Lost In Miscommunication

So it turns out that there had been some miscommunication between myself and some friends, with the result I’ll be here a whole week pretty much alone instead of having a few people to hang around with.  One plus: I really can just devote myself to writing; one minus: I’m starting to question the efficacy of buying a flight and hotel for a week just to afford myself some free time.  If I were more well-off than I was then this would be my life all the time, I think (damn you agencies . . . damn you), but now I’ve got niggling doubts creeping in because of the cost etc.  But should I worry about it?  I fear I’m becoming miserly.  I don’t want to be miserly, yet I’m not quite at a comfort level monetarily where I just don’t have to worry about it.

Or maybe I am.  I just don’t know how I compare with ‘the norm,’ in terms of personal savings, and how much others are perfectly willing to spend on a little trip like this and if I’m just being ridiculous.  And so the talking to myself has begun.

Well, perhaps I’ll just spend the day being a bit douche-y taking pictures, find a nice cafe and get some writing in and not think about it too much.

I’m Back In Japan, So Why Not?

Yes, I’m here in Tokyo once again, on the first day of a ten day vacation, which, since I don’t really consider going to a city a ‘vacation,’ per se — the term I would use is simply ‘trip’ — is basically nothing more than ‘not having to work for a week.’  Well, that’s not true.  I am meeting up with friends to catch up and socialize and all that great stuff.  But I’ve been here before so it’s not entirely new, and I’ve been living in Taiwan for two years, which means Asia in all its Asian-ness isn’t wow-ee style exciting anymore, so really I am mostly regarding this coming week as a great chance to simply get in a little downtime.  A whole week where I don’t have to work (not that I work much anyway, but still); a whole week where I could just sit in this tiny, tiny hotel room all day and write write write whatever I want, only needing to jaunt down to the Family Mart down the street to pick up some sushi and tea every 5 or 6 hours.  And go out for drinks at night.  Basically what I would do every day if I were rich.  Damn you, agencies.  Damn you.

New Complaining + The Plan Machine

Haven’t been writing on here because, really, what’s there to say?  I either end up just complaining about things, which no one really wants to read, or, when I do try to do something I think interesting or creative, something I’ve put some effort into (either here or on The Culturatti), no one really reads it either.  Which is fine — obviously it’s not interesting enough to grab their attention, and I can’t force people to like something or be curious about something they’re not.  So — blah.

Yeah, you can see where this is going.  So I’ll try to take it in another direction.

Basically, it all has to do with plans.  There are so many possible plans!  I’ve got plans on top of plans right now, and it’s all contingent on what happens and what doesn’t happen.  So even though there’s all this uncertainty, it’s actually pretty great.  I’m free free free.  I can go anywhere and do anything.  Will I go there?  Maybe.  Or will I go there?  Why not?

But nothing is concrete yet.  It’s still goo.  So right now I’m just trying to take it easy and stay relaxed until such time as these plans need to be set in motion.  Part of that is that I’ve started another book — nothing serious, just something for fun, but I find if I’m not passing time productively I get antsy, and antsy is bad.  So away I go.

Hualien & Taroko

My recent weekend on the east coast.  Click below for the album.

Rails Were Ridden

3:31 of Taiwan’s east coast out the window of a moving train. Not overly exciting, just pretty; for best effect, play The Chemical Brothers’ ‘Star Guitar’ while viewing.

Humans Are Weird

Grandma's only job was to scare the shit out of the kids

Think about it for a minute: while it’s true that all animals clean and groom themselves, they all stay in roughly their natural state.  Their grooming doesn’t much affect their overall appearance.

Humans, though . . . look at all the stuff we go through.  We cut our hair, shave our faces and parts of our bodies (not everyone, of course, but many), trim our fingernails and toenails, trim our nose hair, clean out our ear wax.  There might be other basic thinks like this, but I can’t think of any more right now.  My point is, look at everything we have to go through just to be functional and viable.  Seems kind of strange doesn’t it?  Look at the picture above — this woman is the world-record holder for the longest fingernails (although she apparently lost one of them in a car accident — darn).  It obviously takes a lot of dedication to grow one’s nails that long, but my question is: why should they grow so long anyway?

MSN Messenger for Mac Needs Off-Line Messaging — NOW

I’m actually pretty mad about this.  The fact that the Mac version of MSN doesn’t have off-line messaging is a joke.  A pure and utter joke.

The main problem is that most Windows MSN users wouldn’t realize that they can’t send off-line messages to a Mac user; so, if they do, the person — in this case, me — doesn’t get them.  Every once in a while I have to go and sign-on to MSN on a Windows computer just so I can clean out my off-line messages.  I hadn’t had a chance to do it for a while, until yesterday, when I found a friend of mine, whom I had been wondering about since she hadn’t been in contact for a while, had sent me a message telling me her father was sick and it had been a rough time with her family so she’d been incognito for a while.  That message was sent over a month ago.  Would’ve been nice to get it.

So what’s the reason for this?  Is it simply a matter of of Microsoft beeing pissy and purposely making their rival’s version of the program inferior to their own?  Because if it is — fuck them.  It’s only going to turn Mac users even more against Microsoft to the point where they might not want to spend any money on Microsoft software, like the Mac Office Suite, instead turning to iWork, or something.

If it’s a tech problem, then hurry up and solve the friggin’ problem.  This is a basic function of any decent instant messaging program, and, given that MSN is the most used program, there’s no reason that Mac users should have to put up with an inferior product.

So — someone who’s more in the Internet World know than I, please see if there’s anything that can be done.

Finally!

I’ve been saying for years that governments should do this – leave it up to the most engaging politician to come along in a lifetime to actually get it done.

Why Taipei Is Cool

Not twenty minutes ago, while waiting for the MRT, I stood gazing out at the low mountains in the near distance, watching a hawk slowly circle about on some updrafts above the rooftops.  This is a stereotypically ‘majestic’ scene, and so I watched it serenely, with enjoyment, wondering if he — the hawk — was searching for mice or smaller birds; then I saw one such smaller bird take flight, which I thought odd because it would put him in direct sight of the hawk, and then, even more surprisingly, it flew right up to the hawk and went at him with its beak.  Then a few more smaller birds joined in on the attack, pecking and clawing at the larger predator and driving him away.

I guess they had a nest nearby.  But it was interesting — I had never seen anything like that before.

And all this, remember, right in the middle of the city.

Words That Should Be Words

A while back Tanya sent me this great link from Cracked.com — 9 Words That Don’t Mean What You Think.  Some of them I already knew were used incorrectly by a majority of people — ‘irregardless’ and ‘ironic,’ for instance — but others, most of the others, in fact, I was shocked to find I was ignorant of their true meanings as well (though without blame, I think, for as the article points out, most of the wrong meanings have already basically become common usage — though I will make sure to only use them in their correct form from now on).

Coinciding with this, often while I was writing my book I ran into situations where I wanted to use a certain word, only to be dismayed to find that it wasn’t actually a word.  But I figure if most people can use a bunch of words wrong and no one really cares, why can’t I declare some new words that should be words anyway?  So I will.

Be forewarned, there’s nothing wholly original here — it’s quite possible these are ‘words’ people have been complaining about even before the Internet came around to give people a perfect forum for complaining; but if that’s the case, I’m surprised the dictionaries haven’t been updated yet.  Anyway, here we go — let’s start with a few easy ones: