November 3rd, 2017

Baseball is over for the year.  Am not ready to break down or even discuss the final result today...and maybe never...but will repurpose a joke.  A devout evangelical Christian, a die-hard Trump supporter and a Houston Astro fanatic walks into a bar.  He orders a drink. 

That joke originally has a priest, a rapist and a pedophile walking into the bar.  You can also replace 'priest' with Hollywood producer, Fox executive, Fox on-air personality or Kevin Spacey.

Hodge podge day...cleaning out some disconnected randomness.  Wouldn't even consider the below half baked.  More just raw, unwashed and about to be expired ingredients

The business environment in our neighborhood is quite odd.  In our 5 years here, either the place already existed and has stayed in business constantly, or has turned over several times.  Am told that places offer sweet deal leases for the first year, then jack them up, and the stores inevitably don't do well and close.  So many bakeries, clothing joints and restaurants have come and gone (coulda sworn that Cronut was gonna make it for the long haul).   There is one glaring exception, and that are the Bu-shi-bans.  Bu-shi-bans are after school tutoring places for kids and when we got here, there was one on the corner.  I strolled around yesterday and counted them up, and there are now 9 within a three block radius of our apartment with two more being built.  And once they open, business is booming as we see them filled with zombie kids being tortured every afternoon.  Better than sucking down bubble teas on the corner I suppose, but how about a little exercise for their bodies?

The Apple Cider Vinegar experiment is over.  One month sucking down a shot every morning.  It was promoted as having a ton of health benefits, but other than making my already perfect stools a bit softer, did not notice any gains to my skin quality, nor losses in weight.  My verdict is that unless you are constipated, it is unnecessary.

Have told you about the ladies that dance/exercise/dancercise in the park below our apartment and how they have a soundtrack that we can hear softly on the 16th floor.  They must have broken out a new CD as they are now playing Christmas carols sung in English by Chinese vocalists.  You'd think that it would be awful, and that it is a bit early for Christmas jingles, but don't hate it.   And the old bats are adorable.

Sometimes make predictions in this space in the event that aliens or my kids read it someday.  Today's thought for the future is that in 20 years, and probably less, the acronym CRISPR will be the hottest topic on the planet.  We are currently blinded by tons of tweeted shit, but there are people out there doing real things that are gonna turn us into Star Trek characters.  CRISPR stands for "Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats" and at its most basic means that it'll be able to write our genetic make-up to spec.  These folks are close already and the moral, ethical and medical implications are endless.  This is not conspiracy theory stuff either.  One of these days, need to go back and look over this diarrhea I emit to see how I'm prognosticating.

Mentioned recently that the weather has flipped and we are now in a still moisture laden, but markedly cooler pattern.  At least 20 degrees off the thermometer during the day, the A/C is off and the shower handle now dips slightly to left of center.  Look at this glorious morning shot from the balcony this morning.  With the heavy clouds hugging the mountain and the streets still moist from the rain, looks downright Seattle-esque

This next paragraph is particularly crude, so skip ahead to the next one if that offends. 

So for the last few years, and more noticeable recently, whenever I go into a new environment, or the weather pattern changes rapidly, my dick and balls get itchy.  Itchy is an understatement as it feels like they are melting like the Nazi's face when the Arc is opened in Indiana Jones.  I really try to not go at them in public, but embarrassingly caught myself doing so the other day.  It goes away after a couple of weeks, and calamine lotion provides instant relief (while providing a lovely pinkish hue), but my junk is an accurate meteorological weather vane.  If some people have a trick knee that predicts the weather, that means I have a...?

Forgot where I saw it, but clicked on this link that rated the world's best airports to sleep in.  Asia has most of the top ranked ones for reasons they outline, but numbers 1, 2 and 4 are Singapore, Seoul and Taiwan respectively.  If you have read carefully, I have spent entire night sleeps in all three within the last year.  Not sure if there is a tag line in there anywhere, just sayin'

White male privilege is real and it is spectacular.  You should really try it sometime.

Might get in trouble for this, especially in light of all the pussy grabbing going on, but why do all the women that run in movies look like they have never sprinted before?  Their elbows are up near their ears  and arms are pumping way too hard.  I know women can run properly and easily, and presume it's that the actresses were not sporty types in their youth, but c'mon Hollywood, can't we get afford a trainer or edit them better?  I know if I was cast in a role where I had  to slap on a pair of heels without snapping my Achilles, I'd practice beforehand.  I do rock evening wear and French maid outfits very naturally however and am ready for my close-up

Betty is really in tune with travel requirements and their ever changing nature, and she was telling us at dinner the other night about how it is now mandatory that your carry-ons will now be hand checked at the gate before boarding the airplane.  My opinion of any security procedure is whatever you want to do, short of a cavity search, is fine by me and will be docile and compliant.  I would never do this because I am all for tight security and respect the people that do the job cause it has to suck, but contemplated that it would be fun to pack a giant rubber dido in my bag to give the TSA something to talk about on their coffee breaks.  We did wonder where we could buy such a thing here in Taipei.

At the same dinner, the person we were with claimed that jade is simply any polished stone.  I called bullshit but since we were at the table, would not fact check him on the cell phone.  It isn't.

Betty forwarded me an article about a class being offered soon at UW about media literacy.  Worth 3 credits and graded, it is called "Calling Bullshit - Data Reasoning In The Digital Age"  You can check out the syllabus here and says that anyone can join in online.  Will endeavor to practice what I preach and take it.  Hope I can do so as pass/fail.

One more thing.  This isn't a prediction per se, but are some words of advice for the kids of the future.  As they are unlikely to read this for another 20 years and I'll likely be in a jar in the closet, and since it was Halloween this week, consider this a message from the beyond. 

Kids, I know you love your mom and that she is always a delight to be around.  But in those rare times when she is cranky and getting on your last nerve, just play the below advertisement for A Place For Mom.  I guarantee she will behave.