Hongkie Town

Nice of Hong Kong to make the 2nd day of Rosh Hashanah a holiday. Maybe next year, both days?

I'm trying not to think about what's going on in Washington and in the stock markets right now. Wish I was successful at not thinking about it.

Also in depressing news - it seems that Kenneth Branagh will be directing the feature film version of the Marvel comic, Thor. I really loved this comic book when I was a kid. And it's not exactly like Branagh's had this huge string of hits recently. But still, from Henry V to Marvel comics in a span of 20 years does not strike me as a step in the right career direction. As if I was an expert on that.

Also depressing, news that there will be a sequel to Blade Runner.

Tina Fey returns to SNL as Sarah Palin. "I went to Times Square to see a movie called The Bush Doctrine. But it was not about politics."

Nice article on Gizmodo about how Criterion restores films for DVD. If you don't own any Criterion titles, you don't own any DVDs.

Lifehacker writes about a program that will download for you from 50 video sharing sites including YouTube, store the file in your choice of flv or avi.

Also on Lifehacker, why renting makes more sense than buying?

SI is releasing an all-Marisa Miller calendar. I knew there was a reason for sports.



Happy new year!

Back home from Manila now. My first time to fly Cebu Pacific and it was not bad. All you get for your plane ticket is a seat - no video, no movie, no food, not even a bottle of water - carry it on or buy it on the plane. And as long as it keeps the price of the ticket down, why not? For a short hop like that, I don't need a lobster bib or cashmere socks.

The only downside to the trip is that when you're there for a short time and don't have time to go somewhere else and you're not interested in sightseeing or shopping malls and not wanting to stray too far because of the traffic and not interested in the girlie bars, there's fuck-all to do there. Maybe we should have gone to Boracay or I should have booked a fancier hotel with a pool.

Then I killed myself on Saturday night, first by having way too much dinner at the branch of Nanbantei at Greenbelt (my gf wasn't too hungry and so I thought some place where you could order food stick by stick made sense) and that would have been okay except that, frankly, it wasn't very good. I've been to Nanbantei in Tokyo at least a dozen times and while I know it's not the best yakitori in Japan, they have an English menu and everything is okay. I've been to the Nanbantei in Hong Kong and it's not too bad. (Oh, look, the web site says they now have a branch at "Couseway Bay.")

But the one in the Philippines wasn't very good at all. I sat there thinking that while being a yakitori chef doesn't require the same skills as a sushi master, it's still a very precise thing and I wondered how they managed to train local people to do that level of precision and that answer, I suppose, is that they don't. Almost everything was overcooked, burnt, dried out. It was kind of sad looking at the shiitake mushrooms stuffed with chicken and knowing how they're supposed to look and taste and then seeing what this local attempt was like. And for some reason, I ate it all.

Following that, we went over to the Max Brenner Chocolate Bar, chocolate served by the bald man or something like that. My gf may be a choco-holic but she ordered cheesecake and iced tea. I ordered chocolate cake and hot chocolate and seriously went into a chocolate coma, barely able to make it back to the hotel.

Saturday afternoon, in a taxi, the driver asked if I ever had more need for taxi services. Since I had to leave super early on Monday for the airport, I asked if he could pick me up that early and how much he'd charge. The amount was not unreasonable so I said okay. Sunday night he sent a text to my gf asking her to "ask sir if it is okay for him to give me some more money because I am in Alabang and have to meet him early in the morning." The amount he requested was the amount I'd already decided to tip if he was on time, but c'mon, a deal's a deal, isn't it? Maybe not.

Flying home this morning, Cebu Pacific told me my bag was too heavy for carry-on so I had to check it. They offer a 200 peso discount if you fly with no check-in luggage, so I thought I would have to pay 200 pesos, which is about US$4 or so. But they told me I needed to pay 300 pesos. It was 6 in the morning, I was barely alive, I didn't have the energy to make a fuss.

That new terminal 3 at Manila NAIA is nice to fly into but shite to fly out of. The smoking room is closed, the monitors displaying flight status aren't working, there's only one tiny shop there.

Two things I noted about the Philippines this trip .....

In job ads in the newspapers, they can still specify an age range and gender for open positions. Like junior accountant, female, age 24-28, include a 2X2 photo with your resume and photocopies of your school transcripts. Hello 1960!

Flipping around on the TV Sunday night, one channel was showing cockfights. Not some movie with fake stuff (like Monte Hellman's 1974 film Cockfighter, starring Warren Oates and well worth your time if you can find it), this was the real deal. And on TV. Sunday Night Cockfight! or something like that. I watched for a few minutes, briefly fascinated but quickly nauseated. I'm probably not eating chicken for the next few days.

Dear Spike,

Greetings to you and god Bless you in all goodness ways and health. My name is Henry Paulson. I am the Secretary of the TreasSury of a country called the United states Of America, a small country on the North aMerican continent which you may be familiar with. I am writing to you to ask your assistance in a proposal I have.

The aMeriCan banking system has died. As it has no relatives to claim the body, I am about to come into possession of 700 hundred BillIon dollars. I propose to put you forth as the nearest living relative to the Mericann banking system as I have discovered that you have actually hold one or more bank accountts with these banks. In return for your participation and agreement, and if you agree to cast your vote for President Palin and Vice President MCCain, I will give you 5% of this money.

