There is the rare occasion in which someone (always male) walks into our clinic and promptly walks back out before I can talk to him. I've learned that these are people who are seeking the services of our neighbors next door at the "spa" and have accidentally stepped into the wrong place.

Today I had one come in, realize he was in the wrong place, but try to cover it up (of course I didn't realize it until afterwards):

Me: Hi, can I help you?
Spa customer: Uhhh ... is this a clinic?
Me: Yes, it is.
SC: Ummm ... what kind of clinic is this?
Me: It's an acupuncture clinic.
SC: Errr ... what's ... acupuncture?
Me: Oh, it's a natural method of healing where we use very fine needles on the body.
SC: Is ... it ... therapy?
Me (slightly confused, but whatever): Physical therapy? Yes it is.
SC: Let me get a business card.

Patient leaves, and makes a beeline for next door. (I can always tell when they have customers because you have to ring the doorbell before they let you in, and the doorbell chime is really loud and sounds like the clock has happened upon the hour, identical to the clock tower's song at UT Austin.)

It seems weird to me that a dude who has the guts to go to a "spa" in broad daylight can at the same time be ashamed and embarrassed to have inadvertently stumbled into the wrong establishment. But what do I know.

As seen on Alex King: if you have a blog, you can get a free "pro" Zooomr account, which gives you 25GB of space. You have to host at least one pic on their site, so I picked a nice juicy Engrish pic from Taiwan (taken with my camera whose LCD was already broken, btw):

One of the unwanted souvenirs I returned with from Taiwan was a broken digital camera. My beloved Canon IXY Digital 50 that I bought in Japan (known as the Canon Powershot SD300 here) dropped just one foot onto tile floor in a moment of excitement over stinky tofu. The LCD promptly went all white with some weird blacked-out areas, but the camera still could take pictures and movies. But without the LCD, you can't preview your pictures after you take them, and you can't change settings. To fix it would have cost 3600 NTD (about $112 USD). It mostly doesn't make sense to fix electronics nowadays ...

I headed to Best Buy only because I had been given a Best Buy gift card, as that would help offset some of the costs in getting a new point 'n shoot. My choices came down to the Fujifilm Z3 and the Canon Powershot SD600. Eric Cheng previously made a similar comparison between the Fujifilm Z1 and the Canon Powershot SD400, which are predecessors of the ones I was looking at today.

Things I Care About	Fujifilm Z3	Canon Powershot SD600
Color	PINK!!!! AIEEE!!! (exclusive to Best Buy, actually) :)	Silver :|
Design	Totally stylin' :)	Nice, but the Z3 is still nicer :|
Viewfinder	LCD viewfinder only :|	Both optical and LCD viewfinder :)
Brand Loyalty	My first love (camera-wise) was a Fuji :)	I've had great experiences with Canon :)
Accessory Re-purchase	Would have to buy all new accessories (xD picture cards, which ppl report problems with, and new Li-ion batteries) :( (though I'd probably be able to recoup some costs by eBaying some of the old stuff off)	Could re-use all my old SD cards and batteries :)
Fast Startup Time?	Yes! :)	Yes! :)
Ability to Take Pics in Low Light Sans Flash	up to ISO 1600!! :))	up to ISO 800! :)
Movies with Sound?	Yes! :)	Yes! :)
Battery Charging	The battery has to be charged in the camera sitting in the cradle, meaning that there would be times when I wouldn't be able to take pics if I wanted to! :(	Battery has separate charger :)
Continuous Drive Mode (aka Holding down the Button and Having the Camera Keep Taking Pics)	Super slow :( I think it's way slower than advertised!	Reliably fast :)
User Friendliness	Annoying menu interface :(	A menu interface that I'm used to and is relatively easy to navigate through :)
Price (Best Buy, 12/03/06)	$200 :) (lower if you do a pricematch with BestBuy.com)	$250 :| (lower if you do a pricematch with BestBuy.com)
Chances of Finger Blocking Lens	VERY HIGH :(	Very low :)
Final Impulse Buy Excuses	But but but it's PINK! AND SO STYLIN!! And a portion of the proceeds goes to the National Breast Cancer Foundation!!! :)))))	It's reliable! :)

[ dpreview's side-by-side of these cameras ]

Well I took the [PINK!!!!!] Fuji home and took one look at it and had to take it back.

