There is this pen, the world's best pen. It is called the "Uni-ball signo bit 0.38". I bought one a while back in Taiwan, and that's how I discovered it was the world's best pen. However, it eventually went the way of all pens and ran out of ink. I was hoping you could buy refills for it, but apparently not. It only cost 90 cents to begin with, though, so I went to buy a new one. What did I discover? They don't sell the pen in the U.S.! I went to a number of shops in the U.S. and nobody had it. So I looked on the internet, and the Uni-Ball website states that they only sell this pen in Asia. Now what's with that? My friend Sybille has a friend who is a fashion designer of sorts called Anna Zeman. Anna Zeman heard about this pen debacle and told me that her brother, who is a model for Sunday newspaper ads, also has a favourite pen which is embargoed in the U.S. and he has to order them by the boxful from Japan. Oh, such miserable depths!

Well, so I looked for this pen in India, since some people think India is part of Asia. No-one in India had heard of it, and one man looked at me with shock and surprise when I mentioned a pen with a .38 nib- he'd never seen one smaller than .5, apparently! Well, so no luck in India, no luck in the U.S.. But right here in Taipei you can get as many as you want of them, 28NT each. So I am loading up, damn it!

A woman in the metro today in Taipei slapped me on the shoulder and shouted "Hi! Ni hao!". Do I know her? If so, how? Probably a crazed Baptist or something...

A rainy day in ol' Taipei...