Lomicus Dorkus (The Daily Lomo)

2011-06-06T02:08:00.002+08:00

I have a new computer. I'd like to say that my old computer going on life support was the reason I haven't been posting here, but actually the state of my files and the editing program I use for them were not much affected by the transition. So again, just lazy. Laziness is bad, m'kay?

February 9, 2009 - Both of these lomos are from the southern bank of the recently re-opened Keelung Riverside Bikeway, before they were closed! ~~In fact, I think this was shot before they built a pedestrian/bike ramp from where I'm standing to the catwalk of the bridge shown, allowing people to cross the river here.~~ Bah, the photographic evidence of the shadow in the foreground clearly shows the ramp had already been built by the time I took this shot. Tres convenient. That tower across the river used to be the chimney for waste disposal (trash incineration), and now has a revolving restaurant on top of it. Go fig.

Neither shot was taken from a place that was closed, but to get to these areas from where I live was a pain because of the flower expo. Now that the whole thing is open again, it's a part of my regular 20-25 mile training rides, hopefully building up to extended rides outside of Taipei.

This shot is right about where the bikeway was closed for the flower expo. That's the Grand Hotel across the river. Above are MRT tracks of the Danshui Line, and the red towers aren't supporting a bridge, but what I can only gather is a water pipeline. Again, go fig.

Like the First Time (T-ara)

looking sorta up

2011-05-17T13:37:00.001+08:00

January 16, 2009 - Dazhi Bridge crossing the Keelung River. Finally, the Taipei International Flora Expo is OVER!! It was a major horticultural show and even though it was criticized for corruption and practicality, I hear it did turn out to be a tourism success, good for the economy, although I wonder how much of that tourism came from China, bad for Taiwan's independent status. The current president seems bent on making Taiwan more reliant on China.

My personal peeve about the flower show was that it closed the riverside bikeway on the south bank of the Keelung River (other side of the river to the right of the bridge) for over a year and a half. By the time I got back from the U.S. this time, the show was over and I rode over to the site and asked a worker when the bikeway would be open and he said it should be open by June.

February 9, 2009 - Taiwan Beer Factory! Mmmm, beeeeer. That's Taiwan pop singer A-mei shilling for Taiwan Beer. For most part, I hate pop music, but I've given A-mei's music a chance and some of it is listenable. Some of it is god awful. Like her song "The Power of Love" just made me think about the power of crappy music to make me hurl. But of course my fandom of K-pop has stripped me of much of my credibility and towering music authority, if not taste, so I should probably just shut up.

Mind you, I am full aware that there is plenty of crappy K-pop. Mind you, there are also very, very few legitimate rock acts from South Korea that I know of (I can't say anything about North Korea, although I hear Kim Jong-Il fronts his own heavy metal band that every North Korean knows every lyric to).

There She Is (Witches): legitimate South Korean rock band. Singer has a cool ass voice.

things are looking up

2011-05-11T15:57:00.003+08:00

Looking straight up, that is:

December 20, 2008 - This roll is the first roll in my 2009 folder, but I started shooting it in 2008. I'm not sure what this is, I should've taken another shot from another perspective and probably will. It's some kind of sculpture with possible Taiwan indigenous tribe influences, and it's pointing east, so I think it may have some significance with sunrises. I dunno, when I saw it, I thought of it as some kind of sun sail.

January 18, 2009 - Just about every neighborhood in Taipei has a small neighborhood park. This isn't my neighborhood park, but it's not too far from me. And it was apparently a nice day in January for me to be sitting out in a park. Wow, this is old. It's a full year before I quit/took a break from my job, and I feel like I haven't been working for quite some time. Hm, it may be time to print up some more money.

Don't forget to back up your digital files:
Back It Up (Jewelry)
I (obviously) feel no need to defend my music cred on this blog, thus the shameless links to K-pop. I'm still waiting for the day that I'll look back and be mortified and embarrassed that I was listening to this pop drivel. It's just so damn catchy.

2011-05-07T12:35:00.002+08:00

Flew into Taipei a couple days ago. It was raining when I landed and it's been dreary since, but I don't mind. It's May, so as soon as the sun comes out, it'll get plenty hot plenty quick around here, so I'm not complaining if the clouds are keeping temps just warm.

I really need to change my life around here, I don't want to go back to doing just what I was doing before the trip to the States, and I think shooting more may contribute to that end. Shooting = Getting out of the apartment during daylight hours.

I already bought more color rolls for the Fisheye and I also have my brother's Nikon D80 DSLR to try to shake things up. I think maybe I stagnated with black and white film because of too much coffee and too much stress over whether a shot is worth using a frame of film.

Ironically, the D80 allows a flexibility that I've criticized about DSLRs before, which is it allows mindless shooting of endless frames, and inevitably one of those shots is going to be usable. But that might be what I need now to get over the paralysis and indecisiveness of wondering whether to take a shot or not.

But this is not about black and white, this is lomo, and I still have about 4 rolls of unposted fisheye (only 4 rolls over the whole of 2009-10! bleah.), while I dust off the fisheye 2 and see if I'm seeing anything.

Taipei overview:

December 9, 2008 - Jiankang Street and Nanjing East Road. I still consider this my neighborhood as it's within walking distance, although towards the outer range of my walking distance.

December 17, 2008 - Freedom Plaza with the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall in the distance. The whole plaza used to be dedicated to Chiang Kai-shek, but he's a controversial character and I thought it was appropriate for the government to take some of that back and dedicate the plaza to freedom and democracy. Chiang Kai-shek was a dictator and a ruthless butcher, but without him, Taiwan's current democracy might not exist.

Oh, and that's a group of Tibetan protestors at the foot of the gate, lobbying Taiwan to protect Tibetan refugees who have escaped from mainland Chinese repression.

Needless to say, this construction is all complete now. The riverside bikeway on the lower left is complete and open, and the bridge on the middle right -- I forget if that's what they were tearing down or putting up. I think maybe they were putting that one up, and where I was standing was the bridge that eventually came down to improve traffic flow over the Keelung River.

Rock U (Kara)

2011-05-02T23:21:00.048+08:00

After a month in the U.S., I'm heading back to Taiwan tomorrow morning, and it just so happens that the concluding frames on this roll of lomo are shots of my neighborhood in Taiwan. Maybe this will ease the shock of being back there. Or not.

December 2, 2008 - Funky winter sunlight in the stairwell leading out of my building. I live on the 3rd floor. Prior to here, I lived on the 6th floor of a building with no elevator. For the first few days after moving here, I kept making this turn out of habit to go up further before realizing I live here.

November 29, 2008 - Neighborhood park just down the alley from me. It's a nice place to stop before going home and munch on something or just decompress. Line dancing occurs here every night, too, one can imagine. They consider it exercise, but it pretty much looks the same as line dancing.

December 2, 2008 - In the opposite direction of the park from me is a local food street a block away, although this one is nothing to write home about. There's only one food stall I go to pretty regularly that has a really good fried onion pancake type thingie which I like with either cheese, tuna or kimchi and a fried egg. Otherwise it's mostly sustenance-level food, not to savor or enjoy.

Considering the events of the last 24 hours, I'm well aware that I'm about to get on an airplane tomorrow and subject myself to the indignities of airport security. I managed to avoid the full-body scanner at SFO coming here because the line was getting so long that security opened up another line starting from the person in front of me, and that line didn't go through the full-body scanner.

Aside from the "U.S.A.!" chanting idiots, my opinions on Osama bin Laden's death is pretty much in line with the rest of America. Actually, I'm even in line with those idiots, I just disagree with that thoughtless, sports-fan expression in response to killing one man who is still responsible for killing thousands of our own. I think such whooping and hollering is disrespectful to their memory.

I did feel a cloud lifted when the news came through, and that was right when the news broke and before the hype of what big news it was started snowballing. It was something that had been left hanging for the past 10 years. It had fallen into the background, but now that it's done, it's clear that it has been something lingering that needed resolution.

Now I'm waiting for the conspiracy theories to arise. This story is ripe for conspiracy theories.

RAWRGHH!!!!

2011-05-01T12:34:00.001+08:00

Dang it, I do, I really do want to get this blog off the ground. Like the kites in the previous posts. Fly, lomoblog, fly! I'll be the ~~flatulence~~ wind beneath your wings.

Shot 2 and a half bloody years ago, here are the last shots from that ride before I went crazy and stopped posting. Fortunately this isn't a current events blog, and pics are just pics, even 2 and a half years later. That's the extent of me being philosophical:

Looks like kind of a fishing village on the east coast of Taiwan. I say "looks like kind of" because I image fishing villages being isolated, but northern Taiwan is largely urbanized and these fishing harbors aren't exactly isolated. Fisherfolk don't even need to live near their boats and non-fisherfolk also inhabit these parts. Or not. I don't know. I don't have the documentation. Sometimes I just like to make shit up. Get off my back.

Shipping containers piled up at Keelung Harbor. The bike ride goes up the coast from Ruifang to Keelung - the largest port in northern Taiwan. I think Kaohsiung in the south is Taiwan's largest port.

After reaching Keelung, the ride heads west back to Taipei. I've been exploring cycling routes between Taipei and Keelung that don't go on what are basically highways, and I've found a network of back roads and riverside bikeways that accomplish this. This was at one of the access points of a bikeway. A fat, laughing buddha. Which is a Chinese folk creation. Has nothing to do with Buddhism per se.

An impressive bridge tower which I can't help but think was built more for show than to hold up a roadway. Seriously, if I took a wider shot, it's just a short piece of road that hardly warrants such a structure.

空に咲く花 Sora ni Saku Hana (Chitose Hajime)

2010-11-30T18:37:00.003+08:00

Yoly Moses, I've been away from here for over a year?! I delete contacts on my fotolog if someone hasn't posted for a year. The lomos below, btw, have been sitting in drafts since August last year.

Truth to tell, I haven't been shooting a whole lot of anything, and even less so fisheye lately. But truth to tell, I do think I have a roll of fisheye that I haven't done anything with at all, so that's just being lazy. And truth to tell, if the theme here is to be all lomo-y, then why does it look like it's all fisheye, when my Rainbow V 22mm lens ultra wide & slim is also considered a toy camera and now under the umbrella term of "lomo". And I have been shooting with the Rainbow V. My how paradigms come into focus over a year of none activity.

Geez, the previous post was right before southern Taiwan was devastated by that horrible typhoon. It wiped one mountain village off the map. And video of a 6-story hotel falling into river was broadcast around the world. And the lomos in that post were from November 2008? Two years ago! I'm time's bend-over boy.

So, since August 2009 ... I left that job at the newspaper. I didn't really quit, I just told them I wasn't coming back until they shaped up operations.

What happened was that at the beginning of December, the other reliable copy editor quit after giving over a month's notice. In all that time management didn't make a concerted effort to find a replacement, to my disbelief. At the last minute, they half-heartedly found a few people to try out.

So after that co-worker quit, it was just me and these other people who didn't know the job, didn't know the pace, and I didn't have any time to train them. So from that point on, it was just insane for me, basically copy editing every page myself, with the trainees just doing what they could to just skim a little bit of the burden off.

I scheduled a vacation to go back to the U.S. in mid-January and that was my ultimatum. I did that craziness for a month and a half, sometimes sending pages to the printer after only one print-out from the page designers. Usually several print-outs are necessary to catch all the mistakes and two copy editors had to sign off before sending.

But I was leaving mid-January and I told them it was none of my business what happened after that, they had to figure it out. And I also told them after I got back, I was taking a break for at least 2 months, lest they thought they could just wait out my vacation.

Well, those 2 months just kept on extending and extending, and I'm still not working, even though they did finally stabilize the position and the overall craziness. One copy editor did recently suddenly quit, putting them in a bind, and I thought that's not a good sign. There must be a reason for that, but it turns out that he was just unprofessional and someone with no honor. But it put the paper in a bind and they asked me if I could fill in a few shifts until they could find a replacement, and I agreed, but I still have no intention of returning permanently yet.

Otherwise, I haven't been doing much of anything. Just figuring out the meaning of life, listening to music, finding the meaning of life is listening to music, and ... that's it. I think I'll call 2010 my "lost year". Everyone needs one of those anyway.

Anyway, the lomos below are from the same bike ride out to Taiwan's east coast as the previous post. A 40 mile ride if I remember correctly, and it was cloudy on the coast, but also windy so perfect for kite flying. There's like a "kite point" out there which is famous for having perfect winds for kiting. There's also one on Taiwan's north coast where there's a kite festival every year, and so I'm sure one is held at this place, too.

Oig, from November 15, 2008!:

Hoot (Girls' Generation)

2009-08-07T19:29:00.003+08:00

November 15, 2008 - Approaching the end of the Keelung River bikeway at the east end of Taipei. I was going on a ride out to the east coast of Taiwan. Look how nice the weather looks.

But on the east coast it was all cloudy. Reminded me of San Francisco, except I lived under the overcast, and rode out to the sunshine.

No sunshine now. It's a typhoon day in Taipei, Typhoon Morakot, and I don't have to work because my Friday shift got switched to Thursday earlier this week. I wonder who's the sucker who got stuck with the typhoon shift. I think they're going to try to knock-off early tonight, at around 11, but it won't make a difference, the typhoon is going to hit in the general area of tonight.

I still ended up riding home in the rain last night because I wanted to get my bike home and not leave it out during the typhoon at work. But I only started riding home because it wasn't really raining so bad when I left. But then it started picking up and picking up and I was pretty soaked by the end.

During typhoons it's all rain and wind, but pre- and post-typhoon, it's really touch-and-go. It may be calm as a lamb one moment, and then raging gusts 15 minutes later.

I have a different mentality during typhoons, which assumes getting soaked. We might have some rainy weather that I wouldn't think of riding my bike or going out in, certainly not without an umbrella, but during a typhoon, it might be much worse and I'll go skipping out into the rain; wind blowing in gusts tempting me to break out in a Michael Jackson imitation.

So I'm apartment-bound for the duration. I think it may still be stormy by my shift tomorrow, so I'll take a bus to work, dress like I'm going for a swim.

I Am One (Smashing Pumpkins)

2009-07-30T02:37:00.003+08:00

October 21, 2008 - Jinshan, Taiwan. Beautiful northeast coast, around where the nuclear power plant is - maybe right across from the street from it, since I remember I stopped there to get a dose of radiation.

I haven't been riding at all. Kinda makes me feel bad about my bike just sitting there doing nothing. It's a got a mechanical problem I should probably tend to, but I'm also worried about exacerbating a knee pain.

Riding from Jinshan to Keelung before turning right and heading back to Taipei. Late in the day with the sun in the west. Long Sailor Moon pose shadow unavoidable.

I've been totally remiss about posting here because I got sucked into Facebook after I got back from the U.S., but the novelty there has worn off, so I can get back to this. But I need to shoot more, I'm running out of lomos! Bleah!

But with insomnia and struggling to get enough rest, it's hard to get out of the apartment except for work. Oh, and also because if this was anywhere else, we'd be in a heatwave, but this is Taiwan and it's already so hot that it seems ridiculous to call it a heatwave just because of a few added degrees. But 88 degrees in my apartment! That got my air conditioner on.

Anyway, a co-worker said she's getting into lomo and will buy an action-sampler soon, so maybe someone else shooting can get me shooting, too.

Combat Baby (Metric)

2009-07-13T00:51:00.008+08:00

October 21, 2008 - Taipei, Taiwan, Shilin District up Mt. Yangming, the highest peak in the greater Taipei area. I forget the altitude, but I think it's up there. The climb is comparable to Bay Area peaks and I think the highest point on the climb tops 3,600 feet. This point is more like around 2,000 feet. The Chinese Cultural University is up here, and they boast that they're the highest university in Taiwan.

After climbing up Yangmingshan or the surrounding mountain ranges, it's possible to take various routes down to Taiwan's northeast coast. On this day, I rode down to Jinshan and made way back to Taipei along the coast to Keelung, and then cutting back inland.

I'm back in Taiwan, back to work. Insomnia is back after 3 weeks of no sleeping problems in the U.S. I had absolutely no jetlag flying to the U.S., and surprisingly, I had no jetlag coming back here! Confounding really. Maybe it's the wonders of insomnia.

My Sony Ericsson phone broke a couple days after I got back. I got a Samsung F258 Musicall cellphone to replace the Sony W395 only because the Samsung has a 3.5mm headphone jack, whereas with the Sony you have to use the supplied Sony adaptor.

I can't tell you how much I hate the Samsung. When is the last time I hated something? I can't get rid of this phone fast enough, I'll probably give it to one of my cousins to give to their kids when they are of cellphone age. I want nothing to do with it, and I'll replace the W395 with another W395. I loved that phone.

I guess I bought the Samsung partly because I'm getting a little too caught up in all things Korean:

Girls Generation - Gee

2009-06-30T06:12:00.003+08:00

October 19, 2008 - The view from the outside hall of my 3rd story floor. The entire floor I'm sure used to be one whole apartment, but my landlord - my cousin's uncle on her mother's side - partitioned it off into separate apartments with a shared kitchen.

A short walk from my building is this roundabout at Minsheng East Road and Sanmin Road. This is a very nice section of town. A lot of residential neighborhoods in Taipei still have their old dump-like quality, so much so that the government is offering building owners subsidies to beautify their exteriors. Not in this section. For most part, residential buildings are very nice by any Western city standards. Not shiny, bright and modern, but this area of town was obviously built with a plan in mind. Not haphazardly.

I'll be leaving New Jersey next Tuesday morning, arriving in Taipei Wednesday evening, back at work Thursday night. Not sure how I feel about going back. As something I have to do, I guess I'm ready, but if I had my druthers, maybe I wouldn't.

I'm hoping to start shooting more. At least a little more than I have been. On the SLR front, I'm "retiring" my Pentax ZX-5n and taking my brother's Nikon N70 hand-me-down, for which I just bought a refurbished Nikon 24mm-120mm zoom lens. Just being a Nikkor autofocus lens is sweet. Much quicker and more accurate than the Pentax. From when I tested the Nikon against the Pentax before, the Nikon blew the Pentax out of the water.

2009-06-20T08:15:00.002+08:00

September 26, 2008 - Kaohsiung, Taiwan - Bike path near the Pier 2 arts center between Fisherman's Wharf and the mouth of the Love River.

Western sun explosion behind a freighter in the harbor. I haven't been shooting much of anything these days. I'm wondering if it's a total loss of inspiration, but I'm just not seeing photographs anymore. It's tough, because I know they're out there, it's just a matter of looking and being in tune with finding something.

I'm back in the U.S. now for three weeks to recharge my batteries, get Taiwan out of my system and see how I feel about staying there once I go back. Of course, I don't know what I'd do here if I came back, so as long as I have a job there, I'll just cruise along.

I'm actually appreciating suburbia this time back. My brother bought a house since I was last here, and I've been coming over everyday . . . since my parents don't have Internet at their house. They live less than a mile away from each other.

Most important is getting my fix of American food. SF Mission District burritos - check; Fort Lee pizzeria pizza and lasagna - check; mac & cheese - check.

Also it turns out my brother is some sort of computer whiz and he switched out my dying, 4-year-old, 60GB hard drive for a new 250GB one, and it's almost like I have a new computer; that's how close to death it was before. It was soooo slow, and I couldn't play audio or visual files, and all my music files were on an external hard drive. Now everything's back up to speed and music files are back on my computer. I'm just still getting all the programs I was using before back up. But I'm happy, laptop's happy, who can ask for more?

I guess it shouldn't be any surprise that my brother is a computer whiz. He ended up becoming a doctor, but he was the OG version of computer geek - an OCG. He was among the first modem users, posting on local "bulletin boards" - I remember everyone wanting to make phone calls and picking up the phone and getting that high squeal of modems talking to each other.

He's got a set up now that I can't even get my head around. He's got it set up so that he can control computers at his home from his office. That may be child's play for big corporations with network engineers and such, but that he set this up more or less himself is pretty impressive. I know he had to call in software engineers whenever code was involved, but he maintains the hardware himself. G'dam.

2009-06-12T03:06:00.003+08:00

September 24, 2008 - Kaohsiung, Taiwan. Odd sign at Kaohsiung Harbor, because this is not a major entry point into Taiwan, and the people who use this entry point don't speak English.

Dome of Light at the Formosa Boulevard KMRT station.

I'm just streaming along at work. For a while there it looked like they were going to cut my hours, and if that happened I was going to give notice on the spot. I don't know if my threat made it to my boss, who I never talk to anyway, or if my co-worker who handles scheduling took a more diplomatic tack to make that not happen so far.

Anyway, since there's no communication between in my boss, I was going to interpret a cut in hours as dissatisfaction with my work, and if I'm not doing a job satisfactorily, I don't want to do it at all. And if no one is noticing that newspapers I work on have less major/facial mistakes than papers on days I don't work, then I don't want to work at a place where my efforts aren't recognized.

When I mentioned that to someone, he actually said the boss wanted me to work more hours, full time instead of the 80% that I'm working now, but after thinking about that, I decided that makes no sense. If he wants me to work more hours, cutting my hours is not the way to go about doing it. So if I get back from vacation, and my hours get cut, I'll still quit.

I wonder if any of this has to do with the fact that I'm going on vacation for 3 weeks starting next Tuesday! Yay! It is strange for a worker to take 3 weeks off, but I argued that this trip was long in the planning before I was re-activated, and I couldn't take it earlier because I was waiting to get my citizenship and was still fulfilling the residency requirement. And it was non-negotiable, it was a condition of my accepting re-activation. The new editor-in-chief said OK, but it may have still stuck with him as uncool.

I don't know if I'm excited to go. Traveling is such a nuisance now with swine flu and security checks, and I flying on my father's miles, so the flights there and back are broken into 3 legs and multiple airlines. I definitely want to go, but why can't have someone invented a transporter like on 'Star Trek' yet.

I don't have any plans of what to do there. Think I'll just chill.

2009-06-02T04:22:00.002+08:00

September 24, 2008 - Kaohsiung, Taiwan. Not a very interesting shot of the main bridge at the Heart of Love River. I'm not sure what the Heart of Love River is. Maybe it's supposed to represent some center of Kaohsiung. Or not. It's an extra developed area along the Love River bikeways and is pretty at night. But there's nothing to do there. It's just there.

A not very interesting shot of muddy-looking waters of the Love River, also by the Heart of Love River. I think I was particularly uninspired shooting this roll. Even now. I haven't loaded a new roll since I finished the last one several weeks ago.

2009-05-20T04:13:00.003+08:00

September 20, 2008 - More riverside bikeway. I think this is in Beitou District in northern Taipei. Not having car, girlfriend with car, nor willing to transport by car, I'm not sure what the roadway is overhead, but no doubt it's some bit of freeway to make a few miles go faster. *sigh* what ever happened to US$150 per barrel oil? Funny, though, that bend in the freeway actually looks straightened out by the fisheye. It's actually a pretty sexy line.

Guangdu Temple, a famous Taoist temple in northern Taipei. I haven't been riding this year. I just started running again, but, alas, no motivation to take my bike out yet. I think part of it is psychological. I don't want to just repeat what I did last year. I don't want to get out on my bike and ride the same routes I did last year, and I covered most of them last year. I can't think of many routes that I've noticed and didn't do last year. But I think once I get out on my bike, I'd be happy doing anything. Well, like with running, I won't force anything. It's not like a dog that you have to take out for a walk whether you like it or not. I'll take out my bike when I do.

2009-05-16T01:14:00.002+08:00

September 20, 2008 - Keelung riverside bikeway, clean up about a week after a typhoon last year. Being a relatively large river with a wide flood plain, the Keelung River wasn't so impressive during the typhoon, it just filled with lots of water, and the clean up wasn't all too dramatic either. Some large pieces of machinery pushing debris into piles.

The Keelung River flows east to west through Taipei, with one south to north kink. This is where the south to north part kinks back westward, with Neihu District on the right, north of the river. Rivers in cities fascinate me. Whenever I go to a new city, the first thing I want to know about is the rivers and the role they play.

Like when I went to Geneva, I had to see where the Rhone met the L'Arve, and it was a beautiful confluence since the waters of the Rhone were clear and blue, and the L'Arve was brown and muddy. And in Hiroshima, of course, the Genpaku Dome (ground zero for the atomic bomb) was right at a confluence of rivers.

Still along the Keelung River splitting Zhongshan District across the river on the left with Shilin District to the right. Currently, this stretch is unpassable due to construction. Pisses me off. Last year, Taipei was so good at having miles and miles of seamless bikeway, but recently they've closed huge sections for construction. They had to do it all at once? They don't recognize the importance of the bikeways for Taipei's recreational life and promotion of cycling? It's what I've come to expect of Taiwan, but I was hoping for something better.

2009-05-08T11:19:00.004+08:00

September 17, 2008 - Taipei Main Station with its grand looking interior. I should've aimed a little more up. Whenever I look up there, I think what a waste of space, they could've done something with that. Taipei Main Station is a hub that includes regular trains, the transfer station of the two major MRT lines, and the High Speed Rail. On the second floor, where I'm standing, is a mega foodcourt that goes all around this space. Just across the street to the north, they are putting the finishing touches on a centralized bus depot, which I assume will house all the long-haul tour bus companies in one place. It will also be a shopping center, multiplex, office space, and luxury residences.

September 24, 2008 - Kaohsiung MRT Formosa Boulevard Station. Not exactly the equivalent of Taipei Main Station, but as close as Kaohsiung can get to it. Kaohsiung's main train station is just a train station, even though there is a KMRT station attached to it now. It's an old, dingy, no nonsense, get-people-to-their-trains station. But Formosa Boulevard Station is the transfer station for the two lines of the KMRT, and so it's the dolled up, flagship, pride-of-the-KMRT station.

I'm in Kaohsiung now, and I passed right by this impressive public art piece called "Dome of Light" this morning. I took the overnight bus after I got off of work, arriving after 5:30 in the morning.

I'm here because today is the first day of eligibility to apply for getting my Taiwanese citizen ID card, after more than a year of waiting and unable to leave the country.

I had to apply for my ID card back then, and now I had to apply to get it. Go fig. They say I'll get it in 2 weeks, at which point I have to apply for a Taiwanese passport (despite the fact that I already have one), which will take another week. So I've already booked a flight to go to the U.S. in June for 3 weeks.

That's going to put things at work in a real mess, but I've been stuck here since January 2008, and the newspaper gave me the serious shaft for about six months, and even though that was under my old boss, who retired, I'm still holding it against the paper in that I'm not going to go any extra miles for them, and I have no loyalty to them; although I will continue to do the best job I can, just because that's my work ethic, I think, and support the new boss and his changes (one of which included bringing me back full-time, but on my terms, which is 4 days a week), and make the position I'm in as professional as possible - which it hasn't been.

Anyway, we need to hire new people for the position, and the situation in June is turning out to make it absolutely urgent to get trainees in very, very soon, or it will really suck for someone. Not me. I'll be eating the best pizza and lasagna in the world.

2009-05-02T03:37:00.003+08:00

September 18, 2008 - Singer of the band, Andy. I shot this specifically because he told me he found some of my sites. So in shooting this I was kind of saying, "yea, so what? you found my site, I'll shoot you, I'll post you". He was down with that. Note the Avril shirt. That was kind of a joke. I hope.

So we ran the news that Justice Souter is stepping down from the U.S. Supreme Court. Coming from a law background, that was of interest to me. What was Bush 1 thinking? Who knows?

When Souter was being considered for the Supreme Court position, liberals were up in arms, suspicious about anyone Bush 1 would consider. I remember Souter being referred to by some liberals as the "stealth nominee", because no one could peg him, but he couldn't be a good thing.

However, despite being selected by Bush 1, Souter ended up voting left of center and issued some incredibly thoughtful, but decidedly liberal opinions. In any case, I applaud Bush 1 for not choosing politically, but by legal merit. Souter was so liberal that I can only think that Bush 1 was intentionally trying not to be political in choosing a nominee.

But then there's Uncle Tom Clarence Thomas, and I've read his opinions and what an idiot he turned out to be. Seriously. I have a lot of respect for the Supreme Court, even when they publicly seem to be doing something cowardly, there's actually a good and wise reason for doing it. Like dodging an issue because it's not time to come down on it. Justice isn't blind and shouldn't be, according to the Supreme Court. They have to take the temperature of the social climate and respond to reality, not just be guided by blind judicial principle.

I hope Obama chooses a Supreme Court nominee wisely and based on merits, not on political bent. Of course, I'm happy about the way Souter turned out, but if Obama chooses a nominee who turns out to lean to the right, I hope, at least, I can read that person's opinion and be swayed enough by the legal logic to accept it. There were plenty of conservative justices whose opinions I read and was daunted and respected their analysis, even if I wasn't happy with the outcome.

typhoon pics

2009-04-28T03:10:00.003+08:00

September 14, 2008 - Raohe St. where the night market opens up at . . . night. Typhoon means holiday, so people use the road as a normal road and park along it. The numbers on the street are where booths go, obviously, and the chalk stickmen are where pedestrian lanes are supposed to be. That's mostly theory, though, not necessarily practice.

Swine flu all over the news. CNN on constant coverage, we had the words "swine flu" on practically every page of the newspaper today. We don't like to repeat ourselves too much in headlines on one page, so I was pressed to come up with other terms for swine flu - epidemic, virus, the icky icky, that which should not be breathed in, etc.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Take a Lickin' and Keep on Tickin' (Bootsy Collins)
2. Kid Fears (Indigo Girls)
3. Josephine (Tori Amos)
4. Still In Love (Cat Power)
5. Remedy (Cold)
6. Visions of Johanna (Bob Dylan)
7. West (Pinback)
8. Before They Knew (The Butterfly Effect)
9. O My God (The Police)
10. Birthmark (100 Watt Smile)

typhoon pics

2009-04-23T03:17:00.003+08:00

September 14, 2008 - Keelung River and Maishuai Bridge #2 during a typhoon. I thought the Keelung River would be interesting during a typhoon, but it's too big. It was impressive, but not exciting like the smaller Jingmei River where I used to live, which turned into a raging torrent. The Keelung River just got really full.

Opposite view looking at Maishuai Bridge #1. I don't remember the name of the typhoon - too far back, one of the disadvantages of not posting closer to when I shot - but I think it was a really slow moving typhoon and I went out shooting when the eye was over Taipei for like 3 hours. The storm picked up again later.

Maishuai Bridge #1 from the other side. I still had to go to work that evening, as a daily newspaper has to come out no matter what. I think the storm had died down by the time we finished, and I probably took a bus home no problem. I think the newspaper was willing to pay for a taxi if it was still raging outside.

Everything has changed since then. I took some time off and worked part-time for a while. Now I'm back at about 80%, working 4 days a week, and that suits me fine. New boss, and changing format. It may get interesting.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. DMV (Primus)
2. Citizen Erased (Muse)
3. Soma (live) (Smashing Pumpkins)
4. Texas Flood (live) (Stevie Ray Vaughan & Double Trouble)
5. Counting Out Time (remixed) (Genesis)
6. Static (Sahara Hotnights)
7. Midnight Rambler (The Rolling Stones)
8. Anata ga Koko ni Ite Hoshii (Chitose Hajime)
9. The Seven Sisters (Rainer Maria)
10. In My House (PCS Nitrogen Starlift Steel Orchestra)

2009-04-20T13:58:00.003+08:00

September 7, 2008 - Art installation outside Taipei 101. And the oft-copied "LOVE" sculpture tiny in the distance.

Motorscooter lot outside the Vieshow movie theater in Xinyi District.

So CNN reports it's been 10 years since Columbine. I never comment on news events as they happen, because they happen and then often they're gone. They're just news events. But I think even news events have a maturation period for their profundity to manifest.

