A New Blog style for Chubu~

Ok, so I have been playing around with this program called Xtranormal for a while now, and I decided to use it to make a vlog entry. Until recently I wasn’t sure how I was going to make a vlog entry using Larry King or Sarah Palin and the Larry King Live show set as a back drop, but I finally got some of the other characters and sets unlocked.

This entry is using one of these new characters and the green screen as a back ground so that I can use the renders of the designs I made with Chief Architect X2.

Well here is the video I made and was complied by a friend and uploaded to his YouTube page. Well I am Chububobcat and this was my random thought for the day. I hope you liked the video, if you did or have a comment about it please leave me a message below.

Chief Architect

Chief Architect

For a about 2 years now I have been using a architecture program called Chief Architect X2.

Prior to that I used a program called Better Homes and Garden's Interior Designer and Home Designer Suite 8, before that I had never used an architecture program. So I had to teach my self practically everything.

After I got use to the BH&G programs I found Chief Architect X2 and tried a demo version of it and was blown away by how amazing it was and how it was on a completely different level than the BH&G programs. So I went ahead and got a copy of it, lucky for me I was able to find it when it was a little older and it was cheaper.

It's taken me a long time to get to the point that I am at now where I can design some interesting things. I still don't have a lot of 3D symbols to use in the program so my designs are some what limited but with the millions of 3D objects in the Google 3D Warehouse I am able to make more detailed and much nicer designs.

Chief Architect has a newer version out but since I am not a licensed Architect or contractor and I don't get paid for any of the design work that I have done, because most of it is just for fun. I don't see why I should spend the money to upgrade to the next version. Even thought it has so much more functionality than my current version.

Any way I wanted to make this entry just to show off my designs, and what I have learned. Since the higher quality it is it takes a long time to render, by that I mean hours.
I haven't tried to make the highest quality image yet because even a medium quality image can take from 6 to 12 hours to build.

I really want to give a full quality image a chance, but since I use a laptop and it takes a lot up of resources, also it's the only computer I have so I wont to do it. Maybe if I get a new computer some day or buy a desktop that has a graphics card that is a magnitude more powerful than the one in my laptop I think I might give it a go.

Well here are the designs I made:  
Like I said I am not a professional so please don't judge my designs to harshly.

Have a happy winter holiday, Merry Christmas, Happy Chanukah,Happy Kwanza, and prosperous new year. I am Chububobcat and this has been my random thought for the day. (As I said before there is a special entry coming, I finally figured out how to use a part of the program needed for the special post. So keep looking forward to it.)

Moving to China

Hello every, well I know I said the last time that there would be a new and special post this time. But really it is a little more difficult than I thought to pull of what I wanted. So I will just post this, and continue working on the special one.

As I said before December 30th I am going to move to Guangzhou-city, Guangdong Providence of the PRC. Which should start a new chapter in my life, I hope a good one. The only problem is that because of the medical bills and the costs of moving back to the US I am extremely low on funds now. So I am trying to come up with ways to earn money before Dec. 30th. I wish I had planned better earlier this year. My main idea is to sell off the few remaining items that I have from my days in Taiwan, namely my DVD collection: all are Region 1 movies, a lot are American movies some are Japanese anime movies and few are foreign films. I have around 100 or so movies that I am selling for 10 each. Japanese study books, I studied Japanese before coming to Taiwan and studied a little while in Taiwan these are currently on eBay so if anyone is looking for a good Japanese textbook and study materials all in Japanese/English take a look at them.

I am also planning to sell the my car that I had as a college student, its a Teal 1993 Ford Tempo GL Sedan 4 Door that’s in great condition for being as old as it is. It has become a little sun faded but its not bleached out or anything, there very little rust on the car. It has new tires, new water pump, new front bearings, new head lights, new platinum tipped spark plugs, as a new windshield wiper control knob, new 100watt speakers in the front doors. The only things wrong with the car is at some point during a wind storm a tree branch came down and cracked the front right side bumper, and has left a small but noticeable hole in the top of the bumper. The brakes have softened from sitting for so long. Beyond that the car is in excellent condition, so following the Kelly Blue Book price I am wanting to sell the car for something between $1300 and $1605.

