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So it goes that China and Taiwan's "opposition leader" have agreed to talks about the China-Taiwan situation. You can read about it on the BBC or on CNN.
Maybe it will improve cross-strait relations; maybe it will not. But there are several things wrong with this.
1) Lien Chan, the leader of the KMT, is not the president of Taiwan. In fact, he ran twice and lost both times. He insisted that he is visiting China as a private citizen, but as the articles will point out and as plain as day to anyone who has common sense, how does a "private citizen" get to meet the top leaders of China for "historic talks"?! It's the equivalent of John Kerry/Howard Dean/Al Gore/any top Democrat visiting, I don't know, Cuba, to have talks with Fidel Castro in order to improve US-Cuban relations. Nothing they talk about will be binding, and you can bet that people are raising tons of eyebrows wondering WTF is going on. Which gets me to my next point.
2) I believe this is nothing but a political ploy on Lien's part. He's trying to make himself look better, or maybe even build up his political portfolio for a possible 3rd run. In fact, that was my very first reaction when I heard Lien was making that trip to China. For that, my opinion of him can't get any lower. Sure, dialogue is good, but it needs to be done between the actual leaders of either side.
People who know me know that I don't care much for beer, but the only beers I will tolerate and drink (and possibly even like) are Guinness, and Martens beer from Belgium. The Martens exposure I owe it to my trip to Belgium in 1996, when we (a bunch of youngsters from the world and I) had a chance to tour the apparently very famous Brewer Museum in Bocholter, operated by the Martens brewing company.
Yes, I found a site for the museum, but it's all in Flemish and has few pictures, so you can't really tell how interesting it was. But to quote Beer Hunter:
Its half-dozen brewhouses range from one with a square, open, kettle, 200 years old (made by the famous German manufacturer Steinecker) to a tiny pilot plant bolted to the wall. All have been reassembled, some from the original plans. The museum has a complete maltings, three steam engines, an original Von Linde ammonia compressor (for refrigeration), and every imaginable item of equipment (again, representing their evolution through the ages) up to filling, bottling and labelling machines, a 1940s Studebaker truck and a crane designed to lower casks into the cellars of cafés. The collection had grown considerably since my last visit, and now occupies about 5,000 square feet on three or four levels.
How did it start? In the 1970s, Jean Martens was faced with the need to replace a worn-out mash-tun. He could not bear to discard it. The rest is history, in more senses than one. I was shown round by Jean, now aged 81, but as nimble as one might expect a man to be when he drinks a couple of beers a day. The Martens brewery dates from 1758 and, occupies much of the village of Bocholt, in the Belgian province of Limburg and right on the Dutch border. I have always greatly enjoyed the brewery's strong ales, the amber Quattro and golden Sezoens, but it is more widely known for one of Belgium's hoppiest Pilseners.
Neat, eh?
I am assuming that connoisseurs of beer know that Belgium has some of the best beers in the world - none of the American crap that's advertised on TV can even compare - and although I'm no such connoisseur, I loved the Martens beer. The rose one, especially; sweet, crisp, refreshing. But the name escapes me after all these years. I am pretty sure I have a picture of me somewhere, behind the bar and learning how to pour beer the correct way by tipping the glass so that only an inch of foam remains at the top.
Good times.
Yet another follow up of sorts -
One of the questions on the "What kind of candy are you?" quiz was "Your motto?" The choice I picked was: "A conclusion is the place where you got tired of thinking."
It wasn't the first time I've heard of that line, but I still found it hilarious. I used to have (and still do) a collection of funny, witty lines like that so I can use them as email signatures. That's one of them. Actually, quite of few of those responses appear on my list, so I had a hard time choosing which, but that was the one I went with at that moment. It's not exactly true that that's how I live my life, but I've been known to do that on papers which I tried to churn out at the last minute.
Per usual, if you're wondering where I'm going with this, I'm getting to that.
Along the lines of getting tired of doing something, I've decided that from now on, when I have an email chain going on with someone, I'm only going to sign with my first initial, followed by a period. Reason being, while my first name isn't outrageously long, it's longer than most of my friends' names, seeing that most of them have 4 or 5 letter names. Yeah, that's lazy, but it's less awkward than having to type out my entire name all the time, especially in short notes.
Just a PSA for those who would like to know. If you don't really care, thanks for reading anyway!
Caffeine overload. More highstrung than I want to be though not to the point of being jittery. A bottle of Dr. Pepper, and a whole afternoon spent talking about income tax problems sucked so bad, but at least it was with pleasant people (which meant we also talked about non-income tax things like science, TV shows, etc.). Why couldn't I have met these cool people earlier? Would've made the first year more pleasant, that's for sure.
The one thing we all agreed on was, we couldn't understand why anyone would want to figure out taxes for other people, or be income tax lawyers. Sure, the world is more interesting with different types of people around, but income tax? Are those people really that interesting?
Somewhat kidding, of course. I am sure there are lots of nice tax people out there. I just won't be one of them.
I already feel exhausted, and the exam period hasn't even begun.
Update on yesterday's situation and a related perfume rant -
The seller wrote back and promised to send me another decant. He didn't exactly apologize but said that he's been having trouble with the USPS and they rushed him. I kinda felt bad for him, if that was the case, as we've all had bum days, and the perfume really isn't cheap. Though secretly I'm very glad to have yet another 10 ml to play with.
