You know, there is really nothing better than a big cup of hot coffee, a good book, a long weekend ahead, and A GREAT BIG PACK OF CIGARETTES. Oh my nicotene-laden babies, how could I have forsaken you? I promise I will not abandon you again this year...

The New Year's Eve party known as THE BOMB is moving indoors. Same building, 9th floor. I'll be either there or Liquid Lounge. First stop most likely La Bodega.

http://www.msf.org/


http://www.careinternational.org.uk/


International Red Cross

http://www.ifrc.org/


World Vision
http://www.worldvision.org.uk/

And a whole bunch more.


We had some money left over from the Kidzday Christmas party, so it looks like we are going to donate US$10,000 to tsunami victims. We should be able to do this and still have enough to rennovate the Christian Herald Orphanage.

All right. Who is the dumbass that told me Chilis had closed down? Blasphemous nonsense- I just had lunch there. I enjoyed a delightful Cajun Chicken Sandwich and Coke and... ARRRGHH God I need a cigarette please stop the burning I'll sell my soul just SOMEBODY give me a cigarette even an ultra-light would be ok Hoorglemumph gaaah...

These ladies are Xuan and Water. They live in Vietnam, and met Cynthia when all three of them were travelling to Cambodia last summer. They still keep in touch by E-mail, and they asked Cynthia if she knows any guys who are 'nice' and 'handsome'. Nice AND Handsome? In the same guy? In Taichung? Sorry ladies, I'll have to try and tap my remining single brother to come to Asia for a matchmaking trip. Do either one of you happen to like fishing?

.

Last night at 32 hours, what do I find on the balcony but half a pack of Davidoff Lights. So I tried to smoke one. Got three puffs in before I gave up- the taste was just too disgusting. If yer a smoker, you know that that doesn't count; You have to smoke at least half the cigarette for it to count as smoking. Therefore, I now claim to have gone 46 hours without smoking.

I am chewing aspirin for the burning head thing. I've go multiple addictions working here- in order to quit smoking I have to stop chugging coffee all day. But stopping chugging coffee all day seems to have its own set of drawbacks- a loss of motivation to do anything at all, and headaches, and some other stuff I'd really rather not talk about.

Just hit 26 hours. You might be surprised if you saw how fast I just ate a pack of M & M's. I hate M & M's. Not as much as I hate chewing gum, though. The brain. It burns, it burns.

Passed 22 hours. Head hurts. Drinking hot tea. I hate tea. Leaking snot. I hate snot. And leaking. Boss just walked through office smoking. I am simultaneously drawn to and repelled by his cigarette, like, like, like... like a simile that implies a big contradiction. I hate similes. And contradictions. Probably shouldn't have hit that pack of Pall Mall reds before I started this. Should have spent a day or two with some ultra-light brand. I hate ultra-lights. And brands. Head still hurts. I hate my head.

Approaching 21 hour mark. Decided I was going to need some help if I want to get any work done this morning, so I grabbed the 2mg Nicorette that I have had since the last time I tried to quit. The box says it expired Oct '03. I didn't even know chewing gum could expire. And when was the last time I tried to quit that the Nicorette has expired?

I hope everyone had a happy holiday weekend. The week is not starting out so well in my part of The 'Chung. First, the earthquake and subsequent tsunamis are just tragic. 4500 people dead in Sri Lanka. Cynthia and I were in Sri Lanka last January, and the country has enough problems without a disaster like this striking. News reports say that a 9 meter (30-foot) wave hit the city of Galle in the South. I don't think that bodes well for the old Dutch fort there, but it may have seen worse in the past. I don't know. This mosque:
.
is in the fort right near the water. (The word 'fort' may be misleading here. What the Dutch built was like a mini fortified town on a penninsula.)

And the other reason why the week is not starting out so well is that I have decided to get a jump on New Year's Eve-type resolutions. I don't want to say too much and jinx myself, so let's just say that my brain is on fire and I hate everything, especially f**king chewing gum.*

So, here are some baby pictures to lighten the mood, and perhaps prevent me from pulling some hapless driver out of their car and beating them to death.





And besides babies, there is other good news. It was not announced until yesterday, but on October 31, 2004, the Beast asked and the Beauty said yes. Congratulations to AJ and Sian.

Everyone have a good week.

*Going on 4 hours as of this posting.

This SMS message received from Ryan (dubbed Ryana by me in Dec. 10 post):

Baby ivo here! 3.2 kg at 7 a.m. Mama and baby are resting...

So while we will all offer congratulations to Ryan, I admit to being somewhat confused by his syntax. The baby's name is Ivo?

And for everyone else:

This just in from DJ Pressplay. Super Cool Pic Illusion. Safe for work, possibly not safe for your inner ear.

