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It’s day 2 here and the weather hasn’t changed a bit. Cold, wet, and quite dreary. But thanks to A J, it doesn’t matter a whole lot. Working indoors and Hooters Taiwan, that solved everything.

The Hula hoops thing was pretty neat. I even won a couple of prizes and we drank enough for me to get some San Miguel beer glasses. Sorry, no pics, I guess I will need to get a digital camera (or maybe someone else can? *hint* *hint*). No trip to Taipei is complete with a trip to the Hooters place. Janet, our hostess was quite attentive. Apparently A J and her have some history which helped out with service.

Being the ABC in Taiwan has been interesting. Besides trying to think and communicate as best as I can manage in Mandarin, I seem to get pretty good service….from Hooter hostesses :-). I’m getting the full royal treatment, hanging out at some expat places like Mago’s, a cigar and scotch place. Interestingly, the place was full of young attractive women, very few men. The four of us were the only male only group. After all the drinking I lived through it. Not too bad considering the last time I drank that much was hmmm …. a bachelor party.

So after 48 hrs here, my observations of Taipei are:
1. It’s like any other large city in the US.
2. Combination of old town feel and western style metropolis. There are some places that remind of old-town Ipoh Malaysia. Then super modern buildings and skyscrapers with huge boulevards that look like Kuala Lumpur.
3. Being an expat can be a whole lot of fun here.
4. Really amazingly beautiful women.

I should be getting out of Taipei next week to places like Taichun and Kaioshung.

Til next posting….

=YC

So… tonight I’m taking YC to Hooters in Taipei. The reason is we might not have the time to go down south of Taiwan and see pole dance stripping at a funeral. Anyways, hooters is a misnomer because, after all, we are in asia. Its more like flatters… or butters… just not hooters… but it does have an interesting spectacle called the hula hoop show. Imagine 5-10 young girls doing a little pom pom routine and then a hula hoop routine. Hula hoops fly through the air. My buddy AP who is quite a tall Taiwanese Dude, one time got smacked in the head with a flying hula hoop. The best part about this sort of thing is that these women are all into ABC guys so 8 times out of 10 they’ll pass you your receipt and there’ll be a mobile phone number on it. Anyways, its all good fun and the Tiger Beer is Cheap because Singapore’s economy is hurtin’. One of my singaporean buddies might come along and bring his 21 year old russian girlfriend. Should be fun to see how that plays out.

Hey… this is just a thought … I think it’d be cool to have an A***** bikini contest…. cuz some asian chicks are hot….

Hey… when the fuck am I going to be honored at B** A**** ?

At a banquet at Tavern on the Green, I won election as one of nine directors of an Asian organization that I’m active with. It’s kind of wierd to being introduced by FOX 5’s Bob DeCastro to like 500 attorneys. Nice event, much better than previous ones that were basically Chinese wedding banquets. I designed the printed program, which looked really good, I had to say. Then afterwards, I had to run back to work to set up for a symposium. On the way back, I passed the new Time Warner headquarters at Columbus Circle. Holy cow, it’s huge! My friend Peter, who was heading back to Brooklyn with me, said it reminded him of Hong Kong’s version of Times Square. The symposium starts at 8 am this morning; writing this entry is probably what I shouldn’t be doing.

Last night’s “Angel” – 100th episode – wow. I say “Wow” because of the ending. (spoiler alert; wait for it; skip if you don’t want to be spoiled; then again, I won’t give away everything…) – Lindsey the ex-Wolfram & Hart lawyer steps up on his revenge against Angel (not just on Team Angel). Basically, it’s total recall time – if one doesn’t remember the first season, we get all kinds of reminders – Lindsey’s recollection of his first meeting of Angel (not a good memory for either man); a hint of Doyle, Angel’s late sidekick, who was sorely missed, psychic, half-demon/half-human, and all-Irish (more than Angel ever was, since his accent thoroughly disappeared during his 200 year lifetime); and, more importantly, the return of Cordelia, the girl sidekick who joined Angel from “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and spent the past year in a coma (on the show, that is). (Wesley, the other carry-over from “Buffy” didn’t come in until season 2 and even Spike and Harmony are late-comers).

The storytelling was quite compelling – as it seems as if Angel has finally regained the sense of self, thanks to Cordelia (Lindsey always brings out the most compelling feelings out of Angel). Spike realizes that Lindsey has strung him all along – but, does this mean anything less about Spike’s mission to do good and be good? (Spike has to be good on his own – intrinsic good, for goodness’s sake! – after all, he can’t just be good because he wants to attract some girl or continue his rivalry with Angel – i.e., due to outside forces). It was also nice to see Cordelia recall her own journey – from being shallow California girl to a woman determined to make good win. And, then came the surprising end. Wow.

