Hongkie Town

Just fed up with this weather. Enough is enough. I'm going to write a letter to the editors of the SCMP. I'm sure that will have a large impact.

This afternoon, wanted to go out for lunch, wanted to bring the dogs with me. Get to SK town, park the car, get out to the street and it starts coming down. It went from zero to buckets in a matter of seconds. Stood under an awning, waited 15 minutes and finally the rain stopped, made it to Cru, sat and had lunch.

Tonight. 6 PM is doggie dinner time. It's raining, feed them, rain has stopped, get them outside again. Walking up to the road, water is pouring full speed through the drainage pipes, walk over a grate and notice it is filled with snakes, big ones, getting washed down the hill. Get about a kilometer down the road and it starts pouring down again. Run back to the house. All three of us - Spikey, Bogey, me - are soaked. Walk in the door, without thinking I grab one of the towels kept by the door for drying the dogs and use it to dry my own head. Now my head is dry - and covered in dog fur. Finish drying off the dogs and then jump into the shower.

Now it's time to think about my dinner. Stay in SK or head over to HK? Either way, guess I won't be driving with the top down tonight.

Note to self: don't panic, pick the right towel!

Was trying to look up some Ry Cooder stuff on the Rolling Stone DVD-ROM (thanks e@l) and my computer wouldn't read the disc. I thought, oh great, either another DVD-ROM drive down the drain or the disc has gone bad and I gotta see about getting a replacement. Then I noticed I had iTunes running. iTunes was so busy trying to figure out what disc was in the drive that it was just a few hertz shy of locking up the computer. Removed the disc, shut down iTunes, put the disc back in, worked just perfeckly.

Note to self: iTunes doesn't play nice in the sandbox with others.

Last but not least, among all the options I'm considering, thinking that if it were to come to it, I'd downsize my life (or at least my lifestyle) in order to remain in HK. And then saw today's Opus. (Click on it to see it full size.)



Note to self: Hide the sledge hammer.

Friday night I stood outside on my patio and looked at the sky. The storms had blown away all of the haze and pollution. There was a crescent moon hanging low and more stars than I've ever seen in all my years in HK. I was able to forget the things that have been weighing me down for the past couple of days and just admire a beautiful night.

Today the storms were back and this afternoon the thunder was almost deafening. I slept through the afternoon, had no appetite for dinner, watched an absolutely dreadful movie all the way through to the end, and during those times when I allowed myself to hear my thoughts, contemplated a series of unattractive options.

There may be some changes in my life soon. Changes which could result in my leaving Hong Kong and possibly even Asia. I really can't go into any details about any of this, at least not at this point. Hopefully I have enough time to do something about it, but that's not guaranteed.

The best laid plans of mice and Spike can often go awry.

Who wrote this?

I typed in movie. Nothing. I typed in movie maker. Nothing.

So I gave up and sent mail to Amir saying - where is this Moviemaker download? Does it exist?

So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated.

Answer: Bill Gates. Read his entire email here. If he has these problems with Windows and Microsoft web sites, what hope is there for the rest of us?

Who wrote this?

You could certainly say that George downright invented modern American stand-up comedy in many ways. Every comedian does a little George. I couldn’t even count the number of times I’ve been standing around with some comedians and someone talks about some idea for a joke and another comedian would say, “Carlin does it.” I’ve heard it my whole career: “Carlin does it,” “Carlin already did it,” “Carlin did it eight years ago.”

Answer: Jerry Seinfeld. Read his tribute to George Carlin in the NY Times here.

Well, it would be lucky, except I had two doctor appointments scheduled for this morning. I had to make each of them a week in advance and hoping that when I can reschedule I don't need to wait another week.

Here are the current warnings over at Weather Underground - a truly excellent site and I always keep a tab in Firefox for the site, which auto-refreshes every ten minutes.




As you can see, warnings for this morning - there's the Typhoon Signal 8, amber rainstorm, the third one is not getting attacked by flies, it's actually thunderstorm warning, the fourth one is landslide warning and the last one is, um, er getting licked by a cow warning.

This is the garden area for the house next door to me. The ground floor, first floor and garden are occupied by one couple. The second floor and roof are occupied by a second couple.



On the right side of the photo, note the remnants of that darker, dead tree. They cut down all the branches and then just tossed everything right over the fence onto that public land in front of their house.

Here's a closer view:

It's just been sitting there, slowly settling down, for months now.

The couple on the ground and first floor have three dogs. Two golden retrievers and a smaller dog, perhaps a shih tzu. Here's a picture of the two golden retrievers:



The lighter one is insane. Barks constantly. Runs up the stairs barking like mad any time any person or any dog goes by. The darker colored one seems more normal but always follows the lighter one and starts barking too. And this sets off my golden, who normally never barks. Their golden starts barking and all of a sudden mine goes all feral, hunched down, barking and snarling. It's all I can do to control him when I have to take him past their gate for one of his walks (my dogs get walked four times a day).

These two dogs never go in the house and never get walked. They live their entire lives in that backyard. And that includes just going to the, um, toilet wherever they please back there. The shih tzu mostly stays in the house but comes out occasionally.

I was talking to the woman who lives on the second floor and she told me that at one point, this couple had 16 dogs and that all of them were from dog rescue organizations and that this probably explains the one dog's crazy behavior, that it was abused and rescued. "So that means they have good hearts then," I said.

This morning I told that tale to my maid. And when I got to the part about saying how they had good hearts, she then told me that last week the shih tzu died and they just threw its body over the fence.

Speechless.

George Carlin died today, 71 years old, heart failure. One of the more original and influential stand-up comedians, best selling author and an okay actor. 7 Words You Can Never Say on Television remains a classic. This year he received the Mark Twain Award for American Humor. "Take a fucking chance! Put a little fun in your life! ... most Americans are soft and frightened and unimaginative and they don't realize there's such a thing as dangerous fun, and they certainly don't recognize a good show when they see one."

