Back in th U S S A

In the US of A for a few days.

Any1 need anything?







"How high is your corn?"

Advice

The question is "When should I drink the devil juice, hooch, or ant wine?"

The answer is "When you have run out of all other forms of liquor."

Currently on the ant wine. Which is some Chinese home made liquor made with ants. They flew all the way to Shandong to get the right kind of ants.

Makes you crawl up the walls.

Bonus link to a diagram of an Obama sentence.

Anyone think that sentence diagramming would have been useful for their ESL students?

Stony, if you can answer, I'd be most appreciative, because I am wondering if sentence diagramming is like math for language.

Miniature Golf in Taichung

Last Sunday was the official opening of Taichung's only miniature golf course. The owner and friend, Steve Brown, has done a great job in designing and constructing the course. The standard 18 holes has been reduced to 12 - Hey, that's 3 more than I figured anyone could fit inside the city - and the official name has correspondingly been shortened to Mini Golf.

It's located on Da Dun 7th Street, No. 493 (大墩七街493號) near the amphitheater (近圓滿戶外劇場). They have refreshments, a second floor practice range (real golf) and offer instruction for those not familiar with the concept - and believe me, there are plenty of those. Just like the hypermarts have attendants at the top of the escalators to "remind" the customers that they need to keep moving, I think Steve will need some golf marshals to remind them to walk on the paths and that the little flags have a number on them for a reason.

One round is $100 NT, but for now, Steve is handing out 2-for-1 business cards. He is also very willing to seriously discount groups. He didn't give me an exact number, but I get the feeling that even groups as small as 5 would be cut a deal. Steve wanted me to stress that if you do have a group wanting to play, call him first. He can arrange a better deal for you and ensure you will have time and space to play. Give it a try. I'll be going back this weekend with my niece and looking to improve on my first round score of 29 - which was Karl's score for the front 6.

Telephone: English (that would be Steve) : 0983-109-541

中文: 0937-296-520

Karl the Groundskeeper celebrates a 5.

ㄅ ㄆ ㄇ ㄈ or Zhuyin Fuhao

About the Bopomofo The bopomofo (pronounced buh puh muh fuh, for the first four symbols of it) is, like the english alphabet, a phonetic alphabet. That is to say, each character is a sound. In Taiwan, students use the bopomofo to learn how to read traditional Chinese characters. It is also a common way to type traditional chinese characters into a computer keyboard, and is used to look up words in dictionaries. The other main alphabet used for learning mandarin is the pinyin system. The pinyin system, adopted by mainland China in 1958, is just another phonetic alphabet used for sounding out mandarin words. Unlike the bopomofo, however, it uses roman characters to sound out the words. The pinyin system has been adopted by the United Nations and is increasingly the standard system worldwide for transcribing mandarin into a roman alphabet. However, many agree that the bopomofo is much better suited for capturing the phonetic structure of the mandarin language than the pinyin system. The bopomofo consists of 37 symbols, which were derived from Chinese characters. Just like in pinyin, there are 21 initials (consonants which start syllables), and 16 finals (kind of like vowels that end syllables). Pinyin has additional "compound finals", which the bopomofo doesn't feel like it needs because it so accurately captures the sound of Chinese pronunciation. Bopomofo Pronunciations Listed below are the 37 bopomofo symbols, with approximate english spellings and a link to a practice card. If you are using internet explorer for windows, you should be able to hear a pronunciation of the character when you click on the symbol. 1) buh card 2) puh card 3) muh card 4) fuh card 5) duh card 6) tuh card 7) nuh card 8) luh card 9) guh card 10) kuh card 11) huh card 12) jee card 13) chee card 14) shee card 15) jzer card 16) chzer card 17) shzer card 18) zhe card 19) dze card 20) tze card 21) sze card 22) ee card 23) oo card 24) euu card 25) ah card 26) oh card 27) uh card 28) ey card 29) ay card 30) eh card 31) aow card 32) owe card 33) ahn card 34) uhn card 35) ang card 36) ong card 37) ur card Class on Monday 3/23 4:30 pm and Wednesday 3/25 4:30 pm? Pls. confirm you can make it....... Reservations are required?

I GOT CRABS

No, not the ones you get from toilet seats. These were from the beach around Wuci, a little north of Taichung Harbour. Yes, harbour has a "u" in it. A nice place to waste a weekend afternoon, especially with kids and/or some beer.

Apparently, many locals deep fry and eat them. We took them home and crabocide resulted.

One step ahead of Bread is this comment from Chipper Jones, regarding the WBC:
“Just way too many days off,” he said. “We stayed in Toronto for a week and played three games. I don’t know if you ever stayed in Toronto, but it’s not exactly Las Vegas. To say that we were plucking our eyebrows out one at a time would be an understatement."