Quibbles – really, answers are not fulfilled. Angel is still heading Wolfram & Hart, and both the forces of good and evil are after him and the team (the good are after Team Angel because Team Angel’s working for the evil firm, and the evil are after the team because they are/were good; there’s no end to the confusion for Team Angel, but no one but Angel and Spike get it? Wesley seems close to realizing and being disturbed by the dilemma of working in the gray area). There were moments I would have liked more of – the rest of the team ought to realize what Angel’s feeling; I would have liked to see if they’re feeling the dilemma too – that the ambiguity they’re in isn’t pleasant stuff. I mean, come on – why don’t Gunn, Fred and Lorne realizing that working for Wolfram & Hart is going to suck them in before they start changing the world, as they claim they’re doing? Wesley’s so close to feeling it, short of expressing it. Worse, the rest of Team Angel still have amnesia about what had happened the past two seasons, relating to Angel’s son Connor – but at least Cordelia called Angel on the decision of wiping everyone’s memories about the past two seasons. I would have also liked to have had more Cordelia moments with the rest of the gang – but, for whatever reason (in real-life or in terms of the storyline), she was available for only the one episode.

Next week – Angel and Spike recall their World War II days, when Spike was still evil (and apparently working for the Nazis – odd, since he’s so British, but not so odd because he was evil) and when Angel was really struggling to atone for all his sins (by apparently working for the Americans). The teaser preview looked good (although it looked eerily like a commercial for “Pearl Harbor,” a movie I so definitely have not and probably won’t be seeing, since it didn’t seem that good; unless, someone tells me otherwise?).

Can’t believe I watched yet another episode of “The Apprentice” – there’s something eerie that made it compelling to actually watch it, even though I don’t like the show. Producer Mark Burnett (the same guy who brought us “Survivor”) is very good about editing his series so that there’s suspense.

Finally, an “ER” episode that didn’t end in complete misery. Hmm.

Tomorrow – the end of NBC’s “Ed”? Well, it was a nice series; catch it, especially if you’ve been enjoying it the last four years and would like the end. What is it with NBC letting decent shows go but keeping the not-so quality stuff?

It’s raining in New York. That’s significant because it’s no longer freezing, even though some stupid punk groundhog Phil from PA says that we’re going to have six more weeks of winter.

Super Bowl: Ads were not that great. As a whole they were really not that inspirational. The geezers fighting over the potato chips was just wrong. Homer was good, but didn’t really change the way I thought. The two that were thought provoking were the shardsoglass.com anti-smoking ad and I kind of liked monster.com’s ID card sequence. I can’t believe that Bermuda spent the $30M for an ad though.

The Janet Jackson thing was totally bogus — everyone knew exactly what they were doing. I generally do like the CBS lineup these past 2 seasons (you can’t pry me away from the Amazing Race with a crowbar, and CSI and Joan of Arcadia are great), and this will help them on their entertainment side, but ultimately is going to hurt them on the news side — Ed Murrow and Ed Sullivan are rolling over in their graves, and Walter Cronkite would be if he had one.

Oh yeah, the game — what an awesome game! Although I had no idea who anyone was, it was the best game in at least 5 years. They were so craving for points that they were going for 2 point conversions after the touchdown, which almost never happens nowadays. You also have to think that there were 8 touchdowns and 2 field goals: the ball travelled 1,000 yards during that game — that’s more than half a mile. I don’t think I could have run a half mile like that.

I was down 25 fan in the pre-game mahjong fest, but in honor of Mastercard, I won a Homer Simpson Braineez talking head on the first half box (thanks Carolina for coming through, even though I’m sorry you didn’t go the distance).

Super Tuesday: I think that it’s obvious Kerry’s the annointed one at this point. Edwards has been trying for a stealth 2nd, but Kerry has the single package.

My observations of the Super Bowl ads, as I was actually watching (more or less with some attention) the game:

– Commercial for Hugh Jackman’s “Van Helsing” movie – interesting, but felt more like “Look at our CGI effects!” rather than an actual promotion for a movie (and I didn’t exactly come out of it liking the CGI effects either).

– Commercial for Budweiser about The Donkey That Wanted To Be a Clydesdale – cute.

– I got real tired of these Levitra ads (for those who don’t know, it’s a Viagra rival, which may or may not make it an important product to be aware of).

– I also got real tired of the ads promoting all the CBS shows. Yeah, I know that this was exactly why any network would purchase the rights to air the Super Bowl, but I was only able to swallow so much of self-promotion.

– Charmin commercial: a quarterback was about to take the ball, only he was too busy admiring the touch and feel of the slip of Charmin toilet paper that was just hanging on the backside of another player. Whistle was blown and a guy in the Charmin bear suit was waving his roll of Charmin paper at the camera, evidentally proud of his little prank. Sideline folks proceeded to chase the bear down, as a vendetta for the prank. This was a strangely funny ad that kept one’s mind on the product.

