linterry's blogger

Sometimes you spot weird things when watching TV off a mirror.

It is truly amazing how some bargain bin "Made-for-TV" movies end up exceeding expectations by so much, you'd be willing to pay full admission to see it on the big screen. Take Cheaters for instance. Two reviews on Rottentomatoes. This movie was doomed to go nowhere from its very inception. It's the way the movie marketing industry goes. You can't make a preview for Cheaters and get anyone excited about it.

I watched the first 15 minutes and I thought "oh boy, another one of those inspirational 'you can do anything as long as you try' pieces of shit". Then on the commerical break, I find that the movie is called "Cheaters", which throws me off a bit, and then when I find out WHY this movie is called Cheateres, my interest level peaked like 1000% percent. It's not an awesome movie by any means... there are a lot of awkward moments where you go "yeah, like THAT's really going to happen", but it's a great portrayal of a real life story in a way that puts a new light on cheating. Doesn't justify it, but at least gets you sympathize a bit with those who do.

I like what the teacher says in the movie. "We live in a result-oriented society. You really think you can get rich by being honest and good to people? Try telling the truth on a loan application and see how much money you can get." Hell, ain't that the truth. Anybody who's lived in Taiwan for more than 5 years has already sold their soul for money. No other way to explain the complete lack of morals around here.

The unfortunate truth is, in modern society, the quest for great wealth is too often in conflict with morals and ethics. The "capitalism is good" thinking only reinforces the idea that sacrificing morals to achieve monteary gain is acceptable. Nobody gives a shit about anybody anymore. They only give a shit about money.

Today was a hella busy day. It felt like a month's of activity in Canada packed into 12 hours. Noon... woke up and jacked off. Yes I like to start off my day with a bit of porn. An hour later, off to the bank to authorize wire transfer. Told that I must get a "tong-yi-zheng-hao", whatever that is, so must go to police station within a week. Then off to XPEC for my 1st day of work. Very pleasantly surprised. Corresponded with a nice guy, Steve, who actually speaks native english. After signing a 5-page confidentiality agreemnt, he showed me the project that's in the alpha phase and we talked about a lot of stuff. I actually received a copy of the alpha version of the game and he is interested with my input on certain things, particuarily the SFX. This is going to be real interesting. My job is more assistant producer now than anything else, dealing with the high level design issues. Might even go with him to the FX studio next week where they outsource their music and SFX workload.

After that, went to IKEA to meet up wtih Shinobu who was scouting for new furniture. Bumped into Hiro-kun and his girlfriend, what a coincidnece, that's the SECOND time we met at IKEA by accident. We never see each other any other time.

Then finally a coffee break (I was already collapsing from fatigue at this point) and then off to tutor my two hyperactive kids. After tutoring, off to Guang-Hua Market to buy a USB->PSX joystick adapter so I can play the alpha release on my PC.

Finally, home for dinner... and goofing off on the PC. What a day. Tomorrow I'll get the keys to our new place. Still gotta deal with the old landlord regarding moving out and getting a refund on my security deposit. That ain't going to be pleasant. Also gotta go with the new landlord to sign a notary regarding the rent terms. Also gotta get my VISA renewed before March 6th or I'll get deported.

Also, I learned that Shinobu's 2 younger sisters, her mom, plus her mom's friend, are all coming to Taiwan on the 20th of March and will be staying at our new place because they can't find a suitable hotel. That's going to be fun. Me and 5 girls. No sex for 3 days I guess. Unless I kick out two old ladies and get Shinobu and her very ripe sisters to do a foursome. That would be kickass.

I need a fricking secretary.

I don't know if this is some kind of reward for doing that rush job for CMUSIC last week, but this month's load is totally different from the others. For one, it's all western songs as opposed to all japanese songs.... and inside are three songs I have heard several times on the radio in Canada

Spice girls - Holler
Chemical Brothers - Setting Sun (this one's gonna be a bitch for sure)
The Calling - Wherever you Go

That's pretty damn amazing, considering after half a year, the only famous song they gave me before was Breathe by Prodigy.

Today I'm going to write about a little complaint of mine with certain people. I come from a fairly affluent background, so you can say that all my life, I've never really had to worry about money. I've had my fair share of extravagant purchases (mostly electronics), but I'm a far ways off from the FOBS who drive BMW and Benzes and wear designer clothing everyday. I'm "rich" insofar as I've never had to worry about making the necessary payments to sustain a "reasonable" lifestyle... insurance, mortgage, car payments, tuition... etc... those were all taken care of by my parents.

What pisses me off are people who are less fortunate than I, but still not "welfare" poor, and yet still use their financial status as an way to ostracize me from the "Noble Poor People Club". Example: "Well Terry, you have a rich daddy, so you wouldn't know how it feels". Come again? I wonder if you really know how it feels either. I don't have any friends who were so poor they couldn't join the fitness club they wanted to, or drive a car when they needed to, or couldn't eat out when the wanted to. And yet I've been labeled a "Spoiled Rich Kid" so many times by these same people, I've already lost count.

Let me tell you something... to be in that space between "welfare poor" and "comfortably rich" is a blessing. At least you are reminded day by day the improtance of worknig hard, and you have a constant "exterior push" to realize the dream of becoming rich. I only empathize with poor people when it gets to the point where you don't even have a home to call your own, when you can't even eat out, when you can't even afford to pay your cable bill. But if you can afford all that, and you're crying over the fact that you can't buy expensive clothes, or can't drive an expensive car... stop using that as a some kind of Holy Power that you can wield to gain ego superiority over more fortunate people. It's sick and digusting and you're making fools of yourselves. THINK carefully as to how our lifestyles differ. Also THINK about what is happinesss? Starting off sitting in a big house with everything taken care of with nothing to do but to goof around? Or starting off in a small house, but wanting a big one house so bad, that you can devote your life towards making enough money to buy one, at the same time gaining respect and admiration of those around you? I'd take the latter anyday. To be given purpose is far more of a blessing than to be given material possessions.

Let's take my girlfriend as an example. She CONSTANTLY calls herself a "binbo" (japanese for poor person)... and uses this as a way of self-pity... like "I'm poor so if I don't succeed or I'm not the way I'm supposed to be, it's because I wasn't as rich as you". That's the Mantra of the Holy Poor. To me though, it's nothing more than a cheap way of diverting blame. Of course, since I'm "rich", I dont have that luxury. I'm OBLIGATED to be a good person, to succeed and to not compain about ANYTHING because I have some kind of negative karma that I have make up for.

Did you know that my "financially poor" girlfrined studied psychology in universtiy and then, because "oh, I think psychology is boring", switched to philosphy in 2nd year? Wow. So "poor" shinobu, with all that financial pressure she keeps whining about, with all the pressure that is "holding" her back, CHOOSES to study PHILOSPHY at university. Not exactly the best way to get rich. In fact, she told me that she could study whatever the fuck she pleased without her parents giving her a hard time, and that's exactly what she did. Did you know that she also paid 50,000 Yen for a custom made bra?

Is that what it's like to be "poor"? Hahah. The truth is, most people I know who call themselves "poor" are often caught spending quite a lot on stuff they don't need to spend on. If that what being "poor" means, I'd trade anytime. I didn't even have a choice on what to study. It was forced down my throat by my parents. Just because my parents were well-off didn't mean that I was relieved from my responsibility to succeed. In fact, it's made even WORSE because poor people are given more natural motivation to succeed than I do. The only reason I had to succeed was so that my parents wouldn't keep giving me a hard time. That's a shit motivation compared to having a solid, firm desire of becoming rich in the future. How does such a motivation arise? By not being rich in the first place. Therefore, you could say that being rich has held me back, because I never really care about working hard for money.

What's even sadder, is that with all the complaining my girlfriend makes, she still makes shit money. She keeps saying how she's poor and how she's trying so hard... wow... that's a great excuse. How about admitting that she just fucked up in university? I obviously went through more pain and struggle through university than she did... do I not deserve pity? NO, because I have "rich" parents. We have a lifetime to pay for this "travesty".

The reason I'm writing this is because after taking out 75,000NT of my OWN hard earned money to pay for the inital costs of renting (Shinobu's share? Zero), I have never felt so energized, so devoted towards working hard this year to make big bucks. It's the FIRST time I've ever felt this way. You could say that now, with my current balance, I'm in that zone between welfare poor and rich. Of course, I always have my philanthropic bank (my dad), but it's not like our accounts are mixed. I have to call and beg for money, not exactly something I enjoy. However, with my new-found motivations, I've stopped thinking about things like suicide and shit... and can focus now on my career, on making big bucks so I can keep living in our new place with enough left over to live comfortably.

If my girlfriend uses her financial status again as some kind of excuse, I will slap her.

Tomorrow I'm going to pull out 75000NT from my (pitiful) assets so that i can get the keys to our lovely new apartment. Honestly I can't wait. It's funny how a few weeks ago, I absolutely dreaded the idea of moving. Of course, that's because I thought we would never find an appropritate place. But now I'm totally giddy. This place kicks so much ass. Pictures will come soon.

Today I came one step closer to sealing the deal on our new place. I signed a "intention to rent" agreement with a 3000NT deposit, and if the landlord doesn't have a sudden change of heart, the place is ours. Another catch: I actually have to share 1500NT in legal costs with the landlord to sign some kind of agreement that if I don't pay my rent on time I could get into big trouble with the authorities.

After I signed the "intention to rent" agreement, I pretty much just fazed out for a good hour or so while eating my late lunch at McDonalds. The only thing i was thinking about was the millions of dimensions I might have been getting fucked over. If you don't know already, in Taiwan, moral standards are quite low, and even for pocket change people will fuck you over here and there. Who's your friend? Nobody. Not your agent, nor the moving company, nor the shopkeeper... nobody. They all act nice and smile and shit but deep inside all they are doing is looking as you as a commodity.

Here's the history of the negotiation.
Base conditions: 24000 NT, nothing included, service charge equal to one month's rent.

Day 1 (Friday)

Me: "24K with no aircons is kinda pricey [the standard Taiwanese negotiation opener: "it's too expensive" even if you think it's a fair price]. If she is willing to install 3 aircons, I'll honor the 24K rent and close the deal immeidately"

Agent: "[pressure tactic time] To tell you the truth [white lie], a lot of people have said the same thing about the aircon, but the landlord thinks that the 24000 with no aircons is totally fair given the quality and location of this place. If you want to get aircons installed, the landlord will most likely require a 3000NT/month increase on the rent. The same thing happened with the Japanese guy who just rented downstairs.

Me: "3000NT/month? That's ridiculous. Might as well buy my own. Does that also mean the service charge will also increase to 27K?"

Agent: "[hesitates] Yes, but I'll try to negotiate with the agency to not increase your service charge accordingly"

Me: "[contemplates] 27K/month is just way too much. I only need 2 aircons. 25500/month for 2 aircons, service charge stays at 24000"

Agent: "I'll see what I can do"

[nothing happens for a good while, so I call the agent back]

Agent: "Oh yes, hi [WEREN'T YOU SUPPOSED TO CALL ME BACK]. Umm.. the landlord says that if she's going to bother to install aircons, she'll do all 3 rooms at once. Her offer is 26000/month for 3 aircons."

Me: "[contemplates, worried as shit that the room will be going somewhere else if I don't act fast]. OK, I accept... but wait, what about the service fee?"

Agent: "I haven't discusses that yet with the agency, I'll get back to you tomorrow on that"


Day 2:

Agent: "I've got bad news. We can't lower the service charge, it's COMPANY POLICY [really, you sure about that?"]

Me: "That's very disappointing. You told me that you would be able to lower it...."

Agent: "[acts embarassed]... I'm really sorry... tell you what... I'll try to negotiate an ever lower price with the landlord [why didn't you do that sooner?]

Agent: "[calls me back for once] OK, I explained the situation to the landlord, and how you're the only one who's called so often and exprsesed such a sincere desire to rent the place. She's willing to rent it out for 25,500NT/month for 3 aircons, but we still can't lower the service charge"

Me: "[does some math]. That's still a better deal than before. I accept"

Agent: "OK, We'll meet tomorrow then and you need to pay a initial deposit"

Day 3 (Today)

Agent: "I've got some additional things to talk to you about, other than the intial deposit"

Me: [nervous] What now?"

Agent: "The landlord wants you to sign an external agreement with the authorties that if you, for instance, refuse to move out at the end of contract, or do anything that violates the terms of the contract, the authorities have the right to intervene"

Me: [very suspicious] Why does she need such an agreement? It doesn't seem normal."

Agent: "It's nothing really, it's just that she's unsure about her tenants, so she wants to make sure that if something bad happens in the deal, she can easily get the authorities to assist [you mean, kick the shit out of me]. Most people don't bother with rents lower than 20K, but since the landlord is new at renting, and the place is over 20K, she needs this to protect herself"

Me: [still suspcious] and this is going to cost.."

Agent: "3000-4000NT. But she's willing to share the cost in half [WTF, she should pay for the whole fucking thing] I'm really sorry about all this, so I got the company to stick to the original 24,000NT service charge. [so it's company policy yesterday, but a breakeable rule today. very nice].

Me: [does the math]. Ok, as long as there's nothing suspciious about that external agreement, fine. I'll pay half."

And that's how it happened. Reading that, you don't really get a clear cut feeling that I was being ripped. After all, the initial conditions were 24,000 no aircons, and for an extra 1500NT/month I get aircons in all 3 rooms, but you read carefully, you can see there were a lot of negotation tactics going on that got me feeling that it's a good deal even though it really isn't. I mean is that service charge really company policy or not? Was the landlord serious about 27000NT for 3 aircons or was that another "go above your real price and then lower slowly" tactic? Seriously, it's difficult to concentrate on anything when negotiating with my agent becuase it feels like you could be getting fucked over here and there at any time. But the problem was that 1. I really wanted the place, and 2. Not renting it was not an option. so I was already in a losing position to begin with.

Now, I can't even get my relatives to help me with any of these legal matters because if they hear a 25K figure they will get so pissed off and tell me to cut the contract tomorrow. My girlfriend is unable to help at all with these negotiations because she's way too soft. The only guy left who's on my side? My dad. He's the only guy who cares about me. He'll say reassuring things like: "Even if you got a cheaper place, what's the point of saving that money if you're unhappy?" "Terry, I'm not short a thousand dollars, I'm short of a million. Don't worry about it." Anyways, my head's a total mess, and I'd better move out before my workload begins... so... here's hoping for a smooth transition.

Found this site when I did a couple of searches on economics. It's pretty damn interesting:

http://www.capmag.com/

Today I had dinner with Simon, my MIDI work partner. Quite a surprising history. High school dropout, never went to university, first job was writing music and sound engine for a Commodore 64 video game which never saw the light of day, then later ended up in Taiwan. Now living with his girlfriend in Taipei. Occupation? Drifter, like me, making some good money off this CMUSIC contract. Except he's much older... like in his 30's I would guess.

You know, it's quite incredible how smart this guy is. He may not have a univeristy education but talking to him there's a certain intellectual connection that is lacking with say, my girlfriend. Without being too blunt, let's just say that my girlfriend always talks about intellectually mundane things. Like just now, I was surfing the net, and then she comes in saying how she once bought the cheapest jam and bread in China, and totally regretted it because it tasted really bad. Uh-huh. Is that supposed to be intereseting?

My girlfriend sometimes irks me with her "feel good" talks. She reminds me of the movie Clueless. Not any character, just the whole feel of the movie. I came home today saying I closed a (pretty bad) deal with the agent for our new house, and how even with my income we'd be pretty strapped. Of course, my girlfriend hates being a leech, she smiled and said "ganbaru ne!" which just means "I'll try hard [to make more money to pay my share of the rent]". That's just feel good talk. She has no realistic idea as to how difficult it is to get a job RIGHT WHEN YOU WANT ONE.

Then, we briefly discussed about where the bedroom should go, and my girlfirned said "Isn't that obvious? I've already decided it should be the nicer room." I got pissed. "What about my work envrioment? You DO know the whole reason I'm paying an arm and a leg for a nice place is because I need a decent work space?" She goes "I'm sorry, I didn't even think about your work space". Wow. That's pretty fucking inconsiderate, considering that MY WORK IS THE ONLY REASON WE CAN HAVE A ROOM LIKE THAT. Of course, I continued "I think I should pick where my workspace is, it's pretty important", to which she replied "of course, you right, it's your house, you're paying for it, why am I even talking to you, I should just shutup and watch TV"

Anyyyhow... definitely there is a huge intellectual gap between us. I realized this when takling to Simon, I had so many things I wanted to say... it was a real intellectual conversation that I haven't had in a long time. I guess a single person can't provide everything.

Caught this flick on cable tv just recently. I liked it before, but now i totally love it. It's so powerful, such a beautiful portrait of how in this modern world, ethics and morals have taken a back seat to MONEY. Nearly cried in a few scenes, when Weigand's life was slowly torn apart by Big Tobacco. I guess in Torotno i was always shielded from this side of the world. But coming to Taiwan, I have on many occasions faced the ugly reality: that aside from your immediate family, anybody out there will fuck you over as long as it involves enough money. There are a few exceptions, those rare few who actually hold morals and ethcis above their own well-being. These are the heroes of this world.

heart of shi-da market.
2 bedroom + kitchen + living room
5th floor + 2 veranads + rooftop patio
26,000NT/month including 3 aircons

search is over. big money will go down the drain in the next month or so. let me estimate...

24,000 service fee (which is so bullshit, we got such little service, we found the fucking place ourselves)
52,000 deposit
20,000 in furniture / moving costs

never have i felt such a strong desire to make more cash. girlfriend wants to contribute. but daddy to the rescue of course.

At 12:30 this afternoon, an agent took me to see what I would consider a miracle. Right in Shi-da Market, on the top floor, a BEAUTIFUL 2 bedroom apartment... HUGE windows, BEAUTIFUL verandas on both sides, a REAL KITCHEN, and everything was so spanking new.

Downsides?

24,000NT/month. THAT'S FUCKING EXPENSIVE. But with my monthly income I can absorb it all by myself no problem. It would've been nice if my girlfriend could help out with the rent but she's really financially strapped right now.

It's the periphery that's got me in a pickle. No aircon. That could be real expensive. Like 50k+ expensive. No way I'm going to spend that kind of money on something that I'll just give away in the future. No fridge. No washing machine. No bed. I don't care much for beds. We can live on floor matresses if need be. That's a lot of goddamn periphery. For stuff that we may have to sell or throw away in the future.

Plus, there's the added pressure of relatives. THEY ARE GOING TO GIVE ME HELL FOR PAYING 24K. A lot of them are financially strapped, having to raise several kids and sending them to university. If the hear a 24K/month figure, they'll freak out. Particuarily since that's 24K down the drain... not an investment by any means.

To me though, that's okay. Why? My justifaction are as follows: I don't drive, I don't even ride a scooter. The last time I bought an article of clothing was when I last went back to Toronto, and that's like what... already more than half a year ago? I have a real soft spot for spending big on electronics, but the last major puchase was a TV, and can you imagine life without a TV? Still using a 15" LCD monitor when I ideally should be using a 19" or two 15" side by side given how much time I spend in front of my computer doing paid work. I think I've been scroogy enough to splurge on this. Or maybe I'm just deluding myself, grasping at straws of self-affirmation because I WANT THAT FUCKING PLACE SO BAD IT HURTS.

I know some people out there want to kill me for saying this, but I feel okay because I have my daddy. While I probably don't need his financial support for all of this, what I DO have is the comfort of knowing that I don't really need to save anything for my future. Anyways, with the disproportinate scale of economies between Taiwan and Japan/North Ameirca, saving money in Taiwan is a really bad move. I make half of what most people in North American make at my age, but more than the average person here. It really hurts trying to save money when you reailze that you could be saving double somewhere else.

I'm just rambling. Bottom line is, I want to live in that place, and I'm willing to pay top dollar. That's it. End of story. If people give me a hard time I'll tell ya to screw yourself. You don't know just what kind of shithole Taipei houses can be.

Life is anything but stable right now. Between looking for a new place, and new job opportnities with XPEC, and the recent rush jobs for CMUSIC, it's been really damn hectic. Here's an update to my loyal fans (whomever you may be)

1. Quest for a New House
Still dry. Very dry. We've seen many houses here and there, but they're trash. Best propsect right now: There's a wicked looking place near our house, newly built, but the rent is an astronomical 24,000NT/month. Seeing how I make 37K on average from CMUSIC, plus 6 or 7K from teaching, it's affordable, but with gas and water and electricity and internet and phone bills, living costs will close in on 30K. Not very nice considering we pay at most 17K right now for everything. In addition, this place is totally empty, no aircon, no bed, NOTHING. In addition, the agent wants a one month renting fee, so that's 24K down the drain, and the security deposit will most likely be 3 months. So that's 75K in tied up money. On top of that, today the agent informed me that somebody may have already rented the place, so he can only show it to me tomorrow if no deal was closed.

Believe it or not, that place I just described is our best chance of finding somewhere decent. Do you get the feeling we're grasping at straws right now? THAT'S HOW IT FUCKING FEELS. ~60 sq.metres, one bedroom, newly furnished, shi-da or nanjing downtown location. IS THAT TOO MUCH TO FUCKING ASK FOR!?!?!? Fuck, 20K is already a ludicrous rent price, my relatives will fucking kill me if they find out that my rent price is over 20K... BUT I DON'T WANT TO LIVE IN A FUCKING DUMP. You can say that this point, I'm desperate. The quality and location of the place come before everything.

You know what really pisses me off? The fact that "for rent" ads are full of lies. Landlords should be more modest when posting ads. For instance, check out the title of this post:

http://forumosa.com/3/viewtopic.php?t=14946

"Well-furnished studio". When you hear the word "studio", what do you think of? A large, spacious, non-segregated space... where touchy feely artist types congregate. I actually went to see that place. Did I see a studio? No. I saw a fucking rabbit hole. 10 pings (33sq metres), low ceiling... WASTE OF MY FUCKING TIME. You go into the rent market in Taipei and very soon you become cynical of everything. "Spacious, convenient, quiet, great view"... these are such fucking gray words that are abused to no end in the renting market. Probably the only thing that you can depend on is that if an ad is fresh, and the price seems too expensive, then the probability that it's a GOOD place actually surpasses one fucknig percent.

To tell you the truth, I actually don't mind moving out, AS LONG AS THE NEW PLACE IS BETTER THAN THE ONE WE HAVE NOW. Our place is totally infested with mosquitoes, and last night they kept me swatting at air at 5 in the morning. I lost my temper, got up, and started scannign the walls for those fucking annoying pests, but nothing. Do you know a great solution for mosquitoes? Get a fan, blow air over your body on the highest setting, mosquitoes can't land properly with that kind of windflow.

2. XPEC
Good news here. I'm officially hired for a 2 month no-pay internship as a sound prodcuer. I'll be in charge of making decisions with SFX in their new game, then use whatever means possible (sample cd's, editing etc.) to produce those sounds. I will attend their game planning meetings and have chances to learn and contribute my own input. After 2 months, if things go well, I'll be a part-time employee (still got CMUSIC to take care of until September). Most people would throw up at the thought of working for no pay, but putting the whole situation in a supply & demand perspective, the market for working in video game company is VERY FUCKNIG SMALL. Like non-existant. Name a video game company with a design office in Toronto, that would even be slightly interested in me. There you go. So this is almost like a goddamn dream. I was hoping to do music but apparently that part will be quite minimal compared to SFX.

3. CMUSIC Rush Job
On the afternoon of 17th, my CMUSIC correspondent Matsuda-san called me and informed that two loser contractees couldnt' finish their song volume for this month (this is very taiwanese, you tell them "YOU MUST FINISH BY THE 18TH, they go "ok ok lah", and at the end of the day, they don't finish). So my partner Simon and I cleaned things up. 2 songs in less than 2 days. We're fucking professionals. Matsuda-san was real damn grateful and god knows how many good-will points I scored with CMUSIC. Good for my dream future.

That's it for updates for now. Stay tuned.

The only way to not get fucked over by assholes is to be a bigger asshole than everyone else.

I just realized that I am living here in Taipei without a shred of health insurance on a visitor visa. I don't have a dentist, I don't have a family doctor, I don't have any kind of license to drive a scooter or car. Basically, I feel like a goddamn refugee who's just been smuggled into the country. Everytime I go to the poilce station to get my visitor visa extended, and getting a bunch of hassle for not having proper reasons to stay, it feels like somebody is telling me "it's time you left the goddamn country".

You know what? After being woken up at 5am because huge fucking mosquitoes won't stop biting the shit out of me, I finally want to leave Taipei. I really do. Once you get past the charm of the city, and get to the core, you'll find that it's a degenerate, corrupt, almost 2nd world shithole. A lot of times on the bus I look around and see Taipei's Trash: people whom I deem unfit to be living, and my heart is filled with anger that these kinds of people are even allowed to exist. I don't think I have ever looked at any person in Toronto and felt that way. But in Taipei, the overcrowding gets to you, and you lose sympathy for ugly girls, or crippled old people, or dumb looking jocks. They are Taipei's Trash, and they should be incinerated to save space and food. That goes double for the new landlords.