I have an original Limited Edition Halo translucent Green Xbox consol with the original Halo S-controller and box, with it I am adding my special edition Japanese Xbox controller, DVD player attachment, Halo game, and a few other games. This is the same Xbox system that people fought over and spent 1000s of dollars on ebay to buy them, however, since the demand for it is no longer as crazy I am only looking for a fair price. I haven’t figure it out yet but you can email me and we can negotiate a price.

The rest of my things are 1 DVD recorder (Panasonic DMR –E50), collection of 45 manga books (3 complete series and a few stragglers that didn’t get completed as a result of my moving to Taiwan), Large Philips 30” SD-TV. The manga collection I am looking to sell at 7.50 a book since I kept them all in practically brand new condition. I am willing to negotiate but realistically I am trying to raise money to live abroad so the price isn’t going to go too much lower than say $250 for the whole set.

Beyond trying to sell these things I started a web store last year when I was in Taiwan, its a custom ordered apparel store where I design clothes and accessories. Its has had a lot of traffic for not being very well publicized but still no sales. So If anyone is looking for a custom designed shirt for the holidays  you know were to look.
http://Chububobcat.spreadshirt.com/ Stop on by and see what I got. This is just a small selection of what can be sold or made.

Ok well that’s my sales pitch blog for the day. I hope someone out there will pass the word along to their friends and family that I am selling things. You can always contact me here through comments or PM’s and I will see what I can do for you.

Ok I am Chububobcat and this was my random thought for the day.
Have a good week stay warm, stay happy, and happy holidays ya’ll.

America is boring.

So I have been back in the good old US of A for just about a month now and I have to say I don’t remember it being this damn boring. My life is filled with greeting relatives that I haven’t seen in … well actually I don’t remember seeing most of them, hearing about people’s lives for the last 5 years and suffering from culture shock.

Aside from the annoyances of returning home triumphantly after 5 years, and hearing people say I got fat. (screw you I am not fat I am fit) I have the weekly visit to the hospital to continue my physical therapy from my traffic accident earlier this year. I did make a posting about it but one lawyer lead to judge that made me remove them. That’s the great thing about Taiwanese legal systems they are great for the Taiwanese but not always so great for Americans nor for common sense.

Any the short and long of it was, I was out of town to visit a friend when a gnarly BMW driver attempted to run a red light and cut off a whole line off traffic over corrected his steering crossed the road and ran into me (a poor defenseless scooter rider) throwing me from my bike sending sliding across the ground only to have the scooter land on my hip pinning me in a weird and burning position. Remember kiddies scooters are hot especially when their exhaust pipe comes to rest on your legs. Anyway after 3 rounds of legal negotiations the case was herd before a judge who said what I had been claiming all along that the man was guilty and should pay for my medical fees. Well that didn’t happen he paid the mandatory upfront money and skipped town with the rest of the loot. So ever since early March I have been in and out of court, and in and out of the hospital for this test and that along with the physical therapy to help me to recover from something. Not really sure on the why, the Taiwanese doctor had excellent English, but his annunciation wasn’t great so he slurred his words together.

So now that I am back in the US I am still going through the therapy at a local place, and have visited a 2 local doctors first a general doc. who referred me to a specialist, who told me that I have a dehydrating hip joint and that the best option would be surgery. However, a poor international school teacher can’t afford this surgery in US. Practically used up all of my 5 years savings so far on the several medical tests and therapy sessions, which since my Taiwanese medical insurance doesn’t reach into the US is all out of the pocket costs.

