Lone Locust Productions

Author: Eugene Glover

  • Mormonism in the rain

    Despite the torrential rain, my in-laws decided to take us out to dinner last night. My wife, the kids and I headed out first so they could close up the house and bug spray the place. Despite umbrellas, the rain was causing standing water 4“ deep in places and Michelle and I both managed to step ankle deep in water, soaking our sandals and feel to the bone.

    As we struggled in the pouring rain, we came to an intersection and had no choice but to stand waiting. Two foreigners approached me and started to ask if I lived in the area and did I recognize them. Of course, I didn’t and then, just as the light changed, they decided to talk to me about mormonism.

    It’s bad enough that the duped followers of a convicted con man (Joseph Smith) want to try to induct more people into their religion, but it’s another thing altogether to be so irritatingly inconsiderate as to try to keep me and my family standing in the rain for even 10 seconds to spread more religious poison in the world. Perhaps it’s better for them they didn’t get the opportunity to discuss my opinion of religion with them…

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  • “Dammit, I don’t have my camera!” moments

    It’s been so wet that taking out the big cameras has been impractical, but I usually keep my wife’s new Canon SD1000 handy. It’s small enough to fit in my pocket or on my belt. I went out a few minutes ago just to run to the 7-11 for a Coke and didn’t bother to take it with me. Mistake.

    Taipei is always a city of surprises. Most of those surprises involve the populations almost playful disregard for anything resembling the law or basic rules of common courtesy. I say playful because no one seemed bothered by it and take it good-naturedly, presumably because they’ll disregard the next person just as fast as they themselves were disregarded.

    If you see a “no parking” sign, someone will be parked in front of it, even if the sign is painted on someone’s front gate and they have no other way to get out. If there’s a no jaywalking sign, you can bet someone will be jaywalking there.

    I was shocked to learn that, on Heping Rd they’ve started to install covered bus stops!. It seems like a great idea to me, but in Taipei there’s always someone ready to take advantage of it. On my way to the 7-11 I passed one of the new covered stops, which is now being used as covered scooter parking. True, there’s no sign saying, “don’t park your scooter under the bus stop”, but it shows a complete disregard for the people who might be using the bus stop for something like… oh, I don’t know… how about waiting for a bus and trying to stay out of the rain?

    I also missed a photo of the female construction worker coming off a job site. Nothing special about her except that she was kited up in the standard construction gear: Hard hat, t-shirt, lifting belt, blue jeans and bright pink “Hello Kitty” wellingtons.

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  • Cong You Bing

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    I’ve been eating at this place for years and, as far as I know, it hasn’t got a name.

    It’s quite literally a 6′ X 6′ corner store, with just about enough room for the 3 workers to stand and cook. The door is held together with cardboard and it looks as ramshackle as it sounds. Nonetheless, the old guy that runs this place and his wife never fail to pack in a crowd every day, rain or shine. The store was recently featured in the news and business seems even busier than usual.

    He’s located just west of Xinsheng Rd on Heping Rd. on the south side of the road, next to a 7-11 (which is convenient for me because I can get a Coke or some tea to go with my cong you bing. Cong you bing is roughly translated into “green onion pancake” and, while pancake conjures up images of maple syrup, this is not a sweat concoction, more of a fried bread. This store’s cong you bing is somewhat unconventional as most vendors griddle fry them, while these are deep fried.

    Maybe it’s my personal taster, but his cong you bing are the best.

    His menu is only 3 or 4 items, but his most popular item is the lou bo si bing (蘿蔔絲餅), or “shredded daikon cake”. He also serves cong you bing with an egg fried on top.

    Pictured here, clockwise around the ring, cong you bing, cong you bing w/egg, lou bo si bing.

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  • The pressure is on, Diana

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    This made the news as far away as Pakistan.

    As we returned from dinner the other day, Taipei 101, still the world’s tallest building, was lit up with the marriage (or is that “mappiage”) proposal.