On the subject of perfume -
As much as I love sniffing scents and wearing them, I am starkly against people who marinate in them. (Knew several past co-workers who did that, and the scents didn't make them any more pleasant!) I was sitting next to a girl in class this morning, and she was wearing the foulest perfume, ever. (I have an inkling what it is, or maybe it's a cheap knock-off of it, but since the girl isn't very nice to begin with, she just made the perfume that much worse.) Not to mention, it was covering up some odd, deep fryer smell that would miraculously squeeze its way past the stink cloud and waft my way. Me thinks the days when people douse themselves in perfume to cover up body odors is so 18th century, and this girl is 3 centuries behind! Just a bad, bad, bad combo. And, as someone who has allergies, smelling that much of something so terrible made my eyes water and nose itch during the entire class. I couldn't wait for the class to end just so I could get away from her.
My rule of thumb when wearing perfume: It's very personal. Like religion. People don't want to be knocked over the head with it; only when they approach your closest personal space should they be able to detect a soupçon (ah, there's a pretentious word) of it, maybe when you turn your head or sway your hair. Just one spritz, at most two, is enough for most people to detect a scent on you. Spritz to one wrist, dab to the other wrist, dab to pulse points, et voila. It absolutely horrifies me to read and know that there are women who spritz 10 times. Serious overload, which is why they're unable to smell themselves.
No one likes loud, obnoxious people, just as no one like loud, obnoxious perfume wearers.
A little splurge came in the mail today. For someone who is occasionally an impulsive shopper, this lemming has been going on for some time: I finally got a decant of a bottle of perfume that I've long loved, but have only been able to own in sample vials because it is so hard to come by and so expensive. At regular rate, a bottle of this juice sells for $70 per 50 ml, or $110 for 100 ml (I think). It ain't cheap because it's from L'Artisan, a boutique fragrance house located in Paris. The decant itself is $13 for 1/3 fl. oz., obviously more expensive than if I had bought the whole bottle, but decants have always been a way for people to enjoy the scents they want without giving up an arm and a leg for a full bottle.
This is a bouquet of roses, blended with patchouli and plum. It's earthy, sensual, dirty, dark, sexy, and sophisticated all at the same time. Like a dirt garden full of mud. Like a bunch of old roses preserved in a moldy basement. Like sugar plums soaked in patchouli. Like roses that will never age with time. I had never smelled anything quite like this before. Consistently this is the scent for which you would see me compulsively sniffing my wrist, wondering how anything can ever smell like this.
Where am I going with this story? Well, just as luck would have it, this decant came in the mail, leaking. The cap cracked for some reason, and some of the perfume collected between the cap and the decant atomizer, threatening to leak out any time (in fact, as I typed this, it did, and I had to catch some of it by applying to my arms, hoping it wouldn't clash with the perfume I was already wearing today). On the other hand, its companion decant, another one of L'Artisan's fragrances, arrived safely and unharmed. (The seller really did a crappy job of packaging this, wrapping them in nothing more than pieces of paper and throwing them into the box without any padding whatsoever.)
I was so happy. But now I could weep, and they won't be tears of joy.
There should be a law against gardeners working at 8:00 am on a Saturday morning. With leaf-blowers. Especially in a residential area full of students. Graduate students, at that.
After a night of insomnia, which has been an usual occurrence as of late, I wasn't very happy to be woken up at 8, just when my body had finally decided to calm down and let me rest. I've never been one to fall asleep right away, unless I'm dead tired, but it has been getting a little frustrating - half hour to an hour or more of wide awakeness, a racing mind and a racing heart. It's not like I'm on caffeine, either. Stress perhaps?
Yet another beautiful day, and yet another day inside the library.
Random thoughts of the day:
When I feel sleepy, I'm easily distracted. I'm often easily distracted. Logic and the LSAT will tell you that doesn't equal to "I often feel sleepy," but that sure holds true for me.
I am afraid I will fail my income tax class. Why are we expected to calculate things like CPAs do anyway?! If I had wanted to be one, I would be with H&R Block right now.
I want to go outside and play.
That iPod mini is seriously tempting me, but I am trying my utmost to resist getting it until I'm at least finished with finals. Or else, I probably would be playing with it when I shouldn't. I don't care if my Batman factor is low.
I found a place in town that sells bubble tea. When will I walk over to get one, I don't know.
I have no motivation whatsoever to think about ethics right now.
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy opens next Friday. I desperately want to see this but also desperately cannot, as it will be right before my finals. But I want the movie to do well at the box office, so I encourage y'all who will have the time and means to please go and see this. And, the story is so great you would want to see this. Alternatively, if you haven't already, pick up the book ("trilogy in 5 parts") and begin reading it. It's one of the few books out there that made me laugh out loud while reading it, and most of the time I was on the bus.
Current movie backlog:
- "The Chorus"
- "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"
- (Maybe "Kung Fu Hustle" too)
Soon to add:
- SW Episode III
"It's Bouquet, B U C K E T!"
After some struggle with a particular rewards site, I'm very happy to report that I've just redeemed most of my reward points for "Keeping Up Appearances: The Full Bouquet Set"!
Turned out there was some sort of glitch with my account, and for some reason, I thought I didn't have enough points, but I actually had 400 points over. Yes, I waited a long time for those little points to accrue, but in the end, getting a $130 set ($97 on Amazon) + shipping for free can't be a bad deal.
Now I can enjoy all 8 seasons of Hyacinth and her upperclass poser snobbishness. The UK and I are doing very well today.
UK to host Star Wars marathon
"London, England (Hollywood Reporter) - Lucasfilm & 20th Century Fox said Tuesday that they will unspool all six episodes of the Star Wars saga back-to-back for the frist time May 16 in London's Leicester Square."
*drool* How I'd love to be able to attend a marathon like that. Doing it in London would be even better! I know just the place to grab pastries and food and bring it into the theatre.
