So the legislature approved the Egg-Tart Law…oh, did I say Egg-Tart? I meant the other, more recent craze that’s been sweeping the island for the past few months…what was it again? Pointy shoes? Starbucks Coffee? Little dogs to hold during shopping excursions? Oh, yeah, the referendum law. Referendums are the new egg-tarts; people are all talking about them, lining up for them, and yet have no idea why or if they’re any good. At least the version of the law passed isn’t the teenage angsty “In your face, China!” version the DPP wanted. Unsurprisingly, China’s stopped its sabre-rattling. This could be due to one of two reasons: Either they’ve left the sabres and gone to get actual guns, or they’re sitting around the common room saying to each other “Hmmm, ya know, Taiwanese independence isn’t such a bad idea after all. I say live and let live, no one will benefit from a war, and this whole face thing is silly anyway. If we want Taiwan to be more a part of China, we should try being a China they would want to be a part of.” If they’re smart, they’ll be doing the latter. Then again, if they were smart, we wouldn’t be in this situation in the first place.

Oh, and while I’m ranting (it’s ranting weather, don’t ya know), the following phrase is hereby declared meaningless and to be avoided unless used with Dripping Sarcasm: “I am such a geek.”

To explain: The term ‘geek’ has become an accolade of sorts. It is no longer self-deprecating. People who write “Yeah I know, I’m a geek”* are really saying “I’m way cooler than any of you,” and should be treated as the arrogant putzes they are.

Last night Dean and I met up with Tommie Williamson, who is currently based with the Bunun Tribe near Taidong. He’s working on making a film about them, and he invited us down there. That man can sure tell some stories. Seems like he’s been everywhere and met everyone. He said they probably wouldn’t start filming until next summer, but it would be cool to make a trip down there some weekend when the weather’s nice.

We had arranged to meet at The Brass Monkey, which was ok at first, but soon the environment became uncomfortable as the management turned up the music. We were forced outside to a sidewalk table, but the volume continued to rise until the whole place was shaking and everyone inside had simply given up on even trying to talk with each other. Someone must have neglected to inform the DJ that the place lacks a dance floor. When we couldn’t take any more we left and went to Voice, a much more comfortable bar in an alley just around the corner. Sure, it was exchanging one group of drunk foreigners for another, but at least we could talk.

*I’m sure I’ve uttered this phrase at some point in the past, and calling me an arrogant putz is like saying Michael Jackson ‘has issues’, so don’t bother doing a search.

As was revealed to me by Chris in the comments, it seems my book is for sale online here. Hmm, I wonder if the publishers have any clue about this. I also wonder where else it’s for sale that nobody’s told me about.

It’s been pouring rain for the past few days, as our fair island is caught between a weather front and a super typhoon (Doesn’t that sound like a lame Asian super hero? “Super Typhoon, blow out that fire so that Australia Man can deflect the comet with Boomarango!) The typhoon can’t decide where it’s going. It won’t hit us, I’m fairly sure, as Taiwan’s dodged every single typhoon this year, and this one will be swerving off to either Japan or the Philippines any moment now. Due to the rain, I skipped sword practice last night, electing to do it in my living room instead. My living room, however, is just a little too small for such exercises, a situation which resulted in me hitting various bits of wall and furniture with my sword. If my landlord is reading this, all I can say is: You’d be amazed at what a little spackle can fix. Unfortunately, while I can do the forms by myself, I can’t practice Tuishou alone, so I missed out on that.

Yesterday I found out that my motorcycle is finally ready. I was thinking that it was taking a long time to repair, but then I found out via Forumosa that the guys at the repair shop actually fixed it quite quickly and then realized that they had lost my phone number. I can’t afford to pick it up until payday, and it’s going to be raining most of the time before then anyway, so it’s all the same to me.

Tall Paul, aka Norman Szabo, has uploaded his short film “Dignity” for viewing. I helped him shoot bits of this, which was fun. Check it out here and laugh at a beardless Dean, Maurice the Frenetic Bartender and Jaques Van Wersch, who holds the current world record for fastest leg-crossing. (warning: 12 frickin’ megabytes) Darrell did the music, as always.

最近才知道, 我的書在這個網站可以購買.

