Shanghai EnjoyClassifieds - Shanghai Blog

Congratulations

To all of you Americans out there who participated in the political process, through your votes, donations or time volunteered, to end Republican rule and put Obama in the White House, thank you. And congratulations. Not only do you have a President-elect who can articulate himself in clear, coherent, and thoughtful language, he may very well be someone you'd want to have a beer with.

Are you happy with the result of the election? Please use the comments below to share your thoughts. Thanks.

Election Prediction

The latest results of our super accurate EnjoyClassifieds Election Poll has the Obama/Biden ticket comfortably ahead of McCain and his winking sidekick by 60 points. Of course with a margin for error of at least 30 points we can't entirely rule out the Mac coming back to tie this one and sending it to the lawyers to decide once again. Nonetheless, we're going to bravely climb out on a limb and call this one for Barack Obama, the next President of the United States, with 345 to 193 electoral votes. And because we're good sports, and feeling frankly a little sorry for McCain who used to be a decent guy before he completely sold his soul to the medieval wing of his party, let's give him New Hampshire, for old time's sake.

Election 2008

The news oozing out of the US of A these days is not encouraging. After the dramatic collapse of major American financial institutions exposed the soft underbelly of capitalism; with credit markets still largely frozen and governments scrambling to restore confidence in the free market with massive government intervention, you might be forgiven for expecting the U.S. presidential election campaign to take a turn towards serious, sober, possibly even intelligent discussion. You'd be absolutely wrong of course.

At the risk of seeming partisan, the Democrats at least appear to be making an effort to be a serious party with serious ideas and serious leadership. The Republicans aren't even trying. That was made clear with the selection of Sarah Palin for VP and amply confirmed with the direction they've taken their campaign since. Discrediting opponents and distracting from the issues is nothing new of course, but the cynicism of the Republicans this time around is breathtaking.

Here is one very small example. The Republican National Committee has filed a complaint to the FEC asking for a full audit of the Obama campaign donations, alleging that foreigners may be contributing to Obama's presidential campaign. Apparently small-dollar contributions, with donations of $200 or less, have accounted for more than $220 million of the $450 million the Obama campaign has collected so far.

Ignoring for the moment that this is just one tiny piece in a very large and organized litigation strategy on the part of the Republicans to cast doubt on the 2008 vote, and leaving aside the darker subtext of fear that foreigners are influencing the election in support of the candidate with the funny name, the point I'd like to make is this: the rest of the world has nearly as much stake in the outcome of this election as Americans do. We can't vote, and apparently we can't contribute directly to a political campaign, but is anything preventing us from contributing to a special interest group that did represent our interests? And would FOX even sell airtime to "World Citizens for a Less F*cked Up America"?

Please cast your vote for President on the poll on the home page.

Magaziney Goodness

EnjoyClassifieds is now 36 pages of compact, ultra organized, information packed magaziney goodness. Okay, so "magaziney" may not yet be a real word but it returns 3650 Google results, so its good enough for me. If you haven't seen it yet, look for us in one of these locations, or give Vivian a call (6446 2440 ext:119) and she'll mail you a copy today. Or send an email to homedelivery AT enjoyclassifieds DOT com.

While you're at it, check out the poll question (scroll down, home page). When I pick up a magazine, I usually start from the back cover, and browse from back to front. Am I the only one that does this?

Just Launched - Enjoy Forum 1.0

Our new Forum is ready and though it is completely empty at the moment, I have no doubt your intelligent, insightful comments, questions and answers will be filling it up in no time at all. This Forum has been a long time in development and delayed more than once while we pondered the prevailing winds of paranoia that have put a virtual freeze on most things fun these days. However, we're pretty confident in releasing this now. Most if not all of the bigger, scarier bugs have been stomped on. I expect this next week will reveal a few more lurking in the corners so please give us a shout if you get bitten, or post a comment below if you have any comments, suggestions, or kind things to say.