And this video linked below is not safe for work. Nor is it safe for any decent, right-thinking people. That means you, Mom. It is obscene and profane and vulgar. Uncle Chris, you will think it's funny.
Sexual Harassment - What Employees Need To Know


And now we need to talk about toilets. No, really. I went to the fancy-schmancy bathroom fixtures store on Wu Chuan W. Rd., and saw that the average price of the toilets they sell is NT$22000 (US$680). Having never purchased a toilet before, I did not realize that this was exceptionally expensive. Then I went to B & Q. Toilets there cost 1/10 of the fancy-schmancy import place. But the B & Q toilets were kind of ugly. But then it's just a toilet, so how elegant does it really need to be? And of course the bathroom tiles are much cheaper at B & Q, and they have a wider selection. And I betcha I can install a toilet myself, but floor tiles are damn hard work.

So should I:
a) Buy expensive toilets and furnishings, contract installation?
b) Buy cheap toilets and furnishings, DIY installation?
c) Crawl off in a corner and die because I suck and I just wasted your time with this drivel?

According to this article, the Atkins Diet is starting to wane in popularity. I guess it remains to be seen if it will turn out to be a fad, or have some kind of longer staying power.

I don't know much about the Atkins Diet, but it does seem to be a fairly controversial subject. It works. It doesn't work. It's unhealthy. It's healthy. It's immoral, unethical, oppressive, unscrupulous, or substantially injurious to consumers. It's a lifesaver.

Whatever it is, if it is losing popularity, then folks are gonna need something to replace it. And let it never be said that I let a marketing niche pass by ungrasped. So I hereby present the newest and bestest diet around...

How to have a body like Karl's
You see, people often look at me and say: "What an astonishing body shape and size you have!" Well, that is true. While my body shape is not unique, it is shared almost exclusively by me and my Odobenidaeic brethren. If you want to look like us, just follow these diet rules:
-Consume 4.2% - 6.2% of your total body weight in food every day
-Eat less on northward migration
-You may eat as many as 3000 - 6000 clams at a single feeding
-Do not chew your food, but you may crush clam shells
Things to eat:
-Molluscs, mainly bivalves such as clams
-Other kinds of benthic invertebrates including worms, gastropods, cephalopods, crustaceans, sea cucumbers, and other soft-bodied animals
-Fish such as polar cod
-Seals, mainly ringed and bearded seals (NOTE: Your skin may become grease-stained from the blubber of the seals)

Also note: You must stay on this diet forever, in order to maintin my inimitable mass & proportions.

A Theory of Everything?

According to string theory, if we could examine these particles with even greater precision- a precision many orders of magnitude beyond our present technological capacity- we would find that each is not pointlike but instead consists of a tiny, one-dimensional loop.

One Dimensional. Loop.
A loop. That exists. In one dimension.
I hate physics.

In the news: Lee Teng-Hui gets a visa for to visit Japan. China, as usual, screams, kicks its little legs, and rolls around on the floor.

If you are dumb like me and use Internet Explorer, you may have wanted to remove the 'Links' folder from the Favorites list. I never even understood what 'Links' was supposed to be. Aren't all of your favorites links? Anyway, I found these intructions to Remove Links Folder in Favorites. So I did it, and it worked, but after I rebooted all of my favorites were now listed alphabetically, with all the folders at the top. Turns out this is more logical and faster than the way I had them set up. So I guess that's ok then.

Newton's Penguins Go play.

Lunar New Year is approaching. Let's look at our options. (Where our=Cynthia + Karl, since I don't really know what your options may be.)

Option 1)
Vacation in beautiful Thailand!
Pros: Best food in world, can have nice suits made, great beaches, mountains, etc.
Cons: Been there a bunch of times, sometimes will check out some hot girl and then I realize she is a ladyboy and then I feel conflicted inside.

Option 2)
Vacation in beautiful Philippines!
Pros: Blitz chess in Rizal Park for money, short flight, good diving
Cons: Political unrest, Thievery and scammery, I can't dive

Option 3)
Take the money that we would use on a vacation and redo all the bathrooms in our house.
Pros: Would entail re-tiling the bathrooms, because I have hit some of those tiles with every cleaner known to modern science and can't get 'em as clean as I'd like. And this one store has opened that sells really nice German bathroom furnishings, which are not only attractive, but would add to the value of the house.
Cons: How old and pathetic am I that I would even consider this over 1) and 2)?, This option presages a midlife crisis, and argument with wife over the color of the tiles.

Suggestions are welcome.

Oh. My. God.

And to George W. Bush, we say, "You have asked us to 'Bring it on', and so have we. Like never expected. Have you another challenge?"

Well I'm just kind of stunned. A propaganda video? They made a frikkin' propaganda video? In English? This is the point where all the anti-war guys will post a picture of Bush on the carrier with the 'Mission Accomplished' banner behind him. I can't really do that, because for one, I was for the war, and two, there's a bunch of stuff there I can't quite get my head around. The Islamic Jihad Army has a media platoon? And what about that copy:

We are simple people who chose principles over fear.

