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Posted on

the heat

Cold bellies get more hugs.
Good evening folks. Yup, I’m using a new recent comments plugin, which gives me a lot more flexibility over how I display the comments in the sidebar. So far I only used it to add a reference to the post a comment was entered on, something which I always thought was missing (all the comments looked like they were from the same article or something). I messed with a bunch of different ways to incorporate the article title, finally landing on the “re:” thing you see now… which I’m still not sure I like. But hey, it does the job.

Two days after I got back from Taiwan, I got a note from a buddy of mine who lives there: Tracy was in the hospital. Tracy’s in the hospital! The word is, she has a low white blood cell count… which I guess can be a symptom of a whole bunch of stuff, and is more common in women. Anyway, I sent her a gift in the hospital and have been checking in with local friends to see how she’s doing. As long as it’s not some rare Asian contagious disease… I guess if I come down with the Bird Flu, I’ll know.

But for real, I was with her nearly all week. We karaoke’d into the wee hours on no less than three nights last week. Despite the fact that we hung out a lot more and were even able to speak much more on this trip out, Tracy and I are still the least close of all my hotel-bar friends. On my last night in town, as we left the all-night restaurant around 5am, I was giving hugs to all the other bar staff and saying goodbye until next time. However, as I moved in to hug her goodbye, she turned her body sideways as if to escape the impending embrace! “Tracy! How cold!” I shouted, eliciting laughs from the others. Then, talking to a buddy today who’s spoken to Tracy since she’s been laid up, I asked him if she said anything about ducking my goodbye hug. “Yeah,” he said, “She said she turned away because of the ‘heat in your stomach.'” I about fell out of my chair laughing. “The heat” in my stomach?! What in the world does that mean? Even the local buddy who talked to her (who speaks Mandarin!) said he didn’t understand, and even talking to her, couldn’t figure out quite what she meant. I told him that next time I’ll need some help icing up my belly. I wonder if “the heat in one’s stomach” is an ancient Chinese way to say “bad breath?”

There surely is such a thing as computer-addiction. I know because I am completely and utterly stricken by it. It really doesn’t bother me that much, to be honest with you. I would argue that most people living in modern, mechanized, industrialized nations are actually “addicted” to one form of media or another. But for some reason, non-PC people think of those who choose the PC as their primary source of entertainment and leisure-time-wasting in a negative light. However, the far more common breed who chose to watch TV from the moment they get home until the moment they drift off to sleep are not. What about a voracious reader, one who spends every free moment poring over books, are they “addicted,” or simply studious? I prefer the computer to the TV… I’ve mentioned that before. Who cares. Shut up and leave me alone, I’m busy at the computer.

In the waste-of-time department: Ever since I saw this linked on fazed the other day, I got sucked in. It’s one of those progressive image puzzles where you look at a picture/puzzle for some kind of hidden or contextual or coded message, and then modify the URL with the solution to get to the next picture/puzzle. Some of them are incredibly complex and nearly impossible. Before I knew it, I found myself starting at this thing until 1am last night before calling it quits. Some of the answers are easily obtained, some require complicated decoding and math, and some even require digital manipulation of the images. Even though I cheated a few times along the way out of desperation, I went back tonight and solved most all of the puzzles I skipped out of frustration. I don’t know why I get hooked on these things, but I do. In fact, I decided to take a crack at the dreaded #34 (the one I was stuck on last night until 1am) today during my lunch break… and before I knew it it was 4:30pm and I was on #38. Have at it, but beware – it will melt your brain.

I bid you… adieu.

Posted on

new toys

Old skool.
I don’t think I’ve ever been late for work simply because I “slept in.” Until this morning, that is. The first thing that I noticed on waking was the amount of sunshine poking through the slats of the blinds. Something wasn’t right. Grabbing for my cellphone on the windowsill, the clock said 8:45am. Crap… somehow I missed the alarm. At first, I jumped out of bed in a rush, flying around the room. Then I realized, there’s no reason to rush. I took my shower, did my morning hygiene stuff, emptied the cat’s litter and took off. Getting to work at 9:30am sure makes the day more tolerable. Maybe I’ll make that my regular thing.

The tissue-paper toilet seat guards hanging above the commode at work are called “Life Guard.” Is my life really at stake here?

