May 26th, 2018

Hey there,

Last post of the season...will be in the States this time next week and will not officially be back till August 10th or so.  Today's installment feels a little disjointed and am chalking it up to me tweaking my spine a couple days ago.  Sucks...one of those wrenchings where it hurts in all positions.  I have a 9 concert in 10 day run coming up starting Thursday and have feeling of dread.

From the vaults this week.  My siblings and I circa 1979ish.

All of these old pix of me have this massive 'fro and as you can see from my brother, it runs in the family.  A bit more on this photo below.


A rare occurrence happened in town this week...a cool band passed through.  A three piece from Texas called Khruangbin played a neat little club inside an old pumping station in the area of the Water Museum (which is a water park on the grounds of an old water treatment plant).  This band has a professed love of psychedelic rock out of Thailand from the '70's and they were pretty groovy.  I wouldn't go out of my city to see them, but wouldn't miss them should we cross paths again.

We don't go nearly enough, but caught a baseball game across the street last weekend as well.  Went with some friends and met some new friends.  Haven't gone out to the stadium much this season cause the last time I went, the PA was turned up so loud that you couldn't hear the person next to you without screaming the entire game, but they have dialed it back and other than the oppressing heat, was a rip roaring good time.  I'm wearing a vintage Edgar Martinez Seattle road jersey

The guy holding the kid behind me is one of the new friends.  Can't remember his name but will call him Cory cause he kinda looks like the Brother Elephant teams manager Cory Snyder.  This Cory and his wife go to a lot of games and this night had packed packed a ton of food to share.  His wife, who is Mongolian and is above Betty's shoulder to the right, is a renaissance woman and in addition to roasting her own peanuts and filling balloons up with water and freezing them for ingenious cooler ice, she brought along a load of chicken parm sandwiches and was doling them out.  The guy asks if I like chicken parm, which is like asking if a fish likes water.  We get into my genealogy and how being Sicilian makes me an expert on the subject and it was game on.  He was pushing me to eat one and rate his wife's offering for several innings.  I ultimately tried it but didn't want to give him my critique cause am not the type to heap false praise on anything.  It is some kind of psychological twitch that I can't act like everyone else and say something is great when it isn't just  to make a person feel good.  To be fair, her sandwich was good and I would say that for being prepared by a Mongolian in Taiwan it was excellent.  He kept pushing for my thoughts and I told him that I gave it a 7 out of 10.  The sauce was good, but the bread was a bit chewy and it was too light on the chicken.  Felt like I hurt his feelings a bit cause he stopped talking to me for most of the rest of the game, but 7 is a damn fine score and he should have nothing to feel bad about.  Was by far the best chicken parm sandwich I've ever eaten at the stadium and all.

The above group (including most of the kids) all retired to the bar for a throw down after and we were getting our groove on pretty hard.  Cory is talking to me again wants to get more into my heritage and shares that his is Irish.   I am railing on that ethnic group as I am wont to do, and then Betty shares the above archive photo that she has on her phone for some reason.  Cory gets a look at it and starts into me, first saying I look Irish with the curly red hair, but finally landing on that I am Jewish.  The rest of the night is a running back and forth about his Irish heritage and my Jew-boy good looks.  As my faux Semitism has been a theme/running gag throughout my life, you know that I loved this guy instantly.

I really hope than when we met again in August that I will have the results from my 23 & Me test back.  My family tells me I am supposed to be 3/4 German and 1/4 Italian, but I am truly hoping to have some funky stuff in the mix.  Black, Jewish (is Jewish a religion or race?) or Irish...main goal is to find something unexpected mainly for the resulting gags.


Scientists say that many people lose a lot of their sense of taste as they age and pray that doesn't happen to me as I am forever dazzled by food.  Indian, along with Italian, Spanish and Thai, are on my Mt Rushmore of cuisines.  We were going to a place downtown a couple weeks ago and stopped to chat with someone on the street.  As we're there, I look over and see an Indian place I had never seen before.  Didn't take much effort to convince Betty to forgo the subway ride and try this place in the neighborhood.  We get in and it had a bunch of menu items I was unfamiliar with and Betty exclaims in delight that they have 'dosa'.  Never heard of it before but she says it is one of her favorite things when she goes to India for work.  We get one of course and it is freaking fantastic.  A giant pancake, like 1 1/2 feet long made of lentils and rice and filled with yummy goodness.  We went back last night and had another.  That something can be out there that is so amazing and I have never tasted it before just makes me excited to get up in the morning thinking there will be a chance to stumble on something new and exciting.

