She comes to the balcony and slips into my room through the screen door. She moves quietly to the bed and finds me sleeping still. With feathery caresses, she begins to tease me awake. Delightful.

But her mood soon turns tempestuous. She wails. She overturns the wastebasket, knocks over the ironing board. She lifts and drops the panels of the ceiling, showering me with dust.

Her name is Bilis, the first typhoon of the season.

Sadistic TV newsroom producers have already selected their youngest, most petite reporters and dispatched them to the coasts, each with a camera crew and a NT$35 disposable plastic poncho from 7-11. There, the cameraman will lash himself to the satellite van while the reporter, eager to prove her mettle, will cling for dear life to a lamppost, shrieking incomprehensibly into her microphone as howling squalls threaten to snatch her from the ground and throw her to the hungry tides.

At lunchtime, I will cross the street and enjoy the televised entertainment over a warm bowl of Fragrant Spicy Tiger Noodles. I can hardly wait.

Map stolen from http://www.cwb.gov.tw/

Historical grievances intrude on the workday as colleagues submit, via e-mail, incontrovertible evidence of Japanese cruelty.

Tricked? No, tempted into watching the final World Cup match by four lovely acquaintances. “Come watch the game,” beckoned the sirens after an evening of salsa dancing. The game was to begin at two a.m. and continue until God knows when. I knew better, but I gave into weakness.

We made a tour of the sports bars of Taipei, finding that each had instituted a $500 cover for the occasion. That seemed rather steep, even for the privilege of watching television, inhaling secondhand smoke, and listening to expatriate men grunt and holler, so we went to a place where we knew the admission was free: the “huge egg,” as Taipei Arena is known.

We paused at 7-11 to fill the ladies’ bags with cans of Taiwan Beer, then entered the arena. There, guards diligently detected and removed the beer, adding it to the enormous pile of alcoholic contraband next to their metal detector. Condemned to sobriety, we joined the thousands already inside.

The game was projected on several large screens around the arena. I ascertained by shrewd questioning that the blue uniforms were Italians, the white were French, and the red were referees. I also learned that in football, there are eleven on a side, and not five, as I had believed.

It had been some time since I had seen a football game, and I must say it has been improved somewhat by the high-tech camera rigs that swoop along the sidelines and around the goals. I was also impressed by some extreme telephoto close-ups of kicks and some rhythmic cutting among cameras that lent a cinematic flavor to the proceedings.

I was struck with a vision of the future. Soon—fifteen years, I say—sporting events will be filmed by an array of highly mobile cameras, including bumblebee-sized cameras that can dive right into the action without interfering with it. The cameras will all be controlled by a single console, behind which sits the director, who will be renowned for his ability to single-handedly mix live game footage into a thrilling broadcast. Each game that he mixes will have the stamp of the auteur. He will draw huge fees for this service, far more than the players themselves. His jet-setting lifestyle will be the envy of millions, much like present-day celebrity DJs. When interviewed by trendy magazines, he will say things like “When I am at my console I am one with the game, one with the crowd. Their energy feeds me and I reflect it.”

It will all be silly bullshit, of course, but that’s the future for you. You read it here first.

There, in the Huge Egg, it occurred to me to work these musings into a screenplay, a “Truman Show meets Bend It Like Beckham,” as my pitch would go, thereby ensuring my financial security and paying for the college tuition of my unborn children.

But then I realized I would have to do research which would involve watching more televised sports. Who needs that?

And at four in the morning, Italy and France went into overtime. The damn tournament drags on for a whole month and they still have to go into overtime before they can pick a winner? I gave up and went home.

I was sorry to have missed Zidane’s vicious head butt, though.

In the morning, I discovered I had won $100 off a friend by picking Italy over France. The feeling of satisfaction was slight--it was, after all, the same as winning a coin toss to me--but I'll take the money.