One a month, eh?

Yikes. I last blogged on the 25th of March. Sigh. Hope the drop off rate isn't too terrible. Thanks if you've dropped in to read this though.... :)

Hmm. Busy. Just super busy. Working on computers and cranking out the hours. There have been benefits, but I've also lost so many hours to dunderheadedness that it's pretty astounding when I 'wake up' half way through Tuesday thinking it's still Sunday....

1) For all you Firefox users out there: here's a page to quicken your browser of choice. It's worked pretty nicely in conjunction with Fasterfox which puts a nice little timer in the bottom corner of your browser so you can actually see the time it take to load windows...

2) Did I blog about SG TCP optimizer? Get it, use it, love it. No more mucking about in the registry.

3) Go to Joostswap. Join. Joost. Jubilate. Oh, and read my articles...

4) After years, nay a decade, I'm going to write some stuff on health issues. Ya, promises promises, but I've been roped in by Christy to do two 1000 word articles on Health - one for women and one for men. Normally, I'd be able to slack it off, but Micheal her b/f has these huge arms and takes 'attack class' every Sunday morning. Urban warfare classes? Not sure, but I snuck up behind him to put him in a full Nelson on Saturday night and he just flexed and broke my grip... ya... I want him on my side in the bar fights...

5) Sold the Kodak V570. Was sad to see it go but that means I've got to battle my innercheapskate to decide if I want to go up a notch to a really really nice camera or down a notch to a made in China 8Megapixel no-name brand... On this hand we have the Panasonic Lumix with Leica lens 28-200mm (Lumix DMC-LX2) vs this Chinese PREMIER camera with a lens they stole out of and old FisherPrice Viewfinder... sigh... For interested parties the two best places on the web right now for Digie Camera freaks and reviews are here dcresource.com and dpreview.com.

6) What else. Not much. Jau-Ruey will be heading to Singapore for four or five days soon. Meeting up with her parents who are quite the jetsetters these days. Me, stuck here. Though notably I'm supposed to go to Canada in the Summer for Simone and Alex's wedding. I say 'supposed' as I've not been officially invited yet! hahaha. Though I did see their website. It's under Slideshow. Just make sure you've taken the SGtcp optimizer and pumped your internet connection...Nice soundtrack, sis - Cake.

That's it for an update. Watch out for that pesky Windows Genuine advantage...

Jay

Joost

Hey, it's been a while. I think Blogger had some changeover problems, well, that and my general busy-ness these days. Really! I've not just been lazy, I promise.

So I've won a contest at Joostswap.com to be a moderator and article writer. It's a small site devoted to trading invite tokens for a new tv-to-web idea being started by the makers of SKYPE, who recently sold Skype for 4.1Billion Canadian to Ebay. Ya! So currently their idea is to make television free to everyone with a broadband connection. Wow.

Invite tokens are like invitations to be a Beta tester for the new joost Software revisions. It's not heady stuff, more just feedback, but I'm really stoked about the idea. For me it's not so much the tv online, but rather the advertising possibilities. We're getting closer and closer to that Max Headroom world...

Also I've been busy with my small business fixing, tweaking, and upgrading local foreingers' computers. It's my hobby business but it's keeping me busy and on the run.

School is going well and I'm healthy. Miss you all. Have fun!

Taiwanese History

Last week was Chinese New Year, welcome to YEAR OF THE PIG. Little did I realize that last year (of the Dog) was my year, all year! Oh well, easy come, easy go. There were no travel plans and mostly I hung out reading.

Today is a holiday for most people in Taiwan. 2.28 day. 60 Years ago there was an incident in which an old woman was selling bootleg cigs. The authorities came by, beat her up, took her cigs and put her in the hospital. When a bunch of people when down to complain, they got shot at and 8 didn't make it home. As is the instinct, the kicked up a fuss all over the island and eventually, about 3 weeks later the big honcho from the mainland sent over troops to 'quell' the riots. Lots of people 'disappeared' and thus began the time they called "The White Terror".
Basically, lawyers, prosecutors, troublemakers and students were taken out, beaten, tortured and many (estimates vary) never came home. (120,000 to 150,000 over the course of some years.) Of course, it was illegal to talk about this until 1987 when it was finally officially recognized. They are still fighting about it to this day, as all sorts of opposition groups are howling about the injustices of 60 years ago. Taiwanese. Gotta love 'em.


Me, I'm working today and I never object to cash, so be it. My last week of 'holidays' was pretty blase as I never really left town except to visit my old home town of Chung Hwa, which was great as I got to see some old friends.
I did buy a projector, though! All hail the big screen! Due to intense INTENSE jealous of Mark Humphries masterful set up and Simone Clark's awesome machine, I've been plotting my purchase carefully... then it went on sale and who was I to say no?? Behold the Optoma EP-706. It's made slacking ever so wonderful, oh ya!

