24 January 2010

Uglympic Logo

You may have noticed, but I'm a bit of a nerd. I get excited about things like Olympic logos. So I'm sure you can all imagine my horror and what-the-effing-effness when I learned that the new logo for the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia had been unveiled.

The original bid logo when Sochi was a candiate city is quite nice actually. Pleasant colours, interesting to look at, winterish. ...Perhaps a little more appropriate were these Games taking place in the Soviet Union, but hey, I've never been one to turn my nose at some fine Commie nostalgia!Enter the new logo. Techinally, I'm not even sure it qualifies as a logo — there are no graphic elements. I mean, anyone can download a clunky, "futuristic" font from the Web and colour it light blue in MS Word. Could this logo be any more bland? Incorporating the ".ru" domain name is supposed to be new and fresh — which it definately would be, had it been a part of the 1996 Olympic logo! Honestly, in 2014, who is going to find the Internet in the slightest bit interesting? The organisers might as well have put the fax number in the logo too!
Here's a quote: "To prove our commitment to innovation, Sochi 2014 will have a clearly digital Games emblem. Today, we welcome tomorrow." Oh barf. — Sochi Olympic logo, although it was tough, you manged to out-fugly even the Nagano Olympics and take the crown of Most Wretched Olympic logo ever. You are dead to me!

05 January 2010

Ma Po Tofu



One of my favourite dishes from when I lived in Sichuan, I'm always happy when I find a new spice mix to make Ma Po Tofu (麻婆豆腐, or "Pockmarked-Face Auntie's Tofu" to be more poetic). This Lee Kum Kee brand version had a pleasant amount of mouth-tingling from the Sichuan peppercorns and was quite tasty. Unfortunately, it was probably quite tasty because of the amount of MSG in it — instant headache after I finished eating!

Two thumbs down, Lee Kum Kee!

04 January 2010

Das ist freaky!


On the same day, I get these two eerily similar postcards from Berlin, from two people who absolutely don't know each other.

Weird, ja?