Interesting Brand Names

Since I moved to Taiwan almost three years ago, I've noticed a few interesting brand names.

There's a brand of water called 多喝水 (duo1 he1 shui3) which literally translates into "Drink More Water." At first I was turned off by it. . . I was like, how dare a bottle of water tell me what to do! I'm an grown adult! I'm not going to drink more water just to spite it! But then I thought, well. . . maybe the bottle of water is looking out for my health. I mean water is better for me than soda or coffee. I'm so confused! What should I do?!?!

I ended up buying a green tea because it's cheaper. I don't know how that works. I mean green tea is just the same exact water but with flavor added. It's like ordering a plain pizza for $20 USD but if you decide to add pepperoni topping it becomes $10 USD. The beverage market is strange.

Anyways, back on topic. . .

I'm not much of a milk drinker so I don't usually pay attention to the milk section when I'm out shopping but this brand stood out. I have so many questions when I see this brand.

Who is Dr. Milker?!?!
Is he/she a medical doctor that spends his free time milking cows?
Or is this someone that got their PhD in milking?
Could you really tell the difference between milk from someone with only a masters degree in milking to someone with a PhD in milking?
Can you really get a PhD in milking?
Can you milk a cat?
I wonder what cat milk tastes like.


Then I think it's probably just some marketing person's idea. . . I'm thinking of starting my own brand of orange juice. . .

I'm gonna be so rich! Nobody steal this idea from me!


Oh yeah and my favorite brand name in Taiwan is. . .

*drumroll*

黑人牙膏 (hei1 ren1 ya2 gao1). This translates to "black person toothpaste."

What's even funnier is there's a cheaper toothpaste called 白人牙膏 (bai2 ren2 ya2 gao1) that translates to "white person toothpaste."


Yes, these are real products. I usually splurge for the black person toothpaste. Only the best for my pearly whites.

24 Days of My Life in Pictures

A few months ago, I wrote a post about a guy that took one picture everyday for 18 years straight to document his life. It inspired me to try it out myself.

It's kind of sad that I only did it for 24 days straight before I lost interest. It's much more difficult than I thought. . . to force yourself to take one picture that will forever represent that day in your life.

Here is 24 days of my life from end of May to mid/end of June 2008 in chronological order:

Random Bicycle Race with a Complete Stranger

I'm planning to sell my bicycle and buy one of those newfangled folding bikes. Actually, I've been planning to sell it for like 4 months but I've been too lazy to get off my ass and do anything. First I have to wash and prep the bicycle, then I have to take pictures of it, then I have to print out flyers, then I have to post up flyers everywhere. It's not helping that i think the bike is only worth $5000 NT which is only like $165 USD which isn't much of a motivation.

So anyways, I finally got to washing my bike on Saturday. Decided to go downstairs to the riverside park for a short easy ride to make sure everything is working okay. About 20 minutes into the ride, I pass some older looking guy, i'm guessing 50-60 years old. Then about 2-3 minutes later, he passes me back. At that point I was at nice-easy-ride speed. So I turned it up a notch and repassed him thinking that was the last I'd see of him.

A few minutes later, he flies past me. I mutter to myself "oh no you didn't old man." So I turn it up another notch but all I can do is follow him because there's too many other bicyclists and I can't pass. When traffic clears up I pick up the pace and pass him. I go pretty much as fast as I can for 5 minutes, never looking back, then i slow it down slightly when I'm confident that the old man is given up.

He still caught up and passed me! Except this time he was breathing much louder and sweating noticeably more. You could tell he was tired. If I was a bigger man I would've just let him win and give up. Let him have the satisfaction of beating me. . . but nope. I passed him again and I went as fast as I possibly could go. I was surprised I had anything left. I eventually slowed down and looked back about 5 minutes later and I couldn't see him anymore.

It felt good until I realized the following three things.
1. I'm slightly nauseous from riding so hard.
2. I only barely outran someone that's old enough to be my father.
3. I rode so far, I didn't know where I was anymore.

Go-Karts Round 2

From my last post about Hooters, I joked about breaking my hip:

I won't joke about that stuff again. I think I got my hip knocked loose on the go-kart track.

Yesterday, some friends and I decided to head back to the go-kart track that we went earlier in the year. Weather was perfect and we had a lot of good racing. Most of the people in the group didn't go with us last time so the first time around I lapped everyone like twice. But by the third session, huge improvement by everyone. I couldn't lap anyone and was even passed a few times.