I love all of Ry Cooder's work, Buena Vista Social Club, his albums of duets with African and Indian musicians, his concept albums, his soundtracks, but I especially love his solo work from the 70s, albums like Into the Purple Valley or Paradise & Lunch, albums in which he delved into the roots of American music. It's been years since he's done what I would consider a relatively straightforward album of that nature, but now we have a new one. Okay, it has a concept, but a loose one, and the music is relatively straightforward for Ry. It's called "I, Flathead" and subtitled "The Songs of Kash Buk and the Klowns." Wikipedia says it's the third in his California trilogy and unfortunately, I got a "regular" copy, not knowing there was a deluxe edition that includes an accompanying 100+ page novella written by Cooder. Which I want, so if someone wants to buy this "regular" edition from me, let me know.

I never met Mr. Cooder, and yet it seems that on this album he wrote a song for me. It's called "Filipino Dance Hall Girl."

When the evening shadows fall I'm dreaming
Of a certain smile a secret rendezvous
When the day is past and gone I'll come creeping
Down the dark end of the street to you
In a dimly lit cafe as we go dancing
I try to smile and hide a love that's true
Then they play a lovely tune as we're romancing
And I can't pretend no matter what I do

Dark and different so they tell me
It's forbidden so they say
But I just tell them we're so happy
She's my Filipino dance hall girl

Good friends have all withdrawn their salutations
Good neighbors pause when I come down the street
Preacher has a look of scorn on Sunday morning
And there's a frown on every face I see

Que sera sera the Bible tells me
Novus Ordo Seclorum so they say
I just tell them adios muchachos
She's my Filipino dance hall girl

Then she whispers while we're dancing
In a language soft and low
I just tell her darling I love you
She's my Filipino dance hall girl

Also newly released is a 2 disc edition of Dennis Wilson's one completed solo album, Pacific Ocean Blue, originally released in 1977. Bonus tracks include the sessions for the album Bambu, which was in progress when Wilson died. Wilson of course was one of the Beach Boys, the "odd" one, the one who hung out with Charles Manson, the only Beach Boy who actually surfed. Many critics think of this album as a neglected masterpiece of sorts. I've only listened to it once so far and I'm not quite ready to rate it that highly, but it's clear that Dennis possessed ambitions every bit as lofty as that of brother Brian. Some of it is pretty quirky stuff. But it's definitely worth hearing.

In case you haven't read it elsewhere, they have now found water on Mars. Ice, but ice made from actual H2O, not from something weird and alieny. And maybe not the first time either. Click here to see some photos of it.

This then is one step closer to confirming my theory that human life actually originated on Mars and then migrated to Earth once the eco-system there went belly up. As far as why we don't remember it or have anything in our history books about it or wreckage of Martian spaceships anywhere, um, I'm still working on that bit. Something to do with Zsa Zsa Gabor. Yeah, okay, that movie was set on Venus. So maybe it was Bill O'Reilly. Buddha knows he's not of this earth.

In related news, just what the fuck is this? Does it bite or sting? Is it poisonous? Did it come from Mars to steal our women?


I got in my car this morning, started driving, then noticed this thing walking around on the hood. At first I thought it was a stick until it started moving. I drove for about 5 miles, got out of the car, it was still there. Ran some errands, came back to the car 15 minutes later, it was still there. It walked over to the door handle and then stopped and stared at me, as if daring me to do something about it. There was a rag on the ground near the car; I picked it up and flicked this monster off.

The result of which is that I've had the worst freaking luck all day. And why I thought it was a good idea to stay home tonight.

Entertainment Weekly has hit its 1,000th issue and it's loaded with lists, including their choice of 100 best albums of the past 25 years. Stereogum has the list here. Here are the top ten:

10 Radiohead - In Rainbows (2007)
09 Amy Winehouse - Back to Black (2007)
08 Paul Simon - Graceland (1986)
07 Jay-Z - The Blueprint (2001)
06 Green Day - American Idiot (2004)
05 Madonna - Madonna (1983)
04 Kanye West - The College Dropout (2004)
03 U2 - Achtung Baby (1991)
02 Lauryn Hill - The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill (1998)
01 Prince and the Revolution - Purple Rain (1984)

Yes, I have all ten of the above. As a matter of fact, I have 91 of the 100. But the entire list seems just completely weird to me. Purple Rain as #1? Achtung Baby over Joshua Tree? In Rainbows over OK Computer?

Look at the whole list. The most bizarre selection I've ever seen.

I was so tired last night and today. My muscles were aching like crazy. I eventually realized it was due to my tour yesterday. What I forgot to write about was the details about the 3rd Infiltration Tunnel. For those who have never done the tour, the deal is they give you a hard hat, you walk down a 350 meter ramp (at a steep angle) and then you're in the tunnel. You walk 400 meters down the tunnel to a wall that the South Koreans built - there are two more behind it, and a lot of barbed wire. The tunnel itself is about 6 feet high but not even, so I kept banging my head on the ceiling (thanks for the hard hat!) and that meant I had to walk the 400 meters stooped over.

So you walk all this distance and it's just a plain, rough tunnel that ends at a wall with barbed wire. I've seen tunnels before. I've seen barbed wire before. It was no big whoop - the existence of the tunnel, of course, is a big whoop. They claim that the North Koreans could have moved 30,000 troops per hour through this tunnel into the South. And at the time it was discovered, the southern end of the tunnel was just 52 km from Seoul. Can't imagine what it would have been like to be living there when this was discovered. But touring the tunnel itself - not so much. You're not allowed to take photos down there and, well, there's really not too much to take photos of.

And then, you walk all the way back. And that includes walking up that 350 meter steep ramp. Aside from being a heavy smoker, I'm a real slacker when it comes to exercise. (I know, I know, comments not necessary.) That walk back up, even with stops every 50 meters to catch my breath, left me exhausted and soaked with sweat. I asked the guide about the train thing that I saw down at the bottom. She told me it was just for senior citizens and handicapped. I said, but I'm senior! And she laughed and said that I made it and I was fine. And I suppose that's true.

(Aside: our tour guide was female and very cute. And she made a point during the bus ride back to the city of asking me if I was single and of course I assured her that I was. I was contemplating asking her out for dinner. Note: when you want to impress your female tour guide and the tour includes a stop by some shop selling garbage that you have no interest in but the guide probably makes some commission on sales, it's probably not a good idea to just stand outside the shop and smoke and not even go inside to take a look around. Her attitude towards me was a lot less friendly after that.)

But today my legs are killing me! Walking through the Incheon airport, sitting in economy for 3 and a half hours, everything hurts now. Tomorrow is definitely a day for massage. Or maybe even tonight.

