http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/30/world/asia/30ship.html?ref=world

Basically we're not allowed to defend ourselves when China attacks. We'd be like sitting ducks waiting for their missiles to rain down on us. I understand the U.S. is in a hard place - helping one will most definitely anger the other. But hello? Are we really just supposed to sit here and allow China to attack us without having any form of defense besides our tiny military and whatever weapons we are in possession of?

If the US gives in to China and their threats, then they'd be sending a message to Beijing that whenever Beijing wants something or is angry at the US, then all they have to do is deny US warships entry into the HK port.

They'd also be leaving Taiwan somewhat defenseless in the event of an attack by China.

All I can say is, RAWR!!! Gah!

Taiwanese people are supposed to be family-oriented. I think my family is pretty family-oriented in that we all still keep in touch (well, at least my mom's side) and eat food together once in a while. It's rare that all of us are in the same country, much less the same city all the time. My parents are mostly out of the country because of my dad's job, a lot of my relatives still live down in the south, some have moved to the US, so it's hard to have a full family gathering.

Tonight us kids decided to treat the relatives that were in Taipei and free to dinner. For me it was because I've become full-time at my job, and we have this family tradition that whenever someone gets their first paycheck, they have to treat dinner. So anyway, big family gatherings at restaurants are never fun. There's always the nagging, yelling, arguing, fakery, etc. that's involved.

Tonight was no exception. They complained about the food (but also praised it ... for once!), nagged me about finding another job (geez, I JUST found one ... cut me some slack) and other assorted things that I already know I need to do, but just taking one step at a time right now. Also had the obligatory "when are you getting married?" question - thank God not to me since I'm the youngest. That was directed toward my cousin and her boyfriend who was also present and footing part of the bill. I worry the day my cousin and my sister get married because that means I'm next. UGH. Nowadays it's more like, any boyfriends? why no boyfriends? blahblahblah.

Although speaking of being the youngest, my uncle thought I was freaking 26 and had a masters. I have no idea where he got that idea from. =( Made me feel so ... old. SIGH. Do I look that old? God I hope not.

Anyway, enough ranting although this entry nowhere expresses my frustration at sitting at a table surrounded by people yelling from all sides, expressing their own opinions about everything without really listening to others'. Also telling the owner how good/bad their food is - the good is ok, except it kinda sounded very kiss-assy; the bad was hmm ... well, I guess it's a good thing to let the restaurant know what we think, but eh, it always makes me feel uncomfy when listening to my relatives discuss the bad with the restaurant owner. BLAH.

I hate it when people think they're always right no matter what other people say. Stubborn.

Yay! I actually finished work early today, mostly due to the fact that two of my regularly scheduled tasks did not have to be done by me (whoa, major passive voice). I'm still puzzled about the disappearance of one of my tasks - the dude who normally gives me the data to input isn't here today, but last time he went missing, someone else gave me the data. But today, there is no data! ("There is no data" reminds me of my LA neighbor's wireless router name - thereisnotry; it took me forever to figure out what that said - the reis notry? (huh?) there is notry (wtf?) ... ok, random stupid tangent.)

Anyway, on a work-related topic - Everday, I have to check up on these different websites to grab information that I need off of them, and everday, those websites have to be updated by the God of Website Updates. Otherwise, the information isn't current and is of no use to me! Most websites are good at providing up-to-date information; I can just go to my bookmarks, click, and voila! Information! There are a couple of exceptions, though, and those just bug me. Bugs the crap out of me because I have to sit there and constantly refresh to see if the data's been updated (because I know it will be! I will it to be!). Refresh, nope, refresh, nope, refresh, nope, refresh, nope, refresh, YESSSSSS! Thank you God of Website Updates! PRINT! That's basically what goes on in the mind - I feel a sense of happiness and elatedness when I see the date that I want, that I need. That sounds so wrong. Why is my happiness dependent on a measly date? Why do I have to sit here and click the refresh button a bajillion times? Why can't these websites just update their information earlier on, like everyone else so that I don't have to keep on clicking refresh?! Why do some websites not update at all, making me have to do more work the next day because I have to find the data for the previous day and the current day?!?! A;LKSJAD;LKJDAF - can you sense my frustration? I just want to smack the computer when the websites aren't updated.