The dealbreaker: there was no tripod socket mount hole thingy. Everyone knows that I'm a dork and I carry my mini-tripod around at all times! :P

So, I went back and exchanged it for the Canon SD600. Function wins again in the end.

The Fujifilm Z3 press release on DPReview states that this is a camera marketed towards ladies (which might explain why the lens is placed all the way to one side - maybe women like to take pics one-handed, and with long nails?). Man, I nearly went for it merely based on its awesome pinkness ... aiyaa ...

Did you know that at BestBuy.com, you can actually shop for cameras BY COLOR? Hahahahah!

... One of my fondest memories of my Canon IXY Digital 50 was while purchasing it in Japan. You can bargain with the employees at the department stores there. That's where Hiroko said to T, "Go find us the employee who looks mentally weakest so we can bargain more easily." She was not satisfied with what T brought back, but it was still okay :)

Does anyone else find this disturbing? Or am I just an old fuddy-duddy?


http://nextgencode.com/

I suppose it's against my whole fibre that people can just have stuff ... without doing anything. I don't have a thing against rich people, no, not at all - they had to work their tails off at one point to get where they are now. To me it's just Newton's 3rd Law of Motion ("for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction"), which can translate into the karmic "what goes around, comes around". If you don't put any effort into something, how can you get something out of it?

Companies like these target every human's desire to have something without lifting a finger. People want things - NOW, if not yesterday - and don't want to have to sacrifice any part of their comfort to do so.

I'd like to point out how one of the staff members' photos is really blurry, and that under "NoveltyGene", you can choose "Risky, Risker, and Xtreme". In addition to these small blunders, none of the products are currently available. Is this a serious website, or just a hoax?

Also: yay Taiwan for making glow-in-the-dark pigs!

So I just stepped in the door, it's 3am, and there's a pile of mail on my counter (thanks, M!), including a New York Pizzeria ad (and there's a location right by my apartment!!! YES!!!!). For some WEIRD-azz reason, a larger-than-my-waist-circumference pizza with tons o' stuff on it sounds GREAT right NOW. Sounds like a dinner plan tomorrow (today). Happy Hour is Mon Thurs Fri 4-7p. I'll be hunting for people who are free and willing to join me in an unashamedly gargantuan carbohydrate pig-out feast.

I wonder if the tiny chairs and tiny tables lend to the enjoyment of street food somehow? Maybe just brings you closer to the action?

Anyway, we're leaving in a couple hours. I will miss my relatives, my friends, the plentiful engrish, the ridiculous media, and most of all, the stinky tofu. (Above: me and my dad chowing down on the yummiest stinky tofu EVER in Kaohsiung. It was so nice and stinky, the sauce was pungent and spicy, and they piled on the marinated veggies. All for less than a buck apiece for each heaping serving. DUDE!!)

Scene: at an herbal shop here in Taiwan, telling the shop owner what herbs I wanted to make a formula for a friend. I was there with Annie, who translated for me the herbal shop owner's Taiwanese. (I only know Mandarin Chinese.)