Like this.

At the 7-11's here, they have been selling these Snickers lately that I have to assume come from Russia and looked to be sunflower seed flavor. They have carried regular Snickers and Almond Snickers here for years, but these just popped up.  Have been hesitant to buy it for myself, but picked one up as we had company staying with us and thought I'd let them try it as the guinea pigs.  Broke it out and we all had a go...tasted like sunflower seeds and chocolate.  Not a combo I would have considered and  wasn't awful but do not foresee a repeat buy.


Why do they say the temperature is one number, but with the wind chill/humidity it feels like something else?  It said it was 91 yesterday but "feels" like 107.  It's 107 damn it.  Looking ahead, it says that in the evening the day I get into Seattle, it is going to be 52 degrees.  Ahhhhhhh.

I saw and was subsequently sent some articles about a study recently published that claims that chronically late people are more successful.  Think those that sent it to me were trolling me cause being late is one of the pets in my peeve menagerie.  The article was a rip roaring load of crap describing these heretics thusly..."you're an optimist", "everything intrigues you", and "you can hop in and find a solution fast.".  I can't even bring myself to comment on the bullshit these lazy ass unorganized M-Fers tell themselves to justify making the rest of the world wait while these intrigued optimistic dolts find quick solutions to the problems they created by being late in the first place.  Late people think that it is cute when they're late.  It is not.  

Finally for today, one more from the "Peeve Pile".  Betty was taking a day to relax and lounged in bed for most of an afternoon.  Smart cause that is where the A/C works best.  We are going out to eat at the above mentioned Indian joint with a friend and it is time to go.  We're about to leave and I go to the bedroom to grab something, look at the bed and see this.

Yes, that is a piece of white bread with the white goo eaten out from the inside and the carcass left on the bed.  Without a plate.  On my side.  WTF?!?!  Fortunately the friend we were with at dinner is familiar with our bickering and was a participant as we "discussed" this horrific attack on everything I hold dear.  Arguing about trivial or petty things is one of my favorite past times and this was a good one.  It might have gone on all evening, but Betty said one of the funniest things.  We were talking about things that bug her and said she doesn't get irritated by stuff as "I just let it roll".  We all laughed.

Smell ya later.

May 19th, 2018

Hey there,

Kind of a short one today, but explosive in parts.

This weeks archive submission comes form a college friend's Facebook posting of a page from our yearbook.  Unbeknownst to us at the time, future fixer to the Prez Michael Cohen was in our class at (The) American University (center square).

Call out to longtime buddy Paul in the upper left.  Don't remember selling Michael any weed and he seems the type that was doing blow anyway, so we didn't travel in the same circles.  Have read articles that Cohen went on to law school at the lowest ranked institution for that degree.  Just the type of place 4 (or 6) years of undergraduate work at AU prepares you for.

Have steered away from the politics lately just cause it feels pointless to rail.  I consider putting something down every week and even bang out a few sentences but ultimately delete them as I figure that no one that reads this thing is on board with 'that guy' and you don't need any more hot takes from me.  There is one thing that sickens me to no end that is a characteristic of certain people in leadership positions, and that is responsibility.  I can't remember where it got into my brain, but it was an early job where I had some supervisory authority.  Someone said that when your team does something well, it is always "we" did this, but if a mistake was made or the outcome was not satisfactory, that is when the leader/coach says "I".  Pretty simple philosophy, the buck stops here and all and was something I thought all good people agreed upon.  That this guy still get support from anyone not getting his pockets completely lined directly by him is really astounding.

As much as I have veered away from talking politics, I have directed that energy to talking poop.  I trust you heard about the woman at Timmy Ho's who was not allowed to use the toilet, so she took a dump on the floor and threw it at the staff.  If not, you really, seriously, gotta check it out.

Not really surprising, but there are dozens of YouTube videos of cameras catching people in the act of taking dumps in stores.  Not as violently aggressive with the feces as post-pinch as Timmy Ho lady, but just as eruptive.  And mostly women with many unloading as they walk like it was nothing.  One more thing that makes me love you girls.  OK, one more video to share...

Hilarious.  Must say that crapping in a refrigerated environment has a certain appeal and am adding to my bucket list. 

Three is a magic number, so one more...my favorite.

