Come on, a laugh will do you good. ho ho click

今年「陰魂不散獎」，非天枰颱風莫屬。好了，可以走了吧！

Typhoon Tembin just won't go away. It's been nine days already. Enough!

晉永嘉年間，前趙高祖崩，太子劉和繼位，卻為其弟劉聰所弒，聰自立為昭武皇帝。
劉和曾派軍殺其弟北海王劉乂，由大將田密率軍，田密斬關投劉聰。
總而言之，覺得大將名「田密」不怎麼威武。
「報告長官，田密來了！」「不要那麼肉麻，好不好？」

RIP to Neil Armstrong, the first man on the moon.

I was a teenager at the time the Eagle landed. My mother was drafting for Geology at Caltech. We never had a television, so we watched Armstrong's first steps in Geology's Moon Lab, with the scientists who were scheduled to get the moon rocks. That was an experience to remember, although I didn't understand most of their arcane discussion about the rocks they were seeing in fuzzy black and white.

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See if you can read this without shaking your head or smiling.  click

近幾年商人很喜歡炒七夕為「中國情人節」，目的不外乎撈君口袋裏的鈔票。但七夕本來是情人節嗎？請參攷：here

Somehow, I am not in the least surprised to discover the breed of the culprit:::

>>The dog ate the money<<

白塔、白塔寺，我們外地人怎麼知道不同？我本想到元朝的白塔寺，看到地圖上有白塔，扗北海公園，就去了。後來才知道，白塔寺扗附近，但不一樣。

地圖上，從天安門西站過去就到了。下了地鐵….上了地鐵？地鐵扗地下，我到站離開車子往上走，我到底是下了地鐵或上了地鐵？真難搞。

好，再來。我到了天安門西站，從地鐵站走出，確認方向，放開步伐向北海公園走。走。走。路兩邊有樹，有圍牆，右邊大概是紫禁城，左邊是中南海吧？走。走。走。走了十幾分鐘，那條路彷彿無止境，我看到路名：南長街。不妙。再走走走，南長街變北長街，但還是看起來無止境。我太習慣嬌小的臺北市。走了半個小時才看到北海公園、看到白塔，美！

岸邊有船，一個小女孩賣力搖呀搖槳，船呢，如如不動。湖上石橋，橋下蓮花開。走過橋，登坡上白塔。過幾處寺院，樹上求願紅牌累累、喜氣洋洋，宣佈老毛已做古、極左歸正、共產只留下空殼。

走上白塔，俯視煤山、紫禁城。視線模糊，剛好，僅覽臨處古殿，不見遠方新樓，宛如身回明清。

降山半，到一亭台，拿出虜布(泰雅口簧琴)，俯瞰皇宮，彈了一曲。臺灣高山古樸美樂，難得到北京，尤其在紫禁城、天安門、人民大會堂頭上。嘻！

I wanted to visit the White Stupa, which dates back to the Mongol dynasty of Kublai Khan. It wasn't until later that I found out there are two White Stupas, and the one I spotted on the map was the newer one, which dates back to only 1651.

The new one is in the Beihai (North Sea) Park, near the Palace. On the map, it looked just down the street from the subway station, so I took the subway to the Tiananmen stop, got out, and started walking. After fifteen minutes, the end was nowhere in sight. Noticing that the name of the stret was South Long Street, I realized I was in for a stroll. I soon reached North Long Street, and after a half hour walk, finally spotted the White Stupa.

In the park is a sizeable lake, crossed by a bridge, which takes you to the foot of the hill. You climb the hill to reach the White Stupa. Don't bother to go if you don't like climbing steps, there are a lot.

It was a hazy day when I reached the top, which was just fine, because I could see the Palace and nearby complexes, but not much further. Poor visibility hid modern Beijing.

Coming down, I stopped at a pavilion and played the lubu (Tayal jaw harp), bringing Taiwan's high mountain music to a height above the emperors' palace, Tiananmen Square, and the Great Hall of the People.

 

楊三哥送我五棵樟樹苗、五棵杏樹苗。樟樹可以活千年、銀杏則千年以上；這是一份意義非凡的禮物。本來想好地方要將一棵樟種扗土裏，但今天打雷、下雨，所以暫且全種花盆。等大了再迻蒔山土。

Yang 3 gave me five camphor saplings and five ginkgo saplings. A camphor can grow over a thousand years, and a ginkgo even longer, so this is a mighty gift.