But after being here for a year it's really hard to leave everything behind. Now that my treasured house is essentially gone, there's one less thing to bemoan, but I still have my CMUSIC contract, I have XPEC waiting in the wings, and my gf (who is the core of my happiness) has a contract teaching Japanese here. You know, it really all revovles around my gf. If she was pining to live in Canada, I'd say ... fuck it, let's go, and get CMUSIC to arrange some way to pay me in Canada. But I know she won't survive there. She knows it too, that's why she's reluctant to go. I'm extremely reluctant to pressure her too. It's too far from her home and if she gets depressed and shit I can't go through each day knowing that I'm the reason for her misery.

Here's an interesting fact for you: did you know that there is not a SINGLE tropical country in the world that is rich? It's been that way for the longest time... you think of all the powerful and developed countries, they are all temperate. US, Germany, Japan, Switzerland, Denmark, Holland.... now think of all the tropical countries... Phillipines, Malaysia, Vietnam, all the useless African nations near the Sahara... and...TAIWAN... yes, Taiwan is tropical, and it's no wonder they fucking suck at everything. South Korea already is leaps and bounds ahead of Taiwan. Guess what, South Korea is basically on the same latitude as Japan... coinicdence? I think not.

Ideally, I would like to live in Japan. Not only is it a childhood dream, but if I marry my girlfriend I believe I can get a passport and citizenship with little effort. That takes care of a LOT. Ideally, CMUSIC hires me as a full-time employee, we live in a modest house in semi-suburbs... but wait.. we probably can't afford it, so we have to rent, and becuase CMUSIC is in Tokyo i have to face the legendary rush hours, and I probably can't afford a car either... but at least... I don't have to deal with all the mediocrity that surrounds me everyday here in Taiwan. At least I can work hard knowing that my work will be appreciated amongst intellectually superior people.

So, if I have anything remotely resembling a long term plan, it would be to get married as soon as reasonably possible, get a Japanese passport, practice some Nihongo, eat sushi and soba everyday, and buy a fucking katana in case some medicore tropical losers come near my house.

Since I was such a good little boy and finished all my songs before the CMUSIC deadline, my wonderful reward was to tire my fucking self to death commuting around Taipei looking for a place to rent. Who's fault is that? The Capitalist Piggy of course, but I won't bore you with my gargatuan grudges against them, you can read the last few entries to get an idea.

No, today, my complaining will be about Taipei. Taipei's housing scene is fucking scary. It's dilapiated beyond belief. I mean if you just visit ChungShiao E. Rd. or Taipei 101 you think... hey, Taipei's pretty modern and deveoped, but that's just a front for the politicians to put Taipei on the international scene. A city should not be judged by its tourist areas, but by the quality of the insignificant places where locals actually live. Here is the disgusting truth abuot Taipei: Take a walk into any small alley, even in commercially developed areas... and you find that 99% of the homes you see are run down, fluorescnet-lit ghettos that remind me of war torn Eastern Europe. Nobody seems to gives a shit about designing a comfortable home. They go... it's above x sq.metres, you have an air conditioner, a bathroom, a bed... what the hell are you complaining about? How about the fact that it looks like a fucking SHITHOLE. If I ever need to make a horror movie with dilapidated houses, Taipei would be my 1st choice for potential locations.

You're thinking... Terry... you're so spoiled... you're the one who wanted to live in Taipei, and you expect to live in a mansion? Listen, I'm living in a 20 ping (66 square metres) room right now with my girlfriend. That's not very big at all. Maybe 1.5 times the size of my old room in Toronto, yet I'm still extremely satsifeid. What IS unique about our house is that you don't feel like you're locked in some kind of prison. At least the wall colors and tiling are well chosen to give the illusion of space and freedom. At least you can see something GREEN out the window instead of barren concrete 2 metres away. Are these things too much to ask for? Apparently it is, because the same can't be said about 99% of the houses out there. Even those that are 40pings or 60 pings... they look so run down, so cold with their abundant fluorescent lighting... I wouldn't even want to live there even if they gave it to me for free.

No, what it's all about, is Taiwanese philosopy towards living standards. I don't have to say much about this. The fact that our landlord wants to segregate our room (the 1% of this city that actually looks decent) into 3 tiny little jail cells should tell you enough about Taiwanese people's attitudes. They just don't give a SHIT about whether a house looks good or not. We actually visited the Capitalist Piggy's house becuase she's moving soon and offered to rent out the place if we couldn't find somewhere else. You know what? Even the Capitlast Piggy lives in a shithole. It's big, but it still looks like a shithole. What the FUCK are they doing anyways? They turn nice places into shitholes, and then use that money to live in a shithole themselves? So everybody ends up living in a shithole, all becuase the Piggy wants more money in her bank. What a great way to enjoy life.

Did you know that Switzerland (the country with the highest standard of living in the world, on paper) has strict regulations on what kinds of houses can actually be buit? Apparently, you're not even allowed to build a shithole there because the authorities will catch you. That's my kind of country. There should be a "interior design police" who prevent the creation of ghetto-like jail cells. It's inhumane to allow anyone to live in such environments. If we have laws against the cruelty to pets, why not living spaces.

Anyways, I've written enough now, maybe I can actually catch the last few moments of the All Star game... oh whoops.. it's already over now... thanks to the Capialist Piggy, a perfectly peacful day has turned into an exhausting, despairingly hopeless search for a place that is even remotely equal to ours.

You know, it just occurred to me, both the mother and daughter are jobless. All they do with their life is hunt down property, convert it into a prison, and live off the rent. To me, that's just fucking sad. I have no qualms with hard-working people who rent unused property space on the side, or companies who actually BUILD the fucking building and then rent it out. But to acquire and rent out property as the sole raison d'etre? That's fucking SAD. These people are lower than garbage men. At least the garbage men are actually contributing to society through their sweat and hard work.

Teachers, carpenters, scientists, practically any traditional occupation out there shares a common trait: you contribute something to society through your work, and society rewards you with money. But with the invention of the money market and stocks and property ownership... you can now make a lot of money by doing nothing more than playing with paper. A guy borrows money to buy some stocks, he gets lucky and the stock quadruples, he sells the stock and then for some reason society owes him a car. Does that make any fucking sense? "That's how the world works Terry". And you're happy with that stupid explanation? A person borrows money from a bank to buy a house they don't even intend to live in, turns it into a prison, and for such a wonderful contribution, we now owe this person food and medical care. Why? What did this person really do for anybody, other than make the world a little bit uglier?