The fellow who invented all of that ‘metrosexual’ nonsense has apologized. Of course, this is just more attention-mongering, but at least he’s heading in the right direction and admitting it’s a stupid term that the media’s taking way too seriously. Now we need not only an apology from the media but a promise to stop referring to it as if it means something.

Went out a lot this weekend. First I met Wayne, a fellow blogger who is living and teaching in a little town near Ilan. He had ridden his scooter to Taipei on Saturday morning, which would sound fun if it hadn’t been raining. We had some drinks at a shop along the riverfront, but he had a date with a frisbee and had to go. I was headed into town for a barbeque at the 70’s Airport Love Palace, which is always a fun thing to do. The alligator’s going through that awkward stage where it’s gotten big enough that it escapes the little pool on a routine basis, but doesn’t have enough hide to make a full pair of boots. I left early to make the train home but missed it by a matter of seconds and had to spend money on a cab. It’s over NT$300 from downtown to Xindian after hours, but thankfully due to the expressway it doesn’t take long at all. I don’t plan to make a habit of such long cab rides, though. My motorcycle is still in the shop and there’s no sign of it being ready any time soon.

Mindcrime and H.G. Janice came over to inspect my new digs yesterday, and we walked along the river looking at amusingly attired dogs afterwards. Later on I had an enjoyable meal of leftovers at my friends Darrell and Judy’s house. After stuffing ourselves with various forms of turkey and apple crumble pie, we sat down and watched “The Eminem Story” on their new DVD player. Verdict: Not too bad. Slow for the first half, shallow characterization resulted in inexplicable things happening all the time, but all in all not unenjoyable. I liked Wonder Boys and L.A. Confidential much better, though.

Dean’s involved with yet another play, along with fellow Lady X veterans Maurice, Dolly and Rowan. It’s “Withnail and I“, and will be on in December. Here’s the poster if you’re interested.

PS: Does anyone know why the simple act of populating and scrolling through file lists seems to be too much for Windows XP? Every time I do it it struggles and sometimes just crashes. Also, why does IE only let me save images as bitmaps? Ta.

I was at the bank this afternoon transferring rent money into the appropriate account when someone suddenly grabbed my arm. I turned to find an chunky older woman with a crazed look in her eyes. “Come with me and save someone!” she said to me. She looked too well-dressed to be a street person.

I looked at her hand on my arm, and then at her, trying to think of what combination of words would get her to go away the quickest. Drawing on my immense repertoire of subtle vocabulary, I said, “Go away. Now.” She let go and stalked away, muttering “Jeez, you’re weird. I just wanted to save someone.”

“I’m weird?” I said, turning back around. The teller was staring at me. “Why do you let people like that in your bank?” I asked her.

“Well, I thought she knew you.”

The woman had disappeared, but I noticed a policeman standing behind me. “If she wanted to save someone, she should have called you,” I told him.

“I saw her come in,” he said. “She’s getting worse lately. She used to come in and tell people they were going to hell if they didn’t vote for her.”

“Ah, she thinks she’s a candidate, huh? What a loon.”

“No, she was actually a candidate. But she’s still a loon.”

“You should stop her from harassing people,” I said, but the policeman, who I noticed carried a revolver, shook his head and gave an abashed smile.

“She’s a woman; I can’t lay a hand on her. If I do, she’ll cry rape.”

Got email from Yahoo!, which remains committed to displaying how it’s run by a bunch of asshats. Man, how that company has fallen. Remember when it was THE search engine and purveyor of all things cool on the Internet? Now we get this:

Dear Yahoo! Member,

Last year we announced changes that affect how we communicate with Yahoo! members about Yahoo!’s own products and services. However, we have not yet implemented those changes for all our registered members. Because of your previous account settings, Yahoo! has not yet sent you marketing communications under the new program. Before we do, we want to remind you how to set your preferences, and let you know what has changed and what is not changing. Starting January 1, 2004, Yahoo! will begin to send you messages, via email or postal mail, about our own products and services…

Gee, thanks.

In other news, I was on my way to trade in my old mattress for a new one when I saw that the special extended version of The Two Towers was on sale. Naturally I picked it up. I’ve heard good things about this edition, and as I was impressed at how much better the extended version of the Fellowship of the Ring was compared to the theatrical release, I am looking forward to seeing this one.

