blog.mchiu.com

Flights to Japan are expensive

So my friend Kevio and I are planning to resurrect our Ramen Tours of the past, but now that half of the friends have left Japan, wonder whether it is worth it or not anymore?

Anyway... decided to do a quick price check on flights, and off of expedia, on any of the major airlines, prices seem to be up in the $900 range for the beginning of November... Hmm... a bit pricey... so I decided to do a check for flight + hotel, and I guess they can get some pretty good deals. The range was from $1,200 to $2,000 for flight + 7 nights' stay. That seems a little more manageable...

So one hotel that I found while looking online caught my eye: the b hotel Roppongi.

Although getting to and from the airport from Roppongi may be a bit of a pain in the ass, location-wise, and especially since Kevio and I will be accompanied by a bunch of people who will be in Japan for the first time, it seems like a good place to stay.

interesting... b hotel... sounds kinda like the W Hotel... from the pictures, it kinda looks like the W Hotel... I guess that since there isn't a W in Japan though, this hotel might be a good alternative... 1 week flight+hotel package for the low, low, price of only $1,226 per person! :O Well, that is if I can get 3 rooms with 2 people in each room... Otherwise, a single person in each room would go up to $1,775! :O That's $550 that could be used for ramen and beer... and other extra-curricular activities!

Guess I'll keep looking for the time being, but for the friends in Tokyo who are reading this blog... Know anything about this place? Location looks pretty good and it is walking distance from places like "Seventh Heaven", "Private Eyes", etc. he he he... OH YEAH!!! Let's watch Mikio drop $2 grand in one night again!!! :O

I have a lot of fans!

So going back a couple of weeks, several friends were in town for the wedding of our friend, Garret Gee. During the weekend, I made this discovery of all these fans I have of my site. Apparently, Lee-Ann was addicted to my blog because she has never seen a blog site before, and I guess she got a kick out of my many posts about flatuence. As the weekend progressed, other out-of-town friends also told me how much they look forward in seeing updates to my blog, so I guess I need to keep this blog moving! :O Cool!

It's been a while...

Just wanted to make a quick post to let y'all know that I'm still alive, and I do have a bunch of stuff I want to blog, but just have been too tired to post anything lately... Since I last posted, a number of things that I plan on blogging about have transpired like my friend's wedding in Monterey and the E3 Conference in LA, among other small things... Maybe I'll work on them later tonight...

Asian Controversies...

So over the past month or so, I have found myself caught in the middle of a bunch of controversies...

Being an Asian-American, or more specifically, a Taiwanese-American, having been born and raised in America, I guess these kinds of things don't hit me as hard as they do for some of my other friends who have come from other Asian nations.

I started noticing all of this several weeks ago when friends in Japan were discussing events between Japan and China over the issue of Japan refusing to apologize for events such as the Rape of Nanjing, China's blocking of Japan as a permanent member of the UN Security Council, etc. Just as we are all in this discussion, I got a taste of what it's like from the other side, when a colleague in Taiwan sent me an interesting e-mail asking to vote on a CNN poll of whether Japan should be granted a permanent position on the UN Security Council. Of course, I had to forward this to the friends in Japan... hillarity ensued...

This morning, I was reading an article on the Always-On blog site, where Eric Janszen of Trident Capital, and whom is married to a Taiwanese woman, dispels many of the myths of Taiwan. Pretty good read, but discussing it with Kevin, we found a few inaccuracies of the article. Such as:

Myth: The Taiwanese are Chinese.

Fact: More than 85% of Taiwan's population of 23 million is Taiwanese, not Chinese. Most of the Chinese in Taiwan today came to the country with Chang Kai-Chek's Kuomintang (KMT) army in 1949, or are their descendants. The Taiwanese, on the other hand, developed as a separate culture on the island for hundreds of years. More importantly, the Taiwanese overcame 60 years of harsh Japanese rule to grow into a prosperous, democratic, capitalist nation without any assistance from Communist China. Conversely, Taiwanese capital investment in China has been critical to China's growth. Most Taiwanese speak Taiwanese as their first language, distinct from any of the Chinese dialects spoken in China or the national language of China, Mandarin. Mandarin has been taught to Taiwanese in school since the Chinese KMT took over in 1949 and is spoken by the Taiwanese at school and at work. Many older Taiwanese speak Japanese, the language taught in school by Taiwan's previous occupiers.

Not meaning to be too nit-picky, but the Taiwanese language is actually similar to one of the dialects spoken in China: Fukanese, from the Fujian province. I'm not sure if the point that Eric was making was to show that Taiwan is completely different from China to the point that the "native" Taiwanese language is different from any other dialect in China, but to say that Taiwanese and Fukanese are distinclty different from one another makes about as much sense to say that American and British English are distinctly different from one another. Sure, there are differences, but for the most part, we can understand one another.