Some may wonder why we went to the bother of developing our own system, instead of just using a feature heavy, off-the-shelf package like everyone else. The simple answer is we wanted to do for message forums what we have already done with classifieds - keep it simple, keep it clean, and keep it easy enough for my mother to use.

I'm afraid to say, certain topics will be off limits. For instance, the words [redacted] and [redacted] will not be tolerated, and any attempt to pontificate on [redacted] will result in your immediate expulsion from the community and/or forced re-education. We wil also have zero tolerance for commercial spam, flame wars, and flamboyant displays of stupidity /nationalism.

We do hope it will in time grow to be a civil arena for information exchange, helpful advice from old hands to new arrivals, and a friendly place for special interest groups to congregate, chat, and make new friends. We will be wanting moderators soon to take charge of certain sections, so we encourage you to participate now. If your contribution is genuinely helpful to the community perhaps we'll tap you to take on totalitarian control of your section - complete with full authority to edit, delete and harass members at will.

To Err is Human, right?

[Removing the foot from my mouth]

As Jeff mentioned on Friday, The Shelter has been forced to close its doors until September 6th, which makes this weeks Barfly column out dated. In it I mentioned that DJ Z-Trip is playing there on the 16th of August.

[Bashfully clearing my throat]

Luckily, Z-Trip is still coming to Shanghai. The Zhijiang Dream Factory is stepping up and will be playing host to the event. Thanks Dream Factory!

[Now awkwardly chewing on my toenails]

This weeks Barfly also mentions the Labella Cafe & Lounge, and it's awesomeness. Well, I'm sad to find out that Labella's has been sold and is now closed. Something will be taking it's place, but I'm not sure what.

All this being said, I hope you can forgive the amateur journalist in me and continue on your merry way. My apologies! 

Stuff

Well, it has to be said, the exodus of visa challenged expats has had an upside. The Buy & Sell section has been an absolute treasure trove of awesome deals these past few weeks. Perhaps you're kicking yourself for missing the Cannondale bike or the pair of computers with 17" flat screen monitors for 1000 a piece or that nifty bunk bed for kids with the slide (I'm loving that) that went for a song, but you can take comfort in the fact that the firesale is likely to last all month, or at least until the "games" end.

On a related note, we're kind of scratching our heads here wondering what's up with the closure of all things "underground". SmartShanghai reports that The Shelter will close until September 6th while Shanghaiist has something on the closure of stalls and shops in metro stations for a period of one month. Apparently all underground venues are supposed to close for the period August 7 to September 6, due to heightened Olympic security.

Windows Underground however confirmed yesterday that they will remain open.

Could be worse

The manager of Red Beat bar on Tongren Lu sent word to us yesterday that local authorities have instructed them to close from August 1 to August 5, due to "The Games". Weirdly, they can open between the hours of 1am and 8am!

Last night at 10pm the local authorities instructed the bar owners on Tong Ren Lu to be closed from August 1st to August 5th due to the Olympics. However bars are allowed to be open during this period between 1am and 8am.
During this period Red Beat Music Bar will be open from 1AM until early morning. As a THANK YOU to our clientele for being understanding of the situtation, The Red Beat will host an free open bar from 1am to 2am on August 1 & 2nd. This will include draft beer and house pours. In the Olympic spirit Red Beat will also offer a free breakfast of champions at dawn for the marathoner drinkers still standing at that point.
This special will apply also to the 80's night on August 2nd.
Cheers,
Jordan

We like your Olympic spirit Jordan. Thanks for the tip.

The Kitchen At Huaihailu

Set in a nineteenth century lane house on a quiet residential cul-de-sac sits The Kitchen At Huaihailu; a small culinary concept offering Shanghaiers a new take on a favourite past-time. Bubbling over with condiments, crockery, ingredients and innovation, aficionados and amateurs alike have the chance to try their hand at all things frying pan with an assortment of global recipes bringing back the kind of comfort that only good home-cooking can concoct.

