Last night after work I accompanied a few of my co-workers, including my chunky cubicle-mates Kit and Bochuan, up to the rooftop gardens and wishing well. The weather was nice, and we could watch the sunset reflected off of nearby office buildings as we sat and chatted about earthquakes and the upcoming company trip. We were pondering which destinations we would be offered. There was one package to Greece and one to Bali, but both apparently have been cancelled for some reason. I’ll probably go for the cheapest trip off the island, whatever that is.

Vampire Music of The Day: Polka!

Last night, Ben and I determined, while simultaneously watching fat American tourists waddle around rumbling SUVs driving down Bourbon Street via webcam (viva technology!), that my turtles are all Red-eared Sliders, aka Trachemys Scripta Elegans or “Dimestore Turtles” because they are so common. I bought a couple of fish to put in the plastic box with Office Turtle today. He can play hide-and-seek with them if he gets bored, or eat them if he gets hungry, whatever. Ben is considering getting an office turtle of his own, since his office is the spitting image of Neo’s from the Matrix and a turtle might just liven things up around there.

Tonight I have to go over to ICRT to help out with the interview some more before it’s done. It should be interesting to see their new downtown offices, which are over near the Xingtian Temple. The last time I was at ICRT was several years ago when they were still way up on Yangmingshan. Hopefully their digs have improved since then, even if their programming still occasionally leaves something to be desired (hey, they interviewed me; how much class could they have after all?).

Tomorrow, being Labor Day here, is a holiday. That always struck me as somewhat oxymoronic, but I’m not one to question any day off, no matter its origins. I had actually forgotten all about it until it came up during a phone call. I suppose I should actually plan to do something. Maybe I’ll go around and collect pictures of Stupid Scooter Slogans. I’ve been fooling around with the idea of a section of my site dedicated to this endlessly entertaining phenomenon. Certainly there is no lack of material; it would even be interesting fodder for a coffee-table book if I weren’t sure that Kymco would send its thugs after me with large, greasy wrenches.

I’m much too sore after having so little fun over the weekend. Saturday I stayed at home doing things so meaningless I cannot even remember what they were. Watched Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, which was one of the stupidest movies I’ve ever seen, but had me laughing pretty hard nonetheless. I also watched Heat, which was awful. It was all I could do to bother watching the ending. Full of meaningless shots, bad editing, shallow acting and piss-poor direction if any at all, it was quite a disappointment.

Then, fed up with all of this meaninglessness, I went outside for some Aimless Meandering. I ended up at DV8 to chat about putting on a stage version of a Star Trek episode with Alien, Paul and Dean. Half of the tables had been moved out into the empty lot next door where a group of foreigners was having a little barbeque/fireworks-themed gathering. I don’t like DV8, I have to say. It was ok back in the good ol’ days when Seamus was the DJ, but there’s really no reason to go there anymore. Peso is much better, or at least it was the last time I went, which was months ago. I don’t even know if it’s still open.

With half of the tables gone, the place felt like a rat-infested warehouse, almost totally devoid of character. I think our moods suited the atmosphere as well. Dean regaled us with tales of Bar Fights Old and New, and a curly-headed Canadian fellow tried to convince me that his level of consciousness was superior to everyone else because he hadn’t gotten married, and that cell phones are inherently evil. I had to disagree with him on the second point since I adhere to the “Cell Phones don’t Annoy People; People Annoy People” doctrine. In other words, not a lot of Star Trek-related business was taken care of. We’re looking at maybe doing Journey to Babel.

Yesterday, Sunday, I spent a few hours making several final edits in the Damn Book before being seduced by the wonderfully sunny day outside. I walked down to the Gongguan MRT station and took the subway to Jingmei, where I thought I might scope out the housing situation there, since it’s next to a mountain park area but has lots of restaurants and stores as well. I soon found that there’s only one real estate agency there, and it just opened two days ago. The agent showed me a couple of small, windowless rooms for more than I am paying now, and I concluded that I wouldn’t be actually saving money by living in that area, so why bother? If I’m going to move out of downtown, I might as well go all the way out to Danshui, Beitou or Xindian. Otherwise, I might as well just stay in the city and look for a place on a quiet alley near one of those small parks. It will be a long, slow search, methinks. Which is ok, as I’m not having too terrible a time where I am now.

