The people from Yahoo finally gave in and admitted that I am me and that I have the right to use my account. I don’t know what happened, but it seems to be working again now. I hope it doesn’t happen again, but I’m definitely not going to trust any important documents or other information to Yahoo in the future. I know, duh!

Typical rainy, miserable cold winter weather these days. Indoor old DVD watching weather. I got a radiator heater which does the job much better than the glorified blow dryer I got at Sogo a few years ago. This kind of weather makes me glad I don’t work outside any more and have a subway to take around instead of having to be out on my motorcycle in this mess.

Been playing with software from these people. The program can take your picture and make you look, among other things, “East-Asian”, “West-Asian”, “Afro-Caribean” or “Caucasian”. You can really only go through one pass before the results start looking really wierd. Oddly enough, the “Caucasian” one makes me look thinner.

Pick the unmodified Poagaos!

Sunday was a great, busy day. I had an appointment at a realtor in Xindian in the morning, and the agent took me to three places, two of which were located at ridiculous heights in nearby mountains. “This isn’t quite what I meant when I said ‘within walking distance of an MRT stop’, ” I shouted through the wind as we broke through yet another cloud layer.

“Don’t worry, it’s got a great view; you’ll love it!” he shouted back. He was right about the view; it was nice, but there’s no way I could face that climb every day. Finally we got back to town and looked at some more promising places, but after the last one I had to go get ready for our gig at The Shannon. It was cold so in addition to ze Zuit I wore a long black coat with the optional tommy-gun rack.

I took a cab into the city and arrived at the bar around 3:30 loaded down with trumpet, tub and broomstick, trying not to damage the interior of the cab too much as I exited. The benefit was starting at the unusually early hour of 4 with the Saltwater Crocs playing some nice tunes. I was nursing a rye and ginger ale as well as a headache, and I’m afraid I might have blown off some people I originally didn’t mean to blow off. Or maybe I didn’t blow off people I’d originally intended to blow off; I’m not entirely sure which.

The Incriminators, a mellow Simon-and-Garfunkel-esque duo, were up next. They did a great job, but the crowd wasn’t really responding. It might have been the early hour, the relative sobriety of the guests, or a combination of both. Jez got up and played a few things that got people into the swing of things, and Sandy accompanied on his penny whistle.

By the time the Muddy Basin Ramblers took the stage, it was dark out and the crowd seemed to be in more of a mood to enjoy the show. I did a few songs on washtub bass, and picked up my trumpet occasionally for a solo. On one piece where I was playing horn, I was surprised to hear the tub start up behind me; it was Thumper helping out and providing the bassline. Dana also took a turn at the bass for “St. James Infirmary”, which is one of my favorite things to play on the trumpet.

“Nobody’s Fault but Mine” was a first for us in that each member of the band got to sing one verse solo. If you’d told me a year ago that I’d be singing in front of a crowd without the aid of a Karaoke machine, I’d have projected spittle as I laughed in your face, but there I was, right up at the mic flubbing lyrics when it came my turn. I may not be the best singer in the world (and certainly not the best singer in the band), but it was sure a lot of fun, and soon my headache was forgotten. The crowd seemed to really enjoy the trumpet, and Slim swore feminine undergarments were definitely sent airborn at the time, though I did not witness this phenomenon. I did get some questions about how I could play all those notes with just three buttons afterwards, though.

As we wrapped up, or tried to (we did a couple of encores which resulted in David breaking a couple of strings on his national), the manager of the place came up and stuck a hundred NT dollar bill in David’s pocket, saying he’d donate more money if we’d play another set, but we’d pretty much run our course. Sandman did some freestyle sax to the tub bass, but that was just fooling around.

After we’d packed everything up, I headed next door to Dan Ryan’s, where a bunch of people had gone for dinner. I joined Sandman, Jojo, Maoman, V, and Chung from Forumosa at the table just as a roar went up from the other side of the room. Apparently the rest of the place had been rented out to a group of people intent on being as obnoxious as they could, yelling and screaming every few seconds until well after midnight. I didn’t mind too much as the conversation at the table was a bit too much like an audiobook version of Forumosa.com for my comfort.