I don’t know if anyone actually ever notices whats on rotation in my Winamp over there in the sidebar – but if so, you may have noticed I’ve been listening to some different stuff the last couple days. Old NIN? Skinny Puppy? What the hell is all that? I don’t care what people say about Skinny Puppy, Rabies and Too Dark Park were landmark albums during my brief industrial phase. Along with NIN, Frontline Assembly, Nitzer Ebb, and of course Ministry… they sustained the dark, gritty, beatlust that my 10th grade ears so craved. I can remember one brief embarrassing month (maybe not even a full month, who knows) where my standard-issue uniform consisted of shin-length black shorts, black socks, black steel-toed shoes, and black t-shirts. It’s a wonder I didn’t wear eyeliner and dye my hair. I guess sunlight-blocking visqueen velcroed to my windows and patchouli incense isn’t too far off.

After my rant yesterday about my wireless woes, I decided to try another brick-and-mortar store today to see if I’d have different results (y’know, kinda like getting a second doctor’s opinion or something). While the 2nd store did have some more promising Cingular rate plans, they still couldn’t look the other way on the $18 migration fee. So on a suggestion from a friend at work and as a last resort, I called the sales department. Turns out, I was able to negotiate a killer deal over the phone with their corporate sales department (previously, with AT&T, we got some decent discounts through work, and some apparently carried over to Cingular). In the end, I scored two Nokia 6230s (one for me and one for the Mrs.) for $150, what they wanted to charge me for a single phone in-store. On top of that, our monthly rate when down by a buck under the new Cingular plan, and we got 100 additional minutes plus rollover. Not bad.

The new phone is what I’m excited about though. Not only is it slightly smaller than my current phone, it’s got camera and video functionality (a first for me, as I’ve always valued the reception over the frills). In addition, it’s got a built-in MP3 player. The really cool thing though, is that both the camera and MP3 player utilize memory on a removable MMC (multimedia card) – and you can currently get them in 2GB sizes (and I was just there, I wish I’d known). That means, in addition to my first video/camera phone I’ve also just scored a 2GB portable MP3 player. Nokia touts a 10hr battery life for MP3 playback, but extra batteries are only $20… so I could always buy a backup for long trips if I find the actual performance to be less. The only slightly-less-than-awesome thing I could find to pick on is the fact that the camera is only 640×480, whereas some of the more recent phones have 1MP+ offerings.

Goodnite.

Posted on

mincing words


Having TiVo is great, but it’s also an unexpected obligation. When you’ve got 20hrs of programming sitting on a hard drive – you feel somewhat bound to watch it. I liken this desire to “clear” the TiVo to a Scientologist’s yen to “clear” their soul of sticky body thetans. But rather than cash-money, which Scientologists use to rid themselves of thetans implanted into their soul 75 million years ago when the evil intergalactic overlord Xenu exploded an H-bomb in a volcano on the planet Teegeeack, TiVo owners are obliged to waste their time by “clearing” the many hours of CSI, OC, Desperate Housewives, and Daily Shows from their hard drives. Luckily, these shows were not “implanted” into our hard drives by evil space aliens – they were, in fact, chosen by us! TiVo owners, hear me now: Only you can liberate yourselves from the hours and hours of Aqua Teens and Family Guys, only you have the power! Drop that remote, cancel those season passes, free your time from the bonds of PVR. Oh, hang on, I gotta go – I got an episode of Dateline to watch where they talk about BTK… peace out.

You wanna know what really burns me? I’ve had AT&T as my wireless carrier for nigh on five years now. Recently, they were bought out by Cingular. No big deal really… as I didn’t see any changes other than the neon above the local AT&T store. Then today, I decide it’s time for a new phone, as mine’s getting real old-‘n’-busted looking. So, I go down to the AT&T Cingular store to have a peek. I perused the offerings, and decided on a cool little Nokia cameraphone with video and bluetooth capabilities. Talking to the rep, he mentioned that no more phones were being sold under AT&T plans: all new phones are Cingular. No problem, I’ll just switch over to Cingular – I mean they bought AT&T so it was inevitable anyway. That means I have to switch my wife’s phone too, which is under the same account. Again, no biggie… let’s do it. Wait… the only Cingular plan that’s close to my current AT&T plan costs $10 more per month. That sucks. But here’s what really bugged me: there’s an $18 charge per phone to “migrate” the service from AT&T to Cingular.

