And I'm back. I highly recommend going to China - it's a nation undergoing vast changes and is on the brink of Superpower status... for the upteenth time in its history. But I can't really recommend taking a tour, although I don't think you could see three cities (Beijing, Xian and Shanghai) for such a cheap cost doing it on your own. That was worth it, but the massive quantities of wasted time in factory 'tours' was nearly unbearable. You see more with a tour, but in a way you definitely see less.

Almost every sign of any importance is in English as well as Mandarin, and there will always be someone speaking English in any of the heavily touristed areas. Really, I was stunned by this. It's not much different than visiting, say, Italy, from a purely tourist perspective. With enough preplanning and research you really could travel to China on your own and have a great vacation.

Plus you get to take every price and divide by 8 to get the cost in dollars. That is fun.

Hey I can post from China! I'm in Beijing right now and have to fill up another 20 minutes of internet time. It's strange; blogger.com is owned by google so they're both under the same account, but the computer I'm using is English so google looks fine, but blogger is all Chinese. Luckily the site layout is the same.

It's Sunday morning right now, but late night Saturday back in LA. We just took a walk while waiting for our tour to begin and we bought a gatorade, a tea drink and a beer for US $1. I can get used to this. We're rich.

Got about 2 hours of sleep on the plane, which took off at 2 AM Saturday morning. I feel fine right not but I'm scared I'm going to crash in a few hours while at the Summer Palace.

Probably won't be any more posts til I'm back.

I apologize for the lack of posts recently - I usually write stuff while 'working' but this damn job has been keeping me busy lately. It's going to be bad for a while longer (I'll be in China all next week, thankfully on vacation).

The CD is nearly done. It's almost there. I'm meeting with a producer on Friday to go over my mixes and discuss mastering, so it will be out the door shortly after I get back from my trip.

In other news, I'm going to pull a Simmons and declare an NBA general managership my dream job. Any fans out there (either of you) who become a billionnaire or inherit a team please consider me for the position. I am unequivically sure I could do a better job than Danny Ferry. No question, no hesitation. I would be a better GM.

Matt Barnes is practically begging for a team right now. He's not getting any offers despite a fantastic season. Why? Because he averaged 9.6 points a game. He didn't reach double figures. So all his other contributions - rebounding, lack of turnovers, etc., are ignored because of this one fact.

Brevin Knight, whose contract was unexpectedly bought out by the Bobcats, is also still teamless. True, he's had injury issues the past two years, but when healthy he's a top 7 PG. No joke. But like Barnes, he doesn't score a lot, so the Cavs could get him for cheap.

The Cavs' main issues are both guard positions. If only there were effective, affordable players available...


**Update - the Bibby trade is dead! The Kings (clearly a horrendously-run franchise) signed Mikki Moore to a 3-year, $18 million contract! That's worse than if the Cavs' had traded Gooden for Bibby!

Nooooo, the Cavs are trying to acquire Mike Bibby again. They are thinking of trading Gooden for him.

The trade would look like this:

Gooden (young, incredibly cheap, rock solid power forward)
Damon Jones (for salary purposes)

for

Bibby (old, expensive, half-decent point guard)

Don't get me wrong, I don't have anything agains Bibby and he's certainly better than any PG we currently have (the jury's still out on Gibson). But we have a tremendous frontcourt in Z, Gooden and Varejao (it looks like we'll be able to keep him). Lose Gooden and we're stuck with a heavy dose of Donyell Marshall and Dwayne Jones (?). Would the increase at the PG spot be worth the decrease in production from the frontcourt? No way. Absolutely no way. If this happens, and it is the major deal of the offseason for the Cavs, there is no freaking way they're making the NBA Finals again next year.

Well, they're not going to make it again with the team as it stands either.

Frankly, shooting guard should be our main concern. We have a perceived asset in Sasha Pavlovic, who really doesn't help the team much. Involving him in a trade could be potentially lucrative. I'm thinking Mo Williams or Matt Barnes.

For a team that is already going to be over the salary cap I really don't see how making a marginal upgrade at PG is worth 28 million over two years. If we're willing to do that then we should mitigate the cost and use our midlevel exception to get Barnes. I get giddy thinking about our starting 5 if we played him at the 2. Also, did we even pursue Mo Williams? I never heard the Cavs mentioned as an interested party and he's willing to take less money to go to a contender. And he can play both PG and SG.

I'm glad I'm going to be in China starting next weekend. I don't want to be around for the 'Bibby to Cleveland' headline.

I feel like I missed the internet boat... like I was born three years too late. If I was out of college in '99 I would have been salvaging gems from the dot come collapse. Instead I was oblivious to the outside world until '03 and the internet pioneers had already staked their claims (Sean Fanning, Bill Simmons, Jason Kottke etc.). I know I'm making excuses. But no one reads this thing.

Now we've been in the throes of web 2.0 for a few years now and everything is pretty and pastel. Google is a giant - I wish I had moved to San Fran instead of LA and started working for them. Again, their ascent is something I could have recognized had I been in the position to do so earlier. There's also probably something going on right now that I should jump all over but just don't know it yet. I'm sure in three years I'll know that I now actually know this 'something' is going to blow up. I just don't know it yet.

I think I lied; the CD is only going to be 15 songs. I'm still happy with that. It's just gotten to the point that finishing the thing is more important that meeting a preset quota.

The production wheels are in motion - we're looking at a nice screen printed package similar to the original Ultraviolet Effect packaging. I just can't bring myself to use a standard jewel case. Just can't do it.

It's always when you're procrastinating on one project that you find the most time to work on another. I've got a bunch of ideas for future EPs/concept albums but I... must... resist...

Hopefully one of them will manifest itself before the holidays.

I can't believe it's July 2 already... only 18 days to get the CD done.