These people are the fucking leeches of the world. The abuse the economical system and ride the sweat and blood of other people to feed themselves. They have no dreams, no vision, other than to make money by whatever means possible. They are Capitalism's Excrement.

Here's a bit of drama for you. Today, I let go my temper in a way that I haven't in a very long time... I actually resemble my mother a lot in the sense that if something truly irritates me, I will toss logic out the window, become totally unreasonable, and fucking blow up in your face. Not exactly the most desirable trait, but that's just me.

Anyways, as you might expect, the irritators were my new landlords. There's two of them, an eldery ugly bitch in her 50's, and her equally ugly daughter who has three kids but is in the process of getting divorced (can't say i'm surprised). As if it weren't enough that they're forcing us to move out (which is a FUCKING nightmare, given my current impression of Taipei's real estate scene), they also want to increase our rent to about 20,000NT/month by having us pay the gas, water and electric bill (which was all inclusive with the old landlord). That's just fucking ridiculous. 2 fucking months, and the greedy little Piggies still want to make more money knowing well that they will piss people off. Whether this is a strategy to get us to move out or the actual truth, I don't know. It's likely a combination of both. But today, the daughter called me and complained that "our electric bill was too high, blah blah blah" and that's when I fucking blew up. In a restaurant no less, so you could say that I was "making a scene". People were probably staring at me, but I didn't care. My girlfriend also left with her bowl of ramen 80% unfinished, but I didn't care. I was so engulfed with anger that I verbally harassed the daughter in more ways than one, saying things like "you should feel real proud about yourself, you and your mother have gotten real good at fucking people over, too bad that's all you're good at." She got upset too, obviously, and a pointless argument ensued... and to tell you the truth, it felt GOOD. I had so much anger bottled up inside me that it felt fucking awesome releasing it all over the phone. In the end the daughter was saying pitiful things like "just because you think i'm a girl, you think you can take advantage of me?". HELLO?!?! You want to raise the fucking rent for a lousy 2 months and you think we're taking advantage of YOU? No, I'm just giving you a piece of my mind, bitch. You fucking deserve it.

Then, if that wasn't enough, when we got home, the landlord's mother (obviously upset at the verbal abuse her daughter went through, but given the fact that she's getting divorced, I think they both have good experience there) invited herself in to "talk things over". She brought some guy who freely wandered around our place measuring things left and right without permission. After the guy was finished, I told the bitch "yeah, go ahead, feel free to go around and look at all of our private possessions" to which the mother politely replied "I'm sorry, is it okay?", to which I said "You're already finished, what's the point in asking?" Then, the mother did something even my girlfriend thought was disgusting.. she plopped her fat ass into one of our chairs, then the first thing she said to us was "pay the rent". You fucking bitch. You walk in UNINVITED, I told you I would call you tomorrow, and you want us to pay your stupid rent just like that? You'd better ask nicely next time or I will fucking slap your ugly face. But I thought hrm, I don't see an electric bill being waved in my face, time to take advantage of the situation. So I said fine, I'll do it right now online. Turns out all the anger I released on them made them think twice about fucking me around, because all I paid was 16K and they were satisfied.

Then, to make things even more interesting, Uncle Phillip arrived on the scene. Probably the only "good" logical thing I did today was ask him to act as a third party mediator. I know he's real good at these things. After talking to the ugly-ass mother (all in Taiwanese, most likely a ploy to keep us from understanding what the discussion was about), and agreeing formally that the rent will not be raised, and that we would have exactly 2 months time to find a new place, the fat bitch left. I then talked to Uncle Phillip, who explained that the landlord's conditions were actually quite generous, and that what she was doing (eg raising the rent) is totally normal. That doesn't change the fact that I think she's an ugly Capitalist Piggy and a total disgrace to women... no... a total disgrace to mankind. But somehow, that left me with a feeling of satisfaction.

I have to say, today meant a lot to me. Even though most of the feelings were negative, I have to say that it has strengthened my desire to BUY A FUCKING HOUSE. I hate renting. But one thing that I also discovered is that I do not want to live in this god-forsaken country. It's a great place to have fun but not a place to live your adult life. It's just horrifying imagining trying to raise kids here. I can totally undersatnd why my father left this place for the West. Not to say that Toronto is some kind of utopia, but I can see clearly where all the good things are. Large open spaces, clean air, better education, it's all true. Too bad Toronto is just so BORING and often DEPRESSING. Just like my dad says, there's no ideal place. You need to take the good with the bad.

Dug this photo out of my photo album. Taken at Toronto French School, Mildenhall, last year when I went back to Toronto.

Nostalgia is such a mystical and powerful feeling. I remember skipping down this road and hearing kids mock me from above "haha, look at that loser, he's skipping!". I remember practicing kung fu kicks a little bit too hard and ripping an embarassing hole in my pants. That was more than 10 years ago. It looks so different now. How I wish I had videos of myself when I was young. It is all a lost memory now. The feelings I had... gone forever... only left as traces in my current personality.

After starting and stopping this game countless times, I finally got bored enough to finish the game. I have to say, I actually liked the new part with Raiden much better than Snake, because it's much easier to identify with a skinny non-macho guy than a tough gruffy cigarette-smokin' bear. Anyways, the reason I am making this post is because of MGS's ending. Can we say: Evangelion? Cheap live footage w. philosophically-oriented dialogue running through the black subtitle space.. hmm... where have i seen this before... Actually, the way the story just ballooned into an unbelievably ridiculous scale is very Evangelion-like as well. It's almost as if Hideo Kojima and Hidaeki Anno use games and anime as their own private soapbox where they can preach to millions of young people worldwide about whatever they want to preach about.. is this a good thing? Don't really know. Is the Internet and the Digital Information Age really a threat to the ability of the government to control the masses? Probably. To the scale that MGS implies? Unlikely. I guess Kojima knew how big the expecations for MGS were.... so he had no choice but go totally crazy with the script. Or he was going through several epiphanies at that time of life and needed an outlet to express them.

Anyways, I can't say I fully understood the whole story, after all there were only about 2000 surprises near the end, but some of the philsophical issues that Kojima brought up were quite stimulating. Topics dealing with evolution, the meaning of passing on DNA, and the accumulation of digital "garbage" that will never die of natural causes.

