"Stand tall, Bipedal Ape. The shark may outswim you, the cheetah outrun you, the swift outfly you, the capuchin outclimb you, the elephant outpower you, the redwood outlast you. But you have the biggest gifts of all: the gift of understanding the ruthlessly cruel process that gave us all existence; the gift of revulsion against its implications; the gift of foresight - something utterly foreign to the blundering short-term ways of natural selection - and the gift of internalizing the very cosmos." -RIchard Dawkins

...for some new blogs to add to my google reader. You know any?

I'll share three I like:

http://unconsumption.tumblr.com/
http://www.geekologie.com/
http://www.brazencareerist.com/

Saturday morning I was driving to class and I had the following thought: If someone asked me what my favorite thing about Taiwan was, what would I say? I would say: tea and scooters! The tea from the tea stands tastes so fresh and perfectly sweet and delicious and airy… I think the franchises here would really work at home. How would I open one? Where would I buy that plastic for the lids? How do you even make tea? I mean, I follow the instructions on the box, but it never tastes that good. Am I using the wrong kind of sugar? Is that even possible? Maybe there is a Taiwanese person back home that would go into business with me. I love driving my scooter.

And then I almost got hit by a car. But that’s just par for the course. At home we grow up hearing, “Look BOTH ways before crossing!!!” but people in Taiwan must not. Everyday I either nearly kill someone that has decided to stroll into the street as though they were crossing a meadow, or I nearly get hit by someone who has decided to ignore the reality of intersections.

I think the crazy driving is what has made us put off going to see the wind turbines and marsh outside the city. We have been wanting to go since the very day we found out we’d be living in Taichung. We started researching and found cool pictures of them. Today, we finally went. I told James, if we get lost – we’ll turn around. If we get overwhelmed by traffic – we’ll stop and wait.

When we got close, we could see the turbines but weren’t sure exactly which road to take to get near them. We were waiting at a traffic light talking about which direction we should try when a young guy on a bike pulled up to us and, without looking at us, starting pointing at the turbines and (I think) asked how to get there. Then he saw our foreign faces with James looking hot and stressed and me grinning like that kid in A Christmas Story. He was momentarily shocked into a state of complete stillness, then rode a few yards ahead to ask an old man who gave him directions. So we followed our guts and trailed him. He and his friend led us right to them.

here is the video. for some reason my camera's video function has transported itself to 1969 and the color is old-timey.

scooter trip to the wind turbines from Sara O. on Vimeo.

Why You Should Never Talk to the Police by Professor James Duane

Rules:
a. Type your answer to each of the questions into Flickr Search.
b. Using ONLY the first page, pick an image.
c. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into Mosaic Maker. Change rows to 3 and columns to 3.
d. Save the image and post it on this note.

Questions:
1. What is your first name? (Sara)
2. What is your favorite color? (blue)
3. What is your favorite food? (chocolate)
4. Favorite drink? (fruity tea)
5. Dream vacation? (beach)
6. Favorite hobby? (computering)
7. What you want to be when you grow up? (surrounded by happy dogs and a happy family)
8. What do you love most in life? (sunsets in silence)
9. Best self-description? (sincere)



1. Untitled, 2. sitting commences., 3. yummm, 4. delicious fruit tea, 5. north of Hualien, 6. east, 7. pete face, 8. duck park, 9. sincerely

HILARIOUS...

http://www.geekologie.com/2009/06/the_ducks_are_not_mine_david_t.php

I haven't seen very many GOOD movies in the last five months. I keep picking mediocre ones. I'm also on a weird kick where I keep seeking out documentaries and old movies (pre-1980). But here are the really good ones I have seen thus far:

The Fall
Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist
Step Brothers
The Comedians of Comedy
Man on Wire
Dear Zachary
Tell No One
Love and Death
Crumb
The Wackness
Marley and Me

this evening while I was teaching (and being observed for the upcoming pay raise... cross fingers...), the power went out! the secretaries brought up lights and we finished class with emergency lights and no a/c. hardcore.

Our vacation starts tomorrow! We’re catching an early morning bus to Taipei (with giant recliner seats and video screens). Then we go to Keelung, Hualian, and Kenting.

I was looking at our hotel in Kenting to see if it had internet. It doesn’t have internet, BUT: “The hotel authorities make sure that customers have an uninterrupted supply of power.” Sweeeeeeet. And it says we get a reading lamp. Who would have thought?

time-lapse video showing this guy's beard grow as he spent a year walking across China.

The Longest Way 1.0

does anyone else think he aged 20 years at the peak of the beard growth?

I've lost my voice. Pain in the ass. I thought I'd be fine when I was teaching my morning class today, but by the end of class I think I was pretty much... not... capable of being understood... by anyone. At least they were an older class and the older classes have a bigger focus on one-on-one student interaction. So I just had to get them headed in the right direction and then bow out.

I just brought home a FREE scooter. (Well, not quite free.)

Another American teacher, and friend, at my branch had an old 50cc scooter that was blown over and broken during a typhoon at the end of last year. She had already spent some money repairing other parts on it and didn’t want to put more into it than it was worth, so she just bought another. Yesterday I mentioned I was going to rent a scooter this weekend so we can get around when Ginny is here. She offhandedly suggested I just take her scooter. The catch being I’d have to get it fixed. Yes! Free scooter!

This morning we met outside her old apartment and wheeled the little white scoot’ down the street to a mechanic. He wasn’t open yet so we had breakfast next door. About an hour later he still wasn’t around. Fortunately my friend speaks excellent Chinese and spoke to the lady in the neighboring shop who offered to call the mechanic. He showed up 15 minutes later with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth right next to A BIG TUMOR.

After work we ran over and for US$45 in repairs, I have my own scooter. Man, it’s fast.

The World Games (which I'm not sure I've even ever heard of before?) will be held in Taiwan this year so I think you should all watch. It looks like all the games that don't make the cut for the Olympics get shoved off to the World Games.

I only know about it because we accidentally got stuck in their parade last week. We noticed traffic had become surprisingly thin. Then we noticed that there were police standing at every intersection. Then we noticed we were having unusual good fortune with green lights. Then I turned around and realized we were leading a truck/small caravan carrying the torch (?) for the World Games. Fastest drive to school ever.

Frankly, judging from the list of sports, this should be WAY more exciting than the Olympics. I mean... look at this... skydiving, lawn bowling, synchronized trampoline, LIFESAVING, barefoot skiing, artistic roller skating, sumo wrestling, AND tug of war.

That's just a few. This sounds WAY BETTER than the Olympics, and I like the Olympics. But this is better.

I think I have a goal for learning chinese:

1. speak well enough that I can understand what people are mumbling at school.
2. speak well enough that I can speak "IN CODE" with james or whoever else speaks chinese when I move back to ammmmerica (aka meiguo).

thank ou james for spilling beer on m fucking keboard. guess what letter no longer works.

Anyone have any to die for soup recipes? meat or veggie okay. (I can keep the meat out. Just need inspiration.)

real time zappos shoes sales: http://www.zappos.com/map/

I watched somebody in washington buy these:
http://www.zappos.com/n/p/p/7493372.html

then somebody in houston bought these:
http://www.zappos.com/n/p/p/7523914.html

then somebody in nyc bought these:
http://www.zappos.com/n/p/p/7255137.html

and somebody in LA bought these:
http://www.zappos.com/n/p/p/7545208.html