First, some things I’ve noticed here. Mullets and rat tails are still cool, I approve. It’s totally ok for a guy to tell another guy they are handsome in Chinese culture as several people at work have told me this. Taiwanese people cannot be in a conversation with me for more than a few minutes before asking if I have a girlfriend and are shocked when I say no. They also ask if I really like Taiwanese women (the GM and the boss of my company have both asked me this). I’ve noticed that even tough most Taiwanese people speak English, they are very hesitant to talk with me or approach me but once they hear me speak Chinese they can’t talk to me enough.
For those of you back at ND, please go to the Backer. I miss that place. So to compensate I’ve been listening to lots of Backer music, especially “How Can We be Lovers” by Michael Bolton and “I’m Going Down” by the Boss.
Now that I’ve had some time to think it over, here are my thoughts on Sarah Palin. The most important thing about this is how it is precieved. To my eyes, it’s pandering to women and trying to break off female Clinton voters and make McCain look younger. If Americans see it that way McCain could be in trouble. What is clear is this is a gamble on his part. He chose someone who is pretty unknown (I had no idea who she was when it was announced) and has no real foreign policy experience. McCain is taking a gamble that Americans are confident enough in his foreign policy experience and know him well enough that they will overlook those qualities in his VP.
As a result, Palin is to balance the ticket as an agent of “change.” This means McCain has effectively ceded the election hinges on who is more capable of bringing change to D.C. This is dangerous for McCain since his VP is not seen as experienced (the thing he hammers Obama on) and it’s not clear she is an agent of change. Hence, McCain is doing battle over an area that is going to be hard for him to defeat Obama because Obama has staked himself as the change candidate. I’m not convinced Americans will view his ticket as an agent of change.
On the experience card, the Dems and the Daily Show will have fun with the fact that in recent interview Palin didn’t know McCain policies and was unsure of the responsibilities of a VP. It will be interesting to see how hard the Dems attack because attacking a mother could easily backfire on them.
The choice of Palin also makes Hilary Clinton a major key to the election. She says she supports Obama so now she needs to back it up with concrete action. If she campaigns for Obama and truly backs him, Obama will win the women’s vote. If she still hasn’t made amends with Obama then Palin will potentially split the women’s vote.
McCain needs to have a good convention and run a barrage of ads to introduce Palin to America and make her less of an unknown.
Sunday, August 31, 2008
Friday, August 29, 2008
Two Ballsy Things
First, John McCain. What a way to steal ALL of the thunder by choosing a woman as a VP pick. This is not to say the presence of a woman is amazing in this arena. What I mean is for a Republican to make a pick that almost no one would have imagined (and one he hopes will eat up some of the old Clintonites as a block that would normally go to the Dems) and keep it under wraps is one ballsy move. I will hold off one more for now since I really have very little knowledge about Sarah Palin and what she has done and how she rates as a conservative. Either way McCain effectively changed all of the media attention a few hours after one of Obama's best speeches ever.
Second, is me, how convenient. Tonight I had dinner with some coworkers to celebrate the two here were leaving. Well, we had some raw fish for one of the dishes. It was chunks of the thing that had been hacked off and cut into small pieces to eat. That alone is nowhere near ballsy. However, when the fish those pieces were cut from is still on the plate and is still moving while you eat it, that is ballsy.
Second, is me, how convenient. Tonight I had dinner with some coworkers to celebrate the two here were leaving. Well, we had some raw fish for one of the dishes. It was chunks of the thing that had been hacked off and cut into small pieces to eat. That alone is nowhere near ballsy. However, when the fish those pieces were cut from is still on the plate and is still moving while you eat it, that is ballsy.
Thursday, August 28, 2008
This Week in Taiwan and Denver
Things here in Taiwan have been good and bad, as always but are looking up since the weather is cooling off a bit. The start of the week was crazy with invoices and crap. Now its more focused on production and the factory side of things. That said, I'm quite worried about how well I'll be able to take care of all of the invoice stuff so I'll likely be in this weekend to work it all out. But that should be balanced since I also plan to take a ride on the Mao Kong Gandola and get out of the city a bit this weekend.
In the interest of full disclosure: I am a registered Democract from Oregon who comes from a family of Democrats and volunteered for John Kerry. So although that may skew my impressions of the Dem convention but I think being here in Taiwan away from the media blitz does give me somewhat of an outsider's view.
