James’s Blog

I still can’t believe that I found one of my favorite pop songs back in the Taiwan days last night, in someone’s blog. It’s called 不懂的事 (Things I don’t understand), sung by the duo 知己二重唱. The song was released as part of the album 六個朋友 (Six friends), a collection of works from six artists, among whom was 張雨生, one of my childhood pop idols. Turns out that of course, he has a fan site and a Wikipedia entry. 張雨生’s life story is pretty tragic; a few years ago he died at the peak of his career at the age of 31 from an auto accident.

Anyway, back to the song. It’s a rare pop song talking about something other than love and relationship–it talks about enjoying one’s youth. This is a point made more poignant because the song is part of the memories I have from spending a carefree summer (’88? ‘89?) with my sister, and my consins Cody and Vincent. The song, the lyrics, and my attempt at the translation, after the jump.

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A few ago the spacecraft New Horizons successfully passed around Jupiter and got a gravity assist. The velocity went up by about 9000 miles per hour; it is well on its way to Pluto and will be there in about 9 years. New Horizons just sent home this amazing picture of a huge plume from the active volcano Tvashtar on the moon Io.

There is a small volcanic plume to the left hand side of the picture as well.