All you need to do is to send me the account numbers and names of your AmeRican banking accounts, a blood sample, your voter registration slip and your firstborn child. If this email has reached you in error, please return to pResident Palin on my behalfs.

Thank you and may the lord Bernanke bestow his blessing upon us both.

Love and kisses,
Henry Paulson

Flying to Manila this evening, back on Monday morning. Probably won't have email access while there except if I can find some free WiFi hotspots.

Hey, here's a question for you. If McCain was so hot to nominate a woman for the Veep slot, why didn't he pick Condoleeza Rice? Whether or not you disagree with her stance on the issues - she's smart, capable, attractive, female and black. Wouldn't she have gone great on the ticket? So why not her? Apparently because she might be gay.

“It was the persistent rumors about her sexuality that ultimately killed her chances and removed her from the list,” says the mid-level RNC official. “In Washington circles, it’s just assumed Rice is gay and nobody really cares. But in the glare of the media spotlight, those rumors were bound to get magnified a thousandfold and the mainstream media would have had an excuse to reveal the facts that would have caused conniption fits among the Republican base.”

I don't think that's interfered with her performance on her current job. But then, just think about this for a moment ... female, black, gay and Republican? What alternate universe have we stumbled into here?

(Then again, that same blog claims that Elvis was both gay and Jewish.)

Who knew Colbert would look so cute with a 'fro and no glasses?

Excerpts from NY Times article:

On the “CBS Evening News” on Thursday, Katie Couric asked Ms. Palin, Senator John McCain’s running mate, what she meant when she cited Alaska’s proximity to Russia as foreign affairs experience.

“That Alaska has a very narrow maritime border between a foreign country, Russia, and on our other side, the land — boundary that we have with — Canada,” she replied. She mentioned the jokes made at her expense and seemed for a moment at a loss for the word “caricature.” “It — it’s funny that a comment like that was — kind of made to — cari — I don’t know, you know? Reporters —”

Ms. Couric stepped in. “Mocked?” Ms. Palin looked relieved and even grateful for the help. “Yeah, mocked, I guess that’s the word, yeah.”

Ms. Couric pressed her again to explain the geographic point. “Well, it certainly does,” Ms. Palin said, “because our, our next-door neighbors are foreign countries, there in the state that I am the executive of.”

Ms. Couric asked the governor if she had ever been involved in negotiations, for example, with her Russian neighbors.

“We have trade missions back and forth,” Ms. Palin said. “We — we do — it’s very important when you consider even national security issues with Russia as Putin rears his head and comes into the airspace of the United States of America, where — where do they go? It’s Alaska. It’s just right over the border.”

Ms. Palin, looking at Ms. Couric intently, kept on going. “It is from Alaska that we send those out to make sure that an eye is being kept on this very powerful nation, Russia, because they are right there. They are right next to — to our state.”

After Ms. Palin attacked Senator Barack Obama for saying he would meet with leaders of Syria and Iran without preconditions, Ms. Couric reminded the governor that she recently met with former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who supports direct diplomacy with both countries. “Are you saying Henry Kissinger is naïve?” Ms. Couric asked. Ms. Palin replied, “I’ve never heard Henry Kissinger say, ‘Yeah, I’ll meet with these leaders without preconditions being met.’ ”

After the interview, Ms. Couric faced the camera and added a postscript. “Incidentally, we confirmed Henry Kissinger’s position following our interview,” she said, explaining that Mr. Kissinger supports talks “without preconditions.”

Also in the NY Times:

At the bipartisan White House meeting that Mr. McCain had called for a day earlier, he sat silently for more than 40 minutes, more observer than leader, and then offered only a vague sense of where he stood, according to people in the meeting.

The situation was evolving so rapidly that it was all but impossible to judge the political implications; with the government under intense pressure to avoid another breach in confidence in the global financial markets, it was possible that a deal could be struck without further reshaping the campaign and that Mr. McCain could still be able to claim a role in a positive outcome.

Still, as a matter of political appearances — a key consideration for Mr. McCain less than six weeks from Election Day and at a time when some polls suggest he is losing ground against Mr. Obama, especially on handling the economy — the day’s events succeeded most of all in raising questions about precisely why Mr. McCain had called for postponing the first debate and returned to Washington to focus on the bailout plan — and what his own views were about what should be done.

At the very least, Mr. McCain’s actions have shaken up the campaign and the negotiations over the bailout package. It has put him at center stage, permitted him to present himself as putting his country ahead of his campaign — a recurring theme of his candidacy — and put him on deck to, if not help orchestrate a deal, at least be associated with one.

But Mr. McCain is certainly seeing the risks of making such a direct intervention. He now finds himself in the middle of an ideological war that pits conservative Republicans, loath to spending so much taxpayer money on Wall Street, against the Bush White House, which, with the support of Democrats and a sizable number of Republicans, sees a bailout package as essential to averting a potential economic disaster.

Just released, David Gilmour Live in Gdansk.

Is this overkill after last year's live DVD? Nope. And there's lots of reasons why. Probably the last video we're gonna get with Richard Wright, who just passed away. Wright truly shines (no pun intended) on a 25 minute live version of Echoes. Also in the band? Phil Manzanera. Also, on some songs, the Baltic Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra.