So far I have been very impressed with the speeches. Hilary was in a tough position where no matter what she did someone was going to feel left out, but she managed a great speech. On a side note, the angry Clinton supporters are being overhyped and will turn out to be white elephants. As good as Hilary did, I thought her husband did even better. Bill was amazing. Although he was overshadowed, I also thought Joe Biden did a great job and looks to be a bit of an attack dog, the tradition VP role. Then again, that was my first time seeing Biden talk so my impression was colored by not knowing what to expect from him. He will be a great VP, by the way.
I was rather surprised by John Kerry. He started off slow and recieved a cool welcome but with some good lines and a good speach he was really able to finish strong. One place where I disagree with the media reports is Mark Warner's speech. He was described as boring and uninspiring but I was impressed because (not only have I met him) he was the only candidate to really talk about globalization and its impact on the US. Since I believe globalization is the most serious issue facing the US--and most other issues are derivitives of this--I was impressed.
Putting on another hat for myself now, I would attack McCain on three areas if I was a Democratic strategist. Warner had the best, even though it was subtle, attack. He said we need a candidate for the future and not the past. This has now been used by Obama and plays to him perfectly. It lets Dems subtly question McCain's age and grasp of things like the Internet revoltion and paints Obama as foward looking and hopeful. Second, McCain previously stated he did not particularly grasp economic matters. This is like Kerry's gaf last election. For Dems this is the gift that needs to keep giving, make sure every American can quote McCain on this and you sow uncertainity about his ability to address economic matters, which is wherre the election will be won or lost. Third, Kerry was right to attack McCain over the shifts in his voting record over the last 8 years (from very moderate to increasingly conservative in the last four years). If Dems can make people doubt McCain on the economy and paint him as a pandering by changing his positions then the election is theirs to lose.
So far the Dems have been very eager to attack McCain by linking linking him to Bush. This runs the risk of being more of an attack on Bush and less on McCain. I believe this would work better if, like three above, they stressed McCain has altered his positions to conform to Bush.
To be like FOX and pretend to be fair, these are some things McCain can attack and do to defend himself from attacks. First, to deflect criticism of his economics he needs to convene meetings of economic experts and give lots of speeches about this to change the news coverage in his favor and turn this back on Obama. It wouldn't hurt to talk about how you create jobs or propose job retraining for those who have lost jobs. The hardest thing for him is that Bush has abandoned many of the policies McCain backed (talks with Iran, pullout of Iraq, etc.) and he cannot change back. This makes it even more imparative to change the focus to economics. He also has to attack hard to promote his experience over Obama and hammer on a lack of foreign policy experience.
Edit: After watching and reading Obama's speach he too was fantastic. He continually harped on the future and made the election about the essential question "who will best be able to change the US for the better." I had shivers at several points during the speach. However, the momentum will likely shift slightly to McCain this coming week as he announces a VP and has the Repub. convention.
In the interest of full disclosure: I am a registered Democract from Oregon who comes from a family of Democrats and volunteered for John Kerry. So although that may skew my impressions of the Dem convention but I think being here in Taiwan away from the media blitz does give me somewhat of an outsider's view.
So far I have been very impressed with the speeches. Hilary was in a tough position where no matter what she did someone was going to feel left out, but she managed a great speech. On a side note, the angry Clinton supporters are being overhyped and will turn out to be white elephants. As good as Hilary did, I thought her husband did even better. Bill was amazing. Although he was overshadowed, I also thought Joe Biden did a great job and looks to be a bit of an attack dog, the tradition VP role. Then again, that was my first time seeing Biden talk so my impression was colored by not knowing what to expect from him. He will be a great VP, by the way.
I was rather surprised by John Kerry. He started off slow and recieved a cool welcome but with some good lines and a good speach he was really able to finish strong. One place where I disagree with the media reports is Mark Warner's speech. He was described as boring and uninspiring but I was impressed because (not only have I met him) he was the only candidate to really talk about globalization and its impact on the US. Since I believe globalization is the most serious issue facing the US--and most other issues are derivitives of this--I was impressed.