Our last Coffee Morning of the year happened a week ago and it was one I had been excited about having for years.  The metro (MRT) system here is amazing and has been voted best in the world many times over the last few decades.  Clean, efficient, and goes everywhere, was interested in having someone come in and tell us about it.  Was fortunate to get hooked up with a guy that came to Taipei at the planning stage in 1981 and has been involved with it ever since.  A Scotsman from Glasgow, he was a big deal in the London underground offices when he was tapped to come and work on the British bid to design and construct Taipei's system.  Didn't know what to expect from him but was told that he had a heavy Scottish accent and told a good story.

The dude did not disappoint.  He walks in and has these eyebrows that looked like caterpillars from the Jurassic period and proceeds to tell us hilarious and insightful anecdotes about how the MRT came to be.  I hesitate to start recounting them here cause they are involved and could go on for a long while, but they involve feats of ingenious engineering, insane local politics and international intrigue that surpass simple transportation and involved arms dealing and geopolitics at the highest level.  Absolutely perfect.  Was talking to him knowing that he had so much more to tell and said that he has to get this slice of history that changed the face and destiny of Taiwan down for posterity.  He said he is not a writer and asked if I knew someone that could help him with it.  As much as I'd like to think I could do so, know it would be above my experience and am on the look out for someone to help him as it is essential this stuff gets on the record.

What was frustrating was that even with a heavy blitz of advertising, the audience was small and was nearly all male.  There were a few ladies but nearly all of them were dragged along by their husbands.  In the days leading up to the chat, tried to encourage my lady friends to come and asked them after why they didn't and they uniformly said that it sounded boring.  The one thing that every expat can agree on is how amazing the MRT is and that we had a totally connected guy that was an interesting presenter to tell us about it, that they could not muster the intellectual curiosity to learn more about an essential part of life in their adopted city speaks volumes.  You know I love the ladies and think I have been more than clear in my opinion that they should be equal partners in leading us the world over.  I also understand that I am a bit more of a history buff than average, that this is small sample size and am loathe to cast aspersions on an entire gender, but damn, you (females) disappoint me sometimes.  Nothing that watching you shit in the bulk items section of the Safeway wouldn't cure, but still.

Getting close to the summer break...I hit the tarmac on May 30 and hope to see you soon.  Saying I was excited to go to the States and see my exquisite plan come to fruition would be an understatement as I'm out of my mind in anticipation.  This is the time of year I get antsy to go and the double shot of annual Spring bummers give me this persistent feeling of ennui that even watching an hours worth of women shitting in public can't fix.  There is the annual exodus of friends leaving the island...not too bad this year, but some faces that I am always glad to see that won't be around anymore.  The thing that really saps the spirit though is the heat.  Officially 6 years in and am as miserable as day 1.  It turned from uncomfortable to blistering hot a week or so ago and looking at my phone weather app the other day and it  says the 'heatwave will continue through Monday',  but what they don't add is that Monday is September 29th  (Update...weather app extended the heatwave to Tuesday).  I just looked at it again before hitting publish and the forecast says that it will be a pleasant Saturday, with a high of 106 degrees!  Pleasant if you are a monitor lizard I suppose.  Another example, it was so hot the other night, Babydoll was baking cookies and after the second batch, even the oven had had enough and shut itself off.  You know it is too hot when even your oven says  'fuck it'.

May 12th, 2018

Hey there,

Today's archive shot is not a photo, but an essay that turned up when cleaning out the old documents tub recently.  Pretty sure this was written by The Boy and is entitled Stupid Essay

Heavy duty...but guilty as charged.  I am an idiot and a hypocrite.  Takes a twisted little turn at the end, no?

Some consumable talk today.  Is there a more widely distributed chocolate candy that no one really likes than Ferrero Rocher?  Has anyone looked at a wall of candy and said, gimme the Ferrero Rocher?  How do you even pronounce Ferrero Rocher?  Yet if you are buying candy to share, this is the crap people bring more often than not.  Most folks like chocolate and hazelnut, but these things taste like little chocolate fart balls.

Planning for summer trip always includes thinking about all the food we're gonna eat.  Arranging the schedule to hit old favorites is required, but when traveling to new places, thinking about sampling their specialties is what gets my juices flowing.  For no particular reason, have three nights in Nashville on the calendar and that means Hot Chicken.  Have heard about it for years and got my first taste of it at a dive joint in Seattle last summer.  I liked it a LOT.  Have read that hot chicken places are popping up across the land but that it is a Nashville creation and institution.  An acquaintance forwarded me an article titled The Burning Desire For Hot Chicken: Three days, three Nashville restaurants and three revelations about why we love what hurts.  That I will be there for three days makes this article perfect and will be adhering to the recommendations put forth.  If you like spicy food, that article offers quite a good history and analysis (at a couple points to the molecular level) of the stuff.