10 years in a life. What would those high school students be now? And how we'd be perfectly happy not knowing a thing about their anonymous lives if they had just been allowed to live, to graduate from high school, to go on to college or jobs or meet someone special or raise families, ideally. Or whatever their ideal was.

And what a special place in Colorado that area is - maybe its the thin air, maybe the beautiful scenery that brings out an organic spirituality. The interviews with parents 10 years on were so grounded and profound. They still have their grief, but they've also grown from it and come to higher or deeper understandings and realizations about life.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Terrified of Flight (764-HERO)
2. Napoleon (Ani DiFranco)
3. Miss Brand-New Day (Southern All-Stars)
4. Jumpers (Sleater-Kinney)
5. Paperback Writer (The Beatles)
6. Today Tomorrow Sometime Never (Echobelly)
7. D.I.Y. (live) (Peter Gabriel)
8. Moonlit Sea of Clouds (k's Choice)
9. Egypt (Kate Bush)
10. Aqualung (Jethro Tull)

night and day

2009-04-17T02:57:00.002+08:00

September 7, 2008 - Songzhi Road in Xinyi District on the footbridge connecting Taipei 101 and the extended shopping area and Vieshow movie theater.

December 24, 2008 - long exposure.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Razzle Dazzle ("Chicago")
2. Ishiki (Shiina Ringo)
3. Rock Candy Brains (Kristin Hersh)
4. Don't Call Home (The Breeders)
5. Little Palaces (The Costello Show featuring the Attractions)
6. Lovely Rita (The Beatles)
7. Call Me Back Again (live) (Wings)
8. Thru These Walls (Phil Collins)
9. String Quartet No. 8, II. Allegro molto (Shostakovich)
10. Fever Few (Throwing Muses)

2 lomos that have nothing to do with each other

2009-04-15T03:38:00.002+08:00

August 19, 2008 - Shandao Temple on Zhongxiao East Road, Sec. 1. This is an urban Buddhist temple and is the name of the MRT stop one away from the central MRT stop at Taipei Main Station. I've never been inside. Something about it being in the middle of a city and looking huge and ornate puts me off.

September 3, 2008 - Inside a beef noodle shop in my neighborhood. Beef noodle soup is, like, one of the national dishes of Taiwan, although beef has been putting me off lately. Oh, hey, I guess these two pictures do have something to do with each other! Two things that put me off!

I dunno, the last time I ate beef, several weeks ago, I kinda felt sick, but not physically, just like I wasn't thrilled about eating beef. That happened before with seafood a long time ago, too. That time I just felt like a cannibal, which led me to believe I was seafood in a string of previous lives. It's not that I can't eat seafood, I just avoid it if I have a choice about it.

I've been avoiding beef and cutting down on meat in general and I actually have been feeling . . . less . . . something - weighted down? Less heavy? I'm not making a turn for more healthy, just going for what feels better.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. My Weapon (XTC)
2. Starla (Smashing Pumpkins)
3. Sayonara (Dreams Come True)
4. Dissident (Pearl Jam)
5. Revenge (live) (Archers of Loaf)
6. Back of Your Head (Cat Power)
7. Happy Jack (live) (The Who)
8. Moby Dick (live) (Led Zeppelin)
9. Singapore (Tom Waits)
10. Artists Only (Talking Heads)

Intersections

2009-04-10T22:21:00.003+08:00

August 28, 2008 - Minquan West Road and Chengde Road in the late afternoon.

September 6, 2008 - Dunhua North Road and Nanjing East Road with Taipei Arena across the street there. The fascade is a huge jumbotron. I don't know what they're called now. Back in my day, they were called jumbotrons and were exclusively made by Sony.

I got my job back at work after someone got fired this week. I'd been marginalized for the past six months, relegated to working weekends, because I refused to work with her. Then my old boss retired and the new boss apparently felt the same way I did, only he is higher up the food chain.

I'm just being dramatic when I say I got my job back, it's really not like that. From their point of view, the terms of my employment were simply renegotiated, and I'm doing them a favor by agreeing to work more shifts. And apparently everyone knew about the beef between us, as people have been coming up to me asking, "So now that she's gone, you're going to be working more days, right?"

For now. I've agreed to work through April. I still plan to go to the U.S. in May. Whether the job is still there when I get back is up to fate.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Azanian Freedom Song (Sweet Honey in the Rock)
2. Fading Lights (live) (Genesis)
3. When I Was A Young Girl (Feist)
4. Learn to Fly (Foo Fighters)
5. Play Dead (Versus)
6. Knife Edge (Emerson, Lake & Palmer)
7. From Now On (Supertramp)
8. Funnelhead (Archers of Loaf)
9. Neighborhood (Space)
10. What in the World? (live) (David Bowie)

2009-04-04T15:16:00.003+08:00

August 12, 2008 - Fuxing North Road, along the raised tracks of the MRT Brown line.

August 14, 2008 - Burning "spirit money", Taiwan's unique contribution to global warming. Although such traditions are part of the glue that holds society together and gives a culture its identity.

Strange. Or not. With signs of positive movement in the stock markets, I kinda don't want the economy to recover so quick. I also find Obama losing some of his sheen when he says things like the auto industry cannot be allowed to collapse, although I watched his town hall in Strasbourg, France, and was affirmed that he is a great orator and fundamentally a great president who sincerely first and foremost wants to steer the U.S. and the world into a more enlightened direction. He just can't be as radical as one hopes.

The auto industry can't collapse? Why not? They're dinosaurs and time is coming for its extinction into a being specialized industry. If the auto industry collapses, it may be economically devastating in the short term, but something will emerge to fill in the void it creates. It's only natural. It's natural selection, and if the auto industry can't survive on its own, it's not the fittest for survival. Furthermore, what emerges can focus on the key word for the future of the planet - sustainability. Saving the auto industry is not a move towards sustainability, economically or environmentally.

Same with the stock market recovering and still using "growth" as the measure of wealth and success. I mentioned my problem with growth as a yardstick, and he was like, "without growth, what's the point?". And I think he's exactly right, and that's exactly the problem - it's a mindset we can't even conceive of getting out of.

OK, if the stock market recovers and shows signs of an improving overall economy, maybe that also means that there's nothing fundamentally wrong with the system, and all there needs to be is regulatory tweaking and more, much more, oversight. International oversight.

But going back to any sort of status quo would be a loss of a huge opportunity to move forward. And also stymies our need for sustainability. No one wants to suffer, no one wants to suffer the pain of a long depression. But our fixes, unless sustainability is in every sentence of the fix, to avoid pain for ourselves seems to just add to the hardships our children and future generations might have to face.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Portia (Throwing Muses)
2. Angel (Belly)
3. Dashboard (Modest Mouse)
4. Glass Onion (The Beatles - Anthology)
5. sola (Kaela Kimura)
6. Circle (Edie Brickell & New Bohemians)
7. Love and Mathematics (Broken Social Scene)
8. Thick as a Brick (Jethro Tull)
9. To Your Love (Fiona Apple)
10. Cool Guitar Girl (J Church)

Random streets outside of Taipei

2009-03-30T23:32:00.006+08:00

October 21, 2008 - Keelung, Taiwan. Keelung is east of Taipei on the coast, about 40 minutes on bike. It's a port city with a seedy old Chinese city feel.

December 27, 2008 - Either Yonghe or Zhonghe southwest of Taipei in Taipei County. Not at all seedy or old, just modern, urban and choked in exhaust from burning fossil fuels in mobile vehicles.

I'm starting to feel after 3 years in Taiwan, I really should start venturing out of the greater Taipei area. Or Kaohsiung visiting family. It's a tiny island and transportation is decent, I should just try picking a destination and heading out one morning, planning to come back the next day or a couple days later. I guess it's called travelling. I'm not sure the photography would be any more varied than the above shots, though.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Wake Up Dead Man (U2)
2. Little Green Men (Steve Vai)
3. Bitter Suite (Marillion)
4. Scratch-N-Sniff (Stevie Ray Vaughan & Double Trouble)
5. Death in the Park (Archers of Loaf)
6. A Sorry Heart (Wonder Girls)
7. Animals (live) (Talking Heads)
8. Welcome to the Jungle (Guns N' Roses)
9. Asylum (Supertramp)
10. Parkdale (Metric)

2009-03-25T23:45:00.005+08:00

December 24, 2008 - Taipei 101, Taiwan. Well, we can't call it the tallest building in the world anymore since the Burj Dubai has officially surpassed it in height, but we still can call it the world's tallest occupied building in the world, as I found out from our proud, local media. No doubt we'll be calling it that until the BD goes into business, which may yet take some time.

I thought I ought to clear out the holiday lomos before they become totally irrelevant in the warming weather. This was a wish tunnel, where they set up a corridor lined with lights and wires, and at the end they supply things that people can write wishes and aspirations on and hang them up to create the walls. This was a long exposure with the 2 braced on the stand that people could write on.

Not being a Christian country, Christmas itself isn't a big deal here, but they know it's a big deal elsewhere, so they use it as an excuse to do something using the various imported themes, catering them to local tastes, which means something on the lines of going out and doing something with the family - much better than making it an excuse to shop.

Although that gets taken care of by the extreme "couple culture" here, and young couples buy into the notion that they should buy gifts for their partners. Chinese culture used to frown upon public displays of affection, but Taiwan youth, in its emulation of Western culture, saw Western youth engaging in it, and then they ran with it to gag-worthy extents. In the U.S., yelling "get a room!" is a cliche, but they need to find an equivalent expression for it here. Especially for the high school students.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. For No Reason (Joanna Wang)
2. Call Me Names (Echobelly)
3. Heart Setsunaku (Yuko Hara)
4. Get 'Em Out By Friday (live) (Genesis)
5. Never-Ending Math Equation (live) (Modest Mouse)
6. 3rd Planet (Modest Mouse)
7. So Far Away (Carole King)
8. Baby Love Child (Pizzicato Five)
9. 4:47 A.M. (The Remains of Our Love) (Roger Waters)
10. Shake (Kristin Hersh)

2009-03-20T01:01:00.002+08:00

August 19, 2008 - The building fascade of the Indian Beer House on Bade Road, near Jianguo North Road.

August 26, 2008 - I've never been inside, but I hear the decor is also of dinosaur bones. Where to go for a brontosaurus burger.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. She's Lost Control (Joy Division)
2. King Porter Stomp (Benny Goodman)
3. Last Match (The Aislers Set)
4. Show Me the Way (Peter Frampton)
5. The Vision (Victor Wooten)
6. Cello Suite No. 2, II. Allemande (J.S. Bach)
7. Bag Lady (Eryka Badu)
8. Travis Walk (Stevie Ray Vaughan & Double Trouble)
9. The Spider (Kansas)
10. Black and Grey (Deadweight)

2009-03-16T03:11:00.005+08:00

December 27, 2008 - Construction on the Dahan Riverside parks/bikeways, Taipei County, west of Taipei city. The Dahan River spurs to the southwest of the Taipei region, and its riverbanks are getting the park/bikeway treatment. This is on the east bank looking west where there is a strip of cities in Taipei County before going into Taoyuan County.

Yingge (鶯歌), Taipei County. I think this is the last city in the southwest corner of Taipei County, known for ceramics. It's as far as I've ridden in that direction, crossing that bridge there in either direction and then heading back towards Taipei city. This is on the west bank of the Dahan River, which is more or less done, looking south-southwest-ish.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Diamonds (Princess Princess)
2. Dance to the Music (Sly & the Family Stone)
3. Lenny (Stevie Ray Vaughan & Double Trouble)
4. Underground (Men At Work)
5. Good Morning, Good Morning (The Beatles - Anthology)
6. Down and Out (Genesis)
7. Beach Bum (Sakura)
8. Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 2, Fugue #4 (J.S. Bach)
9. Crazy (Versus)
10. White Light, White Heat (live) (David Bowie)

2009-03-06T14:30:00.003+08:00

August 8, 2008 - Taipei, Taiwan. A small street market, near where I worked, off Zhongshan North Road, north of Mingquan East Road. Unlike other night markets, this one stayed open really late. It was often still open after I got off of work after midnight, but I never went to it to eat after work.

September 3, 2008 -A closer view. It's small compared to other night markets, it's just for people with the munchies. Oh yea, and it just occurred to me that it's right next to the closest thing Taipei has to a red light district. It's called the "Zone" or the "Combat Zone", and it's not as infamous as it once was, I gather, but I hear it's still the place to go for a quick pick-up. So yea, that's probably why it stays open so late. And another reason for me not to go there after work to eat.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Jump for Joy (Duke Ellington)
2. Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 2, Fugue #16 (J.S. Bach)
3. Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 2, Fugue #14 (J.S. Bach)
4. (The Gift of Sound) Where the Sun Never Goes Down (David Byrne - "Music for 'The Knee Plays'")
5. Funky Bird (Galactic)
6. London's Burning (The Clash)
7. Eric's Trip (Sonic Youth)
8. Rocks in My Bed (Duke Ellington)
9. High Time (The Grateful Dead)
10. Shine Like a New Pin (Camera Obscura)

2009-03-05T04:18:00.001+08:00

August 7, 2008 - In front of Taipei Songshan Airport at Minquan East Road and Dunhua North Road, on my way to work in the late afternoon.

I just started a new roll in the fisheye, and the 2 shots in front of the Taiwan High Court posted earlier are, indeed, probably because it was at the beginning of the roll. I take a shot and then wonder if I advanced the film enough, so I take another just to be sure.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Velvet Days (Kristin Hersh)
2. Oh Yeah (Nokko)
3. No Aloha (The Breeders)
4. Higher Ground (Stevie Wonder)
5. Rapture (Blondie)
6. Leif Erikson (Interpol)
7. Drugs (Talking Heads)
8. Stairway to Heaven (live) (Led Zeppelin)
9. Limelight (XTC)
10. Big Spender ("Sweet Charity")

2009-03-04T00:58:00.004+08:00

December 17, 2008 - Public art at Linsen and Zhongxiao East Road? The sun was behind me so I had to lie down on the ground to avoid getting my shadow in the lomo. Sometimes you have to lie for your art.

December 18, 2008 - Public Santa outside the Living Mall sphere.

I guess it was wishful thinking Spring had arrived. It had, but like it is everywhere, Winter has to sneak in one last sucker punch to remind us that optimism and forward-looking needs to be tempered. In Taipei, Winter means cool temperatures and overcast, rainy days.

And still it's not as bad, so far, as my first two years here. I'm optimistic that this current drear will not become a constant drear like before.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Well-Tempered Klavier, Book 2, Fugue #2 (J.S. Bach)
2. Kicked it in the Sun (live) (Built to Spill)
3. Horses (Tori Amos)
4. Else (Built to Spill)
5. Dance Hall (Modest Mouse)
6. Habit (Pearl Jam)
7. For the Turnstiles (Neil Young)
8. Losing My Mind ("Follies" - Sondheim)
9. I'm the Man Who Murdered Love (XTC)
10. All Her Favorite Fruit (Camper Van Beethoven)

2009-03-02T21:21:00.002+08:00

January 11, 2009 - Kaohsiung, Taiwan. Lomo of taking wedding pictures for my cousin's wedding. During these my cousin remarked that all he could see was an array of Canon and Nikon. He obviously wasn't looking at me.

I'm happy for my cousin, I've known him as long as I've known anyone aside from my nuclear family. He's my uncle's son on my mother's side. It was still a drag for me to be there, though, since I was the only one who didn't speak Mandarin or Taiwanese. If I opened my mouth, I would draw attention to myself because I would force people to speak English, and whatever I said might have nothing to do with the conversation that was going on. So it sucked, I didn't need to be there, I was there for my parents, and left as soon as I could.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Nothingman (live) (Pearl Jam)
2. Love (John Lennon)
3. Suffragette City (live) (David Bowie)
4. Bicycle Race (Queen)
5. Look a Ghost (Unwound)
6. Down By the Water (PJ Harvey)
7. Mica (Mission of Burma)
8. Bohemian Rhapsody (Queen)
9. Land of Canaan (Indigo Girls)
10. To Whom it May Concern (Black Sheep)

2009-02-27T03:08:00.003+08:00

December 8, 2008 - Taiwan High Court. It's a small island, and I sometimes forget that I'm in the capital city with the Presidential Office and the Supreme Court. For what that's worth. Aside from the Greek columns, I can't say it's a very distinguished building.

