I’ve been busy lately, not in a frantic way, necessarily, but in a good way, or at least a semi-constructive way. Unfortunately for my wallet, none of the second-hand shops that sell furniture or appliances take credit cards. Neither does RT Mart, I was disappointed to discover the other night while purchasing a bed frame. I spent most of last night assembling it, finding that I’d somehow, in contrast with various laws of physics, assembled it upside down, inside out, or with some part sticking into another dimension. After I finally got it together, I still couldn’t sleep in it, as I still have no mattress. Another night on the floor, which needs a good mopping.

This morning I cleaned the kitchen, which is more of a harrowing experience than it sounds as it entailed standing on a rickety chair trying to dust cobwebs out of various corners. The electric guy came by and switched the air conditioner outlet back to 220 volts. Why the previous occupant switched it to 110 volts is beyond me.

I met with Tall Paul this afternoon for lunch before work, and he said that the people we did the commercial for are pleased with it so far, and might even want us to do another, shorter project next month. Hopefully that will work out; I could use the extra cash, and it’s interesting work.

Still no word from the Hinet people, so I have no idea when they’re coming round to wire Chez Poagao. Expect sporadic updates till then in any case.

Cleaned out my refrigerator, picked up the last of my things, and turned my keys over to the landlord this morning. I’ve moved out of the Sogo locker, following the footsteps of such public figures as Maoman, Sandy, and the bwg by moving out of town and trading in the convenience of living in the middle of everything for such things are slightly fresher air, a larger living space, and cheaper rents. And mountains, Gandalf, mountains! I’m living in an alley across the street from the Hsintien MRT station, and 2.5 of my 3.5 balconies face the hills.

Well, that’s the plan, anyway. Right now my new place is a mess. It needs a good mopping, dusting, and some furniture to make it livable. I spent last night on the floor listening to crickets. At least I think they were crickets. The Hinet adsl guy should be out there in 3-5 days, they told me, so I won’t be updating very regularly for a while. It’ll take at least a week to get things in shape.

I’ve finally gotten the househunting tip page up. Note that these are all just my opinions on the state of real estate in Taipei. Your mileage may differ.

The tropical storm Judy reported yesterday veered off at the last minute, just like all of the other typhoons this year have done. Looks like the next one will do the same. They all either veer up the Chinese coast or skip down around the Philippines. It’s like we have some sort of typhoon shield up. Now if we could just block those idiotic “George & Mary” commercials, we’d be getting somewhere.

Since I’ve finished learning the 55-move sword form, I’m concentrating not only on improving it, but getting more into Tuishou as well. My teacher says that all of the forms are just wrapping; you learn real Tai-chi with stuff like Tuishou wrestling, and I can see his point. You have an opponent and gain experience with every bout, where the forms are more just going through the motions, implementing the principles and ideas you’ve gleaned from other sources, rather than an end unto themselves. I experienced a whopper of a migraine this afternoon and was still reeling from it during practice, so I took it pretty easy.

The folks at Blogger have finally gotten around to a new problem reporting system, which seems to work, in that I got prompt replies to my questions, but bugs in the system are still preventing Blogger from implementing the archives for my Chinese-language blog. Hopefully they’ll figure it out before too long.

From the grocery store: “Oh, mom, not seafood again!” “Sorry, dear, I’m afraid it is.”

I went over to Darrell’s new digs in Jingmei this afternoon to do some filming. It was the first time I’d ridden my motorcycle since I rented the Hornet a few weeks ago. My bike didn’t feel so bad today; in fact it was quite pleasant if not compared to a larger, newer bike like the Hornet.

Darrell was helping me get some pick-up shots for the DVD version of Lady X (which really needs a better title…any ideas? Make it quick before I do the titles). I got some shots of Darrell’s foot tapping the bike into gear and taking off, and then we got some shots of Darrell pulling the bike away from the camera so that I can reverse the shot and make it look more like Fagan slides the bike around. Then we proceeded to get sound samples from Darrell’s FZ, since his engine sounds much nicer than mine does, and we did get some complaints from people who said the sound of my motorcycle didn’t sound “real” enough. So we’ll use sound from Darrell’s instead. I rode on the back with the camera mic pointed at the FZ’s muffler as we raced up and down the riverside roads. Darrell’s new place is really nice, right on the riverside park.

