miltownkid.com

I ended up finishing one of the things I wanted to get done last night. I stayed up a little too late messing with it, but I got my Guestblock installed. Basically it’s a Guest Book (I never liked guest book’s) with a twist. When people leave messages they get to also leave a block (that you get to choose) and the blocks get stayed up.

If you read this blog, take a few seconds to leave a block for me . I saw this on someone else’s site and thought it was pretty cool.

[LEAVE ME A BLOCK]

GOALS FOR THE WEEK:

• Swim at least three times.
• Setup the computer I bought last Sunday and install Linux and BSD.
• Study Chinese for at least an hour a day.
• Start reading my book about CSS.

There’s more than just these I’m sure, but hopefully Friday or Saturday I’ll be able to honestly say they were all mission accomplished. I can’t really prove three of them, but sometime this week you should see a picture of Linux setup and running (in an organized fashion) on that heap of junk that’s currently sitting behind me.

Not much to report today. Friday after work I ended up meeting Jefferson near Ximending to look at PSPs (the new hand held Sony devices). When I met him he had just finished setting up his display in this, uh, display store. Basically it’s a place where you can put toys and things, and try selling them. I took a picture so you get an idea of what it’s all about (also because I thought one of the toys looked funny).

Ride that Banana!

(it might be hard to see it, but on the box is written “Banana is a Snack?”)

Jefferson was telling me these kinds of stores are really popular in Japan. They had all kinds of cool things there like little models of naked chicks, Star Wars toys , Dragon Ball Z stuff, all kinds of little robots, shoes, etc.. After looking at all the stuff there we played a few video games and met up with I-Ping to have some dinner.

After dinner we all headed over toward Taipei Main station to do more electronics shopping and we eventually parted ways.

Saturday ended up being like a day at an office. I was glued to my monitor from around 1pm-8pm. I got a lot of stuff done and figured some new things out (tech wise) so it felt like time well spent to me. In the evening I met up with Lui and talked the talk of business.

Today I went to game club, played some games, then wandered around Taida’s campus. I’ll hopefully stop in there this week to make sure I truly understand the application process.

Ah, almost forgot. I helped 914 (a forumosan) put together some pictures from that animal fund raiser thing. Those can be seen here [QUIZ & CURRY Photos].

Also, Elias sent me a link to his site that has a pictures from that Entrepreneurial Event last weekend. It should give you an idea of what that event was like. That can be seen here:
[March 5 Enspyre Entrepreneurial Challenge]

miltown the Giant

Right now I’m working on adding a few new things to my site. I’m not sure if they’ll be done by the time you read this or not.

Hope you had a good weekend.

I’m pressed for time, but in case you didn’t notice I upgraded to the newest version of word press. If you run into any bugs or anything let me know and I’ll try to get them sorted out. I’m on my way out the door to Alleycat’s right now (again ) for the Forumosa HH. Not sure if I’ll post again when I get back. Depends on how late it is.

Some quick good news, I went for a swim today. Felt real nice.

OK. miltown out

When we last left miltownkid…

Shortly after posting that post on Sunday I saw an ad for a used computer on Forumosa. As it only costs the costs of a call to inquire, I called. It’d sounded like a pretty cool deal, plus he was located near “The Game Club” so I told him I’d stop by, then it was out the door to play some games.

I’d didn’t get to play Go, but I did play some new game about beans, where you plant and harvest beans to score points (if it sounds stupid, it was, but it was lots of fun). I played a rough n’ tumble game and would have won, but I donated I bean to a bean farming enemy (I was feeling rather cocky about my stack off beans). I’d have to settle for a tie.

After the bean game 2 clubbers and I (one of them being the almost famous Frost) went to take a look at the PC. The PC was pretty cool, plus he had a printer monitor and a bunch of miscellaneous items to throw in. I decided to get it, got it, then Frost helped me get a taxi and move all the stuff into me “office”.

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One Man’s Junk…

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Then we hit MRT back to Game Club. The gang was all still there playing a game called “Freeloader” (or something like that, I did see hippies). Looked like a fun game, but Frost and I had to find something else to play while we waited. Whilst looking through the (many) titles available at Witch House I stumbled upon this little beauty (I know the crew from the Miltown will appreciate this).

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How Ruck!

I agree. How RUCK!

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We ended up playing something different. A game where we… I think I might have to make a page/site dedicated to the Game Club and all the games we play there. Now that we have this wide selection, we’re always playing something different.

Jefferson arrived while we we’re playing our game, when we finished we decided to satiate the belly with a Sub Way. The sandwich was good as were the cookies. I played a couple games of Boggle and exited stage left.

Fast forwarding to Tuesday morning (Monday I did kick it with namahottie for a bit around the Ximending area, but I didn’t spot “The Sage”. I did play a game of Time Crisis 4. Very Nice!) have me cutting out paper bunnies (Oh Joy!).