Enough of my ranting about not having money, and more ranting about not having money.
Next month on December 30th I am going to move to Guangzhou-city, Guangdong Providence of the PRC. Which should start a new chapter in my life, I hope a good one. The only problem is that because of the medical bills and the costs of moving back to the US I am extremely low on funds now. So I am trying to come up with ways to earn money before Dec. 30th. I wish I had planned better earlier this year. My main idea is to sell off the few remaining items that I have from my days in Taiwan, namely my Halo Limited Edition Xbox with a some games, DVD collection, Japanese study books, I studied Japanese for several years before coming to Taiwan and studied a little while in Taiwan. I have a DVD Recorder (kind of like a VCR but it uses DVDRs or DVD RAM disc for repeated recording.) I have a 93 Ford Tempo that is in really good condition for being almost 20 years old, I have some manga books that I collected while in college about 45 of them.

I am not trying to make fortune off this stuff just trying to earn around $3000 USD so that I will be able to afford to live in China for the first 3-6months. That’s all I took to Taiwan and I survived for 5 years, so I should be able to do the same thing with China.

Ok that's my post for today. I will write more about going to China the things I am trying to sell and try a new style blog next time.

I am Chububobcat and this has been my random thought for the day. Happy Holiday’s ya’ll ha ha.

Well I guess all good things must come to an end

Well I have lived in Taiwan for over 5 years, and today is the first time that I will have left the country and won’t be coming back any time soon. Actually it is really saddening to say this and it makes me think back on all of the things I have done in these last 5 years, everything from climbing mountains, to swimming in blue as the sky oceans, to dodging my scooter trough traffic that would make expert stunt car drivers cringe, to eating foods that smell so bad yet taste so good, to meeting people who have changed every possible way that I have looked at life on this little blue marble in the middle of no where in giant universe.

I have to admit I had some hard times such as being in 6 car accidents in the last 2 years, having 2 scooters mangled by careless drivers, having a house that I worked so hard earn the money to buy snaked out from under me by some guy from Taipei. Breaking up with my girlfriend who introduced me to Taiwan, and made me realize the difference between Taiwan and China, the first person who I saw and fell in love with and was already taking care of before I even knew it.

Even with all the bad things that have happened here I have had more things happen that were wonderful so I will be leaving Taiwan, with a positive and raving review. With plans on the drawing board to go back again. I am not sure when but I will definitely go back, maybe my next tour of duty in Taiwan will result in me living there permanently.

I am currently in Tokyo staying in a swank hotel, since my friend had a sudden business trip and won’t be back in town until tomorrow. Its my one and only time to stay in a 300 dollar a night hotel room, but I figure if I am going to leave my home in Taiwan to return to my birthplace I should at least go out with a bang, besides after tonight I will be sleeping on a futon couch in a small 560 sq ft Japanese apartment in Nakameguro, Meguro-ku, Tokyo. Its 3:10 am here now and I really should go to sleep.

I will post a few pictures of my Tokyo trip before going back to the US, or at least to update again while I am here in Tokyo.

My plans after leaving Taiwan are to take a year to work in China. It is a different world but it could be interesting, so I’m keeping an open mind about it.

Ok, Sleep~

Sorry to those who can’t read my handwriting, I bought a new toy today and wanted to test it. I bought this thing called a digital notepad, you write on it and it translates into the computer what you write.

Also be sure to check out my online store at http://chububobcat.spreadshirt.com/ if you would like a custom made item you can send me a PM here and I will see what I can do.

Well this has been Chububobcat and this was my random thought for today.

Long Time No See~Life update part 1

Well it has been a long time since the Chinese new year and my last post. I really wanted to keep this thing more alive than this and more interesting, but life here is not so easy to accommodate such things at times.

Since I haven't said anything for such a long time I guess I should do a life update entry. This year so far has been crazy, boring, hot, and very difficult. Earlier this year I attempted to buy a house to settle down and start my life here, and things were going great for a time. That is until I got snaked out of the purchase.

I had gone through a realtor that was a friend of a friend of my coworkers brother, which should have been a red flag for me in the beginning but being that this is Taiwan and this a common thing I didn't think of it like that. So, meeting with the realtor lady was an interesting experience because she spoke No English, marginal Japanese, and mostly Taiwanese, which meant that I had to find a friend to translate for us. No big deal I have a few friends that don't have much to do and are usually bored on the weekends, so we tramped around most of eastern Taichung for a few weeks before finding a house that I liked, it had just come on the market because the guy had received his dream job in Kaohsiung and was moving in 2 months. Therefore he was ready to make a deal and drop his house as fast as he could.