Three Enjoy Editors headed down there in the hope of gaining some new expertise and recipes to pass off as our own. Our recipe was Confit of Duck with Red Grape Sauce and Lyonnaise Potatoes. For three novices this was seriously posh nosh that far usurped our Spag Bol dinner party staple. We heaved a sigh of relief when Chef Norris stated we wouldn't have to prepare the duck ourselves. Marinated overnight it was ready to place in the oven. For future reference we were given a handout with ingredients and instructions that proved both fool and fire-proof.

Firstly, we donned an apron which at least made us look the part. The sauce proved simple enough as we melted some butter and some spliced de-seeded red grapes into the pan with a splash of wine and seasoning. One small onion and a colossal chopping knife in hand we diced our onions, some bacon and pepper and put them in a pan. Stirring them on medium heat, they slowly browned, or in chef-speak ‘caramelised' and softened. By this point we were getting increasingly competitive over whose mixture held the most promise. On cue, Chef Norris stepped up to the pan and proceeded to critique our culinary prowess, which lead to many laughs. A bit of healthy competition never goes amiss, and in this calming and accommodating environment, even Gordon Ramsay would have trouble seeing red.
We chopped the potatoes into slim slices and then we had our initiation in deep-fat frying! Chef Norris made it look like a piece of cake of course, and with our competitiveness still unabated we nonchalantly sauntered up to the skillet one by one. A little worried about tossing my perfect potatoes out of the frying pan and into the fire I sneakily tested out my sautéing on someone else's spuds.

And voilá! With all our tantalizing accompaniments prepared, we were eager to move onto the taste test. The duck had been placed in the oven to perfectly synch-in with our prep time. Fitting the bill, a duck leg a piece was placed on a bed of Lyonnaise potatoes and it was down to our artistic creativity to come up with the finishing touches With a spoon dipped in our saucepot a few Picasso-inspired swishes saw splodges flying skywards before landing on our plates. Finally, knife and fork in hand, we tucked into a well-deserved and delicious meal in the dining room and enjoyed the fruits of our labour. A fantastic fun-fuelled feast in great company and also decidedly therapeutic, The Kitchen At Huaihailu is an entertaining and inspiring weekend or evening pursuit.

* * * * *

Contact Miranda Yao (6433-2700) for more information on classes. The Kitchen At Huaihailu - House 40 Ground Floor, 1487 Middle Huai Road, near Wulimuqi Rd. www.thekitchenat.com

* * * * *

Duck Confit with Raisin Red Wine Sauce

1 serving

1pcs duck leg
5 red raisins
4 garlic cloves
1 rosemary stick
80ml red wine
2.5 tablespoons sugar
5g butter
olive oil, duck butter (of pork lard)
salt, pepper

Make 3-4 shallow cuts on both sides of the duck leg, season with salt and pepper, and marinate overnight.

Take a big bowl, combine the olive oil and duck butter (or pork lard) in half-half proportion, add the garlic and rosemary stick, soak in the duck leg, and send to oven, 150℃ for about 60min.

Raisin Red Wine Sauce

Cut the raisins in half, remove seeds.

Melt the butter in pan, add the raisins and sugar and keep circulating the pan (avoid stirring). When sugar melted completely, pour in the red wine, and reduce the sauce over medium heat, for 7-8 minutes, until the raisin sauce becomes thick, smooth and glossy.

Place the duck leg in the center of the plate and pour on the sauce to serve.

Lionesses Potatoes

1 serving

1pcs medium sized potato
50g onion, shredded
50g bacon (a thick slice)
5pcs green onion (green part only), finely chopped
salt, pepper

Cut the potato into thin slices, deep fry in enough oil until golden brown. Take our and drain.

Cut the bacon into 1cmX4cm strips, and blench in boiling water until completely cooked.

Place the non-stick pan over medium flame. Sauté the bacon and onion to bring out its fragrance. When onion becomes soft, add the potato and sauté. Season with salt and pepper, sprinkle with green onion, and toss to mix well.

