Fat Dragon - 胖龙

I have a seven-year-old suede jacket that is drying out in places, particularly around the cuffs and neckline, but in many other parts to some extent or another. I need this jacket to get me through this winter, at least, since I won't have any good opportunities to replace it for several months. What can I do to hydrate the dried-out portions of the jacket? A little bit of staining isn't an issue, this jacket has already been through a lot. Common household items are better than specialty products, since I currently live in China and don't really know where to find Neat's Foot oil or anything like that.

Most Chinese computer fonts have ugly, pixellated .bmp fonts for Roman characters (i.e. Aa, Bb, Cc, etc.). I'm trying to increase the professionalism of documents leaving my school in China by teaching the other employees how to format a document well. Right now, things look best when they switch fonts whenever they switch languages, but that is impractical, and my coworkers aren't likely to do it all that often.

Hence my question: is there a good Chinese font with a good Roman letter set as well, or do I have to find another way?

I know there are better places to ask stuff like this, but I've already asked at four of them and nobody's answering.

My Dell Inspiron 1420's keyboard isn't working, either in BIOS, Windows, or Ubuntu. It occurred when I installed Ubuntu 64-bit (my Vista is 32-bit), but it might have been coincidental. I have removed Ubuntu, resized the Vista partition, updated the BIOS, and checked the BIOS settings for anything that might have caused this problem, but to no avail. However, the keyboard is definitely recognized by the computer, as Windows reinstalls its driver when I uninstall it, and then proceeds to tell me that the keyboard is working just fine. Additionally, the mobo beeps at me after the BIOS loads up (not sure what it's trying to say...), and I can shut it up by tapping a key on the laptop keyboard - more evidence that the keyboard is recognized on a basic level.

I'm using an external, wireless keyboard right now, but it's not the most portable thing around, so I need to find out how to fix this problem.

I'm looking for a free font compatible with OpenOffice.org on Windows XP (TrueType is the only one I know for sure) that is ruled and has dotted letters for tracing, but doesn't look really sloppy like some fonts I've seen.

I'd love a mix between something like Print Clearly http://www.fontspace.com/blue-vinyl/print-clearly (though hollow dashed lines instead of solid ones would be ideal) and Penmanship Print http://www.fontspace.com/richard-douglas/penmanshi...

Does anybody know anything like this? I'd consider paying as well, if it's reasonable... I've tried Google some, but haven't struck anything that appealing yet.

I'm using TurboTax online to do my taxes. After reporting my foreign income (no Foreign Earned Income Exemption), my refund shot up to $350. I only had $50 withheld from my domestic earnings this year, so I don't understand how I can be getting $300 more than I withheld in refund. Is there a mistake, or does this have to do with the credit for paying foreign taxes? If it's the latter, why didn't I have to report how much of my foreign income was taxable or how much I paid in foreign taxes?

The numbers are relatively small, since I worked part-time for a limited period of time in the States, and now I'm living in China, where the average income and cost of living are both way less than America, so I don't make a full American salary here. However, if you count my Chinese income, I'm still over the standard deduction + student loans deduction. I don't know if that matters, but I'm including it in case it does.

I've toyed with posting this for a while, and my vanity has finally gotten the best of me. This selection contains the first three paragraphs of a short story I recently finished (at 4:30 AM with the help of a whole lot of Pu'er tea, though this selection was written last September).

I'm looking more for stylistic commentary than anything; if you want to tell me it's wonderful, that's great, but I'd rather you tell me why it's good or what could be better - don't be afraid to infringe on my personal voice as a writer, either; that's something I'm still developing. The style matches the rest of the story pretty well, so specific suggestions here might be more far-reaching than you might think. Nothing is too small.

Of course, in the relatively unlikely event that you find any grammatical errors, feel free to point them out as well. Without further ado...

Sterling Morris slipped off of the weathered wooden bed of the ancient pickup and watched the silent Navajo drive off into a backdrop of the evening sun setting into dusty sandstone canyons. The scene pulsated with the heatwaves of a summer day in the Arizona desert. When the vehicle had gone a few hundred yards, Sterling Morris turned to face his destination. The long-since whitewashed facade suggested to him the interior of the century-old trading post, and he saw as clearly in his mind's eye the dusty assortment of aged and ageless knick-knacks that populated the shelves, a vast many of which outdated his own twenty years, as if he had already entered the aged structure.

He took long stock of his surroundings before pushing on the sun-bleached red door, which refused to yield without a protesting groan of rust and disuse. An unfortunate bell managed a tiny, sputtering rattle upon his entry, but it was abundantly clear that this was a long-forgotten and unawaited formality of more symbolic value than practical.

The interior of the ancient shop was as Sterling had pictured it, a mish-mash of the detritus of years and decades of forgotten expectations. The only modern accoutrements of the general store “fifty miles the *** end of nowhere” were a rack of Lays potato chips with expiration dates in the last decade, and a glass-doored, RC Cola-branded refrigerator so begrimed with dust that it would have been impossible for the casual bystander, had one ever chanced by, to divine the contents within.

After several months of on-again off-again work, I have finally finished (though not quite finalized) a short story inspired by an actual event in my life.

Suffice it to say that I have been advised to submit it to such magazines as Harper's and The New Yorker for publication. I'm not asking whether or not you think it's likely to be good enough, let's simply pretend it is for the sake of answering the question unclouded by unrelated issues.

