kicker is that while the US economy had been sliding, the South African economy had been in a free fall, and the exchange rate had gone from 7.6 (when I first purchased the Beast) to 10.2 Rand to the Dollar.  After the ordeal, I had recovered a meager $784.

I suppose it could have been worse, but I’m having difficulty imagining exactly how.

We’ve been in Laos for a week now, and spent most of that time up in the northern end of the country, where diversity is high but incomes are low.  When you walk into ethnic minority villages where no one speaks Laos, let alone English, communication can be an issue.  Curious adults want to know where we’ve come from, how long we’ll be here - essentially conversations that require a degree of vocabulary that we sorely lacked.  With children, its much easier.  They just want to play!

With all the time we spent playing in the villages, I began to appreciate just how innovative their games were.  I wouldn’t necessarily categorize the people we met as impoverished; everyone we met were subsistence farmers and hunters, and always had plenty to eat.  But they certainly lived a life free of many of the worldly possessions that Westerners wouldn’t dream of living without.  Absolutely none of the children had anything that could be considered a toy.

You might not realize this, but thong sandals are incredibly aerodynamic.  From what I could make out, the game is played by tossing your sandal some 10 meters away.  Your friends then take turns trying to make theirs land as close to yours as possible.  The more skilled kids got some serious frisbee-esque lift out of their footwear.

Apparently dirt can be just as fun.  In a different village, kids eagerly helped us dig up small rocks to use as crude marbles.  Once you’ve got enough, you cup one hand against the ground and take turns trying to flick the rocks into the “pocket.”  I grew bored of this pretty quickly, but I’m not exagerating when I say the kids played this for hours on end.

The best game that I found also happened to (not surprisingly) be the dirtiest.  The place that we spent the night in had a village center, with a ring of benches set up for special ceremonies.  The children there had developed a unique form of tug-of-war that I haven’t seen before.  One kid would sit down on the ground, and wrap his arms and legs around the legs of one of the benches (which was firmly embedded in the ground).  The next would then sit behind the first with his arms and legs wrapped around his torso.  The third would then link up behind the second so that eventually there formed a chain of miniature humans.  The child that was “it” had to then pull his buddies off the bench, one by one, with the end result being a giant cloud of dust within which writhed a giggling mass of little limbs.

Let the record state that it took all dozen kids working in concert (and then some) to pull me off that bench.

Special Note: Its a shame that we haven’t been able to capture some of the remarkable scenes we’ve come across - in a cruel twist of fate, we dropped our camera in 6 inches of muddied water just as we started trekking into the remote hills for a closer look at the “real” Laos village life.  If you’re wondering why there haven’t been new pictures posted, we finally acquired a replacement just yesterday.

Having been in the Middle Kingdom now for over 6 weeks, my Chinese has improved tremendously.  However, a series of unfortunate events have highlighted a major gap in my vocabulary.  I don’t know how to express What the Fuck?! in Mandarin.

You would be amazed at the multitude of opportunities that Sarah and I have encountered that simply cry out for this eloquent response.  In chronological order: 

• A freakish Tibetan sandstorm delays your flight by 31 hours.  The airport is devoid of helpful people, and you’re only informed about the delays until after the 8th hour - what the fuck?!
• The queue to purchase train tickets during the madness of Chinese New Year is at least an hour’s wait.  30 minutes into it, people start blatantly cutting to the front of the line - what the fuck?!
• 5 hours into a 25 hour train ride, someone ties a still alive-and-shitting chicken underneath your seat.  It absolutely reeks and when agitated likes pecking at your leg - what the fuck?!
• On that same train, a man who looks like he hasn’t showered in a week decides to sleep with his greasy head resting on your shoulder - what the fuck?!
• While you’re takng a nap on a table, and someone decides it’s a good idea to sit on the aforementioned table so that their ass crack is perfectly aligned with your nose - what the fuck?!
• The train station sells over 40 standing-room-only tickets per train car for that wonderful 25 hour train ride - what the fuck?!
• The grandmother sitting across from you repeatedly hulks up phlegm and spits them right at your feet - what the fuck?!
• The local market is selling bloody, vein-covered muck that Sarah swears looks like fetus - what the fuck?!
• You check in to a hotel room for all of 5 minutes, decide not to stay, and the owner demands that you pay for a 1/2 day - what the fuck?!

Thankfully, things have turned up for us, and we can laugh about these situations now.  I suppose its the perils of traveling that make up half of the adventure. 

This year at SXSW, there will be a special screening of the upcoming film by Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino, Grindhouse. A month ago, SXSW put out a call to film makers to submit a mock trailer of a fictitious exploitation movie. Rodriguez will review all of the submissions, and the top trailer will open up at this special presentation of Grindhouse.

For the layman, an exploitation film is generally characterized as a movie featuring excessive sex, drugs and violence. Think El Mariachi and Sin City, Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction. Anyway, my buddy Nate got together with some of his co-workers from Superfad and pulled some long nights these past few weeks producing their submission for this contest.

Titled Maiden of Death, it hints at a plot involving a young punk rocker who’s brutally raped and murdered. Making a deal with the Devil, she returns to life as an avenging angel wielding a shotgun/chainsaw Gibson. At one point the maiden cuts a car in half with her guitar and the final shot shows her pounding out a power ballad on top of a mound of corpses.

Its completely over the top, and its one of the best Grindhouse trailers posted to YouTube. Enjoy!

Apparently, all of those super tough interview questions that Google has become infamous for aren’t used when screening designers.

Google always updates the logo on the homepage based on certain holidays. This Valentine’s Day was no exception. Sure enough, when I pulled up their site, the “g” is a chocolate covered strawberry.

But as TechCrunch points out, there’s something amiss. Take a look for yourself:

Maybe its Adobe’s fault for not having a more robust spell checker in Photoshop?

Update: Not to point fingers, but it looks like the typo falls squarely on the shoulders of Dennis Hwang.

Update: I owe Dennis an apology - it turns out that the lack of an “l” was completely intentional.  Most likely, its a reference to a particular line of poetry, “I did but see her passing by, yet I love her till I die.” by Barnabe Googe.