Yesterday was a cold but very sunny day and I had a couple of meetings around town. The first one was all the way in the North, so I took the #13 subway there and the second one was south of Guomao, so I could use the new #5 subway line all the way down.

It was a big surprise to see how enormously packed it was! And that on a normal Sunday, I guess it’s a good thing they finally finished that line.

When I exited at Guomao, the construction-site of the new CCTV Tower (designed by Rem Koolhaas and Ole Scheeren) was standing beautifully against the blue sky, so I quickly snapped a photo:

Categories: general

The other day I read an interesting entry on MailWasher, a program that handles spam in a very efficient way! As described on their own website:

MailWasher Pro lets you safely preview and delete bad email before it gets to your computer - never download another spam email to your computer again!

You can download a trial and play around with it for 30 days, free of charge. Afterwards you need to pay for it, but the amount is so low (USD 37.00) that it is well worth it in my opinion!

If you decide to purchase it, you even get a discount, so you end up paying less than USD 30!

Obviously it also a good tool to fight viruses and such. So if you have to deal with lots of spam and other unwanted emails in your daily life, I would definitely give it a try!

Categories: web stuff

Well finally I have been able to “solve” the problem of my recent computer crashes!

Bluetooth

Ever since I have my new phone I once every now and then like to synchronize the phone with the compu and I do that with bluetooth. The synchronizing all goes allright, but right after that my computer shuts down. It shows a blue screen with loads of error messages to make sure that you realize that something serious is wrong!

After restarting the thing, it can hold for about 3 mins, even in safe mode, before it collapses again, so that is not good at all!

Solution: go into the BIOS and shut down Bluetooth alltogether. Basically you have to ask yourself how often you use it. And since my answer only is when I want to synchronize my phone, I have decided that it works a lot better to get a USB cable at the Nokia shop and get rid of the mafan once and for all!

Categories: gadgets

DVT (Deep Vein Thrombosis) is back
Yup, wish it was different, but unfortunately it has returned after a mere 5 months. It has switched to the left leg, right under the knee.

I already had a feeling of a cramped muscle in my left calf for about 3 weeks, but the morning after Faithless I couldn’t even walk anymore…

After returning to the Jing, I tried with a bandage to pressure it, but to no effect, so today it was doctor time. At first the doc also didn;t have a real idea, although he immediately started to measure the legs (yup, that is a sign of a good doc), but after I told him I last year had DVT, he immediately came to his conclusion. Good for him and unfortunate for me he turned out to be right.

The blood test already came back way below average (INR of 1.2 which should be something between 2 and 3), but if that was not enough, the ultrasound was the real proof: a big clot in the vain next to the aorta.

The reason as it turns out is that people who had a first DVT are likely (30-60% chance) to have a 2nd one within 5 years. This time however I won’t be done in a year, it will take 3-5 years.
And to make matters even more serious: the chance that you get a 3rd DVT is 90% in 9 years thereafter. In other words: I’m fucked for life with this one
Ah well, been there, seen it, done it, could be worse, right?

Categories: health

WOW!

Just came back from a weekend in Shanghai.

Why Shanghai? It’s not that great a city after all
Well, Shanghai happened to have its first ever open-air music festival during the October Holiday (on Oct. 5) and the closing act was of none other than Faithless!!!

They also performed in Beijing, but indoors, so I chose to fly down to Shanghai to see them there and it was…..PERFECT!!!

The last time I saw them was on a festival in Amsterdam in May 1998, the year I came to China, so for me it was a bit more special.

The vibe on the festival was fantastic! Positive spirit all around, lots of energy that you almost could see and definitely feel! Very difficult to describe such an experience!

Sorry no pics, I was too busy dancing

Categories: music