Herbal Shop Owner (HSO) (looking over the list of herbs): OK. Please write down your name and number here for accounting purposes.
Me (a little hesitant): Uh, OK.
HSO (looking me over): I have a nephew who lives in Tennessee who is looking for a wife. You're speaking English with your friend here ... you're from the States, right? How old are you?
Me (shocked and unable to respond properly): Err ... I'm 28 ... and um ... well, I live in Texas, and Tennessee is rather far from Texas, sir.
HSO: But it's in the United States, and that's where he is.
Me: Well, the United States is pretty big, sir - see, if this is the U.S. (drawing a big circle in the air), then Tennessee is here, and Texas is here.
HSO: Ah ... so it's like mainland China?
Me: Yes, sort of like that, yes sir.
HSO: Well, he's looking for a girl who's tall and skinny like you.
Me: Uh, well, uh, haha, well sir, I know I'm kinda skinny, but I'm definitely not tall.
HSO: Sure you are! You're taller than I am! (He steps around the counter to stand beside me, and indeed I am taller than him by like 1 cm.) My nephew is like 10 cm taller than me. And he's a [insert profession here, I can't remember what it was]. He is having a hard time finding a girlfriend over there.
Me (just trying to think of things to say ... and just wanting my herbs so I can get out of here!): Oh well sir, um, I'm glad you think I'm worthy. (What the hell was I thinking?!)
HSO: You guys would be great together. I can give you his contact information, and you two can be friends.
Me: Oh, no thank you sir, that's okay. Well, thanks for the herbs (FINALLY!!), bye!
HSO (as we're literally running out the door, shouting after us): Hey!! He makes 400,000 a month!!!

Me (in English): Girl, I'm feeling weak. Can I get a warm drink somewhere?
Alex (also in English): Sure, um, hmm, they'll have 'em at a 7-11. But, I don't know where they are around here ...
Me (in Chinese to some random people): Excuse me, do you know if there's a 7-11 around here somewhere? (The key part of the blooper here is that I said "7-11" in Chinese as well, like pronouncing the individual numbers, "qi1 shi2 yi1")
Random people (in Chinese): What?
Me (louder, trying to pronounce more clearly, in Chinese): Is there a 7-11 around here? A 7-11? (How are they not understanding such simple Chinese?! My Chinese isn't THAT bad!!)
Random people (with totally confused looks on their faces): Hunh?
Alex (intervening): Oh, she means a Seven-Eleven (pronouncing 7-11 in English).
Random people: OHHHHHHH there's one right over there.

=====

Alex: They call them just Seven-Elevens here, or people even just call them "Seven"s. For example, "Where's the Seven?"
Me (stunned): OK. I feel stupid. There I was almost shouting "7-11" at them in Chinese like they were retards.

[ Chinese website (cuter) ] [ N. American website ]

=====

Onto my mission for today - I want to get my stuff all moved over to my uncle's place, somewhat slightly closer to the "action". My goal is to get there without fainting. Feeling much better though. Onwards with my strict Super Supau diet!

So I landed in Taiwan on Friday, participated in the obligatory drinking for Alan's bday, and then Saturday toured around some and ate whatever vegetarian street food I could lay my hands on. Come Sunday, starting bright and early (5 am-ish) I came down with sumpin' truly terrible - basically, it was a 19+ hour ordeal all day fighting unwanted and violent fluid loss. I shall leave out the gory details. I have trained my non-TCM friends in some modalities (no, not the actual act of needling - I have yet to trust any non-TCM friends with needling me), and they have been so so kind in playing nurse to my weak Americanized @$$. (Oh yes, the s*** and @$$ jokes will be going for awhile.) That's me at the right, laying face down, getting some treatment.

Today I thought I was feeling better and was going to do some sightseeing - Tina hooked me up with all these great Taipei travel tips before coming here - but I was sidetracked by light-headedness and general malaise. I *finally* went out tonight for a bit, fulfilled my wish to ride the MRT system by myself, but after running one errand, I promptly went home and, sick of my pitiful condition, asked my friends to take me to the hospital. I have been prescribed, if you can believe it, Super Supau (a type of sports drink), and no food for the next 2 days, along with some meds. Lovely.

Looks like my mission to gain lots of weight and eat stinky tofu at every turn has experienced a major setback.

Some pics are uploading here. Don't know why the comments aren't showing up. Grr. Will fix that later. I'm gonna let 'em upload, finish up tonight's dose of Super Supau, and hit the sack.