There's nothing like seeing other people's art in order to inspire you to create your own. Well, for me at least. Whenever I see other people's stuff, it makes me wanna whip out my pen and paper and start drawing - what? I have no idea. But just let the mind move the pen and we'll see I guess. Except, I'm at work, so I can't really whip out pen and paper and start drawing. So I continue to browse through deviantart.com and find more and more awesome artists. What to do when I've found them? I share of course! Here's number one of three of the newly found artists that I really, really like: Violent Reaction

I mostly paint on the lost and found, e.g. wood, cardboard, lost toys and in one case half a door! Then once I have had my wicked way with them, return them back to the street for people to find and hopefully take home. It's a form of non-permanent street art to get away from the stereotype of street artists just being vandals, artistic littering if you will.

Wood

Door

Painting

Sketch

Cardboard

Drawing on different mediums is something I've started to play around with as well. Of course I haven't gotten around to drawing on a door or a painting itself since they're kind of hard to come by. :P I wouldn't mind giving it a shot, though. If only our apartment was our own, then I'd totally draw on our door. His idea of leaving his art on the street for people to pick up is pretty awesome as well (non-permanent-street art - what a concept). I wish I could find his art in the streets of Taipei ... T~T Sigh.

This kind of reminds me of an artist my Eng Comp prof had us read about back in college. Basically, this artist, who's pretty well-known for his art, would go into a restaurant (or some other paying-establishment) and order food. When it came time to pay his bill, he'd pull out a drawing or painting he did (sometimes of a real dollar bill) and tell the waiter that he'd pay for the food with the painting/drawing. If the waiter accepted, he'd call an art agent after he left and tell him/her that this waiter at this restaurant has one of his pieces. The agent would then go to the waiter and buy that painting for way more than the artist's bill was originally because that's the only way the art agents could get his paintings as the artist doesn't sell his works to galleries or agents directly. So basically the waiter would end up making money from the painting the artist paid with. :) Interesting, no?

Anyway, the next two artists will be posted the next time I get bored or remember to do it. Hope you guys enjoyed this artist, and don't forget to check out his devart page if you want to see more. :)

Is that a overly exaggerated title? Possibly. But after my sister mentioned it to me, it kinda stuck with me for a while (a tad better than we're doomed, I guess).

So the presidential election has come and gone, and the party I support lost ... pretty badly. I'm not surprised, but you know, there's always that ounce of hope, and when that hope is dashed, you can't help but feel sad, frustrated, angry, and confused. So that's how I felt after I heard. The confused part comes from wondering what it is that I'm missing. Obviously, the majority of the people all see the same thing or they wouldn't have voted for the same candidate, so what was I missing? Why couldn't I see what it is they're seeing in this future president? Was I the one that had been brainwashed? Was my view on things too narrow? I'm still not too sure, but I think I'm starting to see things a bit better.

The funny thing is how I heard that we'd lost. We were splurging, well, I was splurging, on clothes for work after we went to vote. And I was so into it that I'd forgotten about the presidential election. Then, my dad calls, from Belgium, to tell us that we're pretty much out of the game. It was after I'd just spent quite a bit of money on clothes, so that was even more depressing. Aih. The rest of the night was quite lackluster on our part - tired and disappointed. I just kept asking why? why? why? Was the majority of Taiwanese people blind or was it just me?

Post-shopping, I proceeded to go home and get into an argument with an old friend about the election. That made my night even better. Well, it wasn't really an argument because I ended up yelling at the screen more than typing to my friend my thoughts on him and his reasons. Obviously it wouldn't have boded well for our friendship if I had actually written what I was thinking, hence the yelling at the screen. Ugh, never good to talk about politics with friends who aren't on the same thought path as you, especially nowadays. Just can't seem to see from each other's perspectives because we're so set in our own ways already.

Anyway, three days have gone by since the results and my belief that we're doomed. And I guess I've come to accept the results (what else can I do?) after talking to another friend who, although blue, has the ability to calm me down and think rationally and my dad. Thank God for people calmer and more rational than me. For some reason, I just lose my temper and mind when it comes to politics. I'm normally not like this! I swear!