Not sure why I have two lomos of the building. It was the start of the roll, so maybe that's why.

I was in this area today, and I think I'm going to give up on learning Mandarin and any hope to become conversational. I'm going to continue studying the language, but just because I'm in Taiwan, have nothing better to do. I'll study it as an academic exercise, to learn the words and the grammar.

I was a block away from this building, waiting to meet up with my uncle, and a woman came up to me and asked me a question that she seemed to already know the answer to (the confidence of a lawyer maybe). I didn't understand right away, so I replied I didn't know. 5 seconds later it dawned on me that she was asking if the High Court 高法院 was this way.

Three words and I couldn't understand right away. That's just pathetic. It's kinda not in my programming to process language comprehension in a foreign language. I'll still work on undoing that programming, I think that's important, and impressive that so many other people can do it, but I'm keeping my standards way low.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Netori (Watazumi Doso Roshi - shakuhachi)
2. Bad (U2)
3. Lonely Wind/Piano Solo (live) (Kansas)
4. Aurora no Sora Kara Mitsumeteiru (Chitose Hajime)
5. Half Acre (Hem)
6. Celebration Day (live) (Led Zeppelin)
7. Come See About Me (The Supremes)
8. Your Dirty Answer (Kristin Hersh)
9. Summertime (The Sundays)
10. Tell Me Why (Echobelly)

2009-02-22T16:17:00.004+08:00

December 27, 2008 - I tend to go on and on about the riverside bikeways and parks, but don't give enough love out to the riverside garbage trucks. They are a terrific stink to ride by if the wind is blowing in the wrong direction.

February 9, 2008 - Fortunately, I don't think there are any in Taipei city. The top lomo is along the Dahan River in Shulin, southwest of Taipei, probably, and the bottom is along the opposite bank of the Danshui River in Luzhou.

Speaking of garbage, I wonder why I haven't heard any commentary connecting the Madoff scandal and the Stanford/Antigua scandal with the global financial collapse. Could it be there is no connection?

Could be, how can the greedy acts of a few bad apples be connected to the global financial crisis/credit meltdown? Personally, I don't think it's a coincidence. It's just a gut feeling, since I'm no financier or econ major, but I think it may be indicative of a systemic fault in capitalism.

When things first started going south, Bush and Wall St. kept emphasizing that the fundamental basis of capitalism was sound. I find that an odd first thing to defend when people are just panicking about their money, not the basis of the capitalist system.

I look back at it now, and it sounds to me that they were just saying the equivalent of "capitalism still works . . . on paper". Of course, communism works on paper, too, but put it into practice and you need a repressive, authoritarian regime to implement it because people just don't live their lives according to communist ideals.

Maybe what's happening now is the completely logical outcome of free-wheeling, unregulated capitalist theory, and these scandals are also an inevitable and logical outcome. When you can juggle around money in a now-you-see-it, now-you-don't magic show, people are going to take advantage of it, people are greedy.

I do think the world economic system is on the verge of a revolution, and in several decades, we're not going to be gauging wealth and growth in the same way as we are now. The size and growth of the economy won't be nearly as important as sustainability. That will be the new key word for all industry. Enterprises won't start up on the basis of growth and profit, but they will need a plan for sustainability and longevity. And energy and environment is also going to play a key role.

How is this going to happen? Strict government oversight and regulation. Sound repressive? Sound authoritarian - the government telling you how to run your enterprise? In several decades, it may just sound smart and necessary.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Soul Survivor (The Rolling Stones)
2. Turn Your Lights Down Low (Bob Marley & the Wailers)
3. Momen no Handkerchief (Shiina Ringo)
4. Ladyflash (The Go! Team)
5. Ai Suru Hito Yo (Sakura)
6. Weekends of Sound (764-HERO)
7. Out of Range (live) (Ani DiFranco)
8. I Can't Explain (live) (The Who)
9. Mission (Rush)
10. One (Sakura)

2009-02-21T03:04:00.002+08:00

December 31, 2008 - Taipei, Taiwan. New Years Eve show from behind the drumset. Starting from that show, each night we've played has felt like the last time. Tonight was another, and it may not be, but a last night playing there will come, and soon. I am sick of playing in this group. It's gotten old and boring, hopefully that's not saying something about me! It's not fun anymore, and that's the best reason to stop doing something. Anyway, once I get my citizenship, I'm hoping to spend a month in the U.S., which may be the time to make a clean break with the band.

After tonight's gig, the band leader mentioned things coming up. I tried to come across as uncommitted as possible.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Could We (Cat Power)
2. Andy Warhol (David Bowie)
3. The Employment Pages (Death Cab for Cutie)
4. 2nd of Feb (Engine Down)
5. Glory (Liz Phair)
6. Dewlaps (100 Watt Smile)
7. Stwisted (Edie Brickell & New Bohemians)
8. Magic Fingers (Bela Fleck & the Flecktones)
9. Asodaya Yunta (Natsukawa Rimi)
10. Cello Suite No. 2, V. Menuett (J.S. Bach)

2009-02-19T19:36:00.004+08:00

February 9, 2009 - I bought new tires with the NT$3,600 vouchers the government gave every Taiwanese citizen, or pending-citizen in my case. The tires actually only cost a little over NT$2,000 (about US$60), but I also bought a new cycling jersey for about NT$2,600. Damn, they're expensive! No wonder I've been using the same 2 cycling jerseys for, like, the last 8 years! Ones I bought at a discount at Sports Basement in San Francisco.

In all I spent about NT$1,000 in my own cash, which is part of what the voucher stimulus is supposed to do. The idea is that to get the full value out of the voucher, consumers need to buy things that are more than the face value, and cover the balance with cash. The vouchers came in denominations of 6 NT$500 vouchers and 3 NT$200 vouchers, so the full amount doesn't need to be used at once, like I did. So if each of the vouchers were used separately, it's possible that the amount of consumer cash injected into the economy might add up to about NT$1,000.

I hope I used the vouchers how the government wanted me to, in the best way that would help the economy. Environmental groups were urging people not to view the vouchers as a windfall, but to use the vouchers only for things they were going to buy anyway, but that doesn't help the economy by stimulating spending. If they were going to buy things anyway, their cash was going into the economy anyway. For the cash-strapped, that makes sense, but for people getting by, it undermines the voucher stimulus.

For me, I bought things I really wanted, but was on the fence about. The jersey was a total luxury item, and I did need new tires, but I could waffle on them and put off buying them for as long as possible. The vouchers put me over, and had me throw in the jersey for good measure.

The new Kenda tires (I'd never heard of Kenda) definitely are making a difference. I'm going more vertical on downhill turns, and much more confident my tires won't slip out from under me. I'm pretty sure these are natural rubber tires, whereas the stock tires Giant put on were probably synthetic rubber. Makes all the difference in the world for gripping. Now I just have to see how long they last.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Expresso Love (Dire Straits)
2. We Do Not Belong Together ("Sunday in the Park with George" - Sondheim)
3. Candy Everybody Wants (10,000 Maniacs)
4. Rip This Joint (The Rolling Stones)
5. Make Tomorrow (Peter Gabriel - "OVO")
6. The Way a Leash Feels (764-HERO)
7. Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 1, Prelude #20 in Am (J.S. Bach)
8. Soul Daiji (Bubble Gum Brothers)
9. Long Way From Home (The Vaughan Brothers)
10. Cool Water (Talking Heads)

2009-02-15T00:22:00.004+08:00

August 5, 2008 - Outside the Taiwan Railway Authority (or Administration) on Bade Road. Train wheels turned into parking lot barriers. At sunset, so low light.

I read an article today about a woman motorscooterist who was killed several years ago when a taxi driver let his passenger out in a not safe place. The woman swerved to avoid hitting the opening door, but fell and suffered head injuries and died a couple weeks later.

It was in the news today because a verdict was handed down in the following court case. Both the driver and the passenger were convicted of involuntary manslaughter and face either jail time or stiff fines.

I agree with the verdict. Taxi drivers are a menace in Taiwan, and pedestrians aren't much better in their complete disregard of watching where they're going, or looking before they leap. Although, I do think the taxi driver had greater culpability - it was his responsibility to not let a passenger out if there was any danger to traffic, and even at a red light, a taxi driver should know that motorscooter and bicycle traffic continues around his vehicle. He has greater knowledge of what is safe or not, and he has mirrors to check whether his passenger can disembark safely. The only reason he would let a passenger out essentially in the middle of traffic is sheer negligence and disregard for safety.

This is another good argument to establish taxi ranks in Taiwan, where taxis can only pick up or drop off passengers in designated areas. The way it is now, a free-for-all, Taiwan streets that are already overcrowded with taxis are made more dangerous by reckless taxi drivers competing for fares.

Negligence on the part of the taxi driver, obliviousness on the part of the passenger, I witness this everyday in Taiwan, and in this case it resulted in the death of someone who was innocently trying to get from one place to another. I hate to say it, but she probably would have survived if she didn't try to swerve and just plowed right into the passenger and the taxi door.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Floating Dogs (Peter Gabriel - "Birdy")
2. Teentown (Kenwood Dennard)
3. D'yer Mak'er (Led Zeppelin)
4. Thunderstruck (AC/DC)
5. I Love You (Princess Princess)
6. Oh! You Pretty Things (David Bowie)
7. Tinfoil (live) (Rainer Maria)
8. Hinotama Jive (live) (Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra)
9. She's a Woman (The Beatles - Anthology)
10. Going to California (Led Zeppelin)

2009-02-12T13:08:00.003+08:00

July 7, 2008 - Xindian riverside bikeway near the Gongguan entrance.

December 20, 2008 - Same bridge, but from the south.

As they say in Taiwan, "Spring has sprung!". Oh wait, they don't say that here, that's what we say in the U.S., they say "春天到了", which means Spring has arrived, but to make it more interesting, the whole phrase is indicated by the character for "Spring" upside-down, since the character for "arrive", 到, is a homonym for "to turn upside-down", 倒.

Geddit? They sure go a long way to be clever.

So with nice sunny and warm days (before humidity and sweltering tropical heat kicks in starting around next month), I've been trying to get out on my bike as much as possible during the day. I'll switch to night riding once the daytime gets too hot.

Not that it's been that long since the last real ride, December - I usually stop riding during the Winter and have to train back up to form come Spring - but I'm doing a "training" regimen of 100 miles on the flat riverside bikeways, and then once I accumulate 100 miles, I start hitting the local hills, and then after that I'll start doing the longer rides and bigger mountains.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. We'll Let You Know (King Crimson)
2. Green (Throwing Muses)
3. Plane Crash in C (Rilo Kiley)
4. Free Four (Pink Floyd)
5. Kokuu (Katsuya Yokoyama - shakuhachi)
6. Want More (Bob Marley & the Wailers)
7. Long Knives (Rainer Maria)
8. Emerald Lies (Marillion)
9. No Language in Our Lungs (XTC)
10. Ritual Dance (Michael Hedges)

2009-02-11T02:20:00.003+08:00

August 1, 2008 - Construction in my neighborhood. I think a lot of this is done by now and the interiors are being done. Don't know who's going to live in them in this economic climate.

It's on the news now that the NY stock market just plunged after Geithner announced reforms in how the bailout package will be managed. Maybe it's too early to say, but it sounds to me it's a sign that Wall St. can't handle government regulation, even when it's begging Washington for bailout money. They think they should be able to receive the American people's tax money and use it without regulation and with impunity. They can't process that the way they've been using their own money without regulation and with impunity has caused the current global economic crisis.

I see it as a disease, a mental illness on Wall St. Like when AIG received bailout money and the first thing they did was take their top executives on a luxury spa retreat. They don't get it. It's the same as a compulsive gambler who doesn't realize there's a problem. There's no reflection involved, no urgency felt to act prudently. They receive bailout money and they use it the only way they know how - for their own selfish, indulgent interests. All of Wall St. is the same, and so it's no surprise that when Washington announces that they are demanding accountability, that if they are receiving taxpayer money, they have to report exactly how it's being spent, they go running like cowards.

I remember when the Berlin Wall fell and the Soviet Union collapsed, some people proclaimed it a final victory for capitalism. One famous commentator even remarked it was the "end of history", which I not only didn't understand, but found short-sighted and arrogant, and right then and there I predicted that someday capitalism would likewise fail. I had no idea how or when, just that it would, and that some enlightened sustainable hybrid of socialism and capitalism would need to arise.

I don't know if we're facing the collapse of capitalism, but as commentators are arguing that the fundamental basis of capitalism is intact, and that this crisis is an exception, I would suggest that this crisis is the natural result of free-wheeling capitalism. This is no exception.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Johnny Too Bad (Taj Mahal)
2. Ceremony (Rainer Maria)
3. Workin' for T.V. (Southern All-Stars)
4. Electric Relaxation (A Tribe Called Quest)
5. The World at Large (Modest Mouse)
6. Boogie With Stu (Led Zeppelin)
7. Pledging My Time (Bob Dylan)
8. As Long As He Needs Me ("Oliver!")
9. Capacity (Deadweight)
10. Workin' Man (Stanley Clarke)

2009-02-09T04:27:00.003+08:00

July 30, 2008 - Taipei, Taiwan. Tayou Road to the left, Jiankang to the right. Taipei 101 in the distance. This is not far from where I live, so it's my neighborhood. Half mile away. Those overpasses come off a bridge that crosses the Keelung River behind me.

So it's February and the weather has gotten into a drizzly/overcast pattern, but at least the cold has lifted. It's still chilly, but at least it's not cold. It's a relief on the sinuses. I haven't gotten out on my bike since I got new tires with my free NT$3,600 coupons that all Taiwanese got from the government.

My boss at work had a retirement ceremony on Friday, so he's definitely on his way out, but he's still in control for about another month until the new editor-in-chief takes over. I figure I'll really quit about then, too. I tried quitting in November, and I've only stayed on for weekend shifts my boss. I figure I'll be moving to Kaohsiung in the foreseeable future.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Cities in Dust (Siouxsie & the Banshees)
2. Wonderland (XTC)
3. Pug (Smashing Pumpkins)
4. Surly Demise (Shannon Wright)
5. Lazarus Raised (Peter Gabriel - "The Last Temptation of Christ")
6. Fly Me to the Moon (Phase II Steelband)
7. weak (Kaela Kimura)
8. Kouzou no Koushin (Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra)
9. Well-Tempered Clavier Book 1, Prelude #24 in B minor (J.S. Bach)
10. Messin' with the Mekon (Robert Plant)

2009-02-05T20:15:00.003+08:00

July 19, 2008 - Taipei City Hall and Taipei 101. I always thought that Taipei City Hall was probably one of the ugliest city halls in all existence of god and man, but I recently realized there was a symbolic reason for its architecture. If you note the features in the lomo, you can see when I say that from looking at the building from above it looks like two plusses attached together: ++.

十 is ten in Chinese, so 十十 is ten-ten, which refers to October 10th, which is Taiwan's National Day. How 'bout that? Clever folks, them Chinese - even in Taiwanese form, at least here in Taipei. I'd better watch it, I'm going to be one of them in April, when I'm supposed to get my citizenship. Even though my family is from Kaohsiung and Taiwanese not of the sort who brought mainland culture with them several decades ago, I won't be considered anything like them, who always speak Taiwanese, and only speak in Mandarin when I inconvenience them enough to make them have to communicate with me.

