I splurged last night and finally went to see The Return of the King. Like the first movie, it was choppy, awkward and rushed, and will probably be much better in the extended version. Of all three movies, The Two Towers was the best experience in the theater, followed by the Return of the King, and the Fellowship of the Ring last. I was disappointed in the first movie, which redeemed itself with the extended version.

Still, the concluding part of the trilogy was a good movie in general, a real emotional rollercoaster. I almost burst into tears when the Rohirrim attacked the orc army. When the Oliphaunts came stomping up the whole theater shook, but I learned later that that was in fact an earthquake.

But I was in an awful mood as I left the theater. I yelled at the staff for turning off the credits too early, and felt terrible all the way home. For some reason Frodo’s line “…here at the end of all things” kept resonating in my head.

Today’s my last day of work, until next year sometime.

I can’t visualize next year. To me, 2004 seems like a big, irrelevant void.

I’m sure that by now all of you Alert Readers out there have noticed (yeah, right) that I’ve removed the “Sight of the Moment” link on the lower right-hand side of this page. This is because, after spending all day yesterday designing and uploading stuff, the Vidlets page is up (thanks to Simon for the name). These aren’t proper films or even proper videos, just little low-res clips I’ve taken on occasion with my little Canon digital camera, which can only take about 20 seconds of footage at a time, and cannot either zoom or change the aperature when shooting. It’s handy as I always have it on me, though, and I’ve stitched a few together, five to be exact, though I have other bits and pieces I want to put up now that I have the extra webspace, including one about people on the MRT and another down in the riverside park. “Scooter Antics” is another subject I want to pursue.

And January will be a month of free time, if nothing else. I work a couple of days next week, and then it’s Wait for The Call time, so I might as well do some writing and film stuff.

In the meantime Blogger had decided to stop publishing intelligible Chinese for some reason. Odd.

Christmas Eve was kind of depressing as I was working overtime until past 8pm, after which I was tired so I just went home and ate some pamlets while watching Episode IV on videotape. Experience the Pathetic Yet Still True Lifestyle Details of Poagao! I know.

Christmas turned out considerably better, though. Harry and James came over, and we took a hike around the area across the river, up on the hill next to Bitan where the amusement park used to be. All that’s left are some concrete pavillions, some rusted out bumber cars and a few pieces of merry-go-round. Someone had set up a little shrine for the people who died on the ferris wheel in the accident that no doubt led to the park’s abandonment over a decade ago.

I was really tired after the hike as my tonsils simply refuse to get better, so I took a nap before heading over to Darrell’s and Judy’s for their Christmas dinner party. I was in a black mood at first, but the combination of sparkling conversation, excellent food and an almost frightening array of candles cheered me up considerably. The turkey and dressing, combined with cranberry sauce, green beans and mashed potatoes with gravy were all every bit as good as I remember from Christmas meals growing up in the States.

At one point everyone started to sing Happy Birthday and I wondered briefly whose birthday it was before remembering that it was mine. Judy made a chocolate cheesecake so rich it could have fed a small third-world nation for a year. I counted the candles I had just blown out: 13. “Wow, 13 already,” I said.

“Soon you’ll start to take an interest in girls,” Darrell said.

“I was wondering when that would happen,” I replied.

We sat around and chatted about this and that, the Gallant Dogs alternating between looking desperate for the slices of apple pie in our laps and curling up on the sofa. Judy served cranberry tea, and Darrell put in “25th Hour”, a Spike Lee film, but I had to leave in order to catch the last train to Xindian.

It was a nice Christmas after all, and not a bad birthday, either.

‘Twas a weekend of Christmas parties. Saturday night I met Harry and James at Kunyang Station to go to Brett and Alan’s party out in Xizhi. We do this every year, but this time four of the guests got together to sing acapella for us in Mandarin, Taiwanese and English. It was astounding how beautifully they sounded. The food was excellent, too, including Virginia ham, a pot o’ yam stuff and cheesecake. I ate too much, of course. I’ve been getting quite a few comments about how much more ‘bearish’ I look these days (translation: I’m getting fat again). Well, that’s what New Year’s resolutions are for, right? I’ll start right after I eat everything in my refrigerator.