    No word on if Diana said, “yes” or, for that matter, even saw it.

    Update: I’ve seen some indication that this was a “fake” proposal to “sell” the concept of using the Taipei 101 for marriage proposals.

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  • Dangling thoughts

    Ever start a sentence and realize you have nothing to say?

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  • Day 2 – What I ate

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    How exciting is a list of my meals, day-by-day!? I know! I can hardy stand the excitement.

    Still, I’m doing this for science. There are just some things that I either can’t get at home or they suck back home.

    This morning I went back for Shao Bing You Tiao just so I could get a picture for everyone. We went to a place (might as well be nameless) on Heping Rd that my wife likes to get breakfast at. It wasn’t as flavorful as the “famous” (and yet still nameless, as far as I know) place we ate from yesterday. Photographically, though, they were pretty much the same. (Incidentally, if anyone knows the name of the famous place, it’s located near exit 4 of the Shandao temple MRT station.)

    Lunch: Costco, hot dog and a soda. They used to have proper beef hot dogs at Costco Taiwan, but they’ve switched to pork for the “local taste”, which just means they’re aren’t particularly good, but they’re better than any hot dog you’ll get at a Taiwanese 7-11.

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    Dinner: Stopped in at the Emperor’s Happy Pork Chop near Xinsheng and Xinyi Rds. Two years ago I had the pork chop with noodle soup. I recall liking the pork chop but being unimpressed with the soup. This time I went with a simple pork chop and rice. It still came with a bowl of clear soup, which just didn’t have much flavor. The rice was served with a variety of toppings.

    The highlight of the meal was, of course, the pork chop and it was quite good, although there was a rather large fatty section near the bone which mostly went to waste.

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  • Next Season’s Writers….

    BBC – Doctor Who – News => Script Doctors

    Just because I’m in a foreign land doesn’t mean the Doctor Who stops. The writers for next season have been announced.

    The good news: Stephen Moffat is writing two episodes; Russell T. Davies is writing only four; the remaining four returning writers have all turned in passable or better episodes.

    The bad news: No Mark Gatiss (again); Russell T. Davies is writing four episodes.

    Heading the list is, of course, Russell T Davies. He’ll be tackling the 2007 Christmas Special and another four episodes.

    Steven Moffat will become the only other writer to work on all four seasons of the show when he delivers a two-part story – his first since The Empty Child / The Doctor Dances.

    Also back for a double-bill is Helen Raynor, responsible for this year’s Daleks In Manhattan / Evolution Of The Daleks.

    Gareth Roberts (The Shakespeare code) Tom MacRae (Rise Of The Cybermen / The Age Of Steel) and Stephen Greenhorn (The Lazarus Experiment) all return for single episodes.

    The season also boasts two newcomers – James Moran and Keith Temple.

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  • Day 1 – What I ate

    Had three meals today, for breakfast, on the way “home” from the airport, we stopped at some “famous” place that makes shao bing you tiao (燒餅油條). I forgot to get pictures and will try to get some later, but it is basically several pieces of deep fried batter in long stick shapes, wrapped by another piece of pan-fried dough, rather in the shape of a squared-off pita. It’s filling, but it can hardly be nutritionally wholesome. This place apparently had “thin” and “thick”, the thick being a unique non-traditional specialty form from this particular restaurant. The difference between the two was almost imperceptible.

    Din Tai Fung

    Lunch they insisted on taking me to Din Tai Feng, which is almost always welcome.

    We went out later in the day to stay awake and we stopped at the nearby MOS burger (a new one has opened up less than three blocks from home) for my dinner.

    I enjoy MOS Burger because it is different but, of all the hamburger places, they make it the hardest. There’s no combo meal with a cheeseburger, and there’s no pretty picture menu for the illiterate foreigners (like me), and then they have to ask about options so I always have to order my food “the hard way”. “I’d like one MOS Cheese hamburger, spicy, no tomato. One small order of french fries (if only I knew how to ask them to salt them.) One large drink, cola. To eat here.” (In chinese, of course)

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    The incompetence of my pronunciation not withstanding, I can usually get my point across, unless they start asking questions. Now they’ve added a new one, “Do you want ice in your cola?” Anything they can do to make it hard for me.

