jiveturtle

Well with no internet (wireless or cabled), I have decided to use the best backup, Wordpad to blog and when I get back to Taipei, I'll do the good old C&P (that's copy and paste). Its scorching hot with a blistering 34 degrees C, and we don't have air-conditioning in the main sitting area of the old Lin family house, in Yang Mei, near Hsin Chu. So I have tried to put myself in the only room with air-conditioning as often as I can without offending the in-laws. I mean, I don't mind the heat, as long there is nice servings of cool drinks of some kind. But no, its good serving of hot tea. That's really going to cool me down, not. I was so parched. On the good side, I have the great opportunity to taste good old Hakka style cooking, courtesy of Grandma Lin. It really resembles my dad's cooking, who is also of Hakka origin. Cuisine-wise, it certainly was nostalgic. But there is a side effect. Hakka cooking tend to involve a lot of soy sauce, and tends t...

Typhoon, what typhoon? Well typhoon Kaemi has decided not to take a our of the North of Taiwan, but head South, where the weather is hotter. Can't blame Kaemi. So that's dud number two. Was kind of anticipating we would get a day off from work. But alas, I am here in the office, blogging in my lunch hour. I think everyone's mood is different too. They too were expecting to get a day off. Ah well, better luck next time. On another note, after work I went to a local supermarket which we seldom go to and discovered a small shop selling very old toys. It was like a small museum, displaying the first generation robot toys based on Japanese animation of the 70's and 80's. It was fantastic. I spotted Voltron (the robot made up of five different lions) and God Mars toys ( more updated 3D pics here ). I also spotted McDonald's Happy Meal toys from 1988, celebrating the Chinese Zodiac year of the Dragon. I remember these toys, because I was in Hong Kong at ...

It was a fun night. My wife sang the piggy song to my daughter to lull her sleep while picking up her little toes. You know how it goes:- This Little Piggy Went To The Market, This Little Piggy Stayed At Home, This Little Piggy Had Some Roast Beef, And This Little Piggy Had None, And This Little Piggy Cried "Wee, Wee, Wee, Wee, Wee!", All The Way Home! After a moment, Amelie decided to have a go for herself, sitting on the corner of the bed playing with her toes and trying to sing the song! So funny and sweet! She's a fast learner! I wish I had the camera rolling, damm!

And guess what I found when I came in (early might I add) on my desk? Another red ticket for not locking my cabinet. Curses! Ah well, must remember to lock it before I rush off to a company cinema event. How was the weekend? It was so-so. We went out to Xi Men Din in the afternoon. Well, we got there and realised there's isn't much for married couples with kids to see and do, plus the weather was scorchio! A meat roasting 38 degrees C! Amelie couldn't take the heat, so we decided to end our walk around Xi Men Din and took an air-conditioned taxi home (although the taxi smelt a bit smokey). After the NTD$180 taxi ride home, we got some movies from the local Blockbuster and stayed in our air-conditioned room for the rest of the day. Bliss! I even managed to get some work from the office done too. However it was not such a peaceful ending to the day. Amelies was sick and threw up on our bed at 3am in the morning. Milk and pasta was in the mixture, and oh what a sm...

Looks like another typhoon is on its way, expected time of arrival (ETA) is 25th July. Maybe we would get a day off work?

Our company treated us to a night of movie fun at the Breeze Centre , not far from Sogo department store , Taipei. What did we watch? Why, Johnny Depp, Kiera Knightly and Orlando Bloom and their co-stars in Pirates of the Carribean, Dead Man's Chest . It was a great movie, and we thoroughly enjoyed it. Lots of action and not to mention comedy, especially the Johnny Depp kind. Orlando Bloom wasn't too bad either, with his action comedy scenes. The special effects used wasn't so bad either, especially making Captain Davy Jones look like an walking octopus-head pirate sailor was quite impressive, and not to mention the Kraken ! If one of those came after me, I wouldn't have a clue how to deal with it! My pants would certainly change into a different colour! The annoying thing is the end, it leaves us at such a cliff hanger, and we all just know we need to watch the third installment of those pirates from the Carribean. Although the movie was great, less could be ...

Try following the diagram below. Go on, give it a go!

Addiction to games? Want to kick the habit or control it? Well a clinic has been set up in Amsterdam that offers treatment to people who are addicted to gaming. Can anyone be that addicted? Well the BBC's article mentioned a patient called Tim. He has four separate televisions, one for each gaming console and a notebook to do online gaming. He spends 17 hours a day playing games and pees in a bottle because he can't bear to pull himself away from the gaming screen. Tim, didn't you know that pressing the "start" button actually pauses the game? Apparently there was a man from South Korea who died after playing online games for 50 hours non-stop. Man, that's got to be overkill. Can anyone be that addicted to games? I like to play games too, but I don't think I can ever take to the level which this guy Tim can do it. Also, he must have a lot of money too. Are you addicted to games and gaming?