This is probably why my hip doesn't feel so great today. On the last session of the day, since everyone was more consistent and competitive, we were spending much more time side by side. Coming into the hairpin turn we had three people going for the apex at pretty much the same time. I had a feeling this wasn't going to turn out well.

The first person that reaches the apex loses his rear end and does a 180 spin and comes to a stop in the middle of the corner exit. By that time I've already committed to taking the inside line since I have another car directly to the right of me. I slow down as much as I can but it's too late. BOOM!

Ouch. . . and then I see my friend who took the outside line speed away, waving his hand as to say "Cya!" to the both of us. What a great friend! I know who's gonna get brake checked the next time he's behind me.

I have bruises on my elbow, my ribs, and my hip. My whole upper body is sore and I'll probably walking with a slight limp for at least a week.

But looking forward to the next time we go back.

Hooters

Hooters. . . to me it's about as American as apple pie or baseball or NASCAR. So it's kinda funny that I lost my Hooters virginity in Taipei of all places. It's not that there weren't any Hooters around when I was in the the US. I remember in college there was a Hooters about 5 minutes from campus. I guess it was probably just a combination of a lack of interest on my part and the fact that I usually hung out with groups that usually consisted of more girls than guys.

What can I say, I have a strict "no sausage-fest" policy when it comes to social outings.

I'm kidding. . .

. . . for the most part.

So a friend was about to leave Taiwan and return to the States. Wanted to arrange a going away get-together. None of my friends could pick a place. . . the requirements was that it had to be open late on a weekday, serve food and drinks, and not be too far from everyone. We went to TGI Friday's a few days earlier so that was out. It was surprisingly hard to think of somewhere else. I ended up choosing Hooters. In hindsight, it seems kind of stupid to have a get together at Hooters for someone who'll be returning to the US. Kinda like taking someone to Macaroni Grill right before they leave for Italy. Lesson learned. It'll be stinky tofu and Taiwan Beer for the next person that leaves Taiwan.

Anyways, so how was the Hooters "experience" you ask?

The buffalo wings were pretty good but the entrees were bleh. I'm not much of a beer guy so I won't comment on the beer. Actually, I can't even remember what kind of beer I had. The waitress for our table sounded like Joey's manager, Estelle from Friend's. . . so sad that I instantly remember some random character from a long canceled sitcom yet sometimes I can't even remember what day it is. I'm getting old. My next post will probably be about me breaking my hip in the shower.

Back on topic. . . I'm guessing most people don't go to Hooters for the food or service, they go for the Hooters girls. They did a short performance. I'm guessing it's some kind of Hooters tradition? It involves two girls one cup. . . sorry, I mean two girls and about a thousand hula hoops. It was impressive how many hula hoops the girls could twirl simultaneously. I didn't know whether to applaud or take my dollar bills out. Then I realized I was in Taiwan and we don't have dollar bills. The smallest denomination paper currency is $100NT (equivalent to $3.10 USD). Way too much. . . so applaud I did.

Brief crappy camera phone video I took of the performance:



Hooters Taipei website: www.hooters.com.tw

Anyone remember that bug scene from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom?

Just came back from lunch. While I was out it started raining like crazy. . . like "build a ship and load up thousands of animals" crazy. Fortunately, I had the foresight to bring an umbrella. Unfortunately, umbrellas only protect you from rain when it's falling at a downward angle, which it usually does but today's rain was not so cooperative.

Because I do not like the idea of working for 6 hours in soaked pants I decided I would try to wait for the rain to turn from category 5 typhoon level to run-of-the-mill heavy thunderstorm level before I walked back to my office.

While waiting for the rain to stop I played with me cell phone to kill some time. A few minutes pass and then I feel a slight movement on my lower back. I didn't think much of it, I thought it was the wind or something. I continuing playing with my phone. A minute later I feel more movement except now on my upper back. . . now I'm thinking something isn't right. So I start jumping around and feeling the back of my shirt. And then the freakiest feeling in the world happened. . . something was trying to crawl into my hair! I freaked out and bent down and flicked whatever it was off of me. A humongous cockroach landed a few feet from a lady standing near me. I didn't even have to look to know it was humongous because I could feel the mass when I flicked it and it actually made a sound when it hit the ground.