Yes, it bugs. Bugs me bugs me bugs me! And I hate bugs.

Oh yes, and I also have to constantly refresh my e-mail to check if I've received info via the God of E-mails. Oh man, my whole day can be spent refreshing. Refresh! Refresh! Refresh! YES! DATA!!!!

On a much happier note, I bought Mario Kart for my DS. It's so fun! Too bad no one else I know in Taiwan has a DS so that we can play multiplayer. It's so much fun to hit other people with red, green, blue shells and make them trip over your bananas, especially when it's people you know. They start cursing at you and retaliating and then you curse back and retaliate. Woo! Talk about fun times - I remember playing it on the Gamecube with my Roomie and wasting hours and hours that should've been spent studying and doing homework. Muahaha. Can't wait to play some more when I get home!

Hey! It's a photo slideshow of my pictures from Flickr! Cool! :D

I thought it'd be cool to have a slideshow of my photos on my blog. I was going to use Slide.com, but their slideshow ended up being too big to fit in my small little right column, so gave up on that. But lo and behold! Blogger's come up with a new page element that's exactly as I wanted, and it lets me use an online photo album that I actually have an account with already! Wootness! Hahahaha. Ok, this is really pointless.

My work-update blog is turning into a home-update blog. Work's gotten too busy that I have no time to update! O dear. Things to do one after another that by the time I'm done it's either nearly time to get off or past time to get off. Sigh. So now I have to update at home, but I'm starting to shy away from the computer after coming home. Too much computer-ness at work, making me go blind. :(

Been going walking post-dinner. Should start bringing camera .. maybe. It's always kinda rainy, so maybe not. Ah.

Ok, I will have an interesting post one of these days ... when I have inspiration! Wee!

This story depresses me.

Why would anyone do something like this to someone else, even if she was just a girl who your daughter had a falling out with. Falling outs happen; it's part of life. Some people just need to learn to deal with it without having to hurt others just to make themselves feel better. And to not feel any remorse for what happened? That's even worse. These people ... I just don't get it.

And how is there no law against something like this? It just doesn't seem right.

Today, I got my letter of acceptance for my full-time position. (Yay! Except I'm still on my three-month probationary period. Hmmmm. One wrong move and bye-bye full time job.)

Letters of acceptance - are they what we get to live for for the rest of our lives? It all starts with applications for undergrad. After application crunch time in high school, we all sit around waiting for those letters that supposedly will change our lives and determine our futures - whether for the better (acceptance! yay! I have a future!) or for the worse (rejection! omg, what am I going to do with my life?!). Then after that, it's grad school acceptance/rejection for some, while job acceptance/rejection for others.

If we're unhappy with our jobs, we continue looking, or we give up with the attempt at living in the real world and head back to the sheltered world of schoolage. Either way, it's more letters of acceptances or rejections. It's scary how most of our futures are dependent on these letters (and in extension, the people who control which letter you get). These pieces of papers with words decide whether you'll be stuck in a rut for a little while longer (or forever) or actually get away, a step closer towards your goals or dream.

I can see why people want to be their own bosses and open their own businesses. Generally, you get to make all the rules and decisions, you get to be the one to offer letters of acceptances or rejections to others, and your future is in your own hands. Or so it seems. At the end, no matter what kind of business you run, your success or failure still remains in the hands of others (open a restaurant? Need diners and other people to provide you the materials needed; be a self-employed artist? Need people to buy your art so that you can buy materials to continue creating), and in that sense, you can never outrun those letters of acceptances and rejections - they just take up different a form. How. Sad. :(


What does any of this have to do with the picture? Absolutely nothing - I just think the owls are too cute; and I didn't know what kind of picture to put with this entry anyway. I was thinking of an acceptance letter, but that's boring. Meh. Picture's from cuteoverload.com. Love the site!

