adrian is rad

I just saw snow flurries, unmistakably and confirmed by other witnesses.

It’s crazy! I was practically speechless.

• George Washington Carver
• Martin Luther King
• John Wayne Gacy

Who else can I add to the list?

I only listed [(first middle/last) last] name variants up there, but I figure there must be some [first (middle/first last)] names as well. If someone was famous and was called Mary Elizabeth Taylor, that would be an example of that variant.

The other implied thing is that the 3-named famous person actually went by or was call by all three names regularly.

I thought I’d continue this reviewing everything while I still think it’s fun.

I like trying new candies and compact discs.

Hershey’s Kisses New York Cheesecake Flavored Creme Wrapped in Extra Creamy Milk Chocolate Wow. This is strange. Not great. Very sweet. Not enough of either flavor, really. It just ends up tasting really sweet and rather tasteless otherwise.

Snickers Dark Pretty good. Not as silky smooth as the milk chocolate version, but tastes good and has a sort of sweetness/ bite contrast to it.

Iron & Wine’s the Shepherd’s Dog Not good. Not even a shadow of his best work on Creek Drank the Cradle and Our Endless Numbered Days. Get Fionn Regan or any number of other artists instead.

Rivers Cuomo Alone I could hardly make it through this disc of demos from 1992-1997 (I think that’s the dates). Just buy the Blue Album or Pinkerton again…

[Yes, I’m consciously stealing the title.]

Lucerne (Safeway’s house brand) now has a green tea light yogurt. It’s really good. I’ve been enjoying it frequently. The mango green tea is also good, but I’d give the peach green tea flavor a skip.

Fight Quest is a pretty fascinating show. I caught a couple episodes of it today. Two guys travel to different regions of the globe to learn regional martial arts styles. They have 5 days of intense training and then they have to fight a skilled fighter of the style. I’m not quite sure why it’s fascinating; maybe it’s seeing these guys push themselves to the limit.

According to a report in the Register, this is apparently a reoccurring problem.

Swedish police are quizzing “people of limited stature” with criminal records following a spate of robberies from the cargo holds of coaches - possibly carried out by dwarves smuggled on board in sports bags.

I was discussing this with my 6′ tall” friend, Andy and this was our conversation:

Andy: I could not do that job

Adrian: be a midget robber?

Andy: yup
that would be difficult for me

Adrian: yeah
you’re a little tall

Andy: oh yeah, that too
I was thinking that I just abhor thievery

Do you remember these? No, I’m not talking about that song, but about Oreo Big Stuf Oreos:

These things were like a big cookie sandwich with what I remember to be fully 6mm of oreo cream in the middle. They apparently had 13g of fat and 316 calories each. They must have had 20g of trans fat each (and, yes, I know that math doesn’t quite work out).

I thought about them the other day because they were the reason I learned that you weren’t supposed to touch food you were offering other people. I took one out of the packaging and offered it to our babysitter as my parents were still getting ready to leave and my mom said something like “She’s not going to want that if you’ve touched it” and offered her one which was still in the packaging. (I don’t believe she wanted either, actually, but this was 22 years ago, so what do I remember?)

As of February 2, I’ll be a resident of the city and county of San Francisco.

The California Department of Motor Vehicles has certified me to ride “any two-wheel motorcycle, motor-driven cycle, motorized scooter, motorized bicycle, or bicycle with an attached motor”.

Fewer class restrictions! Victory for the proletariat!

This is what the internet was made for. Example:

SO ALSO IN KINDERGARTEN I APPARENTLY THOUGHT THAT THE KIDS IN MY CLASS DIDN’T KNOW ENOUGH ABOUT COUGARS FOR SOME REASON, BECAUSE I DEFINITELY MADE A SWEET COUGAR QUIZ WHICH I INSISTED ON GIVING OUT TO THE CLASS THE NEXT DAY.

WHAT COLOR IS THE COUGAR? GOLD? NO! BROWN? NO! RED? NO! THE ANSWER IS TAWNY.

There are many, many stories like this.

[I feel a bit odd about this post. I’d just like to note that I’m just try to tell things the way they are here and despite the way that this may come across I don’t mean to be a braggart.]

I’m among the shyest and least adventurous people I know.

I’ve done more adventurous things than many of the people I’ve know, like living in Taiwan and Germany or visiting an island with practically no English speakers. I really like to travel and experience other cultures but that’s not really the whole story.

I know my limitations, at least in some ways. I know if I just did nothing, I’d probably just sit around (and I know I’d live to regret that), so I do things. That doesn’t make those things easy. Among my most flustered, awkward and socially difficult moments in recent memories were due to going places, to being “adventurous”. I compensate for my limitation.

The other way in which my shyness manifests itself in my “adventurousness” is this: I don’t find social situations easy normally, so other situations, which people may say are more difficult, possibly much more difficult, are only marginally more difficult to me.