Urgent Help in Beijing

We got this email forwarded to us yesterday for an urgent request for blood. A westerner in Beijing underwent an operation to stop internal bleeding but lost too much blood. He is in desperate need of A negative blood from a western donor. They are urgently seeking a donor who can donate blood in Beijing. Anyone that can help, please contact Li Li on the number listed below.

Dear CANCHAM member,

One of our members has a desperate need for type A negative blood. He was operated on Wednesday, July 23rd to stop internal bleeding, but lost a lot of blood. The local blood supply does not work for him. He needs a western donor (of European Caucasian descent). His life is in danger now.

If you know anyone who is willing to save a life in Beijing (husband of an Alcan's employee), please contact:

Li Li at <redacted>
or Olivia Wei at: <redacted>

Thank you in advance for your help.

Update:

We received word, via Crossroads, that 7 donors have been found and the patient is out of danger.

Learning Chinese

I've been studying Chinese recently. Seriously. And this time I can claim actual progress made. To the core, I'm a rotten student but I've got a great teacher from Ease Mandarin and the coolest software on my Treo that's helping me overcome that.

If you're studying Chinese AND you've got a PDA or smart phone you should take a look at PlecoDict. It's a Chinese dictionary and study tool for your Palm or Windows handheld. With fast search capabilities, Chinese handwriting recognition, customizable flashcard system, and five built in dictionaries, all in a well organized easy to use design, its a fantastic Mandarin learning aid and beats the pants off buying a standalone electronic dictionary. It's not cheap at 120 dollars for the complete bundle, or the basic dictionary at 60 dollars, but if you need a dictionary and you've got a PDA you're probably going to want this.

Download the demo at www.pleco.com/download.html. The demo only allows you to search words that begin with the letter 'A', so it's functionality is seriously challenged, but it might be enough to give you a sense of whether this is for you. I had it on my phone just five minutes before I knew I had to get the remaining 25 letters.

Take a deep breath...

Okay people, enough is enough! I'm starting to get calls at the office, on the telephone, from unhinged individuals asking me to ban other unhinged individuals from posting personal ads. For those of you who missed it, the personals page was hijacked this morning by a few highly excitable individuals who seem to think their own personal frustrations are of interest to the rest of us.

Please, if you're out there now, taking offense to something some jackass wrote in a personal ad on this site, switch off your computer, now. And if you're a jackass, irritated and itching to publicly insult someone who has not jumped at your offer of no strings attached sex, switch off your computer, now.

Right, that's settled then. Now, go play outside and don't call me again unless its important.

Free Drinks

Kiki from HighNote records just stopped by our office with a CD of Anthony Pappa's new release on the HighNote label plus a bunch of free drink vouchers for his upcoming show next Wednesday (July 16) at Club G Plus. Anthony Pappas has been described as the "DJ's DJ," and is one of the more respected DJ's on the international circuit. It should be a good show, it's free entry, and I expect several of the EnjoyClassifieds crew to be there. If you're going, give Vivian a call, 6226-2440 ext:119, and she'll set you up with a few free drinks.

On the Road

I'm at lunch with my friend yesterday and she tells me she's going on a road trip across the States with a guy who may loosely be described as her boyfriend. Cool I think, but then I hear the rest of the story and I think who is this lunatic I'm having lunch with. It turns out she's known him for "four fun-filled days" (that's a quote!), and that was all of three months ago! They met at a wedding! They've been talking on the phone every day since and tomorrow she's off to meet him in NY where they'll get in a car (a Subaru!) and drive across the country.

Now this is surely the stuff of a great romantic comedy and I can't wait to hear how it turns out. Because if this does not end in complete and total disaster, with one or the other hitchhiking back to New York alone, they should absolutely get married when they reach the west coast. Any two people who can still stand each other after having spent two weeks sardined together in a car have a better shot than most at making a marriage work.