The overkill is that they've released so many different configurations of this that you can get dizzy. The "top" is a 3 CD, 2 DVD boxed set. The first two CDs are the Gdansk concert, the third is songs from the On An Island tour DVD. The first DVD is the Gdansk concert, the second DVD has 11 live tracks from various sources including an acoustic version of Echoes and a three track "barn jam." And then the box is filled with crap like a replica guitar pick, backstage pass, concert ticket and poster.

I've always preferred Gilmour over Waters, so this set is just fine by me.
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I'm really happy to see that former Bonzo Dog Band co-leader, Rutles co-leader and occasional Monty Python composer Neil Innes might finally be getting the recognition he deserves.













Dita Von Teese is single and dating, in case anyone's interested.



This one ain't going away over night .... well maybe it will




This is Patcharapa Chaichuea, also known as Aom. She looks lost and in need of help.

Janet Woo, bite your lip, get up and dance!

Last night, John McCain was scheduled to be a guest on David Letterman. He called Dave before the show and said he couldn't make it, the economy is crashing and he needs to suspend his campaign and fly immediately back to Washington. And then he went over to a different CBS studio in New York and did an interview with Katie Couric. As you might imagine, Dave was not happy. Watch it here, at least until someone tells YouTube to yank it.

As far as I'm concerned, McCain showed his contempt for the United States by selecting the grossly unqualified Sarah Palin as VP choice. And now he's just dropped his pants and mooned the entire country with this suspend the campaign bullshit.

McCain has been in Congress 26 years. He was one of the Keating Five. He helped lay the groundwork for this disaster. Two weeks ago he was giving speeches about how great the US economy is. And now he's too busy to campaign? Or too busy to answer questions and debate?

He was heroic in the past, 30 years in the past. Now he's the punchline to a bad joke.

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Pic of the day ... something to take my mind off this other stuff for a few minutes. Argentinian model Yesica Toscanini. Yes you can conduct my orchestra any time you want, Yesica. (pic stolen from celebslam.com)

Yes, the headline is true. No wonder the place went into the fucking toilet; that's what happens when you decouple performance and compensation.

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In the NY Times, Aaron Sorkin provides the dialogue for a meeting between Obama and President Bartlet.

I didn’t expect you to be getting beat by John McCain and a Lancôme rep who thinks “The Flintstones” was based on a true story ....

... the idea of American exceptionalism doesn’t extend to Americans being exceptional. If you excelled academically and are able to casually use 690 SAT words then you might as well have the press shoot video of you giving the finger to the Statue of Liberty while the Dixie Chicks sing the University of the Taliban fight song. The people who want English to be the official language of the United States are uncomfortable with their leaders being fluent in it. .... You were raised by a single mother on food stamps — where does a guy with eight houses who was legacied into Annapolis get off calling you an elitist?

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From today's SCMP:

A debt-ridden teacher was sent to jail yesterday for what a judge called a "very lenient" 20 months for ripping off HK$630,000 in so-called sincerity deposits from parents desperate to get their children into an elite school.

Lau had paid the price by ruining her future and bringing shame to her family, (the judge) said, adding that he sympathised with her five-year-old son, who would be deprived of his mother's love and care while she was in jail.

(Lau) had admitted having fraudulently obtained the money by telling the victims they could pay the deposits to express their sincerity and reserve a place in the queue. She also told them the money was not a guarantee of a place and would be refunded in a month regardless of the outcome of their applications.

She induced one parent to give her HK$580,000. Two other parents were induced to pay her HK$20,000 and HK$30,000. A fourth parent reported the case to the Independent Commission Against Corruption when Lau attempted to solicit HK$70,000 from him.

From what I can see, the only smart person here is this Lau, but not smart enough to get away with her scam in the long run. Idiot parents who think they can buy success; that's certainly the Hong Kong way!

As for the judge, one Deputy Judge Rickie Chan Kam-cheong, first of all, what the hell kind of name is that for a judge, Rickie? Rickie is a name for a little boy, not an adult. Second, who is this Judge Rickie, who thinks that the guilty party "ruined her future" and so shouldn't serve a reasonable jail sentence? Is there some reality game show program on TVB where the winner gets to be judge for a day and Little Rickie was the winner?

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Walter Mossberg's first look on the Google phone. Doesn't sync with Outlook. But overall, "In sum, the G1 is a powerful, versatile device which will offer users a real alternative in the new handheld computing category the iPhone has occupied alone."

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Speaking of Outlook, Harvard Business Review asks the musical question, is Outlook the world's biggest social network just waiting to happen? (The answer, in case you couldn't guess, is "yes.")

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Alejandra Espinoza at some party in Miami. I have no idea who she is. Doesn't really matter when she looks like this.

Winds have died down a bit. Internet is sorted out.

Here's a wonderful picture of Anna Kournikova.





I watched Bourdain's recent episode from Spain and it made me really want to go there. And tonight I found this picture of Estefania Luyk, who apparently is a Spanish model, and now I really really really want to go there.



(both pics stolen from celebslam.com)

And while I'm at it, Mad Men's Christina Hendricks and her huge tracts of land at the Emmys (stolen from theblemish.com)(holy crap, we share the same birthday, plus or minus a couple of years decades).