According to the Central Weather Bureau, we’re supposed to get all of our laundry-drying, sunning, and any other outdoor activities done before the first cold front of the year hits tomorrow. Air out those musty apartments, and don’t buy anything you don’t want to be smelling in a closed environment for the next couple of days. Like, say, a new mattress.

After fortifying myself with some intestinal-cleansing apple juice yesterday afternoon, I decided it was time: Time to visit Taipei 101, the supposed Mall of Malls, the Pacific Place of Taiwan. Mindcrime and I took the subway out to City Hall Station and walked over to the tallest building in the world, underneath which the mall is located. I had thought there would be less of a crowd today, it being a weekday, but a whole crowd of people, composed mostly of the R.O.C. Society for the Escalator-impaired, apparently thought the same thing.

The first thing I noticed about the mall when we walked in the back door was confusion. Everywhere people were on walkways, overpasses, underpasses, escalators, stairs, up, down, and every other direction. A glance over the rail showed that 101 went way, way down, and further up. Many storefronts displayed posters saying “Coming Soon”, while people milled around looking for stores that were not only actually open, but something they hadn’t seen before. The promotors of 101 promised a more western-style mall, but all I saw were expensive clothing and knick-knack stores, just like the Estrogen Mall. Not an electronics store or book store in sight, though some were advertised as “Coming soon” of course. We walked around, took various escalators up and down until we were completely lost. It didn’t seem a very welcoming place. In fact, it reminded me more of an airport lobby than a mall. A sort of giant airport waiting room with no flights, i.e., hell. And then I looked up and saw that the Estrogen Mall had truly met its match. Whereas the Estrogen Mall merely has stores devoted to women, Taipei 101 is actually constructed to look like a woman. Talk about going back to the womb; the place looks like it’s about to give birth. It was positively unsettling.

But before I could run screaming from the place, there was one thing I had to do: visit the supermarket, thankfully located in the basement, out of sight of the giant gaping female genitalia overhead. Once inside we discovered hints of an American supermarket. I bought enough goodies to ensure I won’t be a pleasant sight at the beach for a good while.

After locating an exit point, we looked up and discovered the top of the building was hidden in the clouds, so I took a picture. I knew Taipei 101 was scary, but I never imagined it would be so scary in so many ways. It’s the world’s tallest building, constructed on an earthquake- and typhoon-prone island, is shaped like a giant bamboo stalk and has what is probably the world’s largest mechanical vagina overlooking a plane-free airport lobby disguised as a mall. It’s so bizarre it might even turn out kind of cool if it gets some good stores.

Just don’t look up.

上個月旅游探險

A while ago I was contacted by Pilot Production’s Globetrekker series. They said they were doing a show on Taiwan and Hong Kong, and wanted to interview me and have me on part of the show, based on Randall‘s generous recommendation. They asked me about interesting things in Taipei, and I, being a big fan of the show, made some suggestions. In the end, they decided they wanted to feature Snake Alley, touristy as it is. But first they wanted to check it (and, I presume, me) out before actually bringing in Meghan, the ‘traveller’ on this episode.

I was waiting for Melvyn, the producer from Singapore who contacted me, at the Longshan Temple MRT Station when I noticed another non-Chinese guy hanging around the area. I wondered if he was waiting for Melvyn as well. He looked like an in-and-out hippy English teacher from a distance, but when he walked up I could tell his attire was significantly more expensive than that. It turned out that he was another producer from The Pilot Productions, in the U.K. We chatted a bit before Melvyn showed up, and then we went to check out Snake Alley. I gave Melvyn the copy of my book I bought the other day.

I had thought that Ian Wright had already done a Taiwan episode for the Lonely Planet show. I even heard the two producers making references to Ian’s previous experiences in Taiwan, but the British producer denied it when I asked. I suppose I could have been mistaken.

We browsed the various snake restaurants, and I translated a bit, although Melvyn, being Singaporean Chinese, could speak a fair amount of Mandarin as well. The U.K. producer asked me what I thought of Taiwanese independence. “Taiwan’s already independent, basically.” I told him.

“But don’t you think Taiwan should formally declare independence?” he asked.

“I don’t see what good it would do,” I replied. “The U.S. and the U.N. wouldn’t acknowledge it, mainland China would be the only country to react, and I don’t know if that would be such a good thing.”

“But don’t you think Taiwan should formally declare independence?” he asked again.