Oh yeah, my beloved Yo Lo Tengo have not one, but two songs about Hot Chicken.  

Flying Lesson (Hot Chicken #1)

Return to Hot Chicken

Staying with the food/drink theme, I drink a ton of milk.  Probably way more than I should.  I don't like to know things about milk cause all I hear before I stick my fingers in my ears and go 'la-la-la' is that it is bad for adults, and that it contains high amounts of pus.  I hesitantly clicked on this Why We Drink Milk article.  Pretty interesting and somewhat horrifying, but as I finished it all I could think of was 'I have nipples Greg, can you milk me?"

Following up an argument detailed here a year or two ago about what constitutes tea.  We were touring tea plantations and I asked the group, including our guide, if "teas" not made from the tea plant (camellia sinensis) are really teas.  Jasmine, chamomile, etc.  Recall that I was alone is saying no, but according to the most reliable of sources, Buzzfeed, these 15 facts about tea confirm that they are not tea but rather  should be called infusions.  Not mentioning this to gloat that I was right, cause I always am, but am just here to educate.

Not really a food, although am sure that you can drink it as an infusion, but in my opinion there is nothing that smells better than a gardenia.  It's gardenia season around these parts and a giant bunch costs 3 bucks.  They are littered throughout the house these days and life just seems better.

In my news feed was this article from the Taiwan News.  Reading the  thumbnail headline before clicking on it, said a little prayer that I wasn't the guy.  A foreigner kicks elderly woman and curses the Taiwanese on the MRT.  Ran through my mind if I ever did that and while I couldn't imagine ever going that far, my mind is starting to slip and I do get ragey at time.  Here is the setting...

On May 5 at around 5 p.m., a 44-year-old man surnamed Huang witnessed a foreign national at the Ximen MRT station wearing a baseball cap and tattoos on his arms kick the suitcase of a woman in her 60s that was in his path at the bottom of an escalator. Huang says that the man then cursed the woman in English.

Tattooed arms are a tell.  The stopping at the bottom of escalators, in doorways, etc. move isn't limited to the Taiwanese, but they have turned it into a kind of performance art.  I think that an 'excuse me' is too tame in this case.  When people are artery clogging due to their forgetting that they are in public spaces and aren't the only people in existence, I typically say "don't stop" and will break out "move it" on occasion if the offense is egregious, but would never kick a woman (or her stuff). 

Huang says that he then asked the man to apologize, but the man responded by saying "It's none of your business." When Huang asked him again, the man said "F**k you Chinese," and as he waited behind a large crowd of people to get on the next escalator down, he shouted "F**k all you Chinese" and thrust his middle finger at Huang.

Am not gonna even pretend to lie and say that I haven't gotten into a shouting match with the occasional local, but was told early on that giving the finger is a crime here so instead give a jack-off gesture that I have to assume is universally recognized and not illegal.  I did learn from this article that Mr Huang went to the cops to press charges for 'public insulting'.  A reminder to check my temper, but my defense if I were ever picked up for this crime would be 'is it insulting if it's true?'

While it doesn't send me into a rampage, something that has been bugging me more and more these days is people that use the word 'actually' and has now reached the stage that whenever I hear it, I attack the user reflexively.

By most measures, people are technically using the work correctly...the definitions.

• —used to refer to what is true or real
• —used to stress that a statement is true especially when it differs in some way from what might have been thought or expected

My gripe is that whenever I hear it now, it smells like the people are using it either to hide something in the former, or insult something in the latter.

For example...we don't watch a ton of TV together as a family, but when we do will often turn on Let's Make a Deal for some mindless laughs. Whenever host Wayne Brady calls down a contestant, he'll ask what they do.  For the young and underemployed, they will say something lofty with the caveat that "I'm actually working as a...."  Watching the other day, a lady says she is a singer but is 'actually' doing telemarketing now.  I make my typical comment and groan, and the very next person is asked what they do and they say they're a writer, but 'actually' working as a barista.  Classic Los Angeles.