I'm definitely feeling old and forgetful. Last night I did my next column for BC and even though it ran about 300 words longer than it should have, I realized today that I left out about a dozen things I wanted to include. Oh well, too late.

Didn't take many photos this trip aside from the DMZ tour but did just want to share these with you:


This is the COEX complex, as seen from my hotel room. It includes a convention center, four hotels, a Hyundai department store, the city air terminal and a huge underground shopping mall that includes a multiplex cinema, an aquarium, dozens of places to eat and even a book store with an almost decent selection of English language books.


The mall includes this open square (plastered with ads for Canon DSLRs) that features western food heaven (or hell depending on your perspective) including a Bennigans, a Baskin Robbins cafe, a Paris Baguette cafe, Dunkin Donuts, and a lot more. And among other things, it's a great place to grab a seat and watch the beautiful Korean women walking by.


One other thing to note. This corner is by the Samseung Metro station in the Gangnam district. I am told it is the most expensive real estate in Seoul, which makes it some of the most expensive in the world. The main street that you see in the photo is called Teheran-no. And look at all the trees and green stuff. That's not just on this corner, this greenery runs along all these streets all the way. That's how to plan a city.


And now ... I get to stay home for two weeks before my next trip (Taipei). Though a small chance that I might need to do a last minute run to the Sydney office.

I know most of you won't believe this, but the main reason I decided to get blotto last night was so that I could fall asleep early. I had to be up at 6 AM for the DMZ tour. It worked. I was asleep by 10:30 and the first one downstairs to meet the guide. I've been coming to Seoul since 1995, have been here at least 20 or 30 times, but never took the tour. Till now.

Visually, it's not that interesting, to be honest. As a symbol, it's both sad and funny. Sad as a reminder of the war and a divided nation, of how the South is now trying to position this as the symbol of their hopes for future reunification. Funny because they've sort of Disney-fied it in spots, as the pictures show.

But I'm glad I went.

You're not allowed to take pictures at most points and it was too foggy a day to be able to see too far off into the distance, but here's some shots anyway:







All school kids get taken on this tour. Now they bring them here when they're in kindergarten. Here are some amazingly cute kids (and their teacher wasn't too bad either)




Ring the Bell of Peace. Only $10.

and here's the bell ...

This wall consists of stones gathered from battlefields all over the world. (Yes, that's my reflection. Go nuts.)

Standing at the photo line, camera held high, zoomed in, but too foggy to make out much.


It struck me as weird that they had a mini-theme park at the entrance. Come for the history, stay for the carousel?


Couple of cartoon-ized statues of Korean military guarding the entrance to the DMZ theater.



Yes, I can confirm, my crackberry worked just fine here.




The train station. George Bush attended the opening ceremony. "Not the last station from the South. But the first station toward the North." The train runs once a day in the morning, bringing workers from the south to a joint factory town in the north. Then there are three trains in the evening to bring them home.


Very curious mural in the train station

tonight hadda have korea food. wandered around behind coex, looking for foreigner friendly places. found some spot, they didn't have ennglish menu but did have 1 guy spoke english, they said c'mon in. barbecue, kimchi, soju. SOJU!

is it my fault they sat me next two to young university female cute students who were so axnious to help me drink my soju and help tme through anothe rbottle? and who wanted to hear my tales about the internationla world of businss? and were aonly too happy to xchange email addresss and mobile phone numbers?

duedes i've had the worst licuk with women in seoul you could possilbly imagine but i ain't neer met no woman here sitting inside o' tgi friday.

okay, drunk, gotta be up early, as for what happens tomorrow night, that's not a tale for this blog. but the lesson is, get outside a your comfort zone. don't always go for what you know. go for the new stuff cause that;'s when the good tsuff happens to ya.

yeah

that soju's got a kick to it dno't it?

hic

Well, I was planning to go out tonight. But had to come home straight from work to get my car from the repair shop. By the time I was feeling up for going out, you guessed it, lightning and thunder yet again. Not so desperate to go out that I feel like driving in this rain.

Tomorrow I'm off to Seoul for a few days and hoping for better weather but apparently not going to be all that different from here. Which is truly a shame because I've allotted extra time to take the DMZ tour and if the weather is going to suck, then I might have to put that on hold yet again. (I've been going regularly to Seoul since 1995, have been there at least 20 or 30 times and have yet to do this tour.)

Things to mention:

New BC column is here. Rather pleased with this one (for a change).

Tomorrow should be the official release of Firefox 3.0. Lots of people have been using their "release candidate" releases (as have I) with excellent results. Here's the Field Guide to Firefox 3, written by one of the team, detailing all the new stuff.

An odd Facebook phenomena or am I just behind the curve? I've got two Facebook profiles, one as Spike HK and one under my real name. I see this happening on both accounts. Someone links to me as a friend. That person has friends who see the link, look at my profile and then link to me as well. I have links to people I have never met, in cities that I rarely ever visit. And then these people start inviting me to events in Paris, New York, Bangkok, everywhere but where I am.

Of course, everyone has their own reasons for adding strangers as friends, and actually I'm every bit as guilty. Three of the places that I go to in Bangkok (Q Bar, Bed Supperclub, Twisted Republic) have Facebook profiles. So I linked to them. And then browsed their other "friends." And then I sent friend requests to many of the women that I found there. And most accepted my request. Now, one would think that I would then follow up on that and try to meet some of these women when I went to Bangkok last week. But I didn't. Come to think of it, why didn't I? Damn!

Well, all packed, raining out, nothing to do now but lie in bed and watch a movie.

Didn't blog much because I haven't done much the past few days. There was something on Friday night that apparently the other participants prefer I not blog about (no, it ain't what you think), otherwise just taking it slow and easy all weekend.

Movies: Only new-ish thing I watched was Be Kind, Rewind. I had huge expectations for this, seeing as how it's from Michel Gondry and I loved Eternal Sunshine so damned much. But expectations diminished because of Jack Black; like many others I'm tiring of his schtick. The movie was low key and had this oddball, almost amateurish sensibility to it and in the end quite charming indeed, almost Capra-esque. If you haven't seen it but know the basic plot (all the videotapes in a rental store get erased, the staff decides to do their own low budget remakes of everything), you might expect huge belly laughs but it's lower key than that. Worth watching if you like vaguely off-beat stuff.

