Taiwan for tourists

Yesterday at dinner, I asked my siblings where they would take their non-Taiwanese friends, if any ever came to visit Taiwan.

We actually came up with a decent list of non-food destinations for Taipei:
- Taipei 101: Currently the tallest building in the world, and in a newer area of town.
- The National Palace Museum: Home of all the priceless Chinese artifacts which were stolen/rescued by Chiang Kai-Shek in the late 1940's, before the Cultural Revolution.
- Chiang-Kai Shek Memorial: There's a lot of debate over whether he should be memorialized or best forgotten, but the memorial itself is worth a look.
- Shih Lin Night Market: The most famous night market; lots of Taiwan street food like stinky tofu, oyster omelets, and bubble tea.
- Lungshan Temple: I feel like I've been there but I don't really remember. Nevertheless, it's supposed to be a good example of a traditional Buddhist-Daoist Asian temple.
- Snake Alley: Pretty gross, but where else can you watch a snake get cut open as its blood is spilled into a soup bowl?
- KTV: Private karaoke rooms are all over the city, but there are lots on Lin Sen North Road: V-Mix, Cashbox, Partyworld, and Holiday.
- Shi Men Ding: Where all the trendy local teenagers hang out and shop.
- Yang Ming Shan: A national park north of Taipei, which has some good hiking and decent views.
- Beitou: Beitou is a resort town a bit north of Taipei, that has natural sulfur springs.

We had a harder time coming up with places to visit outside Taipei:
- Kending National Park: One of the best national parks in Taiwan, located at the southern tip of the island. Includes E Luan Bi Park. I remember it being quite pretty (over fifteen years ago!).
- Queen's Head Rock (Ye Liou): Ye Liou, in northern Taiwan, is full of strange rock formations, the most famous of which strongly resembles a woman's head in profile.
- Fo Guang Shan Monastery: A Buddhist monastery which features a gigantic golden Buddha statue surrounded by hundreds of smaller Buddha statues.
- Tainan: Previously the capital of Taiwan, Tainan is rich in colonial history (Dutch, Spanish) and yummy snack foods.
- Kaohsiung: The second largest city in Taiwan, and the largest harbor. I seem to remember it being only about an hour away from Tainan by car. Starting next year, it will take 90 minutes to get from Taipei to Kaohsiung by high-speed rail.
- Sun Moon Lake, Ali Shan, Yu Shan, Taroko Gorge: I haven't been to any of these places, but they're all famous and/or national parks.

That's enough to see and do for at least a week or two, isn't it?

life on the Pacific Rim

Two days ago, I was reading about the spate of small earthquakes which hit the East Bay recently and thinking morbidly about what to do if a big one hit the Bay Area while I was out of town.

Then, yesterday evening around 8:30pm, while we were standing in the lobby of Partyworld KTV waiting for our room, we felt a definite ripple, and then heard a popping noise from one of the huge, multi-story long chandeliers suspended from the ceiling. We quickly moved to a safer area, just in case. It turns out there was a large earthquake off the coast of Pingtung, on the southern coast of Taiwan, followed by a series of aftershocks.

mmm...dumplings

There are lots of yummy things to eat in Taiwan, and I've had many of them over the last few days, but I never leave without having gone to Din Tai Fong. Can't beat their dumplings...



We always horrify the waitstaff with our American-sized appetites; this is the third consecutive year that our waitress has tried to convince us our order was too large, and it's the third consecutive year that we've finished everything that we've ordered.

This year, after we sat down, they brought out a little contraption that consisted of cloth stretched over a folding metal frame:



The waitress set it up at the corner of the table between my sister and me, and looked at us expectantly. We gave her a blank look, and she explained it was for our purses.

I thought this was absolute genius. I'm always slinging my purse over the back of my chair (where it often falls because the chair is curved or someone has bumped it), or wedging it between my back and the chair (where it pokes me while I eat), or holding it uncomfortably on my lap (where I proceed to drop food on it). Why don't we have these things in the US yet?

hero worship

My mother tells me that every time the Yankees' Chien-Ming Wang picks up a win, one of the Taiwanese newspapers dedicates a full page to Wang, to celebrate the achievement. (Wang is the only successful MLB player to come out of Taiwan so far.) This makes that newspaper hugely popular on the days after his wins, and people (my cousin among them) run out to the newspaper stands in the mornings to buy copies before they're gone.

Here's one from his 18th win:

Christmas travel

For the last few years, I've been meeting up with my family in Taipei for Christmas. My brother flies in from Baltimore, my sister from New York, and my parents and myself from the Bay Area. It's nice because everyone has Christmas off, so we don't have to worry about lining up schedules, and we get to visit Taiwan while the weather is pleasant (usually in the 60s). The downside is that plane tickets to Asia are really expensive during the winter holidays, and we've had several travel mishaps over the years.

Last year I wrote about the nine hours I spent waiting at LAX after our connection from SFO to LAX was delayed, but I didn't mention that that same day, my brother's luggage was lost while he was connecting in Seattle, and when he finally got his suitcase back, his Playstation and all his games had been stolen, not to mention a bottle of expensive cologne.

This year, my brother was originally supposed to fly United from Baltimore to San Francisco, connecting in Denver, and then he was going to have dinner (with my uncle's family and me) in San Francisco before getting on another flight to Taipei. My parents were in Taipei already and didn't realize how bad things were at Denver International, and I didn't realize he had a one-stop flight, so it was my uncle, whose daughter's classmate had been stranded in Denver for two days already, who realized that we needed a contingency plan.

I spent an hour on hold with United before getting ahold of a reservations agent, who told me there were no flights from the East Coast to San Francisco, and no other rerouting possibilities, so our only option was a full refund. I asked her sarcastically if she was going to refund the international leg of the flight, and of course she said no.

My parents then scoured the internet and found a one-way, $700 flight on US Air, connecting through Philadelphia, and arriving at 7:40pm, which was only half an hour later than the cancelled United flight, so they quickly booked it. (A cheaper JetBlue flight from Dulles to Oakland sold out before they were able to buy it.) At that point we thought everything would be fine.

Well, my sister made it to Taipei, with only a two-hour delay. My brother made it to San Francisco with a half-hour delay, arriving at 8:10pm. Unfortunately, that made him too late to join us for our sushi dinner, but we bought him takeout and brought it to the airport. Then, the bombshell. US Air had lost his luggage in Philly. They said it might come on the 10:00pm flight, it might come on the 10:45pm flight, or it might come the next morning.

The Taipei flight on EVA Air departed at 12:05pm, and boarded at 11:20pm, with check-in closing at 11:05pm, so he waited for the 10:00pm, didn't see his bag, decided it was cutting it too close to wait for the 10:45pm as well, and tried to file a lost baggage claim. US Air told him that if he filed the claim, they would be unable to release the baggage to EVA Air once it arrived. So, he went to the EVA counter and got checked in, but in a classic travel moment, was told that EVA would be unable to get his luggage unless they had a lost baggage claim from US Air. He went back to the US Air baggage claim area, and while he was waiting in line with the other 50-odd people to file his claim, he found his bag, which had come on the 10:45pm flight. He quickly grabbed the bag, hauled ass back to the EVA counter, got his bag checked in, and made it to the gate about 10 minutes before boarding.

