Jason's friend, 'Dash', with his mum and dad

It always makes me smile when I see couples or families wearing the same clothes. There's something irresistibly - I hesitate to use the word - cute about it. It's as if they want to show that they really belong together...awwww! I think also it's because it reminds me somewhat of The Royal Tenenbaums.


'Dash' enjoying a day out with his parents.



[The Royal Tenenbaums]

Back garden make-over

A big thank you to brother-in-law Yi-long for helping us do the back garden. It was constantly overgrown with weeds and we have neither the time or the inclination to make something of it so the landlord suggested we get someone to pave it over with bricks. The prices we were quoted were ridiculous so Yi-long volunteered to roll up his sleeves and do the job himself. He studies all day so he said he was glad to have the chance to work up a sweat doing something useful. Honestly, I had no desire to do the Bob the Builder thing. I've hacked back the vegetation on many previous occasions and I can tell you it's not much fun, so again, many thanks to the hero of the day, Yi-long.

Win friends and influence people with this (KMT) party trick

The three return visitors that this blog gets every single day (hi mum) sometimes complain that my posts are not intellectual enough, so today I thought I'd talk about Chinese political history.

Oct. 10, 1911: The Wu-Chang Uprising leads to the establishment of the Republic of China. Sun Yat Sen gets to be its Provisional President.


Feb.15, 1912: Sun Yat Sen's rival, Yuan Shikai, replaces him as Provisional President.

OMEN

Check out this incredible street art by Omen, Taichung's answer to the renowned graffiti artist Banksy.
Thanks to Paul over at Tagging Taichung for giving me directions. Basically, you follow the river opposite Mitsukoshi for about two blocks until you hit Xi-tun Rd. It's on the corner in a car park.









Some rather excellent Banksy links:

1. Wooster Collective:
Banksy Hits New York's Most Famous Museums (All of them)

2. The Afflicted Yard: Just Who The F**k Is Banksy?

3. The Guardian Unlimited: Banksy at the West Bank barrier

4. Obligatory Wikipedia reference: Banksy

Finally, Pictures on Walls lists a great selection of Street Art sites on its links page.

"無米樂": a rice coincidence

This is quite a coincidence. After taking my urban rice paddy night shots I was wondering about how much rice farmers in Taiwan actually make. The next day, unbeknownst to me, Kelly rented "無米樂" {Let It Be), a fascinating DVD documentary about rice farmers in Taiwan (Blockbuster link here). It followed a 70-year-old farmer over a period of about a year. He got about NT$70,000 for five months work. If his crop is ever spoiled by heavy rain he gets nothing.

Alice's Ireland holiday

Alice and hubby Mark went to Ireland for a week's holiday. I'm jealous, as I always am when I hear about someone's fantastic holiday.

That pint of Murphy's looks incredible, Mark.

Oh and check out Alice's 'puddink' blog. I persuaded her that Yahoo 360 was crap and that Blogger was a much better place for her to share photos and 'things'.

Dreamy Lucas

I think this is a lovely shot of Lucas. I cropped and played around with a B&W filter to get the best effect. You should be able to spot the original colour version in one of the collages I did. I think you'll agree that this B&W version is so much nicer.

Urban rice field

I love coming across these little pockets of green nestled in amongst the chaotic jumble of shops and residential buildings.

Does one farmer own a whole string of these small plots or are they individually owned? Is the government subsidising them to grow not much rice for very little in return? Could be a zoning regulation thing. Maybe the farmer actually rents it from someone who isn't allowed to do anything else with it. Don't know.

Anyway, can't decide which of these is better so I'll put them both up.

"In the darkling hour..."

Right after returning a DVD to BlockyB's, we got into the car and I paused to take a picture of the paddy field we'd parked next to. (That came out pretty well too - show you later.) The car's interior light turned off so Jason resorted to using the light on his newly acquired pedometer. Kelly says this photo is creepy. I prefer "eerily effective".

Ouch!

Lucas had an appointment with the end of a sharp needle on Thursday morning last week. This was his T.B. shot. Surprisingly, he only cried for about two seconds then he was all smiles!

Those wacky Japanese

...gotta get me one o'these.

Lucas tries on Jason's hand-me-down bonnet

I'll see if I can get one when he's awake, not crying, and not drinking milk - a surprisingly small window. I took a great pic of Jason in his bonnet when he was about 6 months old. We got it printed on a cloth calendar. It's buried in a dusty box somewhere. If I have time I'll try to find it.

What is wrong with this picture? (part 1)

......apart from 'a lot'.



[from a children's picture dictionary in Taiwan called First Dictionary.]