Also gotta mention So I Married An Axe Murderer. The DVD says "special edition" but there are no bonuses on it at all! So what's so frigging special? One of the few times Mike Myers has put himself out there as an actor for hire and it's a charming but minor "rom-com" with nice cameos from Charles Grodin, Debbie Mazar, Steven Wright, Michael Richards, Greg Germann.

Music: Have not listened to Walter ("the other guy in Steely Dan") Becker's new solo album enough to comment on it yet but so far it sounds promising. Brit mags are raving over Fleet Foxes and I hear great harmonies but I don't hear songs. I'm impressed that Tom Petty's Mudcrutch album kicks off with the old Quicksilver song, Shady Grove. Sigur Ros have a new one coming out and I love those guys and what I've heard so far seems up to their usual standards.

And if you like some slide guitar, then by all means check out Sonny Landreth's new one, From the Reach. He's flown under the radar forever and shouldn't need to go the celeb-guest-gimmick route to get fans but if it gets more people listening to him, okay. The celebs on this include Eric Clapton, Mark Knopfler, Robben Ford, Eric Johnson, Dr. John, Vince Gill, Jimmy Buffett.

Reading: The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It by Jonathan Zittrain. An Oxford/Harvard professor is disturbed about some of the trends he's seeing lately. Needs to be read by anyone who works in or uses the Internet.

And, er, that's about all for now.

For those who say there are no more heroes, may I introduce to you Tucker Max:

My name is Tucker Max, and I am an asshole.

I get excessively drunk at inappropriate times, disregard social norms, indulge every whim, ignore the consequences of my actions, mock idiots and posers, sleep with more women than is safe or reasonable, and just generally act like a raging dickhead.

But, I do contribute to humanity in one very important way. I share my adventures with the world

Here's an excerpt from his Sushi Pants story:

1:18: The vomiting is over. I am now trying to stop the bleeding. A bright light hits my eyes. I am not happy. I tell the owner to "get that fucking light out of my face." The owner of the light identifies himself as an officer of the law. I apologize to the officer, and ask him what the problem is. A long pause ensues. The light is still in my eyes. "Son, where are your pants?" Remembering past encounters with the law, and realizing there is no one around to bail me out of the county lock-up, I summon every bit of adrenaline in my body to sober myself up. I apologize again, and explain to the officer that my pants are in the restaurant that is less than 50 feet away, and that I came outside to share my sushi with the bush. He doesn't laugh. Another long pause. "You're not driving tonight are you?", "Oh, NO, NO, NO...no sir, I don't even have a valid driver's license."

Start of The Most Disturbing Conversation Ever:

Him "I bet you've already slept with a man."
Tucker "Alright, come on man--I invented Tucker Max Drunk, but not even Tucker Max Drunk makes you switch teams."
Him "How many women have you been with?"
Tucker "I don't know, about [number]."
Him "Oh yeah, I bet you've fucked a man."
Tucker [Getting obviously frustrated] "How??"
Him "I have three words for you: Post Op Transsexual."

It took three seconds for the full meaning and significance of that statement to filter through my drunken brain. Then came the first stage of loss: Denial.

Tucker "What? Get the fuck out of here. I've never fucked one of those."
Him "You wouldn't know."
Tucker "Man, give me some credit."
Him "Have you ever slept with a woman who told you she couldn't naturally lubricate, that she had to use KY?"

Oh no.

Sadly, I've found him two months after he announced he's taking a break from posting new stories. Well, quite a backlog to work through.

Gore Vidal is one of the last of the old school, larger than life writers to still trod our planet. From Editor & Publisher, via Huffington Post:

In an interview for this Sunday's edition of The New York Times Magazine, famed novelist/essayist Gore Vidal appears to question Sen. John McCain's account of being imprisoned by the North Vietnamese during the Vietnam war.

Asked what he thinks of McCain, Vidal calls him a "disaster," then tells Deborah Solomon, "Who started this rumor that he was a war hero? Where does that come from, aside from himself? About his suffering in the prison war camp?"

Solomon replies: "Everyone knows he was a prisoner of war in North Vietnam." To which Vidal responds: "That’s what he tells us."

Why would you doubt him? Solomon wonders. "He’s a graduate of Annapolis," Vidal explains. "I know a lot of the Annapolis breed. Remember, I’m West Point, where I was born. My father went there."

Vidal's only reference to McCain's opponent is a fleeting reference to "the United States of America, as Mr. Obama likes to call it."

Asked how he felt when he heard about the passing earlier this year of his conservative nemesis, William F. Buckley, Vidal says, "I thought hell is bound to be a livelier place, as he joins forever those whom he served in life, applauding their prejudices and fanning their hatred."

Vidal refuses to explain again how he is related to Al Gore, claiming that even he has forgotten.

On other subjects, Vidal says he has no interest in the gay marriage debate, suggests there was "no sex" in his 50-year relationship with one man, and calls Italo Calvino the greatest writer in his lifetime while dissing Norman Mailer and Philip Roth.

I've commented here several times about the lack of a street food scene in Hong Kong, something that's unusual in Asian cities (at least the ones I've visited). So this article in The Standard caught my eye. Some excerpts:

Three days before his lease on a cooked food stall was due to expire, Chow Chiu-lok was charged with running an unlicensed food business.

Yesterday, he found himself behind bars after Tsuen Wan magistrate Sham Siu-man remanded him to a detention center pending a background report after hearing he had been prosecuted 18 times for the same offense.

......

However, legislator James To Kun- sun feels Chow may not have had a fair hearing since he was not legally represented.

"I was shocked when I received the phone call. I was having a meeting at the Legislative Council and rushed to Tsuen Wan Magistrates' Court to help out," To said. "It is the first time I have heard of someone being remanded in custody for selling waffles and fishballs. The food he sold is clean and has not caused any food safety problem."

..........

Chow has been selling Hong Kong- style waffles, fishballs and dim sum at Nan Fung Centre in Tsuen Wan since July last year.

According to his son, he had tried to apply for a food license but was ordered by the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department to make several alterations to the stall which would cost more than HK$100,000.

In fact, he only had a short-term lease which was due to expire on May 31 - three days after he was charged.

