Sunday, April 26, 2009

Hey, D-Wayne! It's raining _____

Having a wife who likes to stay up till 3:00am watching TV in the bedroom could be considered a bit impolite. However, as all programs on Taiwanese TV are captioned with Chinese subtitles, no volume is needed. This is great when trying to sleep, but not so great when other Taiwanese are around watching an English-language program. They tend to "read" the show while continuing chatting in their outside voice.

She will also watch things you would never consider watching. Fine with me. She's the miner working the sieve, occasionally returning with a nugget or two. The other night, she did just that.

She was watching an investigative news show on the one and only Peanut Head, Chaing Kai-Shek. Before I go any further, let me tell you that the use of "peanut" relating to CKS is not a Johnny Neihu-ism. I remember seeing it first in Barbara Tuchman's Pulitzer prize-winning book, Stilwell and the American Experience in China, 1911-45 . General Joseph Stilwell (Vinegar Joe), the military attache to China in 1935-39 and commander of United States forces and allied chief of staff to Chiang Kai-shek in 1942-44, used peanut and peanut head regularly when referring to CKS.

This show claims that CKS's three, yes three, sons were not his own. According to the show's panelists, an accident at the age of 4 made fathering children impossible. At that time, crotchless pants were the norm for toddlers. They would walk around and when the mood took them, relieve themselves wherever they were. It seems that on one cold day, little CKS's mood took him inside to warm up, where he found a nice very warm spot to sit and rest. This very warm spot just happened to be the house's brazier, used to heat the home ( Man nuts roasting on an open fire,,,). The panelists did not say how long he sat on that ring of fire, but are somehow convinced that his bird was cooked.

Okay, PIMP, I have opened the door for your and your cohorts. I expect a conspiracy-theory video of at least two parts to be up and available for viewing in 2-3 weeks.


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Air Asia is offering $888 NT one-way flight to Kuala Lumpur. You must book before May 03 and the travel period is 1 Jul 2009 - 31 Jan 2010. From KL, you can connect to many other places dirt cheap. For example, a connecting, one-hour flight to and from Langkawi is $28 US. Total round-trip Taipei-Langkawi-Taipei (including taxes but not including about a $700 baggage fee if you check anything) is about $5,000 NT, give or take a couple of hundred.



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An enhanced Joe Cocker at Woodstock video. It takes about 25 seconds to really kick in. Watch and then proffer your best guess at what type of software/program was used.
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There really are no accidents.
Not quite as good as the previous workplace safety video, but the construction accident can compete with any of them. Five, thirty-second clips.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hey J-hole;
You missed the best part of that story. I read it in the news or post 10 plus years ago. Apparently after CKS burned his manhood, his mama used that great back country cure of rubbing lard on burns. He then went outside and sat on a fence leaving his privates out to air. This is when the stray dog strolled by and smelling the yummy lard removed one of CKS's testies. Or at least that's what I read... Aj

J-hole said...

Actually, my wife did tell me that. And I had succeeded in forgetting that image.