Who am I kidding? Citizenship or not, I'm always going to be American, never to be confused with being Taiwanese, even if I did learn the language.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Seen and Not Seen (Talking Heads)
2. Corpse Pose (Unwound)
3. Fun World (Mission of Burma)
4. Soul Singer (live) (Rainer Maria)
5. Sulk (Radiohead)
6. An Everlasting Love (Andy Gibb)
7. M1A1 (Gorillaz)
8. Last Exit (live) (Pearl Jam)
9. Dig Me Out (Sleater-Kinney)
10. Pennyroyal Tea (Nirvana)

2009-02-04T01:00:00.005+08:00

July 15, 2008 - Renai Road, in front of Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall. I rode past this bunch of reporters, and then I thought that whatever it was, it was public, cameras were everywhere, so I turned around to snap a lomo.

With the toweringly high standard of media in Taiwan, they were reporting on the addition of these bike lanes alongside the crosswalks, I found out. Right. Bike lanes for crosswalks. They're about as useful as bike lanes on sidewalks, like they have on the blocks surrounding Taipei 101. And as I've said before, "What do you get when you put a bike lane on a sidewalk? Answer: A sidewalk!"

Useless, but on the other hand it's good for bike awareness, so I can't fault it too much.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Rah! Rah! Replica (Bikini Kill)
2. The Mayor of Simpleton (XTC)
3. Red Light (U2)
4. My Blue Heaven (Smashing Pumpkins)
5. Colder (Throwing Muses)
6. What Crime Is It? (Victor Wooten w/Bootsy Collins)
7. The Chamber of 32 Doors (Genesis)
8. Rhyme & Reason (Dave Matthews Band)
9. Good Day Sunshine (The Beatles)
10. Dance the Night Away (Van Halen)

2009-01-24T01:48:00.003+08:00

July 15, 2008 - Taipei 101 on a particularly beautiful Summer morning.

Chinese New Year madness is upon us, and I'm glad to be partaking of none of it, except for enduring long lines at the local hypermart. My uncle called the other day asking when I'd be going down to Kaohsiung, and that was the first I had heard about it. But after my cousins wedding just two weeks ago, I thought everyone would be tapped out emotionally and financially for any festivities. I was tapped out of the whole family thing, so I have no plans to go down for New Years. I've already informed work that I'm available to pick up any slack if needed, and it looks like I will be.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Technicolor Girls (Death Cab for Cutie)
2. Photograph (Def Leppard)
3. Unconditional Love (Shiina Ringo)
4. I Got a Right to Sing the Blues (Lena Horne)
5. Walkin' My Baby Back Home (Nat King Cole)
6. S.O.F.T. (Elastica)
7. So Sad About Us (The Breeders)
8. Secure Yourself (Indigo Girls)
9. Lullaby of the Moths (Helium)
10. The Owl's Escape (Mary Timony)

2009-01-21T23:43:00.002+08:00

July 8, 2008 - Yong Ji Road in northern Xinyi District, Taipei, Taiwan.

I admit it, I got home from work and then stayed up all night watching the inauguration on CNN. I was moved and proud as a Georgia peach to watch Barack Obama become the 44th U.S. president. Not just because of the historicity, but because I have a lot of confidence in him. I think he's going to be one of the great U.S. presidents because of his acts and what he inspires, not just because he's the first African-American president.

He is already lifting the level of discourse in the U.S. With Bush, whenever there was a debate following an Act of Bush, I usually rolled my eyes and changed the channel, annoyed that whatever was being debated was at such a low level.

Already, after Obama's first major speech on the economic crisis last week, and today about Guantanamo Bay, both were followed by debates where I could listen to both sides intently and figure out what I agreed with and disagreed with, what were the important issues presented on either side.

We can be a thinker's country again. No more, "We're gonna invade Iraq, m'kay? They got weapons of mass destruction, m'kay? Weapons of mass destruction are bad. So we're gonna invade, see?"

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Cinderella Search (Marillion)
2. Body Movin' (The Beastie Boys)
3. Shining Light (10,000 Maniacs)
4. Excerpt from 'Lamplight Symphony' (live) (Kansas)
5. Secret Heart (Feist)
6. Who Can It Be Now? (Men at Work)
7. Does Your Heart Beat Slower (June of 44)
8. Tuff Luck (Seam)
9. Sad Songs (Say So Much) (Elton John)
10. Happy Ending (Makihara Noriyuki)

2009-01-18T04:05:00.002+08:00

July 7, 2008 - The final shot from this day of shooting on the bikeways. In the past bunch of shots, you can note the sun progressively setting. This shot is along the Keelung River and it is a long exposure shot when the sky was quickly approaching darkness. That said, the sky was actually a lot darker than is seen here, and in this darkeness, of course, none of the roller bladers can be seen zipping along the track. It was really neat watching them do laps in several waves of groups. I'm a little surprised that absolutely no trace of them can be seen, as when one group was going around, one or another group was waiting in that area just inside the track. But I guess that shows how dark it was, as none of them registered on film. The brightness of the sky here is purely from the long exposure.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Revolution 1 (The Beatles)
2. On Mercury (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
3. Country Death Song (Violent Femmes)
4. Fuckin' Up (live) (Pearl Jam)
5. What I Like About You (The Romantics)
6. Nothing Is Good Enough (Aimee Mann)
7. Shogunade (Ryuichi Sakamoto)
8. Fly Me to the Moon ("Neon Genesis Evangelion")
9. Blue Flow (Heart of Air)
10. Rebel Music (Bob Marley & the Wailers)

2009-01-15T20:12:00.003+08:00

July 7, 2008 - A plane flies over the Danshui River on its approach to Taipei's Songshan Airport (regional).

And a plane flies over the riverside bikeway. On the right is the floodwall that would protect Taipei in case the Danshui overflooded.

The Taiwan government is giving out NT$3,600 shopping vouchers (a little over US$100) to every Taiwanese citizen (and foreign spouses, I think) to try to give a boost to the economy. I thought it was a great political move. It makes everyone happy because they get a hundred free bucks, but they have to use it for shopping, they can't just save it. Although I hope there's a stipulation that people can't get cash change if their purchase is less than the voucher value. They should have to actually spend the value of the voucher or more. Otherwise most Taiwanese will use a voucher, buy something a fraction of its worth and get the cash change and save it.

Anyway, I didn't know if I was eligible. I applied for citizenship in April, but the vouchers are being given out through family registries, and I don't think I was placed on our family registry in Kaohsiung. I just got a notice in the mail from the Immigration Bureau that I am eligible and it told me where to go to get my voucher. Thank god, because my bike tires are as bald as I want them to get, and they're picking up glass (cheap rubber) and sliding on wet patches, so I know how I'll be using my voucher.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. King of Birds (R.E.M.)
2. San Tropez (Pink Floyd)
3. Mustang Sally (Wilson Pickett)
4. "40" (U2)
5. Television Man (Talking Heads)
6. Who Will Buy? ("Oliver")
7. Left of Center (Suzanne Vega)
8. Conditioner (Wu-Tang Clan)
9. Last Train to London (Electric Light Orchestra)
10. Death of a Clown (The Kinks)

2009-01-10T11:45:00.002+08:00

July 7, 2008 - Taipei, Taiwan, along the Danshui River at Dadaocheng wharf. This is a famous place for photographers to shoot the sunset. Serious photographers come here and set up their tripods and fancy cameras so that they can all have the same beautiful, perfect, usually digital shot as everyone else.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Pale Marble Movie (Seam)
2. The Moth (Aimee Mann)
3. Life By the Drop (Stevie Ray Vaughan)
4. Distant Early Warning (live) (Rush)
5. Galileo (live) (Indigo Girls)
6. I Shall Scream! ("Oliver!")
7. Panic in Detroit (1979) (David Bowie)
8. A Pillow of Winds (Pink Floyd)
9. The Hard Way (live) (The Kinks)
10. The Tracks of My Tears (The Miracles - Motown)

2009-01-07T00:33:00.003+08:00

July 7, 2008 - Xindian River, west of Taipei, close to sunset. Missing Summer days in the wet, wet drear of Winter. It's been raining for just several days, definitely not as bad as it has been in previous years, when sometimes it rained for two weeks straight, more or less.

My shoes are supposed to be waterproof. They very prominently claim to be "waterproof", but every time it rains, my feet get wet, so I figured maybe they're waterproof from the inside, so once water gets inside, it can't get out. But recently I looked at the sole of my right shoe and there's a hole in the sole. A small rectangular piece of the rubber sole fell out, so when I walk in the rain, the spongy insole just sucks up water. You know, the man who had no feet doesn't have problems like this.

I think this is the reverse view of the top lomo. I thought they may have been taken a few steps away, but it looks like I might have just turned around and shot the warm evening Summer light. Mmm, Summer.

Sometimes these dark, cold, rainy nights with the constant patter of rain in the alley outside make it feel like Winter will never end. Mmm, patter.

Hey Joyce, check out the Korean hip-hop:

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Silent Anticipations (Michael Hedges)
2. Aishite Aishite Aichyatta no Yo (Southern All-Stars)
3. It Don't Mean a Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing) (Duke Ellington)
4. Cakewalk Into Town (Taj Mahal)
5. God (Tori Amos)
6. Dazed and Confused (BBC live) (Led Zeppelin)
7. Since I've Been Loving You (BBC live) (Led Zeppelin)
8. Paris (Epik High)
9. Hoshi o Kudasai (The Blue Hearts)
10. Ghost World (acoustic) (Aimee Mann)

2008-12-28T00:52:00.004+08:00

July 7, 2007 - Overtaking someone on the Xindian riverside bikeway close to Wanhua.

And here is definitely by Wanhua. This is right by a major entrance gate, and there's sort of a plaza, so a lot of people congregate around there. Meaning cyclists should slow down and watch out for people trying to get kites in the air.

As I've mentioned, I think Taipei has a world class riverside bikeway system, which may or may not make up for the bike-unfriendliness of Taipei streets. And greater Taipei continues to extend and develop their riverside parks and bikeways.

In these lomos, I was riding by the Xindian River to my left. Across the river, outside of Taipei in Taipei County, a different entity than Taipei City, there's also another great bikeway, but when I last rode on it a year and a half ago, it only went to the end of the Xindian River, where it flows into the Danshui River, along with the Dahan River, which comes from a different direction.

Today, I found that I can continue on the other side beyond the end of the Xindian River, where it turns left and goes along the Dahan River. It was really excellent finding this new bikeway, parts of which are still being developed, and that it almost goes as far as I've been down the Dahan River on the opposite bank to Ying Ge. Ying Ge is the last town in Taipei County in that direction, more than 20 miles from where I live, making it a 40+ mile ride.

Once I got to the end of the bikeway in Tucheng, I was able to get on the roads and find my way to Ying Ge, and rode back north along the west bank of the Dahan River. It's not perfect, there are some things that greater Taipei can do better, but it's definitely impressive and probably a lot better than what many cities offer in terms of recreational cycling.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. A Little Buzz (Victor Wooten)
2. Intergalactic (The Beastie Boys)
3. Poor Napoleon (Elvis Costello & the Attractions)
4. Warrior (Yeah Yeah Yeahs)
5. The Long and Winding Road (The Beatles - Anthology)
6. Harbor Wind (Keiko Matsui)
7. Torikoshikurou (Shiina Ringo)
8. Try Not to Breath (R.E.M.)
9. Joyful Girl (live) (Ani DiFranco)
10. Whipping (live) (Pearl Jam)

2008-12-24T01:51:00.002+08:00

July 7, 2008 - My shadow along the riverside bikeways.

Outhouses along the riverside bikeway.

It's odd how everything is politicized in Taiwan. There was a fire in the National Taiwan University Hospital last week and a patient died in it. The daughter of the victim held a press conference blaming the hospital and had a member of one of the main political parties with her, as if blaming the other party for the fire.

I thought the U.S. was bad about shameless politicization. It seems that sort of thing happens more here than other places. It could be politicians are particularly opportunistic and swoop down on personal tragedies to push forward some political agenda.

I also read that it's the same with public TV here. It's not independent like it relatively is in the U.S., U.K., Japan and other places. Public TV which is supposed to be public interest for the betterment of society and not corporate profit, is apparently used as a mouthpiece for whatever political party is in power here.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. The Infamous Date Rape (A Tribe Called Quest)
2. The Giddybug Gallop (Duke Ellington)
3. Walk On (U2)
4. Digging in the Dirt (live) (Peter Gabriel)
5. Double Suicide (Mercy Killing) (Versus)
6. 4th of July (Aimee Mann)
7. Not a Day Goes By ("Merrily We Roll Along" - Sondheim)
8. Cowtown (They Might Be Giants)
9. Surf (Sakura)
10. Looking for Someone (Genesis)

2008-12-20T22:44:00.004+08:00

July 7, 2008 - Over the shoulder shot along the Xindian Riverside bikeway.

The bikeways can get crowded on weekends with families and groups of friends, making them not the ideal place to, you know, "ride". You have to remember they're for recreation, people are recreating. En masse. If a cyclist wants to "ride", they should stay off the bikeways on weekends. A measure of patience and tolerance is required, safety should always come first, especially when children are involved.

There was a picture in the newspaper in a local English-language newspaper this past Friday of a college friend of mine at Oberlin, Bi-khim Hsiao. She was in the news because she used to be in the legislature and she's still involved with the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), and she was trying to convince a judge against the continued detention of another DPP member who is under arrest and investigation for corruption. The article was only partly about that, the headline was that her bike was stolen. Anyway, the funny thing for me was that she was wearing a pink Oberlin College sweatshirt!

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Yes, My Heart ("Carnival")
2. Secret World (Peter Gabriel)
3. Man Overboard (Blondie)
4. Sway (Shriekback)
5. Scratch-N-Sniff (Stevie Ray Vaughan & Double Trouble)
6. It Takes All Kinds (Aimee Mann)
7. Providence (Sonic Youth)
8. Addison's Trip ("Bounce" - Sondheim)
9. Mind Power (A Tribe Called Quest)
10. 我要快樂 (A-Mei)

2008-12-16T00:09:00.003+08:00

June 29, 2008 - Street shooting at the corner of Civic Boulevard and Keelung Road. The structure just visible on the left is the elevated freeway over parts of Keelung Road.

Keelung Road just south of Zhongxiao East Road with Taipei 101 behind the street signs. I remember being frustrated at not shooting very much, so that day I made a point of taking whatever random shot occurred to me while riding along. But only these two.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Picture Book (live) (The Kinks)
2. Real Love (Smashing Pumpkins)
3. UFO TOFU (Bela Fleck & the Flecktones)
4. What People Are Made of (Modest Mouse)
5. Back in N.Y.C. (live) (Genesis)
6. Sensation (The Who)
7. The Only Way (Hymn) (Emerson, Lake & Palmer)
8. Leave It (Yes)
9. Home (Kristin Hersh)
10. Symphony No. 2, II. Larghetto (Beethoven)

2008-12-13T15:24:00.004+08:00

June 25, 2008 - Couple of sneaked shots inside the Fine Arts Museum. Pretty institutional. I should've sneaked shots in the galleries. I mean, if you're going to sneak shots where photography is prohibited, then go all-out, you know? None of this trying-to-be-respectful crap!

I'm not doing well with getting a fourth roll shot before the end of the year. Even though I'm only working weekends, I'm still having trouble switching my sleeping hours back to something resembling "normal". I'm also still sleeping a lot more than I'm used to - some lingering cold maybe. I'm not getting out nearly enough or early enough to shoot.

The band suggested taking a break in January and just concentrating on learning new songs. I'm going to come out against the idea. A month of just rehearsal with no gigs/pay sounds excruciating to me. I also don't know when I'll be moving to Kaohsiung, but I'm thinking I definitely will be moving there next year. So it would be better for all parties concerned that they take the break at the same time they find a new drummer. It just makes sense.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. No. 13 Baby (The Pixies)
2. Sanya (Kohachiro Miyata - shakuhachi)
3. 讚仰三寶之歌 (郭孟雍)
4. 真夜中は純潔 (Mayonaka wa Junketsu) (Shiina Ringo)
5. Private Idaho (B-52s)
6. Everything's Just Wonderful (Lily Allen)
7. Too Drunk to Fuck (Dead Kennedys)
8. The King of the Mosh Pit (Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra)
9. Scissor Man (Primus)
10. Symphony No. 4, III. Allegro vivace (Beethoven)

2008-12-09T15:20:00.004+08:00

June 25, 2008 - Taipei's Fine Arts Museum in Yuanshan district, although Yuanshan is not officially a district. It's the area that straddles the Keelung River along Zhongshan North Road.

