The venue for last night's gathering of Oriented folk was Champagne, a suitably classy setup on Anhe Road. As usual, I was one of the first to arrive, despite the fact that I had been purposely loitering around the neighborhood in order to be late. Mingson greeted me at the door, and I stuck a nametag on my shirt in the naive belief that others would follow my example. Familiar faces began to show up, including those of such Oriented celebrities as "Alien", "Maoman", "Juba" and "Cranky Laowai". The more I think about it, the more these names sound like hackers or villains from old Dick Tracy comics.

The place quickly got crowded, but since most people weren't revealing their secret identities, I couldn't tell if they were frequent posters or just the usual voyeurs. Alien was mutter her opinion that they were mostly of the latter sort when her Scottish pal Rowen showed up. I was on foot so I'd been drinking a bit as I scavenged for the little sandwiches hidden like Easter eggs around the room.

Eventually Alien and Rowen decided to go to Watersheds, so I tagged along, drunkenly unaware that I had forgotten my hat at Champagne, so I had to go back for it. I had a "Mudslide" for the first time at Watersheds, which was typically too small but rather empty. we discussed a production of the Maltese Falcon and other theatrical things. At about midnight my companions were planning to stagger over to Carnegie, but I elected to stagger home instead. It was a fun evening, but faced with getting online and blogging about it or falling into bed, I chose the latter.

Today was uneventful. Boring work, misty dark weather, meetings where managers dissect all the life out of our work...happily I had Office Turtle around to entertain me by helping me type and even giving a TV interview to my Mr. Cameraman, who, by the way, is standing atop a printout of the Damn Book.

Anyway, it's now Friday night and I'm off, released to wander this gloomy city alone...*puts on moody 30's detective movie music*
etched by at 5:12 PM

I left work a bit early yesterday in order to make it to an editing test at the Ministry of Truth. The truth is, I have to admit, that even if they offer me that particular job I am not sure I would take it, since it would involve a rather stressful working environment. But I sent in my resume anyway, and then they wanted me to take the translation test, so I thought I would at least give it a shot. I didn't prepare at all for it. I was even a few minutes late, since the MRT stop was a little further away from the place than I had remembered. The test consisted of two news stories and a speech to translate. The speech had an English translation already to use as a guide, but it was so poorly written I found it quicker to just re-translate from the Chinese. And then there was an essay question for which I simply wrote the equivalent of a ranting blog entry for an answer.

There were four other guys in the testing room, all white, all about my age. Sean Scanlan, co-organizer of the Urban Nomad Film Festival, was there, complaining about the simplified characters in the dictionaries they provided us. Two of the other guys asked me if I was me; one of them knew Ronnie, with whom I worked at the newspaper so long ago, and the other had seen me on Oriented.

Speaking of Oriented, their happy hour is tonight, at some no-doubt trendy enclave on An-he Road. I didn't ride my motorcycle today due to the weather, so I will probably just walk over. It's only a few blocks from here, and I have an hour after I get off work to get there, and I like walking through this city. I'm constantly discovering little bits of it, hidden alleys and corner parks that I've never come across before.

This morning, since I was late for work as usual, I took a taxi instead of the MRT. I was taking pictures out the window of interesting sights along the way, such as the "USA English School", where USA stands for "Ubanity, Sagacity and Ardency" of all things. On the way I spotted a couple driving a black Mercedes-benz in the next lane. The woman was in the passenger seat, and the man was driving, but all of his attention was focused not on the road, but on his PDA, which he was manipulating with his stylus as we rushed down Xinyi Road in morning traffic. Not once did he look up, and eventually I overcame my surprise and took a blurry picture of the guy with my camera. Perhaps Mercedes has come up with a way to drive with your PDA, using the stylus to map out your course with a virtual representation of the road ahead on the little gray screen. But I doubt it. Odds are, in reality, that the driver was just ignorant. Anyone who drives can tell you that benzes and BMWs are often driven by the worst, most idiotic drivers. I suppose that is why they have to incorporate so many safety systems, so that they can survive the inevitable crash and sue the poor person they ran into while checking their stock portfolios at 60 mph. Idiots like that make me want to move out of the city altogether and take the MRT everywhere I go.