We left around 1 a.m. in Jojo’s car, talking about prospective houses as we drove back home. Yeah, that’s right, I said houses. I’m thinking of actually co-buying a house, along with a friend. I’d still be paying monthly, but at least the payments would be going towards my own property, not just vanishing like rent money does. Anyway, we’ll see how that works out.

Work this afternoon was a bit of a bummer after Sunday’s high, but after work Dean and I went to Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse on Minsheng E. Road to use a coupon our friend Katie gave me for helping them out on their Bunun project. Both the food and service were exceptional, I must say (though they should be at those prices). We had bread, salad, soup, steak, lobster, mushrooms, potatoes, crab cakes, and pie. I think Dean had the Mastodon Special, or at least it looked about that much meat on his plate. I know I’ve filled my steak and lobster quotas for the next several years.

There’s always lots of special meals this time of year, wei-ya parties before Chinese New Year. I’ve been to one so far, and I’ve got a couple more to go. Some of the larger parties even have prizes.



I got a letter from my Aunt Eva in Hollywood today. I hadn’t heard from her in a while and was getting a little worried, but it turns out she was just waiting for postage stamps. At 91 years of age, she writes, “everyone slows down a little, whether they want to or not.”

Via my friend Kurrel The Raven’s site: It’s Hong Kong Phooey Jim, but not as we know it.

I’m wondering if I should get into Flickr. It seems convenient, but I’m not entirely comfortable putting photos up there instead of here. Is it easier? Do the photos go away? I have no idea. Not the most earth-shaking of conundrums, to be sure.

今天下午我的房東打電話來跟我講說我的房子已經賣掉了. 二月二十一日 之前就要搬走. 我今天稍微看了一下租屋市

My landlady’s contract with the realtor was up, I think, on Friday. Therefore I wasn’t too surprised at the last-ditch effort they made to sell the place. The hard sell involved the realtor pretending to not know me when I answered the door to let him and the prospective buyer in to look around. I was instructed not to badmouth the place, as I’ve been known to do in the past. The agent couldn’t stop talking as he showed the guy around, and they were still going at it in the alley when I left for work. Most people don’t get further than the narrow alley, which people, probably car owners, seem to really not like.

Once I was at work, I got a call from the agent. Seems that Mrs. Prospective Buyer wanted to check the place out, and could I skip work to let them in? Upon mt refusal, the agent wanted to drop by my office to get my keys.

“I don’t think so,” I said.

“What’s wrong, Big Brother, don’t you trust me?” he asked.

“Only about as far as I could throw you.”

“What?”

“Sorry, that’s not right,” I said. Actually I could probably throw the little guy pretty far. In any case, “I don’t trust anyone but my closest friends with my keys.”

In the end, he settled for telling me to be home at 7:00. I got there at about 7:45. Mrs. PB was there, and she gave the place a quick once-over and left.

And that’s that, I thought as I closed the door. My landlady had said she’d sign another lease with me if they couldn’t sell the place by the time her contract with the realtor was up, and Mrs. PB didn’t seem overjoyed about the place.

This afternoon I got a call from my landlady. The apartment was sold, she told me. I have to be out by February 21st.

Here we go again.

Last night a woman got on the subway wearing a blue denim backpack. Soon afterwards, strange noises began to sound inside the car. At first I thought it was someone’s phone, but I’ve never heard a phone sound like a captive animal before (though I’m sure it won’t be long). The noises were coming from the woman’s backpack, and whenever they started she would rock back and forth to make the backpack, which hung down to her thighs, hit her over and over. This seemed to lessen the noise somewhat.

This continued a couple of stops until CKS Hall, when the bag began to bark. Everyone in the car stared. The woman’s ruse was blown; she had to admit she had a dog in her backpack, so she brought it up and opened the top to let the dog’s head out. I was surprised at the size of the animal; this wasn’t just a mini dog you see inside some women’s purses next to their tissue packs. It must have either had a disproportionally large head or been a contortionist. The woman got off at the next stop.



Last Sunday, after a grueling 3 a.m. shoot the night before, I got up and went to Costco with Harry, Mark and Mario. After stocking up on goodies and waiting to get out, an explosion of fury in the group ahead of us splattered several innocent bystanders with coca-cola. Apparently someone had bumped someone else, and someone else lost it and struck out with enough speed and force to produce airborn condiments. The two men struggled as groceries went flying and the two wives tried to keep the seething combatants apart. The whole checkout area went silent as everyone stared at the inconguous scene. Maybe one of the guys had just watched Fight Club and really took it to heart. Whatever it was, the excitement was over in a minute, and the coke-splattered sales staff, chequers and credit card salesmen turned their attention back to work.