I picked up a bottle of wine and went home to change before I went to sword practice. I keep meaning to stop attending, but there always seems to be something keeping me coming back. I would also like to start studying pushing-hand techniques or other styles as well. Our bearded lawyer friend Brian Kennedy wrote an article about foreigners studying martial arts in Taiwan that includes some quotes from me, but I have no idea if or when it will be published. The CTS TV news piece was on Sunday night. My Japanese roomie and I watched it in our living room, and then when I went downstairs the old doorman told me that he had seen it as well. He was all smiles as he described his surprise to see me stuttering for the camera. I’m glad he enjoyed it, though.

In other media, the ICRT interview is proceeding as planned. Jeff Steele, who interviewed me over the phone, picked up a cassette tape I made when I was in the army with my Walkman and a microphone. Listening to it the past couple of days has made me more than a little nostalgic for my time in the army. I made most of the recordings from my bunk, around Taps, when the older soldiers would give us rookies a piece of their minds, and Reville, when the summertime cicadas and birds were just waking up. I miss it, actually. More than that, I miss me, me at that time. Sometimes I think the army was the end of my youth.

Perhaps that is one of the reasons I just want to get the Damn Book published and done with; it’s time I moved on to other things. I need to decide which local publisher to go with: Asian Culture or Defense Technology. The former has a broader base and more publishing experience, while the latter has a (probably) better understanding of the book’s contents. Part of me, quite a lot of me, actually, just wants to be rid of the thing. But I also want to get as much as I can out of it before I do so.

All the Audiogalaxy-inspired bouncing about me abode, the long treks around Jingmei and other nearby environs, and finally sword practice conspired to make waking up this morning more than a little uncomfortable. Luckily I found some analgesic cream in the medicine cabinet, so that I can smell funny as well as move funny. If you’re going to be sore, you might as well go all out.

The venue for last night’s gathering of Oriented folk was Champagne, a suitably classy setup on Anhe Road. As usual, I was one of the first to arrive, despite the fact that I had been purposely loitering around the neighborhood in order to be late. Mingson greeted me at the door, and I stuck a nametag on my shirt in the naive belief that others would follow my example. Familiar faces began to show up, including those of such Oriented celebrities as “Alien”, “Maoman”, “Juba” and “Cranky Laowai”. The more I think about it, the more these names sound like hackers or villains from old Dick Tracy comics.

The place quickly got crowded, but since most people weren’t revealing their secret identities, I couldn’t tell if they were frequent posters or just the usual voyeurs. Alien was mutter her opinion that they were mostly of the latter sort when her Scottish pal Rowen showed up. I was on foot so I’d been drinking a bit as I scavenged for the little sandwiches hidden like Easter eggs around the room.

Eventually Alien and Rowen decided to go to Watersheds, so I tagged along, drunkenly unaware that I had forgotten my hat at Champagne, so I had to go back for it. I had a “Mudslide” for the first time at Watersheds, which was typically too small but rather empty. we discussed a production of the Maltese Falcon and other theatrical things. At about midnight my companions were planning to stagger over to Carnegie, but I elected to stagger home instead. It was a fun evening, but faced with getting online and blogging about it or falling into bed, I chose the latter.

Today was uneventful. Boring work, misty dark weather, meetings where managers dissect all the life out of our work…happily I had Office Turtle around to entertain me by helping me type and even giving a TV interview to my Mr. Cameraman, who, by the way, is standing atop a printout of the Damn Book.

Anyway, it’s now Friday night and I’m off, released to wander this gloomy city alone…*puts on moody 30’s detective movie music*

I left work a bit early yesterday in order to make it to an editing test at the Ministry of Truth. The truth is, I have to admit, that even if they offer me that particular job I am not sure I would take it, since it would involve a rather stressful working environment. But I sent in my resume anyway, and then they wanted me to take the translation test, so I thought I would at least give it a shot. I didn’t prepare at all for it. I was even a few minutes late, since the MRT stop was a little further away from the place than I had remembered. The test consisted of two news stories and a speech to translate. The speech had an English translation already to use as a guide, but it was so poorly written I found it quicker to just re-translate from the Chinese. And then there was an essay question for which I simply wrote the equivalent of a ranting blog entry for an answer.

There were four other guys in the testing room, all white, all about my age. Sean Scanlan, co-organizer of the Urban Nomad Film Festival, was there, complaining about the simplified characters in the dictionaries they provided us. Two of the other guys asked me if I was me; one of them knew Ronnie, with whom I worked at the newspaper so long ago, and the other had seen me on Oriented.

