Prangster in Chicago

Windy city photos: round 1

Windy city photos: round 2

It was so hard

A few hours ago I e-mailed off my answers to the four-part writing test sent to me by the company I'm currently interviewing with. So far, this extremely elaborate interview process has involved: months of emails with no result, two transcontinental flights, a cross-country back and forth, five days of very unfriendly weather, three separate meetings, a couple hours of in-office waiting time, relinquishing my only portfolio to the care of the company, extreme anxiety and sleeplessness, and most recently, diarrhea.

(By the way, just what is the freaking spelling of this word? The way I've written it there looks wrong -- it's the U.S. spelling -- but the British version looks stupid too: diarrhoea. Typepad agrees. It's just red-lined it. Then again, it just red-lined the word Typepad. And it's even capitalized.)

So I spent 12 hours on the writing test today. Most of that was spent on the 4th part -- the part that gave me stress-induced diarrhea. Then when I so-called finished the test, I wasn't sure if I'd aced it. Or if I'd even completed the tasks correctly. And by that time I'd already self-edited and tweaked everything to death.

I was fine composing the letter to my interviewers, but then felt seriously nauseous when attaching the Word files to the e-mail. I couldn't bring myself to press the "Send" button. Just couldn't, okay? Once I did it, I felt a bit better, but moments later it was nausea-time again. In fact, writing about this really isn't helping. I've been sleeping before midnight every night since getting back to Taipei and now it's two in the morning and I'm still awake! This isn't good. This is very bad.

I guess I've got a really bad case of nerves. I've put so much mental energy into this whole crazy endeavor that the idea of failing now, out of my own doing, because I simply stuffed it up, is making me shit my pants. (Okay, I don't want to say this, but yes, literally.)

The whole thing almost makes me want to...oh, forget it. It's too late now.

Gratuitous uni nigiri photo

These were enjoyed at a sushi bar somewhere near Orange County last week. And I've got this up as my desktop wallpaper right now. Yum.

Big news

Hello, I'm typing this post on my new black Macbook! I bought it yesterday afternoon from the Mac seller on the ground floor of Eslite on Dun Hua South Rd. It was such an easy and hassle-free purchase experience. Usually I feel like I'm getting bullied or being taken for a fool by the sales person (it's almost always a guy), but yesterday I walked out of the store feeling like I'd gotten good value for my New Taiwan dollars. I wonder if it had more to do with the sales clerk -- who was a friendly and cool girl around my age -- or if it was the Mac brand that made me feel more secure in my purchase decision. A third possibility could simply be that I'm an easy sell.

The interaction between myself and the salesgirl went something like this:

Me: "Hi. Do you have any black Macbooks in stock?"
Clerk: "Yes. Do you want to buy one?"
Me: "Um, yes."
Clerk: "Will you be paying with cash or credit?"
Me. "Cash. But this is happening a bit fast. Can we wait a bit?"
Clerk: "Sure."
(I fiddle with the mousepad on the white Macbook that's on display.)
Me: "So do you sell a lot of Macbooks every day?"
Clerk: "Yes we do."
Me: "And what about this plastic keyboard cover? Do you sell these?"
Clerk: "Yes. I'll give you one for free."
Me: "Oh. Thanks."
Clerk: "I'll also let you choose a free laptop bag. Usually we don't let customers choose though."
Me: "Wow, thanks."
(The sales clerk smiles.)
Me: "Well, I guess I'll go down and withdraw some cash then..."

And that was that.

It's been confirmed

The motherboard is dead.

Going to get new laptop.

Probably a Macbook.

Date of next post soonish.

Update: Macbook will be a black one.

Death of a generic piece of crap

I woke up yesterday morning before my flight out of LA to find the "notebook" had died. It wouldn't start up even though I was being supportive, then annoyed, then really pushy about it. I must have tried like 20 times. In the end I gave up and packed it into my suitcase like a stupid corpse. It's funny how just because there's no brand name on it, the "notebook" seems like nothing more than a piece of junk metal now. That's right, there's no love here. No love at all.

Photos and funny airport stories next post. That is, if "notebook" comes back from the dead.

The little people

I'm in LA right now, staying at the home of my aunt and uncle. Last week my cousin Sherry and her husband Raymond came down from San Jose, bringing with them two people I'd never met before -- my niece and nephew, Vianne and Adrian. They're twins, very cute and already old hands at mahjong.

Blogging was suspended last week, but I'll write some posts in the coming days about my recent adventures. I head back to Taipei on Monday anyway so I'll see some of you then.

Second post for 2007

I started this blog right after Christmas 2005, so it's just turned one. Having recently skimmed through the past 12 months of entries, I've noticed it's pretty scattered. The Google search terms that bring random people here confirm this. Lately there's been "how to make copycat Aveda shampoo", "amish whore houses" and "eating pavlova pregnant". Yesterday someone searched for "cashmere extracts" and was ushered here. It's disheartening to see there's such a lack of information on the web that people are being directed to my blog on these matters. Particularly in the case of amish whore houses. How freaking disappointed that weirdo must have been. I almost feel like Kramer did when people misdialled his number for the movie directory hotline and he started putting on the movie phone voice as a service to the people who called up. Oh my god. I just searched "amish whore houses" and this blog is the first entry. Shit. I've really got to clean this blog up!

New year lights