We met with the man on March 15th with out the realtor just to get a feel for the type of person he was, and to chat over a few things. He gave me and my friend the grand tour of the house, showing us each room and telling some story about how he and his wife did this or his kids did that in the room, each time he would finish the story he would aways say that my friend and I made a beautiful couple and he hopes our life will be as good as his. Even though there is no romantic chemistry between her and I we still felt all warm and fuzzy after hearing his stories. So after the grand tour, he asked if there was anything that we wanted to know more specific about the house, being careful not to point out any of its flaws to us he hoped we wouldn't ask anything too serious. But being my first house I was more observant than he thought, I asked a few questions about the piping, the ceilings, the walls and floors, and why a cast poured cement step in the contractor miscalculated the distance from the floors and added and extra step that had to later be redesigned.

So later that week we met with the man, the realtor, and a home inspector to go over any pre-existing conditions that would be expensive for me to repair but should have been part of his normal home maintenance. While my friend and I wondered through the house watching as the inspector man poked, tapped, scanned and kicked his way through the rooms the realtor and the homeowner were downstairs talking about the terms that I had for buying the house and what not.

Unbeknown to me at the time another man from Taipei had been driving by the house for a couple days with his wife and she suddenly decided she had to have the house, so being in true Chinese/Taiwanese fashion the man used money to steal the house from under my feet. When we came down the stairs we saw the man signing the contract with the realtor and the homeowner paying almost double what I offered him (which was only slightly less than he wanted for the place). In a moment of confusion and dismay I am standing there shocked while my friend is asking whats going on how can they sell the house to someone else blah blah blah, and all I can think is "I just paid 2.5 million NT for something I can't have. What am I going to do now, thats all the money I have. Oh Sh1t!".

Well the home owner being a kind older man said that he would return the deposit money I gave him as long as I have him some time, since he used it to purchase his new home in Kaohsiung. While right in front of his sits probably 2 million NT, money that he could easily give to me, but being as shocked as I was I didn't think and just agreed to what he said. He wrote an IOU for 2.5 million NT, and we went our separate ways. As I was leaving the guy from Taipei said in his broken Chinglish "Oh, No hard feelinguzu Okay laowai (foreign) brother." Now normally I don't take offense to the word laowai or being called brother, these are just part of Taiwanese life. However this time the guy was definitely using them in a very smug way, and with out thinking about it I repeated a few choice words that I had recently over heard my friends saying, and was told I shouldn't say repeat. Which sort of pissed off and stunned the man at the same time, after hearing me say this my friend grabbed my by the arm and pulled me out of the house scolding me the whole way.

Well the story ends with the homeowner returning every dollar back to me, over the course of 3 months, the realtor having to be forced by a lawyer and the Foreign Affairs Police to give me back my money for breaching the contract we had, and me with out a house, but a hell of a story.

So the moral of this story is, its easier to live in an apartment than it is buy a house. I think. Maybe there is no moral, or maybe the moral is a friend of a friend's brother's friend isn't your friend.

Anyway I am Chububobcat and this has been my random thought for the day.

Strange meetings at 30,000feet

Since it is Chinese New Year time again in Taiwan and I have no one that I want to spend this incredibly family driven holiday with, I decided that it was best to go home to the US for a short 2 1/2 week vacation. While flying over the ocean I got to see something that I never saw before, stars in a perfectly blackened sky. After seeing 2 or 3 of what I believe, and I hope no one disputes me on it, to be shooting starts streak across the sky I got to thinking what if aliens came to earth. Would we notice them? Would they come through the upper atmosphere like a shooting start and then disappear into the night sky? Would they be able to walk amongst us and we never even know it? I played with these ideas in my head for awhile trying to drown out the snoring of the once attractive Korean girl in her first year of college, and not to bore you any more than I already will I keep these musing to myself.
I was going to write about American Aliens, but I want to make a side story about this snoring Korean instead.