Yes, yes, I certainly understand that someone selling food without a license may or may not represent a health risk to the people who decide to eat that food. And yes, it's a comment of sorts on our system that someone can choose to pay a fine and go right back to what he was doing before. And yes, we don't know what kind of alterations he was required to make, but obviously $100k worth of work for a place on which you only hold a one year lease says that something's out of balance there.

Regardless of that, having some poor guy up before your court, even a repeat offender, without the benefit of legal representation and tossing him into jail - for the selling of unlicensed fishballs? In what way can justice be seen to be served here?

=========================

On a related note, going back to an earlier post on the smoking ban and the trouble some Wanchai bars have been having because they were accused of being "restaurants masquerading as bars," I've given this a bit more thought.

This year in Bangkok, new anti-smoking laws were introduced. I was surprised to enter my favorite watering holes and find out that I had to go back outside to smoke. Of course I complied with the law.

And on further thought, I now agree with those commenters who wrote that HK should have done a blanket no smoking law and the fact that HK did have that and then back off with the two year exemption for bars was an error in judgment. If you're gonna do it, just do it, get it over with.

Speaking of laws and our environment, I read somewhere that China has now passed a law regarding plastic bags. I can't find the article right now, but memory says that the new law says no more free plastic bags - bring your own or pay for one - and that right now up to 138 million barrels of oil are used for the production of plastic bags in China. So very clearly a step in the right direction. We all recall when one of the local grocery chains tried to do this and then backed off following some nonsensical public outcry. I won't mind if our esteemed non-elected officials were to follow China's lead and enact a similar law here.

Back from my long weekend in Bangkok. Not much really worth blogging about as the purpose of the trip was relaxation more than anything else. I did manage to fit in a massage every day while there, most of them good, one of them painful and probably useless.

Some shopping at MBK and Kinokuniya at Siam Paragon. Seafood at the Soi 7 seafood market but mostly lots of barbecue and other street food along Soi Nana, convenient as I was staying on Suk Soi 2, just within spitting distance. Regardless of what else is along Nana, at night the street becomes the most amazing collection of food stalls - barbecue, noodles, fishballs, seafood, fried chicken, fruits, even a couple of carts doing burgers for us falang. Too lazy to bring my camera out at night so unfortunately no photos to share this time. No new tattoos but did visit Jimmy Wong twice (each night, a Brit family, dad's arms covered in a tribal design that was getting touched up, mom getting a flower on her belly, two young kids sitting there watching everything, "Bet you enjoy seeing your mom in pain, huh?" and the whole family laughed); Joy Wong never seemed to show up at her shop. No visible signs of the political unrest that seems to be growing again in the country, at least not in the tourist areas where I was hanging out.

Went to one movie, the new Indiana Jones. Saw it in Imax. Well, on an Imax screen, because after I bought my ticket and took my seat, that's when I saw the notice that they were just projecting a 35mm print with "enhanced audio" onto an Imax screen. I don't recommend this. Aside from the fact that the image only fills the screen side to side but not top to bottom (due to the aspect ratio), I suppose the combination of the curved screen with whatever projector they were using meant that the sides were constantly soft focus and noticeably darker. I would have been better off going into one of the rooms with a normal screen to watch it. At least the ticket price was 160 Thai baht, about HK$40, so can't complain about that.

As for the movie itself, nowhere near as bad as I expected it to be. Only the first film in the series was really good, the second horrendously bad and the third a slight step up from the second. This is on par with the third. I loved that they brought back Karen Allen, the only Indy heroine worth a damn. On the other hand, the sight of a 65 year old Harrison Ford (and his stunt double) duking it out with some 30 year old Russian soldier and holding his own was just silly. The big jungle truck chase scene made me think of the truck chase scene in the first film - one of the best - but this one was played more for laughs than suspense. The really odd thing that struck me about that chase scene was that the cars were racing through jungle yet there were no bumps - I sort of had the feeling that they merely photographed the cars stationary over a blue screen and CGI'd the jungle in. Here's hoping there's no Indy 5 (in part because I can picture it being something where Harrison just sits in an easy chair while that kid with the weird name goes out and does all the work and that kid ain't no Harrison Ford).

And that's it. Trying to work up the energy for Web Wednesday tonight. Otherwise just gonna take it easy before I head off to Seoul next week.

Yeah, okay, so things we still don't know about the iPhone:

1 - Release date for HK. Jobs said it would roll out to 70 countries over the next "several months." So I'm betting it will not be day and date release in HK. I predict "gray market" imports are available in HK long before 3 has it in their shops.

2 - One reason? Because downloading apps from the App Store on iTunes requires iTunes and there is no HK iTunes store. So does that mean HK finally gets an iTunes store? Or have they worked out some alternative access method for non-iTunes countries? Either way, if they don't launch until this is in place, this might mean quite a delay in the roll out for us.

3 - Phone pricing? $199 and $299 in US, yes, but I don't expect that means HK will get the phone for HK $1400 and $2100. My fearless prediction is HK$1999 and HK$2999.

(Of course, I'd love to be wrong on all of the above.)

4 - And what sort of pricing will 3 have for a monthly unlimited data plan? That's the one I'm really waiting to see.

5 - And I'm surprised that they've stayed at 8 and 16 gig, was hoping for a 32 gig version, which surely cannot be far off. Some pundits are saying that the 3G iPhone is only version "1.5" and that the true 2.0 version of iPhone will come next year.

Well, of course I want one, if only because those times I've tried to web surf on it with no WiFi available, it's been painfully slow. And it will roam in Japan and Korea. And I love my 2G iPhone and ever since I got it I've had no desire to go back to Windows Mobile or Symbian.

UPDATE

Okay, reading through Gizmodo's liveblog of Steve's speech. VPN and push mail are huge, bet my company won't support. If I'm interpreting this correctly, apps will be available through a separate online app store, itunes not needed. And thanks to the quick commenters.

Sitting here in Thailand, on slow hotel internet, the US Apple web site front page loaded in about 30 seconds. The HK Apple web site front page - well I gave up after 10 minutes of waiting. Presumably all you folks are going there to check out more local details - let me know what there?

