i put up photos i shot from over a year ago of the same place i shot in the video in the 'screenshots' section because the still images i shot the day i made this video were too low-quality.
by the way guys, sorry i haven't updated in a long time. i was caught up with real-world stuff. thanks to all of you who e-mailed and left comments. thanks for your concern! i really appreciate it, and i'm glad you guys haven't forgotten about me yet. =)
12-31-2006 update: Hooray! Satellite's been selected as part of "music videos and advertising" for the 2007 Festival Bimini in Latvia! (here's the link -scroll down, until you see "original title: Satellite/ Country of origin: Taiwan". that's the one!)
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Satellite (music by The Motion Sick) (I made this from September to October 2006.)
1. Watch it online without having to download/直接在網路看不用下載:
what's in this video: news articles about jackasses in China, and things you can only see in the Taiwanese countryside- like tiny crabs on beaches and hot girls singing Taiwanese-dialect songs from the backs of trucks.
(watch using YouTube if you don't want to download the quicktime file below. you'll need the Flash Player for this.)
click to download video - (or right-click and "save link as") -- 3.6 Quicktime .mov (encoded with h2.64) file
please download the latest version of Quicktime if you can't play the video (Get Quicktime: )
today's video is all about productivity. The best notebooks for storyboarding your ideas and designs are not expensive Moleskine notebooks, but cheap-ass math notebooks from Taiwan. Watch this short short video to know why.
(watch using YouTube if you don't want to download the quicktime file below. you'll need the Flash Player for this.)
click to download video - (or right-click and "save link as") -- 3.5 Quicktime .mov (encoded with h2.64) file
please download the latest version of Quicktime if you can't play the video (Get Quicktime: )
right click the icon and "save link as" to download the mp3, or click it to listen right away (7mb size)
Topics: 1. Firefox t-shirt for joining Firefox Flicks months ago! (my 30 second Flicks ad) (i'm not complaining, but just want to point out that it says size 'S' though it makes me look like i'm trying out for a nerdcore hiphop group if i wear this. in other words, it's too big and baggy for a size S. perhaps it's a factory printing error, or it's men-sized.)
3. Moon Festival (15th day of 8th month of the lunar calendar, happened to be Oct. 6 this year)-- it's all about burning meat
I happened to be in the area to buy bbq supplies for our class's own Moon Festival cook-out when .. (read no.4) ← stuff bought from Carre Four (btw, no one dared drink the Vanilla Coke i chose in the class's moon festival bbq party. they also said that it's scary, blah blah. vanilla coke is really delicious! i can't believe people don't want to try vanilla coke.)
4. red-shirted protesters reach Tainan County-- I was able to shoot some photos of cops rerouting traffic and barricading roads in full riot gear but none of the protesters themselves.(NYTimes article if you don't know what this is all about.)
been hearing accounts of red-shirted people (or red car-driving people) being assaulted by people against the protests, so i haven't been wearing my red Motion Sick shirt (see #2) in public.
sorry this podcast is crappier than usual-- i'm down with a cold and i don't have time to edit out all my "uhhms", "aahs", "you knows", and "likes" (i have to get back to finishing a project before its deadline).
topics: 1. famous Taiwanese NY Yankees pitcher- Wang Chien Ming
this fellow James Dunn wrote to me the other day: "Hello Gem, my name is James. I came across your site, ( I love the 30 second ad! I gave it 5 stars. ) and I noticed your site is related to Taiwan. I just started a website to help people learn Chinese online for free (eLanguageSchool.net ) and I think a link to my site would be a good resourse for your visitors. I encourage you to check out my site and see what you think. I'd appreciate any feedback too, since you seem to already know what you're doing. If you do decide to link to my site, you could use this link.
i'm so sorry i haven't podcasted in ages!! i was busy with school work. =)
today's topics: 1. Taiwan Railways train: a. Murder on the Orient Express Taiwan Railways train- the prime suspect who hung himself, a victim from Vietnam, relentless journalists, finger-pointing officials, derailed trains (i sound like the National Enquirer) b. changing the South 2 gate of the Taipei Main Station for luck
2. Today is 清明節, the day Chinese people all over the world sweep the tombs of their dead loved ones a. 清明節 (set browser encoding to Chinese Traditional Big-5 to render the article correctly) occurs every year on either April 5 or 6. it occurs 15 days after 春分 (set browser encoding to Unicode UTF-8 to render the wikipedia article correctly) (one of the 24 "weather patterns" in a year-- for example winter solstice, summer solstice, etc.) b. this week is spring break c. strangers praying for you might not actually speed up recovery (from heart surgery)-- according to the New York Times (by the way they redesigned their site) -- but that's not all! Prayer can actually be hazardous! if you use joss sticks from Mainland China that is. (listen to know why)
3. earthquake a few days ago while i was at the dentist
The grandmother, 55 and named Wu Shu-hui, was found to have killed her two grandsons, aged only 8 and 7, respectively, by burning charcoal, who died after inhaling too much carbon monoxide, the police said.
