News filtered down through the grapevine this week that Polaris Media Group CEO Shane Krider and one of the few older EMC members left in the company, Rachel Oliver were now romantically involved.

Whilst this in itself isn’t such a big deal it did get me thinking and slightly curious as to what the rest of the original EMC were now up to.

Having not looked into the Polaris Media Group world for a while now, I decided to spend an evening researching what some of the old EMC members were up to. [Read the rest of this entry...]

Unlike the hassle for me that was tracking down a prepaid sim card starter kit without an ARC, purchasing recharge cards for prepaid phones in Taiwan has been pretty painless.

Today I thought I’d post up how to go about it along with some of the local language that might be required if asking in English doesn’t work. [Read the rest of this entry...]

Before coming to Taiwan I did a bit of research into bringing my N95 with me. After checking the specifications of the phone I confirmed that it was compatible with phone networks in Taiwan and with a plug adaptor charging it wouldn’t be a problem.

All that was left was to decide which network operator to go with. I sussed out that getting a plan phone without an Alien Resident Certificate (ARC) was nigh on impossible, so this meant I’d be relying on a prepaid setup initially.

Reading up on prepaid cards I read that it was a pretty straight forward affair. Land in Taiwan, walk into any 7-11 and ask for a prepaid sim card… it was that easy.

When I got here I realised it wasn’t. It took me five weeks of stuffing around before I finally managed to get myself connected up on a prepaid plan. [Read the rest of this entry...]

When I think of cycling in Australia I like to think that whilst we’re no Europe cycling mecca, we’ve at least got it better then a lot of other countries out there.

Having lived in Melbourne I was admittedly spoilt with the abundance of bicycle lanes and large cycling community.

Over in the suburb of Prospect, South Australia things aren’t so good. [Read the rest of this entry...]

I’m all about helping third world countries develop and progress up the modernity tree but a few stories about Africa recently have left me scratching my head.

Two of the stories broke in the last 24 hours alone!

The first story from Mozambique involved two young guys, a goat and the goats owner. Yeah you know where this going… [Read the rest of this entry...]

Between Christmas and New Years last year I found myself with a few days to kill so I hit up the museum to see what the best of Chinese science had to offer me.

The Taiwan National Museum of Natural Science is located in Taichung City and hosts a series of scientific exhibits with education in mind.

Some of it was good, some of it was confusing and some of it was just ‘uh, this is a science museum right?’ [Read the rest of this entry...]

After the recent spate of attacks on Indian students in Melbourne, the Australian governments solution was to fly twenty five Indian journalists to Australia.

Presumably the idea was that we’d show them firsthand just how Indian friendly Australia supposedly is. After looking at the itinerary of the journalists and the costs involved I’m now certain of one of two things.

Either Indian journalists are a bunch of naive morons or the Australian government taxpayer has been taken for a massive all expenses paid ride. [Read the rest of this entry...]

Barbecues, making out, watching the world go by and creating your own virtual garden. These are all just some of the things you can do with a balcony.

When I heard the first apartment I’d be staying at featured a balcony I got a bit excited. I’d never had a balcony before and started to mentally make up all sorts of plans. [Read the rest of this entry...]

Let me paint a picture for you. It’s late at night and you’re walking back from a bar with a hot girl on your arm.

As you get closer to her place you realize that you don’t have any condoms on you. You don’t know the Chinese word for condom and you don’t know this girl well enough to take that chance just yet.

So what do you do…? [Read the rest of this entry...]

One of the stops I made during the 2010 Chinese New Year was a little town in Taichung County called Tachia (also spelt as Dajia).

Tachia is in central Taiwan and is home to the Chenlan temple (Chenlan is also spelt Zhen-lan). In Taiwan Chenlan temple is the place to go to if you’re interested in worshipping Mazu (Matsu). [Read the rest of this entry...]