Its Chinese New Year’s and Beijing sounds like the Gaza strip. For 3 days straight, morning and night, thunder rolls through the concrete canyons of the city while people go about their business…the ones that are open anyways. 

The big night takes it to the next level of chaos. The western equivalent to New Years Eve. Around every corner families light unregulated fireworks off by the hundreds. Buildings and cars be damned. Flaming debris ricochet off the upper floors of highrises in any direction. Nothing and no one is safe. A large fire-cake tips over down the street and beams a dozen or so fireballs into a volkswagen while children watch on, laughing. 

Inebriated westerners and chinese alike gather on a downtown street corner where the firework store is. This is where it gets wild. Sparks light rubbish on fire under a bus stop billboard. The police officer on the corner has more pressing things to worry about. Theres a squealing girl coming within inches of lighing herself aflame with a roman candle. All the while fireworks explode in every direction as the final countdown gets closer.

Roman candle balls continually bounce off of moving cars dumb enough to drive and then, finally, its just a long rumble as midnight strikes. No one can hear a word, or shout, as the air vibrates continuously for what seems like a 1/2 hr. Its going to be hard topping this on the 4th of July.  

 This movie—>: Made by Leonardo Dicaprio. Interesting, compelling, and scary…although lacking any new data or ideas its well put together and less hype then facts and figures.

This picture—> Is Leonardo Dicaprio (Taken by Annie Lebovitz) and makes me want to throw up. I owned a duck once. Although not a swan, I believe they were close enough of a relation to have similar behaviors. And “Beepers” would never have wrapped her neck ever so gently around me while I stared into the great beyond. This swan is either drugged, dead, or not real and the photo is the most ostentatious sqaure Iv ever seen.