UPDATE 2

Go to HK Apple Store, click on iPhone 3G, the first page is in English, click on "get more details" and the resulting page is only in Chinese, no English option. (It does confirm July 11th as launch date for Hong Kong.) Click on "app store" and again, the resulting page is only in Chinese. Click on contact, send an email to the address given on the page, webmasterhk@asia.apple.com, and the email comes back with "unknown or illegal alias."

Back to that first page in English, iPhone can't be ordered online like other Apple products. Click on "where to buy" and the link takes you to the 3 web site, which has not yet been updated with iPhone info. If they are currently offering a plan with monthly unlimited internet service, I can't find it there.

Enjoying my time in Bangkok, totally relaxed, massaged to within an inch of my life, stuffed with seafood and Thai whiskey, and then I read over at Ulaca that someone at the SCMP has put me down as one of the "top 20 local websites." The writer, David Wilson, prefaces the list by saying that the sites on the list "either have high online traffic or content that is engrossing, amusing, daring or that simply makes life easier."

Confusion ensues. Had I been left off the list, I'm sure I would have been insulted. And being ranked #10 is not bad, though I of course think I'm better than some of the ones ranked higher. Oddly enough, since this blog is not a commercial enterprise and since I rarely do a good job of hiding my true identity, I take this sort of publicity with mixed emotions.

The writer's description of my blog

This blog will appeal to voyeurs, as it documents the ravings of an expat American in the city. Hongkie Town addresses issues such as dinner with the ex-wife, "unusually bad bar experiences" and corporate drudgery.

leaves me cold. About the best I can think is that after reading this, who would want to actually type in the URL and check me out?

Well, if you're one of those who felt so inclined, then, as they say in Hong Kong, "welcome to read my blog." But for those of you who took the description as some sort of code indicating that there's gonna be lots of descriptions of drunken sex, either mine or someone else's, sorry, homey don't play dat no more.

My, ahem, voyeuristic ravings will no doubt resume at full speed after I get home on Wednesday.

Yeah, of course you know it was raining in HK yesterday. I think it still is today but I am not there.

Driving from the office to the airport yesterday, at certain points the rain was coming down so hard I was wishing that my windshield wipers had a faster speed. I was astonished at how many cars were driving in that downpour without their lights. Guess they don't care if you can't see them and end up hitting them. Made it to the airport and the weather only delayed my flight by about 20 minutes. And on approaching Bangkok, I did a silent "yea!" to myself when the pilot announced the weather in Bangkok was fine - clear skies, 28 degrees.

One advantage of arriving at midnight - even with the long lines for immigration, I was at my hotel by 1:10 AM. That's an hour and ten minutes to go through immigration, collect luggage, get some cash, get a taxi and get down to lower Sukhumvit.

Dropped off my stuff in the hotel. Walked outside. Walked down the street. It started to rain. By the time I crossed Sukhumvit, it was a freaking torrent. Stood under a tree, got a taxi, went the five blocks over to Jimmy Wong's, only to find he wasn't there. Went to the 7-11 next door and got a cheap umbrella.

Of course all the regular bars are closed at this point. I make it over to Soi 7/1 to a late night spot I know. Even with the umbrella I'm completely soaked at this point. The place is crowded but the only person I know there is a katoey, who informs me that all of my other friends got too drunk too fast and have gone home already. S/he also informs me that all bars in Bangkok are now non-smoking. And at 2:15 the band announces that "this is our last song, we're closing at 2:30 tonight."

By 2:30, the rain has just about stopped. I consider heading over to the Ambassador but instead just plunk myself down on a plastic stool at one of the afterhours bars along Sukhumvit. But with the rain earlier, almost everyone has gone home. The bar is empty and the street is a procession of katoeys. I sit at the "bar" chatting with the girl who owns the thing, get happily drunk, and back to the hotel.

Not the best start to the trip but I've had worse.

The above from Gear Diary.

Now running Firefox 3 RC 2. Seems pretty smoov.

Son of Jesus phone released next Monday?

New social networking site - Check Out My Ink.

Yesterday's Craptard had a puff piece about Jackie Chan and the Segway. Chan is part owner of the company that has the distribution license for HK and China. Seems he wants to manufacture them in China but parent company is afraid that the technology would get ripped off and knock-offs would start to appear. Chan's company is selling the Segway for US$10,000, double what they sell for in the US. And yet:

Chan is not, of course, selling Segways for the money, but because they offer clean technology and are so cool.

Yes, "are so cool." Appeared in a supposedly objective bit of news reporting that was on a news page (well, the same page as the Mary Ma daily joke, so maybe not a news page). Apparently Thursday's paper was edited by and for 12 year olds.

I'm off to Bangkok tonight for five days of seafood, shopping, massage and ... ?

So here in HK, if you drive, you might have an account with Autotoll. You get a little plastic thing that goes in your car's window and it pays tolls electronically. It also works in Wilson carparks and they have a "club" where you can get some actually useful stuff like discounts on petrol.

The thing is, to top up your account automatically, the only way I know of is to do it by Visa, and the only Visa they accept is a special "Autotoll Visa" from Dah Sing Bank. So I've got one. A few years back, they "upgraded" me to a "Platinum Autotoll Visa" account (though the card is still made from plastic) and that account has a different number.

After I got the Platinum card, I stopped using the non-platinum one. I never bothered to activate it when they sent it to me and I'm pretty sure I canceled out the old number.

So now I move. I need to send out change of address notices.

I send a fax to Dah Sing. Platinum account number. Old address. New address. They send me a letter in the mail saying that I have never activated my card (non-platinum number) and so they can't change my address.

Next I take the monthly visa bill from Dah Sing, which has the number of the platinum account on the front. I fill out the change of address and mail it to them. They send me a letter in the mail saying that I have never activated my card (non-platinum number) and so they can't change my address.

Soon they call me up telling me my account is overdue. I tell them they are idiots because they refuse to accept my change of address notice and it's their fault. The woman takes my change of address info on the phone and tells me how much I owe. I pay the bill by PPS.

I still haven't received a new bill or statement from them.

At least it means I'm not getting an envelope stuffed with useless promotions and sales brochures.

And yes, I have mail redirection service from the post office but for some reason their bills aren't coming to me at all. Perhaps they are running their service in a new way - I should guess how much I owe them each month and pay that and then they can tell me how close I came. Maybe if I guess the amount within $1 I win a prize?