Well, that's about it for now. Oh and for Geek talk, I did manage to tweak my bittorrent downloads to hit my highest ever download rate of 786 Kb/s! Oh ya! I increased a buffer (going into the registry can be fun!)

That's all for now. Take care.

How come I'm hungry all the time?

I know it's weird. But this is my favorite pizza in the world. It's now extinct. The restaurant closed it's doors - Fingas, here in Taichung (though the Deli is alive and kicking.) Sausage, Jalapeno Peppers, and Dark Mushrooms. Sigh. Anyway, I had this shot from my last Pizza meal there and I was also looking to test out a print shop down the road and Voila! For 540 NT$ or about 18 Can Dollars I had this made up. I was comparing it to the onscreen version (on the monitor) and very happy with the results. 120cm by 90cm of full-on Pizzarific glory. Mind you now I'm pining for two things... a pizza (of course) and a 10M pixel camera... 

Four Lovely Ladies.

The title says it all. Hard to get a good shot of Ming, she's so bubbly! 

Further Fun on Saturday.

Here is the rest of Saturday night's fun! From the left that's Lucy and then Rebecca or Jessica as she's now known, and two sisters. Ming and Mavis.
I loved the ring that Rebecca was wearing and luckily the girls won something, or were celebrating VJ day so I could get a shot of it. 

Vinnie's Birthday Fish

My buddy Vinnie took me out and bought me a special birthday fish. Here's the happy proprietor and the fish.
A closer view.
The fish was fried and had a light chilli - tomato sauce with fresh Chinese parsely on top. Of course that was just the highlight. There was plenty of other Taiwanese dishes there. Mostly just fried clams with Basil... I love it when they deep fry basil here.
Ya, the fish didn't last long at all. That and fried noodles in the Traditional sense made for a great Saturday night, thanks Vinnie! Hmmm, Maybe I should have gotten a picture of Vinnie! Ahh, more reason to go back to Chung Hwa. 

Made in China, sigh...

Here is the result of my wonderful sister Quinne's gift to me. It was a hot pad and I put a hot pot on it for a minute and the smell of burning plastic started so when I examined it, the top red part had melted a bit. No problemo, I'll just wash it, I thought. Seeing as how I didn't want to waste and entire load on one little potholder, I threw it in. When Jau-Ruey decided to wash her undies, she threw them in on top and the poor little thing disintegrated...
But not without leaving a coded message behind...If you look carefully.... the only pieces of text that survived were...
Ahhh! The truth comes out! ahahahaha. So that's what the world's been trying to tell me this week! Quinne!!! I'm sure Jordo has the perfect quip here. hahaha. Send him the link, eh? 

Drunken Chicken, not Drunken Jason.

My Taiwanese Brother Vinnie is getting into cooking in a fantastic way. Here, he's starting to go the traditional Chinese way with 'Drunken Chicken' whereby you cook the meat by marinating it in wine for a couple of days. It turns the fat all funky too, kind of a rubbery texture. This is what it looked like straight out of the marinade.
Here you get a shot of the underside. The Chinese medicine he put in wasn't too strong. I think those are called "Wolf Berries" the small read ones, I mean. They are good for the memory. Also there are some roots and other herbs. Funny in Taiwan, Chinese Herbs are almost never green...
I've cut it here. The pink color isn't raw at all, it's just fresh meat. Usually, when this is served in a restaurant, it's a cheap cut of meat with a bone in and they just cut through it bone and all so eating it is a bit of an adventure. Vinnie's however, was awesome! It was all meat, a solid slab, WOW. The texture was great and the only thing I would say is tha the flavor hadn't penetrated all the way in yet, so I let it sit for another day.
Yum. It's a completely different texture. It's a unique experience that has to be tried to be understood. The Taiwanese often use textures in their food, mostly a strange fascination with gelatinous - from what I've seen. Similar to the trays of food you see pushed around a Dim Sum restaurant that all the HonKonGese are clamboring after.
Thanks Vinnie! It was great! 

Jau-Ruey's pick of Jau-Ruey

Jau-Ruey insists she's a hottie here. So she broke into my blog and posted this. That's her other boyfriend, btw. 

Jau-Ruey

Wow, This is Jau-Ruey sporting her new top. She came back from Canada bearing many gifts for me. Apparently while shopping with my Mom and Brea she got this gift for me! Yummy.
Here's a better shot of the overall package. Yay for digital cameras! Yay for Brown!