Speaking of Oriented, their happy hour is tonight, at some no-doubt trendy enclave on An-he Road. I didn’t ride my motorcycle today due to the weather, so I will probably just walk over. It’s only a few blocks from here, and I have an hour after I get off work to get there, and I like walking through this city. I’m constantly discovering little bits of it, hidden alleys and corner parks that I’ve never come across before.

This morning, since I was late for work as usual, I took a taxi instead of the MRT. I was taking pictures out the window of interesting sights along the way, such as the “USA English School“, where USA stands for “Ubanity, Sagacity and Ardency” of all things. On the way I spotted a couple driving a black Mercedes-benz in the next lane. The woman was in the passenger seat, and the man was driving, but all of his attention was focused not on the road, but on his PDA, which he was manipulating with his stylus as we rushed down Xinyi Road in morning traffic. Not once did he look up, and eventually I overcame my surprise and took a blurry picture of the guy with my camera. Perhaps Mercedes has come up with a way to drive with your PDA, using the stylus to map out your course with a virtual representation of the road ahead on the little gray screen. But I doubt it. Odds are, in reality, that the driver was just ignorant. Anyone who drives can tell you that benzes and BMWs are often driven by the worst, most idiotic drivers. I suppose that is why they have to incorporate so many safety systems, so that they can survive the inevitable crash and sue the poor person they ran into while checking their stock portfolios at 60 mph. Idiots like that make me want to move out of the city altogether and take the MRT everywhere I go.

After I got to work I got a call from Lynn, who acted in A Man for All Seasons with me last summer. She has become a Buddhist nun, shaving her head and donning the gray robes nuns here wear for shopping and other duties, and she now works for Bookman Publishing. They had received my proposal and were wondering if I had a translation ready. For some reason, a lot of people have proposed doing a bi-lingual version of the Damn Book, with English on one side and Chinese on the other. I am opposed to this for several reasons, including the fact that it is not a textbook, and also, since there are some things that would not make it into the Chinese version, the versions would not match up. Such a book would also attract a different crowd, not necessarily the one I am aiming for, and while I could charge a bit more for each book, the printing costs would be double. It just wouldn’t make sense.

One year ago, I began blogging here with these few entries. Since then I’ve gone to Australia, met new friends, finished my book and gained a noticable amount of weight. In celebration of this momentous event, instead of just going to bed like I usually do, I wrote a new edition of the News from the Renegade Province for all of you.

Also for your entertainment:

Bloodgolf! These ladies are still ready for a few rounds, even after that encounter with the leopards on the 17th fairway.

Bizarre Drinks with Cannibalistic Overtones! Not just cannibalism, mind you, but blonde cannibalism. I can’t decide whether that makes it worse or better.

Manboy! Just the scooter for those people who just can’t make up their minds,

And finally, Sparkling Scooter! Or not.

Office Turtle was awfully lazy today, just lying around on his rock. I was a bit concerned until I looked it up online and found that “yes, turtles do sit around on rocks a lot. In fact, that’s just about all they do, so don’t expect so much, you pathetic wannabe catowner.” Or words to that effect.

This afternoon I had a phone interview with the reporter from ICRT. It seemed to go well, although I don’t envy his his task of finding a minute and a half of usable material among my 20 minutes of random muttering, ranting and curses. He said it should air on May 2nd or so. I still don’t know when the TV spot is going on, or even if it is going on. Perhaps someone will see it and tell me about it. “Hey!” some random stranger on the street will shout out suddenly in recognition. “I know you! You’re that crazy foreigner who broke his sword in front of a huge TV audience!”

After work I rode over to the office of the military magazine/publisher who is interested in publishing the Chinese version of the Damn Book. It was a dirty little office in an dirty old building, but I have yet to see an organized publisher’s office here in Taiwan. I talked with some of the staff and they seemed ok, and I also looked at some of the books they had put out, including the Chinese version of Richard Marcinko’s Rogue Warrior series. Cool. I love those books, and it would be cool to be published by the same house, even if it is only the Chinese version.

That is all.

An abandoned freighter adrift in the pacific ocean with only a dog and one dead body aboard. Freaky. Sounds like a Stephen King story. You have to wonder what that dog’s been eating all this time.