Based on a recommendation from one of my readers, I'm subscribed to the Lefsetz Letter, "First in Music Analysis." Bob Lefsetz is currently in Hong Kong to attend the annual Music Matters Asia conference. And it's clear from what he's writing that this is his first trip here.

Lefsetz is a forward looking guy with a lot of good ideas about the music industry but based on his writings, he doesn't know spit about anything else. That's okay. We were all new here once, especially us foreigners, walking around, gawking at the skyscrapers, soaking up new experiences. But then he writes this:

I still can’t get over the plethora of towers. What’s going on inside? Sure, some are residences, but what exactly is the commerce taking place up there on the seventy fifth floor? Makes me feel like I’m clueless when it comes to economics, the big picture, how the world really works. I understand there are skyscrapers in New York, that on Manhattan there’s a financial empire. But how many of these money-driven metropolises can there be? And with the aforementioned modern communications, do these far-flung outposts really need to exist?

Which is just so piss-ignorant on so many levels that I can't even think of how to respond.

============================

The car is back from the shop. New roof installed. The new warning light is because the O2 sensor (or did he say CO2 sensor?) died and needs to be replaced and they need a couple of days to get the part. I asked the guy if there would be any problem with driving the car until then and he said that maybe I'd be using more petrol. Ai-ya! With the cost of gas now, last time I filled up the tank it was over $900! I hope they get the part soon.

To the credit of the previous repair shop, they actually called me today to ask if the car was running okay. When I told them that I had another warning light, they said I could bring the car in right away. But I told them no need. I asked at the "new" repair shop for them to take a look and tell me if the parts that they claimed were really replaced and they took a look and said yes. So maybe it's just not standard operating procedure to call customers first and get an okay on an estimate?

Either way, the "new" shop is a lot more conveniently located and as long as they seem to be doing a good job, I'll keep going to them. But I'm hoping that I'm not about to run into the "failure of the week" on this car.

========================

I must be the last person in HK to realize that next Monday is a holiday. Thinking about a last minute weekend Thailand run.

My car woes continue.

So as I said, I'd brought the car back to the dealer I'd bought it from, thinking it was still under warranty. There were four minor problems. Monday night he'd fixed one problem and then told me that when driving the car there was another problem so he had to keep it overnight.

Today he told me that it was the alternator gone bad and they'd replaced it. And also told me that the car was no longer under warranty and that I owed $5,600. After the work was done. Without calling to give me a quote first. I had little choice but to pay.

Got the car. Box in the front of the parts they'd ostensibly replaced, but who the hell knows.

Driving the car home tonight after dinner, now the engine warning light comes on.

Fortunately, I don't have to bring it back to these yokels because I've found someone who appears to know what he's doing a lot closer to my home, and if I'm gonna pay someone, might as well pay someone who knows how to conduct business in a proper fashion.

There have been several deaths in the past couple of weeks of show business people that have made me stop, hold my breath and go, "aw shit" but none made my heart miss a beat until I just read that Bo Diddley died today.

There were just so many things to like about Ellas Bates AKA Ellas McDaniel AKA Bo Diddley that it's hard to know where to even start. Well, of course there's the famous "Bo Diddley Beat," heard on the song "Bo Diddley" on his very first single. And the B side of that single, "I'm a Man," has been covered by almost everyone. Mona, Who Do You Love, Road Runner, Love Is Strange, so many more.

Beyond the songs and the beat, there was the look. That box guitar. The Duchess, that beautiful tall woman standing on stage playing an equally wild guitar. Bo told everyone they were brother and sister because he thought it made a good story (hello White Stripes?).

The thing is, up through the 80s, Bo never stood still. Almost no one bought the records but if they had, they would have heard the output from a still-restless, still-creative, unwilling-to-rest-on-his-laurels mind. He may never have received the amount of acclaim that went to Chuck Berry or Little Richard or other early pioneers of rock, but he was every bit their equal and is unequivocally a member of the rock pantheon.

Also taken from us recently ....

Harvey Korman - brilliantly funny in Mel Brooks movies, in particular Blazing Saddles, but perhaps even more so as a regular on the Carol Burnett Show. He and Tim Conway would stand there on stage, improvising wildly, doing everything they could to make the other break up on camera. The result was some of the funniest TV of its time.

Not one but two Star Trek related deaths:

Joseph Pevney directed 14 episodes of the original Star Trek TV series, including two of the most popular, The City on the Edge of Forever and The Trouble With Tribbles. He directed 35 feature films and also episodes of Fantasy Island, Incredible Hulk and other series.

Alexander Courage wrote the theme music for Star Trek. He wrote other stuff too, but this one brief piece alone guarantees him immortality.

Another TV theme song writing god, Earle Hagen also passed away. "The Andy Griffith Show," "The Dick Van Dyke Show," "The Danny Thomas Show," "I Spy," "That Girl," "The Mod Squad," need I say anything more?

Director/producer/actor Sydney Pollack - his films as a director include They Shoot Horses Don't They, Jeremiah Johnson, The Way We Were, The Yakuza, Three Days of the Condor, Tootsie, Out of Africa and many more.

And last but certainly not least, Dick Martin, half of the comedy team of Rowan and Martin. Rowan & Martin's Laugh In changed comedy TV, accidentally helped elect Richard Nixon and probably paved the way for MTV. In the 60s, the other TV networks might as well have gone dark while Laugh In was on. No one watched anything else. In the 70s he became a very successful TV director and married a Playboy Playmate.

All of them will be missed.

Far, far from the end of the world, just annoying ....

This morning bring my car into the repair shop. Four minor things need fixing.

At 6 PM call them, they say they have only fixed one of the four things and I need to bring the car back another day but for now I can pick it up at 7 PM.

6:30 I get in a taxi (yes I'm a lazy fuck). Two minutes later the phone rings. "I was driving your car back to the garage and the battery light came on. I'm going back to the shop to get it checked out." Ten minutes later, next phone call, "Something's wrong with your battery. You need to leave the car with us one more day for us to fix it." As for why they didn't just want to swap out the battery, I can't say.

So I redirect the taxi to Hang Hau. I walk through the shopping malls there looking for something to eat. KFC. Fairwood. Cafe de Coral. McDonald. Saint Alps Teahouse. Some big Chinese restaurants. "Modern Thai." Okay, so much for that idea.