There are a couple routes you can take to get to the US from Taiwan, such as going through Japan or Korea, I have even heard of getting there from Hong Kong. The last time I went home I went from Taiwan to Osaka to Chicago and eventually on to Ohio taking about 23hrs or so with the lay overs, this doesn't include the 7hrs that I sat at the sweltering boarding gate waiting for a pilot that ended up in another country. This time I found the trip to be cheaper if I went through Korea then on to the US. So I got to enjoy a nice trip up the Taiwan strait to the sea of Japan, and on into Korea. From there I change planes and was seated next to a 22 year old 1st year college girl who will do a 1 year study in New York. While she was awake she was most entertaining cutest thing that I had seen ever. Imagine Hello Kitty mixed with Mini Mouse and hoped up on sugar. However as soon as she fell asleep all that cuteness drained away. Not because of her facial expressions since they were still as cute as ever, but due to her very masculine snoring. The flight from Seoul to Chicago was about 17hours or so, and during this time this interesting girl fell asleep 3 times, each time her snoring became more and more masculine than the last. And each time she would wake up with me laughing or chuckling to myself about it. Once we got over Canada she asked me why I was laughing every time she woke up, and with such big brown eyes staring at me with such a confused and bewildered look I couldn't do anything but explain to her and feel such deep regret for it.
At first she took the news like I was joking, but after seeing the video I took of her sleeping ( I know I shouldn't have done it, but who would imagine such a cute face making such a noise) she turned a deep crimson red from embarrassment and took my camera deleting the video of her. She then explained to me about how she has some sort of nasal issue that causes her to snore when she sleeps, or snort when she laughs too hard and one of the reasons that she was going to study in NY was because there was a doctor there that can cure her of this problem. She told me that her parents were worried that she might not be able to get married because if her boyfriend finds out that she snores like that he will want a divorce or if she does get married they might not have a good relationship because of it. After hearing that I realized that Korean culture is so weird compared to Americans, and not too far away from Taiwanese. Once we got to Chicago we both had a layover of an hour each so we sat for awhile in the food court talking about New York and the US, and Korea and hundred other things. After our brief meeting we became pretty good friends I would say, laughing sharing personal stories, and dreams of the future and then parting ways with a hug and a well wishes for the unknown future ahead of us. As I stood at the food court finishing off my Starbucks coffee, I watched her walk away towards her boarding gate thinking how scary this must before her coming to a place that she knows nothing about, and where the people don't even speak the same language as she does. I sincerely hope that she will have a good life in NY and that she will find lots and lots of good friends there. I know how it is to move to a foreign land with no contacts to speak of.
Well good luck my new friend Miss Kim. If you happen to stubble across this, I hope you remember to send me a message if you ever need any help.

Yellow Fever

A Man’s Perspective to Yellow Fever

I have had yellow fever in one form or another since I was in high school, maybe even earlier I don't know. It started out simple enough with just wanting to learn more about Asian culture, history, and language. Like most things I started as an armature in all areas and started with stereotypical information that later gave way to factual thoughts and into a deeper understand of how these things came to be while in college. When I was a high schooler I was attracted to western girls, but after I did my first college visit I was infected with the yellow fever that turns so many men off for the ladies of the home countries that it should be recognized by the CDC as a class one cotangent. Anyway from that moment on I was slowly growing more and more Asian as my friends said, so much so that my entire friends circle changed from the cool but strange geniuses who act dumber than they really are, to a 90% all Asian. Mostly Japanese and Korean and Thai. My first taste of true Yellow Fever came when I laid eyes on the Korean exchange student (who later became my roommate) that I was sent to pick up walked through the departure gate at the airport and I suddenly found my self unable to say anything intelligent. For the next 9months I spent every free moment trying to learn anything and everything about Korean and Korean culture from her in hopes that something might develop. To my misfortune I was completely out of my league, and anything that I had learned about women up until that point became moot with the exception of "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned." I later would learn that the true version of this is "Hell hath no fury, like a pissed off Korean woman."