By the way, here's an interesting idea I read from that book, Ideas... that while humans have not evolved much physically for thousands of years, their behaviorial patterns and ways of living life have changed drastically. This is in sharp contrast to other animals, which continue living the same instinctual life patterns without noticeable change even after several millenia. In other words, the intellectual developmental rate of humans has far exceeded the evolutionary development rate, something quite unique amongst living beings. Which can only bring along the idea: Are we something that was not meant to be? Are we a "glitch" in the System called Evolution? Judging by the damage done to nature and the sickening over-consumption of first world countries, it is a likely possibility

Haven't made a post in awhile, probably because life has been pretty peaceful these days and nothing's got me really riled up about anything.

Until I met my "new" landlord today. There's only one word that comes to mind.

B-I-T-C-H.

Actually, two words: Capitalist Bitch. This whore is an fucking poster girl for all the wrongs of capitalism. We live in a very nice house, it's not terribly big but it's nice and open and has a veranda both front and back. But to the Capitalist Piggy, a veranda is nothing more than wasted space. A big open room is nothing more than wasted space. Even a high ceiling is fucking wasted space. All of which translates into wasted money, which causes her whorish Piggy self to convulse and squeal at night.

So she comes up to us and first gives us some bullshit about how some wall has a leak and needs be repaired, which means we have to move out. Nice story bitch. What she REALLY wants to do (because she is such a transparently dirty little pig) is knock down the existing walls, convert both verandas into usable living spaces, then partition the now veranda-less room into 3 or 4 tiny cubicles, and then rent each one for about 7000-8000 to different people, thus doubling her income from her property. Just the thought of it makes the Capitalist Piggy squeal for joy.

Never mind the fact that the house is constructed beautifully with a wonderful view of a quiet residential area. Never mind the fact that birds come every morning during Spring and Summer and frolic on the veranda. Never mind the fact that the house actually LOOKS DECENT, something that becoming alarmingly rare in Taipei's horrendous real estate scene. All of this is in total confilct with the Capitalist Piggy's insatiable desire to maximize income / sqft (the only statistic that matters to the pigs). She'll gleefully convert this "inefficient" property into something much, much "better": Four lovely PRISONS the size of a fucking cubicle, that will probably look utterly depressing but with hardball tactics and manipulation, can eventually be rented out to 4 students who urgently need to find a place to live near school.

And thus the Capitalist Piggy will feel so very satsified with her wonderful contribution to society...by destroying yet another "nice place" in this decaying city all for her own profit. In other words, the Fat Pig has just gotten fatter by eating out of everyone else's bowl.

How long are people just going to stand there and watch as so many sacred and beautiful things are destroyed by the Capitalist Piggies. Education for instance. When you see advertisements for cram schools, do you not shake your head in dismay? What do cram schools actually contribute to society, except for making kids even more depressed and causing them to think like sheep? If there was truly a God, the cram school honchos should all spend eternity in hell with a huge fucking pitchfork rammed into their Piggy little ass.

As most of my audience is probably North American, you see the word: CAPITALISM, and it has a positive connotation. Money, free market, Non-Communist. I believed it too, until you realize that capitilasm has a whole bucketload of faults. You do reailze, that we will NEVER, EVER see beautiful city landscapes like historical Europe ever again... and you know why? Becuase to a Capitliast Piggy, creating beautiful city landscapes is not profitable. It's best to use monotonous materials that can be ordered in high volume, best to use sterile architecturial designs for their minimal construction cost, best to make everything cheap as possible like IKEA. Have you ever been to Europe and walked into the great cathedrals, and touched the stone walls... and marveled at the construction, the solidity, the sturdiness... and then walk into a modern IKEA home and just flabbergasted at how cheap everything is, how retrograde everything has become. Are we really richer now? Then why is everything looking cheaper?

No, this world has become more and more ridiculous the more I understand it. It is being dehumanized, mechanized, reorganized. American capitalism is like a disease. It destroys culture, ethics... love... love for your job, love for your home... and in place produces sterile money making machines that do nothing but accumulate vacuous "Wealth" at maximum efficiency. There is something deeply wrong in the minds of people today, and I fear that it is already too late to resolve.

The bottom line is that the quest for wealth should always be secondary to the pursuit for excellence, ethics, and ideals. If not, eventually the entire world will be reduced to a gray, sterile, lifeless wasteland where everybody's fucking everbody everyday to earn their precious money. There will no longer be room for anything that isn't financially viable. That's truly sad, because so many beautiful things are not financially viable. You do not have to think hard to discover them. They are still around you, but one by one, they are vanishing thanks to the Pigs.

Saw this cheesy flick at Warner Bros Cinema with Shinobu today. Overall feeling: disappointed. It starts off with a real nice intro, but everything goes downhill from there. Too many story arcs. Endings were too contrived. The film is too goody goody to actually be emotionally moving. The title is witty and sexy but too bad it wasn't reflected in the actual movie.

I just downloaded three or four "Snap Shot" Porn Videos over the last week or so. Most of them are the usual, C-cup average looking hairy pussy Jap Girl getting fucked by various men, but Snap Shot Girl No. 21 is different. She's skinny, A-cup, shaved, and her facial expression seems to convey some type of "sexual dementia" thing.

The stuff she does is simply unbelievable. She gets fist-fucked twice, and that's already enough to blow the mind. If some real ugly and fat white girl did a fist-fuck, I could comprehend. But a skinny, pretty girl like this? Something ain't right, Jim. It's not distrubing to the point where I can't enjoy the porn, but it's enough to me to stop whacking off for a couple of seconds, and go... "holy shit..." Actually, becuase I'm very picky about my girls, I don't think I've ever seen a real fist-fuck until now. Most girls who are willing to do fist-fucks are either fat or ugly, or both, and there's nothing worse than seeing a fat and ugly girl naked. Anyways, fist-fucking is REALLY scary. I mean, your whole friggin' hand goes in?? Sure sure a baby can come out but we're not talking incisions and anaesthetics...just a lot of lubricant...

It's really amazing. Her face is obviously in sheer pain but when the guys ask her "kimochi?" she just nods and they contniue. Maybe she's a masochist. Strangely, my girlfriend really enjoys this porn. She thinks most of what I download is pretty boring but she was so impressed with all the deranged activities this girl was willing to participate in that she just couldn't wait to see what happened next. It's really weird watching girls watch porn. What I wouldn't give to know exactly what they're feeling...