On Sunday Harry, Mark and I went tremple-touring again, this time to the Taiping Temple across the river near the Sandcastle. The Taiping Temple is huge, with several floors and courtyards. It’s only 30 years old, but seems much older from the amount of incense-related grime on the walls and ceilings. I took some video and pictures of it that may turn out quite nicely. Hopefully I’ll be able to gain ftp access to my new webspace (I got poagao.com, btw) soon so I can start putting up my little videos.

That night I took the train a few stops up to Jingmei for a tree-decorating get-together at Darrell’s and Judy’s place. They got one of those plastic trees that remind of the plastic tree I grew up with (my parents are still using it, I believe). It ended up looking quite nice, even if we weren’t able to string popcorn due to the presence of the dogs. We did learn how to get dogs to floss, however, and that’s always good to know. Later we watched a Very Special Muppet Christmas Darrell downloaded. Maybe on Christmas we can watch the Star Wars Christmas special. Talk about vintage holiday programming.

I’m working full time again this week, taking over for a friend at my old company. When I got there this morning I was surprised to see a line of people spilling out the doors of Warner Village, even though they weren’t due to open until much later. On a Monday, no less. I suppose they’re waiting to buy tickets to the Return of the King. I would love to see it right now, but I dislike frenzied crowds, so I’ll wait a while before I see it. Part of me doesn’t even want to see the non-extended version, but it’s a small part and easily outvoted.

Speaking of votes, I got an email, obviously part of a mass email campaign, last night from Corbett Wall of 3q2u.com. He is urging everyone to vote for his blog in the Taiwan category of the Asia Weblogs Awards:

Dear Friends,

Thanks a million in advance, and 3q3q3q2u!

Corbett sure has a shipload of friends, because he shot up to the number 1 spot almost immediately. This doesn’t surprise me at all, as it was destined to be all about who has the most friends, and not about an objective judgement of the quality of any one website. That’s just the way things work, especially on the Internet. In any case, it’s not worth losing any sleep over. I thought it was funny he would email me about it, though.

The weather today has been brilliant, in sharp contrast to the gloomy, shivering cold of the last week. Judy was nice enough to make some curtains for my bedroom, and it really makes quite a lot of difference. Namely, it’s harder to get up in the mornings as there’s much less light spilling in, but they look really spiffy.

See, isn’t this general list of mundane matters much better than me ranting about politics and giving you all upset stomachs? I figure there’s not much point in political discussion on this journal, as most of the people who read it have a hard time digesting my point of view; I’ll probably just try to keep that stuff more in the Chinese-language blog. It’s just going to get worse as we approach the elections in any case.

*’3q2u’, if the ‘3′ is read as the Chinese ’san’ comes out sounding like “Thank you to you”. I’m not sure if this constitutes being “‘thank you to you’ in Chinese”, though.

Yeah, I know, it’s awful and all, but deep down, don’t you suspect that kids who see this are going to think “My mom does that? Man, that’s so cool!” At the very least, the next time mom tells junior to clean the garage, it’ll get done, if not out of fear, out of simple, morbid curiosity about just where mom hid all the ‘unusable’ parts.

I hear the graphic is also going to be used by Dr. Laura’s Anti-furry-themed Comeback Campaign with the new title “Die Furries Die!” It’s the new economy.

In political news, I’ll skip the usual monotonous “My Taiwanese Wife Told Me Taiwanese Want Independence and I Believe Her!” and “I’m A US Citizen So I Support TI From a Safe Distance” drivel of a certain English rag here and move on to a poorly copyedited story in which Chen Shui-bian tells reporters “China missile tests are ‘an attac’” Spelling hilarity aside, I wonder what our beloved leader will be equating in the future if he continues on this trend. Here are some of my guesses:

“Monkeys are dinosaurs”

“Italians are vehicles”

“Microsoft is a pleasant-looking bit of foliage”

“Hsiao Bi-khim is mah bitch”

Well, the last one actually makes sense, so he probably won’t be saying that. Perhaps “Annette Lu is mah bitch”. Speaking of Lu, she and Chen really should get together and decide, once and for all, who is going to be playing the “good cop” and who is going to be the “mentally challenged psychotic cop”.