Let me get this straight: Cingular buys AT&T, makes it so any new/upgraded phone bought by a former AT&T customer has to be bought under a Cingular account, and then charges me $18 for the compulsory switch. Is that legal? To me, it sounds like Cingular is passing off the cost of acquiring AT&T onto their customers. For AT&T customers, every phone in the store costs $18 more than it does for an existing Cingular or new customer. I might expect some kind of migration fee were I really choosing to switch providers… but I have no choice here. I did ask the rep how long I could keep my AT&T phones/plans, and he said indefinitely. While that’s some small comfort, since I like my cheaper AT&T plan better than anything Cingular offers, there will come a day when I want to or have to get a new phone. I tried to rationalize this by equating it to a hypothetical situation in which AT&T just ceased to exist or went out of business, but realized I’d then be the same as any no-wireless-havin’ Joe off the street – and wouldn’t have to pay a fee to “migrate” from anything. Monopolizing punks.

I can remember in college, being quite the little pirate wannabe. I would horde illegal copies of applications, serial number and key generators, program patches, etc. I think going to work for a high tech company made me realize that I didn’t want to steal software anymore. So, I bought what I needed, and went freeware/open-source for everything else. I don’t have a single piece of pirated software on my machines anymore, I even got legit copies of Windows. I’m also a lot less forgiving of other forms of piracy: I pay for my DirecTV and go to the movie theater. For some reason though, I still download music like it was the college heyday of Napster free-music love. I don’t know why my late-blooming morality hasn’t extended to MP3s, there’s really no explanation I have. I mean, I’ve tried in the past to justify the habit by the concert revenue and at-show CD sales I generate for the artists – but my plain-out stealing outpaces the the money I give back at the ticket counter. I dunno, maybe it’s my last bastion of reckless youth.

It’s not like I haven’t ever filled the music industry’s coffers… I own thousands of CDs which I bought with my own hard-earned cash. But nowadays the only CDs I buy are at concerts, where, for some reason, I’ve got the idea that more of the money actually goes into the artists’ pocket (a regular philanthropist, ain’t I?). Beyond that, I continue to download new music and listen without guilt. What is that? I can justify it in some ways, like if I’ve actually purchased the music at some point – perhaps in another form of media. I think that, once I’ve paid for the right to listen to something, I should be able to listen to it whenever and however I want – even if that means downloading a copy of it. As for the stealing of music I’ve never owned… I’m at a loss to describe how I justify it. Perhaps my conscious will eventually catch up with me, and I’ll sign up for iTunes or something.

I get my haircut at a place at a local place in town that only has two Singaporean employees working it’s eight chairs. It’s usually not that busy, which I like because I can get in and out quickly. My regular guy doesn’t speak too much English, and never remembers what number guard to use on my fade. In the past, he’s made the comment, “not much to cut” while trimming up the top. He also tends to mix up his method every once in a while, to keep my on my toes. He’ll clip the top with scissors sometimes, using the traditional knuckle-and-comb method; other times he wont even use scissors, just use a comb and the clippers. Today I realized, if you take these things together, they makes a strong case for my regular dude being a bad barber. Then, while I was sitting in the chair for my clip today, the guy actually burped into my hair. Offering no apology, he just kept on trimming. The guy burped onto my head. As I was leaving, I noticed that the pen they had chained to the counter was actually a stolen from some hotel. I guess when your sole qualifications for a barber are fast and cheap, it should come as no surprise that your $15 gets you a pretty ghetto experience.

Andy Wilderotter sucks balls. Goodnight.

Posted on

kick the can

Ward.
7:30am on Monday morning… I’m sitting here watching the minutes tick by before I have to get up and go to work. Back to the US and the reaction is pretty standard: I see all the things I’ve been putting off as if for the first time. The backyard that I’m not quite done creating, now overrun with winter-rain-fed weeds where sod should be. The front yard planters not weed-blocked yet, also blooming full of winter-weeds. The 2″ high grass waving in the breeze. It’s all calling to me, “do something.” The backyard has been so close to done for so long… I use the rain as an excuse to not get out there and do it. But now is a great time to get sod down, when there’s still some moisture before the ovens of summer.

July is my ten-year high school reunion. Ten years; I’ve been out of high school for ten years. Only thing is, talking to the friends I still talk to from high school – not one of them is planning on going. They just don’t want to go. Up until recently, I was thinking how it might be fun to see everyone again. But, if no one is going… why am I going to fly across the country? I imagine the idea of a high school reunion might be scary to some. Maybe to the the go-nowheres or the do-nothings. Maybe to those who got fat or those who lost hair. Maybe to those who feel old without the children so many others have. Maybe to those who are afraid their success will make others feel bad, or those who have no success at all. Maybe to those who have gone those ten long years without a relationship to speak of. Or those who feel those who’d actually attend are beneath them. Whatever the reason, I’m certainly not making a several-hundred dollar trip home to see no one. And before you say it, yes I realize some may just “not want to go,” rather than being afraid for one of the above reasons.