What I mean is this: going to a party and making small talk for hours is really tough so moving to Taiwan seems doable; that is, it’s only marginally more difficult. (This statement seems difficult as I read it, and while I acknowledge that it is, I don’t think it’s far off the truth.) Similarly, once I was in Taipei and I was having trouble communicating and with social situations nearly all the time, going to a slightly more out-there place like Kinmen seemed doable.

California has weird license plates. You can your ham call letters, a press photographer plate, an Olympic Training Center plate, a Veteran plate (anyone, in fact, can get a “veteran” plate)

One of my favorite things is the requirements for a horseless carriage plate:

These special plates are issued, upon request, for motor vehicles with an engine of 16 or more cylinders manufactured prior to 1965, or any motor vehicle manufactured in 1922 or before.

Huh?

I’ll be on the radio at KZSU on Tuesday mornings 6-9am (Pacific), doing my show “I Once was Canadian”, starting tomorrow.

You can listen at 90.1FM or online.

(Here’s another post from my Taiwan backlog.)

I found the bathrooms in Taiwan pretty interesting. I sort of wanted to take photos of them except that it would make me a bit creepy[1], so I didn’t.

In America, many, if not most, urinals are of the short and blocky variety, like this American Standard one, but in Taiwan and other parts of Asia, they were of all sorts, short, tall, down to the floor, curved, blocky, narrow, deep and so on. Many of them were made by Toto (”I bless the raaaaiins down in Aaaaaaaafrica!” is what I’d sing in my head each time I saw one of those.)

There were also numerous funny signs. Two of my favorite are below.

In the MRT stations in Taipei:

Come Closer Please
automatic flushing when you draw near

This one I’d always imagine the “come closer please” said low and breathy, like a movie monster or serial killer. Because, I mean, when else do you hear “come closer please”?

In the train station in Hualien:

Stand Closer
to be discrete and clean

There was also a theme in many bathrooms of things that said something like “Let’s learn English!” with an English idiom and its Chinese meaning. Some of these idioms were not very common or possibly not idioms at all. I’d love it for a Chinese person to come to America and then say one of those and when people looked at him questioning, he would have to explain that he learned it in a bathroom so it must be right!

There were also a lot of proverbs and old sayings on walls. These were also translated into English. Most of them were not very funny.

I did take one photo of a sign in a bathroom in Thailand:

I hadn’t really considered washing my feet in the sink but now that they mention it, it does sound like a good idea!

Outside of a bathroom, but still related:

[1] Is this post creepy anyway?

From 9-10pm tonight on the Home Shopping Network is none other than “Infinite Comfort Mattress”. Can you imagine missing that? You’d be kicking yourself for months!

(I have a backlog of posts started when I was in Taiwan. Here’s one of them.)

I recently [well, I started this a while ago, so more like a month or two ago] finished Born on a Blue Day by Daniel Tammet. It’s a memoir of his life with savant syndrome and Aspergers.

You might recognize him from his appearance on Letterman a few years ago:

I found it pretty interesting. Daniel is one of the people on the autistic spectrum that is most able to describe going on in his brain. For instance, each number has a shape and texture in his head. If he’s multiplying two numbers the shapes/ textures come together to form a new shape and he just says what that new number is based on the shape. Interesting, but not exactly helpful in getting my to do complicated multiplication or sums in my head…

There’s also quite a bit about dealing with Aspergers, unrelated to any special abilities he has. He has problems socializing and with making eye contact and things like that. I do too (though not as extreme), but people seem to just tell me to get over it.

It’s well-written and the reading goes smoothly and quickly (in case you’re concerned about reading a book written by someone who talks about his problems communicating). Overall, it’s an uplifting book, with plenty of hope and overcoming obstacles.

You can also check out another interesting video. He also has blog.

While reading this list of US Presidential assassination attempts I realized I have a new favorite president. The description of the attempt on Andrew Jackson:

At the Capitol Building, a house painter named Richard Lawrence aimed two flintlock pistols at the President, but both misfired, one of them while Lawrence stood within 13 feet (4 m) of Jackson and the other at point-blank range.[11] After firing the two pistols, Lawrence was apprehended after Jackson beat him with his cane.

I saw letterman last night, the first one back since they renegotiated with the television writers. Dave’s got a strike beard, which looks pretty funny on him.

It was pretty standard letterman–better than the average (e.g. Leno) but overall only marginally entertaining. Robin Williams was on and was a manic maniac as usual. Lupe Fiasco performed a song that got me a bit intrigued as to his solo stuff–maybe it’s alright.