The lady jumped away from the cockroach and then she looked at me and I looked at her for a second. We both had one of those "WTF just happened?" looks on our faces. Well, mine was more of a "Did a cockroach just crawl under my shirt, up my neck, and into my hair?" look. While hers was more like, "Did you just grab a giant cockroach from your hair and throw it at me?" look.

I pretended like I wasn't freaked out and I walked away. While I was walking I felt all over my back and hair to make sure there wasn't anything still on there. I did this for awhile, hard to get that feeling out of your mind. Ugh. . .

I'm thinking the heavy rain floods the crevices/sewers where roaches hide during the day. I'm guessing that's why I had my encounter today. Lesson learned. . .

#1: watch out for cockroaches during heavy downpours.
#2: stuff shirt into pants. . . always.

Watch the scene from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (specifically the shot at the 1:52 mark):

Flight back from NY

I believe Ang Lee took the same flight as me, but i'm not 100% sure it was him. I only briefly saw a person that looked like him and his small entourage of people being escorted by China Airlines staff past the mass of people anxiously waiting in line to be stuffed into the economy section.

Side note: Why are people always in such a rush to get in the airplane? First of all, the last time I checked everyone has assigned seating. Secondly, it's an 18 hour flight. . . or 18 hour 10 minute flight for those lucky people that got on line early. . . way to go! 10 free minutes!

I thought I lucked out when I checked in, I got the last window seat available. After I get to my seat this chubby 10 or 11 year old kid wearing a straw cowboy hat, black t-shirt, shorts, and orange crocs shoes sits next to me. His parents nowhere to be found. Great!

He had the worst case of ADD imaginable. I'm not kidding, he couldn't sit still for 2 seconds.
I had to tell him twice to stop bumping his elbow into me and stop shaking the seat. While we were waiting to takeoff he was simultaneously watching the safety video, looking out the window, and flipping through the airline magazine. He'd look at the TV for one second then out the window for one second then back to TV then to magazine then to window then to TV etc etc etc. . . And when I say flipping through the magazine I mean strictly flipping through the magazine, he didn't even look at most of the pages before he flipped to the next page.

At this point, I'm thinking, this is going to be a long flight. That's when he looked around for a second and then put his hand down his pants and scratched/grabbed/molested his private parts. That's not the worst of it, right afterwards he'd pick his nose with the same hand and bite his nails.

That was it. . . GAME OVER. I'm out. I'm not sitting with this kid for 18 hours.

This kid had absolutely no clue on what socially acceptable behavior is. What kind of parents don't teach their children how to behave in public? Then I thought probably the same kind that lets their 10 year old boy go on international flights alone with no adult supervision.

He played the testicle tug game two or three more times before the fasten seat belt light finally went out and I jumped to first empty seat I could find.

Then I started thinking, maybe this kid is really clever and he did this on purpose so he could get both seats all to himself.

Nope, when I looked back from my new seat a few minutes later the ADD kid was still ADD kid. The guy sitting directly in front of ADD kid had a really annoyed look on his face. Everytime the ADD kid moved or got up from his seat he'd shake the seat in front. So basically every 30 seconds. Good luck trying to sleep. . . hahahaha sucker, I got the last empty seat!

The rest of the 18 hour flight was uneventful, watched some crappy movies, food was pretty bad as usual, but the time passed by surprisingly quickly.

Was nice coming back to Taipei.

Inspirational Story

I saw this on Digg earlier today, usually i don't post stuff like this but I thought this was really interesting. . .

Some guy named Jamie Livingston decided to take one polaroid picture a day, everyday, to document his life. He did it for 18 years straight from March 31, 1979 to October 27, 1997. . . he died of cancer the next day on October 28, 1997.

Some of his friends decided to make a website where all 6000+ of his pictures can be viewed. Unfortunately it's down due to too much traffic.

Here's a link to a few of the polaroids (a little bit slow to load):
http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/15131
Mostly same pictures minus a few. but much faster loading:
http://www.experienceproject.com/uw.php?e=224637
Here's a link to more background info:
http://onlytheblogknowsbrooklyn.typepad.com/only_the_blog_knows_brook/2008/05/mental-floss-di.html

I've decided to try the same project as Livingston, take one picture a day everyday for as long as possible. . . hopefully skipping the getting cancer and dying part of the project.