Ironically, my brother would never have gone back to check the 10:45pm flight if he hadn't been given wrong information by US Air about whether to file a claim. But in the end, everything worked out perfectly (except that my parents spent $700 on a one-way domestic flight), with everyone (and their clothes) arriving in time for Christmas dinner.

California cold

It's been really cold recently, in the Bay Area. Normally when I say that I mean that it's 50 degrees and I have to wear a jacket, but it really is cold this time; overnight temperatures are in the low 30s (South Bay) and high 20s (North Bay).

Unfortunately, after nearly six years back in California, I seem to have lost most of my cold weather clothing. I did manage to dig up my down jacket, but I can't find any gloves except ski gloves, I don't know where any of my thick socks went, and all of my turtlenecks seem to be of the thin cotton variety. If this lasts much longer I may have to go shopping.

sports guy

I used to read Gregg Easterbrook's TMQ column regularly, until I got fed up with his preachiness, and I still read Peter King's MMQB every week, but my new favorite sports column is Bill Simmons' Sports Guy. Recently I've found myself forwarding snippets of his columns to friends a couple of times a week, because he's just so damned insightful. (I'm sure that must be annoying, so sorry guys!) Plus, I really enjoy his writing style: casual, intense, and full of great metaphors. Can't get enough.

walking

Last year, they started giving out pedometers at my work gym, in a effort to make us healthier. I'm never one to pass up free stuff, so of course I got one.

It's funny what happens when you give pedometers to a bunch of driven, competitive people. I myself never take elevators anymore, unless the destination floor is at least five floors away. I also choose to walk rather than drive short distances (e.g. 1/2 mile) now, which is contrary to all of my Californian driving-culture upbringing.

Anyway, it's now been one whole year since I started wearing the pedometer, and according to my log, I've walked at least 3,026,087 steps over the past year, for a total of 619.24 miles. Not so bad, for a code monkey.

gingerbread houses

Last weekend, I had a gingerbread house making party at my place. We spent most of the morning baking gingerbread (thus ensuring that my kitchen and my hair would smell like gingerbread for days) and making icing cement. After the guests arrived, we assembled and decorated the houses in teams of two, and then held a contest (every team getting to vote).

I was pleasantly surprised by people's patience and ingenuity; some teams had construction problems, and other teams had decorating mishaps, but in the end, every house held together, looked good, and there were tons of cute, creative details.

Here are some photos:

house with a snowman	carousel
Fenway Park	my house
bunny house (winner!)	lots of gingerbread houses

fantasy sports meets math class

This is is a brilliant idea. I once taught a summer science class to a group of 5th and 6th graders, and was constantly racking my brain for ways to relate the class material to their everyday lives.

I haven't played fantasy football in two years now (the managers in my league were super hardcore and keeping up meant that I was checking fantasy news several times a day), but during the years that I did play, I was constantly calculating and recalculating scores on game day. I'm sure a creative teacher could come up with some kind of math-related ranking scheme too; there are some pretty complicated spreadsheets out there for evaluating fantasy players.

book reviews

A couple of months ago I decided I was going to try and review books. I read several books, and even started writing about a few of them. I wrote a couple of paragraphs about When the Elephants Dance by Tess Uriza Holthe, a WWII novel set in the Philippines. I quite liked the book, and was able to describe why, but got stuck on finding concrete examples from the book. I think it reminded me too much of high school English.

I'm thinking maybe I should review something else, like movies, or restaurants, which would feel less like work. I like reading a lot, but I've always been less fond of analyzing books.

Eastern Europe photos

Prague
Vienna
Bratislava
Budapest
Istanbul

Eastern Europe, part 5 (Istanbul)

We arrived at the airport in Istanbul a little after noon, met up with a friend, and took a shuttle to our hotel. We were staying in Sultanahmet, which is the most touristy area of Istanbul (it's actually a huge city, with tons of small neighborhoods, and over 12 million people!). The rest of that day was pretty chill; we walked through the area next to the Aya Sofia and the Blue Mosque, and made our way down to Eminönü, next to the Galata Bridge. We checked out the Spice Bazaar (very colorful and very crowded) and then went to Hamdi for an early dinner. It turned out to be a good thing we were early; the restaurant is apparently quite popular, but because it was Ramadan, hardly anyone was eating until sunset. They told us we could stay for about an hour, which we did. We all ordered kebabs of different types (I ordered lamb, or "shish") and shared a Turkish pizza. Afterwards, we hung out by the water for a bit before heading back to the hotel.

The next two days were quite busy; we spent several hours at the Topkapi Palace (more impressive than I had expected, and slightly reminiscent of the Alhambra), and then visited the Aya Sofia, the Blue Mosque, the Grand Bazaar, the Suleymaniye Mosque, and took ferries to Üsküdar and Kadiköy. I particularly liked the Aya Sofia; apparently, after it was converted from a mosque into a museum, they started examining the walls, and eventually, excavated several 14th century Christian mosaics. Now, these are on display right next to all of the Islamic symbols that decorate the interior.

We also had some interesting food experiences. The first night, after dinner, we went to a cafe where they had water pipes and served apple (and other flavors) of Turkish tea, and we saw whirling dervishes on stage. The second night, we grabbed dinner in Kadiköy; we were in a hurry not to miss the last ferry back, so we walked into the first decent restaurant we saw. We were definitely the only tourists there (people kept giving us curious looks) but the food was cheap and yummy, and the service was good, although the staff spoke no English at all. Luckily the food was on display, and all we had to do was point, and they would dish out plates for us. Afterwards, we went next door, bought a huge box of baklava and other sweets, and then rushed back to the docks in time to catch a ferry back.

On the last day, we didn't have as much of an agenda, so we wandered around Karaköy near the Galata Tower, and then went to check out Istiklal Caddesi, which is a large, modern shopping boulevard in Beyoglu. The locals in this area wore almost entirely modern dress; it was hard to find a woman wearing a headscarf, and many women were wearing sleeveless shirts and tank tops. In fact, we passed by a group of twenty-somethings all dressed in Goth gear. This was in stark contrast to the area by the mosques, where women in full burkas were sometimes seen. At the end of the street is Taksim, where there is a small park and a monument commemorating Atatürk, the father of modern Turkey.

From there, we walked all the way to the Dolmabahçe Palace, built in the 1800s in the European style of the time. It cost an arm and a leg to enter the various museums, so we just walked around the exteriors and had some Turkish coffee at a cafe outside, on the water. We had a grand plan to walk over the Bosphorus Bridge from Europe to Asia, so we kept walking all the way to Ortaköy, where the bridge begins. Unfortunately, we were told the bridge was now closed to foot traffic, so we just hung out there for awhile. We had some yummy snacks that reminded me of scallion pancakes (but more doughy), had kebabs again for dinner, and checked out an arts-and-crafts market by the water. I liked Ortaköy perhaps the best of all the neighborhoods that we visited in Istanbul. Unlike Sultanahmet, Eminönü, and Karaköy, there were almost no tourists, so consequently there were no hawkers trying to sell us boat cruises and trinkets. On the other hand, it was a fairly modern area, so we weren't quite as out of place as we had been in Üsküdar and Kadiköy, where people tended to stare curiously at us.

