How does Ev pick the “Blogs of Note”? Is it just him doing the choosing, or is there a panel or something? Ah, to hell with it. With this design(or lack thereof), I doubt this site will ever get on that list.

Eve likes my bubbles. *Warm, fuzzy feeling*

For some reason, whatever window I’m working in is shutting itself every few seconds. This is, needless to say, too annoying for words. Hmmm. “Needless To Say” and “Too Annoying for Words” are two good names for some of the blogs I’ve seen recently.

I finally bought a digital camera. Hopefully I will be able to catch more interesting things now.

Yesterday Kirk and I went to see “The Mummy Returns”. I know, it was almost guaranteed to suck, but I had been all charged up by the scenes in the preview of Oded Fehr. The second half of the film was pretty good, though. Just took it a while to get on track.

Bret’s party was last night. A nice, enjoyable little get-together out at his and Allen’s idyllic apartment out in Hsichih. I met some interesting people, but I probably stayed too long, as I was one of the last to leave. There were a couple of foreigners who didn’t seem to want to acknowlege my existance. One of them had just gotten his permanent residency. It seems that less than 300 foreigners have done that since the rules were changed a couple of years ago. It’ll catch on, though. Opium did.

I would write more but this window-closing thing is just too frustrating.

And to think I skipped sword practice to go to a free dinner at the company’s expense at a high-class Japanese restaurant. It wasn’t a complete waste of time, however. At the company meeting awards in the form of bottles of wine are handed out (that’s nice: “You did a good job! Now go drink yourself under the table.”), we saw a video of our God Ogilvy telling us from beyond the grave that we shouldn’t use celebrities for product endorsement. I agree.

After the meeting I packed up and headed over to the Asiaworld Dept Store, where the Japanese restaurant was located. The wind was really picking up; I could feel it pushing the bike as I rode, but the sky was a beautiful, deep blue as the sun set. When I got to the restaurant, I went to the back partition that had been reserved for our little get-together, but there were only a few people sitting there, and I didn’t recognize any of them, so I chose a seat and started eating.

Gradually, people began to arrive, in groups or three or more. I was trying to be polite and didn’t take out a book to read as I ate like I usually do, but for whatever reason, I was projecting some sort of repulsion field, and no one sat at the table I was at. Pretty soon the place was filled up, but my table was still empty. One of the HR people, Micki, sentenced one guy to sit at my table, but he didn’t say a word the whole time he was there.

The food was pretty good, and I heard that it was supposed to be quite expensive. It was one of those help-yourself deals, and I pigged out on raw tuna and watermelon juice. One of the servers was this beefy-looking guy with short hair, wearing a sleeveless shirt. I had to try to keep from staring at him the whole time (I didn’t have much else to do, actually).

I was waiting in line to get some seaweed rolls(like ice cream cones, but with rice and shrimp wrapped in seaweed), and when I got to the counter, it was like I became invisible. The woman at the counter looked right through me, as if I wasn’t there. She looked around, arranged a few things and then left. When she came back, I apparently still wasn’t to be seen. Only when someone else came up did she come to life, asking them “What kind of seaweed roll would you like?”

I don’t do this on purpose; it just happens. People walking along the street don’t see me and walk right into me, or back into me, all the time. My friend Mindcrime calls it ‘blinking’, when all of the sudden, I am just not there. I don’t show up on people’s internal ‘existance-meters’ or whatever they are. This is just one of the reasons I would be a very good spy. There are other reasons, but I can’t tell you what they are.

Chebi is now a full-fledged typhoon, but it looks like it is going to pass south of us and just give us some rain and wind to play with.

Apparently I have a Bacon score of 3. But then again, I’m pretty sure the ‘Jani-king!’ guy does too.

The guy who has the office behind me has been on the phone, yelling, pounding his desk and swearing at the person on the other end. It would seem that my influence is spreading.

It’s nice, sunny and hot today, but Typhoon Chebi is forming out east of the Philippines, the second one of the season. That could put a dent into the Dragon Boat festivities if it heads this way. I may regret saying this, but who can be afraid of anything called ‘Chebi’? It sounds like the name of the fire-engine red pedal-driven car I had when I was a kid. No, wait, that was ‘Chubby.’ I had a Chubby when I was 2, thank you very much.

I’m going to meet up with some other News veterans at The Tavern tonight if anyone is interested. I’ll even bring some of my T-shirts to sweeten the deal. Just think: you could meet me in person! Then I can shatter all of your lofty expectations for the low-low price of one Rum and Coke!

Actually, last night when I was over at Dean’s watching TV, I met a guy who only knew me from reading this site. “Hey, you’re the guy with the Web site,” he said as he shook my hand, this perfect stranger who probably knows a lot more about me than I know about him. I hope to meet more people like that in the future.

A little note about how to pronounce Poagao: It’s Pwah-gow, with the emphasis on the Pwah. Ok? Now you know how to say ‘Happy Monkey’ in Fukienese! Quick! Go to a Taiwanese restaurant and awe your friends with your mastery of the language!

