Well, got back to Taiwan fine. Fuck me if it isn't hot as shit here though. Took a couple of days to get back into it, and work was already waiting for me by the time I got back in. Best thing though? Got back just in time for this piece of shit:
(pic was taken at about 7:30am Taiwan time. It's much closer now, at about 12pm.)
The first typhoon of the season, Super Typhoon Haitang. Yes, SUPER typhoon. This is going to be one big motherfucker of a storm this is. Should be fun.
Bugger left his bloody cellphone at home, so no backstage goodies for me. Poopies. And even the "dumb foreigner" card failed, which is highly unusual.
Concert was class though. If I can dig up any photos online tomorrow or Monday I'll post 'em up here - couldn't take any of my own 'cause I lent my camera to (flatmate) Brian for his two-week vacation to China, which he is presently in the middle of.
So I'm a lazy prick. Suck it.
Anyway, tomorrow night I'm finally heading out to my first proper concert here - Wu Bai & China Blue (l/p: waterbee6/eebretaw6). Wasn't too convinced about whether or not to go, despite the fact I really do dig their latest CD, but got talked into it by a friend of Kevin (Lakulaku owner) - and that friend turned out to be Xiao Zhu, the bassist and band leader for China Blue. Me, Kevin, and Kaori ended up spending like 3 hours chilling out and drinking with Xiao Zhu and some of his mates, during which he ended up talking me into going to the concert. Now, for you Kiwis still reading, this will mean nothing, but considering Wu Bai & China Blue are basically the godfathers of Taiwanese rock, and have been going hard for like 13 years and still kick ass, and are famous as hell, this was a fucking trip and a half. So I'm thinking I might try and weasel my way back stage tomorrow night too.
EDIT: Some music video clips available here.
In other news - I've finally got my ticket back to NZ booked. I'm flying out from Taipei on the 28th of June, flying via Bangkok to Auckland, and staying 'till the 11th of July.
What a bastard few days I've had. Looks like the keyboard thing was an omen - working on a Friday deadline project for Sinorama last Thursday night and the whole damned piece of crap machine died. Power supply blew, as it turns out. So after losing a couple of days to that and arsing about trying to get everything repaired (both hardware and data wise), I spend the next couple of days working till like 4am getting the work finished, plus having to work at the cram school Monday and today, and bloody Monday ended up being like a 9 hour day at the cram school with only a half-hour break. Then thanks to the tiredness I fly right off the handle at my boss at Sinorama and we exchange a few snippy e-mails - my having to delay the deadline on that work ended up causing her a few problems as well - and on top of having to spend the money on fixing my computer, and yesterday's students at the school ending up with harder-than-usual stuff to translate - one was five pages from a student of fine arts, sculpting to be precise, about his studies, his plans, and the aesthetic, theoretical, and artistic concepts behind one of his major pieces, which itself took damn near six hours straight to do, it's like the whole world is conspiring against me. So pretty much I'm having the biggest "Fuck Taiwan, fuck this shit hard" day today. Although I did just get an e-mail back from the translation boss at Sinorama apologzing for her going off the deep end at me after I apologized to her, so at least I didn't manage to screw that up too bad. Still, not exactly the best period of time in my life today. Sick, tired, stroppy, and busy; what a shitty combination.
This cram school job has taught me a valuable lesson about Chinese culture. Punctuality is not part of it. Anywhere. I had a student booked in for a 1pm appointment, doing nine pages of translation. So I wrap up my 11:30 with like 10 minutes to go, rip out and grab a quick lunch of a chicken shawarma and some orange juice, then get back in time for the 1 o'clock. 1:30 - still no student. 1:45 - zip. 2:00 and I'm out of there. Screw 'em. I got better things to do. (Actually that's debatable. Other things, yes. Better, maybe not.) So I clock out. And unless that student has a bloody good reason why they fucked me about, when they book in again, I hope they're not expecting quality work. If they don't give a fuck, why should I?
Anyway, tomorrow should be better. Hopefully I've still only got my 10 o'clock, then I can get home, get more of my damn Sinorama work done, and get some dinner before heading out to The Living Room for some musical stylings. Heading out there with Joyce and Kaori, and probably Black Willy I imagine, if he can pass up the lure of pizza and booze.