Afterwards we went inside to capture the sound samples to his computer and chatted until Judy, Darrell’s wife, got home. She reported that a tropical storm and two tropical depressions had appeared suddenly in the ocean off our coast. This would explain the dark skies and heavy rain, as well as the unusually clear and windy weather we’ve been having the past few days. Since I Had my camera with me, I decided to leave my motorcycle at Darrell’s and take the MRT home. It’s just as well; parking behind Sogo is a real bitch. It took me 20 minutes just to wrest my bike from the gaggles of scooters parked there this afternoon.

I’ve taken a few interesting pictures here and there in recent days. This one is of a vet whose upstairs neighbor has a rather unsettling name and logo. You don’t think they’re working together, do you? Nahhh….

Also a picture of some guys burning a fortune in ghost money on their doorstep. It’s too bad ghost credit cards never caught on.

I really haven’t been in the mood to post anything here lately. I was tired of whinging about the same old things. I took a look at what I was writing this time a year ago and saw that I was going through almost the same shit I’m going through now. It all just seemed pointless. Yeah, I’ve been in a funk lately, and I know that distracting myself with various superficial pleasures are stopgap measures at best. I’ve been keeping to myself lately, but today I forced myself to attend the weekly Game Club meeting at Shuangyu Cafe, and I’m glad I did, because I felt a lot better after being with other people for a while. I learned that other people have been going through some rough patches recently as well. Granted, I probably need to stop eating the same tuna sandwiches for lunch/spaghetti for dinner diet that I’ve been on for the last few months trying to save money. I did have a hamburger at Friday’s the other week, and it was actually quite good. Or at least better than tuna sandwiches, though I couldn’t eat hamburgers every day either. But something tells me that the reason for my recent plunges lies in something other than my diet.

Towards this end, I just went to www.authentichappiness.com and, ironically enough, was frustrated by the amount of “page cannot be displayed” errors in their ‘Finding Your Stengths’ test. Or perhaps that was part of the test. Maybe they were monitoring me to see how frustrated I would get. In that case, I probably shouldn’t have thrown the keyboard at the monitor quite so forcefully. I’m pretty sure that’s not a good sign. The questions were all the same kind of thing, not a test of strengths so much as a depressing list of possible character flaws. And you’re supposed to be honest in answering them, so it was all “Yeah, well, I guess I am a self-absorbed bastard with all the sensitivity of a bump in the road….check”. Repeat variations on this theme 263 times. No wonder “page could not be displayed”…probably sounds better than “You have no strengths to speak of and will not be able to acheive authentic happiness due to your shallow nature.”

In another recent bid to climb out of the inexplicable gloom I went to see Finding Nemo with Kirk the other night. It was good, but we were sitting too far back, and Kirk kept looking at messages on his phone, which was distracting. Also the subtitles were timed so that everyone laughed over the lines being read. I guess I’ll wait for the DVD.

We finished up the commercial shoot on Saturday. Da Shan’s van broke down and he had to get it fixed, so he sent his assistant in his stead. The assistant burnt out two bulbs, but Da Shan returned with more lights later on. He hadn’t gotten any sleep the night before and was really tired. The shoot went well, though. I think it should be ok. I look forward to seeing the finished product. That and getting paid will be nice, too. At least Tall Paul taught me how to stuff my shoelaces inside my shoes so as to avoid getting them caught on things. Useful safety tip.

This week’s Lady X episode has been delayed, which is disappointing. I hope we can keep it all together long enough for some publicity at least. I’ve been re-editing bits of our episodes into one film, but there’s only so much I can do in post-production. Kirk saw the new fight scene and claimed it was much better, and I’m hoping better sound effects will improve it further, though some of the problems are really unfixable. In any case, after the DVD’s done that will be it, no more screwing around with it.

I finished up with the second job and will return to my normal schedule tomorrow. As for posting, I really don’t know. I’m forecasting either a general recovery or a descent into chaos in early September. But really, you just never know.