I have nothing against wanting to show that Taiwan is completely seperate from China, but we all still have to admit that in terms of language and genetic make-up of the people, China does play a very dominant role. I am pretty sure it is well documented, but even if it isn't, I am willing to bet money that the non-aboriginal inhabitants of Taiwan can all trace their roots back to China.

Another inaccuracy we noticed in Eric Janszen's blog was this one:

KMT rule ended with the first democratic elections in 1996. That was the year the Taiwanese people, with their democratically elected Taiwanese leader Chen Shui-bian, at last gained political control over their nation, ending hundreds of years of foreign rule. After fighting Chinese, Japanese, and European occupiers for centuries, Taiwan and its people could enjoy the freedom of democratic self-governance that all citizens of sovereign nations have the right to exercise.

Oh well... guess it was a good try, but we believe the honor of the first democratically elected president of Taiwan belongs to Lee Teng-Hui.

So recently, on a mailing list I am on for TAITA-SV (Taiwanese-American Information Technology Association - Silicon Valley), some guy posted this masterpiece:

http://www.manchesteronline.co.uk/men/news/s/156/156875_teenage_gang_murder_fifth_arrest.html

Dearest all:

I don't wish to burden you with the sad news of the world ... but the news quoted above does impact my moral nerves and senses ...

And, if I am not mistaken, it should do the same to the people in UK ...

UK People and Chinese People have had a tough time with each other since about 1840's, the years during which the Opium War took place about 1.5 century ago ...

The stigma then still stay pretty much alive today ... UK People and Chinese People, even today, is never under a normal platform to receive, treat and dialogue with one another ...

The hostility is latent, implicit & virulent ... with animosity boiling, reviving & accumulative ...

I saw too many times Asians (particularly Mainland Chinese) were badly attacked by UK's 10's, 20's, 30's angry young generations, whose numbers perhaps in the millions.

If I were China's President's Hu; I will recall every one Chinese national in UK to be home ...

Being a President is a Sacred Job, a Godly Mission ...

To smile when you are not supposed to is a Sin ... enticing people's contempt's and wrath ...

I am sadden a life lost ...

Can you imagine, Mr. Tony Blaire was circled by 20 Chinese teenagers, male and female, and they clobbered him to death with spade, metal pipes and tree branches ...

We should not lightly gaze at the death of a UK Chinese takeout Restaurant Owner; the psyches of 20 UK teenagers deposited, in fidelity, the generations of our mutual group shadows & collective unconsciousness ...

God bless every one of us.

KP Chen

As sad as the actual story is, I just think it is funny that this guy thinks that a feud from 150 years ago is the reason why 5 UK teenagers beat a Chinese storekeeper to death. (Instead of being due to reasons of the Opium War, could it be that they are 5 bad kids that had something against the Chinese storekeeper?) Then the thing about seeing different generations of UK people attacking Chinese has gotta be alarming... What was this asshole doing just watching that shit happen?

I am glad that he is not China's President Hu though... that would just create more population control problems back home if he recalled every Chinese in the UK back to the mainland... not to mention a waste of time, effort, and money...

Anyway... I guess there is always this masterfully done piece of work that I can add to the Asian controversies... he he he

Anonymous said...

u r a fuckin' piece of white dog shit that has been festering inside yo mama's cunt for at least two months. u talk about chinks,? i'd like to c u fight 1 u racist cock licker. go fuck yo sister in da ass,and let her lick her shit off of yo little prick. ok motherfucker. u want a race war, BRING IT ON YOU LITTLE BOY. sincerely a mean BITCH.

a mean BITCH never did seem to return to my blog site to really get me to respond to him (or her) as anything but anonymous, so I guess he/she finally realized that I am right, and he/she is wrong... :D

Response Roundup

Here is another set of responses to things people have written to me:

"Response Roundup"

phatRyde350Z said...

Good idea to respond like this. I didn't think to see if you replied to my remarks. Damn, skippy, you're busting out the random thoughts faster than I can organize and write one...of several to be added over GW break. Enjoy. And you stand to be highly reprimanded on one point- "I've never been to a bachelor party other than/outside of Vegas"? Have you developed alzheimer's?! Here's my gaijin card, Mr. Hall&Oates.

Your farting immigrant coworker can stay far away from me, and you are right. Chinks suck. I don't want to handle marketing in Asia anymore. FUCBUC- freak us chinks, because we're chinks. Could that be construed as a racist remark if said by me instead of y'all?

NO LONGER ANONYMOUS!

9:45 PM, April 27, 2005

Oops... forgot about that one... he hehe.. I think I want to forget the $2 grand it cost me that night...

whatever you say, you'll always be contrued as being racist... so why even worry about it? I sure the hell don't, whitey!