“I personally don’t think most Taiwanese who live here would support that. People here just want to keep living their lives they way they have been, and most don’t support immediate independence or reunification.”

“But don’t you think Taiwan should formally declare independence?”

It seemed like he’d already made up his mind on the subject. Perhaps he reads the Taipei Times and actually believes it represents true Taiwanese sentiments. Perhaps he’s like many foreigners who feel the need to rally to a cause to make their stay here more significant. I don’t know. I could tell he wasn’t too happy with my answers, though.

We visited some more snake stalls, and I established what time and day would be best for the TV crew and Meghan to come back and film the segment. Originally the vendors refused to let anyone film the actually killing of a snake, but eventually we found a couple who didn’t mind killing a snake for the camera, as long as we paid for the snake. Afterwards we were browsing the adjacent night market for filming possibilities. I told them there were much better night markets around, but they wanted to incorporate the night market with snake alley on one shoot.

“Oh, here’s a CD by Zhang Zheng-yue,” I said to Melvyn, who was looking at pirated DVDs. “He’s a famous singer now, but he was in the entertainment corps when I was in the army, so we saw him on TV every Thursday for political education programs.”

Melvyn looked at the CD. “In Singapore, the entertainment section is where they put all the fags,” he said.

“What?” I wasn’t quite sure I’d heard him correctly.

“The faggots. In Singapore they put them all in the entertainment section.”

“Oh.”

The British producer had finished his search for cheap DVDs and concluded that their upcoming trip to see the burning boat in Central Taiwan was going to be relatively boring. In any case, we had reached the end of the night market, and my two companions had to go back to the Grand Hotel, where they were staying.

Melvyn gave me my book back, claiming he couldn’t read it, before they caught a taxi and left. I had the feeling I hadn’t lived up to their expectations. Not surprisingly, when it came time to film the segment, they said the crew wasn’t feeling well after taking the boat from Orchid Island, so the shoot was delayed for a couple of weeks. They never called back, so I assume they either didn’t film it or filmed it with some other, more visually interesting foreigner. I don’t know. It’s a bit disappointing to miss the chance to see their production, as I do enjoy their shows quite a bit and would love to see how they work. I suppose I’ll just have to do my own stuff and be happy with that.

Winter’s back, sort of. Apparently the Central Weather Bureau arranged for a perfect day so that the Taipei 101 Mall-o-rama could hold its grand opening a couple of days ago, but now it’s drizzly again. Rest assured, gentle reader, that this mall afficianado will definitely make a tour of inspection in the near future. “Taiwan’s answer to Pacific Place” huh? We’ll just see about that. Personally, I’m expecting something more like “Estrogen Mall, part II.”

The other day Mindcrime and I were drinking tea at a teahouse featuring railroad tracks that made walking around inside a challenge as well as flying cockroaches to amuse the patrons. Just when I was thinking “well, at least it can’t get any stranger than this,” Mindcrime came back from a trip to the washroom. “Dude, ” he said. “Check out the bathroom.” I did. Turns out the washbasin is a toilet and the faucet is the genetalia of a male torso perched on top. I don’t know how you’re supposed to feel anything close to clean after washing your hands with this thing, but at least I didn’t mind the flying cockroach as much.

And now, just because we’re talking about fucked-up shit, here’s a curious, yet not uncommon sight in Taiwan. I wonder if the people installing the handicapped ramp noticed the fire hydrant three feet away, and, if so, I’ll bet a bottle of brown liquid that they shrugged, said “huh”, and went on with their work.

Saw some more episodes of Firefly, namely, the episodes that were intended to be the pilot but were shunted until later because the studio felt they weren’t action-packed enough. It’s a shame, because these set the Firefly Universe up a lot better than the lame-ass shows they chose to begin the series with. You can tell that Joss Whedon wanted to ease the audience into things, and the camerawork and editing aren’t quite as frenetic (though still annoying at times). After seeing more episodes, in particular these two, I like the series a lot better. I’d like to see more.

Another photography page update, with some shots I took down by the river near my place.

And finally, my vote for the Most Useless Error Message Ever: “A general error has occurred”. On one hand, it’s good to know that the programmers have just as few clues as to what the hell’s going on inside these systems as we do. On the other hand, they really should just come out and say “Windows screwed up, somehow…hell if we know what’s wrong.”