I’ve been quiet about it too long now, but Pitchfork’s new site layout really blows. It’s cluttered, poorly organized, and requires hated side-scrolling because it hangs off my screen edge even in large resolutions. One of my favorite features, “Best New Music,” has been moved off the mainpage onto some clickthrough link. The news is buried somewhere mid-page which requires scrolling, and there’s way too many flashing/blinking ads to distract from the content – it looks like a freakin’ Christmas tree. I miss the A-Z artist list for easy review access – now you have to search for everything. It just plain out sucks compared to the old layout. On top of it all, they don’t have an RSS feed so I can read it in the uncluttered interface of Feedreader.

Longer than a child's face on the first day of kindergarten.

I rumble and grumble a lot about mowing the lawn, trying to find some excuse to get out of it, but when I’m actually out there watching my late-evening shadow stretch out long in front of me – I really enjoy being a homeowner. I take a certain pride in it, almost smiling like Ward Cleaver would as he tread the lines on any Saturday. And even though it’s barely 70° I still sweat like it’s 95°, it’s just in my blood. This time though, it took forever. I left work at 4:30pm to get a jump on the task, knowing the lawn was extra-long. And forever it took, I finished up just as there was no light left to work by. It looks good though, and it was long overdue. The only thing that coulda made me feel better woulda been if I’d managed to fit a haircut in today as well. Maybe tomorrow.

‘Nite.

Posted on

home again

GIS for captors.
Got back Saturday around noon. Another long flight, although I slept through most of it – waking for the bad food and to use the facilities. Wayne and I stopped on the way home from the airport to pick up some good old American hamburgers and chili-cheese fries. Rolled into the garage around 1pm, driving past my waist-high lawn on the way in (the season of weekly mowing has dawned again it seems). I always get the same sensation when just home from an overseas trip. Like people should know and respect the fact that just that morning, I was eating eel in a restaurant in downtown Taipei. The lady ringing up my goods at Wal Mart, she should know that. Hours ago, while you were sleeping, I was singing Chinese songs and drinking beer at an all-night karaoke. Wake up and recognize me as the world-traveler I am people… this lame-o in line behind me?, he was picking his nose when I was 30,000ft above the earth traveling 700mph just 3 hours ago. Marvel at me, won’t you?

Slept in until almost 1pm Sunday, must still be messed up from the travel and time-change. Sucks to sleep away your first real day back, but I suppose it is a recuperation day. I was hoping to mow the lawn today, but I’ve already made up my mind I’m putting it off… I even checked the sunset time for tomorrow to see if I’d be able to get it done post-work – since it’s long as balls right now.

If I may, I would now like to make a short foray into the dark side.

We’ll start with the news that they’ve caught BTK. If you don’t know, I have a small obsession with serial killers. I hate saying that, because it sounds so very macabre… but I think my fascination lies more with the “hows” of human behavior that allow these acts. Plus, I really enjoy a good unsolved mystery. I’ve been following BTK ever since I read about him over at the Crime Library, and even more so since the launch of catchBTK.com and his recent string of communications and puzzles sent to police and media. My guess is that the guy was ready to get caught, anyone willing to risk open communication in this day and age of forensic science is asking for it. Glad they caught him, and with him behind bars and everyone knowing Zodiac is dead – now I have to find another unsolved serial killer case to follow. With the capture being such high-profile news, I’m surprised Tom hasn’t updated catchBTK.com yet – I’d figured he’d have had the template designed forever now – just waiting to artistically drop in the mughsot.

Shifting gears, another spat of information in the interesting-to-me Collarbomber case. Y’know, the pizza delivery man who was abducted, fitted with a locked metal “collar” containing a bomb, and given home-built James Bond weapons and impossibly complicated instructions to rob a bank lest his captors detonate his necklace? If you don’t remember, the man was killed when the collar exploded, as police and TV crews watched waiting for the bomb squad to arrive. Looks like the victim’s sister has put up a website in an attempt to expose shoddy police work and bring justice to the case. The crude site is really interesting, with phrases like “Killers Roam Free. They Will be Caught Because They Are LOSERS,” and a personal plea to the killers to give themselves up. Just this past week, the FBI released a picture of a black car that they are interested in.

In both these cases, I’ll be interested to get more details… the full stories will no doubt be fascinating. OK then, away from the doom and gloom and back to regular stuff.

