GM, Ford, Chrysler - HAHA this sums it all up!

Weekend at 南庄

There's really only two major attraction areas in Miaoli, and we went to one of them over the weekend: 南庄. There's not much to do there - we went to 南庄老街, 東江溫泉, 向天湖, and 神仙谷. Those are basically the major attractions there.

I think 內灣 beats 南庄老街 any day, and that 靜心湖 beats 向天湖 any day.

There was one good thing though: the stars. At 12/7 1am, I saw the most sparkling star-filled sky in my whole life. If only that could be captured by my camera.

I heard there's gonna be another episode of shooting stars sometime mid-December!

THE INTERNATIONAL COUNCIL OF MAN LAWS

WAHAHAHA... this is so hilarious.

====================================================

THE INTERNATIONAL COUNCIL OF MAN LAWS

1: Under no circumstances may two men share an umbrella.

2: It is OK for a man to cry ONLY under the following circumstances:

(a) When a heroic dog dies to save its master.

(b) The moment Angelina Jolie starts unbuttoning her blouse.

(c) After wrecking your boss's car.

(d) When she is using her teeth.

3: Any man who brings a camera to a stag night may be legally
killed and eaten by his friends.

4: If you've known a guy for more than 24 hours, his sister is off
limits forever unless you actually marry her.

5: Moaning about the brand of free beer in a mate's fridge is
forbidden. However, complain at will if the temperature is
unsuitable.

6: No man shall ever be required to buy a birthday present for
another man. In fact, even remembering your mate's birthday is
strictly optional. At that point, you must celebrate at a strip bar
of the birthday boy's choice.

7: In the mini-bus, the strongest bladder determines pit stops, not
the weakest.

8: When stumbling upon other blokes watching a sporting event, you
may ask the score of the game in progress, but you may never ask
who's playing.

9: You may fart in front of a woman only after you have brought her
to climax. If you trap her head under the covers for the purpose of
flatulent entertainment (commonly known as a Dutch oven) she's
officially your girlfriend.

10: It is permissible to drink a fruity alcohol drink only when
you're sunning on a tropical beach ... and it's delivered by a
topless model and only when it's free.

11: Only in situations of moral and/or physical peril are you
allowed to kick another guy in the nuts.

12: Unless you're in prison, never fight naked.

13: Friends don't let friends wear speedos. Ever. Issue closed.

14: If a man's fly is down, that's his problem, you didn't see
anything.

15: Women who claim they "love to watch sports" must be treated as
spies until they demonstrate knowledge of the game and the ability
to drink as much as the other sports watchers.

16: A man in the company of a hot, suggestively dressed woman must
remain sober enough to fight.

17: Never hesitate to reach for the last beer or the last slice of
pizza, but not both, that's just greedy.

21: Never allow a telephone conversation with a woman to go on
longer than you are able to have sex with her. Keep a stopwatch by
the phone. Hang up if necessary.

22: The morning after you and a girl who was formerly "just a
friend"€� have carnal, drunken monkey sex, the fact that you're
feeling weird and guilty is no reason for you not to nail each
other again before the discussion occurs about what a big mistake
it was.

23: It is acceptable for you to drive her car. It is not acceptable
for her to drive yours.

24: Thou shall not buy a car in the colours of brown, pink, lime
green, orange, or sky blue.

25: The girl who replies to the question "What do you want for
Christmas ?" with "If you loved me, you'd know what I want !" gets
an Xbox 360. End of story.

26: There is no reason for guys to watch ice skating or men's
gymnastics. Ever.

27: We've all heard about people having guts or balls ... but do
you really know the difference between them ? In an effort to keep
you informed, the definition of each is listed below:

"GUTS" is arriving home late after a night out with the guys, being
assaulted by your wife with a broom, and having the guts to say,
"Are you still cleaning or are you flying somewhere ?"

"BALLS"� is coming home late after a night out with the guys
smelling of perfume and beer, lipstick on your collar, slapping
your wife square on the ass and having the balls to say, "You're
next, fatty !"

I hope this clears up any confusion,

The International Council of Man Laws.

====================================================

Vote for your favorite LAW! Mine is #25. :D

I'm sure there's an international council of WOMAN LAWS somewhere too ... maybe it'll show up on another blog somewhere.

There are still good people in this world.

Yesterday after my Peach Blossoms presentation, I went to 17km sea shore with a couple of friends to watch the meteor shower. Somehow, I forgot that I had my USB in my pocket, which decided to fall out while I was lying on the grass gazing at the stars.

I didn't even notice that my USB was gone until I received a call from Linda. Apparently, a guy from 元培科技大學 found it and called Linda (I had the IMBA contact list inside, and I guess he chose the most attractive name to call). Linda smartly figured out that it was my USB.

Anyways, I got my USB back! I told him that he could contact me if he ever needed anything (聯誼 .. etc).


P.S. The meteor shower wasn't visible - too many clouds. Geez.

Saving the singles population

Tonight, I will present to everyone how we plan to save the singles population.

Interested?

6:30pm @ 903 TSMC

alcohol tolerance

Having too good of it is not always a good thing ...

Still, hangovers suck. It seems easier for me to get one nowadays.

Sharp Darts

For Halloween, we went to this newly-opened bar called SharpDarts (opened by my friend Juliet's brother). You guessed it ... it specializes in DARTS. I held a dart for the first time in my life yesterday. Heh, I sucked. I wasn't bad at hitting the target, but my darts were always at an angle such that it bounced off instead of sticking. They had different dart games of different levels. The overall atmosphere was pretty good. 100nt Blue Girl was nice too, especially for a bar in Taipei.

Okay, off to comedy show again today! And tomorrow, I'm gonna meet my high school friend.

Comedy Club, Hypnosis Show, Canoeing

Eventful weekend.

I went to the Comedy Club for the first time and saw a Hypnosis Show, except that nobody got successfully hypnotized. What a pity ... I was expecting some funny stuff to happen.

In order to get hypnotized, one needs to "want" to be hypnotized. Some people are "highly hypnotizable", while some are not. Heh... I could never do it ... I am too logical.


I went underneath the 大直橋 for canoeing on Sunday. They only let us canoe in a small area, but it was a good change of event.

Ah ... time to add to the Marketing Project.

Swing Dance

I went to this Swing Dance event in Taipei today. The last time I did Swing Dance was ummm... 8 years ago, when I was a sophomore in college. I love the music, and I love the dance. Too bad we only learned a little bit today. For some reason, I soak in the moves really quickly and I'm always wanting to learn more moves.

Dancing makes me free, and makes me forget about the "trouble", at least temporarily.

Ah... so first Salsa, then Tango, and now Swing. More and more dances are imported to Taiwan. ;)

I wonder when there will be a Swing community in Hsinchu?

"Nine" Village (九族文化村)

This weekend, I went to 九族文化村 with 3 other friends (I was the driver, of course). It was my first time there. It's basically a cultural/amusement park. We checked out each of the nine original Taiwanese tribes and enjoyed some performances. I'm no expert, so they all look the same to me. There are like 4 or 5 amusement park rides that has nothing to do with the 9 tribes, so I have no idea why they are there... maybe they want to position themselves like Leofoo village or something. Maybe that way they can charge 700nt. But from a marketing perspective, they seem to be losing their focus. The parking lot is basically empty. I think it's a place no one likes to go the 2nd time.

By the way, my car keys flew outta my pocket during one of the rides. Heh... had a scare there!

Funny cartoon

Hehe ...

Sad day at the stock market

My TSMC is only 44.95 now.
I knew I had a bad feeling when my broker advised me to buy at 48.2 ><><

Fuck.. not again!

Ok fucking A.

My car got towed again.

3RD FUCKING TIME this MONTH!

FUCK!

You think I'm fucking rich or something?

That's 7000nt spent this month on parking tickets.


Last time was cuz they suddenly decided to do construction near where I parked. But THIS time?? That car never got in the way of anybody! Oh, except for maybe "SIPlove". God, if it was THEM who towed my car, I'm gonna startup a company and put them outta business.


(the above was written @ 1am under a lot of stress. Kindly excuse the language.)

Too much shit.

Imagine you're an owner of a shop, and all of your employees decided to suddenly quit at the same time and all of a sudden you might need to close the store.

Right at the busiest month.

Pretty fucking good timing.


Ok that's not my case, but I think it's a pretty good analogy.


All these shit happening and there's no one I can tell.

TSMC: sold for 49.9

Minus the transaction fees ... I was left with 49.68. But still good for a 2580nt profit (something like that).

Dinosaurs

In Taiwan, we call really ugly girls "恐龍" (dinosaurs).

Still hurting from the breakup, I decided to go on Skype and chat some gals out. That afternoon, I decided to meet one of them.

I've met more than 50 gals from the internet throughout my lifetime ... this one gotta be top 5 in terms of dinosaurs.

But really friendly girl. A nice personality.

My first 24 hours of owning a stock

My first 24 hours of owning a stock, I've lost 1000nt.
C'mon ... go back up ...

Toyota Vios: Top speed = 165km/h

Hsinchu -> Banchiao: 28 minutes. Record time.

I was driving 140~150km/h most of the way though.

I only went below 140km/h for tolls and police cars.

Hon Hai (Foxconn)

Hon Hai fell to 92.2. Record low in 11 years.

I remember it was like, 300+ just last year.

Ai... my former company ...

My poor colleagues who didn't sell their stocks last year when they received 'em must be kicking themselves right now.

A point to ponder

Why ... do all the cute girls sit together, and all the ugly girls sit together?

This becomes more apparent as you goto a class with 100+ students.

Stock Market

I bought a stock! I bought a stock!

My first stock of my life!

It is 台積電 (TSMC)!

