New all-purpose semi trekking shoes

Bought them because I really needed a new pair of sneakers after I left my old one muddy and woozing water in Hawaii.

699 NTD. Made in China. I'd think it's all worth it if they last 2 years.

And now there's light

I made a huge decision and had my eyes Lasiked a week ago. Here's what happened so far.

2/16 The big day
All in all, it's a funny sensation. I was told to stare at this red dot which was actually orange, and I could feel the doctor cutting on the surface of my eyes and flipping open the flap he made with the cuts. The red dot became a big orange rim right after the flipping thing. When the laser started hitting, I could see light blue sparks surrounding the orange rim. The whole procedure probably lasted 30 minutes. When I walked out of the operation room, I could already see much farther, if only all blurry.
After getting home, all hell broke loose. I heard from a friend that she just went directly to bed and woke up to clear, sharp vision. Not such luck for me. The pain was so bad that couldn't fall asleep, even with the help of a painkiller. I was wondering to myself why the nurse told me it's normal to tear up but I didn't seem to be doing much of that. I sat up in the bed, and the tears came streaming down as if from a collapsing dam. So I lied back down. The really bad time lasted about 2 hours, and by 4 hours there were only mild irritations. Hail to the rapid healing powers of eyes.

Bloodshot eyes after the surgery. This is in fact caused by the cuts.



Silly-looking eye shield. Need to wear them during sleep so the fingers don't go to wrong places and do bad things. I feel like an NBA hotshot.

2/18 First post-surgery exam
Doing well. R: +1.2, L: +0.9. Slight inflammation. Couldn't see clearly with my left eye, but the doctor said it was natural since it was worse than -1.0. Would take longer.

2/23 Second post-surgery exam
Inflammation gone. R: +1.2, L: +1.0. Still had trouble seeing clearly with my left eye. Doc told me he overdid a bit on purpose because weak eyes like my left one almost always regress after the surgery. So for the time being I am far-sighted in that eye and that's why I can't seem to focus properly on anything. Sounds good to me.

A week from the surgery. The blood is going away a bit. It feels funny to go to bed seeing everything so clearly. I have to tell myself not to poke into my eyes to remove the nonexistent contacts.

這是鼠的年!! This is the year of the rat!!

It is amazing how machine translators are offering good jokes these days. That's why you get things like 這是鼠的年 when people try to say this year is the year of the rat. Such literal translations always seem right when you convert them back to the source language, which says "this is the year of the rat", but anyone who speaks the target language is always in for a laugh when they see the translation and also when they see how 新年快樂 (happy new year) can be translated to "new year is happy."

Hail to machine translators. That's why I still have a job.

I ♥ geeks

While I was reviewing some movies on my facebook, I had this epiphany: I like geeks! Be them a quirky girl looking for her Mr. Right, a high school misfit befriending other weirdoes or even a glasses-wearing nerd that chops off other people's limbs for a feast, I just love them. People say you like things because you see reflections of yourself or projection of aspirations in them. So deep down I feel like a blood-thirsty unpopular outcast longing for someone as weird as I am. Great. Now I feel so much better about myself. :-D

Fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain



This girl has a gnome taken around the world to encourage her dad to leave his prison of home and sadness. She comes up with creative methods helping or punishing other people and falls for a guy who works in a porn shop and enjoys scraping discarded Polaroid photos from under photo booths.

Napolean Dynamite



The one-ton TNT seems to always have 3 seconds' delay in response and his mouth is always open forming a perpetual moronic look. His uncle sells breast enhancement products and his best friend shaves his head because a fever makes him feel hot. And then da bomb dishes out this amazing out-of-date dance that totally blows your mind.

And finally my favorite, Kevin of Sin City



Kevin wears preppy clothes and always has glasses on. His smile is ever-polite while he chops limbs off of living humans for a feast. This taciturn guy never speaks a word. He just indulges in his little hobby and actually seems happy when someone shares his liking by chopping him up. How's that for a change from the puppy-eyed Frodo. Totally altered my impression on Elijah Wood.

Knowing more is better… or is it?