We flew out of Atatürk International the next morning, after a set of very thorough security checks; a full baggage screen before even entering the airport, then a manual search through carry-on baggage and a very strict pat-down at the gate. Amazingly, it was all very efficient and took almost no time at all, which was a stark contrast to the TSA treatment we got at JFK when we caught our connecting flight.

Anyway, after almost 20 hours of travel, we finally arrived home in the Bay Area, having had no major travel mishaps during the two weeks, and with over 1200 photos to look through. I'll post a few of my favorites in a few days.

Eastern Europe, part 4 (Budapest)

I got off to a rocky start with Budapest; we arrived at the train station a little after noon, and were promptly accosted by dozens of people trying to convince us to take their taxi or to stay at their hotel. We finally made it out of the train station, and into the subway.

We checked into Adina Apartment Hotel, which was really nice; our suite had a kitchen, a huge living room, two half-bathrooms, and a bedroom. We managed to meet up with a friend from London, who had arrived earlier, and spent the rest of the day walking around. We saw the Opera House, St. Stephen's Cathedral, the Parliament (complete with protestors, that week), and then walked up Castle Hill to check out St. Matthias' Church. We wound up the day with a late dinner and some Tokaji wine, and then headed off to bed.

The next day, we hit the Royal Palace (also on top of Castle Hill, and gorgeous), and then walked over the bridge to Vaci utca, a touristy shopping street. At the end of the street was the Central Market Hall, where we found even cheaper souvenirs, spices, wine, and lots of other stuff. Then, we walked up the Gellert Hill and checked out the Gellert Statue and the nice view. Afterwards, we had dinner on a floating restaurant on the Danube, which was nice.

The last day was pretty chill. We did laundry in our hotel room (which took way longer than necessary) walked around a bit, eating at a cute falafel place for lunch, and checking out a bookstore (with Internet access). We went to the Gellert Baths, to try out the famous thermal baths. I was underwhelmed, but then again there are lots of thermal baths in Taiwan. That night, we bought 400 Ft (~$2) tickets to the symphony, which was playing at the Opera House. We heard the first half; a piece by Bartok, and then cut out so we could eat dinner and get to bed in time for our early flight to Istanbul.

another awesome radio morning

Two of my favorite songs, One Hundred Years by Five for Fighting, and How to Save a Life by The Fray, played back-to-back on Alice this morning. Such a lovely way to start the day.

Eastern Europe, part 3 (Bratislava)

I had read somewhere that Vienna and Bratislava were the two closest capital cities in the world (or maybe in Europe) and I couldn't pass up the chance to visit a whole other country only an hour away, so on our last day in Vienna, we headed to Bratislava, the capital of the Slovak Republic.

We arrived around lunchtime, and walked the 2km or so from the train station to the waterfront. There is a bridge in Bratislava, built in the later half of the 20th century, that somewhat resembles a UFO. We took some pictures of that, grabbed a quick (and very cheap) lunch, and headed to Devin Castle, about a 20 minute bus ride away.

The castle ruins are located at the juncture of the Danube and one of its tributaries, the Morava. It was constructed by the Romans sometime before the 800s, and was destroyed only in the 1800s. I enjoyed our visit to Devin Castle even more than Karlstein (near Prague); it was somehow more picturesque, and nothing beats a view over two gigantic rivers.

Afterwards, we took the bus back to the city and then walked up to Bratislava Castle, which is not that exciting to look at, but does also have a nice view; we took some pictures and bought some souvenirs up there. Finally, we ate dinner at a pub, where we tried to spend the remainder of the $60 we had exchanged for the day.

We got back to Vienna sometime after 10pm, and went straight to bed, since we were catching another morning train to Budapest.

Eastern Europe, part 2 (Vienna)

We arrived in Vienna around 2pm, but it took us the better part of an hour to get to our hotel, partially because Vienna has a variety of public transportation options, and they're not all that easy to decipher and/or well connected. Our international train arrived at Sudbahnhof, but we wanted to take the U-bahn to our hotel. It was about a 500-meter walk between the two stops, but it seemed much longer since we were dragging suitcases and backpacks.

Anyway, we finally arrived at our hotel, the NH Wien. It's located in a great area, off of a large shopping street, and just on the border of the Museum Quarter. We took advantage of the small onsite gym, and then showered just in time for dinner. The restaurant we went to was in the University area, so it was relatively inexpensive, and still yummy. Then, we spent the rest of the night walking around the Hofburg Palace and thereabouts.

We had only planned to stay in Vienna for three more nights, and wanted to take a daytrip to Bratislava, so the next two days were pretty packed. We walked around outside the Museum of Fine Arts and the Natural History Museum, saw the Hofburg by daylight, hung out in the Volksgarden and Rathauspark, and took the elevator to the top of Stephansdom. We spent nearly 3 hours at the Schonbrunn Palace, but even that was barely enough time to explore the interior of the palace as well as the expansive gardens. Afterwards, we went to the Staatsoper (Vienna State Opera) to queue up for standing room tickets (3.50 Euro), which was a really great experience.

First of all, we waited in line from 5:15pm until 6:15pm to get the tickets, and then immediately went to the standing room to claim our spots. We hung around there for the next hour or so, until the 7:30pm curtain, and then stood for the remaining 2.5 hours of the performance, finally heading out to dinner around 10pm. Sounds like fun, right? Okay, the standing itself wasn't so great, although we were quite impressed with all the 50 and 60-year-olds standing there with us. However, we did meet lots of interesting people while in line, including a couple of college guys from London who had some awesome cheap travel stories, some girls from Australia, and a Taiwanese student studying music in Vienna (who spoke only Chinese and German). The good thing about standing/sitting for 5 hours is that it makes people pretty chatty, so there were lots of good conversations to be had.

When we finally got out, we were starving, so we headed to Centimeter, a bar near our hotel. They had a 2-meter wurst on the menu, which we just had to try, and I ordered a chicken schnitzel which was excellent, as well. It was a satisfying end to an extremely busy day.

The second day, we hit the Belvedere (Austrian National Gallery), which has quite an impressive collection of Klimt's work, including The Kiss, and then Zentralfriedhof, which is a huge cemetery where Beethoven, Brahms, Schubert, and Strauss happen to be buried. We wound up the day watching a performance by the famous Spanish Riding School (again standing room), which was interesting but not quite as impressive as I had hoped.

The next morning, we caught an early train to Bratislava, which is an hour away.

Eastern Europe, part 1 (Prague)

I got back from Eastern Europe almost two weeks ago, but due to my subsequent San Diego/Los Angeles trip, I haven't had time to organize my photos and/or (until now) post anything about the trip. I've decided that I'm going to write about each city separately, in chronological order, which means I start with Prague.

We arrived in Prague early in the morning, and spent three days there. Prague is an eminently walkable city, especially the "Old Town" touristy areas, and is very charming; the buildings have character and the bridges are gorgeous. In some respects it doesn't feel like Eastern Europe at all; the locals are trendily dressed and speak English fairly well, it's easy to find international cuisine, and even the restaurants serving Czech food have creative decor (for example, we went to a medieval-themed restaurant serving huge platters of meat).

