I went to see “Vanilla Sky” tonight at the local big-ass department store / restaurant / movie theater. What a strange movie. Anyway, after the movie ended I had a momentary shock as I realized that I was, in fact, still in Taiwan. There were lots of non-Taiwanese people there. I guess I would be at American movies all the time, too, if I lived here.

In Pingtung we were looking at a photo album at a relative’s house, which had some interesting English sayings scrawled on the front and back: “Love endureth as long as the money lasteth.” and… “Love begins by deceiving oneself and ends by deceiving others.” So bitter! (read more »)

There seems to be a fascination in Taiwan with covering things. Everywhere you look, you see things covered: tissue boxes, cell phones, car seats, car headrests, scooter seats, etc. Perfectly advanced and hi-tech looking cellular phones are covered with horribly stale plastic and leather. In Taipei I saw a nice looking black mercedes with all of its seats covered in thin white cloth dotted with bright cartoon animal drawings. In my grandmother’s place in Ping Tung (my father’s side), the little radio on the top floor by the ancestral altar is covered by a little washcloth, and even the mirror hanging on the wall in the kitchen is covered by translucent plastic. I have yet to figure that one out. (read more »)

I just got a call from a telemarketer from http://www.cihost.com/, who tried to sell me some enterprise web hosting package. What a strange list I must be on.

I’m extremely bored. What shall I do today…?

Today was Amabelle’s last day at Homestore.com. That place seemed like such a depressing place to work. From what I saw, it was riddled with incompetence and inefficiency. Oh well. I guess that’s why they’re plastered all over Fucked Company.

I went over at around noon to help Amabelle with her things and to have lunch with her, Rita, and their friend Keith. People were milling around, feeling what seemed to me to be both nostalgia and slight bitterness. One guy had an assault rifle styled BB gun, and people were taking turns shooting stuff. It sort of looks like an employee is about go go “postal” in the photo (see below). heh… :) (read more »)

I’m watching “King of the Hill” right now, and this episode is partially sponsored by Tampax (Connie had her first period this episode). How strange, to have Tampax and King of the Hill associated with each other! It reminds me of the first time I had to stand in line at Payless with a box of tampons (for a friend, of course). I was so embarrassed. Ahhh… immaturity. :) Oooo (!) — a commercial for Lord of the Rings. I wanna see it again!

Another thing. I went to Safeway last night, and saved 47% with my Safeway card. That’s totally ridiculous. If I was optimistic, I would say that I happened to pick things that are on sale, but instead, it made me think that they probably had to jack up the price on everything else for me to save 47%.

I’ve been working on redesigning Wetpixel.com for the past couple of weeks, and it’s finally live! (the new DNS is still propagating, so you may see the old one for another day or so) I’m using Greymatter there, too. I love Greymatter. I was going to try to use PHPNuke, but the introductory stages of implementation took place on Readyhosting‘s servers. Blech. We’re now at CWIHosting, which kicks ass.

Anyway, so if you’re into underwater digital photography, check out Wetpixel.com. :)

I went to the 10am showing of Lord of the Rings this morning at the Sony Metreon in SF. While Amabelle went to work briefly, I waited in line behind some Pixar employees, and in front of this group of LOUD bay area techies who talked about computer games the whole time (they seemed to work in the computer game industry). I really didn’t mind that they were talking about computer games, except that they were talking so loudly that their conversation could be heard clearly by everyone in the area. It almost drove me crazy. (read more »)

I went to Tuggey’s Hardware today (on 24th St.) for some drywall screws. The guy there took me over to a bucket o’ screws, and said, “I’ll give these to you like this (he pours a handful of screws into my hand), and I won’t charge you. Happy Holidays!” It totally made my day… that is, until I went to the post office and waited for an hour to mail my package. grrrr….!

Oh. Adam Tow has written up a comprehensive Canon EOS 1D analysis, featuring a black shirt I’m still wearing today. Check it out, if you’re into digital SLRs.

Did you know that dejanews has been sucked up by google? It’s very cool that you can now conveniently find usenet history on anyone out there. I did a search for my old Stanford email address and found some funny stuff. :) Click on the subjects for the full threads. (read more »)

Photos from Postrio’s, and from Stacks (read more »)

Long, long day yesterday! Amabelle took me to Postrio’s for lobster sandwiches. Yummmmy. We had the best seats in the house, overlooking the entire lower floor. Afterwards, we roamed around downtown SF and took advantage of Virgin Megastore’s Amex BLUE 30% off sale. (read more »)

EPNY lunch, Heychristine, Stanford (entire entry follows) (read more »)

Mandy, me, Dan, and Amie

These people are so belligerent! (read more »)

I spent the day roaming around the Palo Alto/Mountain View area. All I did was spend money. I woke up, went to get a haircut, got my car washed (it looks sooooo beautiful now. it had been dirty for a couple of months, and the rims were all black from brake dust. i guess driving to San Diego and back will do that. :), ate lunch, went shopping at the Stanford Mall for holiday gifts, went to Fry’s for more holiday shopping, bought a Kiwi Berry Burner at Jamba Juice, ate dinner, went back to the mall, and then drove back up to SF. That’s… eight (!) separate spending occurrences, all in one day! And, at the mall, I roamed around several stores and bought stuff for various people (heh — how’s that for being vague? :). I was particularly annoyed at Bloomingdales. Aren’t they supposed to be nice to you at fancy stores like that? I was moved so far as to track down two floor managers to express my discontent (which did nothing. grrrr….) That rarely happens. Usually, I just suck it up because it isn’t that big of a deal.

I have to get out of the country again. I’m feeling restless.

I’m now using Greymatter to update this section of my site. The old entries are still available, too. I’ve moved the last entry here, for transition. :)

I love it. There’s more fun stuff going on in my guestbook. You know when you’re at the dinner table, and your parents and relatives/family friends talk about you like you’re not there? It sort of feels like that. There are lots of presumptuous people out there (“you seem intelligent. you should do XXX. blah blah blah.”).

Stalking became a little personal today. I got a call this afternoon from Joechang, who was freaking out because “Mike, from Boston” called him and asked him questions about my cats, and about me. (read more »)