I helped film a corporate interview for Citibank this afternoon at the Fubon building on Renai Road. Classy offices with high-tech stainless-steel blinds, rows of white cubicles separated by doors with electronic locking devices. The audio connection but a bit dodgy and we had to refilm bits afterwards, but all in all it went smoothly enough. I wouldn’t mind doing more of this kind of work if it is profitable enough, and it seems to be, based on this experience and the work Darrell, Tall Paul, Da Shan and I did a few months ago. This time around I was just helping out Tobie, a production guy who works at ULead and does freelance stuff. Tobie also happens to be friends with a woman who just got back from filming a documentary about the Palestinians. This woman is a good friend of Peter Mah, who worked with me at the newspaper, and now has a website featuring his photography and other interesting stuff. Small world. Well, big world, small island.

I noticed on the MRT today that they’ve slowed down the English part of the station announcements, making the normally ordinary woman’s voice so lethargic it borders on androgeny. I wonder, were people complaining that she was speaking too quickly? From what I remember, the Hong Kong MTR didn’t resort to such measures. Then again, the MTR also pronounced the Cantonese names with ridiculous ‘foreign’ accents, a practice the MRT here thankfully gave up a long time ago after people like Maoman went and complained to Mayor Ma about it.

Here we go again: I am loath to turn on the TV because I know it’s going to be full of anxious-looking newscasters repeating over and over how they don’t know how much peril everyone might be in because some asshat ‘doctor’ went and infected himself with SARS. The ‘doctor’ lives in Xindian (of course), and some of my friends have been telling me not to “walk around chaotically”, but when I ask them exactly how I’m supposed to do that, they can’t exactly say. All I know is that if I am walking around and encounter members of the ‘doctor’s family who should be in quarantine but decided to go shopping instead (asshats tend to beget other asshats, says Darwin), I will put on a mask, gloves and a surgical suit before knocking them on their asses and kicking them in front of one of the many gravel trucks that frequent the Bei-yi highway. Harsh? Maybe, but I’m sure the government will help reimburse the gravel truck drivers for any damage their trucks may sustain.

Chin Heng-wei writes in an editorial in the Taipei Times entitled US won’t dare to tell Taiwan ‘no’: “If Taiwanese people seek to express their opinions through democratic procedures, will the US really dare to tell them not to do so?”

What an inane question. If Hawaii or Texas decided to hold a referendum on their independence, do you think the US would acknowledge it? The issue here isn’t actually what the US thinks of the referendum, though you wouldn’t think so by reading recent reports in the US by indignant journalists showing how ignorant they are of the situation by wondering at the hypocracy of the Bush administration for ‘refusing to free Taiwan’. The issue is whether the US will step in and help deal with the mess a referendum could create. The US wants stability in the region, and a referendum could potentially upset that peace just as effectively as a Chinese naval blockade. Even the Bush administration, one of the most pro-Taiwan administrations in years, will balk at stepping in to a military conflict it perceives as one knowingly caused by Taiwan. The likelihood of US military assistance in the case of an unprovoked attack is much higher than if the first strike, e.g. a referendum on independence which was worded so that the result must be independence. I’ve seen the way politicians manipulate polls here, and though the majority of Taiwanese support a continuance of the status quo, I believe that the DPP would word such a referendum in a way that would not allow for that choice. So much for ‘democracy’. It’s all games, especially now that elections are coming up, but Chen’s playing with fire as an obvious election trick is simply unconscionable. And the fact that the media here are spreading the myth that the US ‘doesn’t really mean’ what it says is even worse. So before all of the ABCs sitting around in Columbus, Ohio start up about how Taiwan should start a war with China over a declaration of formal independence, let me say this: if you’re not an ROC citizen living in Taiwan, I don’t care what you have to say, so save it. Write your daily letters to the TI Times instead, ok?

And you kids stay out of my yard! grumble grumble….

Wendy wrote a nice guest entry at Sour Bob today concerning people and their identities as bloggers. To be specific, how blogs only reflect certain aspects of a blogger’s life. You’d think from reading, say, Ernie’s blog, that his life was composed of constantly ensuing hilarity. I don’t know one way or the other, but I suspect from the time he spends on AIM that the hilarity doesn’t go on 24/7. But that’s cool. At least he has a boyfriend.

