The Hinet guy came around on Saturday and got my a…
The Hinet guy came around on Saturday and got my adsl up and running in about five minutes. Meanwhile, another guy was busy all morning installing a new toilet, replacing bad electrical outlets and leaving a trail of lightbulbs wherever he went. Thankfully the landlord is paying for all of this. The place is still a mess, but it’s gradually becoming more livable. I’m very happy with it. The commute isn’t much trouble; I always get a seat on the MRT, and I usually spend the time reading. The little alley that leads to my building is lined on one side with old one-story houses behind pleasant, tree-filled yards, and since the alley’s too narrow no cars can get in. Ordinarily this would be bad news if there’s a fire or something, but my apartment is located in the back of the building, facing the mountainside, while the master bedroom faces another alley that cars can get into. One odd thing: while the place is on the second floor in the front, it’s four stories off the ground in the back, since the entire building seems to be constructed atop a large slab of rock. I haven’t found too much to eat in the vicinity, apart from stuff I get from the little hole-in-the-wall places near Bitan Bridge. I hear there’s better cuisine to be found on the other side of the river. I need to start cooking more as well, especially since I have a full kitchen now. Cleaning it took half a day, and I still have over half of the place to clean. Taking out all all of the garbage generated by the move is a chore I’m not looking forward to, either.
It’s usually quiet there, except for ordinary neighborhood noises like garbage trucks, pianos, dogs, mah-jong games, shouting, and the occasional scooter in the back alley, but these noises don’t bother me nearly as much as the noises in my last place. I can also hear cicadas, crickets and other vocal insects. Rain pelts noisily on the plastic covering of the apartment below me, but it’s a constant, almost pleasant noise.
There’s been a lot of rain lately, thanks to passing Typhoon Dujuan, which is now making a beeline for the bwg in Hong Kong. Taipei only experienced the fringes of the storm, but that was still enough to knock over scooters, small trees and signs. I didn’t tape any of the windows, since they are all the traditional non-see-through variety, the glass engraved with a generic yet intricate design that can be found in houses all over the island; I wouldn’t mind getting some transparent glass in there. Dujuan didn’t come close enough for that sort of thing, though I imagine the glass-makers will be doing a brisk business in Hong Kong by this time tomorrow.
Da Shan and I are going to the computer company tomorrow morning to see if their gym is suitable for a shoot we might want to do there later this month. Apparently they liked the first commercial Paul showed them and want us to do another. In other news, I submitted the re-edited version of the Lady X episodes for consideration in the Digital Shorts category of the Golden Horse Film Festival. The two episodes, re-edited, plus the scene we didn’t have time for before, make it about 18 minutes long. Darrell composed some really nice music for the extra bits as well as the new versions of the original scenes. The people at GHFF said that they will announce their selections on October 1st. The guidelines don’t specify what kind of films they’re looking for; I know that film festivals tend to go for so-called “deep” films, and Lady X is definitely not that, but hopefully they’ll find it entertaining enough to consider despite it’s lack of slow, purposefully out-of-focus black-and-white shots of sad women staring up from the tops of traffic-laden bridges.
