The other day I was eating at the vegetarian restaurant downstairs (no, I’m not a vegetarian, I just like their dishes) when a gaggle of older women burst in, yelling “The master wants to eat!”. At the center of the gaggle was an old guy in Buddhist garb, apparently the hungry Master himself. They sat down at the large round table in the middle of the room and instantly appropriated the place’s one teapot for themselves, urging the cook to get on with making the food. After they were seated they kept fawning over the old guy like some aging Buddhist rock star; he was silent and, I hoped, embarrassed to be seen with such an entourage. At least they didn’t berate me to going to their table to liberate the teapot from their clutches.

A while ago Sandman clued me in to a website called Soundclick, which he described as a kind of Flickr for music. I went to take a look and was impressed with the idea, if not the interface, which seems a bit complicated and has too many layers and hoops to jump through to get to the music. Still, I uploaded the live St. James Infirmary test song I did a while ago, and that worked well, so last night I digitized a bunch of old electronic songs I did ages and ages ago on ancient, hand-carved synthesizers from the 80’s. Here’s a page of the music I’ve put up there. Technology has come a long way in the past 20 years, I have to say. I’d like to get my Roland keyboard set up and do some more composing with more advanced software instruments.

Update: And, of course, I neglected to plug the cord in all the way, and consequently all the music is in mono instead of stereo, so I will have to go back and redo it. Sigh. Really, I should throw it all away and start fresh.

I went down to the Xindian City Office this morning to move my residency from Sanchong over to Bitan, where my new place is. The reason it was in Sanchong before is that landlords here almost never allow tennants to have their residencies listed on their landlords’ properties, because the landlords would have to pay more in taxes because they’re getting extra income from the rent. As a homeowner, however, I can now have my official residency actually listed at the place where I live.

After taking a number and waiting, submitting documents, etc., I had my new ID. It’s been 19 years since they switched ID cards here, so the old ones were pretty archaic. The new one has a smaller photo, has the information printed sideways, Western-style instead of written top-down, is the same color regardless of sex (the old ones were pink for females, yellow for males), and supposedly has all kinds of security features. One thing that struck me was how different I look now than I did in 1992, when the older picture (on top) was taken.

Christmas was good this year. I had some excellent Virginia Ham at Bret’s and Alan’s party in Nangang on Christmas Eve. Kirk was there and got quite drunk by the time we left. There were the usual invitations to go to Fresh, but I was too full and too tired, and besides I’m not really into Fresh, or anywhere else since they closed the Taiwan Bear Club.

On Christmas Day the weather was perfect, mostly sunny and not too cold. They’ve strung Christmas lights all around the lobby and outside our building. I spent time walking around, did some shopping, and then showed up on Darrell and Judy’s doorstep at 5:30. Maurice, Claire and Dean were already there, the former two in the kitchen whipping up the Caprese that is so good we named his character in the film after the dish. Later many other people showed up, including Paul, Jane, Tim, Ian, Rowan, Bruce and some other people whose names escape me at the moment. We played Johnny Cash songs and munched on a truly fine turkey dinner, and then Judy brought out a birthday cake for me with, thankfully only 10 candles on it. At 37, I’m officially, according to Monty Python and the Holy Grail, “not old”:

“Old woman!”

“Man!”

“Man, sorry…”

“I’m 37.”

“What?”

“I’m 37, I’m not old.”

“I couldn’t just call you ‘man’.”

“Well, you could call me ‘Dennis’.”

So there. The cake was delicious, despite Judy’s protests to the contrary. Dean also gave me an Obi-wan Kenobi action figure, complete with plastic lava, as well as the Blues Brothers’ Greatest Hits on DVD, that we settled down and watched part of while recovering from the feast. Rowan’s pants only came down a couple of times, and the dogs behaved for the most part. Even the kittens were good, or at least we couldn’t hear them over the music. Jane took a lot of shaky Christmas Tree photos.

All in all, a very nice Christmas.

Having finally gotten my new digs in a kind of shape, I now have a new page up concerning said digs, with pictures, of course. I’m used to most of the sounds of the place, though the neighbors still irk me. Might just have to go over and have a little talk with them. If they’d only just close their kitchen balcony door things would be quite alright, I’m sure.

I watched Funny Face and Breakfast at Tiffany’s yesterday at the Sandcastle, and then Paris When It Sizzles today, huddled with Xiao Laohu the Cat under the blanket I’d brought downstairs to the sofa expressedly for the purpose of keeping warm in the single-digit temperatures we’ve been seeing here for the past week or two. No end in sight, either, according to the weather bureau. While I liked and mostly understood the movies, I kept falling asleep halfway through them. Perhaps it was the slower pacing, but then again it might have been being curled up on a sofa under a blanket with a cat purring as it sat on my stomach. Paris When it Sizzles was the most ludicrous of the films, with humor that translates well today. Hepburn saying “That’s, like, wonderful,” to Tony Curtis is too hilarious. I still have to watch Sabrina.

