Late at Night

I'm having just too much fun with this YouTube thing. I couldn't sleep one night so I decided to play around with the filming function of my digital camera. The camera has been acting kind of weird lately with the screen going blank every so often. When I went to review what I had filmed, I saw something creepy . . .

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My YouTube Movie

If you haven't checked out YouTube yet, you really should, if just to get an idea of where the Internet is probably headed in terms of the way content will be served up to consumers. If you really have time on your hands, you should try making a video and post it to the site, like what I did recently.
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The Red Army in Taipei

People have been protesting for Taiwan president Chen Shui-bian to step down from office for nearly a monthy now. Chen's son-in-law was found guilty of being involved in insider trading of a biotech company and Chen's wife is mired in allegations that she took a lot of money in the form of gift certificates from an up-scale department store for supposedly helping grease the regulatory approval of the sale of the store. Though she was acquited of the charges, people are not happy with president Chen.

Here, the protesters, who wear red as a sign of unity, again took to the streets of Taipei on October 10.

Darth Vader Calls The Emperor

Darth Vader Calls The Emperor after the death star blows up. *Posting video to your blog is so easy!

Fuyang Eco Park

Aside from all the noise, traffic and other big-city hassles that afflict Taipei, there are little nature sanctuaries where one can escape to with relative ease and speed.

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Americans Get Quizzed On World Affairs

"A guy walks the streets of America and asks random people some pretty easy questions." This is so pathetic . . .

Balcony Table

The recycling continues with this little quick project. My apartment has a balcony where I like to sit and enjoy the cool breeze and watch fish swim about in the little water garden I set up in one corner. What was missing in this little setup was a table at which I could sit and enjoy an ice cold beverage.

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Traffic Humor

As with most areas with a high population density, Taiwan has its problems of traffic congestion and crazy drivers. This truck here has a message that tries to remind people to practice safe driving.

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Water Garden

I started a water garden a few months ago. It started out with some potting containers, just a few water plants and a bunch of cheap goldfish I bought at a fish store.
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Views of and from Taipei 101

Check out some picts I put up of Taipei 101, currently the world's tallest building! See the picts!

welcome to john's j-blog

welcome to john's j-blog

Elephant in the Way

Two boys, each carrying a pail of water back to their village, were walking along a well-worn path in the jungle when they encountered a man and his elephant standing right in the middle of the trail.

One of the boys indignantly put his pail on the ground and demanded the man move the elephant so that he and his companion could continue along their way.

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Doggie Raincoat

Was eating dinner after work one day when this woman comes into the restaurant with this little white dog. This little dog is actually wearing a raincoat . . . of sorts. It was wearing what appeared to be a plastic bag that had holes put in for its legs. Don't know what the dog thought about the deal. I bet it was wondering "Why do I rustle and make all this weird sounds now when I walk?"
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Updated Website

Took a while, but I finally have my website organized the way I want it. Updated some stories and added some picts. Check back regularly for updates!

http://www.mahster.com

Old lamp into new windchime

The arts and crafts just keep coming! I recently had this inspiring thought pop into my head. "Why not turn that old lamp that has been standing in the livingroom into a windchime!" Random, huh? It may have been seeded by my Dad who recently made a set of windchimes.

That evening, I proceeded to disassemble an old unrepairable halogen light and turn it into a windchime. Again, being environmentally conscience, I tried using only materials that I had on hand. The wind paddle, for example, I cut out from an empty plastic laundry detergent bottle.

It took two nights to make, but it turned out great! Not only does it look cool, it sounds just wonderful!

Just hope it's not too loud for the neighbors.

Temple Cinema

H and I were wandering around one of the larger night markets in Taipei searching for yummy stuff to eat. H wanted to eat boiled green onion squid with wasabi near a temple. When we got there, we found that a movie was playing courtesy of the temple management.

We ordered our food and sat down in front of the screen, a makeshift affair made out of a long white sheet stretched in front of a building across the street from the temple. They were playing a movie titled "彰化脫褲莊" (Take off pants village in Chuang-hua). A little explanation is in order here. H said that the movie was about a village in the township of Chuang-hua where people had to take of their pants in order to cross a stream to reach it. This flick was made in the '80s and pretty silly.

The interesting point of this was the fact that the temple was playing this movie in this throng of people at the night market, most of whom weren't even paying attention. They had two huge movie projectors spinning film reels. Apparently, in the past, this was the most common way for people to see movies. A local temple would hold a movie night using carbon-arc projectors and huge sheets of linen as screens.

When I was here in Taiwan ten years ago, I would occasionally encounter at least one "movie night" at a temple every month. Most of the time they would play older, locally made movies, but every so often you'd see a modern Hollywood film playing. These local "temple theaters" are becoming more of a rarity. That night at the night market, only a seated audience of about ten people were seriously watching the movie, most of them being elderly folks. Time and technology march on and unfortunately, these temple cinemas are quickly fading into memory.

Froggie

Meet Froggie!

This cute little guy enjoys getting out and about and going on adventures. He practically has been all around China and parts of the US! Well, at least the minature version at the "Window on China" amusement park. But he has been to Phuket, Thailand!

Stayed tune for more picts of Froggie and his adventures!

Kong Ball

I was eating at a Burger King one evening and found this advertisement for the promotional toys offered with some of the set meals. This was when King Kong just came out and practically all marketing was swirling around this movie.

I was practically laughing during the entire time I was eating my burger and oily fries. And just to think I'd probably fall for these gimmicks toys when I was younger. But when I was young, no one washyper-marketing under the sun. Heck, movie soundtracks were things that you heard only when watching movies and tying them to everything movies and not some separately sold CD!

I get a kick out of what kind of English can pop up here anywhere at any time. I never really figured what the Kong Ball was.

Recreating Nature

This past Saturday was arts and craft day. I had snagged a big old clay urn from my neighbor with the intention of turning it into a little fish pond of sorts. Well, the old urn sat on my balcony for the longest time when I suddenly was hit by a big rush of inspiration this past weekend.

My goal was to create this fishpond using only things I had on hand if possible. I took a big plastic pot, which I had bought previously just for this project, and cut out a little semi-circular section so that water would run out of it into the bigger clay urn. Rummaging around the house, I grabbed an old vase and proceeded to chisel away a small hole in the base where I inserted some tubing. Chiseling way the hole took some time and a little patience.

After hooking up a small aquarium water pump, again previously purchased, and arranging everything in the right order, I placed in some rocks and filled the pots with water and let the motor run. It took some adjusting to get the water to come out of the topmost vase in just the right manner.

Went out on Saturday evening and Sunday afternoon to get some fish and fauna to stock the little fishpool. Now, I can enjoy the sound or trickling water whenever I want.

I now get totally enthralled watching the little fish swimming about in search for food. When I came home this evening, I must have spent half an hour just soaking in the sound and sights of this little ecosystem. It's kind of nice to have a little bit of Nature on your own balcony, even though it is man-made.

Just getting started . . .

Just getting started on this blog. Still figuring out how to work things and get posts up and running.

Typing these few initial lines kind of feels like when I first used a cell phone or instant messaging - - kind of clumsy and akward. I remember thinking that I would never be a regular user of instant messaging but now I use it every day for work purposes!

My friend John has a cool blog up; http://bridgepacific.blogspot.com/. Check it out for insights into life in Japan.

I have a website I'm playing around with right now: http://www.mahster.com . I'm thinking of posting brief blubs here and more detailed info on the other site. We'll see how that goes!