On September 9, 2007, a magnitude 6.6 quake (according to the Central Weather Bureau; 6.5 according to USGS) struck off the east coast of Taiwan. This is video from the security camera in my restaurant in Taipei about 115km/70mi from the epicenter during the time of the quake. You can see our advertisements and globe lights swinging during the quake.
Tonight at 1:51am we had a magnitude 6.6 quake off the east coast followed by a magnitude 5.7 aftershock four minutes later. The first one had a shake intensity of 3 in Taipei which is pretty strong. Shake intensity and magnitude are entirely different scales and systems of measurement so you can’t compare them, but it was plenty enough to get doors rattling and cups and dishes banging into each other.
There’s been this song I kept hearing on the radio that I liked but didn’t know who it was by. It always seemed to play when there was nobody I could ask about who it was. Yesterday I finally solved the mystery. I stopped by Rose Music on Zhongxiao East Rd. near Sogo and visited their listening stations. For some reason nobody thinks about putting the “top 20” CDs into listening stations. It’s always crap like “Mountain Love Instrumental Music As Played On The Zitar” instead. I guess they figure if the CD is on the top 20 list that they don’t need to bother promoting it further. Anyhow, Rose actually had a few listening stations with, you know, popular stuff in them so I was able to track down the song I was after which is 湘å—æµ·é·— (Hunan Seagull) by å—拳媽媽 (Southern Fist Mama) on their album è—寶圖 (Treasure Map) of which I promptly bought a copy.
The lyrics are kinda cheesy, for example part of the chorus is “我們手æ¡ç·Šå› 為水很冰” (We hold hands because the water’s very cold) but the music is good and Lara sounds cute. There are a few other tracks on the CD that have potential, and the set also includes a DVD with five music videos, so it’s a pretty good deal.
For those who missed the update to the previous post, iPetitions has responded that they will be changing their system to remove ‘Province of China’ from the Taiwan entry in their country list. They still have not made the change, but I realize that these things can take time. Until then, please keep singing the petition:
There’s currently 40 signatures on it! That’s pretty impressive.
Separately, I finally got a response from echomusic, the service provider which hosts Kanye West’s official web site. They have opened a ticket in response to my complaint which I assume means that they will at some point change it.