We spent the first two days covering the main tourist attractions: the Town Square with the astronomical clock, the Charles Bridge, Prague Castle, the St. Nicholas Cathedral, the Jewish Quarter, etc. We also walked up a fairly large hill with an observation tower at the top, to get a bird's eye view, and to take lots of pictures.

On the third day, we took a day trip to Karlstein Castle, which was about an hour away. It was nice to get out of the city, away from the hordes of tourists (really the only downside of Prague) and see a smaller town. The castle was sufficiently historic (having been the home of Charles IV, Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire and the King of Bohemia), the hike was quite pretty, and the nearby restaurants served even cheaper food than we had found in Prague.

That night, we checked out Radost FX, a cafe/lounge/bar/club in the "New Town" area, which is where most of the locals live and work. It was really fun; the mostly vegetarian menu was yummy (coming from me, that's a big compliment), they had cheap cocktails (Brandy Alexander for $5), there were live band advertisements strewn on the tables, and best of all, we were probably the only tourists there.

The next morning, we took a 5-hour train to Vienna, arriving in the mid-afternoon.

new TV show, new band

I swear, I don't have an obsession with medical TV shows.

I do still watch ER, mostly out of loyalty, and I love Scrubs, but up until recently, I never felt compelled to watch Grey's Anatomy, mostly because the main character seemed so annoying, at least judging from the endless commercials.

Then, I was at my parents' house one weekend, and was flipping through their (newly repaired) Tivo. I wasn't really in the mood for Japanese period dramas or Food Network, so I put on an episode of Grey's Anatomy. It was really good. I think by the end of the weekend I had watched all of the episodes saved on the Tivo.

I still think Meredith is kind of annoying, and has serious issues, but the show is really more of an ensemble piece than anything else, and I like that. Oh, did I mention that almost all of the men are extremely good-looking?

Anyway, I managed to watch most of the second season during the summer when the reruns were on, and then when it got to September, the network started to promote the new season, and I discovered I really, really liked the music in the commercial. A couple days after that, I was watching a rerun of Scrubs, and there it was again, the same song, How to Save a Life by The Fray. Their CD is now in my Amazon shopping cart, waiting for me to spend $15 more to get free shipping.

musical diversity

Today, on the way to work, I was listening to 106.1 KMEL. Apparently they were doing some kind of Tupac Shakur retrospective (I guess he's been dead for ten years today?) so they played "California Love" and "How Do You Want It" back to back. Then, to my surprise, the DJ said that one of Tupac's favorite songs had been from Les Miserables, and he proceeded to play "Do You Hear the People Sing?". He followed that up with "Changes", which is one of my favorite Tupac pieces. Suffice to say, I quite enjoyed the radio this morning.

phonetic alphabet

I've been on the phone a lot recently making final arrangements for our Eastern Europe trip.

As a result, I've found that when I have to read a sequence of letters and numbers to a customer service representative, I'm wildly inconsistent when choosing names to clarify letters. For example, I've recently defined "P" as "P as in Paul", "P as in Peter", and "P as in Patrick". I'm not sure what makes me think of one name over another.

I was especially amused after I told one rep, "C as in Charles, W as in Walter, R as in Richard, B as in Benjamin" and just a few seconds later, she read back "C as in Cathy, W as in Washington, R as in Roger, B as in Brian".

After that, I went looking online to see what the "standard" names are, and found this site which lists the standard NATO and Western Union tables.

mmm...beef

Last year, 10 of us went to Le Cheval, a Vietnamese restaurant in Oakland, to try their 7-course beef menu. We had a good time, and the food was yummy, but the meal was not inexpensive.

Recently, we discovered Anh Hong Saigon, which also serves a 7-course beef menu, so yesterday, 12 of us headed over to Milpitas give it a shot. We ordered only 9 servings for the 12 of us, but added two dishes of beef carpaccio and two dishes of shrimp and rice, which turned out to be the perfect amount of food. The total bill came out to about $20 per person, and the food was just as good, although the restaurant itself is much more casual (it's located in a strip mall).

Le Cheval has other well-known dishes that I do want to try, and it's a nicer dining experience, but next time I're craving Vietnamese-style beef, I think Anh Hong will be the restaurant of choice.

history

I was having a conversation with a friend today, which involved topics ranging from the recent rise of the Chinese economy, to World War II and its aftereffects, the American Civil War, and feudalism in the Middle Ages.

It reminded me of how hard it is to study history; it's a non-linear subject that we often try to fit into a one-dimensional timeline, and you can always find additonal factors that may have affected the course of events.

A thought that occurred to me during that conversation, is that history is what happens when you let human nature run amok. We all know how complicated human nature can be.

chinese cooking update

Over the past couple weeks, I tried out a couple of stir fry recipes that came out so-so, but managed to pull off Mu Shu Pork reasonably well. Next up, stewed pork and eggs. It will be my first attempt at slow cooking, ever.

too many travel plans

I think I'm going to be very sick of travelling in a few months.

So far, my travel plans for the rest of 2006 consist of:
- a 2-week vacation in Eastern Europe, in mid-to-late September
- a 3-day conference in San Diego, followed by a wedding in Los Angeles, in early October
- a weekend trip to Vegas, in early November
- yet undefined Thanksgiving travel plans (likely New York or Houston)
- a week in Taipei visiting family, over the holidays
- a wedding in Honolulu over New Year's, followed by a 1-week vacation in Kauai

Did I mention that I'll be spending a fortune on plane tickets and hotels this year?

Katamari

Two winters ago, when I was in Taipei, my brother bought a game called "Katamari Damashi" which was only available for the Japanese PS2 at that point.

Basically, the goal of the game is to roll a ball around and pick up objects to make the ball bigger. Only objects which are smaller than the ball can be picked up, but as the ball grows, you can pick up larger and larger objects, until you can pick up people and cars and buildings. It sounds like a silly game but is actually horribly addictive.

Anyway, my cousin, my sister and I spent about 8 hours one night and finally beat all of the levels. We had to take turns because we found it was possible to get motion sickness from playing for too long, and because our hands started to cramp up.

Why am I writing about this now?

Last weekend, I was at a wedding, and as the groomsmen were walking down the aisle, I heard some strangely familiar music. It only took me about a minute to realize that it was the theme to one of the early Katamari levels. I think about 20-25% of the audience recognized the music, and perked up. The other 75-80% were probably wondering what was with the tinkly video game music.

Then, this morning, as I was walking through the parking lot at work, I saw a license plate reading KATMARI, with a holder entitled "THIS IS HOW I ROLL". This is probably less funny to other people, but I was very amused.

annual bbq

Last weekend, I invited some friends to my parents' house for a BBQ/pool party and games night sleepover. I've done this every summer for a few years now, and it's not a particularly difficult event, coordination-wise, but it's always nice to plan for something to be fun and then to have it be fun.

Games played (not all by me): Power Grid, Arkam Horror, Puerto Rico, Goa, Deflexion, Settlers, Mastermind, Scrabble, Mario Kart, Super Smash Brothers.

another new project

I sometimes feel like my life is a bit unbalanced. Although I enjoy theatre and music and art, I usually spend most of my time around computers, and I mostly interact with other engineers.

