January 2008 Archives
Edit (2008-02-08): The Spring Scream organization just released their 2008 website today, partly finished. You can actually explore the directory listing, as they forgot to put a index.html file...
Spring Scream is a rock, anything-but-Mandopop, music festival in the resort town of Kenting at the south-most tip of Taiwan. Held since 1995, and according to many English-language publications from Taiwan, it is the festival that was held for the longest in consecutive years on the island of Formosa.
Official dates haven't been announced yet, but the festival's official MySpace says that it should be on April 3-6 (the 3rd had a question mark), which is the "Ching Ming" (tomb-sweeping day) long weekend across Greater China. This year is the year of the rat, so Spring Scream will "Double Rat" for its 14th edition. Last year, two Canadian bands were on the list of attendees, Girl + The Machine and Rhythmicru, both from Toronto. In total, there were about 250 bands / artists attending Spring Scream, including the more "general public" Cheer Chen, Faith Yang, Tizzybac and Dessert Chang.
According to some site that I found, tickets last year were in pre-sale as soon as February 18th, and the second sale period had tickets listed at NT1300 (CAD40) for the entire festival, and NT600 (CAD20) for one day, one venue. The location of the festival is the Eluanbi ("some mystical duck nose") Lighthouse.
The hardest so far in preparing to go was accommodation in Kenting. Presuming that this is an isolated town (the closest major city, Kaohsiung, being 2h30 away in bus), it shouldn't be easy to find anything cheap. I called the Kenting Youth Hostel aka Activity Center (infamously linked to this), and they had room now (despite the YH-affiliated website saying they did not). It is NT3500 (CAD100) for a double bed room, which is ok if you share, but prohibitive if you are backpacking alone. A surfing website listed guesthouses for surfers that asked for a little less. I've read somewhere that camping in the Kenting National Park would be possible at a minimal fee...
(Updated map 2008-02-27: Apparently, I had the wrong location... This is a map prepared by Jimi of the Spring Scream festival - see original)
9th in a row for the Habs, against the poor Bruins... This picture shows the second of eight goals (Ryder - Koivu and Streit) by the Canadiens tonight in what would be a scoring fest.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/smurfmatic/sets/72157603781627501/
Clinched the interview with Simon in 3.5 hours. Who said that Q&As were easier? I wanted to cut down from what I've written down, but the editorial board (me) thinks that all parts are needed to illustrate Simon's multi-talented nature. We talk about un-conferences, Being Chinese (tm), Go, Shenzhen, sex-based stereotypes of Asians, and Toronto versus Montreal.
In any case, do read Comme les Chinois, and you may show your appreciation by linking back, if you did not do it already! Thank you!
I had the brilliant idea to get beets at the supermarket, thinking that I could pull something Eastern European. But what do you do, when your roots (ha-ha) are elsewhere and that there is no such tradition for this in your family, besides your parents? Improvise. Just imagine what the Eastern European would be doing, and that would be imagining them cutting some beets, boiling them in water and broth with onions. Then, after simmering the thing for a couple of hours, get a bowl of it, and throw / mix in some sour cream.
Verdict? Not that great.
Ben, c'est ça, mes collègues de la production info ont travaillé bien fort et ont livré aujourd'hui la toute nouvelle Zone Audio-Vidéo complètement redessinée. Véritable solution faite maison, avec un mélange savant de Javascript, Flash (ou Silverlight sur Windows) et de vidéo embeddée non-FLV (aucun scoop là-dedans).
J'ai testé live sur ma Linux, et ça marchait plutôt bien, malgré des interruptions non-reliées à la console, mais plutôt au plugin déficient de mplayer pour mozilla. Les plugins Xine et Totem pour mozilla vont bien aussi, mais ne montreront pas les contrôles supportés via Javascript par l'interface Flash (je ne sais pas si elles s'interrompent).
Si le plugin commence à lire, mais s'arrête immédiatement après une fraction de seconde, c'est qu'il y a eu un problème du côté de la request (pour ceux qui aiment fouiller, essayez d'accéder aux médias par telnet, et vous verrez). Il faut juste essayer de reloader le média et ça se peut que ça ne marche pas quelques fois consécutivement, mais il ne faut pas désespérer! Malheureusement (ça sera à corriger sûrement), si c'est un clip audio qui stalle, la barre d'état en Flash continuera de penser que la connection est en train de s'établir.
J'espère que cet article ne sera plus le plus populaire de ce site!
In English: new release of the Audio-Video Zone. Great job of hybridizing javascript, Flash (or Silverlight) and embedded video together.
Check out Radio-Canada International's Chinese-language channel (has a web radio). They are going to put some of my CDs on air! :)
I finished compiling pictures of my 2005 trip to Japan, and this is what it gives:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/smurfmatic/sets/776813/
(Unfortunately, there is also almost 600 pictures to look at!)
Chinese indie really has me... This is apparently a whole sampler (https://www.harbourrecords.com/we_wish_you_an_indie_xmas.zip) put together by Hong Kong-based Harbour Records for last Christmas.
Update 2008-09-01: The link and playlist can no longer be found on Harbour Records' site, but the file is still there, and here is the playlist in Traditional Chinese:
01. A Company - Ferry, Bus and the Lorry
02. 22cats - waiting (demo)
03. the marshmallow kisses - a-la-pa-ti's demo
04. The Lee's - Wall of sound (War is over)
05. The Yours - Fat Is Selfish
06. my little airport -悲傷的採購(digilick remix)
07. mankitako -紀念冊
08.儉德大廈-慢慢的船
09. The Fragile - The First Day I Believe There Is An Angel
10. too long without sex -聖誕半裸派對
11. false alarm - so come home (too long without sex part 2)
12. Superday -限量之一枚
13. Relax pose (aka Lawwaiyip) -沒有目的的旅程
14. Alok - We Still Miss The Future (HK Version)
15. Hard Candy - Please lie to me, I don't mind
16.咖啡因公園-行雷閃電
17. Butterwings - Although We Know
18.生番-皆同(街童)
19. Elf Fatima - Party In A Cave
20. Wilson Tsang - Whale Song: Departure
This was a restaurant called La Shangrila that we went to in Lachine, corner of Notre-Dame and 25e Avenue. It's owned by Nepalese people (judging from the flags that they have inside). Check out this eclectic menu.
My father has been scanning slides recently and a couple of them were of Chinatown in 1984! I subsequently wrote articles for various web publications I contribute to, with historical background for the pictures: English / Français
My friend Fiona, a Chinese American now living in Beijing, started a new blog about the "gently offbeat in a decidedly uncute city". Check it out!