My mind raced through the multitude of vulgar terms I could use. My extensive knowledge of Chinese profanity was about to put to good use.

The taxi driver had made a wrong turn. I knew I was in trouble when he called dispatch for directions. Why do I always get the hacks with wet ink still on their driver licenses?

Zhu tou. (pig head) was the first one that came to mind. A common used term, it is usually directed against me. by small children, with the adjective stupid added for good measure.

I considered my stock insults: All would involve the driver’s sister, mother, or grandmother, a foreign resident of China, and part of his anatomy.

Tian wo de pi yen (lick my ass eye – you get the picture) was the newest addition to my insultive arsenal. My tentative trial of the phrase on Mrs. Stevo garnered expected and humorous results. She often laments my Chinese vocabulary, saying if I put as much energy into learning useful things I would be fluent.

Driving me home should have been an easy task. The wrong turn had ended our progress in a traffic snarl. The ambulance in the next lane, air horn blaring and lights a’flashing, was also stymied by the gridlock.

After my insult, the father of all insults, I would throw some money at the moron behind the wheel and jump out of the conveyance he piloted. I could find another cab, post traffic jam.

I’m not usually angry. It had been a long, evil week. I was tired. Mrs. Stevo was at home, and might have news of the secret.

Your sister….

Your mother and sister…

I grabbed for my stack ‘o’ cash. The driver shifted and reached into his pocket. He was quicker on the draw.

He looked over his shoulder, an open pack of cigarettes in his left hand. It was an apology, a sign of friendship, and camaraderie. He looked tired, but his face held a smile.

I smiled back, took the proffered cancer stick and said, “Xie xie.”

He was in the same boat as me. He didn’t know the city, I could tell by his accent he was from the north. It was raining, the streets were mayhem, and there was a foreigner in his cab that smelled of floral-scented massage oil. His night was as bad as mine. No, worse.

It’s not all about me. That’s easy for all of us to forget. Walk a mile in someone else’s shoes, etc.

I forgot about the insults, ate the smoke, and enjoyed the rest of the stop-and-start journey.

Working girls, bar street, Shekou, Shenzhen, China.

Captured: April 3, 2008.

March 3, 2005 is a day that will live in infamy with The Stevo. No, there was no sneak attack, unless you count The Fates: The Stevo’s constant nemesis, up to their mischievous tricks.

I had been a resident of mainland China for 6 days. I was settling into a routine in my new country, albeit slowly. Jetlag, strange foods and languages, continuous stares, and rain conspired to keep a good man down. My lunch hour was three hours long, something I never complained about. The now-infamous event occurred while I was walking back to my office, perched on the fourth floor of the library building, after the 180 minute midday break.

I cut into a side stairwell, leaving the main ascent 100 meter further away. Up four flights and across a large, empty common room was my desk. After an email or two I’d see my only afternoon class. Then, a bed awaited, an attempt to sort my jetlag and teaching-related exhaustion.

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Canon’s newest-DSLR-on-the-block has arrived, and the reviews are in.

One thing Canon hasn’t changed is the insane number of names assigned to the newest member of the EOS family. Canon EOS 450D, or, Canon EOS Digital Rebel XSi, or (even better) Canon EOS Kiss X2 Digital. Why change tradition and the attached confusion? Two heads are better than one, but are three name better than one?

The Canon EOS 450D (which is how I will refer to it), announced earlier this year, was widely anticipated by amateur and semi-professional shutterbugs. The entry-level DSLR offers many improvements over 2006’s 400D. The new camera boasts a resolution of 12 megapixels and Canon’s DIGIC III processor. Many features from Canon’s more professional (and pricey) 40D model are evident in the newest offering.

The additions include a large 3-inch LCD screen, and a live view mode, similar to what’s found on point-and-shoot digital cameras. Most DSLRs require the photographer to use the viewfinder to compose shots. The live view feature allows shutterbugs to use the LCD screen instead of the viewfinder, similar to point-and-shoots. Borrowed from the 40D, the Highlight Tone Priority feature changes the way scenes are metered, capturing more data in bright and white areas.

Sometimes doors are held open by a single thread of hope.

Captured: May 2, 2008.

1988:

Jimmy Swaggart was defrocked after sex with a prostitute, Rush Limbaugh began his syndicated radio show, Salman Rushdie published The Satanic Verses amid controversy and death threats, and Meryl Streep uttered the now-famous line “A dingo! A dingo took my baby,” in the film, A Cry in the Dark.

Tom Cruise still had all his marbles back in ‘88. Rain Man was released, two years after Top Gun, and two years before one of biggest stinkers of all time, Days of Thunder. There was no couch-jumping back in the day, no Xenu-induced rants against psychiatrists. Cruise was cool, if you were a sixteen-year-old white boy that was desperately uncool.

In 1988, a young Stevo, memories of Top Gun’s coolness still fresh in his head, wore Ray Bans and worked at children’s summer camp. Can you find The Stevo in the above photo?

An old friend posted this gem on Facebook. I may fly to Canada, obtain the original (and negative) and dispose of it properly.