The second most important reason I was looking forward to having a computer at home was to be able to upload pictures easily. In that spirit, I took some pictures of my apartment today, and I've put them online. Here's a little metadata for each one:

Computer Desk

It's a beaut! Fuji Finepex A340 and RCA CDS1005 digital cameras sit astride the mini Shuttle XPC, lit up by the Viewsonic 15" LCD monitor. In front of the monitor is a page of photo booth stickers, the net card that I'm using to get online, the trusty rusty Sony MDR-V600 headphones that Aaron got me for Christmas a couple years ago, and my Linux command reference notebook.

Balcony Plants

The Boston fern is probably getting too much sun on my balcony, and I'm still waiting for the apple seeds I planted in a teacup to emerge. The giant clothespins are because people in Shanghai don't hang wet laundry on clotheslines, but on bamboo poles.

Bedroom Panorama

Note that I'm being generous here (or maybe just lazy): these are unedited pictures of a messy house! The unmade bed, the clothes and backpack thrown on the couch, the piles of books, papers, plates and yogurt cartons on the low hutch... Micah's natural habitat! The book on the bed is the McSweeney's I'm reading currently.

Bathroom Panorama

I did my best to color coordinate a blue bathroom. The flowered blue plastic sheet on the right covers the washer. The bucket and mop are leaning against the toilet because there is no better place in the house for them, and because you may notice that there is no shower curtain; so on days when I'm not in a hurry (and it's not freezing cold) I can dally and mop up the floor so that it will be dry by the time I get home from work.

Entry Way & Kitchen Panorama

From right to left: my home-made montly calendar, a note taped to the door to remind me to take out the trash; spices, canned breakfast congee, keys, a Cal cup and a recipe notebook on top of the fridge; rice cooker resting on the oven; the plastic bag bag hanging from a cupboard handle, and the cuttings off an Asian pear that I had last night with dinner (PB&J, yogurt, frosted rice crackers). Below the screen on the right are a couple pairs of shoes; John told me it helps keep the house clean to take them off, and it really has made a difference in the frequency of the need to sweep.

View of the Balcony

Just so you get an idea of where the balcony is in relation to the bedroom, and a sense of where I took the bedroom panorama from.

Yours Truly

Sitting on the couch.

As I'm typing this entry, I'm listening to Queen's Greatest Hits CD.

I picked up these DVDs today:

• Clean, 2004, Maggie Cheung, Nick Nolte.
• Blind Shaft, Chinese miners, labor conditions.
• The Poor Little Rich Girl, Shirley Temple
• Comandante, "una película de Oliver Stone", a documentary on Castro: "un retrato íntimo y humano del líder Cubano."