So, I'm going to be attempting another new project (in addition to the Chinese cooking experiment). I will attempt to write actual book reviews of books that I've recently read (or re-read), and I will post them on this blog. We'll see if I can actually remember how to write.

cooking

The cafes at work are really good, so I only cook maybe once or twice a week. When I do, I usually end up cooking Japanese, Italian, American, or other Western cuisine. For some reason I can't seem to do regular Chinese food at all.

I recently dug up an old recipe book that my mom had given me. It's written in Chinese and English with photos, and has instructions for making a bunch of simple Chinese dishes. My new project (starting this week) is to master at least a few of these recipes. So far, I've tried three of them, with varying degrees of success. Anyone know how to properly tenderize meat?

jolie

Yesterday, while some people were over, I was flipping through channels and ran across one of the Lara Croft movies. We only watched it for maybe ten minutes, but even in that short time, I found it interesting, how many people have emphatic opinions about Angelina Jolie.

One person pointed out how she likes to watch Jolie's movies because she feels like indirectly, she's doing something good (1/3 of Jolie's income goes to charity). She mentioned Jolie's hands-on charity work with international refugees, and her adoption of two children from "Third World" countries.

Another person criticized her for having broken up Brad Pitt's marriage to Jennifer Aniston, and for having previously broken up other relationships.

A third person didn't really care about her personal life, but thought she was hot, and a fourth person promptly disagreed and said she was too weird looking.

As for me, I think she's a good actress in some cases (Girl, Interrupted) and bad in others (Gone in Sixty Seconds). I admire what she has done for charity, and how she appears to care very little about public opinion.

Perhaps it's that a strong personality that elicits strong reactions, in which case, I would imagine she is quite happy with her public persona.

it's a go

We just bought tickets for our Eastern Europe trip. We'll fly into Prague, visit Vienna, Budapest, and maybe Bratislava, and then hop over to Istanbul. I'm feeling a little bit broke, but am otherwise psyched.

sexism in the workplace

As a software engineer, one might expect that I'd have to deal with sexism in the workplace. I've read stories where women say they aren't heard in meetings, and I know the statistics (usually 10-15%) for women in computer science.

The thing is, I feel like I don't experience any of it. Maybe my coworkers are really cool, or maybe I'm just loud, so they can't ignore me. Maybe I'm just really used to working with guys, after five years of college and five years of working in technology. I know one thing for sure; these days, it almost feels a little freaky to be in a room full of women. It's like something unnatural has happened, to take all the guys away.

So, I was quite surprised the other day, by a sudden flare-up of apparent sexism at work. Our cubicles are fairly open, so I can see at least two cubes in either direction. I noticed a woman holding a sheaf of paper, walking slowly down the hall, and peering into the rows of cubes. I figured she was one of the people from HR who pass out interview packets, who come by a couple of times a week. Anyway, she stopped at my cube, and asked me if I was an engineer. I replied yes, and she said, "Darn, I was looking for a non-engineer, for a usability study." I told her the product manager cube was in the corner, but it looked like they weren't in at the moment. Anyway, she left in search of a non-engineer.

I'm usually hesistant to declare someone sexist. I looked at my clothes; I was wearing a t-shirt and jeans. I looked at my cube; as far as I could tell it looked like everyone else's cube. One of my cubemate had his headphones in, so it made sense that he was passed over, but there was one other engineer in our cube with no headphones in, and at least ten other engineers in the surrounding area, again sans headphones. I poked my cubemate (the one with the headphones) and explained what happened. His response? "Yeah, she probably went for the girl. Too bad our two GUY product managers aren't around." Grr...

done

It ends at 30. Yay! Now I can do real work.

puzzle

I've just spent the last thirty minutes on this strangely addicting puzzle. In fact, after I got stuck for awhile on 17, I roped my intern into helping me. I'm now on 27, and my only complaint so far is that 13 doesn't make sense in the sequence; it applies to the current number rather than the next number. Must...finish...

Ixtapa & Zihuatanejo

We got back almost a week ago now, but it's been an eventful few days. I was all proud of myself for not getting sick in Mexico, and then precisely 24 hours after landing, I came down with a horrible stomachache that practically paralyzed me for a day.

Things that I noticed:
- In Mexico, kids do real jobs. We rode on these water taxis between Ixtapa Island, Playa Madera, and Playa Las Gatas, and our drivers were usually teenagers. One boy couldn't have been more than 11 or 12 years old.
- There aren't very many American tourists in the Ixtapa/Zihua area, but there are a lot of Mexican tourists. However, I was surprised by the number of people who spoke at least some English, and the staff at our hotel (Las Brisas Ixtapa) in particular spoke excellent English.
- There is a very large difference between sitting in the sun and sitting in the shade. The first full day, we spent a lot of time lounging on the beach under a palapa, and we felt great. The next day, we took a side trip to Petatlan, and we could barely walk three blocks in the sun without stopping for a drink.

Things that happened:
- We went snorkelling and had an accident with a coral reef that involved lots of scrapes, several bruises, and an incident with a sea urchin. Lesson: Don't chase the fish blindly.
- We didn't drink the water, but even so, something in the food in Mexico does not agree with American-bred (or even Asia-bred) stomachs. Either that, or we got sunstroke from our day in Petatlan. Two people threw up, and two other people were mildly sick.
- I got sick of chips and salsa. Never thought that would happen.

Things that I enjoyed:
- We had our first night's dinner on the Playa La Ropa, at a restaurant called La Perla. The food was good, the beach was beautiful, and I discovered a new drink: limonada, or limeade with club soda.
- Part of Zihua does look like the fishing village that I imagined (the other part is a bit more like rural Taiwan than I would have liked). The good part is fairly picturesque, with lots of fishing boats, a market of fishermen selling their day's catch, and many small seafood restaurants by the pier.
- Ixtapa is not as touristy as I had thought it would be. In fact, it's still fairly small by resort standards, and the downtown area is nice to walk around.
- As is our habit, we went to a local supermarket on the first day to stock up on water and snack/breakfast-type foods. The store we went to turned out to be a huge Walmart-like place called Comercial Mexicana which sold everything from clothes to tires to food to beach towels and toiletries. We had a great time people-watching, marveling at the cheap and delicious fruit, eating soft-serve, and buying fresh churros for 10 pesos a bag.
- It was nice having a private beach for our hotel (accessible only by boat for others). Although it wasn't large, there were only a few other guests there, and there were lots of chairs, umbrellas, and towel service. Although it was a bit rough the day we went down there, we made sand castles and had fun wave chasing anyway.
- I had quite a good experience at our hotel. As I mentioned before, the staff spoke excellent English, and they provided great service as well. The front desk actually called a neighboring hotel and had a pair of tweezers sent over, after we requested one. The restaurants were good, and not expensive by American standards (although they were pricey by Mexican standards), and the beach and pool area were both well maintained. The rooms themselves were interesting; not luxurious in the normal way, but creatively decorated with a local flavor, and each with a private balcony and hammock overlooking the water.
- Before and after the coral reef episode, we had a great time snorkelling; there were tons of fish, and the ocean wasn't too crowded. At Ixtapa Island especially, the water was super salty, so it was practically effortless to float.