I decided that I’m going to make sounds familiar a little more blog-compliant, namely by giving each post a title, and also by trying to use the “categories” feature more. Categories is always hard for me, since I tend to be pretty random in what I write. Beginning today, you’ll begin to see post titles sitting over to the right side of the header box, and if you use read this site via the RSS syndication feed, the titles should come through there too. An exciting task for me will be getting to go through all the past entries and titling and categorizing them all (I did a few last night), I’ve done it once before with the old software… but lost all the info. I fiddled with where I’d display the title for a long time, finally deciding on the right-align you see above – since it’s not too prominent and won’t mess up the layout of untitled posts. I’ve gone ahead and added the category breakdown to the sidebar… but since not all the entries are binned yet, it’s not that interesting. That sounds familiar for ya, always striving to improve itself for the readership.

Having my laptop flake out on me served to remind me I need to keep up with my regular backups of my home machine. I use Acronis TrueImage as my backup solution, and run a full disk backup every month which I then burn to DVD and keep on my RAID array. However, my RAID array has been acting flaky lately too – I think I have either a bad disk or loose cable… and I’ve been meaning to switch from the four-disk SATA solution I have now to a three-disk IDE RAID5 configuration. I know I’ll do it one day, I should just bite the bullet and buy four large IDEs (three for the RAID5 array and one to upgrade my USB2.0 travel-caddy which I use to bring my entire collection wherever I want). Anyone know of a good deal on 4 large (250GB+) IDE drives and a RAID5 capable card?

Goodnight.

Posted on

pantaloon problems

They don't look so bad... do they?
Today’s entry is mostly about pants. That may seem strange, or even boring, but I think it worked out pretty nicely. I mean, even I chuckled reading back over it. So, as I reach around to pat myself on the back… you can make your own judgments. Enjoy.

Wayne asked me today when I have time to write all the crap I write. I dunno… I write all the time. I write one or two sentences at a time; one paragraph one hour, another the next. When I can’t get to a keyboard, I use the voice-memo feature of my cellphone to record short thoughts for later. Like now, I’m writing right now, in the Taipei office. I didn’t really have to come in today, I planned this day as a free day… figuring I could catch up on some work on the flight tomorrow. But… I’ve got enough to keep me busy while here, and the meeting I missed at 1am last night got rescheduled for 1pm today. So, coming in for a few hours seemed like the right thing to do. Oh, I’ll be outta here after the meeting. Gonna buy some Cubans (the cigars, not the actual people) and make the final run to the tailor to pick up my pants. Which reminds me…

When I was getting measured for the pants, the tailor asked me a litany of questions about what exactly I wanted. That little fold-over flap button or just a plain zipper; straight pockets or angled; one or two pockets in the back; buttons on both of those or just one; cuffs at the bottom; and finally, pleats. I think I got most of them right, but walking out of the store I was unsure about my decision on the “pleats” bit. When he asked me if I wanted them, I vaguely remembered Sharaun either hating pants with pleats, or hating pants without pleats. I asked the Chinese tailor, and he said pleats can look “more formal,” and be “a little more comfort.” The part about “a little more comfort” spoke right to my heart – so I ordered pleats. Now, when I got back to the bar after the final fitting (got back to the bar, like it’s home-base or something), I mentioned to another coworker where I’d been – and that I’d ordered some custom slacks… he asked “flat front?” Uh-oh. This was my 1st indication that I may have committed a major fashion faux paus.

Later on, I spoke to Sharaun. With caution, I broached the subject of my custom slacks… and causally mentioned that the tailor had asked me if I wanted pleats. Her reaction cinched it: pleats = bad. “You didn’t get pleats, did you?!” she asked. “Ummm… yeah, the guy told me they look more formal and are more comfortable” I replied. “You’re in China, David, their fashion is from, like, 1982. Pleats are terrible, everyone will laugh at you.” My heart sank, all the pride and happiness I’d been feeling in finally getting some pants that fit, all the good I’d thought I’d done in taking action and picking nice material… all my hopes and dreams for pants with “a little more comfort” were dashed against the rocks. “Everyone knows pleats are stupid, don’t you know that?” Man, I’m really getting laid into here… “How much did you pay for the pants?” she asked – a baited question, since paying more than $5 for these detestable pieces of pleated filth would be sheer idiocy. “I dunno,” I lie, “I don’t know the price until I pick them up.” Whew, dodged that one, she may have divorced me if I’d admitted they were $70 a pair. “You’re stupid because you got pants with pleats; you wasted your money; you know you don’t like pleats, did you forget?”