I’m back at the Ogilvy office at the moment, back in the world of endlessly ringing, unattended phones, giggling ad execs, intercom announcements, and people running around using that odd office jog where you sort of jump high with each step but don’t actually move any faster than if you were just walking normally. In short, everyone here looks really, really busy and productive, but it’s not to see why this company hasn’t won any awards lately. They’ve become the Nike Women’s Company, and anything that doesn’t have to do with that has fallen by the wayside. Except perhaps for instant noodles.

Taipei’s been inundated by huge thundershowers for the past couple of days. Huge drops are pelting the office windows as I write this, and everything is shrouded by the rain. Even my supposedly water-resistant shoes were soaked inside and out after walking home yesterday. Granted, they are a year and a half old, which is about 87 in Sneaker Years. The weather bureau still insists that we’re in the middle of a drought, of course.

There was an earthquake last night right as I had gotten in bed. I was reading Jimmy’s latest book, “Mr. Wing”, and suddenly my room bumped up and down, as if a giant had stomped on the ground next door. I got up and looked downstairs at the people sitting around in the square, but nobody seemed to have noticed. Turns out it was a 5 in Hualian, and only a 3 here.

Today is the 15th day of the 7th lunar month, which means it’s Zhongyuan Day, the middle of Ghost Month, and everyone has set up tables full of fatty snack cookies, all with incense sticking out of them, as well as huge vats of burning ghost money, so that everyone’s dear departed ancestors can be rich and full of heavenly cholestoral, while we among living get the dubious pleasure of inhaling the resulting smoke.

I knew Zhongyuan was coming last night when I saw the huge yellow moon rising from behind the hills in Xindian. I was walking along the edge of the river down there looking at the lights and the swaths of clouds laying across the mountains. It was relatively cool after the storms, but I was still sweating.

Tomorrow is our second day of shooting the commercial. Employees will be in the office and we will probably be in their way, but such is filmmaking I guess. Some of the shots are going to be fairly challenging to do without expensive equipment, but we’ll figure something out. We always do.

Da Shan picked me up yesterday morning at 7:30 in his new van. It’s not a new van, actually, but he just bought it. It’s a Delica, just like the kind I used to drive when I was working for TVBS. Setting off early in the morning in a Delica full of Chinese co-workers and video production equipment reminded me strongly my previous life as a cameraman. Not that I would go back to that, necessarily, but I have some good memories of the days when every so often I would set out on a round-the-island trip to film, say, particularly photogenic postal routes.

The commercial shooting went pretty smoothly. The office was pretty empty so we weren’t in anyone’s way. Da Shan did his usual excellent job with lighting, though he had a few harsh words for his chatty assistant on the way back. We were able to come up with some good images. The more I use this camera the more I’m impressed with what I can do with it. Two more shoots to go and we’ll be done. I’m finishing up my second job next week, and I’ve decided to try and work things out with the apartment, since after talking with friends like Maoman who pay their rent with postdated checks, it doesn’t seem like that big a deal really.

It’s a hot Sunday afternoon, and I’m off to the Longshan Temple area with Dean, and then to B&Q to see if we can fashion a crude lathe- I mean, a crude crane for future shooting.

On my way from one job to another today, I passed two guys talking near the MRT exit. One was on a bike, and as I passed he said to the other, “Uh-pa, Uh-pa”. Up, up. I knew they were speaking what they thought was English for my benefit, as Taiwanese tend to do when they spot a ‘foreigner’, but I couldn’t understand why he was saying “up.” Then I realized he was translating the “shang” in “shang che (?ãŽÔ)”, which meant he was telling the other guy to get on the back. Yesterday as I was sitting in a park I saw two old ladies walking nearby. One old lady said to the other, “Puh-leazu”, motioning her to sit down. They glanced at me and laughed.

In other news, I’ve finally finished learning the 55-step sword form I’ve been studying for the past several months. It’s taken me a long time, probably longer than I should have taken, but I wanted to make sure I had every move down before moving on to the next. Also, due to filming I did miss several lessons. It’s nice to have the whole thing there in my head, though. Now I just need to practice the whole thing and correct all of the mistakes I’m making.