I guess, change isn't necessarily bad, and no matter how much I dislike this new president, it doesn't mean he can't do good things for Taiwan. I just hope he doesn't end up taking our country back to the way things were before and lose all the democratic processes we've gained since. Hope he can bring the country together so we're no longer squabbling about the stupidest things and actually get things done. Hope he can rebuild the diplomatic ties we've lost or build new ones (although that's gotta be hard with all the pressure from China). Hope he can make our economy better and our unemployment rate go down (although it's not just us with this problem nowadays. What he can do is limited , but he shouldn't be promising things that might not be possible). Hope he can do something that'll ease our cross-strait relationship but not at the expense of the Taiwanese pride that we have here. All these hopes. Hope he can live up to it. Guess only time will tell and show what this new president is made of. Maybe he'll prove my negative view of him wrong. But then again, maybe not.




That being said, though, I still get mad when I hear about the two-sided faces of the people in Taiwan. Stop holding one person to a certain ideal and if he does something that fails that ideal, bashing him on it, and then forgiving the other person when he makes the same mistake and fails to live up to that same ideal. That's hypocritical, wrong, and unfair. How's that for cryptic?

Something I learned from all this. We need to learn to listen to each other more, instead of constantly talking over one another, and we also need to learn to understand different points of views, instead of always thinking we're right. Even if we are right, there's nothing wrong about learning about why the other side thinks differently from us. Through listening comes understanding, through understanding comes acceptance (not necessarily agreement, but accepting that this person is also a person, just one with a different view).

Here's to the next four years. Just don't be too over-confident.

I just went out and bought a vinyl record of Linkin Park's Minutes to Midnight. Why? I have no idea, especially considering how I don't even have a record player. Now I'm looking at the players, but I don't even know where to start. Which one's my record compatible with? What's considered a decent player? Where do I even get one in Taiwan? Should I even get one?!

AHHHHHH. What was I thinking?! Probably not thinking, but it'd just be nice if I could play it because I heard vinyl's audio quality is way better than CDs, much less mp3's. Sigh. Anybody know anything about record players? HELP!

I just joined friends.forumosa. I think the site is basically to find potential "friends."

OMG. Have I finally fallen into the desperate category? :P


The site confuses me, though. I uploaded a picture, but it won't show!! Wat the heck? I don't like sites that don't work well. rawr. AND, it says I'm Aries even though I'm totally a Taurus. I'm so CONFUSED!!!

The title says it all.

I WANT AN IPHONE!!!

with the SDK out, more apps for iphone, more legit apps i mean. AHHHH. i want i want!!!

i want so badly i can't even do proper capitalization anymore.


WHY WON'T YOU COME TO TAIWAN IPHONE?!?! :(

Do you know who YOU'RE voting for? (Picture Uncle Sam pointing his finger at you, except not Uncle Sam since we're in Taiwan ... eh. yah.)

Voting, for the president especially, is important because it allows you to have a say in what direction the future of this country will go. Everyone has their own view, and I'm not saying which one's right and which one's wrong. But, if you don't vote, then does that mean you don't care about this country? Don't care where we're headed? If that's so, then fine. Just don't complain if things don't go as you care or want in the future because you had a chance to voice your opinion on what the future of Taiwan is, and that is during election time.

So vote! I'm kinda excited because this will be the first presidential election I'll vote in. :) I've become an ADULT! omgaaaaah. :P

To end, the referendum is equally important as the choosing of presidential candidates. Here's the song/advertisement in support of us joining the UN.



Vote however you want, however you believe, but just don't be apathetic. Because that's just one step closer to the end of democracy.

For a while at the end of last year, I was doing a lot of drawings and filled with creativity, but with this new year, I've kinda been inspiration-less in the creative department. Not sure why. I just didn't have the urge to put pen to paper (to draw, not to write), and when I did, the end product was never what I really desired (read: it looked like shit). I think in the first two months, I averaged one piece a month, which is technically not bad, but compared to before when I was averaging three or four a month, it's a big difference. My deviant art account was lacking in updates for sure.