According to my broker, I bought it at 47.1. Let's see what happens. :)

Stuffed Myself

This afternoon, I went into Springclub to ask a few questions about their dating service (gee, 180 degree attitude change as soon as they knew I wasn't gonna buy anything), then grabbed a quick lunch at a nearby Burger King.

When I came out ...

MY CAR GOT TOWED!! Gosh, I was away for less than 1 hour!!

2200nt byebye.

I got no income now. This hurts.


Hurts so much that I decided to comfort myself by stuffing myself (hence my tummy).

Gorden Biersch. By Warner Bros theaters at the Hsin-yi area. Awesome restaurant. Really good Pepperoni/Sausage Pizza, Chicken Ceasar Salad, 10-oz juicy bacon cheeseburgers. (yep, I stuffed all of them into my tummy).

Not to mention a huge glass of German beer. Oh so yummy.

Now I'm too full to sleep.

Damn ... so full.

Guess I'll use this time to organize my findings into a nice excel file.

Taiwanese guys looking for love gotta deal with ...

Been doing competitor analysis most of this weekend.

The match-making company lov*fr**nd99 has really bad service! After looking at their webpage, I still had some questions, so I filled in their QA form with my questions. Guess what their reply was?

NOTHING. Just their company's webpage & phone #.

WTF!

I emailed back telling them that they did not answer my question.

Then they emailed back a whole tirade. Geez, such attitude!

I can't say their name out loud here, cuz they might take action against me. I've found quite a few negative feedback on them already - those are the posts that they haven't managed to DELETE yet from yahoo knowledge. I wonder how they got the power to delete other people's posts. I've heard rumors that they've taken action against those who have written negatively against them. Gee, a tyrant who doesn't give a shit about their customers.

This is what the poor taiwanese guys looking for love have to deal with now.

Gosh, they sooo need us.

Market Research

Gosh, I've been looking for the answer to a simple question, and after a few hours, I still can't find the answer! I just want to know: Who are the #2 and #3 players in the GPS Asian market. Google has tons of information on Europe and USA, but nothing on Asia! (well, there are some, but we gotta pay like $2000 USD for each article). If I become a marketing professional in the future, how in the world am I going to do market research without spending a fortune?

Those poor guys ...

Was up till 4am yesterday looking up competitor analysis. Damn ... more competitors than I had imagined, and doing more similar things than I had imagined. It's ok... I see problems in each of them. I spent all night going into each of their specifics, and I found complaints for each. If I were their customer, would I be 100% happy, or what would I wish be changed?

Don't worry, ours is gonna blow them out. :)

I sincerely believe we can do better for those poor guys, and deliver better results.

Now ... just need a way to let them know that ...

BBS PTT

The BBS PTT system ... anyone ever used it before?

A bitch to register for, and a bitch and a half to use.

2nd week of class

I wouldn't say that I'm "really busy" now (compared to what I'm used to), but I'm not exactly "free" either. I still find myself working till midnights on some weeknights.

AND ... I haven't done anything for 4 out of my 6 classes yet! (Yep, the two marketing classes have kept me busy till now.) It'll be interesting what kind of state I'll be in once the loadings from the other classes come piling in.

It's a good thing grades don't concern me that much anymore compared to before ... otherwise I might have a nervous breakdown then. Focus on the projects ... screw the exams. (stats/finance/econ... I still love u guys!)

Cape No 7

The movie "Cape No 7" (海角七號) is all the rage now.
Such a rage that I actually went to see it last Sunday.

When you get your hopes too high, it's easy to get disappointed.

Have you guys seen that movie? What do you think?

Sheng-Hsing Train Station

Last Saturday, I went to Sheng-Hsing train station with my friends. That train station, no longer in service anymore, is said to be the highest train station in the whole west coast. It is now a tourist site in Miaoli county. People say I'm Taiwanese ... yet there are still so many places I have yet to visit in Taiwan.

They have a long & dark tunnel there. It's a good place to bring your date there. ;)

Goodbye, Foxconn. Hello, Tsinghua!

Today (actually, yesterday .. it's past midnight) was my last day at Foxconn. I went in, cleaned out my desk, ran the necessary procedures ... said my goodbyes to everyone. After two full years at Foxconn and thousands of hours of my life poured in, it's finally time to say goodbye and to move on to the next chapter of my life.

Foxconn has brought me a lot of experiences. I started out just as a test engineer for a cell phone model (Nokia 1325), to being in charge of a whole section of hardware of a smart phone (including component selection, design, layout, testing, debugging...etc), to being project manager of a GPS device. I've worked on cell phones and GPS devices, took on roles as engineer and PM, and have had experiences working in Hsinchu, Taipei, Shenzhen, and Shanghai, while attaining experiences working with both vendors and customers.

Mixed feelings. I'll miss the work life, but it's definitely time to move on. This is my first week at Tsinghua, and already I've met loads of cool people. Hello, Tsinghua!

Hello Everybody

This is Jeffrey. Nice to meet all of you.