Today's pic:

LOL, don't expect much. . . my life is not particularly photogenic, especially on weekdays.

Update 24-Dec-2008:
Results from my own attempt at this project.

Suicide at 師大 (ShiDa)

I found out this morning that someone committed suicide yesterday at ShiDa. A young girl jumped off the top of the building where I go to class. . . about a 10 story fall. I overslept yesterday so I completely missed the whole thing. My classmate actually heard the sound of the impact and another classmate was able to get a closeup view of the rescue effort. . . well, more like cleanup effort.

When my friend told me what happened, I was thinking to myself this doesn't make any sense to me. This happened at 8AM. . . why kill yourself so early? What's the rush? Why not get a few more hours of sleep and then jump off the building. That's the great thing about buildings, they don't go anywhere! And I think the weather was beautiful yesterday. . . It's always raining in Taipei, why kill yourself on a beautiful day? Suicidal people are weird.

On a side note, I've decided to take a break from school. Work has been really hectic recently and there's no sign of it letting up anytime soon. Plus I'll be in NY for two weeks in June. My plan is to get myself to learn the class material on my own and try to start reading newspapers. We'll see how that goes. . .

So, unfortunately, no more stories from school for at least the next few months.

Snoopy Sno-cone Machine

Does anyone remember this thing? I was browsing through a blog that I frequent once in awhile, when I saw some hello kitty drink holder. I'm not sure why but it instantly brought up memories of the Snoopy Sno-cone machine my sister and I had when we were little. I vaguely remember the sno-cone ice that came out of it could be made just as easily with a plastic bag and a hammer, and the flavoring liquid it came with was just red sugar water. . . but I think we had a pretty good time with it or else I wouldn't remember it twenty plus years later.

Crappy weather

I should really be studying Chinese but I'm so far behind that I don't feel like starting because even if I catch up this week, I'll just fall behind again when work gets really busy.
















It rains a lot in Taipei. I should be used to it by now, but I'm not.

The forecast is usually wrong though. I don't even know why I look at it. I think maybe the guy that does the forecast is in a bad mood today and wants everyone else to be in a bad mood. We'll see. . .

Turns out I'm married. . .

I got a call this past tuesday from an unknown number. Normally I just ignore them but just so happens that I was expecting a call from a friend of a friend visiting Taipei, so I picked up.

The reception at the beginning wasn't so great, so I wasn't sure I knew what the lady on the other end was saying. . . but she sounded like she knew me so out of politeness I pretended I knew her. I'm sure everyone has had that experience before. Where you meet someone or get a call and you have no idea who that person is but you keep on talking like you know them, hoping the other person will drop a clue and in your mind you'll go "Oooooh yeah!!!!".

Except this time, the "Ooooh yeah!!!!" never came. I eventually had to ask her who she was. . .

She said she's my 老婆 (wife)!

Okay. . . ... . . . ... . . . ... . . . ... . . . ... . . . ...

Then I asked her how she knew me, and she said we met at some bar or club two years ago and I gave her my number. Which is highly unlikely since two years ago was when I just moved to Taiwan, I didn't know anyone and I just started phone service. I think I would remember giving out my number.

So from that point on I started, as politely as possible, to end the call. She started asking why I was so "cold" to her and I just kept on insisting I had to go. Eventually I just hung up.

I'm sure everyone is asking why I didn't just hang up immediately. . . the problem of that is that this person knows my cell phone number. If I piss her off, she can call my randomly in the middle of the night and wake me up. And I NEED my sleep.

I added her as "Wtf" in my cell phone contact list. So if she called again I would know to ignore her.

Phone rang again on Wednesday night and I immediately ignored it when I saw "Wtf" on the screen.

I'm thinking this kind of call is some sort of scheme where they trick people into going into shady places and then they stab them and cut out their organs to sell on ebay. If in the next few weeks, there's no new posts here and you find a human liver being auctioned by a seller from Taiwan on ebay. . . don't buy it! And call the police.

Anyways, she didn't call yesterday, so I'm hoping that's the end of it.