Plane about to land at Taipei's Songshan Airport. Shot through the MRT tracks near Yuanshan MRT station.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Down On the Corner (Creedence Clearwater Revival)
2. Sweet Black Angel (The Rolling Stones)
3. (Wish I Could Fly Like) Superman (The Kinks)
4. Silverfish (Belly)
5. There Shall Be No Night (Duke Ellington)
6. Caffeine (Kristin Hersh)
7. You Know My Name (Look Up the Number) (The Beatles - Anthology)
8. More Sweet Soul (Pretty Girls Make Graves)
9. Love Struck Baby (Stevie Ray Vaughan & Double Trouble)
10. The Moon (Cat Power)

2008-12-06T15:21:00.003+08:00

June 23, 2008 - Waiting on my bike at the intersection at Minquan East Road and Fuxing North Road, looking south, on my way to work.

September 3, 2008 - Waiting on my bike at the intersection at Minquan East Road and Fuxing North Road, looking north, on my way to work.

This partly explains why I've shot so little this year. Work and routine makes me a creature of habit, doing the same basic thing day in and day out. Actually, it's not that bad, I do vary, but once I've found a template, I can easily find and fall back in it. I think law school did that to me.

Like I've mentioned, there is a route to work where I know all the lights, and therefore how to ride on any section of road to beat a light, or to not waste my energy. I know never to rush to get to this light because I'll never beat it, and I even have time to pull out the fisheye.

These are probably even just about at the same time of late afternoon, the first one just after the solstice, the second a few weeks before the equinox.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Portions for Foxes (Rilo Kiley)
2. Cash Car Star (Smashing Pumpkins)
3. Stokfel Jive (Mahlathini & the Mahotella Queens)
4. Karn Evil 9 - 1st Impression, part 2 (Emerson, Lake & Palmer)
5. Technopolis (Yellow Magic Orchestra)
6. Dirty Fingernails (Modest Mouse)
7. Starman (David Bowie)
8. Kiss Off (Violent Femmes)
9. Baby's Got a Brand New Hairdo (Elvis Costello & the Attractions)
10. Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 1, Prelude #16 (J.S. Bach)

2008-12-03T21:15:00.002+08:00

May 18, 2008 - Minzu East Road, shooting north at the Fine Arts Museum park.

Wow, this year's almost over and I'm still posting lomos from the first roll I completed this year. I just finished shooting the third, and I'm making it a goal to shoot a full roll over the month of December. For the past 2 years I've been shooting 11 rolls per year!

At least I did quit my job for most part. I'll still go in on weekends, but I'm hoping to phase that out soon, too. And I'm just getting over a nasty cold, so I'm feeling this sense of renewal. I just spent 3 solid days in bed watching TV. Yay! Well, plus movies and DVDs.

I'm probably also gonna quit the band next year, too. Which means I'll have nothing to do in Taipei, so I'll probably move to Kaohsiung soon after that happens.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Given to Fly (live) (Pearl Jam)
2. Penelope (live) (Pinback)
3. Absentee (Shannon Wright)
4. Groovin' High (Dizzy Gillespie & His Orchestra)
5. One of the Few (Pink Floyd)
6. Public Enemy No. 1 (Public Enemy)
7. Shigatsu no Ame (Dreams Come True)
8. Who's the Thief? ("Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat")
9. Tapestry (Carole King)
10. On the Other Side of Paradise (The Neville Brothers)

2008-11-23T00:35:00.003+08:00

Lomo shooting had become so sparse that I couldn't even keep track of when I was shooting the same subject matter. These two are a month apart, but only two frames apart on the roll. Riding to work, I often passed in front of Taipei's old airport - Songshan Airport, which now covers shorter haul flights. Most international flights now fly in and out of Taoyuan International Airport in Taoyuan County, about 40 minutes away from Taipei.

view 1

May 18, 2008

view 2

June 22, 2008

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Hana (花) (A Flower in Every Heart) (Shoukichi Kina & Champloose)
2. Seven Spanish Angels (Ray Charles w/Willie Nelson)
3. Down (Suede)
4. Mary Anne With the Shaky Hands (The Who)
5. Tu Eres Mentirosa (Sukay - Andean pan flute)
6. The Girls Want to Be With the Girls (live) (Talking Heads)
7. I Heard It Through The Grapevine (Marvin Gaye)
8. Yatara-chan's Annoying Noise (Katra Turana - Japanese underground)
9. Blow Wind Blow (Tom Waits)
10. For Crying Out Loud (Meat Loaf)

2008-11-18T01:20:00.003+08:00

August 5, 2008 - And here's a close up of where I live, taken several months later. Yes, I've devoted my life to the service of God. Jesus is my Master and I am His slave. Actually, I live in the green building on the left, and I chose the room that doesn't look out over the church (it was the smaller room).

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Mean Mr. Mustard (The Beatles - Anthology)
2. Complicated Life (The Kinks)
3. Someday We'll Know (New Radicals) (the drummer in this video is playing blueberry Yamaha Beech Customs, the exact same drums I have!)
4. Shrug (live) (Ani DiFranco)
5. All That Jazz ("Chicago")
6. Your Mother Should Know (The Beatles)
7. Tension Living With Muscle (Rebecca)
8. London Boy (Rebecca)
9. Fly Me to the Moon ("Neon Genesis Evangelion")
10. Sunday in the Park With George ("Sunday in the Park With George" - Sondheim)

2008-11-12T15:08:00.005+08:00

May 18, 2008 - Taipei, Taiwan. Songshan District. The lane where I live. It's a nice neighborhood, lots of stray cats, which is a lot nicer than the rampant stray dog problem in most other parts of Taipei.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Eastern Wave (Three Mile Pilot)
2. O My God (live) (The Police)
3. Lately (live) (Tegan & Sara)
4. Opening Theme (Camper Van Beethoven)
5. In the Cage (Genesis)
6. If You Cross (Three Mile Pilot)
7. Sodomy ("Hair")
8. The Days of Old (Paris)
9. Your Eyes (The Sundays)
10. Your Arse My Place (Elastica)

2008-11-09T15:26:00.005+08:00

May 16, 2008 - Intersection of Xinyi and Keelung roads, looking east at Taipei 101, the 2nd highest building in the world. Somehow that doesn't have the same impressiveness as saying "the tallest building in the world". Oh well.

It's been raining for more than 24 hours straight. It may have let up for short periods of less than an hour, but I think it's been pretty much constant since yesterday morning. I think it's from a typhoon to the southwest that isn't predicted to come near us, but the rain is dumping down on us.

So I couldn't do any riding yesterday, on my rare day off with no work and no rehearsal/gig, but I'm quitting my job next week, going in for weekends for maybe a month longer, so I'll have a lot more time soon. Although I'm supposed to be using the time to really try to nail down the language before I leave.

I was hoping to ride out to Taiwan's east coast. I'm doing more day riding now that the Summer heat is gone. It's still hotter than San Francisco ever gets, except during their laughable "heat waves", which to me is just comfortable, but it's all relative.

The other day, I found a road from Xizhi (汐止), just east of Taipei, that goes south to Pingxi (平溪), that I did during the daytime. Day riding still sucks because of the traffic and pollution, and Route 5 out of Taipei wasn't exactly pleasant, but once I got off that main road onto 北31 to Pingxi, it turned out to be a great ride. The climb went up to 655 meters (over 2000') before descending down to Pingxi.

And strangely, I was worried when I started out before noon that it would be uncomfortably hot, since the sun was shining and it was already probably in the low 80s. But as I got out of Taipei and headed up the mountain, it clouded over and the temperature came down, and it was a pleasant climb. I was even worried about rain.

But as soon as I started descending, the clouds disappeared and the rest of the ride was all in sunlight. As good as it gets.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Ai Suru Hito Yo (Sakura)
2. Samurai Showdown (RZA - "Ghost Dog")
3. Cracked Actor (live) (David Bowie)
4. Yume no Tamago (Ichiko Hashimoto - "RahXephon")
5. Chan Chan (Eliades Ochoa - "Buena Vista Social Club")
6. Wonder (Natalie Merchant)
7. Walking in Space ("Hair")
8. Giant Steps (John Coltrane)
9. I'll Be Back (The Beatles)
10. Got To Get You Into My Life (The Beatles - Anthology)

2008-10-31T15:58:00.006+08:00

May 12, 2008 - An update pic along the riverside bikeway where the Keelung meets the Danshui River.

Continuing on the same part of the bikeway. They reminded me of when the Simpsons used the opening theme of The Sopranos. I call this section of bikeway the "5 mile extension" because there is a shortcut from the Danshui to the Keelung rivers, but taking this route adds 5 miles.

I tried quitting my job yesterday, but apparently something got lost in translation. That, or people in journalism hear what they want to hear, and don't hear what they don't want to hear. So I have to go in tomorrow with a more forceful declaration that I'm going to quit.

Working at that newspaper is an interesting study on brainwashing. It's a blue newspaper, and I consider myself center-leaning-green. Now I find myself reading green oriented news and it seems incredibly biased and practically fringe. They make Taiwan's president look like a cross between George W. Bush and Stalin. So now I'm hopelessly delusioned by Taiwan politics, and probably better off that way.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Bones of Her Hands (Archers of Loaf)
2. Vamos (The Pixies)
3. Poisoned Rose (The Costello Show featuring the Attractions)
4. East New York Stamp (Jeru & Afu Ra - "Ghost Dog")
5. Lugu Lugu Kan Ibi (David Darling & the Wulu Bunun)
6. Five Years (live) (David Bowie)
7. Mr. Blue Sky (Electric Light Orchestra)
8. Omedetou (Judy And Mary)
9. Dust in the Wind/Acoustic Guitar Solo (live) (Kansas)
10. Sea and Sand (The Who)

2008-10-24T16:09:00.002+08:00

May 12, 2008 - Taipei, Taiwan. Keelung left bank-Danshui right bank bikeway.

This was shot in May before I discovered the benefits of night riding, which I've been doing most of the Summer. Now, in October, the days are cooling down enough that day rides are possible, i.e., more potential for ride lomos. I guess with the Fisheye 2, it's possible to take night lomos with long exposure, but I think night shots would mostly be a bunch of indistinct flecks of light.

This week I've ridden a total of 95 miles. 54 of those were on a day ride to Jinshan on Taiwan's northeast coast. Day rides being possible doesn't make them more enjoyable than night rides, though. True, I can enjoy scenery; true, I can shoot some lomos; but the choking on motorscooter exhaust fumes on major roads is something that is avoided by night riding. When I ride Route 2 from Danshui to Keelung, it's going to be a night ride.

I went exploring the bike paths along the Dahan River last night. They're not as seamless as Taipei, and they're not paved for smooth riding. They basically laid down concrete for multi-purpose recreational use and pat themselves on the back for supporting cycling, even though they're not really clear on the concept. But the further south I went, the more interesting they got, and they're worth more exploring. I went down as far as Yingge, which is as far as Taipei County goes, then returned on Route 3, getting home at a little after 5 in the morning.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Revenge (live) (Archers of Loaf)
2. She Loves You (The Beatles - Anthology)
3. Wandering Star (Portishead)
4. Holiday Gone Well (The Aislers Set)
5. Hamse Hai Sara Jahan ("Jo Jeeta Woh Sikandar" - Bollywood)
6. Oom-Pah-Pah ("Oliver!")
7. Does He Love You? (Rilo Kiley)
8. Flowers (New Radicals)
9. Vanity (Smashing Pumpkins)
10. Lost Ones (Lauryn Hill)

2008-10-16T17:47:00.002+08:00

May 12, 2008 - Taipei, Taiwan. Riverside bikeway along the Keelung River with, I think, Mt. Guanyin across the Danshui River ahead.

The left bank of the Keelung River ends here at the confluence with the Danshui River. They've developed it into a little park, which is nice.

You know, when I first started riding around Taipei after I arrived two and a half years ago, there was room for improvement in the riverside bikeway system. I can't be too critical about it, because such recreational facilities and urban beautification projects are a luxury in many urban settings. But there were problems with access, maintenance, and passage as construction was ongoing.

Two years on, now I want to know where else in the world is there a recreation bikeway system that tops Taipei's. I haven't gone around the world looking for them, I don't know what other cities have them aside from San Francisco and New York, but in my ignorance, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that Taipei has one of the world's best recreational bikeways.

Some ridiculously high percentage of Taipei's riversides are now dedicated to recreational use, thanks to the rivers not being commercially viable, of course. The bikeways are extensive, and I do want to measure them one day. Along both banks of all the rivers - some of which I haven't even been on yet, particularly along the Dahan River, I think the mileage may come close to 100 miles.

As development and construction is completed, they are becoming increasingly seamless. Just the other night, at 2 in the morning, I realized I could "time trial" 27 miles from where I live by the Keelung River to where I used to live by my old apartment in Xindian on the Jingmei River. I couldn't time trial it (I just mean prolonged riding at a relatively high pace; over 20 mph is a high cruising speed for me) during the day because there's too many people, but at night, it's more or less a straight shot, albeit with places requiring slowing down.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Don't Let Me Down (The Beatles)
2. Give Peace a Chance (John Lennon)
3. Tonight, Tonight, Tonight (live) (Genesis)
4. Underdogs of Nipomo (Archers of Loaf)
5. In My Body (Smashing Pumpkins)
6. There Goes a Tenner (Kate Bush)
7. Pressure (live) (The Kinks)
8. The Fly (U2)
9. Will You Love Me Tomorrow? (Carole King)
10. La La Love You (The Pixies)

2008-10-13T03:19:00.002+08:00

September 7, 2008 - Bad tattoo self-portrait. Makes it clear how hard it is to aim the fisheye. Most of the time it's just random pointing at whereever.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. 40 (live) (U2)
2. Sora Yori Umi Yori (Puri Puri Samba '91) (Princess Princess)
3. Blackout (David Bowie)
4. Who the Cap Fit (Bob Marley & the Wailers)
5. Down Upbeat (Casiopea)
6. Love's Recovery (Indigo Girls)
7. War/No More Trouble (live) (Bob Marley & the Wailers)
8. Hashih ("Hair")
9. If You Had Lived (Sweet Honey in the Rock)
10. More Than This (10,000 Maniacs)

2008-10-10T04:16:00.002+08:00

May 11, 2008 - La Mer, back porch, just before we started playing. Those are our "peeps" at the table in front. That's the guitarist on the left, bassist on the right, Andy crouching in front. I don't miss the trek going up to Sanzhi to play, even though it was nice getting out of Taipei and basking in the beach culture that surrounds Taiwan all along its coasts. Really chill vibe. I wouldn't mind living out on the coast somewhere in Taiwan.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Symphony No. 2 "Romantic", III. Allegro con brio (Howard Hanson)
2. Lie Detector (Sleeper)
3. Namida ga Kirari (Spitz)
4. Big Spender ("Sweet Charity" - 1986 revival)
5. Marching Bands of Manhattan (Death Cab for Cutie)
6. King of the Kerb (live) (Echobelly)
7. Fascination (David Bowie)
8. Spirits Having Flown (The Bee Gees)
9. Hard As Love (Marillion)
10. Mr. Zebra (live) (Tori Amos)

2008-10-07T13:58:00.004+08:00

July 5, 2008 - This should round up that night, which was in fact just beginning. I won't say anything else about this lomo or that night lest the wrong information is found out about the wrong people who misinterpret or are unable to interpret things in the proper light, regarding any number of possible topics.