Overall, it was a good trip, although perhaps a bit more exciting than ideally. It was fun to experience Mexican culture, eat authentic food, and hang out at the beach every other day.

no charger for me

I'm leaving the country Saturday, and for the past two days I've been running around town looking for a replacement battery charger for my Canon SD550.

I've been to Circuit City, Best Buy, Radio Shack, and two different Wolf Camera stores, and discovered that none of them stock any battery chargers at all (only batteries). Wolf says they're back-ordered about three months. I feel like there's an unmet demand here, and if someone supplied the goods, they could make a healthy profit.

Anyway, I finally gave up and bought the charger on Amazon, but I refused to pay the $18 1-day shipping fee, so I guess I'll be rationing my camera use judiciously over the next four or five days.

post of the month

Wow, I've been pretty bad about posting recently. Looks like it's been almost a month. Let's see, what's been going on recently?

Well, I've been seeing an abnormally high number of movies: The DaVinci Code (ugh), MI3 (eh) and X3 (ugh again). I also saw Al Gore's movie, An Inconvenient Truth, which a (Republican) friend calls the "liberal propaganda movie". It was good for a documentary, but I don't particularly enjoy paying $10 to hear a lecture. Maybe I should go back to not watching movies.

The Memorial Day holiday was pretty busy; I had houseguests for a couple of days, and then there was a wedding in Marin and another in Monterey (I chose Marin). I went with my family to Farallon to celebrate my brother's birthday (belatedly) and the food was good, but I'm not a fan of noisy-trendy restaurants.

There were several other birthday parties over the past few weeks, which meant many dinners, as well as a mini-golf outing. I also managed to finish watching the last few episodes of Lost, which means I no longer have to avoid entertainment magazines.

Just yesterday I got back from a wedding in Seattle (first time I've been there since I was about 10). Generally I am not a huge fan of weddings (it's nice to see people, but there seems to be a lot of unnecessary pomp and ceremony), but this one was actually really fun. There was maybe 100 people at the reception; at least 25 were people that I had known in school, most of whom I hadn't seen for about five years. We hung out at Jillian's, caught up at the wedding itself, and spent the day after driving around Seattle, hitting various touristy spots.

Next up, six of us are headed to Ixtapa / Zihuatanejo for the 4th of July. It'll be my first tropical vacation since high school, when my parents took us on a (surprisingly boring) cruise in the Bahamas. I should really write a post about cruises at some point, but suffice to say they don't agree with me. Anyway, I look forward to several days of snorkeling and sand castles!

being cheap

I don't mind spending money when I feel that it's justified (e.g. Tivo, premium orange juice, nice sheets and towels, trying out new restaurants) but I hate discovering that I've paid more than necessary for a particular item/service. So, I research purchases online ad nauseum, check prices on eBay for weeks, and track cash rebate credit cards and savings account rates.

Recently, my Nokia 8265 started to run out of power at an alarming rate. The battery gauge would go from four bars to one during a 15 minute call. Since I've had the same phone for at least three years now, and it's a TDMA model, I thought I'd look into getting a new phone; maybe a quad-band GSM.

I called up Cingular, and asked for deals on new phones, and was told that I qualified for a new phone, but as an old AT&T Wireless customer, I would have to "upgrade" my rate plan in order to get one. By "upgrade", they meant, switch from my current $34.99/month plan (with unlimited incoming text messages) to a new $39.99/month plan (with no text messaging). Apparently, even if I bought a phone from a retailer, in order to activate it, I'd have to "upgrade" my rate plan. I declined, of course.

A week later I bought a new battery off of eBay for $6.96, including shipping and handling.

time to go east

A friend of mine is planning an Eastern Europe trip for this fall, and I'm hoping things will work out so that I can go too.

I've been to a bunch of countries in Western Europe, but I've never gone very far east, as you can see:

(You can make your own map at www.world66.com.)

pill popping

I went to the doctor about a week ago about some persistent foot pain. She diagnosed it as tendonitis, and prescribed 600mg of ibuprofen, to be taken three times daily, with food.

My biggest problem with this is that I don't usually eat three times a day. I've actually taken to getting up earlier and trying to get to work in time to eat breakfast at 10am, so that I can take my pills earlier in the day. Unfortunately, I still have to adhere to the 4 hour rule, so I can't take another set of pills until after 2pm, and I have to wait until I eat again, which is generally at dinner time.

Also, 600mg works out to 3 (over the counter) tablets, which means 126 tablets over two weeks. I've already finished bottle I had lying around (expiration date: January 2005), and am now raiding the first aid cabinets at work.

I never understood before why people talked about it being hard to keep to a medication schedule, but given my difficulty with a two-week regimen, I can only imagine what it's like for victims of chronic illnesses.

studying birth rates

From SFGate:

The study found there were 6.4 million pregnancies in the United States in 2001, resulting in about 4 million births. There were 1.3 million abortions and 1.1 million miscarriages. The pregnancies were almost evenly divided between intended and unintended, and the unintended ones led to almost even numbers of births and abortions.

Hidden in that sentence is confirmation that about 50% of pregnancies are unplanned. I conclude that if everyone in the country was willing and able to use contraception, and it were 100% effective, then our national birthrate would be cut in half. Basically, as a country, we're depending on many of our residents to plan poorly. In fact, many of them do, but they are disproportionately poor and uneducated.

It seems like in the long term, better public policy is needed, so that children will continue to be born to upper and middle class parents as well.

my brain hurts

I've been in Taipei the past few days doing some interviews and other events for work. It's been a bit of a stretch for me, in terms of Chinese speaking ability, but still a good experience. Unfortunately, I've had a headache for most of the afternoon; I can't decide if it's because I had to get up at 7:00am, or if I'm just tired from extracting Chinese vocabulary words from the furthest corners of my brain.

TripAdvisor

I've been planning a lot of trips recently, and I've been finding TripAdvisor to be an invaluable resource for reviews and ratings of hotels/hostels. They have amazing coverage; I've successfully researched hotels in Europe, Asia, Mexico, Seattle, and Hawaii. Unfortunately, they also have a pretty bad UI, and most of the pages are covered in ads.

RIP, Tivo #2

I first bought a Tivo in 2001, for $200 (Philips Series 1, 20 hours). The lifetime subscription cost me $250, and an 80GB hard drive (to upgrade to 120 hours) cost $200 back then, so I'd plunked down a total of $650 for the machine and its service.

You might ask why a new college graduate would blow $650 on a fancy VCR, but you'd be mistaken about Tivo. It's really hard to explain to anyone that hasn't used one for at least a couple of weeks, but Tivo changes your life. You never worry about missing TV shows anymore, you always have TV to watch that you actually enjoy watching, and you take pausing and rewinding of live TV as a matter of course.

My top five essential Tivo use cases:

1. Season Passes (with prioritization): You add a show, rank it with respect to all your other shows, and never worry about it again. If that show comes on, and it doesn't conflict with a higher ranking show, it gets recorded. Tivo does a really good job of getting updated service data, so even when the networks play with their schedules and start a minute early or end a minute late, the show usually gets taped in its entirety. I had over 35 shows in my season pass list.
   