That's gonna stir up a few folks. But why throw in:

Put an end to Zionism before it ends the world.

What the hell is that supposed to mean?

We did it. 1800 kids from orphanages and institutions, from as far south as Chiayi, and as far north as Taoyuan. They got a Christmas party from Kidzday. With presents. And clowns. And barbecue. And Bouncy Bouncy Castles. Hank Westheim has put some pictures up here. I'll post others here as they become available.
Things we learned:
*Next year we'll need a more organized way to get 1800 presents onto 50+ vehicles.
*Make sure you have backup barbecue grills you can grab if the first set is late.
*If it had rained we would have been screwed. Find an indoor venue of some sort.


Also last weekend was Taichung's first Texas Hold'em Tournament, held at FM. Bravely representing the Friday night game (as opposed to the bunch of provincials who play on Thursday night) were Pimp, Kevin and Tyler. Somebody please tell me who won, 'cause I had to leave early and I still don't know.

And posted on Forumosa, someone named Frank Alexander allegedly sent the following letter to a bunch of Taiwanese schools:
(WARNING: The following piece is long, stupid, and offensive)

SUBJECT: Why You Should Not Hire South Africans To Teach In Your School.

Dear Owners/Managers;
I am Frank, of HIGHER STANDARDS TAIWAN ASSOCIATION. We are a new, but fast growing group, made up of highly educated people of both Taiwan and Foreign membership. We are a think-tank organization dedicated to improving all areas of life in Taiwan.
Recently, there has been growing concern among the general public over the large number of South Africans teaching in our schools. Indeed, there are well over 2000 South Africans teaching English here in Taiwan. This is not a good thing for two very important reasons.
Firstly, South Africans are not native speakers of English. English is not their first language. Most South Africans speak the AFRIKAAN language which is a mongrel form of the Dutch language. In other words a mongrelization of Dutch. Their accent is absolutely terrible and most North Americans say they have tremendous difficulty in understanding the South Africans. Yet these people are hired to teach in our schools. Our children in Taiwan are learning a form of English which is absolutely unacceptable to real English speaking people. Also, these Afrikaaners have absolutely no grammer skills. It is at the level of a grade six elementary school child in a real English speaking country. Why do you hire these people considering there are many top Taiwanese students graduating from our universities with better accents than the Africaaners and far superior skills in grammer. Is it because the Africaaners have a white face. This?is a racist act against your own Chinese people. A white face does not automatically make a good teacher. There are many students from our universities here in Taiwan, with majors in English, unable to find an English teaching poisition because the South Africans are crawling all over the Island begging for jobs. Yet these same students are much better at English than the South Africans. Because of so many South African Teachers, Taiwanese children are fast learning a form of English with a terrible South African accent.
No, your first choice for a good English teacher must be one with a North American accent-either from the United States of America or Canada. The economic and military power of North America dictates the world and their language also dictates the world. Your second choice for teachers must be those from Britain, New Zealand and Australia. You must try to get real teachers--professional teachers that have been trained to teach, not just any person with a B.A. If you cannot get teachers from these countries then you must hire your own Taiwanese teacher with a major in English and not, I repeat, not a South African teacher.
The second reason for not hiring a South African deals with culture and apartheid. Are you forgetting that, until very recently, South Africans supported a policy of Apartheid. Apartheid is a very offensive policy to any civilized man. In short, it states that all colored races are inferior or lower than the white man and, therefore, they must live separately. The Chinese people were considered colored, under Apartheid, and not allowed to mix with the Africaaners. The Chinese, under Aparthied, were considered an inferior race of people, lower,both in intelligence and physical ability, than the white man. During the years of Aparthied, in South Africa, the Chinese people were badly treated. Yet these same South Africans are here teaching your children. Because of decades of Aparthied, the South Africans
became extremely dishonest, cunning, devious, not to be trusted. In front of you, they are so honest, so kind, so generous, so considerate, but this is just a cover, they are merely sucking for their jobs. All South Africans in Taiwan declare they never supported Aparthied, but by the very fact that they ran away from South Africa proves that they did support Aparthied and they are now on the run. They are afraid to live in South Africa because the black people are hunting them down for their activities during the years of Aparthied. So the next time you see this wonderfully friendly South African, smiling at you,shaking your hand, just a super little angel full of love, remember, he is not friendly, he is just sucking for his job in desperation, and underneath this superficial exterior he is thinking, " here is an
inferior little Chinese and I am going to treat this little shit good so I can get money off him." Already, in Taiwan there are stories going around of a South African MAFIA. Most South Africans are not of good character despite their wonderfully friendly exterior. There are stories of South Africans teaching at two jobs, this is illegal, of South African Directors of schools double dipping, getting their teachers to teach two jobs and taking a part of the money, of South Africans mysteriously losing their passports on arrival in Taiwan and the cover up by S. A. Directors, of illegal S.A. teachers, and on and on it goes. We are presently investigating all these stories and should we find proof we will turn this over, not to the police, but rather to the media.
We strongly advice you not to renew contracts with South African teachers and not to hire any more. Once parents are made aware of this South African problem they will be encouraged to withdraw their children from any school that employs a South African teacher. Why should parents pay such high tuition fees to a school for a third rate South African teacher that can barely speak proper English. This is the very first step towards solving this Africaaner problem here in Taiwan. We will follow this up aggressively. We will keep you posted regards our investigations.