Jeez if I couldn't sleep before, how is any of this supposed to help?

Most people I know in HK live on HK island. They live in buildings that are in Wanchai or in Mid Levels or in North Point. They say stuff like, "that last typhoon didn't seem so bad, I barely noticed any wind."

I live on the side of a mountain facing due east. There is nothing between me and the sea. Yes, fabulous view, yes. But my house gets the shit blown out of it during every one of these storms. I'm amazed, given the overall condition of the house, that the windows have yet to get blown out. Two storms back, the satellite dish, mounted on a ten foot steel pole on the roof, came crashing down. The last storm knocked the crap out of the garden fence.

Tonight I got home at 7 PM. The winds have been blowing non-stop. Just looked on Weather Underground. As usual, Ngong Ping is getting the worst wind, gusts up to 192 kph. Which makes Sai Kung's 99 kph seem light. Though I wonder from where in Sai Kung they take their measurements?

I'd go outside and take some pictures but I don't think my camera would survive. Can't wait to wake up in the morning and survey the latest damage.

And why does my DSL speed always go down by 80% during a storm? Have tried resetting my modem and router but to no avail. Good ole PCCW.

For those who enjoy typhoon days off, this one has been no help. Signal 8 didn't go up till 6 PM and the current estimate is that we will go back down to Signal 3 at 6 AM. No rest for the weary.

My hope is that having a typhoon midweek means clear weather for the weekend and I'm off to Manila on Friday night.

I note the following letter in today's SCMP, regarding the news that Wal-Mart is moving their China office from Shenzhen to Hong Kong:

Giant corporations and big chains like this push community shops and grocery stores out of business.

Now, before we get too excited about yet another multinational company coming to Hong Kong, think about what we are actually buying into.

I wonder if this person lives in the same Hong Kong that I do - the one that is dominated by businesses owned by the 6 major real estate companies, including the major supermarket and pharmacy chains. Wal-Mart may not be an angel but neither is Wellcum or Park 'n Slop. If Wal-Mart does indeed make another attempt to establish themselves as a retail presence in our SAR, I for one would "wellcome" them.

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The three Godfather films are now available on Blu-Ray. An excerpt from the NY Times review of the newly restored films:

By all accounts, the original negatives of the first two films were so torn up and dirty that they could no longer be run through standard film laboratory printing equipment, and so the only option became a digital, rather than a photochemical, restoration.

The final product, which the studio is calling “The Godfather: The Coppola Restoration,” combines bits and pieces of film recovered from innumerable sources, scanned at high resolution and then retouched frame by frame to remove dirt and scratches. The color was brought back to its original values by comparing it with first-generation release prints and by extensive consultation with Gordon Willis, who shot all three films, and Allen Daviau, a cinematographer (“E.T.”) who is also a leading historian of photographic technology.

The tight grain of the image, so important a component of Mr. Willis’s original low-light photography, has returned to particularly spectacular effect in the four-disc Blu-ray edition. The effect is not unlike that of a pristine 35-millimeter print projected in perfect focus — a rare enough phenomenon in a movie theater and, until quite recently, inconceivable in the living room.

I've watched the first one and the image quality is astonishing. It's like seeing it for the first time.

The American Film Institute recently named the first Godfather film as the #2 American film of all time, behind the perennial #1 Citizen Kane. As much as I love Citizen Kane, I rate Godfather higher, not least because when it comes to Orson Welles, I have this real fondness for Touch of Evil - a flawed B movie, to be sure, but a nasty and rewarding film nonetheless. Or maybe it was just that I had to study Citizen Kane in school while I was free to simply enjoy Touch of Evil. There's a "50th Anniversary Edition" of Touch of Evil due out next month - it remains to be seen if that improves on the restored version that was released in 2000.

I also recently re-watched Dark City, which I now have on Blu-Ray. Aside from a very good transfer (the film is, as the title implies, dark and Blu-Ray's ability to handle purer blacks than standard DVD is very evident here), the bonus features go deeper and are richer than usual.

What I learned is that Kiefer Sutherland's character in the film, Dr. Daniel Schreber, is named after a 19th century German judge. The real life Schreber went completely insane but somehow remained lucid enough to write about it in detail in a book titled Memoirs of My Nervous Illness. From Amazon:

Schreber pieced together a complex theology involving a divided God with dark and light incarnations, whose "rays" and "nerves" interacted in various ways with humans. God was also his personal tormentor, in league with Flechsig to commit "soul-murder" by manipulating his nerves. Further, Schreber believed that he was being literally "unmanned" so that God could sexually violate him and conceive a new human race: "But as soon as I am alone with God ... I must continually or at least at certain times strive to give divine rays the impression of a woman in the height of sexual delight..."

From Wikipedia:

A character named Daniel Paul Schreber appears in the film Dark City. Portrayed by Kiefer Sutherland, the Schreber in the film is not, however, a judge, as was the historical Schreber but rather a doctor, ironically enough not unlike Doktor Paul Flechsig, the hostile focus of Schreber's delusion. While the film stops far short of confronting the truly unsettling implications of Schreber's account, and is more directly concerned with the status of cinematic film noir stereotypes than with the status of the everyday reality around us, nonetheless, it does echo the paranoid sense of the Memoirs that collectively-experienced reality (the "Big Other" in Lacan's phrase) is in fact malevolent and manipulative, and that its agency - the tuning aliens in the film, the forecourts of God in the Memoirs - cannot understand human subjectivity and the experience of an inner life. Moreover, there are clear parallels in the film with certain Schreberian notions, particularly the "fleetingly improvised men," the "poison of corpses" and the "lung worm."

