nicthegeek

http://udn.com/NEWS/ENTERTAINMENT/ENT6/4440923.shtml – 五月天、聯合公園 10月上海同台

五月天音樂版圖再度寫下新里程碑，繼與日本樂團GLAY合作後，美國「聯合公園」也力邀五月天攜手作公益，東西方兩大天團將於10月12日，在上海8萬人體育場合辦演唱會，唱片公司已證實此消息，並透露雙方計畫同台飆歌，讓粉絲相當期待。

2年沒發片的五月天，正在閉關籌備新專輯，團員幾乎等同住在錄音室裡，但聽聞能與「聯合公園」合作，興奮心情自然不在話下，尤其在2003年，團員石頭、 瑪莎、冠佑3人就曾赴韓國首爾和偶像相見歡，還送上代表中國文化的唐三彩、黃長壽菸、紹興酒和檳榔當禮物，互相留下好印象。

暌違5年攜手合作，「聯合公園」邀請五月天合辦演唱會，雙方將各唱上下半場90分鐘演出，粉絲更熱烈討論：「主唱阿信是否要開口唱英文歌？」

唱片公司表示，五月天的確受到邀請，但批文尚未通過，因此合作形式仍未定，但即使是合辦演出，也不會以拼盤方式表演，將把演唱會最高規格移師上海。

這次演出取名為「樂無疆、愛無界」，定位是慈善演出，該主辦單位曾經為東南亞海嘯、卡崔娜颶風募款，這回選在上海，也是考量到四川地震災後亟需重建，聯合公園才邀請知名度頗高的五月天合作，每張售票都會有各比例的金額，捐贈給四川災民。

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cathay pacific flys singapore to shanghai at S$804, with 1 stop in HK.  plus hotel, plus concert tix, plus the experience of being mashed up against 79,999 prcs. 

what do i think?  what do i think?  shall i bankrupt myself again this year???  shall i ignore my principles and visit that place where, to borrow a quote, i have a ‘restricted passport”?  do i even need a visa then?

saw this in ST life yesterday, direct link to Reuters news article here  What kind of crap is this????

Taipei to clean up filthy, famous night markets – by Ralph Jennings

TAIPEI (Reuters Life!) – Taipei’s rag-tag, dirty and popular night-time food markets are about to get a lot cleaner with authorities planning roofs, toilets and zoning rules to impress the hordes of Chinese tourists expected in Taiwan.

City Hall will straighten up seven sprawling, mostly outdoor markets that bustle with crowds pushing down greasy aisles to buy oyster omelets, stinky tofu or just about anything on a stick from noisy stalls that often spill out into the street, Mayor Hau Lung-bin told Reuters.

“We want them to be cleaner and neater,” Hau said. “Our night markets are bit of a mess now.”

Night markets began earning a name in the 1960s for snacks and drinks sold by vendors, who often bark at passers-by or play loud music. Some stalls also sell clothing, shoes and handbags.

Most guidebooks for Taipei recommend visiting the markets, and many tourists go to at least one during their stay to sample the local cuisine and soak up the culture.

As tourists begin coming to once forbidden Taiwan from its political arch-rival China, Taipei wants its night markets to make a good impression, Hau said. City officials would not give a price for the upgrades.

Nearly all the Chinese tourists, who began arriving in large groups on July 4, will visit Taipei, dropping up to 20 billion Taiwan dollars ($658 million) per year in the capital, the mayor estimated.

But some tour guides said they hoped the clean-up campaign won’t go too far as visitors still want the night markets to live up to their higgledy-piggledy reputation.

“Messiness represents the culture of night markets,” said Anthony Liao, president of Phoenix Tours International Ltd which organizes trips for China tourists.

“If they totally change these into a mall, no one will visit.”

to impress the hordes of Chinese tourists expected in Taiwan – What kind of fuckity fucked up reason is that?  Don’t these people know the messiness and greasiness and crowd-pushing is CHARACTER!?  If these tourists want clean and neat (and most likely they’ll still mess up the spanking clean toilet seats with dirty footprints and hack and spit everywhere, anyway), they should go to one of the numerous shopping malls available.

Taiwan’s night markets are like the holy grail of night markets all over the world!!  Leave the night markets alone!!!!  Save the night markets!!

sigh, the 10 day trial account expired on the dot of midnight, more than an hour ago. been drumming my fingers wondering what to do. back to the real world for a short visit then. have to anyway, since it be time to search for a cheap copy of World of Warcraft at SLS or somewhere. and i do distinctly remember putting my PSP on deep freeze so that I could get real-world-stuff done *whisper* PSP isn’t on deep freeze either

meanwhile, plurking has been fun, and it lets you plurk in chinese too, with all the bells and whistles on. i wonder if i’ll get rapped by my boss soon for spending my time plurking and facebook-ing

and some people have unfortunately been mis-led to this blog, while they keyed in their search for tizzy bac at esplanade. i am sooo sorry, i like tizzy bac, but just haven’t been listening to them for ages. i wonder why.

as if blogging (reading and writing), diablo-ing, fb-ing, ptt-ing and nua-ing weren’t enough, let’s add WoW-ing, twitter-ing and plurk-ing to the mix, shall we?

I think that I may have spent too many hours in a different world yesterday. 

Ended up dreaming i was in genting with some of the girls.  well, we kept saying that we were in genting.  but the strangest thing was we had to keep running trotting out of the hotel room and passing through this area which looked ominously like the Marrakech souks.  everybody there wore cloaks and stood around talking, while we kept going past them, and not just walking, trotting…  we were out on some weird quests errands too, gathering water and oxygen and plants that gave off light.

when i came in to office, instead of putting my fingers on the A-S-D-F keys on the keyboard as I normally would, they automatically went to the W-A-S-D keys. 

oops!