Terror dog update! HE IS GONE! muahahahahahahahahaha. It's so good to not have to come home and hear the dog barking or sniffing his nose off and scratching my leg and following me around and howling. It's also good to be able to keep our door open so our room doesn't turn into super stuffy land and to not have to put up with his constant scratching or expelling of his snot onto our door. It's good to not have to sleep with him on the super uncomfy couch only to have to wake up 20 billion times at night so he can pee or poo. It's good to not have to smell his stinky breath when he whines in your face. I want to say it's good that we don't have to smell his stinky body odor after more than a week of no showering, but it's not true (yet). Our apartment still smells like his BO and pee (ew). But o my my, it's good to be terror dog-free. At least he is home and his mommy has returned. Hopefully he will quit being such a terror now that he knows his mom has not abandoned him, and I can go back to calling him by his name, Nike.

To commemorate this joyous occasion, I present a picture that is truly him (when he's not butt annoying):

Today was a sad, sad day in terms of quality of sleep and food (The doggy, above, is to represent how I feel). Shitty sleep is thanks to me having to sleep with the terror dog on the couch. Then, having to wake up constantly to coax him to come back to the sofa after he jumps off the couch because he hears our neighbors walking up and down the stairs or my sister moving around in her room. Oh, and of course I had to wake up in the middle of the night to let him pee. Thank God it's just one more day. Just one more! So close. (Right now, he's outside our bedroom door exhaling snot into the bottom of the door, trying to get our attention so we'll let him in. Ya right, keep dreaming, terror dog.)

The saddest part of today, though, was the not-so-great quality of food we ingested. Lunch time we went to this Malaysian curry place. The food wasn't so bad, at least from what I could tell, but it was super spicy. Like spicy to the point that my mouth , lips, and stomach were on fire. I couldn't even finish my food. I ate like maybe half of it and gave up. It was ridiculous! Especially when I can't stand spicy food in the first place. Ah, lesson learned - always ask if the curry is spicy. Too used to Taiwan curry where it's not spicy, at all. Because it was so spicy, I couldn't really taste the food itself. Just kept chugging down tea and soup. >.< Ouchie.

Then, for dinner I was craving sushi after watching this Japanese show on TV, so we went to this little Japanese restaurant near the apartment. I had a bad feeling because fresh fish is hard to find, especially when it's in a little shop in the middle of the city. Mmmyah, so it turned out to be pretty crappy. Wait, I mean REALLY crappy. The sashimi was not fresh at all and had this slimy quality and really weird taste. And to make matters worse, the boss lady messed up our order and gave us this dish that was more expensive. We only brought a certain amount of money, so when we were ordering, we calculated it so that we would have enough money. Thankfully, even with that mess up, we were still within budget, but that also meant that we did not have enough money for dessert (sadness!!!!). So we were a sad bunch after dinner, trying to find some place where we could spend the remaining 55 NT. We gave up after visiting various tea places and realizing that we didn't have enough money for the three of us and also after discovering the soymilk store we normally go to and could have at least bought two pearl soymilks was closed. We were an even sadder bunch after that failed adventure.

The only plus side to today was Cold Stone! They opened a store near the Taipei Main Station. But I don't know, I think the Cold Stone I ate in LA tasted better - maybe the location actually makes a difference in the taste or it's just all in my mind. Probably. Eh, we ordered the strawberry cheesecake fantasy and the chocolate one w/ brownies, which turned out to be much too too sweet (boo!). And it's super expensive! I think more expensive than LA (more sadness), so we can't go there often. Maybe once a month, maybe less. All we need in Taiwan now is a Chipotle somewhere in the vicinity of Cold Stone. Then I can re-live my last summer in LA where it was Chipotle for dinner then Cold Stone for dessert. Mmmmm, getting hungry just thinking about it. >.<

Food is what makes me happy! and when the foods of the day turns out to be nasty and disappointing, it makes me so, so sad. Hopefully there'll never be another day like this again, and we'll make better decisions when trying out new restaurants.