After I got to work I got a call from Lynn, who acted in A Man for All Seasons with me last summer. She has become a Buddhist nun, shaving her head and donning the gray robes nuns here wear for shopping and other duties, and she now works for Bookman Publishing. They had received my proposal and were wondering if I had a translation ready. For some reason, a lot of people have proposed doing a bi-lingual version of the Damn Book, with English on one side and Chinese on the other. I am opposed to this for several reasons, including the fact that it is not a textbook, and also, since there are some things that would not make it into the Chinese version, the versions would not match up. Such a book would also attract a different crowd, not necessarily the one I am aiming for, and while I could charge a bit more for each book, the printing costs would be double. It just wouldn't make sense.
etched by at 4:23 PM

One year ago, I began blogging here with these few entries. Since then I've gone to Australia, met new friends, finished my book and gained a noticable amount of weight. In celebration of this momentous event, instead of just going to bed like I usually do, I wrote a new edition of the News from the Renegade Province for all of you.

Also for your entertainment:

Bloodgolf! These ladies are still ready for a few rounds, even after that encounter with the leopards on the 17th fairway.

Bizarre Drinks with Cannibalistic Overtones! Not just cannibalism, mind you, but blonde cannibalism. I can't decide whether that makes it worse or better.

Manboy! Just the scooter for those people who just can't make up their minds,

And finally, Sparkling Scooter! Or not.


Office Turtle was awfully lazy today, just lying around on his rock. I was a bit concerned until I looked it up online and found that "yes, turtles do sit around on rocks a lot. In fact, that's just about all they do, so don't expect so much, you pathetic wannabe catowner." Or words to that effect.

This afternoon I had a phone interview with the reporter from ICRT. It seemed to go well, although I don't envy his his task of finding a minute and a half of usable material among my 20 minutes of random muttering, ranting and curses. He said it should air on May 2nd or so. I still don't know when the TV spot is going on, or even if it is going on. Perhaps someone will see it and tell me about it. "Hey!" some random stranger on the street will shout out suddenly in recognition. "I know you! You're that crazy foreigner who broke his sword in front of a huge TV audience!"

After work I rode over to the office of the military magazine/publisher who is interested in publishing the Chinese version of the Damn Book. It was a dirty little office in an dirty old building, but I have yet to see an organized publisher's office here in Taiwan. I talked with some of the staff and they seemed ok, and I also looked at some of the books they had put out, including the Chinese version of Richard Marcinko's Rogue Warrior series. Cool. I love those books, and it would be cool to be published by the same house, even if it is only the Chinese version.

That is all.
etched by at 12:47 AM

An abandoned freighter adrift in the pacific ocean with only a dog and one dead body aboard. Freaky. Sounds like a Stephen King story. You have to wonder what that dog's been eating all this time.

Speaking of eating, I had a delicious brunch at Jake's yesterday with Dean, Kay (now sporting a new B'Elanna of Voyager fame-esque 'do), Dave and Eoghain, who spent most of the time showing us how to input predictive text on our cellphones, something which had eluded me until Eoghain showed us the light. I then went home to fiddle with the damn book before going to sword practice. I am less and less inclined to go all the way across town on my motorcycle every Sunday night just for a short review of forms I already know. I think I might stop going and try to find another place to learn more new sword forms. I would also like to buy another sword to replace the one I broke on Saturday, but that can wait as I still have my back-up sword to use until I have enough money to get a decent blade.

The TV report is supposed to air on tonight's news. I am going over to Dean's after work to watch it, although I'd rather watch Futurama and Farscape. Maybe we'll tape the news piece. Tomorrow morning I am going to meet with a reporter from ICRT to talk about an interview later this week, and then that night Dean and I are going over to the military magazine publishers to chat up the editorial staff there and have a look around. Wednesday night I'm going to the Ministry of Truth to take an editing test for a job I am not really interested in, Thursday night is the Oriented Happy Hour thing, and Friday...well, I'll think of something involving wanton depravity (the very best kind of depravity!). A full week, in any case. Today I'm listening to some old Chinese songs from Shanghai circa 1940. Moody stuff.

I haven't been able to get in touch with Sho. In any case, I don't think I should spend too much time in here discussing such things. I'll leave that to Jody Lin.
etched by at 12:46 PM

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