Well that's it. I smell a big, fat hoaxy rat, so I immediately logged onto Forumosa under the handle 'Frank Alexander', and demanded to know what all the fuss was about. But I got busted by a moderator, destroying any good prank chances.

Seen on a Forumosa signature:
Lien/Soong: Go to China. Go directly to China. Do not pass the presidential palace, do not collect eleventy billion dollars.

Ha ha ha ha ha.

Some smart-alec somewhere posted this, as an attemted dis' on Mormons. On reading it, I can only wonder what kind of bank lends millions of dollars to people who believe the world will end soon?

And for a few gigabytes of weirdness, skim through Crank Dot Net. Make sure your tinfoil hat is pulled down snuggly-like over your ears.

New TV show to be aired soon on local cable: Queer Eye for the Taichung Guy. These swishing sophisticates will do extreme makeovers for stylistically challenged Taichungers. From the left- Kayvey, in charge of metrosexual interior design, Breton, expert on fashion and clothes, and Ryana, connoisseur of food, beverages and herbs (also an authority on grooming). *



* With my sincere apologies to any gay men who might stumble upon this post.

This just in from AJ: Atlantis Island Found in Tampa Bay. AJ sent me the article text in an E-mail, and I Googled it to find a link to post. It showed up in Yahoo Financial News.

Atlantis...Financial news... You figure it out.

But this is a great topic, because it gives me a chance to mock two of my favorite targets- People who believe in things like Atlantis, and Tampa.

We'll skip the fact that Harbor Island is an artificial island created by dredging Tampa Bay and dumping heaps of muck into a big pile. Let's go straight to the implications of Atlantis being in Tampa:

Plato mentions Atlantis in two dialogues- Timaeus and Critias. In Timeas, the character of Criteas says that Atlantis was a great and wonderful empire. Looking at the modern day inhabitants of Tampa, we can only conclude that the empire in question arose through drug smuggling, the distribution of pornography, or by inviting citizens of other empires to visit and then robbing them. More interesting is Criteas' claim that the Atlanteans attacked ancient Greece. This means that these precursors to modern Tampans, the mighty Atlanteans (or should we just say Tamplanteans), built a fleet, sailed across the Atlantic ocean, and made war upon the ancient Hellenes. How they accomplished this without jetskis and 300HP powerboats is a mystery, since Tampans today demonstrate all the native marine skills of blind coal miners. Furthermore, if the Tamplanteans wanted to attack the Greeks, Tarpon Springs is a 45 minute drive away. You can't turn a war elephant around in Tarpon Springs without knocking over half a dozen Greeks.

Well, having failed to subdue the Greeks, we will just hope that the warriors representing modern day Atlantis can conquer the barbarian descendents of Xanadu this Sunday. (Everyone knows that Xanadu was located in San Diego, right?)

I took this religion quiz. The results are below. While I have no problem at hitting 100% for U.U., I am wondering what kind of factors put me at 36% for Mainline to Conservative Christian/Protestant. And how did 'Nontheist end up at number 5?

1.  Unitarian Universalism (100%) 2.  Secular Humanism (98%) 3.  Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (84%) 4.  Liberal Quakers (84%) 5.  Nontheist (79%) 6.  Theravada Buddhism (68%) 7.  Neo-Pagan (61%) 8.  Bahhai Faith (58%) 9.  Taoism (52%) 10.  Christian Science (Church of Christ, Scientist) (48%) 11.  Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) (48%) 12.  Reform Judaism (47%) 13.  New Age (46%) 14.  New Thought (39%) 15.  Mainline to Conservative Christian/Protestant (36%) 16.  Sikhism (34%) 17.  Mahayana Buddhism (33%) 18.  Scientology (33%) 19.  Orthodox Quaker (31%) 20.  Jehovah's Witness (23%) 21.  Jainism (19%) 22.  Eastern Orthodox (16%) 23.  Islam (16%) 24.  Orthodox Judaism (16%) 25.  Roman Catholic (16%) 26.  Seventh Day Adventist (12%) 27.  Hinduism (9%)