"Another Sad Death"

Carrera said...

He actually died at the age of 83.

9:30 PM, April 28, 2005

It was actually meant to be a joke, but I'll believe you...

"An Interesting Comment"

Carrera said...

That is a sweet response. Bitch must be high. Is this Biatch a "she?" or a "he?" or "she-male" hahahaha

Hope the biatch replies. Sad puta.

12:16 AM, May 01, 2005

The he-she bitch probably won't respond because the she-male is an anonymous coward, but just thought that it was a pretty funny comment for all to laugh at! he he he...

*** I guess the chink isn't gonna respond now that it's been about a week since that post was left up. Probably realized how chinky his comment made him sound... he he he

"Mmm... Locomoco"

Carrera said...

Where's the beef? I thought loco moco consists of a Japanese style hamburger pattie? or am I mistaken?

4:38 PM, May 03, 2005

The eggs were enormous. The beef patties were enormous. They were pretty thick, more than they were large, so if you look closely at the picture, you can get a hint of the two beef patties under each egg. The gravy was different from what I am normally accustomed to, but I guess it was OK. These definitely were not Japanese style hamburger patties though. Here in California, most of the Locomocos I have had were not Japanese style actually... At least not like what I remembered Japanese style hamburger steaks to be like...

"Mmm... Eating from the toilet"

Carrera said...

Personally speaking, I would not prefer that kind of theme for fine dining.

I wonder what specific market the owner is targeting? Homeless? :P

3:09 PM, May 05, 2005

Yeah... It makes about as much sense as this one restaurant that Kevin and I were talking about where they make you feel like you are in jail. Not sure what kinds of people can come up with these ideas, but these are a bit out there. Well.. I think Kevin will make a visit to that restaurant on his next visit to Taipei! :D

Stupid Stuff in the Office

So a couple of funny/idiotic things going on in the office today...

So my farting co-worker starts it off by asking me about the Hobbee's (or Hobby's the way she pronounces it) off the 101 at Mathilda Ave., and asked me if I think it will be open for coffee in the afternoon. So my answer was naturally, "Uhh... yeah... sure... why not?" It's just a restaurant, so I don't see why it wouldn't be... she then said that she was planning to be there at 1:30, so I assumed she meant 1:30 pm, in which case, why wouldn't it be open? It's not the "coffee shop" that I would choose, but whatever...

She kept pushing to see if I knew of any other coffee places because she didn't trust the confidence in my answer of Hobbee's being open at that time, and I was thinking to myself "Dammit woman! Isn't there a Starbuck's at just about every street corner??!!!", but instead I said, "well, you could try downtown Sunnyvale, which isn't too far away from the 101/Mathilda exit"... then she muttered something about downtown Mountain View, but I corrected her in saying downtown Sunnyvale, but she then explained that she was meeting someone at 1:30 for coffee, but that he was going to meet her after having a lunch in downtown Mtn. View...

Uhh... why don't you just go to downtown mountain view then? But she complained that it was too far away... Uh huh... another exit or two up the 101 is too far, huh? Ok... whateverz... so she just said that she would look it up on the Starbuck's website... 2 minutes later, she tells me not to worry about it, she found one off the 101 at Rengstorff Ave... Hmm... isn't Rengstorff exit about another 3-4 exits past Mathilda Ave? Hmm...

So later in the day...

Since we are subletting our office and the lease is about to expire, our landlord called and asked to have their furniture back... One of the partners and I were discussing it, and the subject turned to the chairs in the office... Our office has about 10 times more chairs than people in it, since it's a combination of chairs we brought from our old office and chairs that belonged to the landlord... To this partner, just about everything in his world simply "sahks", so he was saying that the chairs we brought over suck because when you fart in them, the smell lingers... Naturally, I had to ask him why he sniffed his chair, but he then changed the subject to the Aeron chairs that belong to our landlord... Of course, I had to challenge him by saying that with Aeron chairs, farting gets worse because the whole office can hear you farting if you fart in them...

All of a sudden, my farting co-worker appears out of nowhere, and begged to keep the farting.... oops, I mean Aeron, chairs because she loves the one she sits on... I had to use everything inside of me to hold back my laugh, since I constantly have to listen to her belt out one sloppy fart after another every day... hmm... I wonder if she knows that her farts speak just about as loud as her words? hmm....

Mmm... Eating from the toilet

This looks a bit disturbing. There is a new restaurant in Taipei where the theme of the restaurant is based on toilets. Eating from a toilet bowl, while sitting on top of a toilet just does not sit well with me...

More info can be found here.

How Technically Challenged Can People Be???