Putting on another hat for myself now, I would attack McCain on three areas if I was a Democratic strategist. Warner had the best, even though it was subtle, attack. He said we need a candidate for the future and not the past. This has now been used by Obama and plays to him perfectly. It lets Dems subtly question McCain's age and grasp of things like the Internet revoltion and paints Obama as foward looking and hopeful. Second, McCain previously stated he did not particularly grasp economic matters. This is like Kerry's gaf last election. For Dems this is the gift that needs to keep giving, make sure every American can quote McCain on this and you sow uncertainity about his ability to address economic matters, which is wherre the election will be won or lost. Third, Kerry was right to attack McCain over the shifts in his voting record over the last 8 years (from very moderate to increasingly conservative in the last four years). If Dems can make people doubt McCain on the economy and paint him as a pandering by changing his positions then the election is theirs to lose.
So far the Dems have been very eager to attack McCain by linking linking him to Bush. This runs the risk of being more of an attack on Bush and less on McCain. I believe this would work better if, like three above, they stressed McCain has altered his positions to conform to Bush.
To be like FOX and pretend to be fair, these are some things McCain can attack and do to defend himself from attacks. First, to deflect criticism of his economics he needs to convene meetings of economic experts and give lots of speeches about this to change the news coverage in his favor and turn this back on Obama. It wouldn't hurt to talk about how you create jobs or propose job retraining for those who have lost jobs. The hardest thing for him is that Bush has abandoned many of the policies McCain backed (talks with Iran, pullout of Iraq, etc.) and he cannot change back. This makes it even more imparative to change the focus to economics. He also has to attack hard to promote his experience over Obama and hammer on a lack of foreign policy experience.
Edit: After watching and reading Obama's speach he too was fantastic. He continually harped on the future and made the election about the essential question "who will best be able to change the US for the better." I had shivers at several points during the speach. However, the momentum will likely shift slightly to McCain this coming week as he announces a VP and has the Repub. convention.
Monday, August 25, 2008
Four Things-And the Last Track Post
Well track is part of those things. This weekend I went out to watch the Olympics with the hope that the final track events would be broadcast in Taiwan live. Well I found out about a cool bar here that is pretty close to me and I was able to ride the subway there. I had a good time watching the track events but an even better time talking to the waitresses. It was actually really funny. Most foreigners here cannot speak Chinese worth shit. So the waitresses were amazed that I spoke pretty well and could have conversations with them, the surprise when people realize I speak Chinese will never get old.
The track is going to wait since there are two other things that have happened in recent days that deserve mentioning. The ND club dinner was sweet. I got to meet some movers and shakers and got invited to some cool lectures (we'll see if I can fit them in around work). But more interesting was talking to an old prof completely outside of an academic setting. The dinner was also great since someone else paid, so no complaints here.
That was the good thing. The bad thing is a trend. For some reason we have a lot of German machines here. So every day as I'm about to get off work the Germans bombard me with emails that require my attention urgently (since they are still waiting for lunch). Well this combines two things I don't like: staying late and invoices. Hopefully, the number of emails with them will only decrease.
The track is going to wait since there are two other things that have happened in recent days that deserve mentioning. The ND club dinner was sweet. I got to meet some movers and shakers and got invited to some cool lectures (we'll see if I can fit them in around work). But more interesting was talking to an old prof completely outside of an academic setting. The dinner was also great since someone else paid, so no complaints here.
That was the good thing. The bad thing is a trend. For some reason we have a lot of German machines here. So every day as I'm about to get off work the Germans bombard me with emails that require my attention urgently (since they are still waiting for lunch). Well this combines two things I don't like: staying late and invoices. Hopefully, the number of emails with them will only decrease.
Ok, for the final track stuff let me say that the results weren't as bad as I thought when things were done. I must say that, although few people know him, decathlon winner Brian Clay is one of the greatest athletes in America. While Usain Bolt and Phelps rightly got a lot of attention the everyone forgot about Kenenisa Bekele who won the 10k and 5k. I watched him win the 5k. It wasn't just a win, it was pure domination, I have never seen anyone control a race like that then start knocking off 60 second splits for the last three laps at the end (4min mile pace). Unbelievable. It was sad to see how much Bernard Lagat was broken in the race (three laps to go) but he was fighting injuries and sickness, which has happened to me in big meets so I give him a pass. The US 4x400 was great to watch. The women, led by Sanya Richards, came from behind to win and the men just dominated. Wariner ran a 43.18 split, which is insane. That shows he was in shape and makes his poor 400m final even more of a mystery. The final event, the men's marathon, was also crazy. It was super hot and super humid (read the worst conditions to run a marathon in) and the winner still goes 2:06!