Speaking of eating, I had a delicious brunch at Jake’s yesterday with Dean, Kay (now sporting a new B’Elanna of Voyager fame-esque ‘do), Dave and Eoghain, who spent most of the time showing us how to input predictive text on our cellphones, something which had eluded me until Eoghain showed us the light. I then went home to fiddle with the damn book before going to sword practice. I am less and less inclined to go all the way across town on my motorcycle every Sunday night just for a short review of forms I already know. I think I might stop going and try to find another place to learn more new sword forms. I would also like to buy another sword to replace the one I broke on Saturday, but that can wait as I still have my back-up sword to use until I have enough money to get a decent blade.

The TV report is supposed to air on tonight’s news. I am going over to Dean’s after work to watch it, although I’d rather watch Futurama and Farscape. Maybe we’ll tape the news piece. Tomorrow morning I am going to meet with a reporter from ICRT to talk about an interview later this week, and then that night Dean and I are going over to the military magazine publishers to chat up the editorial staff there and have a look around. Wednesday night I’m going to the Ministry of Truth to take an editing test for a job I am not really interested in, Thursday night is the Oriented Happy Hour thing, and Friday…well, I’ll think of something involving wanton depravity (the very best kind of depravity!). A full week, in any case. Today I’m listening to some old Chinese songs from Shanghai circa 1940. Moody stuff.

I haven’t been able to get in touch with Sho. In any case, I don’t think I should spend too much time in here discussing such things. I’ll leave that to Jody Lin.

Kirk called last night and asked if I wanted to go check out a new bar called “Fresh Cafe”. I said ok and met him at a nearby intersection at about 11pm. We walked up to the second story entrance, which was bathed in alternating green and red light, and walked in though the glass door.

A large bar filled half the room, and it was decidedly crowded, so we went up to the next level, the dance floor. It was empty, and a lone foreigner stood at the other end fiddling with the dj equipment, so we went up to the roof level, which consisted of a living-room-like setup and a large balcony open to the stars. It was quite pleasant, actually, so we went down and got some drinks and then sat out on the balcony for a while. I saw some people I knew and talked with them for a few minutes, but as more and more people arrived, the more alone I felt. As usual. In fact, it seemed like the same crowd as was always at The Source, just transplanted to an obviously larger and nicer environment. Now where can I find a place as nice as Fresh Cafe, but with all the guys from the Taiwan Bear Club?

Kirk noticed this as well. “It’s all foreigners here,” he said. “How can I get anyone to notice me if everyone is looking for foreigners?” He decided to try anyway, so I left. The place is within easy walking distance from me, so I might go see if it’s any better on weeknights.

The TV reporter came over today to interview me. She brought along a cameraman, of course. He was really cool, reminded me of back when I was a cameraman. He had the requisite long hair and ponytail, as I did back then as well. They shot some footage of pictures and various documents, and then sat down with me to do the interview, which lasted about three minutes. I am not used to being on the other side of the camera and got a bit nervous, spouting various unrelated half-sentences and generally doing a really good impression of the village idiot. Then they wanted to film me doing Tai-chi sword forms, so we went to the park across the street where I promptly broke my sword in half. Muttering in embarrasment, I led them back to my room, where I retrieved my other sword and did some moves for them on the roof of our building. They said the piece would air on Monday night at 7. All I can say is, I hope they know how to edit.

The note on the Vampiress’ stereo reads, in English, “Don’t touch my CD player”. It would seem she knows who is hiding her Beethoven CD on a daily basis by sticking it into random magazines. Also, the big bowl ‘o shrimp now contains a lobster large enough to defend the poor, innocent shrimp against Office Turtle’s clumsy attempts at eating them for lunch. Of course, the lobster is eating the shrimp, but that’s ok. It’s obviously a matter of principle. I’m not going to take this lying down. I’m going to take it to the next level: subtle rearrangement of various Vampire-cubicle paraphernalia.

The TV reporter, not surprisingly, couldn’t get her shit together today for the interview, which is fine with me as I spent the morning with something in my eye I couldn’t get out, and now I’ve got a headache. “Does it matter if I’m in a crappy mood?” I asked her over the phone. She didn’t say anything in reply except for that hesitant, slightly whiny “mmmmm….” that so many Taiwanese women use as snappy comebacks to well-constructed legal arguments. Perhaps she assumed I was joking. She doesn’t know me very well. She did say that we would do the interview tomorrow instead. We’ll see.