People would ask me, “How long do you think the warehouse scene going to take? It’s only cutaways, after all.” And I would say, “A long time,” for several reasons: 1. I’d never been there, 2. we needed to arrange and light it, and 3. there were lots of props. But even I didn’t think we’d need until 3 in the morning.

I set out at around 2 in the afternoon to meet Darrell at Taipei Main Station. I was running late due to a last-minute cleanup of lightbulb shards on my living room floor. Darrell and I missed each other at the subway station, as we were on completely different platforms. It was well after 3 by the time we made it to Xinpu Station in Banqiao, where Dean and Maurice were waiting. April was even later, as she was sick with a cold and loopy from the medicine.

We adjouned to Maurice’s rooftop abode, where we enjoyed a banquet of cheese, wine and bread as Maurice picked out his wardrobe. I probably drank a bit too much, considering I was directing.

We piled into a couple of taxis, everyone loaded down with props and other equipment, and arrived at the little electronics factory right around sunset. We squeezed through a labyrinth of doors and assembly lines to find the darkened stairway to the roof, three floors up. The upstairs felt as if nobody’d been there in years. Spooky.

The attic space was even smaller than it looked in the pictures, and littered with various old tv sets and the inevitable jogging machine. Fortunately there was a line of windows along one side that might suggest a larger space all around the main part of the set if I lit it right. After Paul showed up with the boom, mic and a couple of the lights, I decided to make the lights the ones the characters in the script were using, hiding them in plain sight, as it were. It seemed to work ok, and make the cramped space look a bit more roomy. Aluminum foil from a nearby 7-Eleven helped make the lights not shine everywhere we didn’t want them to.

After we set up all the wonderful props like the suitcase radio Dean made and the computer interfaces designed by Darrell and Dean, we got down to shooting. April was feeling really bad, so she went downstairs to sleep while we did everthing that didn’t require her there.

The shoot took a bit longer than expected, in part because Dean and I had differing ideas on some parts of the scene, and garbled communications had led to some false assumptions on both out parts. In the end we worked through it, though. Everyone did a great job in a tough situation. Darrell held the boom and got great sound. All the actors put a lot of effort into their performances, and I got some really good moments. It looks good, too, considering the space we had to work with.

Still, it took a while to get though everything. Dinnertime came and went; we were all munching on the cheese and bread Maurice had brought with him, and Darrell had some mouth-freshener strips that kept us going after midnight. At one point I needed a dolly, so Paul went downstairs and got a cart thing to use. It worked pretty well. April came up and went through her shots like a real trooper. Maurice turned in some really good stuff, and Dean provided volumes of material for the outtakes.

We wrapped up at around 3 a.m., a dismal time to be in Banqiao even in good weather, and the weather was miserable. Wearily we put everything back where it was, more or less, made sure we patched up the hole in the roof Dean had poked when trying to run wires over the support beam, and made out way back down to the street level. From there we all went our seperate ways, Dean back to the city, Paul and April to Paul’s car, Maurice to his house, and Darrell and I in a cab back to Jingmei and Xindian.

It’s good to be shooting again, and I think it’s going to look great, but that was a difficult shoot considering how quickly it’s going to go on screen.

As for what’s next: we could do the conference room scene at Zheng-da, or the control room scene if I can find a proper control room that’s available on weekends (that’s the only time the two actors we need are available). We’re still looking for a museum-like setting for April’s big screen entrance.

Sean Scanlon wrote and asked me if the movie would be done by Urban Nomad in March, but I had to tell him that it was impossible. I did tell him I’d try and have a trailer to show, though, made from what we have so far at that point. I’ve had films at every Urban Nomad since it started; I really should have something to show there after all.

No response from Yahoo. I guess I’m on their shit list, so I suppose I have no choice but to kiss my account, all the info, money, etc. good-bye and write it off as bad judgement. I did get another account, under the name Mijiyaki if you’re interested in adding yourself to my chat list, email, etc. Mijiyaki is the Japanese pronunciation of Dao-ming, my Chinese name. Not surprisingly, Daoming, Taoming, and all possible variations thereof were already taken, so I had to resort to Japanese.