Indeed, something like this ought to be a requirement to the state granting a marriage licence. Here they ask for family documentation and blood tests but it's all dispensed with very quickly and easily. A driver's licence requires vastly more preparation and expense than a marriage certificate. Why not a compatibility requirement for marriage?

I'm thinking (uh oh!) the State should provide some sort of a room that locks from the outside and has no tv, alcohol, or other drugs with which to make the time pass in a blur. We'll call it the Pre-Nup Chamber, and our marriage candidates would spend say, 28 days, locked inside with no entertainment but each other. When they emerge we'll call them married. Or not.

By the way, I love car road trips. It's my favourite way to travel. A road trip across North America would rank at the top of my ideal holiday destinations. My friend is starting in NY and will end up on the West Coast somewhere in two or three weeks. If you've got any route suggestions or must-see stops, leave them in the comments below.

Mac Bashing

We're having issues with the Mac computers on our network today, as we often do. That we are using nothing but "trial" software and have not one person in the office that knows the first thing about Mac maintanence doesn't help. And of course, they're Macs, so they're going to have problems no matter what you do. I've got a moment or two to kill here, and I'm in a particularly curmudgeony mood, so I'm going to take it out on Apple. Don't take this personally.

So, what is it with Mac people anyway? What chemical imbalance causes them to spend small fortunes on mediocre computers that have all the stability of a Windows 95 machine? What crippling childhood trauma has forced them to accept the multiple system crashes and time wasting restarts as a normal part of their everyday computing experience? What vital information am I missing that prevents me from appreciating how computers that are slower and have only a fraction of the software options available to Windows users are somehow worth twice the price?

Yes, they look nice when they're not turned on. Reminds me of a girl whose primary requirement in shopping for a new phone is that it should look cute.

So I've got a bottle of Solid vodka to give away to the first person to convince me in the comments below that I'm being unfair and have got it all wrong. And when we don't get any winners on that, I'll give it instead to the best photo entry of you posing next to your mac. Send it to iluvmymac@enjoyclassifieds.com. And please, keep it clean. I've already banned francavilla for his penis exhibition in the personals today, and I'm not sure I can take much more of that.

Visa Clampdown

We're editing the job ads for print now and noticing an awful lot of English teaching jobs offered. It would seem the recent clampdown on visas is having an effect. We've seen it in our own organization with a volunteer/intern having to cut her stay short because she can't renew her visa.

And now a new rumour has drifted our way, one that could have crippling implications for some English language training companies: applicants for Z (work) visas born after 1983 would be denied. The rumour comes from All Roads Lead to China who blogged on this a few days ago.

"I recently was sitting in a clients office when their HR person gave us some bad news: Anyone born after 1983 can no longer get a Z visa."

We have no confirmation that this is true. If you have any hard evidence, please let us know, or if you have a visa horror story of your own, please share it in the comments below. I've got a bottle of Solid vodka to give away to the one with the worst (or best) tale to tell, but it's got to be true.

We've Moved!

We packed up our belongings and said good-bye to our beloved office on XingGuo lu last Friday and are now settling into our swanky new headquarters on PingWu Lu. A few glitches to work out, as you may have noticed if you tried to call us today. Our new telephone number is 6226-2514. Same extensions apply. We're also without an internet connection for the next few days so please forgive us if we're slow to reply to your mail, or if the site shows more than its usual share of spam ads. The next three days should be interesting. The next issue of EnjoyClassifieds still needs to be produced in these three days, and with 30+ colleagues all enduring internet withdrawal symptoms together, it could get a little messy.

Smile

Ahem, so, we hastily added an html editor to most of our webforms on Friday evening. On a positive note, this means when you post an ad, you may now subtly enhance your carefully tuned prose with a few basic formatting options. Bold, italics, underline, and bullet points to start, and for those born after 1983, or anyone else for whom pictures and hieroglyphics constitute the foundation of English vocabulary, smileys!

