Poagao's Journal

Absolutely Not Your Monkey

Aug 08 2001

Yesterday consisted of a seemingly unending downpo…

Yesterday consisted of a seemingly unending downpour of work. All of the documents were very long, very poorly written, and of course they were all urgent cases. This kind of torment is pretty rare at this job, but as the old adage goes, “When it rains, prepare a large flotation device and a handgun.”

The China Post recently mailed me a check for my last article, but when I took it to the bank to cash it, I realized that, while they had written all the characters in my name right, they were not in the correct order. So this morning before work I had to go up there to resolve the situation myself. It always depresses me to visit their offices, which are dark and dreary and full of unkempt desks topped with piles of anonymous papers stacked alarmingly high. Their printing presses are in the basement and nobody seems to be around, illiciting a vague feeling that the ghosts of copyeditors past are criticizing the grammer of one’s unspoken thoughts. Still, I would rather read their relatively unbiased product than the ill-conceived propaganda that comes out of the gleaming computerized offices of either the Taipei Times or the Taiwan News.

It seems official: the title of the next Star Wars movie is “Attack of the Clones.” I remember expressing disbelief to my friend Mindcrime when he told me that Episode I was going to be called “The Phantom Menace”, and I had the same feeling this time. I don’t remember feeling that there was anything wrong with “A New Hope”( who noticed that title at the time, anyway?), “The Empire Strikes Back” or “Return of the Jedi”, but then again I was a kid then. Perhaps it sounds better to younger ears. In any case, I am thinking that, since expectations for Episode II are so low, people will probably be more impressed with it than Episode I, for which expectations were unreasonably high. At least I hope this is the case, for the sake of Episode III: This is Where I Came In.

I need to get a new rear tire for my motorcycle, since both tires are original and the rear wheel get locked a lot more than the front wheel when I brake hard. I also have to keep my front shocks cleaner, since they leak shock fluid onto my disk brake and make it really oily and thus not a very good brake, which is turn causes me to bounce off of other people’s rear bumpers. I have no idea how much longer my bike will last, but as long as I only have to spend a couple thousand NT on it to keep it running, I will continue to do so rather than spend upwards of NT$50,000 for a new bike that I probably won’t even like as much.

Today as I made my way through the stifling heat to the G’day Cafe for some of their delicious chicken, I passed a group of guys standing around outside one of the public housing units. Every single one of them was really good looking. It was like a meeting of the “Guys TC Thinks are Really Good Looking” Club (which refused me membership, the bastards).

At the restaurant, I stuffed myself with the daily special and was rewarded with a free brownie and ice cream, which is the exact opposite of what I should be doing at this point, i.e. starving myself so that I can fit into some old dress pants for my interview on Friday. On my way back to the office after lunch, I saw that the really good looking guys carrying construction materials into one of the units. Turns out that they were actually just a group of workers refurbishing an apartment.

posted by Poagao at 7:00 am  

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