Assuming I have story of enough literary merit to be published in one of those periodicals, what are the odds that I, as an unpublished writer, will manage to have my story accepted by them? Additionally (though maybe I ought to Google this instead), how do I submit it, and what kind of remuneration could I expect if it is published(as if adding a publication in The New Yorker weren't enough payment to my resume weren't enough for me as an aspiring author)?

In case it's relevant, the story is just over 3500 words.

My buddy and I gave each other writing prompts a week ago. The prompt he gave me was "pork chop sandwiches". No explanation, no suggestions, no verbs or punctuation, just "pork chop sandwiches". I came up with a short sketch/story, and, after reading dozens of other people's stories and partial stories, I couldn't help posting this. What does everybody think? Be brutal, if need be, I'm very thick skinned, but don't give a negative answer unless it's constructive, otherwise, what's the point? Anyway, here goes:

"Pork Chop Sandwiches"

“Pork chop sandwiches,” Lewis muttered to himself. “Of all the food in the world, why would you choose pork chop sandwiches?”

Lewis wiped his forehead with a dish towel and looked around him. Marcus was mixing biscuit dough in a six-gallon bowl. Francisco was busy sweating over an enormous pan of powdered eggs. Silky and Eddie were a two-man assembly line at the potato table; Silky was peeling potatoes, and Eddie was slicing them. Luther was washing pans in the industrial-size sink.

“Make sure to change the water, eh Luther?” yelled Lewis over the chatter in the kitchen.

“Go to hell!” boomed Luther, as he pulled the drain plug and watched the filthy dishwater slowly disappear through the drain.

Nobody else running a work crew at Wasco State would have put up with that kind of response from an inmate, but Lewis' policy was to treat the inmates like men, and not like dogs. He'd seen firsthand how thin the line could be between a man on the inside and one on the outside.

As he watched Luther scrub and refill the sink, he muttered again to himself. “Pork chop sandwiches. Jesus Christ!”

“Something wrong, boss?” queried Francisco from over his pan of eggs at the stove. “You know it ain't no good to use the name of the Lord like that.”

“Yeah, right, Frankie,” Lewis replied. “Remind me to say a Hail Mary later. I was just thinking about this business with the Orangutan.”

“Bad karma, man. You know what I mean?”

Lewis looked over at Marcus. It was true, bad karma was exactly what it was.

Alvin Poole had been a construction worker in the late 70s when he was convicted of the almost inhumanly brutal murder of his girlfriend. The grisly nature of the crime, combined with his rust-colored hair, had earned him the nickname “the Orangutan” when a fellow death-row inmate had read Poe's “Murders in Rue Morgue”. After 30 years on death row, “the Orangutan” was a slight, 59 year-old bookworm with graying hair and bifocals, well-liked by all who met him. Numerous psychologists had pronounced him fully reformed, which had formed the basis of many a mercy plea, but these appeals and pleas had only served to tack more years onto the life of the condemned man, and tonight, thought Lewis, “his time is up.”

Marcus' voice cut into Lewis' reverie. “Just what are you trippin' over old Orangutan for any way? Dude's been dead over 30 years already, he just ain't realized it.”

“Pork chop sandwiches,” muttered Lewis again, half to himself.

“Pork chop what?” whooped Silky from the potato table. “I thought we was talkin' about the Orangutan. Where the hell do pork chop sandwiches come from? Luther, give the chef a slap upside the head, he ain't got it on straight!”

Lewis glanced warily at Luther, who was still preoccupied with his crusty pans, before responding. “That's what he wants for his last meal. Pork chop sandwiches.”

A hush came over the kitchen. Francisco's eggs sizzled on the periphery of Lewis' hearing. There was a dull, metallic clank as one of Luther's pans shifted in the sink.

“Pork chop sandwiches,” said Eddie, in slight awe; it was his first execution day in the kitchen.

“Pork chop sandwiches,” confirmed Lewis. “And here I am, a trained chef with a degree in the culinary arts! Just think of all of the exotic and delicious dishes I could make for a condemned man's last meal! and all he asks for is a plateful of pork chop sandwiches!”

He stared around him for a moment, in silent appeal to the inmates, who slowly turned back to their work. His eyes turned to Luther, who had his back to Lewis and his eyes down as he thoughtfully scoured a cooking sheet under the warm, sudsy water.

“Pork chop sandwiches,” Luther's deep voice softly rumbled as he ruminated to himself. “Dude, that's messed up.”

I read a poem by Auden back in college that beautifully captured the filthy sterility of major cities in his time, probably centered on London. I'd like to rediscover it, but I can't find it anymore, I have no idea what it was called, but the word that it most evoked for me was "grey". Does anybody know what poem of his fits the bill?

Oh, it wasn't very long, if I recall, maybe 20-30 lines.

My question isn't about other study methods, but rather, is version 3 of Rosetta Stone Chinese worth the money? I would definitely be using the language practically, so if it's effective, the money would be well-spent. Particularly, I'm interested in how well characters are implemented in the program, and whether or not there are any interface issues (such as the tone mark problems I've heard about in v2) that make it a less-than-optimal learning solution.

Additionally, does anybody know if you absolutely must be online at any given time to use the online version, or can lessons be downloaded for offline use?