Good news, though (for me, maybe not for you, dear reader)! I've been feeling more artistic lately. Finally painting on the stupid trucker hat I bought back in December. Or something. Also ideas have been popping up into my mind about what else to do, like something flame related and something troll related. :P We'll see if those two ever come to be, but just having ideas is a good thing. Was kinda scared about how dried up I became in the ideas area. But now all is well, except I wish I could paint faster. What if my ideas, inspiration, creativity decide to abandon me before I finish that damn hat? Ahhhhhh. Why is wielding a paint brush so much more difficult than a pen? Why is drawing on fabric so much harder than on paper (or even plastic or glass bottles?!) I feel like I have less control when drawing on this new medium with a new tool.

Ah, this was a boring update, but I thought I'd share my latest - it was a practice for painting on the hat, but the practice was useless. It's different painting on paper and on a flimsy hat. >.< RAWR.

I wake up this morning and lo and behold! There's SUN!!!! The sun came back out, and I was super happy after last night's depressing rain. So I'm all ready to go out and eat lunch and soak up some sun, but we realized we still have food in the fridge. So, we ate leftovers and digested for a bit. When we were ready to head out, THE SUN WAS GONE. ahhhhhhhhhhhh!!! Clouds replaced the sun, and it turned windy and chilly. :( :( :( I was so saaaaad. I knew we should've left the house when the sun was still out. AHHHH.

But we still went out anyway. We went to 陽明山 (Yang Ming Mountain) because it's calla lily season, and there is an area on the mountain with fields of calla lilies that you can pick yourself. There are also a lot of restaurants up there where you can eat mountain food. Because it's flower season and lots of people go up the mountain during this time, there was mad traffic on the way up (and I really had to go pee .. >.< Thank God there was a 7-11 on the way up with a bathroom. Dunno how I survived all those years in other countries without having a convenient store everywhere I went.)

We found a restaurant where we could park and eat some yummy mountain food. They also gave us some free calla lilies, so we didn't have to go out and buy/pick some. Laziness. They also had a bunny rabbit which was super duper cute!! It pooped everywhere and peed a lot, though. Probably not the most sanitary for a restaurant.

Restaurant

Bunny

Food (1 of 4 dishes - shrimp!)

Afterwards, we went walking around, taking pictures of the fields of calla lilies, other assorted flowers, and surrounding mountains. It was foggy, but that gave off a different feel, I guess. It would've been nicer if it had been sunny (hmph), but ah well, at least it wasn't raining (gotta be thankful for the little things).

Mountain w/ calla lily field

Calla Lilies! (took me forever to find out what it's called in English)

Foggy mountains.

On the way back down the mountain, there was more traffic (boo, but at least I didn't have to pee :P). We headed to 內湖 (Nei Hu) because my cousin's coworker told her about a place with really good 關東煮 (guan dong zhu - stewed-ish food). The "restaurant" was actually a truck that they'd redecorated to look like one of those stands in Japan (where the food originated from) that you see in mangas and dramas (you know, those little stands in the middle of nowhere where it's really a little hut with a bar-like table in front of the area they prepare the food). It was pretty nice; never saw something like that before in Taiwan.

Guan Dong Zhu Stand (see the truck? and the people sitting in front in the bar area. Pictures are better than me trying to describe. Aih.)

People ordering.

There was a pretty long line because the place is supposedly famous (they were on tv, I think, and in newspapers). The line moved pretty slowly, but people were all willing to stand around in the cold and wait. I can now understand why. The food was delicious. The soup they stewed it in was fantastic, and the different types of food they offered weren't the kinds you normally see at, say, 7-11 or other Japanese restaurants. They had tofu made of fish, mochi with meat inside, and cheese balls along with the regular kinds of food offered at the previously mentioned places. They were so YUM!!! I think it's the best guan dong zhu I've ever had (well, the ones I had were mostly from 7-11, so I think anything can beat that, but this was SUPER DUPER GOOOOOOOD). I wouldn't mind waiting for another hour to eat there again. The price wasn't too bad; not cheap, but not mad expensive. This type of food is definitely good on a cold, winter day. It makes your tummy all warm and tingly, and having it with sake makes it even better. Couldn't feel the cold after eating and drinking. :)

Assorted stewed goodies they sold.

Our goodies. YUM!

With Sake. Even better.