She just blew a lot raspberries at us, we can't stop laughing with her! Hahahahahahaha!

I got assigned to a new project, and we got assigned some new machines as part of the testing environment. The problem is we are testing on 15 different locales, but we don't have the oh so helpful ghost images to help speed up installation. We have to install the operating system from scratch in 15 different languages. What a nightmare! It took me an afternoon to "try" to install an Eastern European locale, but with no luck. It was acting weird. Maybe I should have started with something closer to home, to the UK that is. However, things turned better towards the evening. My colleague and friend Gavin came to my house to take a look at the wireless problem I'm having. After thirty minutes of messing around with the router and trying to get his wireless PDA to connect, we finally came something on the router setting called "MAC Address Filtering" under the firewall configuration section. It was here, where we needed to add the MAC address of the net...

Just to finish off where I left off in my last post. Remember I was dreading what my brother-in-law Shu-yu was going to have for dinner? Well, he came along with my wife and daughter to have dinner at a local eatery. Why? Because her mother only cooked enough rice for herself only. I actually saw only one bowl of rice with meat and vegetable being kept warm in the cooker. When my wife questioned her mother why didn't she cook for your son, her excuse was the food she cooked was overnight stuff. Hello, you can cook fresh stuff for your son or take him out for dinner! Hello, ever heard of motherhood or motherly love? How can you not cook for your own son, who is mentally disabled, and only cook for yourself? When we went to the local eatery and order the food, I never seen Shu-yu ate so quickly. He was hungry, and his mother knew he was hungry, but didn't even bother to cook for him. Why, why, why? I just don't understand it. What a piece trash my mother-in-law i...

And what have I got to show for? Nothing really. I still can't get my notebook connected to my router wirelessly, so have given up on it. I even tried to install a USB wireless dongle from D-Link (which I borrowed from my good friend Mary), but still no joy. The thing didn't even light up. I fear I may owe Mary a new one! The brother-in-law, Shu-yu was here this weekend, because my father-in-law didn't come this weekend to take him to his grandmother's place in Hsin Chu. I guess he's OK, and we decided to take him with us to the big Ikea store to get lunch and have a bit of exercise, which is fine. OK, you must be thinking, "something happened to you again Steven?", and my answer to that is "YOU DAMN RIGHT". Chien-yu and I had already decided to go to Ikea (with Mary) and decided to take her brother anyway, but the thing which I got to me was my useless mother-in-law already assumed we was going to look after Shu-yu. It didn't occur...

I'm still trying to setup the wireless connection for my new notebook (I exchanged it for a another one now), but still experiencing the same wireless connectivity problem. As you can see from the picture below, our working desk is a bit of a mess! I'm even using my TV as a monitor. It's just strange. I have one desktop connecting to the wireless router with a hitch at all, no matter how I change the router settings. The notebook just won't communicate with my router. So damn frustrating! Actually, when we took the old notebook back, the sales guy tried to connect to one of his networks, and it connected without a problem. So a lot of egg on my face yesterday. However, my clever wife still wrangled him to give us a new one because of the dust and fingerprint we saw when he added the extra RAM.

Just read news on that Yahoo! and Microsoft's MSN Messenger have combined their messenging networks together, so that MSN users can message Yahoo! Messenger users directly. This in effect creates a community of 350 million users as well as a giant monopoly in the instant messenging market. It requires some software to be installed which is currently in trial. What do you think of it? Would it be successful? Only time will tell.

Typhoon Bilis has finally reached Taiwan, causing a spot of bother on the Eastern side of Taiwan. As for Taipei, all we have seen is a lot of rain and heavy wind. Most of us were hoping for a typhoon day off, but it looks like the government disagress and has formally announced that school children are to attend school and people are required to go to work. Ah well, so much for a long weekend. I finally have obtained an extension to my alien resident card (ARC) for another three years. Cost me NTD$3000 and a bit of waiting at the police station, but we finally got there in the end. After getting the administrative stuff out of the way, we decided to stop by Nova , another shopping haven for electronics, PCs, gadgets and notebooks near Taipei Main Station . After one year of deliberation, we decided to finally plunge into our pockets and buy a notebook. The one we opted for was an ASUS A8J (A8HT23DD) , which contains an Intel Duo chip (all the rage, but no support for 64-bit), 1...