Down to the bus station. The line for the mini-bus to Sai Kung is huge. At least 5 or 6 buses worth of people standing there. So another taxi. Sai Kung town. Dinner. Another taxi to my home (no mini bus goes near my village).

Tomorrow .... taxi to mini bus to MTR (two trains) to office. And the same in reverse if the car is still not fixed by tomorrow night. Yes. I know people do this sort of commute every day or worse. Doesn't mean I have to be happy about it.

From the NY Times, Beijing Reminds Foreigners to Behave During Olympics. Some excerpts:

The organizers of this summer's Beijing Olympics on Monday reminded foreigners coming to China for the Games to behave, warning them that everything from protesting without permission to sleeping outdoors was banned.

The extensive list, written only in Chinese and put on the organizers' official website (www.beijing2008.cn), also said that purchase of Olympics' tickets did not guarantee the holder would automatically get a Chinese visa.

Entry would be banned to anyone who was intent on "subversion" upon arriving in China, those with mental illnesses and sexually transmitted diseases and people who wished to engage in prostitution, the rules read.

Maybe it's just me, but I think that under the definition of mental illness might fall someone who spends thousands of dollars to travel halfway around the world to watch people play games. And how can they tell if you are someone who "wishes" to engage in prostitution? (Yeah, yeah, yeah, no comments about "they can tell if your name is Spike" thanks)

The last line of this one really has me puzzled:

"Foreigners must carry with them relevant documents. The police, in the course of doing their job, have the right to check foreigners' passports and other documents," the handbook says, adding foreigners must register with the police upon arrival.

What do they mean by register with police? Is that something other than going through regular immigration formalities? Are police stations in Beijing prepared to handle an influx of up to 500,000 overseas visitors for the nebulous purpose of "registration"?

The handbook also outlines six activities which are illegal at cultural or sporting events, which include waving "insulting banners," attacking referees or players and smoking or lighting fireworks in venues.

And you can forget about sleeping outdoors to save a bit of money. It's banned, in order to "maintain public hygiene and the cultured image of cities."

Spitting in the street or letting your kids pee in the street will presumably be okay. My guess is China is forbidding sleeping in the street because the government is concerned that you might decide to sleep in a puddle of spit or pee with a prostitute and a bag full of cherry bombs.

Completely unrelated, really loved this bit from an article in today's SCMP about the possibility of regulating those freaking annoying telemarketing phone calls:

Democrat lawmaker James To Kun-sun said he was a member of the committee that discussed the issue of person-to-person telemarketing two years ago, but which found regulation was impractical. The committee had not been able to define telemarketing, he said.

Is that possible? They couldn't define "telemarketing"????? Though I'm willing to give Mr. To the benefit of the doubt and think that the last sentence is a result of sloppy reporting or editing.

Also noted, the Little Sheep Restaurant Group IPO goes out today. Note that they have 350 restaurants (103 company owned, the balance franchised) and plan to open 150 more company owned locations in the next two years. Before buying any stock, try eating in one of their HK branches.

I believe that every year about this time, one of the streets in Sai Kung is closed off and a giant pavilion is built for nightly performances of Cantonese opera. I wandered over there tonight after dinner to check it out.

Here's the schedule:


The big signs erected in town:


Closer view of a single sign:


And the pavilion itself. I'm not good at estimating this sort of thing. My best guess is that it holds at least 500 people, maybe even double that. And the place was full.


All of the following photos were taken from the back of the hall.








I know nothing about Cantonese opera of course. Much to my surprise, I found myself almost enjoying it. Both singers possessed pleasing, strong voices and, as you can see, the costumes and make-up are fabulous. I stayed for about 15 minutes. If I'd had someone with me to translate, I might have stayed longer. As the only gweilo there that I could see, a number of people did turn around and look at me. Unfortunately, no one came over to ask if I had any questions or offer any explanation. Perhaps my Ramones t-shirt didn't fit this venue?

Want to read full issues of magazines online for free? The Zinio Mobile Newstand was set up exclusively for people with iPhones. How to do it if you don't have an iPhone (or you do but want to be able to do this from your desktop or laptop)? (Think I got this from Lifehacker as well.)

Download and install Safari. When you run it, go to Edit/Preferences/Advanced. Click on "Show Develop menu in menu bar." Now that you've got Develop on the menu bar, click on that, click on User Agent, and select Mobile Safari 1.1.3 iPhone. You're all set. Apparently you need to do that last step every time you run Safari. Then go to here.

The magazines available are scans of the entire issues, ads and all, and only the current issue is available. The choices at the moment include US News and World Report, Playboy, Penthouse, Popular Photography, Popular Mechanics, Car and Driver, PC Magazine, Elle, MacWorld, Esquire (UK edition) and NME.

I'm now searching for a way to be able to view sites like Hulu.com online. Can anyone recommend some good proxy servers for this?

3, a mobile phone company owned by Li "Boom Boom" Ka-Shing, he of the megabucks and moron sons, has announced that they've signed the deal for the iPhone for Hong Kong. Since 3 exclusively offers 3G phones, that's further proof that the 3G iPhone is just around the corner, if you needed further proof.

What they did not announce: the date, the price or if they will offer a flat rate plan with unlimited internet. I'm still waiting to see what else the phone will include besides 3G.

Ah, who am I kidding, I'm going to get one. Trying to load web pages in Safari over the 2G network when I can't find some free WiFi is an exercise in futility.

========================================

Far right nutjob and Fox "News" commentator Michelle Malkin keeps proving there are no depths to which she will not stoop and that nothing is too stoopid for her.

This past week she attacked Rachel Ray. Rachel Ray????? I don't particularly care for her, but she seems very apple pie and mom and USA, doesn't she? But take a look at the photo below:



It's a screen shot from an ad for Dunkin Donuts. Malkin decided that the scarf was the same type as worn by Yasser Arafat and the PLO and that in this ad, Ray is trying to signal support for Islamic Jihad.

Following Malkin's tirade, instead of responding with a statement like, "she's batshit crazy and no one with a brain pays attention to her," Dunkin Donuts has yanked the ad off the airwaves.

I think I'd boycott Dunkin for yanking the ad except they don't have any shops in our little SAR.