So. Point is, I guess even without the sun, I can still have fun. Actually, that's pretty much what our different adventures since I came back to Taiwan have been like. Rarely has any of our little trips been sunny; always rainy or cloudy. I still remember last time we went to Taichung and Yi-Lan, it was raining and cloudy. The clouds and rain give off a different kind of feel during our little fooding adventures, I guess. I just need to adapt to these many sun-less days (sadness). Makes me appreciate the sun all that much more when it does come out, though! Hopefully with spring approaching, the sun will come out more. Then, we can have our little adventures with sun and get a different feel! :D (Yah for optimism!)

More pictures at Flickr.

... when it's sunny all throughout the week while I'm stuck at work, and then comes Friday and it gets cloudy and rainy. =( I guess it's my fault for cursing the weather gods. I'M SORRY! 我以後不敢啦~~~~~~


I want to have a fun, dry, sunny weekend for once!!! >.<

Chabot said, "As one of a very few democracies in Asia, Taiwan should be recognized for its courage and commitment to allow its citizens to choose its future."

From Taipei Times.

Yaaaaaaaaah. Totally agreed. Good to know there's still some support for Taiwanese democracy.

Woo, all these updates while at work :P

The doode's name is 林韋良 (William Lin).

"【陳揚盛╱台北報導】年僅十八歲的大學生林韋良，本月初參加第二十九屆法國明日節雜技大賽，以六分半鐘獨創單人扯鈴技藝表演零失誤，擊敗全球二十三隊代表，奪下最高榮譽首獎總統獎、四場次共六千名觀眾票選第一名、俄羅斯藝術表演家維克多奇特別獎。他是參加此大賽的台灣第一人，且首度參賽就勇奪三大獎。"


That's 扯鈴 to the extreme .... :P

From the creator of "Cat Man Do" comes ...



So cute. :)

Sophie Roux (New)


Tired Magician


They don't have youtube videos for my favorite songs tho.. boo ... go visit myspace/LadyDanville for more songs! :D

From 司林巴地曝露格 ...

用MSN把妹的危機

現在很流行用MSN把妹，因為搭訕時要MSN比要電話還容易，也比較不會讓女生有戒心，而且聊天也比較不會有壓力，也不會緊張，可以發揮比較正常的實力。


當然，用MSN把妹還是有出問題的時候。


不願具名的友人C先生說，他想要追一個女生，很幸運的要到了他的MSN，所以一直期待可以跟那女生聊。只是那女生可能很多人追，大多用離線比較多，所以C先生都很難看到他。


某次他終於看到那女生上線，然後就很緊急得想要傳訊給他，他本來想要傳


「我都看不到你」


但因為難得看到對方上線，真的太緊急了，所以他打了


「我都幹不到你」


然後就按了Enter了...


我想，他應該永遠追不到這個女生了吧...


我們不能怪他，因為鍵盤上ㄍ真的只在ㄎ的上面而已。


所以，這故事告訴我們，MSN把妹很好用，打錯字也沒什麼關係，但如果打了個不該打的錯字，那可能就會造成一輩子的遺憾啊...

After riding around on the bikes yesterday and realizing how much of a pain it is to transport the bikes via MRT if we wanted to go to say, Dan Shui, we went back to the store and exchanged the bright yellow, nonfoldable Louis Garneau for a beige, foldable Dahon. There are only a certain number of MRT stops that allow you to bring bikes on and off, which I still don't really understand because the trains still stop at every stop. The only reason for it I could think of was because the elevators might not all be big enough to fit bikes. But meh, they really should better plan this bring your bikes onto the MRT thing because more and more people are buying and using bikes as a form of exercise and leisure activity. It's such a hassle to have to ride the bike to Gong Guan when I live near Gu Ting and then I have to get off at Suang Lian when I want to go to Chung Shan just because only Gong Guan and Suang Lian allow bikes into the station. Also, the single elevators at these stops only fit two bikes at a time, so we had to line up and wait for our turn to get up. Imagine if there were 10 people with bikes, we'd have to wait forever! Especially since the elevators are pretty slow. And, it costs 80nt for the bike to go on a single trip. That's kinda pricey. If it were say, 80nt for an entire day, then that'd be more worth it. I think the government or whoever runs the MRT should come up with a better plan.

Anyway, so here's the pic for the new bike.

Non-Folded

Folded!