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Damn I’m Good!

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I thought I’d be making them in class today, but we went to the park today (Youth Park) instead (I won’t argue with that). It happened to be a really warm and sunny day today too. I was actually hot for a while. All the kids just ran around playing different games and stuff. I also ran around and played different games and stuff.

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A Playing We Will Go!

That’s Mate!

Cool! Another place to play Chinese chess. When it gets warmer I’ll make a trip down here and test my skills.

I Never Thought I’d Call Taiwanese a Bunch of Tree Huggers

Sometimes I’m Not Sure if I’m a Kid Dreaming that I’m Chasing a Butterfly, or a Butterfly Dreaming that I’m Flying Away from a Kid, or a Big Kid Dreaming He’s Watching a Kid Dream that He’s Chasing a Butterfly

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After work adoa and I capitalized on the warm weather and did some golfing (this has turned into a weekly thing). We both got the all-you-can-hit-in-an-hour package and whacked away. I think we both did rather well today. We also met a guy there that’s been teaching golf in Taiwan for a few years and is planning on opening an office in that very center. He also told us about some of the business ideas he has cooking up. One sounded pretty cool. He plans on using an old building that’s on a golf course to open a golf school. He said everything is almost lined up for it to open (the golf course owners are going to remodel it), but he lacks people (I better start going twice a week I think ). Adoa noticed that his business card lacked a website, so he brought up my web services. Maybe that will turn into another client (and possibly even another job).

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Look Out Tiger!

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I have a few things to do around the house, then, I’m off to Alleycat’s for some pizza.

I resized today’s pictures a little bigger and at a better quality. Like’m?

Get ready for an action packed post. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, mountains will crumble, it’ll rain pigs, etc. etc…

I have some catching up to do from the day I missed posting so here goes…

Not having a monitor threw me off a bit so I didn’t get my pictures up and didn’t do the usual blog about the usual nothing. Well, Friday was a good day. We started out celebrating the birthdays for the month so the kids had cake for breakfast. (Someone told me they liked seeing pictures of the kindergarten kids, so I’ll try to get more of those)

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Dino, Janice and Mandy

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Also, for some reason this Friday I noticed how cool kids are (well, I notice that all the time being a miltownkid and all). I usually notice it, but it stuck out little more Friday for some reason. For instance, when Eric was “drinking” his milk (he was using a spoon) he did this thing going “Oh! It’s so heavy, it’s too heavy!” and put on this whole show lifting up his milk to his mouth. What made it even funnier is that no one was really watching. It was like just a cool ass way to drink some milk.

Then another kid (one of the new kids Teddy) was playing with the toy animals lining them up like they were getting on the arc or something. He was totally into getting them lined up just right. Why? Shit, I don’t know, but I do know it was cool. Just another reason in the million plus that kids rock.

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Teddy’s Arc

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Friday also equals gym class. First they do a little song and dance thing to warm up I guess (I usually join in, but I didn’t get a partner this Friday ). Then they played this “game” (boy+one girl vs. girls) throwing balls at each other. And it was big fun. Then I thought to myself: “Self. I wonder what a bunch of grown ups would do if presented with a situation to throw balls at each other for the hell of it? Would everyone join? Would just some join and others be too cool, or not want to mess up make-up, etc. to play?” I don’t think grown ups throw around enough balls (pun intended).

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Butt to Butt

Dodge Balls!

Click here for a crappy video experience!

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After work I messed about cleaning me “office” and such, then I called ViewSonic (as you may or may have not already read about). Well, I took a picture of the service center I went to. Also on that same block was a line of Binlang Xishi (Betelnut Beauties). So I tried to take a picture of some. I’m kind of embarrassed to write about the experience, but it’s pretty funny so I might as well tell all.

So after I left Elliot’s job I walked toward the side of the street where the Xishi were located. On my way there I think to myself “What’s the best way to go about taking pictures?”. I basically had two options I was going to go with. Either I was going to be blunt about it asking them to pose and what not/just asking if I could take a picture, or I was going to try to be slick about it (read Ninjitsu style). Well, all that Ninja Gaiden playing must have rubbed off on my as I opted for the latter. So on my way to the target I worked on “perfecting” my ninja photo techniques.

Well, when I finally got there I couldn’t do it. Too many people. Who’s that guy? Oh shit! Anyway, I deduced that I would have felt even more like an ass getting caught trying to be slick about taking a picture than if I was just an ass and asked if I could take one (well, I wouldn’t have been an ass for asking, but I would have felt like one, and it’s all about feelings).

