The Taipei Kid

Salon’s latest feature on the death of James Kim mentions another family who had also gotten trapped in the Southern Oregon snow–the Stivers. I don’t feel quite as sorry for the Stivers, who took their kids on a little RV holiday with Grandma and Grandpa Meth Dealer,  as I do for the Kim family. Is it possible Grandma and Grandpa were on the lam? Is that why they “came prepared”? Pretty bad comparison, Salon.

I went to go see about tickets for the high-speed rail today. Big mistake. If you are a foreigner, you can expect to be filmed, photographed and bothered by all of the reporters camped out around the ticket counter. This includes sticking a microphone and camera in your face while you are talking to the guy at the service counter. I totally look like crap today. I just wanted to ask about schedules and ticket sales. And so much for Taiwan being an international operations destination—here we’ve got this bazillion U.S. dollar project and nothing is in English, and none of the staffers can understand English. Not that I need that, but what about joe-schmo visiting businessman or tourist? They do have some English information on their Web site, perhaps a little more than we needed. (Did you know they “offer urinals“? Nice toilet photos, btw.) I chose to split as soon as I could before I had an Elton John moment with all that press around.

I just got back from a short trip to beautiful Klamath Falls. Not exactly Klamath Falls, but more closer to Rocky Point. Before I go any further, I would like to publicly apologize to Pril for not calling, not emailing, not doing a damn thing to let her know I would be in the same 50-mile radius. This was mostly a family visit, and I was hardly ever in Klamath anyway, except to go to the airport, and that was at like six in the morning, or to go get dinner rolls for my mom.
I also spent time at Running Y. (Hello–Is your Y Running? Well, you better go catch it!) There seems to be some construction going on near the entrance, but it is top secret. Could it be a new shopping center so Running Y’ers don’t have to drive 30 minutes just to get some butter?

Running Y seems to have kicked off some copycat developments that I noticed while on my dinner roll drive. I think the houses at Running Y are way too close together. Y pay to live in houses that are so close to each other and all look the same? The only reason I can think of is so you can take nice morning strolls in one of their manicured trails without worrying about being hit by a semi or attacked by a wild animal.

Much like Pril, I was bummed out that there was no snow in Klamath during Xmas. Just drizzling rain. Pathetic.

On the plus side, all this negative talk about TSA goons and long airport waits turned out to be hogwash. Check in and security was a breeze in LAX and Oregon during this busy air travel season. Additionally, I have discovered a great new way to make money I hope to employ during my next visit–each time an old acquaintance asks me how life in “China” is, or tells me about so-and-so who went to China to adopt a baby, as if I just happen to somehow be down the street from where they went to get the kid, I am going to charge them a dollar.

I’ll give you something to Ho!, Ho!, Ho! about–how about Doritos Roasted Turkey flavored chips? And the chips are even shaped like Christmas trees! It would be easy to think that this is some sort of art project, but it seems to be readily available at 7-11s here. And popular too–I grabbed the last bag in the store. Every foreigner in the neighborhood must have bought a bag to blog about.

Leave it to our sweet, little (Taipei-based) Benq to create an ad campaign that capitalizes on the collapse of the World Trade Center. And just in time for the holiday season, too! We belive they really screwed up with this one, but we’ve never had many nice things to say about this company anyway. Good thing they “have put a process in place to prevent this type of incident from happening again“.

Via GBU_News
Via Engadget

…all I get is a bunch of wet toothpicks.

Edit: Click here for the trick.

The Players

Player A: Early 30s, dumbass gym rat in a towel who thinks whitey can’t understand Chinese and would barely move an inch so I could get into my locker

Player B: Oviously in a higher league than Player A and his friends, acting slightly uncomfortable.

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A Louis Vuitton store in Taichung was robbed the other night. No big deal, but I just like the comic art work that the Apple Daily provided. It looks like Speed Racer gone bad. I have to hand it to one of the robbers for daring to clean out the store, *a store with big windows*, while wearing a bright yellow raincoat. Even if you can’t read Chinese, check out the pics all down the page here. (English details here.) I wish people would stop calling it “LV”. The whole damn Chinese article refers to “LV” all the way through. Why pay thousands of dollars for a bag whose name you can’t pronounce?

Call me crazy, but President Chen Shui-bian’s son-in-law and alleged insider trading, and rapper Foxy Brown seem to have some sort of weird connection. First of all, Chao Chien-ming has been busted for chewing gum in court, just like Foxy Brown. Foxy also missed a court date because of oral surgery, and Chao just happens to be an oral surgeon! Weird, but true.

Local appliance maker Teco sure has an interesting microwave out these days. This is one appliance that deserves to become a bestselling cult item just because of its name. It’s called the “Flirt” and the microprint underneath it actually reads, “The Art of Pleasure”. You can purchase this gem of an appliance at Carrefour, which is where I saw it today along with a brief, “WTF is this?” moment. Who’s the marketing genious that decided to give a microwave oven an erotic name and tagline and then put a chicken inside it?