One funny thing this last week happened with a language partner. Her pronunciation of beach sounds exactly like bitch. The more she said it the funnier it got.
Obamamania baby!
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Second to last track post
I'm going to lead this off with something non-track related. Tonight should be pretty cool. A former prof of mine at ND is going to be in town with some other ND bigwigs and I'll be able to go have a dinner with them and the ND club. Even if it's a hit to the pocket book it should be a good time, besides it's Hunan food, and you can't go wrong with that.
I promise there will be only more more track post after this. Let me see, I said previously that the long time off and rumored injuries could spell bad news for Liu Xiang and unfortunately for him that was correct. Watching the 800m it was great to see Nick Symmonds advance for one round, what killed him is the difficulty of making a late-race kick in the Olympics. Bernard Lagat seemed to get things back on track in the 5000m qualifiers, now he just has to keep it together in the final. The mens 400m and 400m hurdles were US sweeps (thanks to David Neville's dive in the 400m). The interesting thing was how much Jermey Warnier dropped in the 400m, that should teach him not to split with his longtime coach in an Olympic year. The downside is that for each success we drop the ball, or in this case the baton in both 4x100m relays.
The highlight for me has been Usain Bolt. I was able to see a youtube of his 200m. My God, he made everyone look like little kids. No one that big is supposed to start fast. No one is supposed to run the turn that well and make up the stagger like that. But he did it. In a word: incredible.
Right now I'm really looking forward to the 4x400m, the decathlon (go Brian Clay!), and the 5000m. Also interesting will be to see how Ryan Hall does in the marathon, he's fast but still a bit of a long shot to make the medal stand.
I promise there will be only more more track post after this. Let me see, I said previously that the long time off and rumored injuries could spell bad news for Liu Xiang and unfortunately for him that was correct. Watching the 800m it was great to see Nick Symmonds advance for one round, what killed him is the difficulty of making a late-race kick in the Olympics. Bernard Lagat seemed to get things back on track in the 5000m qualifiers, now he just has to keep it together in the final. The mens 400m and 400m hurdles were US sweeps (thanks to David Neville's dive in the 400m). The interesting thing was how much Jermey Warnier dropped in the 400m, that should teach him not to split with his longtime coach in an Olympic year. The downside is that for each success we drop the ball, or in this case the baton in both 4x100m relays.
The highlight for me has been Usain Bolt. I was able to see a youtube of his 200m. My God, he made everyone look like little kids. No one that big is supposed to start fast. No one is supposed to run the turn that well and make up the stagger like that. But he did it. In a word: incredible.
Right now I'm really looking forward to the 4x400m, the decathlon (go Brian Clay!), and the 5000m. Also interesting will be to see how Ryan Hall does in the marathon, he's fast but still a bit of a long shot to make the medal stand.
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
First the bad, then the ok, and then the good
This coming few weeks are going to blow hard for me at work. Since I am taking over the invoiced and international junk for the company and it’s not looking very good. The lady whom I am taking over for likes to do everything herself so I still have a very poor understanding of nuances of what she does (the job doesn’t seem that hard but the fact that there are a ton of invoices, money orders, performa invoices, and files (in Chinese) to deal with for each order makes this a real bummer). I think that after a week or so I’ll get the hang of it or just manage to dump it all off on my Taiwanese coworkers—which is the best choice in my mind.
It’s also really hard to learn from the lady I’m taking over for since she’s super high strung and always seems to be uber uber nervous. For example, today she gave me labels to put on sample cards. Well, we keep some of the cards and send some to the customer. So I placed the labels on the ones that go to the customer, which was wrong, but we caught it long before they were even packed or shipped. Well this lady freaks out. Then again it’s not as bad as the time I tried to send a CD via FedEx document pick up, which really isn’t a big deal, especially when the CD can go out any time during the week (lesson here is to label things as documents to get the cheaper rate and not as CD’s). But good Lord, you would have thought I murdered someone by her reaction! That means even basic and simple questions about things always make me seem like I’m asking her to move mountains for me.