Number of days: 112

Number of days or parts thereof spent traveling: 47 (3 to/ from, 7 intra-Taiwan (3 Kaohsiung, 2 Taroko, 2 Kinmen), 37 intra-Asia (7 Indonesia, 5 Thailand; 15 Hong Kong, Macau, China; 10 Japan)

Number of countries visited (since moving): 6 (Taiwan, Indonesia, Thailand, China, Japan, U.S.) + 2 special administrative regions with separate border controls (Hong Kong, Macau)

Number of countries visited (year to date): 8 (above + South Africa, Swaziland) + 2 S.A.R.s

Number of flights (since moving): 14 (SFO-> TPE-> CKG-> DPS-> CKG-> TPE-> BKK-> TPE-> HKG-> TPE-> NRT-> TPE, TSA-> KNH-> TSA, TPE-> SFO)

Number of flights (2007): 31 (SFO-> CVG-> IAD-> JNB, DUR-> CPT-> JNB-> JFK, BOS-> JFK-> SFO-> BOS-> DFW-> SFO-> HNL-> LIH-> HNL-> SFO + above + SFO-> CLT-> DCA)

Miles flown (since moving): 27,406 miles (44,106 km)

Miles flown (2007): 63,569 miles (102,304 km)

Number of high speed train journeys: 4 (Taipei->Kaohsiung->Taipei, Tokyo->Kyoto->Tokyo)

Number of train journeys: 6 (above + Taipei->Hualien->Taipei)

Approximate number of km ridden on scooters: 225

Best hotel (overall): Kamandalu Resort, Ubud, Bali. A connection to the cousin of the owner opened the door for staying in this swanky place. Gorgeous surroundings and really nice rooms. Private verandas looking over rice paddies. The service was also excellent. We went out riding bikes around the rice paddies one day and came back sweating. Pretty soon after we entered the lobby we had cool moist towels to wipe our faces with. Perhaps the only nicer place I’ve stayed is the ridiculous Schlosshotel Veir Jahrezeiten (Four Seasons Palace Hotel) in Berlin. (They had a Ferrari convention while we were there and it didn’t seem out of place.)

Best hotel (value): Hirano Guesthouse, Kyoto. 3500 yen a night in Kyoto is very cheap and besides a nice place to stay, the owner was very friendly, helpful and accommodating, making us tea when we came home for a break in the afternoons. She also made us breakfast every morning, let us use her bicycles and computer/ internet. Oh and there was a candy bowl and after we ate an unreasonable amount of it, she didn’t complain, she just refilled it.

Number of American chain stores patronized (not counting convenience stores, exact): 3 (2 Subways-Taipei, 1 Denny’s-Kyoto)

Number of American chain stores patronized (counting convenience stores[1], approximate): 22.2 (the above + Circle K’s in Taiwan, Bali, Thailand, ampm’s in Japan, plus 0.2 for a Mister Donut in Japan[2])

Oddest food obsession: Harbo’s Happy Cola gummy candies

Most common food eaten: rice (~ >1.5 servings a day)

Most common food product eaten: Kinder Chocolate (~ 0.6 a day)

Most “exotic” foods eaten: crickets, silk worms, frog

Number of Dr. Peppers consumed: 2 (one in Japan, one in Thailand)

Foods most missed: good bread, good cheese, Dr. Pepper, good beef, shelled shrimp, deboned fish.

Number of Hello Kitty products seen: in the thousands

Number of Hello Kitty products purchased: 1 (alarm clock, convenience store, Japan)

America: so quiet, so dark, so many English speakers, so many whites/ latinos/as, blacks. big supermarkets. low population density.

Least useful piece of clothing: dress shirt (the greenish one, never worn, given away at the end)

Most useful piece of clothing: shoes (the brown Adidas, nearly daily)

Most useful piece of clothing out of its original purpose (and new use): board shorts-style swimsuit (exercise shorts)

Piece of clothing I most immediately realized I’d forgotten: navy blue cotton boxers (that I use as warm weather pajama bottoms)

Number of books read: 5.75 (2nd 0.5 of Slow Man by Coeztee, Love is a Mixtape by Sheffield, Can’t Stop Won’t Stop: a Story of the Hip Hop Generation by Chang, Sex Drugs and Cocoa Puffs by Klosterman, Born on a Blue Day By Tammet, You Don’t Love Me Yet by Lethem, first 0.25 of About a Boy by Hornsby)

Number of concerts attended: 3 (Emily the Band @ Underworld, Apples in Stereo @ the Wall, Sugar Plum Ferry @ the Wall)

Number of CDs purchased: 19 (5 in Hong Kong (Monitor), 5 @ WWR (1st trip), 5 @ WWR (2nd trip), 2 @ IMPO, 1 @ FINAC, 1 @ Roses(?))

Number of pieces of mail received: 6 (3 packages of promo CD(s); 1 each from Ian, Lauren, Gumbeaux)

[1] This is tricky because things are confusing. 7-11 is Japanese for instance.

[2] Mr. Donut is an American brand but the Asian stores are run by Duskin Co out of Japan under a licensing agreement.

Both Andy and Dave were taking photos but I think this one’s by David.