Obviously, Chipper has never been to Brockville.

AIG fiasco is a freakin' joke.

.

My dad sent this to me. Tell me, who doesn't love hockey?

(WARNING: TOPLESSNESS!)

HOWIGATI

That is all, be careful out there.

Parthian Thought

I am off to China again soon, so here is a parting thought, or maybe more of a factoid really...

America's stimulus package is around US$ 825 billion dollars.

In 2008, America imported around $340 billion worth of products from China. 

So, the spending bill is around 2.5 times the amount the USA imports from China...

That's a lot of bobble heads, sweaters, ipods, and tainted milk powder.

Nothing political here...just an interesting way to get your head around the numbers.

BIG HOUSE FOR RENT

Nan tun District; 5 floors plus roof top; 10 rooms & 4 bathrooms

Front view w/parking and street view.

1st floor: living room w/add on room and bathroom. 38 sq meter

2nd floor: spare bedroom, master bedroom w/patio and bathroom. 34 sq meter

3rd floor: spare bedroom, master bedroom w/patio and bathroom. 34 sq meter

4th floor: spare bedroom, master bedroom w/patio and bathroom. 34 sq meter

5th floor: sun room, staircase and master bedroom. 34 sq meter

6th floor: roof top view. 25 sq meter

1, 2, 3 or 4 tenants.......
Sublease to friends?
Rent by the floor?
Furnished, unfurnished?

Hassle FREE

Total: 30,000 NT per month.

Close to Costco, Carrefour and 711




The Iron Eagle

Why Joaquin Phoenix is a douche bag!

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090312/ap_on_en_mo/people_joaquin_phoenix





This is obviously a prank!

Canadian Police Chase

Breaking news.......






Jolly Jokers

World Baseball Classic

Last night's baseball game was the best baseball experience I've had recently. Keep in mind that I still haven't had a chance to see D-Wayne pitch behind batters and bean guys while throwing for the FuBar team, though. Still hoping for that chance. My enjoyment didn't come so much from baseball itself but rather having a chance to be with friends and forced to make your own fun in game where your team is being routed. Korea beat Taiwan 9-0.

D-Wayne, Chris and I arrived FuBar in the bottom of the 1st just in time to see a 2-run single, some walks and then a grand slam. 1 out, Korea ahead 6-0, D-Wayne proclaims it "Over. It's over. It's over man." Taiwan starts and finishes the top of the 2nd in less time than it takes to climb the stairs, use the restroom and return. We agree with D-Wayne and turn to how to enhance our viewing experience - beer was already factored in. Names. Korean names. We think we gotta be able to do something with them and sure enough Korea's third baseman comes to the plate - 6'4", 220lbs Dae Ho Lee. He looks like Ernest in the Country Bear Jamboree. Lee swats a monster just left of the foul pole and my brain flashes on and I sing, Dae Ho. Dae-ae-ae-ae-ae-ae-ae Ho. I pause and look expectantly and Chris. He arches an eyebrow, grins and finishes- Dae Ho hit and he wanna go home. A big Marv Albert Yessss! We sing variations each time he appears, but in the end, Dae Ho never came home.

Later with Taiwan batting, I glimpsed the Korean pitcher's name on the jersey. B-O-something-G. Come on, turn around and give us a clear view. Please let it be. Wait, here it comes...N! Ladies and Gentlemen. Your pitcher. J. K. Bong! The Taiwan batter plays along with us and gets a hit. Bong hit! Bong hit! Unfortunately, there were only two Bong hits and we couldn't think of anyway else to use his name - and I had two Canadians flanking me.

We supplemented the names with trying to guess the product being pushed on the commercials before they were over and parsing the ads in the stadium. One commercial, we never understood. An elderly Japanese couple in traditional robes are sitting on tatami and the man pats his belly and smiles. The next shot shows them patting each other's behind and then a bottle of pills. Nothing made sense and still doesn't. Chris and I were mainly the ones doing this as D-Wayne was covering my right flank. To D-Wayne's right was a guy I'll call 911. This can be read two different ways depending on the flavor of trash flowing from his mouth at the time. When ranting about government, conspiracies, The Man, he is to be addressed as 9-11. When whining and bitching about any other thing he is 9-1-1, because that is the number to be called after you either kill him or you kill yourself. D-Wayne was definitely opting for the former. Finally 911 went in to eat a burger and torture another soul. The games continue today. D-Wayne is looking forward to the Canada-U.S. game and I am waiting for the next Korea game, because they have an unplayed ace up their sleeve, Bum Ho Lee.