Likewise, many people tell me I come across completely differently in this account than I do in real life. Usually after hearing this I wonder who the hapless reader in question would prefer to hang with, TC or Poagao? I’ve been told that the stuff I write about, as well as the way I write about it are all just wrong WRONG WRONG! Other people who seem to enjoy the site would find spending time with the live version of me almost as boring as other people’s vacation pictures. I can’t say I really care because it is after all a weblog and can’t be taken seriously.

Yet people do. Against all reason, they inexplicably persist in wasting hours of their time fuming about something as vapid as the term “metrosexual”. They act as if something I wrote and didn’t even take the time to spell-check is a watershed event that alters their perception not only of me, but of life, the universe and everything. The only reason I’m writing this particular passage is that I don’t have anything to do right now. And, yes, I’m thinking about it to take my mind off how lunch is disagreeing with my stomach (Ow.)

In any case, this problem is self-resolving, as after the contents of this site piss off all my real-life friends, and all the people I’ve met online realize it’s all just smoke and mirrors, that Poagao doesn’t really exist, no one will be left to be offended. An elegant solution, if I do say so myself. Next on the agenda: World Domination!

Ok, ok, so I’m ranting. I blame Christmas. That, and the fact that this will be my 187th one on this planet. To be completely honest, I enjoy writing this account. I enjoy being able to say what’s on my mind, more or less, without having to conform to other people’s ideas of who I am or who I should be, or whether I’ll be taken the wrong way. Yeah, it’s intellectual cowardice in a way, but at least it’s not a total surrender; I’ve found that one of the worst things you can do is assume other people know you better than you can ever know yourself. Here endith the rant.

In other, non-rantworthy news, I helped Tall Paul and Darrell film the TADS production of Withnail & I last Saturday. I had never actually seen it, so I ended up winging most of the camerawork. At the very least they’ll get some sort of souvenier tape out of it. With three cameras, however, I should hope something a little more professional would result. The place was packed, and the actors did a great job. Most notably, Rowan Hunter as Withnail was amazing.

Still working on the extra webspace. I’ve been editing a few travel clips together for when I do add that section to my site. They will include mocking hikers on the hill out in back of my place, Harry and I exchanging witty banter as we cross the Xindian River on a rather small boat, a reckless dash to Wulai via motorcycle, being chased by model helicopters on my bicycle, my recent trip to Taichung, etc. They are all taken with my over-two-years-old Canon S300 digital camera, which means that they are composed of clips no longer than 20 seconds, and I can’t adjust the zoom or aperture when the thing is taking video. They’re also only an eensy 120×160 pixels in size. I checked out Canon’s latest offerings at Fnac (which, I’ve learned, is French for ‘phlegmy sneeze’*) the other day, and found that the S400 has almost the same lack of capabilities in this respect. In fact, the only improvement I could see was higher resolution. The 2.1 megapixels I have now are perfectly adequate for now in any case. The 20-second limit may well have something to do with the memory card size (128Mb), and it’s no big deal to work around. The movie function does sap battery power, however, so while lengths will vary, none of these things are going to be very long. You’re welcome.

It’s sunny these days, but another cold front is on its way, threatening to take us into single-digit temperatures just before Christmas. No doubt my current throat infection will be happy to hear this. Granted, I’m talking centigrade single digits, but hey, I was raised in sweltry southern climes.

*Fnac actually stands for ‘Fonds national d’art contemporain’, which Google translates as “the sound a French person makes when dismissing U.S. economic policies.” I knew it!

The Asian Weblog Awards saga continues: Seems some of the folks at the Rice Bowl Journals got miffed that there were white people allowed in the contest, and one even (gasp!) running it. I was thinking of joining RBJ to comment, but I can’t join as they don’t allow people of my race. It’s no big deal, as I don’t really need to join another online community, and I’m already a part of some others, both in English and Chinese. I do find it odd that they claim to be an “Asian Online Journal Community,” and feature threads about racism and how awful it is, but I suppose any community is going to have different elements. I’ll never know about this one in particular, because even though I am a Taiwanese citizen, a member of the ROC military reserves, speak fluent Mandarin, and hold no foreign passports, I’m not “Asian” enough to join. Not that I’d fit in if I did join, as I know next to nothing about life in California and wouldn’t know what to talk about.