So I decided to cancel the op. regroup and try again on my second pass (I was on my way to ViewSonic to pick up my monitor). I still decided to use Ninjitsu to take the photos on my second run, but this time I’d be “better prepared”. So I thought to myself:

How can I hide the camera? My hat? No no, that’s no good. How about if I hold it like this and do this with… but the angles all wrong. I know! 7/11 will have something for me to use. How about if I cut a hole in this bag of chips? Nah, don’t want to get my camera all chippy. This sock looks good, yeah, no, yeah, no that’d be stupid. How about a newspaper? Yeah, that’d work. The Taipei Times looks good.

So I left newspaper in hand, camera concealed, I was ready. I took some test shots using the newspaper photo technique. Looks good. Now on to the mission…

Target one: Failed. Angle’s all wrong. Target two: Yeah, take some shots. Click click click (I had it on the speed setting). Target two acquired. Target three. Oh shit a car! Evasive maneuvers, hand switch, click click click, oh that’s no good. Move move move.

Operation Xishi complete. Operation SonicDrop success. Time to hail a cab. So on the cab ride home I look at what I have. OH NO! I bunch of blurry crap. Failed…

Well, I loaded up the pictures this morning and I got one that kind of turned out. Click on the small one here for one that’s a little bigger.

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Operation SonicDrop Success!

Operation Xishi Failed!

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Be on the lookout for more Xishi shots coming from me in the future. One of my newly acquired domain names is Betelnutbeauties.com (nothing there right now). I plan to make that a new hobby . It’s a little to cold to be messing about with that right now, but it’ll give me excuses to travel around the island (or something).

I finished off my Friday watching “Ray”. I thought that was a really nice movie. I always liked Ray Charles (the little I remember from Pepsi commercials and such). I recommend seeing it if your into those working your way up from nothing stories.

On to Saturday…

Well Saturday I already had a full day of things to do. Well, really one thing that lasted all day. It was a business seminar organized by Enspyre and sponsored by a bunch of other places.

In the early morning I showered and did some light computing. Then it was off to the event. I was meeting some people at the Ximen MRT station so I left a little early so I could get some breakfast. On my way to Mc D’s (the breakfast of TRUE champions) I saw one of my idols. The Daoist dude that I see in Ximending standing there protecting Ximending from evil and such (at least that’s what I’ve been told). Except this time he was on the move! *shock* Every time I’ve seen him before that he’d be standing as still as a mannequin.

So I followed him to see what an old school Daoist fighter of evil does on an early Saturday morning. And I guess they shop for make-up for one of their Daoist hos or something lol (just kidding of course). I’d be a happy kid if I could grow up to be half as pimp as this guy is.

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How Much for Essence of Laozi?

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After enjoy the presence of “the sage” I boogied over to Mc D’s for a bite to eat. I ate, then moved on to the drop zone. When we partied up we moved out to the event.

The event was held at some school somewhere (sorry didn’t pay much attention to that). The facilities were really nice. It was held in a lecture room that had dual screens and a microphone available at every desk to you could ask questions without yelling so everyone could hear.

There were a number of speakers and I think they all brought something good to the event. I learned something from each and every one of them. I think the biggest thing I got out of it was how important it is to have an effective marketing strategy. That’s something I haven’t spent enough time researching, reading about or doing with business ventures of the past. The next thing was hearing all the stuff from the accountant (Ann Hu) about the legalities and tax stuff here.

I think the whole event was put together very nicely. It was more than worth the cost to attend (250NT).

There was also a prize they were giving away “235,000NT worth of services”. Basically there was this quiz that asked a bunch of questions about what the speakers said. Things like “What’s the average percent that a telemarketer takes?” and “What percent is the VAT in Taiwan?”. There were also some questions that had to do with general business stuff. A little math, questions about who’s CEO of what, the date Taiwan entered the WTO, etc. Anyhow, using all the resources I had at my fingertips (which is many when you’re a technical guru like myself ). I answered the questions best I could. At the end of the quiz were some personal questions asking how the prize would help your business and where you think your business would be in 5 years. Well, I handed it in and…

I got called up as one of 3 (5 really I think, but some must have left) who scored highest on the test. The three of us received a book about starting and running a successful small business (I’ve started it and it’s good so far, easy to read, maybe I’ll get a review up when I’m done). Then it got down to two people who had the highest scores between us (Loretta and Myself).

Drum roll please bada bada bada bada bada bada bada…

And the winner of the first annual “I wanna be a businessman Taiwan” is…

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miltownkid!

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Go me! After the event there was a buffet at a new bar kind of place near Shida call JB’s (http://www.jbs-taipei.com). That just made the day all the better. So I went there, chatted it up for a while, drank someone’s free beer and moseyed on back home. It was a nice way to end a bungled week (with all the messing about I’ve been doing with my computer, and my monitor breaking down).

Now it’s Sunday and I’ll soon be off to the “game club”. Perhaps I’ll even get in a game of Go (I’d like that).

[Note: This blog took me about 2 hours to put together, you better have damn well liked it LOL]