On another note, I installed Leopard! So now my fantastic mbp is running Leopard, and I really like it, particularly Spaces. It makes my desktop much less cluttered; it comes in handy, especially since I don't have an external monitor anymore. Too bad my macbook pro is kind of dying - my fan's whirring and making crazy-ass sounds, and one of my USB ports has decided to die on me. Ahhhh, need to go find an Apple certified repair center (in Taiwan, bleh) to fix fix fix before my warranty is up. Boo!


Image from Jupiterimages.com.

I tried looking for a picture of the dog, but I guess I didn't upload any even though I could've sworn I did. So I googled it and found this , which kind of looks like Nike except for the tied up fur part. Geez, just looking at this picture makes me scared. Classical condition -ing doing its magic on me. I wonder how long it'll take for me to lose this conditioning.

The little terror dog couldn't have picked a better week to terrorize us, or me rather. Work's getting busy, learning new stuffs - never a good thing to do when you're lacking in sleep. Rawr, I've want to growl at the dog and be like, WHY CAN'T YOU JUST BE MORE INDEPENDENT AND STOP FOLLOWING EVERYONE EVERYWHERE AND HOWLING WHEN NO ONE BIRDS* YOU?! Gah. Frustration. He has to be with someone at all times. If not, he'll start whining, crying, howling. Thank God I'm not my sister having to stay at home with him since she doesn't have classes in the afternoon on Tuesday and none all day Thursday and Friday. Although, she did get a slight reprieve today since she had to go to school - I'm sure she's never been happier to meet with her advisor.

We figured out a way to have him NOT howl while we try to sleep at night. Someone has to sleep with him on our fantastically dusty sofa bed that no one's slept in for, oh, 8 years - maybe more. The other downside for the person sleeping with a smelly dog on a dusty bed is that the dog needs to pee, constantly, even at night, when all is asleep. He'll whine, cry, bark just to get you to wake up so he can either take a piss or a dump. Luckily for me, when I slept with him, he only woke up once - well, technically twice. The second time was like three minutes before my alarm went off, so it's ok. Kinda. My poor sister (again) got woken up four times, I think, and one of the times was to poo. My cousin got her boyfriend to do it for her, so she hasn't had to suffer since that first night (lucky butt). My next turn is Saturday night. Which isn't so bad because at least I can take a nap, not do anything that requires brain power on Sunday.

All I can say is, I don't think I ever want a pet that requires so much attention (Galileo - the pet snake back in LA - has never seemed more of an ideal pet, except when it comes to feeding time. Hmmm ....) or kids. I'm afraid I'll raise them and they'll end up like this needy dog of my aunt's.

I cannot wait till next Monday when this dog goes back home to his mommy!

*Bird (v.) - A saying in Mandarin that when someone doesn't pay attention to you, you say, "s/he's not birding me!" (in Mandarin, of course)

What? Does the title make any sense? =.=

We are dog sitting. We are dog sitting a spoiled nine (or ten) year old mommy's dog who panics and cries the second his mom is out of his sight. My aunt's off to Japan for a week, so we're looking after Nike, her dog. Honestly, he's like one of those insecure-attachment type babies who get anxious and cries the second their mom leaves them to go the bathroom or something. Especially when he's left at a "strange" place (strange being any place that isn't his home).

Don't get me wrong. I love dogs! I love Nike, he's so cute and stuff, but only when my aunt's around. Once she leaves, he turns into this whinny ball of smelly-bad- breath furball who can't stop hyperventilating. Last night, the first night he spent at our place, he pretty much spent the whole night howling and crying away. It's like, holy crap! Do you not get tired? Does your throat not get sore from all that howling? Actually, I'm not sure if it lasted the whole night because I plugged my ears with my earphones and turned up my iPod and fell into fitful sleep, occasionally waking up because of the damn dog's howling or my cousin/sister yelling at him to stfu.