I have realized that working in this office, people tend to be technically challenged... My boss is fairly innocent in the way she is technically challenged, and is pretty humble about it. My other two co-workers however, tend to be arrogant people, and think they know what they are doing, and end up looking like idiots in the end.

So my farting co-worker and I have been working together on setting up a conference call with Marubeni Ventures in New York. It's going to be us over here in the Silicon Valley on one end, and Marubeni over in NY on the other end. Pretty simple. Break out the Polycom, and give them a call. But my farting co-worker insists on using a formal conference calling service. I'm like "Huh? We need to use a conference calling service to connect two parties?" Maybe it's her lack of vocabulary, but no, she started looking on the Internet for conference calling services, and remembered that there was a free one somewhere.

Uhh... there are a million free conference calling services, but they have a ton of restrictions... like... time restrictions... like, in other words, it's a demo to get you enticed to use their for-pay services.

But after looking through the different services, she still wasn't satisfied because there weren't any free services that also had collaboration. Again... "Huh? What are we going to do that would warrant the need for collaboration tools?" She wants to do a Powerpoint presentation with them. She finally concludes that we probably only have choices like WebEx or Placeware.

ARGH!!!!! How stupid and wasteful can one person be with this kind of stuff??? We're talking about two parties!!! We don't need collaboration, and we don't need a conference calling service!!! How hard is it to say over the phone to the other party, "Please turn to the next slide"???? It's not like we're webcasting here... we're just talking to another party...

I know that she wants to do things this way to impress Marubeni since this is our first discussion with them, but I think her visions of grandeur and wowness factor will fall flat on their face when you consider that aside from the fact that anything could happen like network failure, slow connection, slow ping times, etc., that to the other party, it will look like we are very wasteful in going way overboard for a simple meeting over the phone. If anything, we should be using a free service such as Skype which has a wow factor of its own, and is very cheap and reliable, and shows that we're in the know.

The way I look at it, for the way she wants to do things, it's kind of like using a helicopter to get to work. Sure, it's possible to do that, but that would be pretty impractical way to travel a few miles.

My boss and my farting co-worker have this knack for asking me why things don't work, and when I go and investigate the problem, there normally isn't a problem, and I have no idea what they did wrong. They call this phenomenon my "magic hands", where any piece of electronic equipment I touch will automatically start to work. I'm thinking that they probably did something wrong and believe in this magic hocus-pocus to explain their shortcomings.

*sigh* I work in a company that supplies the lifeblood of the tech companies here in the Silicon Valley (money) yet I work amongst a group of people who know relatively little about tech, making me the head geek of the office... It is very very sad...

Literally off-shoring jobs

This LA Times article introduces a company, "SeaCode" that addresses several issues of off-shoring jobs such as the shortage of H1-Bs for foreign technical workers in the US, Amercians being unhappy that jobs are being outsourced to India, and companies being unhappy with long-distance employees. SeaCode proposes an actual ship, 3 miles off the coast of California which would hire programmers with Master's Degrees to work on the ships without H1-Bs, and for employers to still be able to take advantage of cheap labor, while it's still relatively close to home.

If this proves to be successful, I think my friends, Jerry and Josh, idea of "high-seas prostitution" might actually work!

Mmm... Locomoco

So Frankie and I decided to go to this new "Hawaiian" joint in Cupertino called "J&J's Hawaiian BBQ" to check out their cullinary delights. Ooh!!! They got loco-moco here!!! Woo hoo!!!

So I step up to the counter to make an order, and something definitely did not feel right. First off, there's Chinese food off to the right of the counter... You know, the kind where you choose 3 items...

Then, when I get to the front of the line, I had absolutely no idea what the woman behind the counter was asking me... It wasn't a Hawaiian accent, possibly a Chinese accent, maybe a Vietnamese accent, but I just guessed that she was asking what I wanted, so I just said "uhh... loco-moco?" To the left, there were these giant woks, so my loco-moco was probably cooked in a giant wok... interesting...

In any case, the loco-moco was huge... a little too big... like beyond American sized... beyond Big Kahuna sized... beyond Sam Choi sized... about right for Konishiki or Akebono

So I snapped this shot and sent it off to my friend Tomomi, who quickly responded that she thought that the two eggs looked like a pair of tits... if I could only find a woman with nipples that large...

My Messy Desk -- Full View

So my boss came into my cube today and screamed at me for keeping a messy desk for the past several months. You can see the transformation of my messy desk into my zen desk here.

Drying Your Speedos

The lower level parking lot of my building always has interesting things to see... I have watched birds build a nest in there, birds sitting on top of people's ski racks, etc. Since our building's basement has a gym and swimming pool, here's a new one... Some guy took a swim I guess, and in order to dry is Speedos, he hangs them on his car's side view mirror... Interesting...