The bonus features give a lot of details as to how the film was conceived, written and changed as it went from an idea to a finished production. Interviews with Roger Ebert and a number of university professors flesh out the themes further.

From Roger Ebert's essay, naming this one of the Great Films:

This is not only a beautiful film but a generous one, which supplies rich depth and imagination and many more details than are really necessary to tell the story. ... "I am simply grateful for this shot," I said in Hawaii more than once. "It is as well-done as it can possibly be." Many other great films give you the same feeling -- that their makers were carried far beyond the actual requirements of their work into the passion of creating something wonderful. ... I believe more than ever that "Dark City" is one of the great modern films. It preceded "The Matrix" by a year (both films used a few of the same sets in Australia), and on a smaller budget, with special effects that owe as much to imagination as to technology, did what "The Matrix" wanted to do, earlier and with more feeling.

And from Ebert's review of the original film (the current DVD features a much improved directors cut):

His film shows the obsessive concentration on visual detail that's the hallmark of directors who make films that are short and expensive. There's such a wealth on the screen, such an overflowing of imagination and energy. ... This film contains ideas and true poignance, a story that has been thought out and has surprises right to the end. It's romantic and exhilarating. Watching it, I realized the last dozen films I'd seen were about people standing around, talking to one another. ``Dark City'' has been created and imagined as a new visual place for us to inhabit. It adds treasure to our notions of what can be imagined.

No, it's not as good as Godfather. But it's damned good and I know I'll watch it several more times.

Dreamworks, the company managed by Steven Spielberg and David Geffen is leaving Paramount after 3 years and will be funded by an Indian company, Reliance. However the divorce proceedings are painful, with Paramount attempting to lay claim to all feature films that Dreamworks currently has in development, including the upcoming Spielberg/Peter Jackson collaboration on TinTin. Dreamworks also needs to find another US studio to distribute their films.

Children of the Dark, a Japanese/Thai documentary about child prostitution in Thailand, has been yanked from the Bangkok Film Festival. The Tourism Authority of Thailand and the local film federation complained, saying that the movie has inappropriate content and is not suitable for Thai society, though it would appear that child prostitution is suitable for Thai society. The last film to be removed from the film festival line-up was the Oscar-nominated animated film Persepolis, because the Iranian embassy in Thailand complained. Perspolis ended up screening in just one theater in Bangkok - but enjoyed a two month run.

Hong Kong will get a second IMAX theater, the first one being the 200 seater at Megabox. The second will be in the new iSQUARE mall that opens at the end of 2009. It will use a digital projection system; the current one uses film.

And last for now, the U.S. Emmy award winners, major creative categories:

Comedy series: 30 Rock
Drama series: Mad Men
Mini series: John Adams
Made for TV movie: Recount
Variety, music or comedy series: The Daily Show
Reality Show: The Amazing Race
Actor, Comedy series: Alec Baldwin, 30 Rock
Actor, Drama series: Bryan Cranston, Breaking Bad
Actor, Mini series: Paul Giamatti, John Adams
Actress, Comedy series: Tina Fey, 30 Rock
Actress, Drama series: Glenn Close, Damages
Actress, Mini series: Laura Linney, John Adams
Supporting actor, comedy series: Jeremy Piven
Supporting actor, drama series: Zeljko Ivanek, Damages
Supporting actor, mini series: Tom Wilkinson, John Adams
Supporting actress, comedy series: Jean Smart, Samantha Who
Supporting actress, drama series: Dianne Wiest, In Treatment
Supporting actress, mini series: Eileen Atkins, Cranford
Individual performance in variety series: Don Rickles, Mr. Warmth
Reality show host: Jeff Probst, Survivor
Directing, comedy series: Barry Sonnenfeld, Pushing Daisies
Directing, drama series: Greg Yaitanes, House
Directing, mini series: Jay Roach, Recount
Directing, variety or music: Louis J. Horvitz, 80th Oscars
Writing, comedy series: Tina Fey, 30 Rock
Writing, drama series: Matthew Weiner, Mad Men
Writing, mini series: Kirk Ellis, John Adams
Writing, variety music or comedy: Colbert Report

Notes: Mad Men becomes first basic cable series to win in best series category. John Adams received a total of 13 awards, the most ever for a made for TV movie or mini series. Amazing Race and The Daily Show have each won in their respective category for six consecutive years. HBO received 26 awards, the most of any network.

The SCMP reports that a 14 year old Hong Kong student was arrested for sharing approximately 3,800 songs (mostly canto-pop) via his blog. He's currently out on bail. Maximum penalty in HK for this is 4 years in prison and HK$50,000 for each offense. Meaning if found guilty and getting the maximum penalty, this kid will owe HK$190,000,000 or US$25,000,000. Does anyone aside from me find this excessive?