In other news, our company is forsaking E. Sun bank due to its insistence on having a silly name, and going instead with another bank with a slightly less silly name, Chinatrust. I just got back from the signing-up session downstairs, where I went through the whole “We’ll-need-your-passport-because-you’re-slightly-different-looking” rigamarole one more time. I know; I can’t be bothered to “explain” myself to everyone? Nah, I’m too lazy. Besides, I get such a kick out of just standing there with an innocent expression on my face while some poor member of the service industry assumes that I’m fresh off the boat. Not. Actually, I’m used to it. It all depends on if I’m in the mood to play with people’s minds or not. If not, I will patiently explain my existance to them. Otherwise, it’s time for another dimension — a dimension not only

of sight and sound but of mind…

One guy from the DIY program came over last night and took some pictures of my room. Fortunately I had enough time to at least throw out the trash and tidy up a bit before he came.

“You don’t mind if we change things around, right?” he asked. I said no, not as long as they told me what they were going to do and it wasn’t too awful.

“What if we made it into a summer room, with green walls?” he continued.

Uh-oh.

“I don’t think so,” I said.

“But it’s almost summer…”

“Yeah, but I have to live here all year round, don’t I?” I am beginning to have some misgivings about their plans for my room, which I think is pretty much as good as it’s going to get. It doesn’t really matter, though. If they plan horrendous things, I’ll just have them remove the horrendous bits when they’re done filming me scowling at the decorating terror they’ve wrought.

Today at lunch I talked with the senior editor of Defense Technology Monthly magazine. They want to publish the Chinese version of the damn book here, and they seem pretty earnest about it. I plan to go check out their offices, of course, but I have a good feeling about them. He seemed optimistic that they could get an original print run of 4,000 copies out within a couple of months, which would help create some income and perhaps even attract the attention of an English-language publisher. That is, of course, in the unlikely event that the New York Times interview thing doesn’t work out.

Tomorrow the TV reporter is supposed to interview me, but that’s either been cancelled or she is again waiting until the last minute. I don’t have very high hopes for that, I must say. The only reason I’m doing it is to promote the book and get some attention for it.

When I came in this morning I found a New York Film Academy brochure lying on my co-worker Kit’s desk. The sight of it was like a slap in the face. You made your last film in 1999, it said to me. What have you done since? Nothing!

I agree. It’s time I made another film. High time. Kit is considering taking the 4 or 6-week summer workshop now offered in Taipei. I’m glad that they only had the one campus back in ’99. Everyone should see New York City at least once, and filmmaking in NYC is an experience I’ll never forget.

I just got a call from one of the “big-three” TV stations here. Actually a couple of calls. When I picked up the phone the first time and said “Wei?” I was met with nothing but the unmistakable sounds of a newsroom in the background. After a few moments and a couple of “Wei!”s later I hung up, assuming it was a wrong number. A minute later the phone rang again. It was the same background noise, but this time there was also a woman speaking to me.

“We’d like to interview you for our news program,” she told me.

“Ok.”

“We’d like you to go home, get some of your army pictures, let us film a bit, and then give us an interview.”

“I see.”

“We need to get everything done now so that the report can get on the 7 o’clock News.”

“What? You realize I’m at work, right? I can’t just take off. You need to give me some notice here,” I protested. She said she’d talk to boss and try to work something out.

Damn. How disorganized can you get, anyway? You can’t just call someone and tell them to take off work, run around the city and give an interview just because you couldn’t be arsed to plan ahead. This, of course, is typical Standard Operating Procedure for large TV stations here in Taiwan. Their exaggerated sense of self-importance tends to manifest itself by way of the assumption that everyone’s lives must revolve around them. TVBS didn’t start out that way, but it ended up being just as bad as the big-three, and that was one of the reasons I left. I told the reporter she’d damn well better talk to her boss and reschedule. In the meantime, I have to get home and clean up my room so that the DIY people can come over and take pictures of it and decide whether it’s salvagable or not. And tomorrow at lunch I have to meet with the people from that military magazine. Hopefully they’re just curious and not intent on making sure I don’t say anything bad about the army.

I watched the Maltese Falcon on DVD last night, since a theater director friend of mine mentioned that she was thinking of putting on a stage version of it on, and she had me in mind for the part of Sam Spade. I had originally thought that it would be a bit of a stretch for me, but the more I watched, the more I think Spade’s brand of humorous cynicism would be right up my dark, San Francisco alley. I even have the hat.