Fit To Strip, And Other Things I Love Right Now

Those of you who read here before I left for China know it used to be called “Stuff I Love.” In memory of times gone by, here are a few things I love right now:

1. Fit To Strip, the workout DVD by Carmen Electra. I know, I know, it sounds lame, but disc 2 is a calisthenics routine that has nothing to do with stripping and everything to do with building strength in your core, legs and upper body. I used this DVD before I ran a half marathon a few years ago and was the most toned I’ve ever been. I let myself get chubby after my dad died, so I’m back on a strength training/toning regime, and this DVD is part of my new routine (along with running, weights and yoga). It kicks your butt in a really good way.

Amazon.com, $12.99

2. Community, the tv show on NBC. One of my friends in the U.S. prodded me to watch this show, and it takes the place in my heart that used to be occupied by The Office until The Office turned kinda lame. (Sorry, but you know it’s true.) Abed and Troy crack me up; long live their Donde Esta La Biblioteca rap! Also, Joel McHale naked is so much yummier than I never imagined. Thanks, ratings ploy! It totally worked.

Community recaps, nymag.com

3. My new panda wrist rest, advertised on the packaging as glow in the dark, but it’s only those little floaty thingies that glow and they’re hard to see inside the plastic. So, glow fail, but panda win! Sorry, I don’t know where to buy this outside of China. But if you’re in China, I got it at Sanfu.




4. WeiEast face cream. Katie at Scattered Starlight introduced this product to me, and it’s a new favorite. I’ve mentioned before how serious the Chinese take their skincare*, and I’ve gotten compliments from Chinese girls on how good my skin looks after using this. As an added bonus, it’s not actually made in China, so it’s free of skin whiteners and other ingredients you don’t want to know about.

WeiEast.com

5. Tostitos Queso. This is junk food, and I love it. Judge me if you must, but a bowl of warm cheese and warmed tortilla chips is a little bit of heaven in my mouth. I brought some back with me to China in my suitcase.

I think you can buy this at pretty much any grocery store in America, you lucky dogs!

6. Undergear.com. Warning, this website is not suitable for the faint of heart, or maybe those at work. It’s men’s underwear and pajamas and workout gear, and my friend sent this link to me, and I sent it to a few friends here, and we all spent a good hour on gchat, sending each other links from the site and cracking up and drooling. I never knew there were male equivalents to push-up bras, but now I do! This guy’s pretty handsome. I’m not recommending the shorts, just the guy.

Undergear.com. I recommend the sleepwear, swimwear and underwear links. Oh, and can’t forget this. It's kinda strangely hot!







7. And while we’re at it, I love gchat. I stopped using msn because of all the spam, and because Vista didn’t seem to like it and kicked me off every few minutes. Skype is great but not everyone uses it, and it takes a lot of bandwidth to run. Yahoo Messenger seems sorta 1998. But gchat? So convenient! No need to add anyone, and if you miss a chat, they email it to your inbox. I think on MSN, you had to log back in again before you got offline chats. Gmail isn’t perfect, but it’s pretty great. I deleted my Facebook account, so happy I did that, but you can pry my gchat from my cold, dead hands.

Ok, that’s it for this edition. Next time, I’ll be back with more China stories.

*Recently a Chinese friend was asking me if I knew another teacher on campus,and she said, "She's in her early 30's and sometimes has bad skin." I've never heard skin used as a major descriptor before I came to China. They aren't kidding around about their skin.