Winter’s back, sort of. Apparently the Central Wea…
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.”