Haven't seen this in any other English language blogs so it could be worth a mention (even if it's pandering to Google to drive traffice here?). There's this camera phone video circulating via Foxy, P2P software that's popular in this part of the world. It purports to show the rape of a young girl by three boys. It appears that it was taken in a branch of Yoshinoya in Sha Tin and the boys in the video seem to be wearing the uniforms of Yoshinoya staff. Two boys hold the girl down while a third one does stuff to her while she cries for help and says she's in pain. Three boys have been arrested, ages 16, 17 and 19. Rape is bad enough. The fact that these brain damaged infants made a video of it and then posted the video on the internet is distrubing, to say the very least.

Is this a trend? A 32 year old teacher was just fired from Church of Christ in China Heep Woh Primary School in Mong Kok. This sick fuck placed hidden cameras in a room where primary school girls regularly changed their clothes for dance class.

These are the guys who should end up owing $25 million and work the rest of their miserable lives to pay it off.

And you may have heard about the current case against a 38 year old school teacher in a Yau Ma Tei Catholic School accused of having sex with one of his 12 year old students. At least this one carries a maximum penalty of life in prison. Though at the moment he's out on bail.

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Noted with sorrow, the closing of Yankee Stadium. Even though I'm not much of a baseball fan, I loved Yankee Stadium - well, as much as one can love a building. Growing up, I lived two miles away from here and passed it almost every day for twenty years. My dad took me to my first baseball game here and I did get to attend one world series game in my life. When I was a kid, the Yankees were the stuff of legend - Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris, Yogi Berra, Whitey Ford, some of the best there ever was, playing for the love of the game and the glory because they sure didn't make the kind of money professional athletes make now - the entire team's payroll back in the 60s I'm sure was far less than Beckham's salary today.

Even in The Bronx's darkest days ("Ladies and Gentlemen, The Bronx Is Burning") this was there, the Yankees stayed there and played there, perhaps a symbol of pride, a symbol of hope of the eventual recovery of the borough? I don't know, but I'm gonna miss it.

There's so much history in "The House That Ruth Built" but I suppose its too large to be kept as some sort of museum. Time marches on.

Sony is doing a feature film version of 60s TV series The Green Hornet. Seth Rogen will star and co-write, which likely means a portly and funny Hornet.

The reason I care about this is that they've just announced that Stephen Chow Sing Chi will direct and co-star as Kato. This will be Chow's first English language film and I can't imagine him doing this without getting some input on the script. CJ7 was such a huge change of pace for him and modestly successful globally, nice that he continues to try new stuff.

Scheduled for release in 2010, unless it all falls apart before then.

Damn, I forgot today was International Talk Like a Pirate Day. Arrrrgggghhhhh.

In honor of this auspicious day, I present two photos of Mila Kunis, whom I don't think is a pirate but was more than good enough in That 70s Show and Forgetting Sarah Marshall. She's a fine beauty and yer a bilge rat if'n ya don'ts thinks so too. Arrr!

When interviewed by the Spanish press, McCain doesn't know who the president of Spain is? Or does he? Yet three months ago he did.

INTERVIEWER: So you have to wait and see. If he's willing to meet with you, would you be able to do it? In the White House?

McCAIN: Well, again, I don't -- All I can tell you is I have a clear record of working with leaders in the hemisphere that are friends with us and standing up to those who are not. And that's judged on the basis of the importance of our relationship with Latin America and the entire region.

INTERVIEWER: OK, what about Europe? I'm talking about the president of Spain.

McCAIN: What about me what?

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

I find it amusing that McCain is blaming the Wall Street meltdown on "greed" - pointing the fingers at some his strongest supporters. Well, that's because the only other direction to point the finger in would be himself.

How did we get here?

That's pretty easy to answer, too. His name is Phil Gramm. A few days after the Supreme Court made George W. Bush president in 2000, Gramm stuck something called the Commodity Futures Modernization Act into the budget bill. Nobody knew that the Texas senator was slipping America a 262 page poison pill. The Gramm Guts America Act was designed to keep regulators from controlling new financial tools described as credit "swaps." These are instruments like sub-prime mortgages bundled up and sold as securities. Under the Gramm law, neither the SEC nor the Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) were able to examine financial institutions like hedge funds or investment banks to guarantee they had the assets necessary to cover losses they were guaranteeing.

And Senator Phil Gramm wanted it completely unregulated. So did Alan Greenspan, who supported the legislation and is now running around to the talk shows jabbering about the horror of it all. Before the highly paid lobbyists were done slinging their gold card guts about the halls of congress, every one from hedge funds to banks were playing with fire for fun and profit.

Gramm didn't just make a fairy tale world for Wall Street, though. He included in his bill a provision that prevented the regulation of energy trading markets, which led us to the Enron collapse. There was no collapse of the house of Gramm, however, because his wife Wendy, who once headed up the Commodities Futures Trading Commission, took a job on the Enron board that provided almost $2 million to their household kitty. And why not? Wendy got a CFTC rule passed that kept the federal government from regulating energy futures contracts at Enron.

If John McCain gets elected and chooses Phil Gramm as his Treasury Secretary, which many politico types see as likely, they will be able to talk about the good old days when Gramm was in congress and McCain was in the senate and they were in the midst of the Savings and Loan crisis.

And what's McCain's role in the events of the past, why is he so busy pointing the finger away from himself?