OK, so I got the goddamned keyboard piece of shit worked out... that old keyboard is officially screwed. Kind of a shame, it was a comfortable thing, but ah well. But in its place I'm now rocking the hardcore wireless stylez - wireless keyboard, wireless mouse, wireless network... I AM TEH MAN OF TEH FUTURES.
And of all the luck, I get that shit sorted out only to find out that the bigass job I'd been negotiating before has officially been half-postponed. Apparently the magazine is still "in discussions" with the Government Information Office over how they want the stuff translated. What is there to discuss? You have it in Chinese and want it in English. Hardly neurosurgery. Mweh, whatever. Still got the proofing, but I've done most of that already, now I'm just slacking as always.
Had a blast from the relatively recent past since like Saturday - an old classmate from back at university is back in Taipei for a week or so at the moment. Been quite nice having an old familiar face about. Haven't hung out much yet, since I've been at work and/or he's been catching up with old friends from last time he was up here (he lived in Taipei for like six years until 2002). But he's crashing out in the lounge for the week, so there's a bit of hanging out. Plus he bought along some chocolate and salt & vinegar chips from back home, which is total gold.
God I can't wait for work to fully slack off. I need to have some time to get out and actually do some shit. So sick of the work-home-sleep-work-home-sleep shit.
Oh yeah, while I remember - had some fun on Sunday morning at about 3 am. Twin earthquakes, both apparently 5.9 Richter, one after the other, followed by a couple of aftershocks. Rocked mighty hell out of the apartment, but didn't manage to knock anything down amazingly. Pulled the front sliding door open an inch or two though, which is impressive because it's a task and a half to open that piece of shit by hand.
I was about to type up an actual update, but I just managed to spill half of a big-ass cup of coffee all in my keyboard and now it's acting all kinds of funky and doing weird shit when I hit certain keys (like Backspace). Given that I've got like 40 pages of editing work and approximately a metric assload of translation shit to do in the next couple of weeks, this is not a good thing. Hopefully the piece of shit dries out OK overnight. Otherwise I guess I'll need to get a new keyboard. Which sucks 'cause this one's hell comfortable for typing, all ergonomic and not made anymore and shit. Ah well. That's what I get for not cleaning my desk I guess.
In the meantime read this shit and enjoy it. It works best if you actually go from right at the start of the archives, but considering it's been going for like three and a half years I could understand not doing that.
As a brief intro, aforementioned young lass is a Japanese girl by the name of Kaori, a busker by "trade" for want of a better term, who performs live every Friday night at a Japanese (ish) bar/restaurant by the name of Lakulaku (#3, Alley 7, Lane 137, Yanji St, Taipei City - 台北市延吉街137巷7弄3號1樓) run by a Taiwanese guy, Kevin. In between her sets, sometimes some of the customers, or even Kevin himself, will take to the stage and perform impromptu, it's a fully informal setup. One particularly noteworthy regular is another Taiwanese guy whose English name is - get this - Slaughter. Seriously. Anyway, he's a big Tenacious D fan, and part of a ska band, and so sometimes he'll get up and start rocking out on the electric guitar playing Tribute, Fuck Her Gently, or Kielbasa. And he's just a hell of a loose unit in general too. Great guy really. Anyway, here go the photos from last week:
Kevin (owner of Lakulaku) and Kaori 
Kaori on stage 
Catgirl Kaori
Irene, Joyce, and Wally 
Wally, male model. Or not. 
Westsyde biatch! 
Joyce, drinking from a big girl glass. 
The Forumosa Cake 
Chris and Reiner
Well, it's now officially both the Western New Year and the Chinese one, and in line with that (and because I've forgotten the password to my old, long-neglected blog), I'm starting afresh. Since it's 1am and I've only just finished setting this piece of shit up, I'm not going to post too much. Basic rundown of life at present:
Technorati/tetsuotw
Flickr/Tetsuo
Twitter/Tetsuo
YouTube/TetsuoTW
GMail/lolwat?