Strange Contest in Class Today

Learned the chinese word 憋 (bie1) in class today. It means suppress or hold back. The usage example the teacher gave for this word was 憋氣 (bie1 qi4). Which means hold your breath. So out of the blue the teacher said everyone hold their breaths and she's gonna time it. See who can hold their breath the longest. The first person gave up after 30 seconds. . . PATHETIC! i wanted to laugh at her for having the lung capacity of a chain smoking 6 year old with pneumonia. . . but then i realized that laughing means i'd need to let a little bit of air out of my lungs which might still contain a small amount of unused oxygen, which might make me need to breath sooner. So I didn't laugh.

After almost two minutes of holding my breath. . .

I passed out. I think an hour has passed, I'm here typing this on my PDA in the emergency room. The doctor told me there's probably no brain damage but I should check back in a few days.



Just kidding about the passing out, emergency room, and brain damage part. I was the last one to start breathing. So I guess I won this impromptu breath-holding contest. But I feel kind of stupid because my face got red and i started sweating a little. I'm normally not competitive at all 99% of the time, but sometimes, for seemingly completely random stuff I'm ultra competitive. I feel like I just have to win.

Funny T-shirt

While crossing the street this morning I noticed a girl wearing a T-shirt that said:

Friends are forever
Boys are whatever

Made me think. . . good thing I'm a MAN! trapped in a boy's body.

Chinese New Years (2nd Road Trip)

I went with my other group of friends to Miaoli for some go-karting. The place is a pretty far trek from Taipei, roughly two hours by car, but it's supposed to be the best go-kart track in Taiwan.

I wasn't disappointed.

The track is fairly large, has a fast left hand sweeper, a slightly technical section, uphill/downhill part, a hairpin, and a quick left/right section.

Each session costs $250 NT ($8 USD) and they let us run for about 15 minutes. Normally i think it's 10 minutes but since the weather was freezing there wasn't too many people there, they gave us a little more time.

First you go into a room where they brief you on how to drive and some safety stuff. This is nothing like the US. First thing the employee told us was, if you crash and damage the car, you have to pay them for whatever is broken. Second was that if you crash and injure yourself, well. . . that's your problem.

Then he talked about the flags, green means go, yellow means slow down, checkered means the session is over. Left foot = brake, right foot = gas. He pointed to where the helmets and balaclavas were and that was that. I don't think the whole thing took more than 3-4 minutes and we didn't have to sign waivers or anything. Very unlike the US, where you'd have to watch 3 videos, study a safety manual, tell them who to contact if there's an emergency, sign 10 forms, and give them the results from your most recent physical.

Anyways, we strap on our helmets and go outside. It's freezing and the wind is blowing pretty strong. I'm thinking, gloves would've been a good idea. Oh well. . . too late now.

We get into the cars and wait for the green flag. There's a strong smell of gasoline in the air as the go-kart motors are probably running pretty rich in this abnormally cold weather. After the owner guy sees everyone's in their cars and all the engines are still running, he waves the flag and we're off.

I immediately remember how much fun go-karts are. Everything is so immediate and responsive. You only have to think about going left and kart goes left. You get a great sensation of speed since your derrière is only an inch off the ground and there's no suspension so you feel every little bump, crevice, every imperfection of the track. The go-karts probably only go 60 kph but it feels like 150 kph.

I was both disappointed and a little relieved to see the checkered flag. One one hand, I still hadn't completely figured out how to take turn 9 properly. Also, one of the faster guys just passed me so I wanted to follow him and see what i was doing wrong. On the other hand, my brain/body was telling me I could use a break.

I ended up doing only one more session as my friends were too tired to do anymore laps.

Was a lot of fun. Look forward to going back when it's not so cold.

Oh yeah, here's their website:
http://wuch6011.myweb.hinet.net/

Chinese New Years (Road Trip Day 1)

I can't believe the new years break is already over. . .

Friend's company let him use company car over the break. So we took advantage of it and went to a bunch of places around Taiwan.

First stop was JiouFen (九份). But getting there ended being more fun than actually being there. On the way to JiouFen we got lost, ended up driving longer than anticipated. We pass by a clump of 3-4 seafood restaurants, it's way past lunchtime, stomachs begin to make noises, mouths start to salivate. We think, no worries, we're almost there. . . 10 more minutes and we can eat at JiouFen. 10 minutes later, there's no signs of civilization. Uh oh. . . we need to ask for directions.