... Keating didn't like it; he called on a private economist named Alan Greenspan, who promptly produced a study saying that there was no danger in "direct" investments. But that didn't convince the FHLBB and as further scrutiny showed Lincoln Savings and Loan was making even more historically bad investment decisions, a federal investigation was launched.

So Keating called his home state senator John McCain.

McCain and four other US senators (known to history as the Keating Five) met with Edwin Gray, then chairman of the FHLBB. McCain had been hesitant to attend but had reportedly been called a "wimp" behind his back by Keating. The message to the FHLBB and Gray from the Keating Five was to lay off Lincoln and cool the investigation. Gray and the FHLBB did not relent but Lincoln stayed in business until 1989 when it collapsed with the rest of the S&L industry. The life savings of more than 20,000 elderly investors disappeared with the failure of Lincoln. Keating went to prison for five years.

Charles Keating was John McCain's pal. They met in 1981 and Keating dumped $112,000 in the McCain campaign bank accounts between '82 and '87. A year before McCain met with the FHLBB regulators, his wife Cindy and her father, according to newspaper reports at the time, invested about $360,000 in one of Keating's shopping centers. The Arizona Republic reported McCain and his wife and their babysitter took nine trips on Keating's private jet to the Bahamas to stay at the S&L liar's decadent Cat Cay resort. The senator didn't pay Keating back for the plane rides until years later when he was under investigation.

McCain wasn't found guilty of anything but bad judgment, which is an historic understatement. Republicans, who led deregulation of the S&L industry, delayed the bailout until after the 1988 election to make sure George H. W. won the White House. The cost to taxpayers for helping these 747 bad actors in the S&L industry was finally estimated at $1.4 trillion. If the bailout had begun in 1986 instead of after the presidential election, the cost would have been contained at $20 billion.

How the Republicans managed to not only create but maintain this myth of them being the fiscally responsible party .....

Some kind of stomach flu the last couple of days. Constant stomach ache. And well, don't wanna be too graphic but last night only had soup for dinner and it went through me really fast.

And then last night, dreamt that I was at City Super in Times Square, asking them what kind of Spanish ham they had and if I could try a little bit of each one. As soon as I'm feeling better, I need me some of dat ham. And some buffalo mozarrella, big tomato, balsamic vinaigrette. Ow, my stomach is hurting again.

Today a realtor called me at home to tell me about a newly available rental in Mid Levels going for "just" $65,000. I make shitloads of money and I couldn't afford that even if I wanted to. Who the fuck can afford to pay such rents? Yes, yes, expats whose companies pay their rent get those kinds of allowances. Two income households, too, but if someone can afford $65k a month rental out of their own pocket, is that really wise? And how much longer are corporations going to keep fronting these kinds of rents with the current economic meltdown? My stomach still hurts.

Since you seemed to like the last pictures of Megan Fox, here's another ...



And just for the heck of it, a photo of Marisa Miller, in the kitchen, so it fits with the food stuff I mentioned earlier ....



And one of Eva Mendes, just because looking at her makes me forget that my stomach hurts. Although ... is her chin too prominent? Can't she lose the mole?




No, this isn't becoming a blog of just photos of women. Bear with me till I'm feeling better.

No I don't entirely believe this, and yes I know it's in bad taste, but when did that ever stop me ....




The photographer who did shots of McCain for Atlantic Monthly had a little Photoshop fun with the outtakes from the shoot. Via Pajiba and QuizLaw.

Just in one of those moods the last few days.

This one's dedicated to Expat @ Large and others like him:





And for those of you who like this sort of thing, please enjoy these pictures of Megan Fox from the latest issue of GQ Magazine.






And some other humor:




I want:




Well, that's actually about the least of what I want right now, but it is on the list.

Merrill Lynch is purchased by Bank of America for $50 billion. (I worked for Merrill for four very good years.) Just a year ago Merrill's valuation was $100 billion. Merrill has 60,000 employees.

Lehman Brothers, unable to get Barclays to buy them, may file for bankruptcy. (Had an offer from Lehman in '94. When I ended up rejecting it, the hiring manager literally gave me one of those "you'll never work in this town again" threats. A year later I left that town.) Lehman has 25,000 employees.

Facing a downgrade from credit agencies that could put them out of business within the next 72 hours, AIG is requesting a $40 billion dollar bridge loan from the Federal Reserve. Forty. Billion. Dollars. AIG's stock price has dropped by almost 80% in the past year.

Yes, Republican economic policies have worked well.

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

In other bad news, David Foster Wallace, one of the best American writers of the past 20 years, was found dead in his home, age 46, a probable suicide.

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

A good day to stay home under the covers and seek distractions. But for now, gonna get dressed and walk the dogs.

Took me until today to realize I could drag and drop jpg images from other tabs in Firefox into Blogger. Duh.

The first poster for Kevin Smith's new film, which was rejected by the MPAA:

So this is what they've come up with to replace it:

Early reviews indicate that this is a major return to form for Smith and that it should do quite well at the box office.

Still catching up with RSS items ....

Lots of apps in the iTunes App Store for learning Chinese. They take a variety of different approaches, but for most of them, the user reviews are unfortunately overwhelmingly negative. Here's a new one that just showed up today:

hokseh is the ultimate Chinese flashcard app designed to help you practice both your pinyin and your character writing.