    Because I basically don’t have a huge repertoire of restaurant reviews for Taipei, but Ifrequently read the Hungry Girl’s Guide to Taipei blog, which has a nice back-catalog of restaurant reviews, for her comments on:

    MOS Burger

    I’ll try to link to her reviews on places that I eat at.

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  • Taiwan 2007 – Day One – Arrival

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    We’re in Taipei.

    I’m very proud of my kids, their behavior was almost flawless over the long haul to Taiwan.

    The flight was tedious, but I managed to sleep for about 2/3 of it. I was amused by Singapore Air’s choice of TV shows. While I appreciate their choice of Doctor Who as one of the selections, with only one episode to choose from, Rise of the Cybermen, I can’t help wondering if a better choice wouldn’t have been an episode that wasn’t part one of a two-part story. Still, I watched Doctor Who while flying over Siberia. How cool is that?

    We arrived around 6:00AM local time, and our goal for today is nothing more than staying awake until 8PM or so.
    The rainy season officially started yesterday and it was pouring all morning. It’s hot, humid and miserable, there’s no other description for it. It’s tough adapting from a lifetime of living in the “dry heat” or Arizona.

    There’s a snag connecting our laptops into the home network, but hopefully that will be resolved before tomorrow. All I can do now it write posts and wait for a chance to send them.

    I haven’t quite figured out what format my posts will take on this trip. Since all we’ve really done today is eat, I’ve been concentrating on taking pictures. I’ve created a single photoset called Taiwan 2007 for the repository of all the photos I upload which should be all photos I take (as a backup). I’ll see about making some form of edited highlights areas.

    Afternote: I made it till 6:30, it’s now 2:00AM in the morning and I’m wide awake, but that gave me the opportunity to figure out hoe to connect to the internet via a PPPoE DSL connection. I’ve not seen one of those before but it works. I’ve even iChatted back home with no problems.

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    We thought that was going to be the end of the day, just relaxing and trying to stay awake, but instead we headed out to get contact lens for Irene (no prescription required in these parts.) As we walked around we passed something that really impressed me. Only in Taipei would they have a family waterpark/sewage treatment plant. How brilliant is that!

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  • A brief interlude

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    8:11PM

    Well, we’re off. Our flight out of Phoenix was delayed because they had to replace “a gyro” in the cockpit, but despite the 15-20 minute delay, somehow they managed to get us to LA on time. Not that we cared, since we have some much time to kill.

    We arrived at exactly 6:00PM and we can’t check in for our plane until 9:30. We decided to try that fancy restaurant in the middle of the airport, the Encounter. I always used to think that was the tower whenever I saw the airport on TV. It turns out it is a restaurant, but not a very good one. Not because of the cuisine, but because it is closed for construction.

    Instead we’ve eaten at the dreadful restaurants in the International Terminal. There’s no free internet (just a T-mobile hotspot) and the place is packed. I brought a power split so I could share an electrical outlet, but there are no seats near electricity.

    8:59PM

    Power! I got an electrical outlet. Time to play solitaire.

    10:34PM

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    I’m so bored! We’ve checked in, which took a lot longer than it should have. The US Airways ticketing agent, who ticketed us all the way to Taipei, got it wrong, assigning James as an infant rather than a fare-paying child. It confused the gate agents at Singapore Air but they resolved it.

    At 11:00 or so, we’ll head down to security, which currently has a long, long line and then wait until the 12:05 boarding time. I’m sitting by the window on the east (I think) side of the terminal and I’ve just caught a ghost of a wisp of an open access point. The kds are watching Curious George on Irene’s iBook. Her batteries aren’t going to last into the flight unless we can get her to a power tap at the gate.

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