Man, these big spiders freak me out

I know they're harmless but they give me the creeps. They're huge for a start and they can run very fast. I know because there was one in the house once and I tried to whack it with a slipper. I missed and it hid for three nail-biting days.
It finally appeared in the bathroom so I sprayed it with half a can of roach spray and pounded it with a sturdy shoe. I like Mother Nature's wondrous creatures, just not in my house, not under my bed and definitely not under the toilet lid in the bathroom !

The Onion | Evangelical Scientists Refute Gravity With New 'Intelligent Falling' Theory

The Onion | Evangelical Scientists Refute Gravity With New 'Intelligent Falling' Theory: "As the debate over the teaching of evolution in public schools continues, a new controversy over the science curriculum arose Monday in this embattled Midwestern state. Scientists from the Evangelical Center For Faith-Based Reasoning are now asserting that the long-held 'theory of gravity' is flawed, and they have responded to it with a new theory of Intelligent Falling."

Oops, I think you mean 'Power Rangers'

Jason was watching Power Rangers and I noticed that 'Rangers' had been spelled 'Bangers' - tee hee.

Butterflies and rainbows

I asked Jason to write an essay on the limitations of verisimilitude in Art. Without saying a word he went away and produced these lovely pictures, which are part of a series. I gave him an A+ !

It's been DAYS since I last posted a Lucas pic - that will never do!

Lucas is plumping up quite nicely as you can see.

Hilarious comments about the US Chess Federation Homepage

Just had to blog this. It really made me laugh:

The Daily Dirt Chess Blog: USCF Homepage:

"If you are nostalgic for the early days of the internet, back when web pages were mostly poorly formatted text with ill-fitting photos pasted in, you're in for a treat. The US Chess Federation has put up a new homepage. [I've mirrored it here for when they mercifully take it down. For the full retro experience, view the page using Netscape 2.0.] I assumed it had been put together by someone's seven-year-old niece, but the tags actually say 'Authors: Mike Nolan; K.R. Sloan'. (They also say 'demo' so I have no idea why it's live online.) This isn't a web page, it's a cry for help.

Just because everyone CAN make a website these days doesn't mean everyone should, especially if it's for a large organization and not, say, vacation snapshots. There is something to be said for splash pages and simplicity, but good design and navigation can overcome them. I don't expect everyone at the USCF to be a professional web designer. But I would expect that a few of them have actually surfed the web. Things just don't look like this anymore, with good reason."

Tasteless humour - on a Sunday as well

I've been extra busy so you'll have to make do with this bad taste joke from thepbf.com.

Flickr fun

IMG_1501
Originally uploaded by alidarbac.

I've been having a lot of fun over the past few days playing around on the Flickr site. It's a blast. There are so many superb photos to browse.

Flickr is constantly adding great features. I love the Explore page. For instance, you can explore the most interesting photos from the past 24 hours.

I'm always happy when people put comments on my photos and of course it's always gratifying when others add one of my photos into their favorites collection.
Here are my favourites. I've been adding several a day so far - there are just so many awesome pictures.

DSC_4627
Originally uploaded by junku.

Chubby cherub

If only you could have heard the way he was noisily slurping and chomping on his arm.

chubby cherub
Originally uploaded by Naruwan.

Face transformer image upload

Face transformer image upload:

The four pictures - a white, a black, an East Asian and a West Asian - are actually the same woman. If you try this yourself, it's better to use an image which is straight and facing the camera otherwise it looks very weird, horrible actually.

I did a Modigliani version of myself but for some reason it wouldn't let me save the final image to disk. Maybe you'll have better luck.

By the way, I have a handful of new pics up at Flickr. Some repeats from my Yahoo Photo albums if you've seen those before. I have some really great pics of Lucas for tomorrow.

She sells seashells...

This is from last week. We went to have lunch at a restaurant that we often go to but it was closed so we ended up in this place. Great decorations but sadly the food was pretty awful.

I loved the tabletops which were glass cases containing real seashells and other littoral bits and bobs.

Lucas and Kelly's mum

Kelly's mum and dad came down for the day. Everyone took turns carrying Lucas around the house. He seemed to really like it. I don't think I heard him cry all afternoon.




Later on Kelly, Jason and I took Ah-gong, Yi-long and Joe, who had also popped up from Tainan, to the nearby Japanese restaurant for snacks and a few beers. K's mum stayed at home with Lucas who was sleeping off a bellyful of milk. Here we see Yi-long indulging in some sake.

Vivian welcomes foreigners to Taiwan

I found this picture on a blogspot blog called freedomslopes. It's the cover of a free map of Taipei for foreign visitors that is available in hotels around the city. Vivian is a teen pop star. Alas, she seems blissfully unaware of what the English words on her T-shirt mean (dirty white slut). It projects a nice image of Taiwan, doesn't it?
Stupid, but funny!

No more 'interesting' food!

Kelly's month resting period is over even though she didn't really get that much rest! She is going back to work next week to do one day's teaching a week until September when she'll be back to a full schedule.

During Kelly's 'laying-in' period she was required to eat all manner of interesting food, which brings me to the picture shown here. Today's quiz – what meats are represented in the picture? All right, everyone knows what cooked liver looks like but what about those large white ovoids? Before I tell you the answer have a large paper bag at the ready.

No operation needed for now

Chung Shan Medical University Hospital turned out to be an unwelcoming labyrinth of poorly-lit, low-ceilinged corridors filled with assorted cripples, coughing children and their zombie relatives. That's probably how we appeared to others! I must admit I felt thankful for having opted to wear an N95 surgical mask. Kelly's mum came down for the day and accompanied us to the hospital.

I've never seen such a crowded waiting room. It took about forty-five minutes for the little red number above the doctor's door to turn from 1 to 6. Our number was 22. Kelly's mum went in and told the nurse that we didn't have enough milk powder to wait another hour so could we please jump the queue? Yes, we could! I wonder whether a study could be conducted to determine whether or not queue-jumping behaviour confers a selective advantage in homo sapiens . I digress.

The doctor said that Lucas need not have an operation right away because VUR (urinary reflux) is not life-threatening and there is no particular advantage in having an early operation as opposed to one at 12 months of age. Also, general anaesthesia in young newborns involves much greater risk than in older babies.
Dr. Hsu confirmed the Jen-Ai doctor's diagnosis that he has primary VUR but only grade 3-4 in the left kidney, not 4-5. It does mean though that Lucas can't get private medical insurance for the next two years or until he has a negative VCUG test.

Lucas will need to take antibiotics for up to a year so that the infection won't return. The reflux will continue until his tubes/valves have fully matured. Most cases resolve by themselves so there is a high chance that he won't need an operation. It was a great relief to hear that. So, antibiotics for one year followed by a repeat VCUG scan. Other than that he is fighting fit. He now weighs 4.7kg.

[For those of you who are wondering, the baby paint victim shown here has nothing to do with Lucas's medical condition! I stuck this pic in purely for your visual entertainment. I got it off one of those funny picture collections on the net.]

Grammar police

Air France jet tried to land and burst into flames:

"More than 300 passengers and crew have escaped death at Toronto airport after an Air France passenger jet skidded off the runway when trying to land and burst into flames."

Somehow I don't think the plane was trying to burst into flames. This is what being an editor does to you - you end up as a nerdy language pedant.

And on a completely unrelated note, please, all of you, do not beat children's handbasins. [This pic is stolen from a Taiwan blog called NiHowdy.]

Lucas home but not out of the woods

Lucas is home now which we are very happy about but his VCUG results were not good. He has grade 4 to 5 reflux (VUR) in his left kidney and grade 3 in the other. Grade 5 is the most severe and often, but not always, requires minor surgery. We are seeing a specialist at Chung Shan Medical University Hospital on Wednesday.

The image shown here is off the net but it looks something like Lucas's scan. Here's some information about VUR in Chinese: 膀胱輸尿管逆流

And here's what WebMD says about Vesicoureteral Reflux (VUR):

"Urine normally flows in one direction -- down from the kidneys, through tubes called ureters, to the bladder. Vesicoureteral reflux (VUR) is the abnormal flow of urine from the bladder back into the ureters.

VUR is most commonly diagnosed in infancy and childhood after the patient has a urinary tract infection (UTI). About one-third of children with UTI are found to have VUR. VUR can lead to infection because urine that remains in the child's urinary tract provides a place for bacteria to grow. But sometimes the infection itself is the cause of VUR.

There are two types of VUR. Primary VUR occurs when a child is born with an impaired valve where the ureter joins the bladder. This happens if the ureter did not grow long enough during the child's development in the womb. The valve does not close properly, so urine backs up (refluxes) from the bladder to the ureters, and eventually to the kidneys. This type of VUR can get better or disappear as the child gets older. The ureter gets longer as the child grows, which improves the function of the valve.

Secondary VUR occurs when there is a blockage anywhere in the urinary system. The blockage may be caused by an infection in the bladder that leads to swelling of the ureter. This also causes a reflux of urine to the kidneys.

Infection is the most common symptom of VUR. As the child gets older, other symptoms may appear, such as bedwetting, high blood pressure, protein in the urine, and kidney failure.

Common tests to show the presence of urinary tract infection include urine tests and cultures. Pictures of the urinary system (cystourogram) may then be needed to determine whether a defective structure in the urinary tract is the underlying cause of the VUR and infection.

The goal for treatment of VUR is to prevent any kidney damage from occurring. Infections should be treated at once with antibiotics to prevent the infection from moving into the kidneys. Antibiotic therapy usually corrects reflux caused by infection. Sometimes surgery is needed to correct primary VUR."