I was just checking the Central Weather Bureau for Taiwan , since there is much talk about a typhoon heading towards Taiwan. Typhoons are a relatively new experience for me since I have arrived in Taiwan. Last Summer, I saw a couple of typhoons hitting the East of Taiwan pretty badly, causing floods and landslide in areas such as Hua-lin. Its normal procedure for people to keep their eyes on the weather reports as it could often mean a number of days of from work. Though strangely enough, the convenience stores such as 7-11 and Family Mart are normally still in operation during typhoons. People here tend to stock up on instant noodles too so to stay at home to sit the typhoon out. Although its good to have a day off from work and all that, it is still a terrifying thing for people living in more rural areas of Taiwan. Taiwan is also in an earthquake zone. Although I have felt a few tremours before, I have yet to feel and experience the full force of an earthquake. Lets hop...

Italy have taken the 2006 World Cup trophy home this weekend after their 5-3 penalty kick win over France. It was an exciting weekend and so exciting it was that this morning I have noticed a lot of people not at work today. Probably because the final was on at 3am Taiwan time! Anyhow, well done to the Italians! On the same note, I want to thank the German team for giving Portugal a good kicking with a 3-1 score! In other news, I finally got my haircut. My head feels a lot lighter and breezier, although it bring littel comfort as we are hitting temperatures of 36 degrees C in Taipei. I hate it when its hot, humic and sticky. Thank the lord for air-conditioning! Today though the sun has backed-off a little today wit rather cloudy skies. It looks like we are in for some down pour later this afternoon. I'm hearing rolls of thunder at the moment...doesn't look good weather-wise. Not really done much over the weekend. Just trying to stay out of the heat. How about today?...

Especially when it comes to pranks!

Happy Birthday buddy! Hope things are working out with the new house and the project in Newcastle! Hope you have a wicked birthday weekend and don't do anything I wouldn't do! In the meantime here's a pic of Wing with Sybil which we took just before we left for Taiwan. Man, its been a year already!

...since we have arrived in Taiwan, looking forward to a great future. Time certainly flies when you are busy sorting yourself out and trying to get a steady foot on starting over in a new place, with new people and with little or no help. Sure there were promises, but the people who made them were not good at keeping them. Ah well, life goes on. Looking back over the year, we have come a long way. The new environment was alien to us, and especially for me, language was a barrier, but I managed to improve myself, especially in the listening department. Just have to master the speaking now. We managed to get ourselves settled and find work in 4 months. Which is not bad considering we had a precious daughter with us. I actually took Amelie with me to the job interviews. Maybe thats why I got the job. Anyway, we got ourselves a decent desktop PC, a TV, cable and found a place where I could buy PS2 games for less than 5 GBP, bottles, steriliser, kitchen utensils and many many m...

..and it was my first birthday in Taiwan. I turned 27 yesterday with the company of my dear supporting, loving wife, Chien-yu and of course my growing sweet daughter, Amelie. Chien-yu's Aunt was also there, I'd like to thank her for taking care of Amelie while we are working. In addition to my close family in Taiwan, I was also joined by close friends which I have made since I arrived in Taiwan, who have welcomed me to their country and way of life. Who are these people? Well first there's kind Mary who always help me order food in the local language when I get a bit stuck and ensure I get the daily required amount of water. Then there's Hank, the automation king, who sometimes can be blunt, but gives us all a good reality check. Next we have kind, caring Max who listens well and gives good advice for all situations. Then we have Vanessa, who has been my nutritionist since my bout of Gout, carefully advising me what I can and can't eat. Then there's David...

We had a great night at Taipei's Capone's . celebrating Klaus and Karen's matrimonial union. The looked fantastic, with Karen in a long flowing red dress (red is good for Chinese weddings!) and Klaus donning a smart black suit with a maroon coloured satin-like shirt. They also had some of the professional wedding photos on display and they looked fantastic. Maybe Chien-yu and I will get to do something like that in the future to celebrate our 10 year anniversary. Best wishes to you Klaus and Karen!

For England (and Brazil who lost to France 1-0) that is. England has crashed out of the World Cup after their Euro Nemesis Portugal beat them in a penalty shoot-out, 3-1. Once again, it was the talent of Portugal's goalkeeper Ricardo denying Englands entry into the semi-finals. There were a lot of tears on the England team, and on the fan's too. Better luck next time lads and of course, farewell to Sven. I personally think we should give Ricardo a honoury British Citizenship so he can play for England next time! He's just bloody good! We visited David's (a colleague of mine) place on Friday night. Their family's house is MASSSIVE! We was in awe when we stepped through the front and saw a 55-inch greeting us! We got a tour of the house (a proper tour, because the apartment was that big) and we tucked into some KFC and Pizza from Dominos. After the feast we then engaged into some Street Fighter action on the PS2 (thanks Mike!) on the massive TV, it was heav...