For those who have met me and know me: do I look younger than my age? If so, by how much?

I've never really had comments about looking young... until I came to Taiwan. Now I get it from EVERYONE.

Tell me.

Fact: If you know someone (including yourself) farted, and you smell that fart, immediately you will react as if you got a whiff of the Devil himself. Then you'd hold your breath and fan your hands in front of you until you thought it was safe.

Question: Have you ever smelt a fart (most likely your own) where you thought, "hmm... if I didn't know this was a fart, I would mistaken it for the smell of food."? I know I have.

I've been testing a design on our system lately. The physical test is to plug a microphone into one jack, speakers into another jack, and when you speak into microphone, you should hear your voice over the speakers (sparing the technical details).

Last week, I ran a couple test vectors on the design, and it looked like the results were correct. And then I did the physical test, plugging in my headset which has both mic and earphones. From that, I could only get noise out of the earphones. After some back and forth with the team in the US, and no obvious solution.

Today, with the US team here for meetings, we tried it again... same result. And then after some quick investigation, the problem was found. My microphone has a little volume and on/off switch. Umm... it was off. DAMN IT.

I bought a new pair of shoes last week. Merrells. I saw them on the display and I said, "Now THOSE look cool." That store, by default, has a 10% discount on everything. But, I decided to hold off that day. Checking the website, I can't even find my model of shoe.

Anyway, I went back a few days later. And originally 2980nt, it was 20% off, then I used 1700nt of gift certificates I got from work, and ended up paying 684nt (just under $30 cad). I so happy. :) Unfortunately, the box doesn't say what the model is... so I still don't know. But I still think they look pretty cool.

There's a question from waiter/waitresses common across western-styled restaurants. Usually it comes when they put down your meal:

"Would you like some pepper in your [salad/soup/pasta/what-have-you]?"

Of course, they always ask this before you've had a chance to taste your food. So, really, wouldn't the appropriate response be:

"I don't know, did the chef not put enough? Or can you wait until I've tried it?"

Along the same line, are you one of those people who would put salt or pepper in your food before taking a bite? Is it normal to just start shaking some pepper on your dish before knowing how much pepper is already there?

Comment.

Eddie Murphy's Coming To America is on TV right now. The funny thing is, a young Cuba Gooding Jr. is getting his haircut in the barbershop where Eddie plays three characters! He has no lines, and only nods his head like a dork, but looks like that's where you need to be before playing Oscar winning roles and giving long drawn out acceptance speeches.

All of Taiwan gets a typhoon day off. This is reportedly the largest typhoon in more than 5 years. Maybe we'll get 2 days off! Unfortunately, the direction of the typhoon has changed and now it's heading South instead of Westward towards China. I find walking outside during typhoons is actually quite a lot of fun. It's windy, it's rainy... but it's nothing compared to a tornado. I want to see a cow fly by.

I want one! I want one!
Having one makes you feel wanted and loved, cared for and adored.
Where can I apply to get one?

Read: CBC News Story

I'm aliiIIIVVVVE!!!

Installed MSN 7.0 at work. I'm re-connected.

My work is already taking a blow.

My blog counter is working again. This is the number on next to the blog name on your dashboard when you log into blogger.com. Since I first noticed that counter, it's been stuck at 78. And today, it jumped to 301. So, 302 including this post.

For better or worse...

Recent tragic events at my company have me questioning my loyalty. Our IT department has outsourced guys from another company to come in and help with support. At the same time, these so called "helpers" have installed "Websense Enterprise" over our network which is counteracting all extra-curricular attempts.

For example, if I try to go to www.friendster.com, I get an error:

Access to this web page is restricted at this time.

Reason: The Websense category "Personals and Dating" is filtered.

And I can't connect to MSN. I was able to use Trillian for a couple of weeks, but it wasn't really stable. It would crash about 10 times a day, but at least I would be able to connect and chat when needed. But it's worse now, because now it crashes as soon as I open the application. I've all but given up.

I tried to go online to the Trillian website for help, but...

Access to this web page is restricted at this time.

Reason: The Websense category "Instant Messaging" is filtered.

Son of a ... Does this mean I'm going to have to focus on my WORK from now on?

There's a fine line between what's right and what's wrong. I went to the washroom and one of our colleagues was standing at a urinal brushing his teeth with his left hand and holding below with his right.

I shook the mayor of Taipei's hand. It was around 9pm on a weeknight, and I was eating some thin noodles just outside a temple -- the front entrance of the temple is surrounded by eats selling the Hsinchu specialties meatballs, rice noodles, and meat dumplings. The mayor (Ma Ying-jeou) is campaigning to be the GuoMingTang political party's head man. So I guess after-hours, he was still making visits to less crowded areas with a very small entourage. I don't care for his party and I don't know his political views, I wanted to shake his hand because he is a man of importance.

I found this photo out of my photo archives. Taken exactly one year ago, July 5, 2004 after rollerblading down by the Sea Wall.

Just because I'm living in a different country, it doesn't mean I'm not going to celebrate Canada Day. So on Friday, July 1, my brother, AC, and MC went to The Brass Monkey to celebrate Canada Day, where they held an event in honour of our country's birthday.

Ben sported his "Canada Kicks Ass" t-shirt, me my Roots Canadian Olympics sleeveless, AC had a Canadian flag (well, it was mine, really) and for having a maple leaf on us, we each got a free Canadian beer (Blanche de Chambly from Quebec). As usual, when I'm at the Monkey, I got a few games of foosball, and was surprised to see some competitive players! I teamed up with a Newfie and took two games before losing to one guy who played alone. He was good, but we should have had him. Unfortunately, my partner couldn't help himself and kept throwing the ball straight into the opponent's player and getting stuffed.

And then there were the boatraces. I wasn't sure how many teams there started with, but BC was represented, as was Ontario. And then there was a team of New Zealanders as well. A boatrace, for those unfamiliar, is where you sit in a line with your team and from the front to the back, each person must finish a cup of beer. The team to finish first wins. The finals were between Ontario and New Zealand, and I think Ontario won.

It was nice to sing the Canadian national anthem -- especially away from home. Also nice to see some Canucks shirts (as seen in the photos). The night was capped by us briefly meeting the husky fellow in the second photo. This burly man saw Ben's shirt and very very slowly read the "Canada Kicks Ass" as he ran his finger across Ben's chest -- clearly heavily intoxicated. Then he unbuttoned two buttons of his shirt to unveil his Canadian pride. He and I then chatted as he told me his wife is Taiwanese and they have a daughter. And he continued about how his niece who was studying in the States came to Taiwan during her break and they were out at some place, him, his wife, and his niece. While they were playing some dice game, he went to use the washroom; and on his way to the washroom, some guy grabs him from behind and asked him "How much did you pay for those girls?" Of course, that question infuriated this man who was standing in front of me slurring his words. He grabbed the guy and threw him across the room. Now... as he was telling me this, he was reliving the moment in his obvious stupor. And as he raised his voice and said "That fvckin' guy was talking about my baby!!", his face grew into the kind that is usually followed by a fit of violence. I actually thought he might try to throw ME across the room. Well, perhaps it was one of those you-had-to-have-been-there kind of moments. Soon after, he calmed down, his wife appeared, and he introduced me to his wife and said I was a very nice man.

Happy Canada Day!! (on Friday)