Over in the negative column, some of you are actually using the new formatting tools! With predictable results I'm afraid. The sort of person who thinks PUTTING EVERYTHING IN UPPERCASE will have greater success in attracting your attention can now SHOUT A LITTLE LOUDER IN BOTH UPPERCASE AND BOLD.

We're sorry about that. We really are. In addition to having to remove the more obviously "commercial" Personals, or deleting the dozens of "language exchange" and "Tutor Available" ads posted daily by a certain Mandarin training center that can't quite make up its mind about what their company name should be, we will also now need to clean up the more egregious displays of formatting.

You might be wondering "if you're such a grouch about it, why did you enable html in the first place?" Or, "why are you such a grouch?" Good questions. I can answer the first. Job descriptions, and to a lesser extent Property and Buy&Sell often genuinely need bullet points. However, the editor looked a little plain with just bullet and number lists enabled, so we thought, why not add a little bold, underline and italics. How bad could that be?

We'll see. So if you're thinking of posting an ad (and by all means you should! With a price tag of free, it's one of the better values in Shanghai) please use the formatting in the service of GOOD and not EVIL.

While you're at it, feel free to post a plain text reply below. Enjoy :)

Operation Sichuan Relief

For those of you who are still looking for how your company, or you as an individual can help the relief operation in Sichuan, there is a big charity dinner and auction coming up this Monday 26th of May at the Westin. It is being run as a collaboration of expat agencies, production houses and volunteers with 100% of all proceeds going directly to the charity. Red Cross will be on site to receive the final cheque on the evening.

Individual tickets are 1,000RM while Gold Table contributors are 20,000RMB, Platinum are 35,000RMB and Diamond are 50,000RMB. Please see the link below for a full information pack in PDF format and the donation form in word format.

Information Pack (PDF)

Donation Form (WORD)

Three Days of Mourning

A three day period of mourning began at midnight for the victims and survivors of last week's earthquake. Public entertainment has been cancelled and major websites have been ordered to shut down entertainment activities and services during these three days.

Many of you may be wondering what you can do yourself to help the victims of the quake. Going to Sichuan to volunteer time is not advised and actively discouraged. Donating blood (if you're in Shanghai anyway) is a fine thing to do (you should go do it), but we were told by the Shanghai Blood Centre that blood donations here will not be making their way to the affected people in Sichuan. A cash donation is easy enough, but there is very little information on who these charities are, and what they do with donations. The Red Cross Society of China has received the lion's share of attention and donations in the past week, but we pretty much have to take it on faith that this is a reputable organization.

See previous post for donation contact details but in the meantime, we'd like to know what you or your company are doing to help. Other than getting pissed at one of the many fundraising parties popping up across Shanghai, have you made a personal commitment or donation? Is your company involved in a fundraising effort? While we're at it, how do you feel about all the "entertainment" venues holding charity events? I've heard more than one person comment that parties and tragedy do not sit well together. I'm not sure, but it seems the State Council's edict against entertainment during these three days makes a bit of a statement on that.

In the spirit of that, how about we make an extra effort to keep the Personal ads tasteful this week. In fact, why not go to Personals now, and post a message of condolence to the Notice Board. Ads for seeking "open-minded" or "generous" relationships can wait a few days.

Thanks :)

Donate

If you're in Pudong near Thumb Square on May 24, head over to 199 Fangdian Rd for the upcoming Shanghai Blood Centre blood drive, or call 6275-8027 to make an appointment. Cash donations can be made to Red Cross Society of China by bank transfer. If any out there can share with us other charity information, specifically, what they are doing with your charity RMB, please use the comments below. Thanks

Account Bank Information of RCSC

RMB Account

ICBC Beijing Municipal Branch
Dong Si Nan Sub-Branch
Account No: 0200001009014413252
Address: No.147 Dongsi South St.
Beijing, China
Zip Code: 100010
Swift Code: ICBKCNBJBJM