Also bad, the US track team has also continued a very poor run as of late. The exception being a surprise gold in the women’s discus and a sweep of the 400m hurdles. But for the most part the story has been the bad luck of people like Lolo Jones and Sanya Richards. We’ll see how things go tonight for the three sprinters in the 200m against Usain Bolt (if he runs like he did in the semis then it wont be a race at all) so let’s hope Crawford, Dix, and Spearmon can push him.
The ok news is that the men’s 400m is coming up which gives the US good shot at a medal. The relay races should also be interesting and be a real battle between the Americans and Jamacians. The other race that I’m really looking forward to is the 5000m, this is Bekele’s to lose at this point so we’ll see if Lagat can recover and make a run at it. Edit: keep an eye on the 800m too.
At work, the ok news is that my American coworker, the only other white person here, is leaving. So that means only 1.75 people other than me will speak English in the office in two weeks. That will be a real adjustment since I ask my coworker a lot of questions, but at the same time it will be great for my Chinese skills, eventually.
The good news is that Michael Phelps (Fei-er-pu-si) in Chinese pronunciation is a living god and after watching an interview where he talks about what he listens to before his races I’m started listening to his favorite: Lil’ Wayne “I’m me.”
The other good news is I have some cool language partners now. I have the three old people I meet with and help them with English and get a free meal in return. Then I meet with two 26 year olds (a nephew of the old people and his ladyfriend). My third language partner is a girl my age who I have yet to hear put together so much as a sentence in English.
I cannot wait for the weekend to get here; in their song “Be My Escape” Reliant K says “I gotta get outta of here,” and that’s how I feel about the office this week. Just take me to a place without invocies.
It’s also really hard to learn from the lady I’m taking over for since she’s super high strung and always seems to be uber uber nervous. For example, today she gave me labels to put on sample cards. Well, we keep some of the cards and send some to the customer. So I placed the labels on the ones that go to the customer, which was wrong, but we caught it long before they were even packed or shipped. Well this lady freaks out. Then again it’s not as bad as the time I tried to send a CD via FedEx document pick up, which really isn’t a big deal, especially when the CD can go out any time during the week (lesson here is to label things as documents to get the cheaper rate and not as CD’s). But good Lord, you would have thought I murdered someone by her reaction! That means even basic and simple questions about things always make me seem like I’m asking her to move mountains for me.
Also bad, the US track team has also continued a very poor run as of late. The exception being a surprise gold in the women’s discus and a sweep of the 400m hurdles. But for the most part the story has been the bad luck of people like Lolo Jones and Sanya Richards. We’ll see how things go tonight for the three sprinters in the 200m against Usain Bolt (if he runs like he did in the semis then it wont be a race at all) so let’s hope Crawford, Dix, and Spearmon can push him.
The ok news is that the men’s 400m is coming up which gives the US good shot at a medal. The relay races should also be interesting and be a real battle between the Americans and Jamacians. The other race that I’m really looking forward to is the 5000m, this is Bekele’s to lose at this point so we’ll see if Lagat can recover and make a run at it. Edit: keep an eye on the 800m too.
At work, the ok news is that my American coworker, the only other white person here, is leaving. So that means only 1.75 people other than me will speak English in the office in two weeks. That will be a real adjustment since I ask my coworker a lot of questions, but at the same time it will be great for my Chinese skills, eventually.
The good news is that Michael Phelps (Fei-er-pu-si) in Chinese pronunciation is a living god and after watching an interview where he talks about what he listens to before his races I’m started listening to his favorite: Lil’ Wayne “I’m me.”
The other good news is I have some cool language partners now. I have the three old people I meet with and help them with English and get a free meal in return. Then I meet with two 26 year olds (a nephew of the old people and his ladyfriend). My third language partner is a girl my age who I have yet to hear put together so much as a sentence in English.
I cannot wait for the weekend to get here; in their song “Be My Escape” Reliant K says “I gotta get outta of here,” and that’s how I feel about the office this week. Just take me to a place without invocies.
Sunday, August 17, 2008
Track Fans Only
First a rant. NBC sucks huge ones in their coverage. They have NO live blog of any of the night events tonight on the track and none of their videos or coverage are open if you live outside the US. I can understand the coverage not being open outside the US, but seriously no live blog. NBC you suck.
