"Brian is too quiet in class..."

In primary school, this was probably the most commonly used phrased by my teachers on our school reports. I was never the standout student - despite my mothers best efforts - I was quite comfortably in the middle of the pack, B-grade average and happily anonymous for fear of attention. Actually I was pretty much scared of everything. =/

It only took me about 10yrs to get over my fear of the world... and a further 5-ish-yrs to start to learn to take it head on, I definitely haven't finished yet.

I can't say I'm not enjoying the ride so far, I've done a bit of travelling, touched four continents this year, climbed the highest mountains in a bunch of places, met all sorts of people from high society to the poorest communities, been on freakin' TV, kept in touch and met up with friends all over the world (Ken!) and driven a whole buncha different types of cars (everybody grabs achievements in their own special ways =P ).

I can quite readily say that I've lived without regret for the past coupla years simply because of one little phrase:

"Sure, why not?"

Happy New Year Everyone! =)

About Oz

At the end of my African trip, I was satisified that I had touched the continent, and that I could check it off my list of "Things That I Have Done In My Life".

At the end of my Australian trip however, even though I've spent just as much time there as I did in Africa, I don't think I'm quite done with it yet.

I'll definitely be back. ;)

Kiddie Wishes for Xmas

My school has been getting the kids to write their xmas wishes on cards and hanging them up around the halls lately...

There's a lil bit of the typical, a lil bit of the innocent, a lil bit of the beautiful, a few of the amazing, a might too many Wii's and PSP's... (tho I have both... *cough* *cough*)

...all honest though. (^_^)

The Levels of Geekdonia

Gizmodo made a list after my own heart. (^_^)

---

1. Install a hard drive in a laptop
2. Perform a clean OS install on a machine with two OSes
3. Swap out the battery on your iPod/iPhone
4. Jailbreak an iPhone
5. Wire your house for Ethernet and Coax cable
6. Use BitTorrent and RSS to automatically download new shows from trackers
7. Use an A/V receiver to its fullest capability (every port is taken)
8. Calibrate an HDTV without the manual
9. Use a DSLR in full manual mode
10. Hack the encryption and mooch your neighbor's Wi-Fi
11. Solder cleanly enough to get around a circuit board
12. Use your 3G phone as a Wi-Fi access point
13. Shove the guts of a modern game console into a retro game console
14. Design a webpage in HTML by hand that features a picture of your cat
15. Use Photoshop to imperceptibly doctor a photo
16. Abstain from buying extended warranties
17. Know where to buy cheap cables and accessories
18. Fix your parents' computer over the phone without looking at a computer
19. Enter the Konami code
20. Comment on Gizmodo from your phone
21. Type quickly using T9 texting
22. Program a universal remote
23. Contribute code to the Linux kernel
24. Hide porn from your significant other
25. Avoid DRM on everything
26. Know how to back up your data to networked storage—and actually do it
27. Watch TV shows on the internet for free
28. Edit together digital video ripped from YouTube
29. Play any SNES game on your computer through an emulator
30. Reset expired trial software by messing with the registry
31. Hackintosh your PC
32. Download pre-release movies from Usenet
33. Hack the Wii to play homebrew games
34. Get around web content filters on public computers
35. Get into a Windows computer if you forgot your password
36. Securely erase your data so it can't be recovered
37. Share a printer between a Mac and a PC on a network
38. Build a fighting robot
39. Write your own Firefox plugins
40. Navigate and reorganize the files on your computer in DOS
41. Get something on the front page of Digg
42. Get through to executive customer service
43. Rip a CD to V0 quality MP3s
44. Rip a DVD to DivX
45. Build your own computer from parts
46. Swap out the hard drive in your DVR for a bigger one
47. Get an NES cartridge working again by blowing in it
48. Calibrate a 7.1 surround-sound system
49. Play downloaded games on a Nintendo DS
50. Talk about things that aren't tech related

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I got 40.
Including the fact that I had to skip all the Apple-related ones. (O_o)

Milk & Honey

I think I might have just unwittingly found the most perfect 2 lines that most perfectly nutshells me in the world...

- Which type of bee produces milk?
- Boo-bees!

Seriously. (^_^)v

One Of The Best Things About Scootering Around Taipei...

...there's always, Always a gap for overtaking...

...pavements and intersections are fair game when you're on two wheels.
(^_^)

Like An Elephant In A Monkey Costume.

When I was briefly back in England, I found that I was driving like how I ride.

Now that I'm back in Taipei, for some reason I'm riding like how I drive.

(O_o)

Ahh, Choices.

A question I just got asked:

Peggy says:
hey, which class should i take?
homosexual literature or shakespeare?

its brian! ...¬_¬ says:
O_o

What happened to the days when it was either Art or Science? *sighs*