The other usage is when something is different than what was expected, yet it feels that every time actually is used it is showing surprise by someone that hates something for no empirical reason yet their minds are changed once they become engaged with it.  Most benign example would be something like, 'I went for Thai food for the first time and actually, it was pretty good.'  Here is another one I am guessing you have heard in some form...I met this person that was (different than me ethnically/religiously) and they were actually very nice.  Everyone is telling you something and you refuse to entertain it for no reason other than your beliefs and preconceptions.  Once you find out how great it is, you can't say how dumb you were for denying yourself such a treat, so you have to act surprised as if it still makes your baseless assumption still valid.  I am guilty of this too and I hate myself for discounting stuff for no reason.  Knowing that this is a self defeating endeavor will help to not make the same mistakes going forward and open ones mind to the rich wonders the world has to offer.  At the Boys pre-school, his teacher was this amazingly wise woman (second from the right below) and one of her mantras was that you can never say you hate something without trying or experiencing it 11 times.  This was in reference to food the kids refused to eat, but can be extrapolated out to most of life.  This photo was on his last day at the school he went to from 3 months old to leaving for Kindergarten and were his Infant, Toddler and pre-school teachers.  They were all incredible people and I learned a ton about everything from listening to their teachings.

I task you with taking the No Actually challenge...don't use that word yourself and silently examine motives of the person that uses it whenever you hear it said.

Closing out today with one more bit of language talk.  Are you tuned into these Incel guys?  The nut job that ran down people in Canada recently is being associated with them.  Incel is short for Involuntary Celibate, which means that they are such losers that they can't get laid.  In that article, it goes into how they hate women for not sleeping with them as they are such great men that the ladies (hotties only need apply, no fatties) should be getting wet when they walk into a room.  They cannot fathom why women don't drop trow so they go out and slaughter them.  There are a lot of messed up folks out there, but these guys have to be the most pathetic (ly dangerous), no?

We were talking at dinner the other night about language and things that were common when I was in school that are (correctly)  horrific today.   I am not only not proud that we used certain words but often think of times I did that I have serious regrets about and wish I could go back and tell them how awful I was to them.  This came up for some reason in relation to the  word gay and I told B-doll that in school, whenever another fella would show any sign of empathy, kindness, love, artistic proclivity, etc., we'd call him a Fag.  We'd do this matter of factly and obviously cause we were insecure little effers and use words to demean others to hide our feelings and  boost our own low self esteem.  Not saying it was justified in any way, it just was.  I like to think I have evolved but realize that a lot of that stuff is so deeply wired that it is gonna turn on at times no matter how hard I try to shut it down.  Am no engineer, but my understanding of a capacitor is that it is part of a lot of machinery that holds a charge even when the device is completely removed from a power source and is why things can shock you even when they turned all the way off.   There are these capacitors of our past experiences that activate without warning.  Was communicating with one of my fellas from the olden times the other day and he said something where I would have replied back then by calling him a fag.  This time, I called him an Incel.  Is that personal growth or just the same white boy from the valley?

May 4th, 2018

Hey there,

I cannot stand to do yard work.

My Dad was a worker.  I don't know about his efforts M-F, but when it was time for the weekend, we didn't go to the beach or ballgame.  His idea of a good time was getting up at dawn and working in the yard till the sun went down and it was required that his kids be there for the whole shebang.  He worked hard, but did all the fun stuff.  He would cut the bushes and I had to pick the crap up and lug it to the dumpster.  Weeding?  Guess who did all of it.  And if it wasn't yard work, then he was the one that got to use the hose on the cars while I scrubbed the grime off the wheel rims or as you can see above, he got the paint brush and I got all the other crap work around the job.

I am (or at least was) a worker too.  I can't relax until a job is complete and on the nurture/nature debate, have to say that it was these 12 hour days Saturday and Sunday that contributed to that.  The best memory I have from those long ass days was taking out the transistor radio and listening to Dodger/Angel games from pre game to the last call of the day.  And for some reason, remember hearing Prince's 'When Doves Cry' for the first time one summer and relate that song to torturous work whenever it pops up.

Sticking on family news, Babydoll had her Spring dance performance last weekend.  The kids are good.  I guess...I am having a hard time getting my mind around what messages they are trying to convey and what the point of it at all is.  If they are expressing an idea or emotion through movement, it is lost on me.  Maybe if they used music that appealed to me in any way, it would be better, but dancing to Ed Sheeran is an effin' assault.  I will continue to watch it as a sport and dissect the choreography as it they were an NFL line, but any tips I could get on how best to enjoy this would be appreciated.