And you thought I was joking about watching the entire Audrey Hepburn Collection.

Spent an enjoyable evening on Sunday putting up the Christmas tree at Darrell and Judy’s place. They’re having dinner again this year on Christmas Day, something I’ve come to look forward to each year. The weather is certainly doing its part to keep up the holiday-ish feeling this time around. The colder it gets, the more I want to spend next year’s Chinese New Year holiday in some place warm.

We didn’t get all of the jeep stuff done last time, so we had to go back over the course of a couple of weekends to get all of Maurice’s stuff done before the weather turned too nasty. The first weekend was iffy, as it was raining throughout Taiwan the day we were down there, but we still got a few shots done. In order to get up the hill faster, Dean and I hung on to the sides of Doug’s jeep on the steep bits, where it was pretty hard to hang on. Dean got a bloody hand in the effort, in fact. I got a shot of the jeep driving over the camera, which is fine as it has more than enough clearance. In between squalls I wiped the lens off, the rest of the camera in rain gear, and got shots of Maurice in the back of the jeep, jumping out the back of the jeep, rolling in the grass, and reacting to an explosion. For the explosion we created “debris” by throwing things, including the jeep’s spare tire, at Maurice. This was a lot of fun. Another high point was when we shot Maurice’s leg getting shot. The sun came out just as we were ready with the squib, glinting off the spraying blood.

That was about all we could do that weekend, but the next weekend was much better, almost too much better, as there wasn’t a cloud in the sky, and the other weekends featured overcast skies. Hopefully the audience won’t care too much about the changes in weather, and we can fix it to a degree in post. Norm, who was in Clay Soldiers, agreed to come down with us and be a cigar-smoking, Hawaiian-shirt-wearing henchman. He did a great job, as did Doug. At one point we shot a struggle between Maurice, Doug and Norm, after Maurice shoots Doug’s gun out of his hand, which they went at with great gusto. Another time we needed a red jeep to drop off our henchmen. There was a hill-climbing contest going on just up the mountain, and we got one of the guys to help us out.

I’m not going to even try to explain this.

So we finished that scene and crossed it off the list. Now, it being he holidays, with sucky weather, people on vacation, and other various reasons, we’re taking a little break. Same thing happened last year, so it’s not really a surprise. We’ll probably start pushing the pace again after Chinese New Year’s, depending on what locations we can find. In the meantime, have a Merry Christmas.

I was all ready to have another delicious meal of curry chicken or pork chop from my favorite shop under the train station this afternoon on my way to work. When I rounded the corner, however, I was confronted with a definite absence of curry shop. In its place was a cookie shop. Nobody in the area knew where the curry shop had gone. Damn, I loved me that curry. Sometimes sushi just will not do, and it was one of those days.

The weather hasn’t been helping, either. After a deliciously sunny musical weekend in Meinong, we arrived back in Taipei Sunday night to find cold, wet, windy conditions. Depressing. At least my new apartment seems to be comfy enough in the cold, no drafts, keeps the warmth in fairly well. I took some pictures, but my computer is demanding that I insert the original software disc for my camera, which I seem to have misplaced in the move, so uploading from that camera is problematic. It’s just as well, as the place is still kind of a mess (I really wish Google would come up with a “household search” function so I could type in “keys” and get the answer “Under the red candle on the coffee table”).

Still lots to do. Sandman and Jojo are off on a European Christmas tour, so I’ll be looking after their house and Xiao Laohu, their cat, while they’re gone. What I’ll really be doing, of course, is eating everything in their pantry while watching Sandy’s entire Audrey Hepburn DVD collection. Hey, Sandy!

Apparently the man who was shot to death at the Miami airport by air marshalls lived right across the street from where I grew up, in Maitland, Florida. Lou Gunther, the neighbor mentioned in this Orlando Sentinel story, was our next-door neighbor. From the story, it sounds as if the guy was perfectly normal and for some reason wasn’t able to take his meds that day. What a horrible chain of events. Sure makes me think twice about trying to travel anywhere within the US by plane in this post-9/11 environment.

I am traveling this weekend, but not by plane. The Muddy Basin Ramblers are taking a bus, along with a couple of other bands, down to this place in Meinong for a Hakka festival of some sort. We’ll be playing a concert on Saturday and holding a workshop on Sunday, and then coming back that night. It should be interesting; I need a break, and hopefully the weather down there will be a bit more cheery than we’ve had up here in Taipei for the past week.