The good news is that Taiwanese tv carried the men's 10,000m live tonight. I saw the end of the race and it was great. A standard Ethiopian strategy of sitting on the Kenyans and making them work then unleashing a monster last lap. It was superhuman. The winner Kenenisa Bekele, ran a 53 second last lap. The guy was absolutely flying and he could have run faster but he took his foot off the gas with 30m to go when he was ahead of everyone. The sad part for Ethiopia was their legend, Geb, wasn't able to medal in his only event of the Games and finished in 6th place. For the US it was interesting, Galen Rupp (who I used to get beaten by in high school) was the top American in 13th place, he beat Abdi (who was 15th but 20 seconds back) who should have done much better. Nevertheless that was a VERY impressive run by Rupp. Here is a video of the last 8 minutes of the race: http://www.ethiotube.net/video/435/Beijing-2008--10K-Men.
The other bad news is that the US has so far performed very poorly on the track. Day one it was the shot putters, day 2 was Tyson Gay, and today it was the US 100m women getting swept by Jamaica as well as Bernard Lagat not making the 1500m finals.
Looking ahead it will be interesting to see how Lagat takes the blow and responds in the 5,000m against Bekele. Also tomorrow is the 400m, this is a strong American event and we'll see Jermey Warnier in action and see how his recent coaching change has impacted him (if the trials are any indication the result wasn't good). The 400m hurdles is also an American strength so we'll see how that goes too. I'll be paying attention to how the young American team in the 800m does, particularly Nick Symmonds. Most of all I, and all of China, will be watching the 110 hurdles with the Chinese track god Liu Xiang. He hasn't raced for a long time (this was a killer for Tyson Gay), there are rumors about his injury bugging him in recent days, and he is under the most intense pressure of any athlete of the Games (both from his own countrymen because he had the Chinese Olympic head tell him that if he loses his life essentially amounts to nothing and since his Cuban rival is breathing down his neck). My prediction: if Liu is healthy he wins since he's a big meet guy but if his leg is still giving him problems then it's an open race. The danger is that his leg isn't well and could be aggravated over several rounds and add to that the pressure and stress after not competing for so long and he has a mountain to climb.
The good news is that Taiwanese tv carried the men's 10,000m live tonight. I saw the end of the race and it was great. A standard Ethiopian strategy of sitting on the Kenyans and making them work then unleashing a monster last lap. It was superhuman. The winner Kenenisa Bekele, ran a 53 second last lap. The guy was absolutely flying and he could have run faster but he took his foot off the gas with 30m to go when he was ahead of everyone. The sad part for Ethiopia was their legend, Geb, wasn't able to medal in his only event of the Games and finished in 6th place. For the US it was interesting, Galen Rupp (who I used to get beaten by in high school) was the top American in 13th place, he beat Abdi (who was 15th but 20 seconds back) who should have done much better. Nevertheless that was a VERY impressive run by Rupp. Here is a video of the last 8 minutes of the race: http://www.ethiotube.net/video/435/Beijing-2008--10K-Men.
The other bad news is that the US has so far performed very poorly on the track. Day one it was the shot putters, day 2 was Tyson Gay, and today it was the US 100m women getting swept by Jamaica as well as Bernard Lagat not making the 1500m finals.
Looking ahead it will be interesting to see how Lagat takes the blow and responds in the 5,000m against Bekele. Also tomorrow is the 400m, this is a strong American event and we'll see Jermey Warnier in action and see how his recent coaching change has impacted him (if the trials are any indication the result wasn't good). The 400m hurdles is also an American strength so we'll see how that goes too. I'll be paying attention to how the young American team in the 800m does, particularly Nick Symmonds. Most of all I, and all of China, will be watching the 110 hurdles with the Chinese track god Liu Xiang. He hasn't raced for a long time (this was a killer for Tyson Gay), there are rumors about his injury bugging him in recent days, and he is under the most intense pressure of any athlete of the Games (both from his own countrymen because he had the Chinese Olympic head tell him that if he loses his life essentially amounts to nothing and since his Cuban rival is breathing down his neck). My prediction: if Liu is healthy he wins since he's a big meet guy but if his leg is still giving him problems then it's an open race. The danger is that his leg isn't well and could be aggravated over several rounds and add to that the pressure and stress after not competing for so long and he has a mountain to climb.
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