An update on the Boy this week.  His UVA club team played in the national championship tournament for the NCDA last week and they lost in the round of 16.  He's # 8 second from top left.

Pretty impressive right?  The NCDA is the National Collegiate Dodgeball Association.  Hmmm...not an NCAA sanctioned sport and we get no scholarship money for that.  I had no idea this was a thing nor that he was even playing in it.  Only found out through a friend of mine who's son is good friends with the Boy and he mentioned it in passing.  Got to speak to Boy-o the other day and asked what it was all about.  They've been playing all year and he was surprised they did so well in the tournament as they were not highly ranked.  This doesn't sound like a rigorous sport training wise as you show up to practises when you can and they take the guys based on their attendance in some manner.  I guess it is impressive, am happy he is making friends and keeping active, and National anything is good, but still...Dodgeball?  At least it isn't Ultimate Frisbee.

One more piece of Imbro business today.  Just finished our summer plans yesterday and must say that it is a work of art.  I'd love to tell you all about them, but you would be jealous.  I will relate one stretch and that entails Betty and I ditching the kids for a full week and driving from SF to Seattle, stopping along the sparsely populated and majestic NoCal coast for a few nights, Crater Lake and a weekend in PDX.  To make it even more amazing, we are splurging and are renting a convertible.  Betty says that she has great convertible hair.  It is supposed to be a Mustang and we were talking about it in the car today.  I said that I bet it is gonna be yellow, and she said it will be white.  What a cliché that those are the colors we pick out for ourselves, no?

Which brings us to this....gonna take the rest of this week for a little Asian Corner.  Yes that sound you hear is your inappropriate racist radar detector going off.

If you didn't finish last week's manifesto as to why Yo La Tengo is the greatest band in the world (to me), and I cannot blame you if you didn't, am re-posting the below YouTube link to the night they (with Thurston Moore) were the backing band for Yoko Ono.

Only about 2% of the people I know get off on the feedback stuff and when you couple it with Yoko's "lyrics", I am alone.  Best part was when she went to look at her sheet music as if they wrote notes down.  I've watched this thing a couple of dozen times and can't get enough of it.  It is as much performance art as music, so why can I relate to this but cannot grasp the dance stuff.  Maybe if the kids danced to this, it would sink in but I bet they couldn't do it.

The local media was abuzz last week after the trailer for the movie Crazy Rich Asians dropped.  The first Western flick in 25 years (since the Joy luck Club) to feature an all Asian cast.  Am torn as to my feelings as it is a Rom-Com, but I love Constance Wu.  The premise sounds funny, normal California girl falls in love with a guy only to find out he is mega rich and how she has to deal with her new family.  All in for that.

In forgettable Asian entertainment, fell down a Pat Morita hole somehow and learned that he left Happy Days to star in a TV show called Mr T and Tina.  Was a massive Happy Days fan at the time and have zero recollection of this spinoff.  Am on a desperate search to find a full episode and they just don't exist, probably because ABC needed to bury it due to insensitivity.  I did find the opening credits and it looks delicious.

In local news this week, received this email from the US embassy...The American Institute in Taiwan has seen an increase in arrests related to marijuana over the last several months.  AIT reminds U.S. citizens in Taiwan that penalties for possession, use, selling or trafficking (including mailing) of illegal drugs in Taiwan are severe, and convicted offenders can expect long jail sentences and heavy fines.  Taiwan also has the death penalty for certain drug offenses.  Law enforcement in Taiwan treats all drug violations very seriously. Taiwan has a lot of good things going for it; a female President, vibrant democracy, LBGT tolerant.  I get that the governments in this part of the world are harsh on the drugs and get why Taiwan doesn't want it on the island, but they'd be a lot cooler if they did.

Extra points if you caught the Matthew McConaughey from Dazed and Confused reference above.    


In more local news, Taiwan was just ranked #42 most free press in the 2018 World Press Freedom index.  Burkina Faso was 41 and South Korea #43, with the US behind at #45.  Taiwan ranked the highest in Asia but South Korea rose 20 spots this year with that being attributed to the new President, who seems to be doing some good things over there.  The United States poor showing...who would have thunk it?