Immediately my friend says "That seafood restaurant we passed, they probably know how to get there." My other obviously not-so-hungry friend says "We passed by a convenience store 3 minutes ago, we can ask them for directions. Why go all the way back to the seafood restaurant?" And then my other friend says something like "Yeah, I heard seafood restaurant workers are world renowned for their ability to give road directions." LOL, I'm not sure why we had to give an excuse, other than "we're hungry", to go back to that restaurant but it was pretty funny coming up with them.

So we get to the restaurant and have our fill of crabs, clams, sashimi, etc. The lady at the front tells us the directions. And off we go. . . Except, when we walk out of the restaurant, it immediately feels like a typhoon hit us. Wind blowing our umbrellas inside out, rain flying sideways. We head for the parking lot and it feels like a war movie. We have our umbrellas out, not over our heads but pointed straight in front of us, held very low with us crouching behind it like we're dodging bullets. Since we can't see anything in front we end up bumping in to parked cars and trees and almost tripping over stuff, all accompanied by screams and laughter. After what seemed like a mile long trek, we finally get inside the nice and dry car.

10 minute drive later, we end up at JiouFen. Nothing eventful, just a bunch of small really narrow streets and a bunch of old interesting looking stores selling random crap. Supposedly the view is really good, but since the weather was so bad, we couldn't see anything. Our clothes were drenched from the constant rain and it got really cold really fast. So it was a easy decision to leave after a little over an hour of walking around.

Next stop was perfect for our situation. . . hot spring at BeiTou (北投). Taiwan has lots and lots of hot springs. They are typically separated into public pools (one area for men, one area for women) and private rooms. In the public pools you are required to be completely naked. We were almost going to do that and split the guys and the girls up but luckily we found a place that had a private room that could accommodate the five of us. And surprisingly not too expensive, it was $200 NT per person for 40 minutes. . . but upstairs is a restaurant. If you order $400 NT worth of food per person, you get 40 minutes in hot spring for free. (That's only $12.50 USD!) So that's what we did, we were expecting mediocre food since it wasn't really a "real" restaurant but surprisingly the food was really good, real restaurant or not.

After we finish our food, we go downstairs to our private room and jump into the tubs. If you've never gone to hot spring before, it's just like taking a bath. Except the water smells funny and you smell worse coming out of it than you did going in. The minerals and everything in the water are supposed to be great for your body but I can't tell. The only thing I notice afterwards is the smell. It took me two showers to completely get rid of the smell. Anyways, we were supposed to be in there for 40 minutes . . . but it ended up being 2 hours! So the lady tells me her boss is going to yell at her for letting us stay for so long. I'm thinking, how is that our fault? We had no idea, there's no clock in the room, and nobody had a a watch on, and it's too steamy to take out the cell phones.

So I was like. . . "talk to the hand bitch!"



Just kidding, all i said was "oops, 不好意思"

Pizza and Movies

This past Saturday, I went to friend's place for a pizza and movie night.

Side note: Pizza is not cheap in Taiwan! We got two large pizzas and two buckets of chicken. Ended up being $1500NT which is almost $50 USD. The large pizzas here are more like medium size in the US. We had four guys and a girl and we finished it pretty easily.

Side side note: It's weird, everyone sells fried chicken here. McDonald's has fried chicken, Pizza Hut and Dominoes also has fried chicken. I think KFC sells chicken also!

So we had to choose between the action movie War and that romance movie with Catherine Zeta Jones where she's a chef and she cooks stuff and ends up falling in love with some guy.

Like I said earlier, we had four guys and one girl so it's pretty obvious which movie we ended up choosing.

Oh what a horrible mistake that was. . .

The movie was a complete mess, all I remember was guns shooting and punches being thrown, explosions. . . then some naked chick (which my astute friend immediately noticed had one breast slightly larger than the other). . . then some slow parts involving gold horse statues, and then Jet Li killing Chinese gangsters, then that weird looking girl (devon aoki) ordering a chef salad from Japanese gangsters (I'm not making this up!) , then Jet Li on motorcycle killing both chinese and japanese gangsters, and then freakin' NINJAS!!!! And then Jet Li using the ninja's own sword to cut the ninja's head off. . . and more fighting, sushi restaurant, explosions with Ferraris and Spykers in the background. and then Jet Li fights the guy from the Transporter movie, but nobody dies. And then a scene where Devon Aoki opens a box with some old guy's severed head in it. THE END.