Which is, I suppose, an odd thing to be concerned about considering the intentional misleading nature of the previous posts.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Union Square (Tom Waits)
2. Flute Concerto in G Major (Vivaldi)
3. I Me Mine (The Beatles - Anthology)
4. I Would Hurt A Fly (live) (Built to Spill)
5. Walking Through the Darkness (Tekitha - "Ghost Dog")
6. Not for the Life of Me (reprise) ("Thoroughly Modern Millie")
7. Reviewing the Situation ("Oliver!")
8. Future Legend/Diamond Dogs (David Bowie)
9. New York State of Mind (Billy Joel)
10. Baby I Love Your Way (Big Mountain)

2008-10-05T09:33:00.004+08:00

July 5, 2008 - OK, so Alex was friendly with everyone that night. Here, she has a thing with Nina. My god, Nina has a better chance than I do! (this is all a joke, mind you, just seeing if Andy comes here, but I think he doesn't. he didn't punch my lights out at our gig last night).

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Kimi to Iru Jikan no Naka de (Ayaka Hirahara)
2. Raise the Roof (Public Enemy)
3. Soul Daiji (Bubble Gum Brothers)
4. Maggie's Farm (Bob Dylan)
5. It's a Hard-Knock Life ("Annie")
6. Faithful (Pearl Jam)
7. Toast (Archers of Loaf)
8. Natural Animal (Echobelly)
9. Fifty Ways to Leave Your Lover (live) (Simon & Garfunkel)
10. You Took the Words Right Out of My Mouth (Hot Summer Night) (Meat Loaf)

2008-10-03T01:50:00.003+08:00

July 5, 2008 - I'm gonna steal his girlfriend! Let's see if Andy, the band's singer, is really coming to this blog. See? His girlfriend's all over me at this birthday celebration of hers' near the peak of my insomnia days. Note the look on my face, though: "Git yer hands offa me, woman, ya tryn'a get me lynched?"

Besides (that's Andy standing), look at all the fly ladies he's always surrounded with! Well, maybe not the ugly guy in the middle, but look how adoringly the woman on the right is gazing at him.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Long As I'm Here With You ("Thoroughly Modern Millie")
2. Tres (Pinback)
3. Sunday (Helium)
4. Passing Strangers (Marillion)
5. My Life (Billy Joel)
6. By the Way (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
7. Ghost World (acoustic) (Aimee Mann)
8. Papillon (Rilo Kiley)
9. Army Dreamers (Kate Bush)
10. Magic Bus (live) (The Who)

2008-09-28T14:51:00.003+08:00

May 11, 2008 - Sanzhi, Taiwan north coast. With time before playing, we could walk out on the beach and relax. That's Alex and Nikki walking back along the jetty. Or is it a quay? Or a breakwater? Who knows. Alex is the band's singer's girlfriend. He recently found this blog, so now he knows that I'm out to steal his girlfriend. They're also moving next month to a place with extra rooms, so they asked me if I wanted to move in with them. Naturally, that'll make it much easier for me to put my moves on, little does he know.

As they walked back, I continued walking out. It's farther than it looks.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Walk Through the Fire (Peter Gabriel)
2. I'm Looking Through You (The Beatles)
3. Below the Salt (Unwound)
4. Wandering in the Street (Blackhand Nakasi Workers Band)
5. Babe (Styx)
6. Two Is Enough (Seam)
7. Yassassin (David Bowie)
8. The Goldberg Variations, #26 (J.S. Bach)
9. Toki ga Bousou Suru (Shiina Ringo)
10. When I'm Sixty-Four (The Beatles)

2008-09-25T23:10:00.003+08:00

May 11, 2008 - Sanzhi, on the north coast of Taiwan. The band used to play up there couple times a month at a restaurant/cafe called La Mer. We played on the back porch, just steps away from the beach. Not bad, eh? It was just far from Taipei and a pain to get to. We stopped playing up there after we got our own place to play in Taipei. And since the person who booked us was . . . well, murdered.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. OSCA (Tokyo Jihen)
2. Ein Deutsches Requiem, V. Ihr habt nun Traurigkeit (Brahms)
3. Rude Mood (live) (Stevie Ray Vaughan & Double Trouble)
4. Deep Wilson (Kristin Hersh)
5. Israel (Siouxsie & the Banshees)
6. We Know Better (Echobelly)
7. Egypt (Kate Bush)
8. Kougousei (Shiina Ringo)
9. The Way Things Go (The Octopus Project)
10. Go Fun Burn Man (live) (Mission of Burma)

2008-09-20T02:35:00.003+08:00

May 9, 2008 - Bend in the Keelung River, Songshan District, Taipei, Taiwan. This is about half a mile from where I live. It's a pretty nice riverside area. We just had a typhoon blow through, and they closed all the floodgates, but the river is quite large and although the river level noticeably rose, there was no sign of damage, like on the Xindian or Jingmei rivers in last year's big typhoon.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Falling Down (Tom Waits)
2. Neon Lights (Sahara Hotnights)
3. Perfect Time (Archers of Loaf)
4. Fool In the Rain (Led Zeppelin)
5. Melody (Sakura)
6. Coming Up (Paul McCartney)
7. Without Fire (764-HERO)
8. Far East Medley (live) (Bela Fleck & the Flecktones)
9. Growing Up (Peter Gabriel)
10. Gut Pageant (Kristin Hersh)

2008-09-15T13:12:00.002+08:00

May 9, 2008 - Nanjing East Road, Section 5; one of the major east-west boulevards going across Taipei. They're building an MRT line under it, which is that construction going on in the middle of the road. I'm not making any predictions, but I can't imagine still living here by the time they complete it. Which is like. . . 5 years from now.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Grasshoppers (Ryuichi Sakamoto)
2. Pull Up the Roots (Talking Heads)
3. Who Do You Dance For? (Sahara Hotnights)
4. Try to Remember (reprise) ("The Fantasticks")
5. December (Unwound)
6. A Sword and a Rose and a Cape ("Carnival")
7. Home (Kristin Hersh)
8. Black Country Woman (Led Zeppelin)
9. Five O'Clock Whistle (Duke Ellington)
10. Whatever (Ani DiFranco)

2008-09-13T03:41:00.003+08:00

April 18, 2008 - Bike parking next to the Taida library. Bike parking is never an issue on campus, unless you try to park close to where you want to go. That's a general rule. Then you're either jamming someone else's bike in, or they're jamming in yours, and good luck trying to get your bike out. I think I avoided going to the library when I knew it would be crowded, so I never had a problem. Also because the library doesn't have enough seating, and it's hard to find a seat during peak hours. This is Taiwan's best university, mind you.

I had started working in April, but I still had a valid Taida ID until the end of June (the person stamping my ID a semester earlier made a mistake), so I still went down there on occasion.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. I'm Only Sleeping (take 1) (The Beatles - Anthology)
2. Yeah! Nen Matsu (Bakufu Slump)
3. Mystic Rhythms (live) (Rush)
4. Don't You Worry 'Bout a Thing (Stevie Wonder)
5. Itoshi no Happy Days (Dreams Come True)
6. Do You Think It's Alright? (The Who)
7. Black and White ("Barnum")
8. Knuckle Down (XTC)
9. Goodbye Caroline (Aimee Mann)
10. Art of Fugue, Contrapunctus 10 (J.S. Bach)

2008-09-10T15:11:00.002+08:00

April 12, 2008 - Taipei, Taiwan. Songshan District. Above ground trains run out of eastern Taipei from Songshan train station, serving eastern Taiwan. West of Taipei, they emerge from underground in Taipei County.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Brandenburg Concerto No. 2, I. Allegro (J.S. Bach)
2. What Am I Here For? (Duke Ellington)
3. People (King Crimson)
4. Syeeda's Flute Song (John Coltrane)
5. Argument (Fugazi)
6. Whatall Is Nice (Ani DiFranco)
7. Hi Fu Mi Hachi Kaeshi (Katsuya Yokoyama - shakuhachi)
8. Sledgehammer (Peter Gabriel)
9. One (Sakura)
10. The Bed ("Hair")

2008-09-02T22:00:00.002+08:00

April 12, 2008 - Wow, this is the next consecutive frame from the previous post. A whole month between shots. That's so sad. And I didn't even start work until the beginning of April. What was I even doing then? I'm still working on the second roll of this year. That's even sadder. I didn't even stop sleeping until the end of May.

East side of the Raohe Night Market street in Songshan District, where there's an apparently popular Taoist temple.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Drain You (Nevermind)
2. La Guerre Est Finie (Pizzicato Five)
3. The Goldberg Variations, #17 (J.S. Bach)
4. Democratic Circus (Talking Heads)
5. Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite! (Take 7) (The Beatles - Anthology)
6. Panama (Van Halen)
7. Morning Sprite (Chick Corea Akoustic Band)
8. Caught A Lite Sneeze (Tori Amos)
9. Harbor Wind (Keiko Matsui)
10. Woman (John Lennon)

2008-08-30T15:37:00.002+08:00

March 12, 2008 - Taipei, Taiwan. Aiguo West Road near Xiaonanmen. "Nanmen" meaning "south gate", this was probably originally part of the south wall fortification surrounding the original Taipei City, which was no more than the current western part of Zhongzheng District and a little north of Taipei Main Station. It's hard to imagine Taipei a hundred years ago.

This shot didn't work. I was trying to get that busted up motor scooter that get left by the gate. The gate is on an island in the middle of the road, with a roundabout going around it.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. You're My Best Friend (Queen)
2. Anata Dake o - Summer Heartbreak - (Southern All-Stars)
3. Paquita (Tabu Ley & Africando)
4. Mothership Connection (Star Child) (Parliament Funkadelic)
5. Long Painting (50 Foot Wave)
6. Stop Your Sobbing (The Pretenders)
7. Five O'Clock Drag (Duke Ellington)
8. Stone the Crows ("Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat")
9. Pencil Rain (They Might Be Giants)
10. Ugly (Smashing Pumpkins)

2008-08-27T03:41:00.000+08:00

March 9, 2008 - Taipei, Taiwan. Nanjing East Road near the Guangfu North Road intersection. This is my new neighborhood after I moved in the beginning of March. I had been in this area before, albeit rarely, on rides. Needless to say, I never thought I would one day live here.

I had also been here once before to a music venue called "The Living Room", which is across the street directly to the left off this shot. I heard that it was closing soon after I moved here, which peeved me (just my luck), but I think the place has been picked up by new management and will continue having live music.

They're building an MRT (subway) line under Nanjing East Road, and this is a fenced off construciton area. The fencing and traffic lanes are constantly changing to accomodate construction. It makes for hairy riding, so I avoid riding my bike on this road. The line is scheduled for completion in, like, 2013, by which time I certainly hope to be back in the U.S.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Shoot Him (The Sugarcubes)
2. Home Sweet Home (Peter Gabriel)
3. New Jersey (100 Watt Smile)
4. Bitter Memories (Bakufu Slump)
5. Schizophrenia's Weighted Me Down (Cat Power)
6. Beneath, Between and Behind (live) (Rush)
7. The Roof is Leaking (Phil Collins)
8. Every Ghetto Every City (Lauryn Hill)
9. Shulaba La Bamba (Southern All-Stars)
10. No One Has Ever Loved Me ("Passion" - Sondheim)

2008-08-23T02:37:00.002+08:00

February 10, 2008 - This is so long ago, it's distant in my memory. It was a Lunar New Year family outing, but it was distant family to me, so it's all appropriate - my cousin's wife's family, and I got invited along because I happened to run into my cousin's wife on the street the day before.

That mound is a stone oven we built. This is a family activity that's more for kids, so it was dirty and interesting. It developed from a real kids' activity in Taiwan a long time ago. Some in the older generation remember making these ovens in the neighborhood and barbecuing food. Now it's organized in these special parks that provide the oven base, there are rocks that need to be collected to build the oven, and the park provides the food, too, as part of the fee.

I forget exactly where the park was, about a 25 minute drive out of Kaohsiung, towards Tainan, I think. These are my cousin's wife's family members, they were very nice and I had fun there.

Later in the day after the fires died down and the food got eaten - not very good cooked that way, but the point of the activity was to have fun with the kids, not to feast on good food necessarily, so it was still successful. And with kids, playing in the dirt becomes primo.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Here We Go! (J-Walk)
2. Loved Despite Great Faults (Blonde Redhead)
3. Give a Little Love (Rilo Kiley)
4. Clones (We're All) (Smashing Pumpkins)
5. Uptight (Everything's Alright) (Stevie Wonder)
6. Message to Prez (The Maupin/Williams Project)
7. Offline PK (live-ish) (Pinback)
8. One Flower (Guo Brothers & Shung Tian)
9. Colored Spade ("Hair")
10. Not A Day Goes By ("Merrily We Roll Along" - Sondheim)

Visit down south

2008-08-14T02:18:00.002+08:00

February 6, 2008 - Kaohsiung, Taiwan. Grandparents' gravesite. I know I've shot this many times already, but just documenting going there again. I asked my cousin what it said, and he wasn't really sure. Apparently what gets written on gravesites is a complicated matter.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Sickfile (Archers of Loaf)
2. Chikai (Ayaka Hirahara)
3. The Other Way of Stopping (The Police)
4. It's a Hit (Rilo Kiley)
5. Pink India (Stephen Malkmus)
6. Into the Heart (U2)
7. Rumpofsteelskin (Parliament Funkadelic)
8. I Can't Escape From You (The The)
9. I Gotta Move (The Kinks)
10. 查某人 (林強)

2008-08-09T05:02:00.003+08:00

February 4, 2008 - Starbucks, across Roosevelt Road from the Taida campus in Gongguan. Long exposure as the light was fading. So long ago. Back then I had already decided to move from Xindian City to Songshan District. I probably had decided at that point that I wasn't going to enroll for another semester of language classes, and would dedicate myself to self-study, which is what I was probably doing at Starbucks.

Back then, I could still drink coffee. Insomnia has killed my coffee drinking. Back then rehearsals had probably just started with the band. We didn't know half a year later we'd have a weekly gig at the bass player's new live bar/restaurant. Back then I had no idea I'd be working. I wonder what I'd do different back then if I knew where I'd be now. Not sleeping, that is. So much for the Zen adage: "When hungry, eat; when tired, sleep". But what if you have insomnia? Shut up, kid.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Natsu no Utage (Chitose Hajime)
2. Untouchable Face (Ani DiFranco)
3. It Ain't Easy (David Bowie)
4. In Every Corner (Julie Plug)
5. On Mercury (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
6. Jhumra (Himalayan instrumental music)
7. Sweet Thing (live) (David Bowie)
8. (You Made Me) (The Thief of Your Heart) (Sinead O'Connor)
9. That's All (live) (Genesis)
10. Mexican Seafood (Nirvana)

2008-08-02T14:55:00.002+08:00

January 17, 2008 - Xindian, Taiwan. So long ago, opening frame on this roll, which is why it's cut off. Although I'm not sure why it's cut off on the right. Shouldn't the opening frame be cut off on the left? Maybe my film is messing with my mind.

That's where I used to live. I think at that time, I had just told my landlord I would probably stay there indefinitely, but then my current apartment came to my attention through family members, and a month and a half later I moved. My current landlord is my cousin's uncle. Which could mean my father, which would suck since he'd be charging me rent (bastard), but no, it's an uncle on her mother's side. I don't have enough good things to say about her mother's side of the family, all of them wonderful people. My cousin perhaps being the least among them, having blood mingled with my side of the family, haha!

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Hateful (The Clash)
2. Hate My Way (Throwing Muses)
3. Symphony No. 41, I. Allegro vivace (Mozart)
4. The Nuttycracker Suite ("Thoroughly Modern Millie")
5. Power to the People (John Lennon)
6. Little Amsterdam (Tori Amos)
7. Song of Complaint (Askarian & Khatchaturian - "Passion" sources)
8. Oliver! ("Oliver!")
9. Admiral Perry (David Byrne - Music for "The Knee Plays")
10. Worse Than Detroit (Robert Plant)

Boring nothing shot

2008-07-30T01:42:00.004+08:00

June 25, 2008 - Taipei, Taiwan, Minzu E. Road and Xinsheng N. Road, Sec. 3, with the Xinsheng Expressway overhead, and I wouldn't be surprised if this was the Xinsheng canal. Canals aren't anything in Taipei, unlike Bangkok where they are extensive and used for transportation. Here they're dank and smelly, basically uncovered sewage lines leading to the rivers.

