Posts from April 2005
April 29, 2005
This guy is psyched
Larry Appelbaum, a studio engineer at the Library of Congress, with a recently discovered Voice of America tape of a 1957 concert featuring Thelonious Monk and John Coltrane.
From the New York Times.
April 26, 2005
Tomorrow again?
The days are like air
Disappear into nothing
Tomorrow again?
April 24, 2005
Halfway
Big stretch to the right
40 years catches up fast
Almost halfway there...
April 23, 2005
Words
Back and forth talking
Does it make you feel better?
Words just hurt my head
April 22, 2005
Hair
Not washing my hair
Too tired to really care
Work calls it's sullen cry
April 21, 2005
Big booty
Fingers are blistered
Upright bass is so funky
Like a big booty
April 20, 2005
Yawn
Wife is in China
The night belongs to email
4am again
April 19, 2005
Bells
Church bells ring afar
It's noon, and time to leave home
The Living Room calls
April 18, 2005
Chunghua Post Office
Wow. I'm really amazed at the quality of the Chunghua Post Office English website.
Well thought out, fast download, simple design, no annoying flash, good UI. I think this is the first time I've seen a good government English site. I needed to find out the shipping size limitations to send a BIG package to Spain. Before, the fastest way was to lug a box to the post office and ask them face to face. Chances are you'd be repacking later and repeating your trip back.
Then I checked out the Chung Hua Post Office Chinese website. Quite the opposite of the English site. Not well thought out, slow download, messy design, lots of annoying flash, bad UI.
Makes you wonder.
April 17, 2005
Geeks
Sunday evening eight
Me and Christian MSN
Got this thing online
April 16, 2005
Multi-level orgs
I went to visit my friend John at his office the other day. He was weaing this weird thing around his neck that looked kind of like an electric razor. I looked around the office and noticed all the men were wearing them.
That reminded me of the old Star Trek episode where the planet's inhabitants are controlled by a neck ring which chokes them to death if they think about sex or try to escape the evil controller who I remember as an evil cave with flashing eyes. The planet of course is filled with super curvy hot chicks in silver mini outfits, and Kirk of course gets to teach the hottest one about the ways of earthly men.
Anyway, John has one of these things around his neck and I ask him impolitely, "What the hell is that weird thing around your neck?"
"Why, that's my Fresh Air Buddy. It purifies the air around my nose and mouth. It's one of our newest products."
"That's way too Star Trekkie for me," I say and glance around to see if there are any hotties in silver mini outfits.
I realize then that he's working for Ecoquest, the latest multi-level marketing company to enter Taiwan, who are selling air fresheners like egg tarts.
This kind of gives me the heebies as I tend to shy away from multi-level organizations - including large corporations, churchy stuff, Falon Gong, NuSkin, 4WD clubs, hiking groups, Hash House Harriers, and all other organized groups except maybe rec.audio.pro and Ebay, where I don't actually have to see anyone.
...but back to that Star Trek episode. Does anyone remember the name?
April 13, 2005
Mt. Datun
April 12, 2005
Vitasoul at the Living Room
Hey, don't miss our upcoming gig at the Living Room. We've been off for about 4 months. This will be a good show.
Keisha said she want to join in for a few tunes. So we added these to our repertoire... This, this, and this.
Don't miss the show!
April 08, 2005
On Being American
When people ask me where I'm from, I say the US. Even though I was born in Japan, and am half Japanese. There is hardly any Japaneseness in me.
The US is such a hodge podge of races. We're all mutts, and even though you hold a US passport it's hard to really say you are really American unless you are maybe full blooded Cherokee or something. Living in Taiwan, I think it's interesting how Chinese are so obsessed with family, and fascinated with heritage and blood lines, since most people can only go back three generations. It's sad too, because records were always destroyed, so a "Wu" or a "Chang" really can't have an idea of where they came from except some general speculation.
I started digging into my family history a few years back. This was sparked by the long discussions I would have with my grandfather when I was a kid about when he was a kid. I always enjoyed that a lot. I managed to sit down with him and archive about a thousand photos before he died. Writing down who was in the photos and where they were. I learned a lot about the way life was in the early 1900's.
In 2001 I put up some BBS posts on ancestory sites, and forgot all about it until last week, and went back and saw that there were a couple replies from 2001. I followed up with a quick email to a distant relative who had done an incredible amount of research, and she was able to unravel the mystery of some of the things I had forgotten over the past 30+ years, or remembered incorrectly from my childhood conversations with my grandfather. This helpful relative and I share the same great great grandfather. Her great grandmother was a sister to my great grandfather whom I knew little about since he died when my grandfather was young, and grandpa didn't have too much information on him other than to say he was from a well respected family and had a rich and important father. He showed me the photo of his own grandfather which I remembered to this day which helped verify that the above woman and I were related.
(This flag was raised over the Guilford Courthouse, North Carolina on March 15, 1781 by Captain Alexander Brevard's company, whose militiamen included my ancestor Jonathan Wall. They halted the British advance through the Carolinas and turned them back to the seaport towns. This was one of the bloodiest battles of the long war with the British losing over a quarter of their troops)
Anyway, I think it's just amazing that someone actually dug up and made these pdf images of Revolutionary War documents on my great great great great grandfather, Jonathan Wall, a descendent of Robert Wall, who was a first or second generation American descended from one of these early settlers of the Province of Maryland who landed directly from England: Andrew Wall, 1661; John Wall, 1663; Lawrence Wall, 1668; Richard Wall, 1670; Joane Wall, 1673; Thomas Wall and wife, Alice, 1675; John and Alice Wall, 1677.
Yes, apparently I am as American as they get. At least half of me.
April 06, 2005
Coffee, beer, fish, and speakers
I've been so lax lately. The club business keeps me way busy, so my blog time has hit record lows. I've been playing with my new Usher S-520 monitors (the best deal in Taipei for speakers hands down), looking into a new business venture involving grease and fish, mastering way too much live music, installing new gear at the club, digging into my geneology, building a tube amp, setting up a foreigner-in-Taiwan-book-project, and getting the Living Room ready for ecom. That combined with the daily battle of "life in Taipei" keeps me in a constant state of imbalance which I fuel with regular trips to E-coffee and healthy doses of Hoegaarden.
I've never figured out whether it's pronounced "Moe's (like owned by one of three stooges) or Moss (like that guy out of Bonanza), but the one down the hill from me is open until 2am most days, which means that if I get out of the club early enough, I can catch the best burger in town, the muo si la bao or the Spicy Mos Burger. They have lots of jalapenos and 