I'm sure I've seen movies worse than this but I can't think of any right now.

I voted to watch the Catherine Zeta Jones flick. Stupid friends didn't listen to me. See what happens when people don't listen to me? You get a movie where Devon Aoki randomly orders chef salads and opens boxes with severed heads in it.

Posessed Phones

Yesterday, 7:30 AM in the morning, cell phone rings. I'm still sleeping (no class today), i'm thinking who could be calling this damn early. Caller ID says it's the home landline phone.

Weird. . .

Maybe my mom just wants to make sure i wake up in time for class. I go back to sleep.

Later that day, about dinner time, the home phone rings. My mom picks it up, she says "hello", person on other side hangs up. . . mom gets annoyed and says something like "stupid people, wasting my time" and then she looks at the Caller ID and it's displaying her own cell phone number (!?!?).

Her cell phone is on the kitchen table.

So then i ask my mom, did she call in the morning? She said no, why would she call when she could just walk two seconds and knock on my door?

*cue music from the shower scene in Psycho*

Indian Music Video

Torture and T-shirts

How an AIM conversation about an internet advertising company's name switches to talking about torture and then T-shirts.

Me: Eyeblaster is the worst name ever
Friend: yeah I know.
Me: when i think of it, i have a bunch of different thoughts. . . all of them bad
Friend: hahaha
Me: it's like a some kind of medieval torture device
Friend: POW right in the eye
Me: give him 10 minutes on the Eyeblaster. . . he'll tell us where the secret base is.
Friend: hehe
Me: isn't there some kind of controversy right now?
Me: with wakeboarding or something?
Me: oops, i mean waterboarding
Friend: its a type of torture
Me: that's funny. . . waterboarding sounds like fun
Friend: it does right?
Me: the weather's great, let's go waterboarding!
Friend: like a cousin of boogie boarding
Friend: They should make a T-shirt like that
Me: haha
Me: i want to get some T-shirts
Friend: Oh yeah.. me too.. the gawker shop is having a sale!

Interesting thing I learned in Chinese class

Normally nothing interesting happens during class, either it's too early in the morning for me to remember anything or I cut class for an extra two hours of sleep (those are the best two hours of sleep ever!)

A little bit background info for people who are not familiar with Chinese characters. Chinese characters are like molecules built up from smaller elements like atoms. These smaller elements are called radicals. For example the character for noodle is (mian4). It consists of two radicals, on the left side is the radical (mai4) which means wheat and the right side is the radical (mian4) which means face. So by looking at the (mai4) provides a clue on the meaning of the word (Noodles are usually made out of wheat) and the (mian4) portion tells us how to pronounce the word.

It's not always this easy though, radicals don't have to be aligned left to right, sometimes they are placed top to bottom, outside/inside. Sometimes all the radicals in a character are for meaning and not for pronuncation. Sometimes radicals are put in there that have nothing to do with meaning or pronunciation.

For example, one word i hate is . On the top is (neng2) which means "can or to be able to." On the bottom there those four little marks that are the radical version of (huo3) which means fire. So I'm thinking, you pronounce the word just like (neng2) and it has something to do with fire.

WRONG! is pronounced xiong2 and it means bear. Bear as in those big furry animals that live in Jellystone park and steal picnic baskets.

It's as if whoever made up these words hundreds (thousands?) of years ago were like. . .

Guy1: Okay, how should we make the character for bear?
Guy2: Dude, it's friday, it's late, we've done a thousand of these already. We're gonna miss happy hour.
Guy1: Okay, then. . .
(Closes eyes and points to a wall with all the radicals)
Eeny, meeny, miny, moe, catch a tiger by the. . .


So what two words did the teacher write on the blackboard?

First word was .　The radical on top is 　which represents a body, inside/underneath of that is which means rice. So what happens when you eat rice? You eventually go #2, and that's what the word means.

The teacher actually wrote "shit" in english next to "" just to make it clear. I thought that was pretty funny.

Second word was ． The same radical on top, bottom is the radical which means water. So what happens when you drink water? You eventually go #1, and that's what the word means.

I am absolutely terrible at remembering how to write chinese words. I usually need to keep on practicing writing a word over and over again before i have it commited to memory but these two words. . . it won't be necessary.