USD Account

China CITIC Bank
Beijing Jiuxianqiao Sub-Branch
Account NO: 7112111482600000209
Address: C&W Tower. No.14,
Jiuxianqiao Street, Chaoyang District
Beijing, China
Zip Code: 100016
Swift Code:CIBKCNBJ100

Dinner Entertainment

You're eating in a restaurant. The food is good, but the restaurant has a house band that starts up early, around eight o'clock. It's not exactly a band, it's really just a guy on a keyboard synth, with pre-recorded backup tracks and drum machine. He's more or less background music, but not so background that you can entirely ignore him. Does this sound familiar? Does the music enhance your enjoyment of the meal or does it irritate? We ask because we are doing consulting services for a restaurant in Shanghai that currently features live entertainment for their diners. We're not sure it works, but we thought we'd throw the question out there to see if any useful comments come back. If you have had an experience, good or bad, with entertainment during the meal in a restaurant in Shanghai please share it in the comments below. And don't forget to hit the poll. It's on the front page, and it's related. Thanks.

Message Forums

I've been asked many times "why don't you put up a message forum?"

The short answer is we just don't have the resources to moderate one effectively. SmartShanghai and ShanghaiExpat already offer popular message forums. While I personally find tedious all the flaming, name calling and general playground behavior that characterizes much of these forums there's no doubt they have their appeal. But so do car wrecks and American sitcoms.

I received several emails recently from readers that reminded me of why I've hesitated to put up a forum. It started with this email from ReaderA (real names and email addresses removed):

please note, there is a serial playboy on your website. his name is [redacted], from england, his username is [redacted] on here. he likes to get girls drunk and then spike their drinks with chemicals. i dont want to go to the police about this, but please remove all his postings so any other girl doesnt get caught by this disgusting man from england

hia. i used a different email address to log in but my password and both my username are not working correctly. i will register again now under a different name to try and solve this little problem :) meanwhile, please delete my old username [redacted] and i will re-register on enjoyclassifieds :) cheers and keep up the good work at enjoyclassifieds :) best regards

This is amazing. Both the emails that you got are actually from the looser who for whatever reason does not understand that I am not gay. I have nothing against gay's but when I told him to stop bothering me he sent me several rude emails. I have been here for 2 weeks now. Never met a single person yet. It clearly shows how pathetic this person is as he created a fake email address to send you fake email. My email is [redacted] and it is working perfectly fine.

Fraud Alert

I'll post these whenever they're brought to my attention. If you received a message from a miss joy (last known username was favourlove) disregard it and do not reply. This seems to be a variant on the classic Nigerian scam.

My name is miss joy i saw your profile today and became intrested in you,i will also like to know you the more,and i want you to send a mail to my email address so i can give you my picture for you to know whom l am.Here is my email address(joylilian84@yahoo.com) believe we can move from here.I am waiting for your mail to my email address above.miss joy.(Remeber the distance or colour does not matter but love matters alot in life) Please rpely me with my email address here thanks have a nice day

If you are innocent enough to reply (she) will write back with a sad tale of being the only survivor after rebels murdered her family in Liberia, and now resides in a refugee camp in Senegal, where apparently she spends her time browsing EnjoyClassifieds.

This ought to be common sense by now, but do not give out your email address or use your real email address to reply to anyone without first establishing some trust with the user first. Our secure anonymous inbox system is intended to let you keep your anonymity until you are ready to take it to the next level of communication. Everyone is allowed up to 20MB of storage space for attachments so the excuse that they need your email to send a photo just doesn't hold water.

And while we're on the theme, please DO NOT put your email address directly in your classified ad posting. It will be removed anyway by our editor so that just creates extra work for us. Besides, when you post your email address to a web page you might as well just sign up directly for porn, erectile dysfunction, cheap meds, and penny stock alert spam.

Thanks for your cooperation. And please help us out and report spam when you see it to feedback at enjoyclassifieds dot com.

