GROUNDHOG DAY

Rise and shine, campers, and don't forget your booties
'Cause it's cooooold out there today!!
It's cold out there every day. What is this, Miami Beach?
Not hardly. So the big question on everybody's lips.
On their chapped lips
Their chapped lips is, does Phil feel lucky? Taipei-tawny Phil, thats right wood chuck chuckers its.....

GROUNDHOG DAY!!!!!

So here in Taiwan, I think the Groundhog didn't see his shadow which means Chinese New Year is over. Or something like that. Since it's back up in the 70s here, I think Winter is OVER for me - kind of was as soon as I left Chicago last month. Yeah, I'm going to rub it in some more....

A great weekend for sport finals. I watched Nadal in not one, but TWO five set marathon matches for the Australian Open title. What an amazing athlete. In fact, name one other sport that requires the endurance and physical skill that is required in tennis? 5 hour match with a 90 second "break" every other point. And it's an individual sport meaning you can't take a night off, or can't sit down at the end of the period and let a backup play. If you took the time to watch Nadal run down some of those shots, I hope you'd agree the physical demand required of the top tennis players right now..... amazing.

And the Super Bowl. Not a bad game!! We had it on in a conference room while at work - even had some great chicken wings delivered during the 4th quarter (was 11am Monday morning by then)... sadly the office rules prevented me from bringing in beer so it was a sober Super Bowl. Thank heavens for the Slingbox contraption.

Meet my new roommate for the week. Since some friends are in the Philippines for the week, I am playing "uncle Adam" but this time to a Quaker Parrot. No, Quaker Parrots don't eat oatmeal or Captain Crunch (I've tested this theory already) - but they make an interesting house guest so far.... Say hello to "Olive". She doesn't talk quite yet, but we're working on it every day. so far I've had her for about 24 hours and she only ventures to the top of her cage, then back in it - that's all.

6am Is Too Early

If I seem crabby in today's post, it's because the entire neighborhood was awaken before 6am today by lots and lots of firecrackers. I guess it's tradition to celebrate the "end" of Chinese New Years by pissing everyone else off. It was not just one person, but a series of people all over lighting off your basic brick of Black Cats which can be loud given the tight proximity of buildings in the area. The ones right below us would make it sound like a World War was going. Someone would have them going about every 10-15 minutes all morning. The rain came in around noon, but that only delayed the "celebrations" to about every 20 minutes. It is now after 9:00 and I think it's been about 30 minutes since I've heard any so I hope it's done.

It's Super Bowl Weekend - I almost forgot about it. While they are aware the game is going on, it's not the focus of 100% of the population like it is in the US. It's actually been nice not seeing everything revolve around the game. But with that said, yes - I'll be watching the game from here MONDAY MORNING while at work. Kickoff is at 7am and we have a mini-Monday Morning Celebration planned. As for my pick, I'm going with Arizona. Pittsburgh just won it a few years ago, plus Fitzgerald made me quite happy in Fantasy Football this past year. I'll have the US version on the computer/slingbox so I can comment next week on the commercials (which is half the reason we watch right??

I'm watching the Australian Open as much as I can this week. Currently, the 5th set just started with Nadal and Verdasco and it's been over 4 hours of tennis already. Great TV watching for a Friday night! I've never really seen the Australian Open "live" like I am this week - it's kind of interesting. Usually the US gets delayed broadcasts, plus it's the "lesser" of the big 4 tournaments. I'm pulling for another Nadal and Federer final classic, but I fear that the winner of tonight's semi-final isn't going to have much left in the tank to face Federer.

I did venture out today to see the stores mostly re-opened post holiday. I finally picked up a new digital camera to replace my strangely lost old camera. I snagged a Nikon Coolpix S550 which has an incredible 5x optical (20x digital) zoom on it and is pretty small and easy to handle. It's actually a good camera so far for anyone just wanting an easy to use basic digital camera.

Anyhow - another month has completed which means I'm only 8 or so months from coming home. Not sure how I will handle being back to normal in size ... well - a little more "normal" than I am here!! Have a great weekend!

@$#&*&# Fireworks

The fireworks are still going on around here. It's past the "humorous" point and the noises in the street at 1am are now to the "annoying" point. I had thought that some of the brighter (but still very loud) ones that go off from 8-10pm nightly were coming from Sun Yat Sen park about 10 minute walk from the apartment. But tonight on the way to go see them, turns out they're actually coming from the top of an apartment building. So in my new amateur photography career..... no comment.... here's my attempt at getting some of the fireworks caught on film. Nothing worth framing, I know.





And of course Chai was loving every minute of it: