Sequel II: The Return

Fortunately we usually have an empty 2-litre bottle around, because Vanilla Coke tastes so fucking good. I wonder if Vanilla Coke would make an alright wasp bait. Fucking RAID... It's not even strong enough to kill the shit here in one blast. Even these smallish spiders who got caught in the crossfire were writhing around in pain. I tried to end their misery with an additonal spritz of the Deadly Neurotoxin, but they still didn't die immediately. Okay two spiders were incidental bystanders. One died because I was in a bad mood. I'm just fucking sick of sharing my space with a bunch of creepy crawly shit that gets everywhere. Mostly I hate anything small with a pain delivery mechanism which is in competition with me for my resources. For christ sake they have the whole fucking jungle outside! Why can'tI just have a little tin shack on a concrete block? I get my food from the store, not the trees and shit outside! Maybe if we both ate the same thing it would be a little more fair game. I'm not even sure if they do want anything we have. They seem more like they've become somehow trapped inside, to which I say then QUIT FUCKING COMING IN HERE. But they are really fuckin' stupid, so...ugh.

Anyway enough about the bugs (for now). I've been thinking, I don't know, actually wait. I haven't 'been thinking', I mean I have since yesterday but... Okay what I'm talking about is there was this awful ad for some online game- I'll finish talking about this later (if I remember), Sylvia's hungry. I'll bring the typewriter down and type while I cook (maybe - probably not).

Oh yeah. The computer's still broken, but since blogs are sort of a delayed reaction thing anyway, I realized I can blog from my typewriter and then just transcribe them at the WoW bar.
Of course this is getting a bit long for transscription. but whatever, maybe it'll go quickly. [Nope!]
The ground floor/basement/kitchen is a cooler temperature, but it's grungy as hell down here. And there is a B-12 Bomber of a fly down here frantically panicking in circles, as flies are known to do. Loud. Time to take the chicken goodness M___ made last night and hopefully cook the death out of it.
...
Well I feel silly. Not only did I not type while cooking, but now I have to go up the stairs twice, since I
[and then I ran out of page, got bored and wandered off. The rest is me in the WoW bar.]
I was going to say, since I brought the typewriter down, but I just put the plate on the typewriter and carried everything up.

The thought I abandoned before that was that there was an ad for something here and it was really ugly but something in it appealed to me, and I was trying to figure out what it was. I realized it was the sort of feral-looking central character. And then I realized I don't think I've ever put a character like that in anything, and now I want to.
Like a wildish...sort of guy. I don't know, like he lives in the wilderness and knows all kinds of animal things, like a shaman but with no village. He wears furs and has a knife made of some large animal's claw or something. I don't really know what he would go in, but it'd be cool I think.

And that made me realize that all my characters are different from each other, and then I was proud of myself. Yay. Anyway I'm done.

Snap! Snap-snap! Chika snap-snap-snap!

Taipei certainly has its charms. At present they are difficult to identify. I smell RAID strongly, because I just strongly RAIDed the area. I awoke at 7:00 AM feeling like writing anything and brought my typewriter out to the livingroom (a pathetic lie, our livingroom is merely the spartan interior of a tin shack or shed on top of a concrete rectangular building quite literally in the jungle. Even "interior" is a misnomer, as there is little barrier, effectively no barrier quite frequently, between ourselves and the wilderness which is ostensibly "outside.") to find not the two or three skinny black wasps [which I actually now believe to be Queen Ant potentials, searching for a suitable place to foster a new colony] which have become standard, but rather something like seven of them.

So here I sit, RAID burning my throat slightly, typing here on the couch occasionally harried by one single wasp who evidently escaped my chemical wrath. It doesn't seem especially bothered by the residual RAID floating in the humid air, but I'm starting to get a soar throat.
What a joke.