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The grandmother told the police that she burnt charcoal after her two grandsons fell asleep, but her elder grandson awakened and tried to wake her up. Realizing the elder grandson was still alive, the grandmother used a knife to stab the boy to death before slitting her own wrist.
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Informed sources said that the father of the two killed boys is making a living by doing odd jobs in northern Taipei and now owes around NT$700,000 in credit-card and cash-card loans to banks. He divorced his wife, leaving his two sons to his mother.
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In related news, Premier Su Tseng-chang yesterday urged the country's parents to "live and let live," and call for them "to persist to subsist" when faced with hardship and not to take their children's lives in the event they take their own.
2. 2-28 incident and recent drama surrounding it what is the yearly commemoration of the feb. 28 (1947) "incident" all about? who was behind the massacre that quelled the uprising?
links: a. 2-28 incident backgrounder in Chinese(you'll need to set your browser's character encoding to Chinese Traditional Big-5 to read this article properly)
b. 2-28 incident backgrounder in English- the page is from the official Taipei 2-28 Memorial Museum's website.
d. drama surrounding the 2-28 incident who is the main culprit behind the 2-28 incident? (cue in voice-over narration from that South Park episode Cartman's Mother is a Dirty Slut: who is cartman's father? could it be Ned? .. Officer Barbrady? .. Chef? etc. etc..)
<----- I ain't tha one!
anyway, a committe recently determined that Chiang Kai Shek (he's on the 10 dollar and 1 dollar coins, check him out) is one of the main culprits behind the 2-28 incident. this of course raised a lot of controversy.
President Chen Shui-bian wants Chiang Kai-shek remembered as the chief culprit of the February 28 Incident of 1947, in which thousands of innocent people were massacred in Taiwan.
Speaking at a meeting to mark the publication of a special report on the incident, President Chen said yesterday forgiveness is important, but that does not mean the people should forget who was actually responsible for the massacre.
The report, published by the February 28 Memorial Foundation, concludes Chiang Kai-shek as the "chief culprit" for the massacre that followed the riots which occurred spontaneously in Taiwan.
of course my "reporting" on this in my podcast is pretty short, neutral and amateurish since i don't know much about it and nobody around here knows much about it too (my classmates in Animation and I aren't exactly history and current events buffs) so just check out these very well written (and more in depth) links for commentaries surrounding the drama on "identifying" Chiang Kai Shek as the chief culprit of 228.
c. if you're too tired to read two posts above, read this short recap of the previous two links on this feb. 26 blog roundup post- read the paragraph after the photo of the tarts and cupcakes (from Michael Turton's blog)
photo slideshow of the day the kaohsiung puppet troupe visited my school. the puppets are chinese puppets used during temple celebrations. temple celebrations here in Taiwan are never complete without a colorful chinese puppet show performing chinese opera.
if you don't want to watch it here's the photo album of the pictures i used in the slideshow on my msn spaces page. i didn't use Flickr because my account had run out by then (December '05) when i uploaded the pictures.
1. first, i would like to thank marouflash (she's a really great calligrapher, check out her site) for the lovely calendar she mailed me. i'd like to thank Jim W. for sending me his book too.
2. a rash of stabbing crimes over the new year (last week of dec '05 to the first week of jan '06) here in taiwan
4. i believe i've already mentioned mark forman's taiwan-based legup podcast already before. anyway here's another english language podcast about Taiwan for you guys to check out-- What's Up in Taiwan podcast.
5. there's a new rap/rap-rock? group called Fort Minor (i heard their music in my classmate's room). they're really terrible. stay away.
6. i will be going home for the chinese new year break so i might not be able to podcast until i come back in february. i go online via 56kbps modem at home. very primitive. i will be posting my end-of-term animation and a short video about night markets while i'm away though. i've already uploaded them. i'll just post one video a week.
)
← stuff bought from Carre Four (btw, no one dared drink the Vanilla Coke i chose in the class's moon festival bbq party. they also said that it's scary, blah blah. vanilla coke is really delicious! i can't believe people don't want to try vanilla coke.)
-- 5mb Quicktime .mov (encoded with h2.64) file
-- 3.5 Quicktime .mov (encoded with h2.64) file
-- 3.2 Quicktime .mov (encoded with h2.64) file
- more Coca-cola bottles
- more Coca-cola toys
- more Coca-cola boxes
- more Hello Kitty pins
- more Disney figurines
<----- I ain't tha one!