The agent called again today and said the landlord, who is in Canada, wanted 12 pre-signed checks from me for one year’s rent. The reason for this, I was told when I asked what this ancient form of currency was for, exactly, was that the landlord doesn’t trust whomever is going to rent the apartment and is afraid they will try to get by without paying rent. The landlord also wants me to pay half of the lawyer’s fees for transferring power of attourney to their relative in Taiwan so that they can sign the rental agreement for the landlord.

I really, really do not want to have to open a checking account and mail a year’s rent to this person, and I don’t see why I should have to pay for the lawyer either. I told the agent to arrange a meeting with the relative to see if we could work something out face-to-face. This is getting ridiculous.

We’re filming the first part of the commercial tomorrow morning. Da Shan is going to pick me up in his new van, and I’ll then show him how to get there. Hopefully everything will go smoothly.

I have recently found, through an exhaustive 5-minute search on Friendster via the three friends I have on there, i.e. Maoman, his wife, and Ernie, that there are no gay men in Taiwan. There seems to be a lot of ambiguous men here, but that doesn’t count.

I got a call from the realtor, from the agent who was actually in charge of that particular case. The guy I talked with before, it was explained to me, wasn’t really handling this one; he just happened to be in the office when I walked in. And he’s new. This is the reason why he claimed that I would be able to deduct my rent when reporting my taxes, and also why he claimed that I would be able to place my residency there as well. Well, he’s new.

For those of you who don’t know how these things work here in Taiwan, I’ll explain: Every citizen has a residence listed somewhere, usually either at their family’s home or where they actually live. People who rent seldom get to have their residency at the same place, however, since if they do, the place they’re living has to be classified as being rented out, which means the landlord has to pay more in taxes than if the place was listed as their own domicile. Also, the law stipulates that renters can deduct the money they spend on rent when reporting their taxes. This, of couse, results in the landlord paying more taxes. So most landlords don’t allow residency or deduction of taxes. If I were to deduct my rent, the landlord would send me the bill he or she received from the government at tax time.

This is why I was surprised when the agent said that of course I could have my residency and deduct my rent. He even showed me a sample contract and said, “It’s the law, don’t ya know?” Heh. Fucking new guy.

“What women (and, now, the gay men on “Queer Eye”) often do to their men — clean them up, domesticate them, clothe them properly, groom them, tame them — is exactly what bears resist. Go to the Dug-Out at the edge of the West Side highway in New York on a Sunday afternoon, and you’ll find a den of cheerful, frisky, thick and hairy guys, all enjoying a few beers and their own gender….Straight people love their gay people flaming, or easily cordoned off from the straight experience. Bears reveal how increasingly difficult this is. “

Exactly! Go read Andrew Sullivan’s excellent article in Salon.com about Bears. It’s amazingly refreshing to see someone write an article about gay men that so succinctly sums up my own views on the subject. Hopefully this article will make people reassess their own views on the definition of homosexuality.

I was looking at a 4th-floor apartment the other day. The apartment was nice, though I didn’t relish the idea of climbing all those steps every day. Still, I was considering it until I noticed the abandoned apartment on the first floor. Some of the windows had been boarded up, but many remained uncovered, the glass broken. The interior was a mess, but the most disturbing sight was of the blackened springs that were all that remained of the incinerated mattress. The wall and ceiling next to the bed were blackened from the smoke, contrasting with the dingy white of the rest of the room. My imagination probably made more of the strange indentations on the remains of the mattress than it merited; it was disconcerting enough as it was.

I asked some of the neighbors what had happened, but the insisted they knew nothing in an almost Sergeant Schultz-like tone, and then asked me why I would want to live in such a neighborhood. “Move somewhere else if you can afford it,” they told me.

I called the realtor. “Nobody died, really!” he insisted. Then why doesn’t the owner sell it or at least clean the place up? I asked, but the agent told me that the owner wasn’t willing to do anything with the place. He wasn’t touching it. Hmmm.

The whole situation was just a bit too spooky, so I decided to forego that particular apartment and keep looking. Eventually I did find another place, but I am still waiting for news on that front. I do realize, by the way, how superficial and pointless all this writing about my apartment-hunting on here is. But as I see it, it’s better than whining about even less tangible and more personal matters right now. I’m busy with 2.7 jobs and the computer commercial we’re shooting over the next couple of weeks in any case. Hopefully the extra income will serve to finally get me out of debt.