Long Time, No Blog

It's been mostly business as usual for me, wake up, go to school, fritter away the afternoon, teach English in the evenings. Ho hum, huh?

The highlights of this last week:

1) Exceedly happy to find out that my dear friend Hiyoshi is not returning to Japan on February 17 as originally planned, but will stay in Taiwan for at least another six months, providing he manages to earn enough money to pay his expenses. YAY! I was dreading the day of parting, knowing I'd be sobbing my heart out, which would likely make him very uncomfortable, being the proper Japanese that he is and not accustomed to a show of emotions :)

2) Last night was treated to another butt-kicking performance by A.B.S.! Wah, the guys have gotten even better than they were at their debut show. Dino's drumming is nothing less than awesome, Xiao Zhu's bass is the heartbeat of the music, and Da Mao's keyboarding sends thrills up and down the spine. The guitarist, Xiao Wang, can play blues riffs just as good as Stevie Ray. I was mostly shooting movies, and the only still shot that came out not blurry is this one, without Da Mao, who was off to the right (click for the larger version). Still, it's a darn fine photo of the greatest drummer on earth, flanked by the world's finest bassist and a super-talented guitarist (yeah, I'm still loyal to Wu Bai as the best guitarist, ha).

The Riverside Music Cafe was packed to the max with friends and admirers, and we had a lot of fun urging the guys to drink the often-provided shots. Since Sunday is Xiao Zhu's birthday, everyone sang "Happy Birthday" to him, and his adorable wife gave him a big kiss on stage, while Charlene, Natari, Xiao Niu, PJ, and Xiao Hu provided a birthday cake with a candle in the shape of a question mark. Considering the amount of alcohol those guys were sucking down, I'm hoping that they're all feeling fine today (and that they made it safely home!).

Today I'm cooking up a batch of spaghetti sauce and will have some friends over for dinner, the first one I've cooked since I've been here - almost a year! I'm hoping it all turns out good, since I wasn't able to find Italian sausage here, and the sauce is much better with it. At least I have the Ranch salad dressing from the US and don't have to use the ubiquitous 1000 Island dressing that seems to be all one can find at the stores here. I'm going to roast up some garlic, too, although that's a bit dangerous. There's nothing worse than roasted garlic farts the day after, peeeeeyoooouuuu!

Yikes, better get the butt in gear and clean my house. Signing off....