Woke up this morning with a headache and heavy eyes. Attempted to stay awake at work and then passed out for half an hour during lunch. Feeling better now, but if this continues for the remaining time he's here (six more days), I'm either going to go deaf from constantly having the iPod on while sleeping or he's going to be a dead dog by the time my aunt comes back (not an option, she loves that dog like no other). Is it wrong that I kept imagining having a shotgun in my possession and loading it in preparation of shutting the dog up, permanently? Probably. Are all dogs like this? Or is Nike an exceptionally neurotic and insecure dog who likes to pee a little too much?

Image from Yuckos.com

The diet has ended. It actually ended on Friday night when we all gave up and went out to eat fried rice. Oh man, I have decided that I cannot live without rice. Just something about rice that makes me feel so much happier with life. (:P) Can't say it was a total failure, though, because I have lost a couple of Kg's and that was part of the goal. Just can't live a week on that kind of diet, I guess three days is enough. Heh.

Anyway, went to Ximenting this weekend. Saturday was an attempt to find some presents for my buddies in LA, but I ended up buying shoes and a t-shirt. Hah. Will attempt to find more presents next .. time. =P

Today, we went again after lunch to Taipei Main Station where they opened up the 2nd floor as a kind of food court area with food from different countries. For example, they have Pho (yay!), which hasn't opened yet, food from Southeast Asia, and Beard Papa (YAY!). They even have this Sweet Berry, which I think is just a ripoff of Pink Berry, even the logo looks the same, but I haven't tried it yet, so can't tell what their quality's like. We went to eat at the Southeast Asian restaurant called Little Penang. The food was pretty good, a bit overpriced, but the service sucked majorly. It's probably the worst I've seen since coming back to Taiwan. The waiters didn't know what they were doing, didn't know what food they were serving, didn't say anything, didn't get food on our table without us having to rush them. Bad service can be expected in Taiwan because we don't tip our waiters, but in this restaurant they charge a 10% service fee, which is ridiculous because there is NO service. Ahhhhh, it was frustrating. If the service wasn't SO bad, I'd totally recommend the place. But the lousy service takes away 50 points (out of 100) because it just made the meal not as enjoyable.


After that horrible meal, we decided to walk off our calories at Ximenting, which is a really popular hangout for young people - lots of stores, cafes, restaurants. Super crowded during the weekends.






On our way there we saw a toilet restaurant! I wanna go try it just to see what they sell inside. It's kinda interesting. :D





We went to this old theater that they turned into a temporary street vendor-ish place. Each vendor sold stuff that they made, so it was made up of a lot of artists and their crafts. It was totally awesome to see what different people can come up with. Some stuffs were cute, others were pretty, and still others were cool. Meh. Here are some pictures. :)














These next two were inside the theater itself where they were having a sort of exhibition of old stuffs found in Taiwan ...


Old school film camera? Or Something?


Old school hair dryer and iron.


While we were there, a famous Taiwanese pop singer Show (羅志祥) was have his autograph session there. The line was craaaaazy long. I guess his latest album's color is yellow or something because a lot of his fans were wearing his yellow shirt.



To finish our trip at Ximenting, we went to a famous Star Fruit Juice store and had some of their star fruit juice. It was sour, but good! Thank God we had given up our diet, or we would have had to forgo the yumminess :)



More pictures at flickr/xlisapoox

I love meat. I can't deny it. There's just something about steaks that make me drool when I think about it. Back during the summer when I was still in LA, my roomie used to make steaks at 10 pm and we'd pig out. They were SO good. Sometimes we'd have it with veggies, others with red wine; but either way, steaks are YUM. So imagine me, meat-lover that I am, having to give up any form of meat for the past four days. It's a record for me. But I did it! And today I had my first meal with meat (MUAHAHAHA!) and it was so so so good. The portion was tiny, but it was delicious, nonetheless. Nothing like being deprived of something to make you truly appreciate it more when you get it back. I took my time eating those few pieces; didn't want to inhale it without tasting like I normally do with my food. Ah, meat, how I love thee.