So now I'm on a new roll, a roll that took almost half a year to shoot. Uninspired, unmotivated, insomnial, and working. To emphasize it all, this kind of shot is what I fear is the best I can do. Boring shot of basically nothing. It's not without merit, but lord it ain't a good shot. Fortunately, it's among the worst on the roll. Meaning others are better. Maybe. I hope.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. War Pigs (Black Sabbath)
2. Gone (U2)
3. Hear My Heart (Edith Frost)
4. Adam and Eve (live) (Ani DiFranco)
5. The Lamia (live) (Genesis)
6. I Will Catch U (Nokko)
7. Symphony No. 41, III. Menuetto (Allegretto) (Mozart)
8. The Angels Hung Around (Rilo Kiley)
9. Oh! Darling (The Beatles)
10. Here Come the Bastards (Primus)

just some random shots

2008-07-22T01:34:00.003+08:00

January 2, 2008 - Hackensack, NJ. Red-nosed VW in the parking lot of Target. I'm sure I could have found a better composition for this subject. You can barely see the antlers. Man, do people go nuts for Christmas.

January 4, 2008 - 175th Street station of the New York Subway system. This far north, I think only the "A" train comes to this station. It's where I go to/get off because it's where the George Washington Bridge is. I take a bus to cross the bridge, or sometimes walk. Why am I talking in the present tense?

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Trimmed and Burning (Built to Spill)
2. Vigil (Fish)
3. Pale (Kristin Hersh)
4. Creatures of Love (Talking Heads)
5. Eleanor Rigby (The Beatles)
6. Imamura Jane (Southern All-Stars)
7. Welcome to the Jungle (Guns 'N Roses)
8. Cracked Actor (David Bowie)
9. Dead End Job (The Police)
10. Trees (live) (Rush)

more Edgewater

2008-07-15T15:30:00.003+08:00

January 10, 2008 - Probably around the same area as the previous post, but a couple days later, meaning I was probably down there watching movies. I remember "Sweeney Todd" came out about then. I forget what else I saw. I'm looking forward to the new "Batman". My co-worker already saw it to review it for the paper, although I didn't think we did movie reviews in house, we usually pull them from a U.S. wire. He said it was really good, mind-alteringly good. He said I'd really like it. It opens here a day earlier than in the U.S.. Strange.

Garbage can in the Hudson River, with the New York skyline bending with the horizon.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Gypsy (Fleetwood Mac)
2. Two Soldiers (David Byrne - "The Catherine Wheel")
3. Aeroflot (20 Minute Loop)
4. Koufukuron (Shiina Ringo)
5. Sweet Depression (Deadweight)
6. Macavity ("Cats")
7. Letter to a John/Tamburitza Lingua (live) (Ani DiFranco)
8. Bang! Bang! (Le Tigre)
9. Lazy (Suede)
10. I'll Be Back (demo) (The Beatles - Anthology)

Series shots

2008-07-12T01:39:00.002+08:00

(1)

January 8, 2008 - Edgewater, NJ. Hudson River at sunset. New York City across the river.

(2)

A little further down the "pier".

(3)

Wake ripples, after a boat sailed past.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. The Difference Between Love and Hell (Sahara Hotnights)
2. Like a Lady (The Sounds)
3. Rock Me Now (Metric)
4. Assassing (live) (Marillion)
5. Hey Bulldog (The Beatles)
6. In the Rapids (live) (Genesis)
7. The Stars are Projectors (Modest Mouse)
8. Cello Suite No. 1, VI - Gigue (J.S. Bach - Yo-Yo Ma)
9. Say Hello to the World (Makihara Noriyuki)
10. Arabian Knights (Siouxsie & the Banshees)

Oh, and all Shiina Ringo muxtape. I think I'll upload a new muxtape every month or so. Wondering how that site will develop.

2008-07-07T01:17:00.003+08:00

December 31, 2007 - Philadelphia church, same old theme, leaving Philly on New Year's Eve, car shot on the drive back to New Jersey below, blah blah blah, god, I gotta move on. Although you gotta admit that was pretty good light that day.

Well, I finally got a new roll developed today. I can't believe it took me half a year to finish a roll, that is seriously uninspired. So I'll blast through the rest of this roll and hope there's something worthy on the new roll.

This is probably still in Philly or in New Jersey before the Turnpike. It all looks the same.

I've had insomnia for a month, getting worse and worse. Now I'm either gonna cure it or accept it. I guess something's gotta change. It's weird. I'm not stressed, I don't have anything on my mind, I just can't sleep for more than 3 hours. But I did have this problem when I was working in San Francisco, so maybe the problem is work!

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Risky (Ryuichi Sakamoto)
2. Ripple (The Grateful Dead)
3. Not for the Life of Me ("Thoroughly Modern Millie")
4. I Never (Rilo Kiley)
5. Night On the Sun (Modest Mouse)
6. Driven to Tears (live) (The Police)
7. Fly on a Windshield (Genesis)
8. Other Side of the World (KT Tunstall)
9. Hey Ladies (The Beastie Boys)
10. El Flaco Funk (John Pena)

2008-07-03T02:24:00.004+08:00

December 31, 2007 - Daytime tunnel. Car shots, train platform shots, it looks like some serious typography on this last roll of developed lomo shots I have. But it wasn't intentional. Ah, unintended typography, the final bastion for the uninspired. Along with photo essays.

Don't worry, I'm not gonna subject anyone to another photo essay, especially myself. I think this shot was right after crossing into New Jersey from Pennsylvania on route. . . whatever, I don't remember. I'm almost done finishing the one roll I've been working on since this roll. It's bound to be disappointing or pleasantly surprising.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Good Times, Bad Times (Led Zeppelin)
2. Your Dirty Answer (Kristin Hirsch)
3. Ionizes & Atomizes (Modest Mouse)
4. Soul to Squeeze (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
5. White Sun (Takeshi Yamaguchi)
6. Blister in the Sun (Violent Femmes)
7. Obscured (Smashing Pumpkins)
8. I Don't Want U (Blonde Redhead)
9. Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love (Van Halen)
10. Believo! (Enon)

2008-06-29T02:04:00.002+08:00

December 31, 2007 - Leaving Philadelphia on New Year's Eve. Urban skylines. Winter blue skies. Contrast to the sub-tropical Taipei drear, but it's all wonderful. What a great planet we have. Hope we can take care of it.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Symphony No. 8, II. Tempo di menuetto (Beethoven)
2. Five to One (The Doors)
3. Thinking of No One But Me ("My and My Girl")
4. Bodies (Smashing Pumpkins)
5. Sin in My Heart (Siouxsie & the Banshees)
6. Kathy's Waltz (The Dave Brubeck Quartet)
7. Listen to What the Man Said (Wings)
8. Tainted Love (Soft Cell)
9. Disarm (live, English TV 1993) (Smashing Pumpkins)
10. Them Heavy People (Kate Bush)

2008-06-26T02:28:00.002+08:00

December 20, 2007 - 42nd Street station, 8th Avenue line, New York City. I take the "A" train in New York. But not because I'm going to Harlem, which is what I assume is the significance in the Duke Ellington song, but because I come from much lamer New Jersey. My, but this lomo makes New York subways look clean. They're not.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. And God Created Whales (Hovhaness)
2. You're Gonna Get Yours (Public Enemy)
3. Melt the Guns (XTC)
4. Driver 8 (R.E.M.)
5. Story from a Thin Wall (Marillion)
6. Raga Parmeshwari (Ravi Shankar & Ustad Alla Rakha)
7. Desafinado (George Michael & Astrud Gilberto)
8. Room for the Life (Kate Bush)
9. Indoor Fireworks (The Costello Show feat. the Attractions)
10. Only Us (Peter Gabriel)

2008-06-17T01:50:00.006+08:00

Not sure how to blow the dust off this blog. I went to my Lomo 2008 folder to continue posting, and there was nothing there. The latest roll was in the 2007 folder. I haven't finished a single roll in 2008! A sure sign something needs to change and be shooken up.

December 4, 2007 - MRT station, either Shilin or Jiantan on the red line.

2008-06-14T02:43:00.001+08:00

I think it might be safe to come back here. There was a family breach of this blog, but I haven't seen any return since then. Not that I've been shooting any.

2008-03-25T00:41:00.003+08:00

December 31, 2007 - Sunny, New Years Eve morning, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Victoria (live) (The Kinks)
2. Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Parts I-V) (Pink Floyd)
3. Dumbells (live) (Mission of Burma)
4. Love Love Love (Dreams Come True)
5. Custom Concern (Modest Mouse)
6. Where Am I Going? ("Sweet Charity" 1986)
7. Tremor Christ (Pearl Jam)
8. Pump (The Sugarcubes)
9. Burnin' Love (Sing Like Talking)
10. The Power of Crappy Music (A-Mei)

2008-03-21T23:56:00.003+08:00

January 6, 2008 - AIX Bistro on the Upper West Side, New York City. There's a jazz combo playing in this long exposure.

I'm down in Kaohsiung now, where I have legitimate internet and "The Sopranos" on a functioning cable line. Makes me think I'll get TV and internet once I get back to Taipei. It was nice not having them, but let's get real, yo'm sayn? Come on, I missed two episodes of "The Sopranos". That just won't do.

Tomorrow's the Presidential election here. Should be interesting to say the least.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Social Studies (David Byrne - "Music for the 'Knee Plays'")
2. Ain't Nobody Home (B.B. King)
3. Amy's Theme (Martin Denny - ultralounge)
4. The Boy (Smashing Pumpkins)
5. Arlington Girl (Shivaree)
6. Ol' 55 (Tom Waits)
7. Freddie Freeloader (Miles Davis)
8. Shatter (Liz Phair)
9. Torch Song (Marillion)
10. The Bewlay Brothers (David Bowie)

2008-03-15T12:05:00.002+08:00

January 8, 2008 - Edgewater, New Jersey. This must have been a dock on the Hudson River, across from New York City. Now apartments and condos and a multi-plex behind me.

I still don't have internet at home. I'm posting from a bagel shop that under Taipei Main Station that happens to get someone's wireless. Too bad this isn't near where I live. I still have to look for a place near where I live that gets free internet.

I totally love my new place and the neighborhood. I can't believe I had qualms about moving, everything is so much better, even the slightly longer distances to every where. At least there are places to go now. Here's a pic of my new place. It's a photostitch panorama, a nifty feature of my new Canon SD870 (I think, I mostly know it by its Asian model number).

I'm going to Kaohsiung next Friday for a few days. I should have internet down there for those few days. And I might crack any day now and have internet installed.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Who Needs Information? (Roger Waters)
2. Samukhela (Eyuphuro)
3. Goodbye Caroline (Aimee Mann)
4. Guhyasamaja Tantra, Chapter II (Monks of the Gyuto Monastery)
5. Straight (Deadweight)
6. Museum Song ("Barnum")
7. Who the Cap Fit (Bob Marley & the Wailers)
8. 真實 (A-Mei)
9. I Want Your (Hands On Me) (Sinead O'Connor)
10. People (King Crimson)

2008-03-07T15:12:00.002+08:00

No internet at my new place. It may be a while before I'm uploading again. Either I have to find a cafe with free WiFi nearby, or I have to get internet installed. As if a sign from God, I read an article today (in Chinese!) that ADSL prices are dropping on April 1st. Too many people complaining that it is too expensive.

But I have to say that I'm really enjoying not having internet distracting and polluting my atmosphere. Maybe "enjoying" is too strong of a word.

2008-02-26T23:52:00.002+08:00

December 9, 2007 - Central Taiwan. A resort constructed to be reminiscent of Europe.

I'm still not shooting anything new. I think I'm bored, but fortunately I'm moving on Sunday. So hopefully my new environment will have me shooting again. I wasn't planning on moving again until I left Taipei, but my cousin's aunt had a place I could move into. The pros and cons of the new place and my current place balance out, which should mean staying put, according to the laws of entropy, but I guess it's time for a change. Somethings always have to change. Or not.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Fire on Babylon (Sinead O'Conner)
2. Indian Summer Sky (U2)
3. So Serious (Electric Light Orchestra)
4. San Juan (Sukay - Andean pan flute)
5. I Saw the Light (The The)
6. Hoshi no Umareru Hi (Cocco)
7. Typical Situation (Dave Matthews Band)
8. Time (Rebecca)
9. Animals (Talking Heads)
10. C'mon Billy (PJ Harvey)

DWL

2008-02-21T23:29:00.002+08:00

January 10, 2008 - Driving While Lomographing. River Road, Edgewater, New Jersey.

We actually had a sunny day in Taipei, and I still didn't make any headway on the roll that's currently in the 2.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Expresso Love (Dire Straits)
2. Funky Monks (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
3. Blow Wind Blow (Tom Waits)
4. Sora Yori Umi Yori (Puri Puri Samba '91) (Princess Princess)
5. Rider on the Stormy Sea (Mary Timony)
6. Suite for Flute and Jazz Piano Trio No. 2, VI. Affectueuse (Claude Bolling/Jean-Pierre Rampal)
7. Let the Loser Melt (live) (Archers of Loaf)
8. Pick It Up, Lay It In the Cut (Sharon Jones & the Dapp Kings)
9. Rock and Roll With Me (David Bowie)
10. Time Stand Still (live) (Rush)

shadows and tall trees

2008-02-15T23:06:00.003+08:00

December 31, 2007 - Philadelphia, PA. Random posts of random lomos. Furthermore I'm not shooting anything new. I might run out of shots to post, but actually I think I have a roll of black and white from last year that I never posted here.

I visited my brother, arriving the day before, and thought he had New Years Eve off, but alas he had to work so I didn't get to spend time with him before I headed back to New Jersey. I walked a bit around his neighborhood before taking off. I saw this shot as I walked up to it, and knew I was going to have a problem with the sun behind me, so, well, that's my shadow at the bottom of the tree. I stood behind the tree and wrapped my arms around the tree and shot, trying to be inconspicuous.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Call Me (Throwing Muses)
2. Milk It (Nirvana)
3. Mending King (Three Mile Pilot)
4. Tag Team (Noriyuki Makihara)
5. (Meet) The Flintstones (Dirty Dozen Brass Band)
6. Candle (Matisyahu)
7. Lola (live) (The Kinks)
8. Everybody's Got the Right ("Assassins" - Sondheim)
9. Another Nail in My Heart (Squeeze)
10. I Know a Girl ("Chicago")

2008-02-12T23:30:00.000+08:00

December 20, 2007 - Bryant Park skating rink, New York City. It feels like about this cold in Taipei now, but really it's only 56 degrees. Inside! I'm pretty sure this is unusually cold in Taipei, even for Winter, and it's as cold as I've felt here. At the store today I saw a lot of people buying ceramic space heaters. I was buying Scotch. Someone left a space heater in my apartment, so I have one, but I already have a dehumidifier running most of the time to keep the ceiling from dripping. I only want to imagine what a space heater would do to my utility bill.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Funky Li'l Party (Paris)
2. Face On Your Head (100 Watt Smile)
3. What's Ya Take On Cassavettes (Le Tigre)
4. Koi wa I MY ME MINE (Bubble Gum Brothers)
5. Three Hopeful Thoughts (Rilo Kiley)
6. Flying Saucer Dudes (Bela Fleck & the Flecktones)
7. D.J. (David Bowie)
8. Jet Airliner (Paul Pena)
9. Kiseki no Wedding March (Blow Up Mix) (Nokko)
10. The Sinister Minister (live) (Bela Fleck & the Flecktones)