Speaking of bad judgement, I feel I have to warn you: never, ever, even think of eating a hamburger at Mos Burger. I know, you’d think their burgers would be half-decent, possibly even as good as their rice burgers, but I can tell you with complete authority that it would be one of the worst choices you could make, culinarily speaking. Of this I will speak no more, lest my intestines begin trembling in dread.

On the other side of the food quality spectrum, I finally got around to sampling the fare at Gusto, on a small street near the corner of Jianguo South and Heping East Roads. Excellent hot dogs, I must say, and not a bad environment altogether. In related news, Andrew at Bongos is challenging Hooters by getting ready to come out with spicy chicken wings. I’m taking night classes at NTU these days along with some friends, so we usually head out to Bongos afterwards for dinner.

I think the Muddy Basin Ramblers’ next performance is on the 16th of January at The Shannon as part of a Blues Night. Apparently it’s going to be a monthly thing, or at least they’re going to try it out. Jez and Tarrybush should also be there, I think. Hopefully we’ll get to rehearse at some point before then, but I wouldn’t count on it; everyone’s pretty busy these days.

After a nice long Christmas/New Year’s break, we’re set to go shoot the rest of the prison-escape scene at a smallish “warehouse” out in Banqiao this Saturday. I’d have preferred a better location, but I’ll make do with this and try to ignore the ludicrous scenario of not being able to find a proper warehouse in Taiwan. It’s just downright embarrassing; I should have done a better job in location scouting. If I had more time, perhaps I would have, but we don’t have that kind of time; there’s simply too much else to do.

Darrell Gallant’s short Manipulation is up on his website now. I imagine a spot on Triggerstreet isn’t far off either.

現在已經民94年了. 時間過得真快. 希望大家今年事事如意, 身體健康, 幸福快樂….

…除了yahoo以外.

“Hello,

Thank you for writing to Yahoo! Account Services.

We apologize for any inconvenience this situation has caused. However,

it appears that we will be unable to provide login assistance for the

Yahoo! ID in question. By accepting our Terms of Service, you agreed to

provide true and valid registration information, and to keep that

information current and updated should it change.

The zip code that you have provided in your previous requests does not

match the information that was entered when this account was

established.

You are welcome to establish a new Yahoo! ID at any time.

In accordance with our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy, we are

unable to correspond further regarding this account.

Thank you again for contacting Yahoo! Customer Care.

Regards,

Ruby

Yahoo! Customer Care – Account Security

http://security.yahoo.com

I swear, the concept that American standards (such as zip codes) might not exist in every other country in the world must have never even occurred to the idiots at Yahoo. If they’re talking about area codes, which Taiwan has, though nobody uses them, then I tried every single possible area code in my request form (including those from Taipei and Hsinchu); none of them work. Obviously it’s been changed to something I wouldn’t know, as has my password.

It’s becoming plainer and plainer that someone, likely within Yahoo! itself, has purposely gone in and changed my password and user information. I kind of wish they’d raise a legal ruckus about me making such claims, so I could have a shot at getting a Fark.com thread named “Yahoo! changes guy’s password and then sues him for complaining about it.”

What’s especially disappointing is that I allowed myself to become so reliant on a service of such questionable quality. Everything in my briefcase, all my email contacts, my website account information, update and domain renewal notification, as well as other services I actually paid for, have been stolen from me.

Yahoo Help should be officially classified as an oxymoron. They didn’t make even the slightest attempt to register the fact that I had all the information except for the “zip code”*, including the “secret question/answer” nobody else is supposed to know. Did they check to see if anyone else has logged in since my password was mysteriously changed? Did they do anything at all? No, I didn’t have a US-style zip code, so I’m obviously a fraud.

This kind of thing also happened recently to my friend Harry. His password just stopped working. I suspect Yahoo switched some settings, and in their strict adherence to their policy of “The customer is always wrong”, they are just ignoring the consequences of their actions.

*Advice to non-US applicants: if you think Yahoo’s being serious when they say you don’t have to enter one if you’re not in the US, think again; they’ll just add something when they feel like it and then disable your account.