This is my first post written on my brand new Asus Eee 1005HA. I couldn’t bear life without a netbook anymore, so I just took the subway to Beijing’s “e-mall,” found the Asus booth, and said “I one one of those.” Definitely the easiest sale of my sales guy’s career.

Yes yes yes I have much else to write about. The eclipse, for instance. And…why am I in Beijing instead of Xian, as promised? You’ll just have to wait for me to type it all out on my new little thing. (So far it’s good enough – not quite my Mini, but still.)

As for the ill-fated Mini, a giant shout-out to Esther, Owen Kemp and some dude called Aleksey at HP Moscow for trying their best to get me my much-desired HP. In the end, I was thwarted *by* Russia (rather than *in* Russia) – or at least by the customs office. Special mention goes to Al Drew, of whom you shall hear more later. Al, who was coming out to see the eclipse with me, had volunteered to be my computer mule. He quite patiently and cheerfully awaited a computer-handoff that never occurred.

OK, I’m off to 1. configure the shit out of this computer and 2. write a more interesting post.