Wasting Time

Like many foreigners in Taiwan I love to bitch and moan about how terrible my life is in Taiwan. I bitch and moan about pretty much everything. The language, culture, people, food, you name it, I bitch about it. So in keeping with my perpetual state of whine I have listed ten reasons I hate the month of August in Taiwan:

1. The heat and humidity in Taiwan makes sleeping difficult and the air pollution unbearable.
2. Ghost Month starts during August and I hate Ghost Month. People burn all sorts of things to keep the ghosts at bay and the already dirty air becomes even more polluted.
3. Chinese Valentines or Lovers Day also comes in August and wouldn’t be so terrible if I didn’t have to also celebrate St. Valentine's Day in February. So I have double the chances of buying a gift my wife will hate and not appreciate. Who doesn't think a 1/5th of scotch says I love you?
4. Taiwanese workers don’t want to work on or install things in your house during Ghost Month, so the leaky roof keeps leaking and the AC stays uninstalled. Wait a minute, I may be confusing this 'rule,' with the 'rule,' that says workers can’t work on the house of a pregnant woman.
5. Typhoon Season is in full bloom and all of the rain, wind and destruction it brings to my precious gardens.
6. PJ is on vacation so I can’t get a Philly Cheese Steak, to be fair there is only a 50/50 chance of PJ having any food even when he is in Taiwan.
7. School starts.
8. School administrators want to implement all their new wacky and carefully thought out ideas hatched during the slow summer months.
9. There aren’t many foreigners in town, oh wait I think that is a plus.
10. A whole new batch of newbies have hit town, asking questions that make me depressed.

Newby: How long have you been here?
Big Ell: A long time.
Newby: Have you been teaching the whole time?
Big Ell: For the most part.
Newby: You must really love teaching English?
Big Ell: I may have but that was during the Lee Deng Hui era?
Newby: Who is that?
Big Ell: Some crazy Christian guy who believes Taiwan isn't part of China?
Newby: Taiwan isn't part of China?
Big Ell: Nope, that's why it's called Taiwan.
Newby: How’s your Chinese?
Big Ell: Better than yours!

Here is another edition of the wildly popular Wasting Time.

I have heard that Mashups are all the rage with the young people these days. Check out this site with some pretty boring mashups. Most of them suck but the mashup with Destiny Child’s Independent Woman over Fugazi’s Waiting Room is great. Not that I like Destiny Child but I do like Fugazi.

Everybody loves banned cartoons. I like the cartoon with Fred and Barney smoking cigarettes but fail to see how it is offensive.

Back during college my friend scored a big bag of leafy green. Or what us Calgarians call 'shake.' It wasn’t worth smoking so we decided to make oil out of it. We fashioned a double boiler out of regular kitchen items and bought some isopropanol. We were cooking down the weed and everything was going quite well when my friend Rick started telling us that isopropanol doesn’t actually burn on contact it only burns slightly off the skin. We didn’t believe him and challenged him to prove his claim. Rick proceeded to pour isopropanol all over his hand and then lit it on fire. It looked really cool at first with the blue/red flame glowing around his hand and Rick proclaiming "See, I told you so." Only a few seconds later his boasting was replaced with hysterical screaming as he ran to the sink to try to put it out. The rest of us were rolling around the floor laughing and he kept yelling "fuck it hurts, this isn’t funny." So here is a link to some other smart guys.

Being a bus driver in Korea must really suck. The bus driver does seem to have a calm about him.

I am not sure who this guy is or what the hell he’s saying. But this is the best bitch slap I have ever seen and I have seen and been on the receiving end of a lot. When I am bit older I would like to bitch slap some guy like he did.

The origin of the alt-control-delete function. I’m sure Bill Gates had or will have this guy killed.

disregard continue here