– Staples commercial – happily mocking Godfather types and office supply managers, wherein office workers bribed the gatekeeper of the office supplies with doughnuts, cookies, and muffins for paper, pens, and paper clips. This one guy asked for a folder, but regrettably only had half a Danish; he was given only half a folder (ripped before his very eyes). The next day, the guy returned, with a bodyguard at his side; guy announced, “I went to Staples and everyone will know it too!” “And, what do you want from me?” said the gatekeeper. Bodyguard guy approached Gatekeeper guy nose to nose, and said, “I want a cream puff…” A funny ad that stayed on point! Go Staples, land of cheap office products.

– I didn’t care for any of the Pepsi commercials I managed to catch – I thought that they were a little silly. “Yeah, I’m going to continue wrongfully downloading music!” said the adolescent types toasting their Pepsis at us viewers. Oh, go away, kids.

– I also didn’t get the AOL Super Fast (or whatever they were called) ads. They were supposed to promote AOL’s faster connection to the Internet, by showing how this geeky guy tried to get his dad, a grungy mechanic/motorcyclist, to understand what Super Charging means (Dad thinks it’s something more useful to his line of work and cannot understand Geeky Son); at one point, Dad connected a little motorized wheelchair to an AOL server to watch it go super. Geeky Son sat in said chair and, of course, it wasn’t like the wheelchair’s motor will go any faster (or maybe it did; I don’t remember)… Oh, well, the ad completely failed to make me care for AOL.

– Commercial for Viggo Mortenson’s “Hildago” – already a movie that I was looking forward to seeing (having seen the trailer for it at the movie theaters) – but the commercial had more clips and gave a nice feel that made the excitement even stronger. Ooh, Viggo!

– Cute MasterCard commercial with the Simpsons – Homer did his chores: oil change, costing X amount of money; hair cut for $75; and then… Voiceover Guy stated, “Chores done quicker to spend extra time with one’s family: priceless.” Problem is, Homer was spending quality time at Moe’s and guzzling beer. Homer grumbled, “Okay, Voiceover Guy,” and marched out of Moe’s, slamming the door at the face of Hans Moleman (the little pruney old man with thick glasses). Hehehe. Good Simpsons feature, essentially.

Conclusion: All in all, the ads weren’t too bad, I guess. I’d give them a better than average rating. The ads as a whole had nothing too tasteless, but they weren’t exactly terribly stand-up-and-cheer exciting either.

For other views, consider the Super Bowl ad analysis in Slate.com’s “Ad Report”. Among other ads, which I completely forgot about or haven’t commented on: Slate.com’s Seth Stevenson noted the Muppets’ Pizza Hut ad (I cooed over seeing Kermit, personally); the Monster.com ads (I didn’t particularly care for those, but then again, it was nice to see Monster.com trying to stay in there after having seen too many CareerBuilder.com ads over the past couple of weeks); and the Chevrolet ads with the kids with soap in their mouths (I thought it was funny).

Oh, and the Super Bowl itself – congratulations to New England (wasn’t rooting for them, hardly against them, since they were good during playoffs and heavy favorites to win the Lombardi trophy). Congratulations to Carolina for trying (but, you know, someone had to lose). Pretty good game, despite the boring first half-hour (although, I still don’t understand football – which makes me, what, a stereotypical female? Obviously, I don’t fully appreciate defensive football, or even football with teams I don’t root for). Next week is the NFL’s Pro-Bowl, but that’s anti-climactic – as a tv thing, it isn’t that exciting watching any bunch of All-Stars who do show up to play football (touch football, really, because no one wants to get hurt during the off-season) in the middle of Hawaii when the season’s all over. Humph. I guess there’s the entertainment value to the football fans who can’t give up. Until next time…

Finally saw “Master and Commander: Far Side of the World” yesterday night. I’m glad it was re-released due to the Oscar nominations, so that I can see for myself if it is good.

And, yes, quite a good movie – a good old fashioned yarn, starring Russell Crowe as British Captain Jack Aubrey of the HMS Surprise against the French ship Archeron during the Napoleonic war. British actor Paul Bettany played Dr. Maturin, Aubrey’s erstwhile sidekick and chief medical officer/naturalist (in the pre-Darwin era). The movie adapted two of the Aubrey/Maturin book series by the late Patrick O’Brien. The movie had it all: ship to ship battles to excite the viewers; graphic violence and major pain tolerance, for those poor early 19th century sailors; loaded with male bonding (although, Russell Crowe wasn’t too bad for the female eyes, even if he had to pack in some weight to play Aubrey).

I haven’t read the books, so it wasn’t like I could make a comparison of accuracy or whatnot. Time magazine had done the rundown on the comparison awhile back (the big quibble for the Aubrey/Maturin fan base was that Maturin wasn’t his spy self, but I thought he was all right anyway; Aubrey wasn’t shown as being bigger (physically) or a womanizer, but this wasn’t that kind of movie). No big heterosexual romance or big debate about how wrong war is – it’s all about fighting the enemy (the French); that the world is black and white and right and wrong; and friendship is grand, in spite of or due to bonding through the hard times.

I don’t know if “Master and Commander” will win the Oscar for best picture, but it’s a good movie.