You: Yes, I’d like the ‘Happy Monkey Brains’ please. With extra soy sauce.

Waiter: I’m callin’ the cops.

I saw a reference to Epinions the other day. Curious as always, I clicked on the link and my screen was immediately overwhelmed by several thousand pop-up ads. Kids, don’t try this at home.

I had lunch with my boss today. I was complaining that people weren’t learning from the instructional e-mails I send now and then, and she replied by saying “You can’t expect people to learn things right away. We keep telling you to get to work on time, but you’re still always late.”

Oops. I guess they noticed more than I thought they did. My grandma used to tell me I ran on Indian Time, by which she meant I was never on time for anything. I was late for my first class in college, the last class in college, and most everything in between. I was even born a month early: I was supposed to be a January baby, but I was sitting around the womb, which back then didn’t even have Internet access. So I was pretty bored, and I thought to myself, Lessee, what can I give my parents for Christmas?

The guy who takes the garbage from our bathrooms here wears a vest which has “Jani-king! Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore” written on the back of it. Wow. They really go all out!

My cold is a lot better, but I sure picked the wrong can of pea soup to mess with last night. I don’t think my stomach will ever let me near the “Dodgy Imported German Soup” section of the store again. My cold is probably still there; it’s just been overshadowed for the moment. Being dizzy from taking cold medicine has a distinct disadvantage, however: I can no longer tell whether I am experiencing an earthquake at any given moment.

A friend of mine who started work here the same day as I did but was later fired for not living up to his boss’ social expectations sent me some extremely disgusting pictures, with his comment: “Can this be for real?” He is always ccing stuff to me, but this has got to be a record. I’m not going to publish them here, but if you want to see them, let me know and I’ll email them to you.

Fun with Google: Can you type your name into the Google search window and find yourself within a reasonable number of links? My friend Clar can. So can Shawn. I can’t, at least not with my real name. “Poagao” will do it, though. A search for the name of my older brother Kevin (who does actually play flute) gets this page. My older sister Leslie’s name alone doesn’t find anything, but add Oklahoma to the search, and you get this rather frightening site.

I wish I could find a decent, plain sword. All the ones I find (and have) look like these. I don’t need all the frills, just a good, plain, honest sword would be fine. Something with some weight and good balance.

We are going to start learning another form this Friday, as well as reviewing the last form we learned. There is one guy there that the teacher has her eye on for competition in the future. She even offered to let him change his residency to Taipei so that he could join the competition. When the teachers talk about us joining competitions, I hope they don’t include me. I don’t want this to be about competition. Last practice went really well, I thought. I wonder if the other students look down on me because of my lack of a background in Tai-chi chuan (I studied Shaolin, not Tai-chi quan, way before starting Tai-chi sword, which is technically a no-no, but I just really like sword). I guess it doesn’t matter. I’m not doing it for them, either. I just like sword.

Let’s all sing along with Zheng Zhi-hua! Actually, I shouldn’t, not with a sore throat. You go ahead.

In addition to a sore throat, I also have a nasty gash on the inside of my lip where I bit it repeatedly at lunch today. I was stooped over a bowl of dry noodles at my usual lunchtime venue when I accidentally chomped into my lip. I froze, an expression of exquisite anguish on my face, my eyes screwed shut. For some reason, over the course of the meal this happened several times. One time I opened my eyes to find several other patrons eying me suspiciously as they ordered, probably wondering if they should perhaps eat elsewhere or at least avoid the dry noodles.

I’ve stumbled upon another cool website, the world wide jeb. I say stumbled because that’s usually the way I find these sites. There’s no real directory for weblogs and the like, unfortunately, so I just follows links to links to other links, and usually find something interesting eventually. Jeb has a great sense of humor (unless he’s serious, in which case I am completely lost).

It wasn’t raining too hard when I got off work so I ended up riding home after all. My motorcycle smokes a lot less now, so I can remain relatively guilt-free when I pass people, since I am not leaving them engulfed in a thick, almost cartoon-like cloud of 2-stroke smoke.

I still don’t feel well, but I came to work today. Of course, all of yesterday’s work was here, waiting for me, along with today’s work.Now it is raining and I have to leave my bike here at the office, walk over to the MRT station, take the crowded MRT to the Technology Building stop, and then walk a few city blocks home. Just the thing for a lingering cold.

I was trying to rip off a sheet of paper from a notepad with one hand earlier today, and, of course, I ended up spraying loose sheets of paper in the air around my cubicle. To my surprise, one of the guys in the office next to me came out and yelled at me. “You think you’re the only one in the office to loose their temper? We all have tempers, you know!”

I just stared and said “Huh?”

“Look, it’s ok if you don’t like me playing music in my office, but you could tell me. You didn’t have do that!” Only then did I notice that he had the stereo in his office on.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I said. “I was listening to my walkman, I couldn’t hear your music. I just tried to rip a sheet of paper off the pad with one hand is all.”

A look of understanding some over this features. “Oh. Sorry,” he said as went back into his office. People have the hardest time telling when I am pissed off and when I’m not.