Painting needs a new home

The prize for most curious classified ad amazingly does not go to a Personal ad this week! Buy&Sell put up a gem with this one from ellencll who wrote "(it's) a gorgeous oil painting painted by my mother". See the ad here. Apparently it's 70x70cm and her mother painted it about five years ago. Anyone out there wanting to invest 800RMB in a new artist or simply in the mood to give ellencll's mother's painting a loving home please send sms to 13801681681. Price of the painting includes frame.

Get it delivered!

Having trouble finding a copy of EnjoyClassifieds? Now you can get it delivered straight to your door. For the cost of postage and administrative handling we'll mail you a copy every week. Send an email to homedelivery at enjoyclassifieds dot com or use the contact form to reach us. One year (50 issues) is 100RMB, or half year (25 issues) is 60RMB.

SPAM

I warned earlier that I might from time to time use this space to call attention to companies using spam as a marketing tool. Dragon Club's in the spotlight now having been a thorn in my side with their incoherent chinglish SMS messages sent at ridiculous hours of the night for as long as I can remember. Yesterday's "Tonight big parties in city of couse after that DRAGON" was typical, but then it was followed by "Sorry everyone, the previous message was mis-sent.DRAGON". That's a bit like putting your car in reverse and backing up to see if the cat you just ran over is okay.

In our previous poll surveying attitudes about SMS spam, 74 of 195 people responding said they would "boycott companies that spam me". That gives me hope. Unfortunately it only takes a tiny percentage of people who reply "No big deal. Sometimes I get useful information" (10%) to keep the spammer in business.

For the record, I haven't been to Dragon Club in nearly 4 years. Who do you get your most annoying spam from, and what, if anything have you done about it?

Happy Birthday Zapata's

Zapata's is celebrating it's 4 year anniversary this week and EnjoyClassifieds staff were on hand last night to celebrate including event photographer Leo Zhang. His photos of last night's mayhem can be seen now in our People gallery. I heard surprisingly few reports of drunken staff and disorderly behavior with one possible exception. I've got a bottle of Solid vodka to give away to the first person who can name the EnjoyClassifieds editor dancing on the bar! Send your guess to feedback at enjoyclassifieds dot com.

Speed

We've made several changes in the last few days that should result in much faster web pages. If you're a frequent visitor, please have a look around and report below in the comments if your browsing experience is improved (or not), or send email to feedback at enjoyclassifieds dot com.

Smoking or non?

Our very first poll question several months ago asked if you would be interested in going to a nightclub event that was strictly non-smoking. Of a total 68 respondents, 44 said yes they would. That was encouraging as our idea at the time was to determine whether EnjoyClassifieds could host a non-smoking only event, and would the non-smokers come out to support it. I was hoping to call it The Pink Lung Party. Only 9 of you said you would not attend if it was the last party on earth.

That was right around the time I quit smoking and was flush with the zeal of the newly converted. Since then I have discovered, to my amazement and awe, that non-smokers are absurdly tolerant of smokers. (As a smoker, I was too busy smoking to notice.) I think I'm right in saying that non-smokers significantly outnumber smokers, so why does the idea of non-smoking only nightclub event still seem like an insane idea.

In the comments below I hope you'll let us know if you would you support a non-smoking only party event, at a decent club with a big name DJ? And by support, I mean would you pay for tickets?

And don't forget to tell us in today's poll whether you smoke or not! Scroll down to about the middle of the home page and look for The Poll. Thanks!

*Update - April 16*

We're at 73 poll responses so far - about 67% of EnjoyClassifieds readers who are inclined to respond to online polls are non-smokers. I'm wishing now we had offered a third response option for those 'non-smokers' who only smoke when they drink.

Thanks to those of you who replied, and to respond to bobforest who commented below: Relax! Have a cigarette or something. We were only talking about holding a single, one-off nightclub event. For the record, I don't support the notion that restaurants and bars are 'public' places. If a restaurant owner wants to cater to smokers only, that's fine with me. It seems to me that a 67% majority ought to have the economic clout to affect change without resorting to government regulation.