Public Washroom Appreciation

One of the great things about travel is that it opens your mind to new horizons, as the cliche goes. Yet one of the things I value most about travel is the appreciation it fosters for home. What I mean is, different cultural experiences often highlight unique aspects of your own culture that the everyday humdrum of life has made you take for granted. After my return to Taiwan from Czech, a have found myself with a whole new appreciation for public washrooms.

As those of you who have travelled to Europe know well, public washrooms are not free but require a fee of anywhere from $10 NT to $50 NT depending on where you are. The fee is paid to an attendant that services the washroom and keeps it clean and restocked. The other choice is to use an automatic pay toilet. With this toilet, money must be inserted before the door will unlock and allow you entry. The result is very clean and safe public washrooms, but at a price. I assume this service must also save taxpayers a lot of money, as the fees paid subsidize the maintenance costs substantially. While for some this is an excellent example of a "pay as you go" plan, for those of us not used to it, it can be highly irritating seeking a washroom only to discover we don't have the right change. The homeless no doubt do not get to use these facilities because of the cost, and I wonder if we are not robbing them of some basic dignity by requiring payment for such a basic human need.

Now, as I pass through Taipei's wonderful MRT stations, I look upon the clean, safe and FREE public washrooms and am reminded how lucky we are to have them.

- Paul

No Heroics

For those of you looking for something on the lighter side, I have a TV recommendation for you - No Heroics

No Heroics is a new and delightful tongue in cheek British comedy about a group of dysfunctional superheroes and their daily trials and tribulations. It's a brilliant parody of the popular American show Heroes and the multitudinous comic book heroes turned blockbuster movies. The show is full of superheroes, known as Capes, such as Thunder Monkey who has the ability of call a herd of monkeys. The only problem being that it takes his monkeys about twenty-five minutes to arrive on the scene. So if you're tired of those over the top superhero dramas and you want to be brought back down to earth, give it a watch.

(If you're interested, you can find it here: http://eztv.it/shows/763/no-heroics-ivt2-uk/)

Copyfight

It's no secret that's it's pretty easy to find TV programs from all over the world online. Whether or not it's legal to download them is still for many, a grey area. Here are some of my thoughts on the issue and of course in turn, I'm very curious to know yours.

When it comes to the copying and selling of pirated DVD's and CD's, no one would deny it's wrong. Making money from the efforts of artists who work hard to create that material is impossible to justify. Although record companies and book publishers have reportedly been doing it for centuries, that's another issue. What I'm interested in discussing is whether or not it is acceptable to download a TV program that after being shown on a public TV station, is recorded and then freely distributed through the Internet so that others, presumably in other countries, can watch is reasonable or unreasonable.

A little piece of news.....

Usually I reserve the blog to discuss ideas and issues and steer away from the personal. Yet, once in a while something so big happens that it would be wrong not to share.

I've been waiting to tell everyone this for over a week now.... I got married! On October 10th, that's right double 10, my wife Celina and I celebrated with friends and family our promise to wed one another. The ceremony was held outdoors amid waterfalls and lovely scenery. We even had a string trio for music, a wonderful gift from Eva, which added a touch of charm and magic to the celebration. My mother also made her first visit to Taiwan to attend the wedding. I wanted to share a few photographs with everyone of the happy day.

To cliche or not to cliche? That is the cliche.

My apologies to those of you who visit here. As you can see from the date of the last entry, I've been notably remiss in keeping up. I shall endeavor not to let that happen again.
Recently, I was learning about the history of the word: cliché. It's origins are French and it is related to the early printing presses. Early printing presses used movable type, in which they needed to change each letter's position for every new page. The alternative was to manufacture a fixed plate called a stereotype that would have a fixed phrase that could be used over and over to save time. This fixed phrase or plate was called a cliché.
Cliché is ubiquitous. Whether we are using email, text messages or even just chatting the cliché is everywhere. The simple convenience of the cliché is just too overwhelming for us moderns. Do you think we need to “stem the tide” (cliché) or should we just “go with the flow” (another cliché). Are we capable anymore of expressing ourselves without falling into cliche?

Why do we dream?

About 100 years ago, Freud declared that dreams are the path to the unconscious. Oddly enough, despite all the progress in science today, we are no closer to understanding why we dream. Does dreaming have a biological function or is it just noise? Dreams can be in color or black and white, with or without sound, and yet we still don't know why it happens at all. So I put it to you - what do you think is happening when we dream?

Your Inner-Pack Rat

Last weekend, I spent two days going through stuff. I decided what I wanted to keep and what it was time to get rid of. I do this about twice a year and yet no matter how many times I swear I will buy fewer unnecessary things, there are always more things to get rid of biannually. I don't want to be a pack rat, but I'm afraid I am. I sometimes think that I want to have things in order to be prepared for the need, even if the need has not yet arisen. The result is I'm always accumulating. Am I alone in having this compulsion? I would really like to hear your thoughts and suggestions. How do you deal with your inner-pack rat?