Anyway… women can be evil… just when you think you’ve done so well. I will wear my pleated pants, with pride mind you. I will rock the pleats, perhaps even hang small bells from them that jingle and announce to the world that I am not ashamed of my pleats. Hell, I may even usher in a new age of pleats; I will re-cool pleats… I’ll be the cutting edge of custom dress-slacks with “a little more comfort.” And as for my wife, she’ll come around and realize that the Chinese people aren’t behind the fashion curve at all – they’re actually ahead of the next retro revival. Anyway, I make her sound meaner than she really is… but it’s all for comedy’s sake. Too bad they shoot homos here, I could’ve really used the Queer Eye guys. (Note to all my homo readers, I ain’t hatin’, the word “homo” is just too funny to pass up. Keep up the butt-love, you’re alright with Dave). So now I’ve got three pair of $70 custom slacks which all always feel pleat-conscious in… great. Clothes: I can’t win. Pleats discussion over.

The plan tonight is for one all-out karaoke blitz. No sleep. Karaoke until 4am, then hit the all-night dumpling house for some bleary-eyed shark-fin-stuffed dough-balls. Then, a quick return to the hotel room – where the bags will be packed and waiting. A quick shower to wash off the stench of beer, smoke, and Taiwanese women. The limo’s due out front at 7:30am. Airport; plane; airborne and asleep. Another fine trip to Taiwan has come to a close. Thanks to you, dear readers, for participating. That time you were with me when I chewed the betel nut; and the time when I was lamenting about customers; listening patiently as a shared my post-presentation nerves; sitting with me in the dark of Henry’s bar; laughing along at my bloody mary laptop collision. Even the times you weren’t with me: when my butt got sore and raw because of the poor quality toilet paper here; when I succumbed to my social smoking vice and had a few cigarettes in shame; when I got embarrassed because the tailor could see my lint-filled belly-button as he pinned my pants closed for fitting; tequila shots at the Thai place… wish you’d’ve been there.

Now, where was I… ahh… that’s right… bye.

Posted on

topic taboo

Something about overtime, I dunno.
If you’ve been reading me for a while, or… even if you haven’t, you may (or may not) know that I usually don’t talk much about work. Sometimes though, especially while traveling for work, I don’t have much else to talk about and work tends to dominate a run of entries. So, most of today’s entry is work-based… although I still stay away from specifics as much as possible – so as to avoid a sound doocing. Well then, with hopes that it’s not over-dry, to it…

Being in a country where you can smoke anywhere you want really makes you appreciate living in Liberalville, CA, USA. I’d forgotten what it was like to go out for an evening in Florida and come home reeking of smoke; having to chalk the night’s accoutrements up to a loss in terms of multiple-wearings, and waking up throughout the night to smell the nastiness that is your own hair and skin. When we walked into the karaoke room last night, the smoke was still thick from the last revelers to use the facilities. Every bar, every restaurant, even some of the conference rooms at the customer sites… nasty.

Well, I guess it was only a matter of time. I fear my laptop is beginning to protest the bloody mary bath I unintentionally gave it the other day. Yesterday, I couldn’t get anything but BSODs for a full two hours of rebooting. Today, I seem to get it randomly… but increasingly more frequent. Only when your laptop is acting up do you realize how crippling it is to be without it, especially on a business trip. I use it to take notes, to call up sorted and stored information when answering questions, and to do completely non-work activities like writing this paragraph. I’m just hoping she makes it through the week, so I can get a new one when I get back home.

One down, one to go. Lunchtime now, and then the final visit of the week before I’m cut free of all Taiwan-specific responsibility. Unfortunately, I’ve not been able to “detach” from my US-work as I’ve been accustomed to for a Taiwan visit. Home-stuff is still demanding and is unfortunately dictating some late-night US-time meeting attendance and e-mail attention. It was 2:30am last night before I shutdown the PC and headed to bed, and I’ve got a 1am meeting lined up for tonight’s fun.

Right now it’s dawning what promises to be a beautiful day in Taipei; it’s been warming up lately – and the rain is less frequent now than it was at the beginning of the week.

I’m sitting in bed with my laptop, having just woke up little over and hour ago and been responding to e-mail until now. It’s my last full day here, I leave mid-morning tomorrow. I came back to the room last night around 12:30am to get ready for my 1am meeting. Then, I woke up around 3am with my laptop and phone in front of me. I don’t know when I dozed off, but I totally missed the meeting. I crawled into bed, and then started off this morning with my “apologies” mail. Owell.

Outta here.