As I was walking down an alley at lunch, I noticed a woman on a scooter driving towards me, talking loudly and gesturing with both hands while she somehow managed to steer. It turns out that she had one of those helmet microphones for her cell phone. I think she is taking the term ‘hands-free’ a little too seriously.

I could be wrong, though. She could just be deranged and schizophrenic. That’s the thing about handless mobile phones these days; I can’t tell who’s crazy any more.

Sick today. Sore throat, drippy, swollen sinuses, headache and general fatigue. Probably too much sun, surf and running around in the rain followed by the air-conditioned MRT ride back from Tamshui. Being at sick at home is slightly better than being sick at work, since I can try to ignore the sounds of the ongoing construction upstairs and take a nap.

Steve, Harry and I did actually get to eat at Tequila Sunrise yesterday, because they had opened up another room to accomodate their weekend crowd. The food was ok, small amounts of nothing special. But at least it was a change of pace from my usual fare. Steve lent me some more CDs and gave me a picture from our Kuanyin Mountain hike, in which I look very, uh, chunky.

I noticed the other night when I was walking around the old part of town that they have spruced up the North Gate. In case you didn’t know, Taipei was originally a walled city with five gates, four of which are still standing(the Japanese tore down the West Gate during their occupation. They were going to tear them all down but there was such a protest they decided to leave the rest them standing). The North Gate is a large, red edifice about two blocks west of the train station. I walked through it and around it, taking some pictures and imagining what it was like back when it was part of the city’s defenses, when walking though it one entered the city proper. The other remaining gate are the East Gate, in front of the KMT headquarters, the South Gate and the Little South Gate, which has an MRT stop named after it.

A friend of mine from the News who lives in Taichung emailed me and wondered if I would be interested in working on a Taipei version of his magazine, which is based in Taichung and concerns the lifestyle there. I might be switching to a part-time job in the fall anyway to work more on my book, so this is definitely a possibility, certainly more interesting than my job now.

I learned recently from a friend that the Taipei Times published an interview which never actually happened. This is amazing. They called up a certain government agency and told them to have one of their staff make up an interview for them. This kind of deception on the part of the Times doesn’t surprise me, though, I have to say. It’s just pitiful that they would stoop so low.

The room of the guy next door to me actually got trashed a lot worse than mine. Apparently he hadn’t weighted down the bottom sections of his cabinet/shelves and the whole thing toppled over. Another important earthquake tip, kids. Always anchor your furniture.

Since my motorcycle’s engine is being overhauled, the repair shop guy lent me one of his scooters. I realize that scooters, with their maneuverability, usability and sheer panache are almost perfectly suited to Taiwanese streets, but I still can’t get rid of the feeling that I am sitting on a chair with wheels, not unlike my office chair. The basket on the front(of the scooter) doesn’t help, either. Initial acceleration is good, of course, and helpful for squirting around town, but after that first rush there’s nothing to work with, and the thing tops out around 80 kph.

I have spent the greater part of today staring with open-mouthed, saliva-dripping admiration at the site of the Photo Dude. Both his web design and his photographic eye are outstanding. Puts this site to shame, really, but then again, most sites do that. But unlike most sites, this one has gotten me to seriously consider buying a digital camera.

Another unique site I stumbled across is the Tinyblog. What I find unusual about the Tinyblog is that I enjoy most of the sites it links to. “Wow, this one’s good, too!” I kept saying to myself as I went through all of the sites on the list. Where are all of these amazing sites, you ask? Well, I would tell you but you don’t exist, since nobody reads this site.

Ha ha! Just trying to get you to doubt your own existance. Seriously, though, I have to read through them in order to tell whether they really hold my interest.

The Tinyblog reviews weblogs as well, but in a rather more serious tone than Blog You! , which I actually find a lot more entertaining because Tom and Ed are just so outrageous in their reviews.

My cyborg name, according to this site:

P.O.A.G.A.O.: Positronic Obedient Android Generated for Assassination and Observation.

Apparently I Assassinate first and Observe later. I guess that’s a pretty fair description of me. I don’t know about the ‘Obedient’ part, though.

A tip for those who live in earthquake-prone areas: Don’t buy a large can of “Raid” roach spray and store it on a high shelf in your bathroom, just above your dirty laundry basket. There is a high probability that the can will fall off in the event of a quake and break the top off, so that the entire contents of the roach spray will be emptied all over your bathroom, including your clothes and your toothbrush. So, if you don’t want to go around smelling like you live in a roach motel, put your roach spray somewhere relatively near the floor. It’s probably too heavy for the roaches to carry off, unless you live in either Taiwan or Florida.

Luckily, my computer didn’t fall off the table, or I wouldn’t be typing to you right now. My books and CDs, however, were thrown off the shelves by the quake. One CD cover was actually taken out of the jewel case, if you can imagine that. And clothes, boxes and papers were strewn everywhere…oh, wait, it was like that before the quake. Oh, well. The point is, everything still works except for the roach spray.