Is that you Dominos?

Work today was a little slow because when the reporters aren't out shooting stories, they are sitting in the office in front of their computers and they don't really need us.  So I took a quick trip with Telemundo to Tiananmen Square in the morning.  That was amusing because they wanted to interview Chinese people and have me translate, it was pretty ridiculous and I am totally unqualified, but I thing I pulled it off.  Watch for me on Telemundo's Olympic Zone maybe I'll make it on TV!  haha  The rest of the day was spent researching bars and restaurants for some other stories.  Beijing closed many of their big dance clubs and some bars this summer for the Olympics because they were deemed "unsafe."  Places where there had been drug busts and such, they are trying to clean up their act for the time being.  As a result, our job is to call all the bars we are interested in taping at and make sure they are currently open.  We found quite a few clubs still open and now the reporter is working on a good way to convince our boss that he needs to take all the runners with him for this story...because of course we all want to go party and call it work.

The BICC – our workspace – sets out a free lunch and dinner buffet everyday.  Plus there is

 always ice cream, beverages, and PB&J available.  It's nice to have free food and I have to admit to stuffing my bag full of water and fruit when I leave work sometimes. 

  Anyway, usually the meals are passable but tonight's dinner was terrible.  Some sort of mystery chicken curry and some other junk that no one could enjoy.  So our boss, Jen, decides to order 8 pizzas and puts me in charge of calling Dominos.  Now this call would have gone smoothly had the women on the phone stuck to the normal questions like "where do you want it delivered," "what do you want," etc.  But after we got past the address part of the conversation, she decided to go off on a chinese rampage and I honestly had no clue what she was saying.  Since she couldn't move past this question, I handed off the phone to Jessie, another runner, and she finished dealing with this nut-case at Dominos.  Turns out the woman was asking me if I had a Dominos VIP Card.  wtf.  Apparently if you have one, for every pizza you buy, you get one free.  Pretty sweet deal, i guess.  But you don't learn about that in Chinese class at Michigan.  

Met a guy last night at the bar that was trying to sell me his tickets to a Handball event.  (That was not meant to sound dirty, but I think it does a little.)  The guy actually went to Michigan, it's a crazy small world out here.  Go Blue :-)