In other news, Chen Shui-bian has picked Annette “Brad” Lu as his runningmate again, only a matter of days after she spouted off about confining all the AIDS patients as punishment for their behavior. Sometimes I think Chen picks his agenda for the day out of a hat at the bottom of his staircase. Maybe he’ll do something stupid, or maybe he’ll do something clever. Or maybe he won’t do anything at all except smile and refer to himself in the third person a lot! I smell a reality show here somewhere.

I’ve just finished three days at my old company, the money from which will come in useful as my publisher told me today that I won’t see any royalties until March. I still have another week there, the week of Christmas of course. They’ve done the entire Xinyi district up with cheezy Xmas decorations and play stilted Christmas songs over the intercoms. It’s rather cruel, actually. I can only imagine the kind of mental damage the employees who work there all day are sustaining. With the construction of yet another Mitsukoshi Department store, the district has taken one more step closer to becoming a giant mall. Picture your average western mall, take away any element that might attract anyone with testicles, and you have the Xinyi Shopping district.

I’m just about out of space on my regular hosting plan, so I need to decide whether to upgrade my hosting plan or obtain space elsewhere. What I want to do is a page of little travel videos taken on my little Canon digital camera. Each one would be a few megabytes in size, most likely in Quicktime format. I just have to figure out what would cost the least amount of money and still work. In the meantime, it’s supposed to get down to 10 degrees Centigrade tonight, which is cold for Taiwan. Definitely staying-in-and-fiddling-with-your-website weather.

(Update: I’ve added a few pictures from my little jaunt to Taichung)

I’m back in Taipei after three days in Taichung over the weekend. I know, it’s been several days, but for some reason I still don’t feel like I’m really back. For one thing, I’m filling in for someone at my old company for a few days. For another, I’m still sick. This tonsilitis/cold/flu/whatever just won’t go away. Every time I think it’s gone, it just comes back. I’ve been sick with this shit on and off for over a month. From the sniffling and coughing sounds going on around me, mixed with the usual ringtones of abandoned cell-phones and pretentious, English-ridden conversations, everyone here is sick as well.

I had to get out of Taipei for a while in any case due to the heat I’ve been taking for wondering if I should put a Paypal link on my site. Hundreds of emails have been pouring in telling me what an awful person I am. People were stopping me on the street and saying, “Hey, you’re that scumbag who thought he could get away with putting a Paypal link on his site! Man, I’d clock you but you’d probably just blog it and get more hits.” The library canceled my card, and a few nights ago Luo Fu-chu even phoned and called me an “immoral extortionist”.

Thus, I’ve decided that I shouldn’t lower myself to the level of those money-grubbing hacks with their donation buttons, wishlists and other tools o’ Satan, so I nixed the whole donation idea. If you really, really want to donate, just send me money in an anonymous wooden box. Small, mixed bills, please.

I’m glad I got out of town, though. Taichung has a whole different feel from Taipei, and it is, after all, the first place I lived in Taiwan, so long ago, so I hopped on a train there on Friday afternoon. I didn’t reserve a seat and ended up sitting in a crowded doorway along with 12 other people all the way down. My old friend Lai Yuan-ming was still working at his factory, which makes steel parts for something or another, so I strolled down to the Taichung Park to pass the time until he got off and could come get me. The streets were oddly deserted, especially for a Friday night. Downtown was far less bustling than I remembered from my college days. As I sat in the park I held a little conversation with myself from a decade and a half ago, summing up what lay in store for that young man, newly arrived in Taiwan. It wasn’t a bad tale, I decided. I’ve done some interesting shit in the time since my arrival, and I’d like to think that my former self would be impressed and encouraged by such prospects.*

Later on, Yuan-ming picked me up and took me out for hot pot with some other old friends. The hotpot was pretty bad, as they didn’t have the little fish dumplings I like so much in hotpot, and the meat wasn’t too fresh, but the company made up for it. I don’t get down to Taichung often, but whenever I do, I wonder what it would be like to live there again. Things got pretty bad there for a while, gangster-wise, but the situation seems to be shaping up lately. The streets are cleaner, there are more infrastructure improvements, and rents are still far cheaper than anything in Taipei.

The next day, Saturday, I borrowed Yuan-ming’s scooter and rode up to Tunghai, my old campus. When I first went there it was located a long ways out of town, but the city has grown around and past it, so things are a lot busier up there these days. I discovered the newly constructed Taichung Municipal Park on top of the ridge of hills that stand between the city and the ocean. When I was in school I would ride my motorcycle out there and watch the air force jets come in for landings at the base in the valley below. The ridge is still dotted with Japanese-built bunkers, which remain throughout the park, giving it an odd, incongruous feel. The bunkers cover a network of tunnels I used to go explore on occasion. Theoretically they’re still military property, but you hardly ever seem military personnel using them.