2. Skipping Commercials: For five years, pretty much the only commercials I ever saw were for beer and cars (or whatever else was shown during sporting events). People would mention commercials that had been playing for months and I would have no idea what they were talking about.
   
3. Pause and Rewind: Once upon a time, we were at the mercy of the networks. They might choose to replay a particularly interesting/controversial play, or they might not. They might show it in slow motion, or they might not. With Tivo, you do it yourself; instant replay, whenever you want.
   
4. SportsCenter: I had a season pass set up to record every showing of SportsCenter, but to keep only the most recent two (in case one was in progress). This meant that at any time, I could turn on the Tivo, and watch whatever SportsCenter had been shown most recently; great for any sports fans, and a must for fantasy fanatics.
   
5. Reruns and other non-essential shows: I had a bunch of season passes set up to tape reruns of Friends, The West Wing, ER, South Park, MacGyver, Get Smart, whatever. I also tape some shows that I was mildly interested in, but could live without: Will & Grace, That 70's Show, and maybe some cooking shows. I mostly never watched these shows, but every so often, I'd just feel like watching TV, so I'd turn on the Tivo, and there were all these shows that I'd actually enjoy watching. After that, even when I was at home sick, I never had to watch daytime soaps and stupid talk shows again.

Sometime in early 2003, Tivo #1 gave out, which meant that my lifetime subscription was also invalid. I tried replacing the hard drive, but that didn't work, so I took drastic measures, and paid Philips $100 (plus some amount of shipping) to send me a new refurbished one, so that they would move over my lifetime subscription. At this point, I'd spent almost $800 on Tivo-related expenses, so I thought about it and concluded that if $800 bought me five years of Tivo ($160/year, ~$13/month), I'd be happy with my investment.

Ironically, almost exactly five years later, during some particularly nasty weather last month, my industrial strength Belkin surge protector apparently blew up, causing failures in my TV itself (power supply), my Tivo (audio output) and my VCR (write head). I cared very little about the VCR, which probably cost about $30 to begin with, and the TV was soon fixed, but I'm still grieving the loss of Tivo #2.

Last week, I decided I'd wait to buy a new one until Tivo comes out with an HDTV model that can record two inputs simultaneously, is broadband-enabled, and includes a DVD burner. We'll see if I can hold out that long.

blame it on the rain

I feel like I haven't posted anything in months. I blame it (quite unreasonably) on the terrible, horrible weather we've been having in the Bay Area.

Honestly, I think we've had less than 5 days of sunshine since late February. I've lived in the region practically my entire life and I don't remember there ever being this much rain in so short of a timeframe. There was a pretty bad year in the early 80's sometime; I remember an episode when I was very young, and my parents were having a hard time navigating our car through flooded roads and highways, on our way home from somewhere. Looking at historical rainfall records, it was probably 1983. I also remember a couple of bad years during high school (early to mid 1990's), but the rain was more spread out over the winter, rather than concentrated in one or two months, as it's been this year.

The supposed benefit of all the bad weather is that the snow in Tahoe has been awesome, although slightly more suited to snowboarders than skiers. Unfortunately, I haven't been up there since early February, so I haven't really taken advantage.

I'd actually been quite grumpy about getting rained out every weekend, until this morning, when I woke up to sunshine, a runny nose, a scratchy throat, and the realization that the rain had been holding off my normal spring allergies. I guess it's true about silver linings, and all that.

gaming is for grownups

I just came across this article which claims that adults play video games more than teens.

I can't say I'm surprised. Anecdotally, I've noticed:
- Most of my friends are Halo addicts.
- Starcraft is still well loved as a LAN party game among those of us who played in college.
- My sister and her boyfriend were/are FFXI junkies. In fact, they met while playing FFXI.
- I know of several people my age (including myself) who have game consoles in their bedrooms.

The first generation of people that grew up with video games is now well into adulthood, and I guess they're just choosing to continue playing games, both new and old.

congrats to Ang Lee!

I was really happy to hear that Ang Lee, one of my favorite directors, won an Oscar for his work on Brokeback Mountain. I've yet to see this one, but I've enjoyed most of his previous movies, including Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, The Ice Storm, and The Wedding Banquet.

As a side note, I am somewhat amused by the reaction by the Chinese press, who really had to do a number to spin this story. Not only did they claim Lee as "Chinese", even though he was born and raised in Taiwan, they censored any mention of the movie's subject matter. I guess it's probably a blow to national pride that Taiwan now has an Academy Award winning director, while China does not.

I wonder how they felt when Taiwan blew out China last week in the World Baseball Classic?

say what?

Taiwan's President Chen recently scrapped the dormant "National Unification Council", which was supposed to oversee China unification issues. China's response?

China has expressed its concerns directly to United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan about Taiwan's scrapping of a unification council with the mainland, Xinhua news agency reported.

I thought the CCP's position was that the "Taiwan situation" was an internal affair, but I'm delighted that they are now acknowledging Taiwan as a country, at least to the extent that they would lodge official protests against its government through the UN. Of course, thanks to Chinese interference, Taiwan has no seat at the UN, so I'm not sure what the Chinese government thinks it's doing.

waste not

Last weekend, while staying at my parents' house, I observed an interesting sequence of events:

- My cousin went to the refrigerator, took out an open can of soda with a piece of plastic wrap on it, and proceeded to drink from it while we ate lunch.
- She finished the can about halfway through lunch, whereupon she opened a new can, from which she drank for the rest of the meal.
- After we finished, she took the new can, covered it with the same piece of plastic wrap, and stuck it in the fridge.

I guess I'm surprised there are people who have problems finishing cans of soda (I drink at least two liters of water a day), but I'm also amused/impressed with my cousin's solution.

short month

The end of February always freaks me out. I'm just not used to the month ending so early, and I always get caught not having done something that I was supposed to have done.

As a prime example, this morning I found myself rushing to deposit some money into my checking account on the way to work, so that I would have enough to cover my monthly housing check. Bleah.

1-for-2 with 3 pts

I scored my first 3-pointer in a real game on Tuesday. Yay!

no shock value

My roommate was surprised to read the recent reports about the federal government's gross mismanagement of the Hurricane Katrina disaster.

I myself have long since ceased to be shocked by any amount of ineptness concerning the Bush administration. In my mind, it's entirely fitting that Dick Cheney went and shot his hunting buddy.

I'm still hoping for a new political party, or some other major change to the current political situation. All I ask is that we somehow instill a government that doesn't lie to me, doesn't lie to other countries, doesn't torture people, and doesn't spy on its own citizens.

my new favorite TV show

I still love Scrubs, but I've thoroughly enjoyed the first two episodes of Love Monkey, a new series on CBS. It stars Tom Cavanagh of Ed as Tom, a thirty-something music industry exec living in New York City.

I'm not sure exactly why I like the show, but it's some combination of Cavanagh's innate likeability (and ability to talk super-fast), combined with some pretty decent characterization, and lots of good music. For instance, Teddy Geiger, who I'd never heard of previously, appeared as a singer/songwriter prodigy in the pilot episode, and he was excellent.