Knowledge is power. That's why people encourage you to get more and more of it. But are we really happier? A research just found out that the blood people have been getting during surgeries probably helps little (see here). Oh what irony. All the while we thought we would be fine because of someone else's “greater love,” their love was backed up in our veins stinking our systems up and starving us of oxygen. It's sad that good intentions just aren't enough anymore these days. No wonder there's the saying “to love something is to know nothing.” Now that you know one more tidbit of info, there's just one more thing you'll have to have in handy: mobile human blood bank before going into the operation room.

We are not a vacation destination for typhoons, thank you very much

Like one of my coworkers said, typhoons seem to love spending their weekends in Taiwan this Year. Pay up and beat it, you useless weather system.


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Super typhoon Krosa

Maximum Wind: 105 (knots)
Length of Movement: 2155 (km)
Average Speed: 14.7 (km/h) | 351 (km/d)
Range of Movement: Latitude 11.0; Longitude 11.4
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Something about Appendicitis

There have been some inquiries regarding my departed angry flesh that does nothing. I guess people are curious because this is something 98% of the population will never have. Lucky them. I've heard a lot of the rest 2% describe the pain as "agonizing", "acute" or "just kill me", but maybe I'm half dead, maybe I'm numb, I thought I was simply having a stomachache. Looking back, that should have been alarming since I have a stomach of iron, but who would ever guessed when you have indigestion, a piece of you is actually getting inflamed and unhappy? Two days later, I sat in my office, wondering why the sense of needing to go to the bathroom wouldn't go away. I pressed on my belly, figured out it's the lower right area that hurt most. I thought to myself, wow, isn't that where the appendix is? As the doctor later told me, it sure is. And then I found myself in an ER, fiddling with my fingers for 5 hours before they found a doctor to operate on me.

This whole event enlightened me with a few things.

1. Appendicitis could start with a stomachache. It could be hard to detect. Suck it.


2. If you go to the hospital 3 days into the appendicitis, your belly will be flooded with dirty water produced by the equally dirty appendix. At this point, doctors with less experience will suspect your location of appendix is "abnormal" because you hurt almost everywhere in your lower abdomen where they poke relentlessly.


3. It takes only seconds for the blood to go to your heart. The imaging fluid they shot me with felt warm, and that was how long it took for me to feel it in my heart. So don't ever piss off anyone good with poison injection.


4. When they put you to sleep, you're out like a light switch. If only that's how fast I fall asleep every night.


5. And the anesthesia makes you puke when you wake up. Your entire system is at a halt, so you have to keep walking and walking and walking to wake your intestines up. The downside of this approach is it nauseates you too.


6. Sneezing and coughing right after the surgery won't blow you up. It hurts like hell, yes. Explosion effects, no.


7. It takes about a month or two for the appetite to come back. That really sucks.


8. The scar tissue will form a ridge inside your belly. It's fun to feel and all, but I can't wait to bid it goodbye in 6 months. Ciao. Buh-bye. Adios.

My conclusion is that the older you get the worse an appendectomy could be. You heal so much more slowly. I know the lacking appetite part is very appealing to a lot of people, and you will sport a neat scar you can brag about, but take it from me, it's not worth it. But then, it's not like you can have a say in it if the angry flesh decides to rebel. To health.

Typhoon categories - the way they are supposed to be

Ask anyone who has a job but doesn't have the luxury to work from home and they will tell you this: the weather bureau doesn't know jack about categorizing typhoons. How can you measure a typhoon by its strength alone?! This system leaves out so many important factors. Unbelievable. This is how a better system should look like.

• Category "We Luv U":
  Little wind, little rain, no damage, and paid days off. Please come again soon.
  


• Category "Nuisance":
  Some wind, some rain, some or no damage, no paid days off, and lots of wet pants and musky socks. Smelly and uncomfy and unsanitary but basically harmless.
  


• Category "Average Joe":
  Strong wind, heavy rain, lots of damage and paid days off. Nothing special about them.
  


• Category "Frigging Useless":
  Strong wind, heavy rain, lots of damage, arrival on weekends and holidays, and tens of millions of grumpy people stranded indoors. Please go away and stay away, you worthless mass of clouds.

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Supertyphoon Sepat
Typhoon warning: Friday, 8/17/2007 night through Sunday, 8/19/2007
Movement: NW 18km/hr
Maximum Wind Speed: 51m/s
Gust: 63m/s
Radius of 15m/s: 250km
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