Taiwan. A lot has changed since I was here 13 years ago. A few things to note: Taipei's much cleaner than I thought it was over a decade ago. The streets are cleaner and they don't smell as much. Apartments/condos, regardless of how clean they are, will often smell like public washrooms at night... especially near the washrooms, even if they're clean and expensive. Something to do with the plumbing, I guess. Food and merchandise isn't as cheap as I thought they'd be. You'll still pay $3 - $4 CDN for a cheap meal, but usual around $5 - $6, which is about on par with eating Chinese food in Canada. People aren't big on service in restaurants. No tipping is nice. No tax is nice. I am a buffet to the resident mosquitos in the area. Damn them. People drive crazily. People zip around on their scooters like they got an invincibility card and need to pass GO in a hurry to collect. The MRT is very convenient and operates much like the MTR in Hong Kong. Need a 7-Eleven? Walk in any direction from where you are, and you'll hit one within three blocks. The night before I left, I was talking to some friends about girls who sell "Bing Lang" (the Chinese equivalent of tabacco) and how they dress skimpily. I witnessed their stores today. It was cool. Basically, it was a store front that looked as large as a display window, full front window, with one or two pretty (and young) girls dressed a little scantily. I think the neon light out front said "小女紅" or something like that. My aunt says that's the first bit of Taiwanese culture I've seen. I was excited, but couldn't pull out my camera to take a picture in time. Anyway, I guess I can say that I feel fairly comfortable in this new environment... mind you, I'm still only a visitor.

I was listening to a Taiwanese radio station and the lady started teaching the words "Craddle snatcher" as a man who's girlfriend is really young, and that makes him a "sugar daddy", and she'd be a "gold digger". Then she went on to mention "Star" magazine and how it's about "celebrity news", and "Catherine Zeta-Jones" and "Michael Douglas". That's when I turned off the radio station. Anyway, I found it rather humourous.

Go Calgary Go! Sounds like I'm going to miss a pretty awesome series!

The flight went by quickly, having slept roughly 9 hours of the 12-hour flight. I guess I prefer it that way. Almost immediately after stepping off the plane at 6am, I could smell "Taiwan" - and unfortunately, it's not a smell one would describe as fragrant. Flagrant, perhaps. For the most part, it smells like a lot of Asia in the summer. My mom and I took a coach / bus into Taipei from the airport and were greeted by my aunt and uncle. They brought us to my cousin's place where we'd be staying.

We had lunch with a couple cousins (all from different families, including myself), their significant others, and my aunt. It was great to see some familiar faces: one I haven't seen in 17 years, and one I saw only 1.5 weeks ago in Vancouver. The first day awas rather uneventful, but was suitable for getting settled. Internet access comes in the form of free dial-up ISPs for a whopping 54 kbps. It'll have to do.

That's that for now. We're 15 hours ahead, making it 8:45pm right now (GMT +08:00). Cheerio.

I remember...

I remember the days when my sister and I would share my brother's bed when he was away for the summer. And then at night time, we would play with our little stuffed animals. Papa Smurf was my favorite.

I remember the days when my brother and I would holler out the screen door at the back of our house at our neighbour suntanning on her sundeck in her swimming suit, and then we'd duck out of sight and giggle our little butts off.

... those were the days.

Ahh, the convenience of wireless networks. Last night, certain Telus customers in B.C. had internet problems for most of the night. It was frustrating. I realized my dependence on internet, whose importance was further magnified by the on-goings of my recent activities. I itched. Finally, around midnight, I remembered that I can easily connect to my neighbour's Shaw internet connection. They don't encrypt their network and I've accidentally connected to them in the past. What a life saver. By the time I woke up this morning/afternoon, Telus ADSL was back up and life went on. Anyway, I like it when people around me don't know how to secure their networks. :)

I'm going to be on a commercial where I'm lecturing my kid about stealing after he lifts a candy bar.
"Where did you learn to steal?"
"From you, dad, you steal Internet access."

Burn.

Last week, the Governor of Hawaii declared May 13th "Jasmine Trias Day" in the state of Hawaii. I wonder if that means she'll win American Idol Season 3 like Ruben Studdard, who has a "Ruben Studdard Day" in the state of Alabama, did last season.