They’ve built a lot of new buildings on the Tunghai campus, including new dorms that resemble hotels, contrasting sharply with the old Tang-dynasty style hovels that I lived in for three semesters. The city has a plan to link Zhonggang Road on one side of the campus with the industrial park on the other side, a plan that would result in destroying the Luce Chapel, an architectural landmark designed by I.M. Pei, and effectively splitting the lovely campus in two. Bastards. I hope they don’t go through with it.

Night was falling as I proceeded back down Zhonggang Road to the city. At the campus gate traffic stopped as people gawked at a light-blue Citroen trying to do doughnuts for several minutes. The French car slewed around and around several times, its tires screeching and smoking, before deciding to depart. Traffic then went on as usual.

On Sunday morning I met Yuan-ming’s neighbor, who has a bolt shop next door. He had a 1300cc Honda CBR he was going to buy, and he let me ride it around. Man, that thing is a monster. The acceleration is frightening even at low revs, and the brakes impressive for such a large bike. As I waited for the light at Le-ye Road, another large motorcycle drove by, its rider waving at me as he passed. Apparently there’s a real cameraderie among large motercycle riders. As much as I enjoyed riding the beast, I still think it’s far too large for Taiwanese roads. I’d prefer something in the 400-600cc range myself. Like that’s going to happen.

Later that day I joined Yuan-ming and his family on a trip out to the countryside where our mutual friend, Ah-mu, had just finished building a house on part of their family’s rice fields. The house looks like a miniature version of the presidential palace in Taipei, and is divided into two halves for two family groups. It is also located on a bicycle trail full of weekend cyclers who glared at us as we drove up. Ah-mu greeted us and showed us around. His bedroom suite is the best part of the house. His bathroom along is about the size of my bedroom and so filled with plants it resembles a jungle. Not bad for a wood carver. After showing us around, Ah-mu indulged his latest passion by brewing coffee for us while we chatted with his family. My Taiwanese is so poor I only understood half of what was being said. God, I’m lazy. Perhaps if I had stayed in Taichung my Taiwanese would be a lot better. Ah-mu showed us his dog, a Husky that scared all the kids and tried to mate with the leg of anyone who approached it, and then we were on our way back to Taichung for more hotpot, a good, home-brewed one this time.

On Monday morning I caught a ride with Yuan-ming out to Tiger City, one of the new malls that are sprouting up all over the place these days. It was closed, but I got to walk though some nice neighborhoods, two-story houses on quiet streets and near open canals that didn’t smell too badly, on my way back to the train station. I wasn’t fast enough, though, and had to catch the next train back to Taipei. Perhaps it was my subconscious wish to stay in Taichung.

In other news, Flying Chair is holding an Asian Weblog contest, and he’s already having trouble with asshats going in and screwing with the voting. Shades of the Lady X voting disaster. To quote Phil: “The other problem I am dealing with now is people asking to be removed from the list because of some of the incredibly nasty things that people are writing about other nominees.”

How can people be so petty? They’re weblogs, fer cryin’ out tears! Why take them so seriously? I swear, half of my friends take this blog much, much more seriously than I do. Yeah, before you ask, my blogs are up there in the Taiwanese weblog category and Asian-language-as-second-language category, but I don’t honestly care much if I “win” or not. They’re blogs, people. Have fun with them, but don’t think they’re deeply reflective mirrors of various bloggers’ souls. Sheesh. Vote or not, it’s up to you, but it’s still a good way to find other interesting websites, all categorized by region.

Oh, we just had a little earthquake. The lights here were swinging rather violently (we’re on the 10th floor). Since we’re located right next to Taipei101, I went to the window to see how it was weathering the quake. Apart from a slight movement of the crane cables at the top, there was nothing. Seems like that big steel dampener they have up there is doing its job.

*Of course, my former self would more likely say something like “What? You’re not a globe-trotting billionaire with several top-selling movies and books to your credit? And you’re almost 35? What a loser!” Then I would punch myself.