Anyways, if you want to watch this one, just type in "Snap Shot" into your favorite P2P program (i got mine from eMule) and get Vol 21. It's special. I've seen enough porn in my lifetime to spend eternity in Hell, so I should know.

A few days ago I had to let one of my "helpers" go... the first MIDI he sent me was not very good quality. It didn't help that the synth he worked on was a software emulation of a Roland SC-88, but there were numerous problems with it that led me to believe that he wouldn't be able to produce work at CMUSIC's desired quality level even if he had the real thing. So I pretty much fired him, and paid him half of what I would have given him for complete work.

What followed was something that I find interesting myself. I'm sitting here, with a "usable but substandard" MIDI in my face, that I actually paid NT2500 for. I could try to fix it up quickly, and pass it off to CMUSIC hoping that it might just slip through their quality filter. Or I could make a new MIDI, and simply take certain sections that are usually problem-free (melody, bass drum + snares)...

Or, I could just throw everything away and start over.

Which is what I did. I just hate fixing other people's work. I'm a total anti-team control freak. If I spend a good 15 hours of my time on something, I want to the end result to be JUST me, me, and me. I don't like teamwork because to me, anything that other people produce just taints my work. It's like that foreign body that has entered your body and your white cells are going to kick the shit out of it. That's how I feel about the presence of other people's contributions. They're foreign bodies that need to be exterminated.

So here I am, pissed off that I have to pay someone money for nothing, but at the same time super motivated to do a kickass job to prove my superiority over other people. I finished this song (Walk by Koda Kumi, pretty good one too) in 16 hours / 2days, which averages to 8 hours of work a day. That's a LOT - sequencing music is a very tiring activity... it stresses both the visual and aural senses and at the same time you must constantly guess how the original producer arranged the song. Anyways, even the fastest dude at CMUSIC can only produce 1 song every 2 days.

Now that I'm finished, there's this feeling of glowing satsifaction that 1. I can work at Japanese level speeds and 2. my MIDI sequencing abilities are far better than the average person.

At times like these, i really miss toronto a lot. I'm really tired of MSG laced chinese food... it's getting to me... my oh my how do i ever crave sitting in a nice WESTERN restaurant with an nice WESTERN steak & potatoes sitting in front of me with a spicy WESTERN Bloody Caeser. I want to eat at the Keg. I want to eat Swiss Chalet. I want to drive a car.

I guess it's always just a matter of time before you adapt to any new envrionment and all you start seeing is the bad things instead of the good things.

Just about the only game that has got me real excited is the upcoming World of Warcraft from the game creator gods at Blizzard. As I was browsing through the class list, I noticed that several icons for class abilities were exactly the same as the Warcraft III.

Here's the weird thoughts that go through my head:

"If they don't change these icons to something new, the game will look cheap. But since Blizzard is not a lousy Taiwanese company, they most likely will force their icon designers to change them. Still, what a PAIN in the ASS to redo the same graphic again and again."

Counting the class/race permutations, there are 37 unique combinations in total. That's a SHITLOAD of 1st class character models they have to make. Any other game company would probably resort to letting a lot of them look alike, but you know Blizzard, they KNOW what makes an MMORPG good, and that's making sure any kind of character you pick will look unique and cool. So, they have to make 37 unique and cool character models, and that's not even coutning the possibility that new armors and weapons will change the appearance. What a fucking hassle. But it MUST be done. If you make any two classes look too simliar, the whole feeling of professionalism will be ruined. Only Blizzard has the principles and the perserverence to do this.

Caught a "cosplay" at NTU while biking by. Check out the Rikku's!



Lost my right contact. I fucking hate losing contacts. It's the worst goddamn feeling... despair and hopelessness as you frantically search for a small piece of plastic in a bathroom that suddenly seems to have a zillion nooks and crannies that you've never noticed in the 1st place.

Posted a very negative review of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Repubilc here, got some lovely respones to the review here. Gotta love GameFAQs culture.

You'd think that in this world of ridicuous stock market wahoobazoos and over-processed preservative-laced foods, that farming is the last thing we could possibly call a "sin".

But that book "Ideas" has revealed something very enlightening unto me... that many many moons ago, in the ages of man hunting deer for food, there was no concept of "work". They just hunted animals for three days a week to sustain themselves and hunting wasn't even considered a chore. Today, people separate work and lesiure so naturally it seems like it's a fundamental part of being human. You work, make money, so that you can afford to buy a big screen TV and enjoy your weekends. That's just natural, right?

Wrong. Work itself is an invention. Just look at animals in their natural habitat. Do they "Work" in the sense that we do? Forced to wake up at a certain time and forced to do shit they don't want to do all day long? Dolphins at Marine Land don't count. That's not their natural habitat.

Where did this idea "work" come from? The day that people started farming. That's right... somewhere along the line, some fucked up dude had the bright idea to start farming land instead of hunting. Whether it was to support an increasing population which had insufficient game to support, or because he had nothing better to do... that dude fucked us up good. Thanks to him, humans had enough consistent sustenance to reproduce without fear of starvation, but at the expense of inventing the dreaded idea called "work".

It's almost like someone, for our own good, placed this barrier preventing humans from reproducing too quickly, but we thought we were so smart we could overcome this barrier without knowing the consequences.

Farming isn't a good thing if you think about it. It deforms the natural eco-system. Growing the exact same crops a thousand times over on a certain piece of land invites disaster. Selective pests (those who feed on the crop that's being grown) are allowed to breed endlessly without famine keeping check. We become more vulnerable to plague and disease, and are forced to reduce our diet to a few staple foods. And we most toil for more hours than ever before. All for what? To increase our numbers?

Of course, this was a LONG time ago. We can't abandon farming now because it's the foundation of civilization. There's too many of us to go back to hunting at this point in the game. The mistake was made too long ago to rectify.

I just picked up this book at Eslite Bookstores today. I was about to leave after reading the usual (Newsweek + Time) but just casually flipped through this book, and I was like WOW, this is really good shit. It's like an encyclopedia of ideas from the beginning of time.

I really hate books in general but this one is just fantastic. Everything from Chaos Theory to Natural Selection to Capitalism... it's all here. Where the idea came from, what the idea means, the implications of the ideas... even references to the most popular literature on the topic... all presented beautifully on thick, full-color pages.

Looking forward to my next dump...