I sound like a freakin carnivore. But that's what I am ... well, I'm technically an omnivore, but I prefer meat (of the usual kind - chicken, beef, and pork) to veggies any day. Ask my mom. She's always having to make me eat my veggies and fruits. I know, I know, should have a balanced diet, but I just can't bring myself to eat less meat or more fruit/veggies. Hmmm. This week has been the most veggie/fruit consumption I've had since I stopped having access to my mom's cooking (that would be since I left home for college). Huh, is this why I have all these health problems? Boo.

Anyway, it's getting cooooold in Taipei. I can't stand cold that much ... a little bit of cold and I have to bundle up in furry warm jackets. I do like furry warm jackets, though. It's like a sense of comfort following me around wherever I go. Hah, that doesn't even make sense. As I sit here, my fingers are cold and stiff :( I hate that. I hate it when my extremities get cold. Someone should invent gloves that allow me type and keep my hands warm. Normal gloves just hamper your typing and things end up looking lioke tjhiosw (that was my attempt of typing badly ^^).


image from winluckwong.com.

For the first 5 people that reply to me and re-post this challenge, I will send you something. it might be something I've made, or something cool from my hidden stash, it might be a mix CD, or a rubber duck, a book i think you will enjoy, or something else that is completely awesome. whatever it is, I promise that will get it to you in 365 days or fewer.

The only thing you need to do in order to participate is to be one of the first five to reply to this, AND post this thing on your journal.

(Copied from Felicia's journal... it'll lemme know if anyone reads this thing. :D)

Oh, and if you do comment, e-mail me at fadesxaway@gmail.com your address.

I wish I had photoshop at work, then I could just photoshop a banana and glass of milk together instead of having to google image it and hope they actually have a picture of bananas and milk together. Who knew it'd be so hard to find ... I mean, do those two not go together? They do! There were a lot of banana milk shake pictures, but only this one TINY picture of the physical banana and physical glass of milk together. Aih. All I have at work is the paint program that comes with Windows. I don't know how I managed to survive making website layouts with only that software back in high school. I have been spoiled by Photoshop. Heh.

Anyway, so even after cheating yesterday at lunch, I still managed to lose .5 kg. The total after three days is 3.5 kg, which is not so bad. I'm just worried that once this diet is over, I'm going to regain it all back. Noooo ... must ... excercise ... Ahhhh. =) Today's diet is actually pretty hard because I hate the taste of milk. I don't know why, but it just makes me want to puke after drinking it. So I had to force feed myself a bottle of milk (gross gross grosssss bleeeech). Tomorrow we get to eat beef! with tomatoes! YES! :D This is exciting because I haven't had beef since the start of the diet. Mmmmm, I can't wait! But I think it does get a bit easier as the week progresses, especially when you cheat one meal. It's a nice break with real food and makes eating healthy food not so much of a chore. My cousin cheated for dinner last night and went to eat some noodles. My sister is the only who hasn't cheated, yet. We'll see if she ends up cheating at least one meal. :P

I think the worst part of this dieting is that we have to cook ourselves. On Tuesday night, we spent like two and a half hours in the kitchen cooking the soup and cutting/washing the veggies. Yesterday wasn't as bad because it was just the soup (which we basically have to cook everyday because we manage to finish a pot of it a day .. o___O). Cooking is so time consuming and tiring. I hate it. No wonder I don't cook much. (hohoho!) Just three more days to go! We can DO IT!


The Incomprehension:

What the hell ....

All I can say is, WHAT?! WHAT?! How can anyone protest outside of a funeral, basically saying their child deserved his death? Okay, you want to stand up for your beliefs, that's fine, but there are appropriate and inappropriate places for that. And no matter what anyone says, funerals just aren't the appropriate places. I don't understand people who do that! Don't they feel the least bit guilty or bad for disturbing another family's grieving? for disrespecting the dead? Maybe it's because I was raised with a different set of morals from these people, but I just can't even begin to fathom what makes them feel that it's a "good" thing they are doing.