Feedback needed. Alright, I have a big trip coming up and I want to bring all my music with me. Of course, in this day and age, it's not unusual to have half of a music collection in the form of burned CDs or CDs of MP3s. To put this in numbers, I have have a small collection of roughly 60 original CDs and roughly 60 burned CDs (either audio or MP3 format). Now, I need to fly somewhere and bring it all with me in two trips. I've decided to separate them into two batches, bringing roughly 60 each time... half 'n' halfing the originals with the burned. So here's my question, do you think airport security will care about burned CDs? Likely not leaving Canada since the luggage is out of my sight before they X-Ray it. Arriving in a different country? Do you figure they'd see a spindle of CDs in your luggage and want you to open it? Do you think airport officials will consider it an offence? Has anyone done something like that already? I figure they have bigger things to worry about, and I've never had anyone approach me at customs in another country asking to see the contents of my luggage. Your thoughts?

Along with my clean-up, my dad wanted me to take a look at some stuff to see they were worth keeping or not. Low and behold, there was a box of Ben's old hockey cards from the early 80's. Most of the cards are no longer in very good condition... getting whipped towards the wall under the blacktop at Nootka Elementary probably took its toll. There's one pack of cards still partially wrapped, and still in good condition. In the bunch, I saw lots of Wayne Gretzky cards (points leader, goal scorer, etc) and a lot of great oldies (Stan Smyl, Tom Barrasso, ...). It's funny to see Mark Messier and Grant Fuhr with hair. Anyway, I'll leave those around for Ben to take care of, but it was nice to flip through them. Brings me back to the good old days when life was less complicated.

I find that when I clean my room(s), they never really end in a state of "clean" but rather a state of "reduced" clutter. I'm sure everyone goes through the same thing. Big steps towards clean are made as you sort through piles of paper, mounds of clothes, and you start putting these things into boxes, shelves, or drawers where they belong. And then, there are those thing you come across that prompt the question: now what do I do with this? It's something you don't want to throw away, but at the same time, you have no appropriate place to put it. It could be a printout of some interesting or useful information that you're sure you'd want to look at in the future, but you just know that if you file it away right now, you'll never see it again. So what do you do with it? Well, you create a new pile on your desk of "special items" that don't have anywhere else to go, just so they aren't spread over the desk. And that becomes your new pile of mess. Then, the next time I clean my room, I see that same pile, look through it, and see that the dates are from 2001 and realize that I'll never look at them again because they're dated... so I chuck them. Of course, by that time, I have new indispensible items that require a corner of the desk.

Yesterday, gas prices hit a new high (as far as my memory goes) -- 99.5 cents/litre. And for a second, I said to myself "How could they increase prices to over $1? The pricing boards only have 3 digits." But I guess if they want to, they'd find some way around it... probably by having a fourth digit hang off the side of the board.

I saw comic Dane Cook on Last Call with Carson Daly last night. This guy is HILARIOUS! I hadn't heard of him before, although some of you may have. He's been around for a couple of years now. Anyway, he has a website www.danecook.com which has some audio and video clips (particularly the Jimmy Kimmel Live one). I recommend spending the time to watch a few. I'm also going to keep my eye out for his DVD "Harmful If Swallowed".

I've found it! For the longest time, I've been trying to find a shortcut to get to the URL / "Address" line of Internet Explorer. I finally stumbled upon it. F4.

Wow, Blogger's new format is very Windows XP-ish. It'll take a little bit of getting used to, then I'll see whether I like the new UI or not. There were certain conveniences (like the two-paned blog editting) that are no longer. Anything you've noticed that are for better or worse?

I am watching the Friends finale and I noticed that Ross Gellar has the same Siemens 2.4 GHz wireless phone / answering machine as I do at home. Yay for us!

My friend LG sent this eBay Auction Item to me for entertainment purposes. I guess the way to really sell a crappy item is to ridicule it and make a mockery of the entire affaire. Nevertheless, I was humoured for the moments I was engaged in the author's words.

I made the realization a few months ago that I am absolutely disappointed at the level of my Chinese. There aren't many things missing in my life, but this seems to be one of them. After so many years of classes and tutelage, why is it I can't read simple common words anymore? Sure, like many CBAs (Canadian Born Asians), we've been assimilated into a Western culture and traded up our Chinese heritage. Realistically, it's because I haven't put in the time in the last 8 years to retain what I've crammed in the 15 years before that. It's hard not to be disgusted with myself when I try to write a simple note in Chinese. 幹, 媽的.

Here's a neat little video clip: Building an [AirBus] A340-600.