Definitely saves more space, especially in our tiny little apartment. Also, it comes with a bag, so we can just carry the bike onto the MRT and bypass the 80nt fee for the bikes and also get on and off wherever we like. It's pretty easy to fold, just takes a couple of steps and voila! it's folded. The only downside to the folded bike is that it's heavier to carry around than when it's not folded. But eh, can't have everything, eh? :)

So this is the new addition to our family. We had to say bye bye to Mr. Yellow.

Whoa. I didn't realize it's been so long since I last did an update. Been feeling lethargic lately when it comes to blog posting or even taking pictures. Not too sure what's up with that considering how I always feel the need to take pics or write some deep meaningful entry on the bloggyblog (or not). :P I think I've just gotten lazy. At least I'm starting to draw again after my short hiatus.

It's been an interesting past couple of days actually, not work related, of course. Went clubbing twice, always a fun thing. First time around it wasn't as packed even though it was a Saturday night. Got free booze, saw a cutie bartender, it was all good. Second time around was on a Wednesday night but it was packed, like no-space-to-dance packed. But it was ladies' night and the next day was a national holiday (no work, WOOT! Too bad it took a massacre for that to happen :\). Went to see the cute bartender, but he was always on the opposite side of the bar no matter where I went (fate plays a cruel game). Also the area around the bar was always packed (which kept me from walking to the other side and taking a picture of him :(...) except for free booze time! For some reason, the area around the bar cleared when they started pouring watered down tequila from the bottles into people's mouths. Eh, guess people didn't want to get splashed by the alcohol? Not too sure.

Clubbing's always fun, but I wish they'd play more white music or less of the same hip hop songs. Whenever they change dj's at like 1 or 2 am they always end up repeating the same songs. Also, each time we go club, we hear the same songs and it gets kinda like, repetitive. More rock songs!!!! :P It's not so bad to dance to. At least on Wednesday night the dj played some Prince (Artist Formerly Known as Prince?). It was quite exciting. :P

Aside from clubbing, we went bike shopping. It's been something my cousin's wanted to buy for the longest time, so she finally settled on a bike and bought it. It was an experience buying that bike. We went to this outdoors store near an RT-Mart near closing time and looked around. Finally decided on one, so my cousin went to ask this salesperson questions about it. After the questions, he asked my cousin who the person standing next to her was (my sister) and voiced his interest in becoming "friends" with her. She laughs and says that she'll give him her number if he lowers the price of the bike for her. I think she actually had the intention of giving him the number (even if he didn't lower the price), but then he went out for a smoke and came back smelling like .. smoke. duh. But that's a big no-no in my cousin's book (smoking = deduct 100000000 points), so she ended up not wanting to give it to him. But he kept like hovering around and hinting about getting the number and that was awkwaaaaaard. He wasn't bad looking or anything, and I think there would've been some interest on my sister's part except for the fact that he smokes. After all the smoke inhalation from the two clubbing nights, I think smoking just became an even bigger turn off for all of us. (My sister thinks it's finally a good year for her, though, when it comes to boys. :P)

Anyway, the salesperson who ended up helping us with it all was a really nice guy and yah, I think my sister liked him better than the other dude. He was funny and helpful and all that good stuff, so we got his number. =P Not for getting a date or anything though, just in case the bikes fail or have issues, then we can call him for help and maintenance. Always a good thing to know someone who's more knowledgeable about these things than we are. Ended up riding the bikes home because they couldn't fit in the car. It was kinda scary, but also exhilarating to be riding in the cool wind at night. It's got a peaceful feeling to it, except for when there were tons of cars and motorcycles around us. But that wasn't so often because it was like 11 at night, so less cars.

I think I need to go get me a bike now. :P

The new addition to our family - Louis Garneau MV1 (yes, it is yellow)

We've also been doing some cooking! Trying to get on a low-carb diet and just eat out less because it's more costly to eat out and also more oily. This one was one of our bigger home-cooked meals because we had more time on Saturday to cook, and we also wanted to get rid of a lot of leftover stuff we had in the fridge. :P Now the fridge is packed once more because went to Costco and stocked up on veggies and assorted other goodies. We'll see how this "diet" works out. :) Wish us luck!