Among things I will enjoy about living back in the North American Northwest are less fucking bugs up in my biznass. It's kind of retarded that this is my experience of Taiwan, considering that before I knew anything factual about this place, this is sort of how I assumed everyone here lived. In truth, it's just me. Most other people seem to live in places where doors close all the way, windws seal out both element and competing life forms, electricity and water function reliably, and temperature of living space is adjustable to preference of comfort. We have none of those luxuries, but then we're kind of living for free here. Mssr. M isn't, he's been paying rent for some time, and I can't imagine living here at the expense of money.

Now there are two wasps [large flying ant queens?]. This is seriously fucking stupid. I think I will reattempt a homemade trap. This failed previously, but was targeting a different breed. I am thankful that these creatures harry us one species at a time, I guess? This trap idea would probably work better if I knew what the little assholes liked, or were searching for.
Last time, as bait, I tried honey. This time I'll try fruit sugar syrup. I think meat or something savory might work better, but since this was easier (and less stinky) I thought I'd give it a shot first.
Also I maye be cutting the funnel part of the trap too short...

[To be continued. My hour's up at the WoW bar. I'll transcribe the other side of the page at a later date.]

Bee.

This was in our livingroom. I RAIDed it so hard we had to leave the window open with a fan on for three days for it to air out.

Click the image to view the full-size photograph for detail.

I placed the lighter there for scale, it's a normal disposable lighter like you'd get at any convenience store checkout. If you have a lighter handy, I'd like you to look at it for a moment, and look back at this picture.

THAT WAS FLYING AROUND OUR HOUSE. I came upstairs, walked through the doorway and dodged something huge and black flying at my face. After getting clear to the other side of the room, I got my back to a wall, and looked back into the room. For a moment I saw nothing, and it sounded like there was a helicopter flying by the mountain. Then I saw it flying around. It flew heavily, sluggishly. It didn't seem able to change directions quickly, and elevation appeared laborious. Still, it could fly forward with some speed, and I was wary of its position until we decided what to do about it, which was, of course, to murder it quickly. While we were deliberating, it sounded as though someone were mowing their lawn nearby. It was this thing.

At first it was recuperating on the ceiling, which is pretty high in this room, so I couldn't really reach it with the RAID until Mark knocked it down with a broom, at which point I pressed the button at point blank range and just held it down until the creature stopped moving. Which took awhile. Like ten seconds or something. Slow, mississippi-counting seconds.
I actually stopped before it did, because it was drenched in deadly neurotoxin and wallowing in a puddle of it. I had a facemask on, by the way, 'cause fuck that.
It struggled for a few more long seconds, then finally slowed down, settled, and then STOOD UP, STRETCHED ITS WINGS, and then fell over and curled into the dead-insect position seen in the photo.

Chinese New Year is coming up, which means the next two weeks will be partytime for Taipei apparently. So we went shopping to prepare for a few days of everything being closed.

我的 太太 recently rediscovered our Lonely Planet: Taiwan book, and she and I have decided we need to go to a hotspring. Like soon. Like now.

I'll be subbing or M when he leaves for Europe for February, and after that I hope to implore the boss there for a permanent position if she has one available. Failing that, M may find someplace else to work, sticking the boss at Hart with me whether she likes it or not, but that's all about money and that's boring.

The gift collection for our homies is quite nice by now. I'm looking forward to sending it all. I hope everyone likes their weird crap we got them.

The other day I brought the puppies some food because I want them to grow up all adorable and genki like the adult dogs who bounce around us in circles whenever we leave the house, instead of all scared and skittish like the other ones who flee when we so much as look at them.

OKAY. THIS COUNTRY REFUSES TO ACKNOWLEDGE VINEGAR. We cannot find a fucking pickle in any grocery store we've been to. We find things that claim to be pickles, oh yes! But pickles THEY ARE NOT. They may, perhaps, be "pickled" in the technical definition. But they are SWEET to the taste! Sweet! A pickle is not a candy bar, it is not something children clamor for on All Hallow's Eve. It is a fucking vinegar-and-garlic flavor party and I want a goddamn invitation. I AM ON THE GUEST LIST. Also no pizza.

We got some olives though. They're not like...Mediteranean gourmet blow-your-face-off stuffed with feta and garlic, but they are vingary and they taste good.