Unfortunately, as of now, CBS has only ordered eight episodes, and the viewership numbers are mediocre, so it's unclear if the show will survive until next season. Go watch it now!

end of an era

This week, on the heels of John Spencer's death, came the news that The West Wing will end this year, after seven seasons. I'm sad, but it seems fitting that the show would end with the exit of the Bartlet administration. I'll have to remember to keep an eye out for a DVD package of the whole series.

Hines Ward

Hines Ward has been one of my favorite receivers since three years ago, when I picked him up from free agency in my fantasy football league, but I never realized that he was half-Asian.

From the Korea Times:

Steelers receiver Hines Ward, who was born in Seoul to a Korean woman and an African-American GI 29 years ago, caught five passes and a touchdown in the game against the Denver Broncos, contributing to the team’s 34-17 triumph.

Looking around a bit online, I ran across this interview by SI.com from last week. It sounds like he has an interesting personal history:

I was born in Seoul. My mom's Korean. My dad [Hines Ward Sr.] was in the military. We moved to the U.S. when I was one, and my parents got divorced. My dad remarried, and the courts wouldn't let me live with my mom. They said she was an unfit parent because she couldn't speak English and had no way to support us. So early on I lived with my dad and stepmom.

I went to live with [my mom] when I was in second grade. She was amazing. She had three jobs. Cleaned dishes at the Atlanta airport. Cleaned hotels. Was a grocery-store cashier. She'd work till two in the morning, then get up to make me breakfast before her airport job. She'd come home from that, and before she left for her next job, she'd have lunch on the table for me when I came home from school. I could never, ever repay my mother for everything she did for me.

votes database

The Washington Post has a fascinating new tool they call the U.S Congress Votes Database.

Basically, you can look up every vote by the House or Senate, all the way back to 1991. You can see what each bill/resolution was about, and see who voted for or against it. You can see which Congresspersons missed the most votes, which bills passed by the largest and smallest margins, and which votes were held late at night.

Of interest to probably only me:

These representatives voted against reaffirming the Taiwan Relations Act:
Neil Abercrombie, Bob Filner, Raúl Grijalva, Dennis Kucinich, Barbara Lee, Zoe Lofgren, Betty McCollum, Jim McDermott, George Miller, James Moran, James Oberstar, David Obey, Nick Rahall, Pete Stark, Jim Turner, Maxine Waters, Butch Otter, Ron Paul.

These representatives voted against the Taiwan Security Enhancement Act:
Neil Abercrombie, Joe Baca, Tammy Baldwin, Thomas Barrett, Earl Blumenauer, Bob Borski, Michael Capuano, Gary Condit, John Conyers, Danny Davis, Peter DeFazio, William Delahunt, Lloyd Doggett, Calvin Dooley, Lane Evans, Bob Filner, Alcee Hastings, Baron Hill, Maurice Hinchey, Darlene Hooley, Jesse Jackson, Stephanie Jones, Paul Kanjorski, Dennis Kucinich, John LaFalce, Tom Lantos, Barbara Lee, Zoe Lofgren, Robert Matsui, Jim McDermott, James McGovern, Cynthia McKinney, Carrie Meek, David Minge, Patsy Mink, James Moran, Jerrold Nadler, Richard Neal, James Oberstar, David Obey, John Olver, Major Owens, Donald Payne, Collin Peterson, Owen Pickett, Earl Pomeroy, Tim Roemer, Bobby Rush, Martin Sabo, Jan Schakowsky, Robert Scott, José Serrano, Ike Skelton, Vic Snyder, Pete Stark, Ted Strickland, Mike Thompson, John Tierney, Maxine Waters, Bernard Sanders, Bill Archer, John Boehner, Vernon Ehlers, Amo Houghton, Jim Kolbe, Jerry Lewis, Jim Nussle, Michael Oxley, Ron Paul, Matthew Salmon.

Unless she disagrees with her late husband, I guess I'll be advising people to vote against Doris Matsui, of California's 5th Congressional District.

RIP 104.9

A few days ago, back from my vacation, I climbed into my car, started up the engine, and discovered a horrible thing. One of my favorite radio stations, KCNL 104.9, aka "the new music alternative", had been replaced with a Spanish program.

Today, after a proper mourning period, I will be erasing my 104.9 preset. Does anyone have any suggestions for a replacement?

if you do the math...

Finally, a logical argument for having children, courtesy of The New Criterion:

“Replacement” fertility rate—i.e., the number you need for merely a stable population, not getting any bigger, not getting any smaller—is 2.1 babies per woman. Some countries are well above that: the global fertility leader, Somalia, is 6.91, Niger 6.83, Afghanistan 6.78, Yemen 6.75. Notice what those nations have in common?

Scroll way down to the bottom of the Hot One Hundred top breeders and you’ll eventually find the United States, hovering just at replacement rate with 2.07 births per woman. Ireland is 1.87, New Zealand 1.79, Australia 1.76. But Canada’s fertility rate is down to 1.5, well below replacement rate; Germany and Austria are at 1.3, the brink of the death spiral; Russia and Italy are at 1.2; Spain 1.1, about half replacement rate. That’s to say, Spain’s population is halving every generation. By 2050, Italy’s population will have fallen by 22 percent, Bulgaria’s by 36 percent, Estonia’s by 52 percent. In America, demographic trends suggest that the blue states ought to apply for honorary membership of the EU: in the 2004 election, John Kerry won the sixteen with the lowest birth rates; George W. Bush took twenty-five of the twenty-six states with the highest. By 2050, there will be 100 million fewer Europeans, 100 million more Americans—and mostly red-state Americans.

That's a scary thought. I wonder what the numbers for China and Japan look like?

sucks to be a Bengals fan

Finally back in the playoffs after 15 years, and your first-time Pro Bowl quarterback tears his ACL and MCL on the second play from scrimmage. A (very) small consolation is that he completes the pass; a 66-yarder to Chris Henry, and the longest pass in Bengals playoff history.

I guess the Bengals weren't likely to make it too far in the playoffs anyway, with their well-documented defensive woes, but it would have been nice if Carson Palmer had been able to finish his first playoff game.

something I noticed

Escalators in Hong Kong, whether flat or ascending/descending, move very quickly. I imagine it would be somewhat of a challenge to get on one while intoxicated.

heading home soon

I'm heading home in a few days, after having spent the last two weeks eating an obscene amount of really yummy food. Among the highlights:

In Hong Kong:
- Peking duck
- roast goose
- shrimp wonton soup at King's Palace
- dim sum at Metropol
- all-you-can eat dessert buffet at the Grand Hyatt
- afternoon tea at the Peninsula

In Taipei:
- sushi at Shintori (3 times)
- Christmas dinner buffet at the Lai Lai Sheraton
- black pepper steak at Alice's
- Chinese breakfast (mmm, grease)
- tonkatsu in Tien Mu
- yakiniku at Kanpai
- teppanyaki at New Hama
- Peking duck again, at Long Du
- pudding and more at Porcini
- Thai food at Wa Tsun
- lots of others that I've forgotten

Hong Kong was really fun; it was the first time I'd been there since the handover, and although things had changed a bit, I was better able to appreciate the sights and sounds (and tastes) that we did experience.

Although, it was also kind of a nice feeling to return to Taipei and see the shorter and dingier but homier buildings and the narrower but more familiar streets.