A Photo Before CNY

I happened to find this photo in my cell phone when I was trying to get the photo of that ugly cow. This photo was taken at Tainan HSR station when I went back for Chinese New Year. I have been to that station numerous time, and it was mostly on business. But even when it was not for business, I could always see businessmen properly dressed in suit. That day, it was very different. No businessman, as far as I could see. Everyone was wearing casual, with lugguage and bags of presents for the family, ready for the Chinese New Year. And I just had to take a quick photo of the crowd. Not a very clear photo, but it will always reminds me of the joy for the holiday.

Interesting Ox

I went to Ximen station with E for breakfast, and saw this interesting ugly cow in from of Red Theater. It is too ugly that I had to stop and take photo. Is it really an ox? For some reason, the face looks like the iron tiger in front of Chinese temples. Why is it year of ox anyway? Not year of cow? It looks more like female, right?

New Blog

I've started another new blog. It is about writing in English. It is not that I have the whole English grammar in mind to teach anyone, or my writing is good to win a Pulitzer. It just serves the purpose of complaining. Nowadays most of my email correspondence is in English. That makes senses, when the people on the email list could be easily from many different countries; however, sometimes the English writing in the email could be so bad that I had to spend minutes trying to think in Chinese what the person tried to tell us.

I am a minimalist, and believes it is easy to write simple English to made myself understood. Most of the information in this blog will be from my corporate email, with some confidential information hidden of course. And this blog is mostly to express how frustrated I am to read those emails, and to show how easy it can be to write in English.

MM asked me how I can come by different material to write. Again, no set time, no set material, just complaints and sharing information. I do not expect to cover a lot of things, but this could be a good incentive for me to go back and study grammar book, considering how much I like languages. Since I have a dedicated label on this blog just for complaints already, and I'd like to write this new blog in Chinese anyway, I decided to open a new blog.

But the truth is, I am a major whiner.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

I knew from trailer that Benjamin Button was an old man when he was born, and then as time went by, he grew younger and younger. So I was kind of curious before the movie even started if when Benjamin died, he would be a grown-up person with a baby face, smooth skin and all that. Hm… that did not happen. He still became a baby at the end. That was a bit disappointing. It would be more fun to see an old-man-baby becomes a baby-old-man. Well, now that sounds confusing, but if you watched this movie, you’d understand what I am talking about.

Story is told pretty well. I’m not sure if it is really a good way to hide to the kids who their biological parents are. I do not understand what the shock can it be to adults when they are told their parents are not their biological parent. I can easily shrug and say “I don’t give a damn”, but my real reaction is way beyond my imagination. I look too much like my dad, so that leaves really no room for any kind of imagination. However, I really like the way Caroline knew about her biological father through the diary she read to her dying mother. Also enjoy that Caroline and Benjamin had met at some point, and Caroline actually remembers that incident. Their lives actually crossed at some point. And the postcard were no longer for Daisy. They were for Caroline, the daughter he cannot love.

Everyone has his own life, and most of the time, we concentrate on who we are and what we want, where we’ll bring our families to. It is nice to look back though, to see old photos of previous generation, to know what parents have seen, to know who they were when they were young, doing crazy things and all that. Every time I asked my parents their old stories, I could see their eyes sparkle.

Kindle for iPod Touch

Amazon released their Kindle 2. Kindle 2 certainly looks sexier than the first generation. It is thinner, has more capacity, etc, but, it is rather expensive, and I am not sure if it will work in Taiwan.

I am pleased to know that Amazon released their Kindle software for iPod Touch/iPhone. Installation was a breeze. No problem at all. Download can never be simpler. I did not purchase anything, but requested a sample of the first chapter of one book. And when I ran the software on iPod again, it was downloaded. Very very simple. The bad thing is that magazines are not available on iPod Touch. Some magazines on Kindle are really affordable. Even though iPod Touch comes with built-in browser, I still find it easier to browse the books on my computer and order from there. Ordering from built-in browser is possible, but not all websites can be optimized for iPod Touch.

Wrong Number

I stayed in Tainan over the past weekend, and would really like to get together with Lawrence. I was supposed to get together with him over Chinese New Year, but did not stay in Tainan for very long. 2 days of staying home doing chores with mother before CNY, staying home on the New Year day, playing with niece and nephew the next day, and visiting grandmother and taking family to Kaohsiung for a visit, which turned out to be quite a disaster, and on Jan 4th on Lunar calendar, I came back to Taipei.

Last Saturday, I called his cell phone, but it went directly to voice mail. I tried to call his home phone, which, for some reason, I remember by heart. Now I can only remember a handful of numbers, and his home number is one of them.

An old lady answered the phone. I assume she was his mother, so I talked politely,
May I talk to Lawrence, please?
Old lady replied, "Law- what?"
"Lawrence, please."
"But he does not live here."
"Could you tell me his current home number, please?"
"I do not know where he lives."

At this point, I was not sure how I could proceed, and after I hanged up the phone, I was terrified. I knew he had moved back with his parents last year, when We met last year. He did not mentioned any conflict with his folks, nor did not he mention any financial problems, or anything. So why did he move out and even his mother does not know anything about his current status?

This question bothered me the whole weekend. I tried to call him again on Sunday, and the call still went directly to voice mail.

So I wrote him an email, and asked him if everything is ok. He responded quickly, telling me that his current home number has changed to such and such. That is when I realized I dialed the wrong number, and talked to the wrong person. So now my question is, if the old lady had told me "you've got the wrong number", or "there is no person by this name", I would have known. Her answers really gave me an impression that she knows Lawrence, but just does not know where he lives anymore.

Anyway, we got together and had a nice dinner in hot pot restaurant, chatting for hours. I did enjoy that.

Google Invitation Spam

I received this invitation to open a gmail account. The problem is, I do NOT know who invites me. The id is cometure2005. Weird id, weird name. Why does this person send to my gmail account an invitation to open another gmail account? I decided it is a spam, and sent it directly to trash bin.

Not sure how often I'll get something like this. Now the MSN spam is daily encounters. Actually it is on login basis. Every time I log in to MSN, I get 4 popup windows to request to add me. Been thinking of setting up new MSN accounts actually. Now with this gmail spam? I've started to worry.