From that moment on I was more careful not to be stricken with the stupidity that comes with this chronic disease, and I did pretty good until I met the most interesting Taiwanese girl/woman that I have EVER known. She took my mild fever from a 99.2 degree fever to a full blown case of yellow fever that burned like the sun its self. Ahh those days were some of the best in my life, but again I was completely out of my league. Even though this time I had grown up a lot and was much more mature about the whole thing I was still powerless against her charms. So much so that I found myself packing a light suit case and moving 7700miles around the world to land where Yellow fever is born. When I arrived she was the only girl that caught my interest and was the only one who could make my heart beat like it was going to blow out of my chest. After being together for nearly a year she decided that I wasn't good enough to tell why we broke up or whats going to happen next. So for the next year I was living in a place where my libido should have caught fire from all the external stimuli, but instead it was put in neutral and I just went through the daily motions of going to class, going to my tutoring sessions, going to the pub for food and a pint, and going to bed. That is until my friends decided for me that I had enough staying home and playing Xbox in my underwear and eating pizza in the dark (not that I actually did that mind you), and forced me to go out and meet other girls. So I started pseudo-dating Taiwanese girls. It wasn’t all good. I dated some women that weren’t pretty or even interesting at first. Next was pretty and uninteresting. Finally, after my 2nd year I was able to speak enough Chinese to tell if she was interesting and the yellow fever was taking care of the looks department. I started to notice their frilly little blouses, the cuteness and innocence, that some girls were like bubbles (pretty to look at but empty on the inside), and others where more like the cute little sister that is in a lot of Japanese manga who falls for her older brother. At first conversation was a little thin but I felt it was my fault because I couldn’t keep up, both in vocab and with the speed that the talked. Many were probably feeling the same way about the shallow depth of conversation. Still that was just the challenge for me to learn and I began to feed off of it growing more and more. I think that challenge is what changed things from curiosity to fever in the first place. Once my mandarin level was at a certain level Taiwan cracked wide open and I fell in love with more than just the hotties that were now suddenly everywhere, to the culture and the people themselves.

I have been here 4 years now and I still struggle with the language, but they say it takes 10 years to master it so I am half way there. Even though my Chinese has improved by leaps and bounds, and I can read quiet a bit of Chinese at will, can hold a semi intelligent conversation, and carry on daily conversations, I still find it hard to compete evenly in the dating game. I do have an unfair advantage of being the proper blind of westerner with just the right height to catch the interest of the type of girl that I am mostly looking for compared to some of my Taiwanese counter parts. Even with this charm I seem to only have the ability to make friends with the type of Taiwanese girl who can be called a carrier or patient zero of the yellow fever. You know the type, tall, cute in all the right places, properly developed in the important places, and a personality that can make an uninfected western man fall victim in just minutes. Anyway, even though most of these girls come crying to me when their jerk a$s boyfriends cheat on them, and cuddle up to me for comfort while they spill out their hearts in a mix of English, Mandarin, and some form of Taiwanese (usually Hakklo, or a bastardized Fujianese) telling me how much nice and kinder than their boyfriends are and how they wish they could find a decent guy like me Blah Blah Blah, I just can't seem to hook one for myself. With my current ex-girlfriend-girlfriend (if that makes sense) confusion going on it would be a great distraction between her and the next good girl if I could figure out how to land one of these level 8 hot girls.

Well my advice for dating in Taiwan if your a man is to be aware of the fact that you are for the most part just a curiosity for a lot of the girls and that a lot of Taiwanese girls have western fever the same as you have yellow fever. So if you are looking for a long term steady no BS relationship your going to have to wade through a lot of confusion, empty conversations, culture shock, meeting the parents for the first time, meeting the family for the first time (which can be scarier than meeting the silent father who ONLY speaks a blend of Taiwanese and Mandarin), and wondering what the hell does that guy have that I don't have before you find the right girl who will click perfectly with you and you end up being one of us who shed their Western views an standards and blend into the fold.

Well thats all I have for today.
I'm chububobcat and this has been my random thought.