They are small. I was going to plant one out in the jungle this afternoon, but there was lightning and rain, so I planted them all in pots. When they are larger, and less likely to be trampled by wild dogs (we're not naming anybody in particular, so don't worry, Yumin and Byajing), I will plant them out on the mountain.

Did everybody forget to celebrate Napoleon's birthday yesterday?

七月廿一日下午，臺北車站上出現了龍頭。

A dragon head appeared over Taipei  Station, July 21.

Early on the morning of August 12.

Early on the morning of August 14.

and if you even start to talk about "end times" or Revelations,

you are invited to leave this blog.

This makes sense: to improve your memory, walk around. The human being evolved walking, not sitting at a desk.

Click: your desk is making you dumb.

今天最美的句子：「我常常忘記馬鈴薯的存扗。」
Today's most beautiful statement: "I often forget about the existence of potatoes."

前不久在後門外砍朽竹，才知道裏面有虎頭蜂巢。一隻飛出來叮我，我迅速後退就沒事。但問題是，朽竹在地上，離後門很近，蜂巢猶在。我太忙，暫時沒空處理，就放著，想過幾天再想辦法。聰明的Yumin，繞過去不靠近。到第三天，我看Yumin從朽竹旁走過，一看，巢也不見了，蜂也不見了，連螞蟻也找不到可以吃的。
請教鳥專家賴鵬智，他判斷應該是東方蜂鷹把整個叼走。很好，送給你們！

英語的牛說moo。
希伯來語的牛說געיה。
阿拉伯語的牛說تخور。
諾威語的牛說mø。
華語的牛說牟。
但是
操京片兒的牛兒說
牟兒。

一位大陸來臺的遊客說，「我以讀書的時候很恨蔣介石，我現在來臺灣，我更恨蔣介石。」
「為甚麼？」
「因為他沒有剿匪成功。」
A tourist from mainland China said, "When I was a student, I hated Chiang Kai Shek, but now that I've come to Taiwan, I hate him even more."
"Why?"
"Because he didn't exterminate the communists."

also

颱風把我們的水管弄斷了，所以昨天早上我與鄰居ㄈ先生順著水管到山裏去找問題出在哪裏。

這畢竟是雨林，有一段時間我們沒去，所以很難走，很容易迷路。烏來的自來水是自己找來的水，叢林裏水管很多，雜草更多，我們的水管扗哪裏，可真難找。我跟ㄈ先生說，你手機有導航的話，我們應該定點確認我們的水管扗哪裏，以後比較好找。

ㄈ先生說，我手機沒有導航，你的有嗎？

我說，當然沒有。沒關係，用人腦總比依賴科技好。

The typhoon severed our water pipes somewhere in the jungle, so I went with my neighbor, Mr F, to reconnect them.

Everything grows like crazy, and there are a lot of water pipes along the way. They get overgrown, covered up by debris, and mixed up with other pipes. We hadn't been up there for a while, so we got lost (naturally) and had trouble finding our pipe. I told Mr F, If you had GPS on your phone, we could fix the coordinates for our pipe so we could find it easier.

He said, I don't have GPS on my cell phone. Do you?

I said, Of course not. Never mind, it's always better to use your wits than to rely on technology.

"When you're rich, you want a Republican in office." Exactly, so if you’re not rich, you don’t want a Republican in office.
This perceptive quote comes from a Romney supporter, retired porn star Jenna Jameson. From the article (click) it seems that a lot of porn stars are lining up to show their support for Romney. Probably because if Romney wins, we're all fckd.

Please be aware that August 3^rd is National Watermelon Day.

Act accordingly.

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颱風來了。今早起床，「洚水驚余」，發現我們家後面多了幾處瀑布、水池。好了，孟老先生教我們，「水就下」，就讓它往下吧！拖鞋丟一旁，穿了短褲雨衣雨帽，花了一個半小時疏浚水道，大功告成，還帶了三個水蛭回家。不知大禹治水時，有沒有水蛭。

It rained over 200mm (about 8") before noon this morning, thanks to our latest typhoon. When I woke up, I saw we had several new ponds and waterfalls in back of our house, so I kicked off my flip-flops, changed into shorts, raincoat, and sou-wester, and headed into the deluge. I worked for about an hour and a half to clear all the channels and let the water go downhill. So all is fine now, thanks. I even brought home three leeches.