0-5-15

Boston is again party town with the NBA championship last night. Considering the Red Sox won the World Series, the Patriots are a fluke play away from a championship (Eli should have been tackled), and now the Celtics are champs.... fun town to be in right now.

But we celebrate in Taipei for other reasons. The Olympics are coming - unfortunately due to political reasons, "Taiwan" will not be able to represent themselves under that name. The athletes that do go to Bejing will be announced as "Chinese Taipei". They do get their own flag specially designed for the Olympics, but it's kind of cheezy and not really close to their "official flag". They will be represented in a number of sports (qualifying still going on for some events... plus I can't find the information on google yet:) ) - including Men's Baseball (usually very competitive and past champions), Men's volleyball, Karate....

I also found a reference showing the current world's tallest buildings. I have to hurry and get Sarah up to the top of Taipei 101 while they still hold the record!!! I've already asked around when they will start building Taipei 102.... or is it Taipei 101.1??? 101 beta?

For the late evenings when the movies are dumb, I can usually find 9-ball pool tournaments on TV. One of the top player in the world of Men's pool is from "Chinese Taipei" (per the TV announcers) named Chang Jung Lin. The match (some Guinness tournament) I saw this past week had him win 9-0 (in the semi-finals) and then won again in the finals pretty easily. Think about it - sure, being a professional golfer would be pretty cool. But there's a lot of walking and noisy fans yelling "GET IN THE HOLE" on your tee shots on a 700 yard par 5 (never understood that). But a professional pool player? The tournaments would be a decent payout to live off of. But think of all the HUSTLING you could do when you're out with your buddies at a bar!!! That's where the real money comes rollin' in (tax free of course)!!!

For the record, I don't recognize where "Chinese Taipei" is located. I make the local Taiwanese very proud when I say that:) The whole situation is actually very silly but when you are directly affected like the people here, they take pride in their heritage. It has nothing to do with hating the Chinese, just that they want to have more pride in their country. It's kind of like us in the midwest that don't really acknowledge the existence of North Dakota. For most of the US, it's "Minnesota Wannabes". Don't get me started about South Dakota.....

Found some pretty good hot wings tonight. The hot spicy Buffalo wing sauce type that you can usually find pretty easily in the US. A little more difficult here but I am now content.

Couple more days of "Spring" left - hope you're all enjoying them. It feels like summer here already.