Unsurprisingly, last on the above free press list was North Korea.  During the historic meeting between the leaders of the North and South last week, saw an article that Kim Jong-Un brought his own toilet when he crossed the DMZ.  Had to click on that one and the reason he did was that he didn't want anyone outside of his country to examine his feces.  Had never thought about that but I would totally want to know what is in that guys bowel movement and of course he doesn't want people picking through it.  Giant tape worms are thought to be common there, mainly due to the us of human excrement for fertilizer, but have to imagine that Kim gets the good food.  Plus, he is pleasantly plump, so no sign of worms eating away at his insides.  There are reports he has gout or something and am sure he doesn't want any ill health issues out there.  My guess is that his diet is so opulent that if his people knew he was eating fois gras while they boiled tree bark, that would be a bad look.  Any time poop is in the news, you know I gotta share.

Let's get serious for a second.  

Seriously...China!  Someone sent me this article from the NY Times about tech companies hiring girls to help "sooth" their nerdy programmers.   The qualifications for the ladies: Must be attractive, know how to charm socially awkward programmers and give relaxing massages.  They just wrote my Ziprecruiter ad.

Seriously China?  You must have seen this story about a zoo in China where the "visitors" threw rocks at a kangaroo to get him to hop and ended up stoning him to death.  I just hope they didn't let all that fine meat go to waste.  You just know they think that Kangaroo testicles make the hair in facial moles grow longer or some shit.

Was driving home with Betty the other day and she says she sees this ad on buses all the time and wondered what was up with a monkey carrying a pair of shoes.

I take the photo to my local translator and she looks at it and laughs.  She says it is for a Private Investigator that specializes in catching married people having affairs.  A cheating spouse in local parlance is called a cheating monkey.  I never noticed these before but now that it was called out, see them everywhere.  Business must be good.

Not sure if I've ever mentioned this before, but I find it near impossible to remember peoples names when they are in Chinese.  Not great at names in general but when they are in another language, it adds to the degree of difficulty, and when in Chinese, I have no shot.  I can barely remember my own kids Chinese middle names and am told that I say them wrong anyway.  I've been working with this group of boys for 9 months now, and if that kid goes by his local name, I have no clue what to call him.  Boss, Chief or whatever it says on his t-shirt are my go-to's.  I swear that it is not a sign of disrespect and is solely on my own incompetence.

When I do have to make an attempt at saying a person's Chinese name and have zero idea what it is, I will call them Gowron.  You have to be a real aficionado for Star Trek: The Next Generation to know who that is...he is one of the leaders of the Klingons.

Gowron sounds Chinese (to me)and I have been getting away with it cause no one knows who Gowron is.  That is disrespectful but makes me laugh every time.

A couple of sad pieces of Asian's passing.  First, Ichiro retired today.  I loved that guy.  Not only is he the true baseball hits leader (screw you Pete Rose...my favorite sign about him from the 70's read "Rose is a Weed), and he has this zen quality that was unique and endearing, but it was his arm from the outfield that always got me.

I've been to hundreds of baseball games but have only bee to a handful that were truly historic or momentous.  A Nolan Ryan no-hitter and that All-Star game when Tommy Lasorda got hit with a bat are two.  The third was the night when Ichiro broke the single season hit record

Nice to hear Dave Niehaus' voice again.

The other passing this week was Jhoon Rhee into the heavens.  Anyone of a certain age that lived in the DC area in the 70's and 80's will remember this commercial.

There were only a few TV channels during our college years and one was UHF channel 20.  They'd show old sitcoms late night and we'd get baked and tune in.  That commercial would run all the time and we would all hoot and holler "Nobody bother me either".  What I didn't know until reading about his life yesterday in this Deadspin article was how influential he was in the field of martial arts.  In the hole I jumped in about Jhoon Rhee last night, came across this satirical video of the iconic commercial and it is a riot.




Finally for today, I have a local traffic observation.  The analogy I attempt here is really crass and crude, so if that isn't your thing, click away and will check back in with you next time.

Still here?  

Sperm.  In health class or somewhere, you must have seen pictures of sperm under a microscope.

I'm sitting in my car at a particularly busy and complicated intersection the other day marveling at how all the cars and scooters interact to get through it, make turns and such, and it made me think of my 7th grade health class video.  All these vehicles careening around in complete randomness with the same goal of getting to their home/egg first.  Not all sperm are robust lasers either.  A huge percentage of them go in circles, crash into one another, go one way and decide mid-stream to turn around and go the other way, just like the drivers in Taipei.  This realization was a revelation for me cause now after I get home from being on the road, I understand why I feel like I have been bukkakied..