For US$1.99, perhaps not a bad deal? What's the rest of the description say about it?

This version comes preinstalled with a small dictionary database (courtesy of http://cc-cedict.org), but be sure to visit http://hokseh.thmttch.net to full harness the useless of the hokseh Chinese flashcard app!

At least the developer is honest enough to admit it's useless.

Because my internet connection was so slow in Manila, it's been taking me a few days to catch up with everything in my RSS.

One item that's gotten a lot of hype is a new piece of software from Real Networks that rips DVDs to your hard drive. Clearly their marketing unit has been working overtime because I'm seeing articles on this everywhere. Some places are merely copying the press release, filled with phrases like "for the first time will give consumers a simple, legal way to copy movies and TV shows from DVDs onto their computers." (That quote from Irish Times, via Content Agenda.)

The thing is, for years now, we've had at least a couple of dozen programs that will rip DVDs, many of them free and quite good (like Handbrake and DVD Catalyst). The emphasis here is on the word "legal" and that's stretching the truth a bit. Basically the Real Networks DVD copying software is so loaded down with Digital Rights Management (DRM) crap that they're hoping the MPAA won't sue them.

Here's the deal. The software costs US$30. It will rip the DVD. And you can only play the resulting file on the computer that created the rip - and you can only play the file in Real Player. If you want to play this on another PC, you can license up to 5 more PCs, at a cost of US$20 each. You can't play the movie on a portable device (like an iPod). And if I'm reading this correctly, you have to keep on paying Real $20 per year in order to renew your digital license to keep on watching the rips that by all normal standards you should own.

In other words, if you buy this "Real" crap, you're getting crapped on.

Similar complaints about new game Spore, a heavily hyped and anticipated game from the makers of the popular Sim series. This too is so loaded down with DRM that it has resulted in 2,219 customer reviews on Amazon and 2,018 of those reviews give the game just one star. It is entirely possible that this could be the result of a coordinated attack from some fan web site. Yet, the game is currently the #1 selling PC and Mac game on Amazon. Folks, if you hate it so much, don't buy it!

I'm also so far less than thrilled with iTunes 8. For one thing, I'm finding the so-called "Genius" features to be little more than hype. All it seems to be doing is adding a box on screen to make recommendations to buy more stuff from Apple, so I've turned it off. One thing you can't easily turn off any more are those little arrows - when you highlight a song in your library, you get all these little arrows that take you to the iTunes store to purchase similar items. You used to be able to turn this "feature" off in menus - now you have to go through some obscure external steps to do this. Someone please tell me how this is an improvement for the consumer?

I think I'll hold off on upgrading my iPhone to 2.1 until after I've read some reviews online.

One consumer electronics item that could be interesting is a new camera coming from Panasonic that is the first release in the Micro Four Thirds format. The DMC-G1 represents a radical rethink of digital SLRs. By removing the mirror system, you get a slightly smaller, lighter camera that still have a large imaging element, interchangeable lenses and full manual controls. This comes out in November. But conventional wisdom tells me not to buy version 1.0 of anything.

I spent Friday waiting for the work day to be over so I could get to the computer center and get the new 16 gig iPod Nano. I don't care which color I get (though I'll probably go for blue or black) and I don't care that it's slimmer and lighter - it goes in a drawer in the car and I never see it when I use it. But the bump from 8 to 16 gig is significant for me. So naturally I get to the end of the day, hit the shops, and they tell me it's not out yet, "maybe tomorrow." Couple of guys have promised to call me if it comes in ... which means a special trip to the island though I was planning on just staying close to home for the entire holiday weekend.

Also noticed last night, Megastar is releasing Blu-Ray discs. Two things of interest to me - Wong Kar Wai's Days of Being Wild, a great director, a great cast (Leslie Cheung, Maggie Cheung, Andy Lau, Carina Lau, Jacky Cheung - all very much in their prime) and of course great photography from Christopher Doyle.

And a boxed set of Stephen Chow's two Chinese Odyssey films, Pandora's Box and Cinderella, originally shot as one film, released as two, based on the Journey to the West/Monkey King tales.

I've got the above three films on the original Mei Ah DVDs, and they're all crappy transfers that look like suck. But before I reinvest in these titles, I need to know if they really did decent new masters for the Blu-Ray editions or if they just cut corners and used whatever crappy elements they could get their hands on easily. Anyone out there check out these yet?

I did get the Blu-Ray of Tarsem Singh's The Fall. Visually, this is why Blu-Ray was invented. The opening shots are so astonishing, incredible cinematography and a perfect digital transfer. And like his earlier movie, The Cell, the images throughout just make you want to keep hitting the pause button to examine them closer. The film itself though, eh, not so much. It's very Terry Gilliam-ish in its visual design but the story is less than compelling and the 9 year old girl playing the lead isn't much of an actress.

Watched the season openers of Entourage and Californication - enjoyed the former greatly and the latter was okay but reaching a bit. Also watched about half of the premiere of JJ Abrams' new show, Fringe. Just seems like more X-Files to me, and I was never much of an X-Files fan.

Yes, with my girlfriend away, I'm finding lots of things to keep me busy at home and keep me far away from trouble.

Well, 917 more items to go through in Google Reader (down from more than 3,000 yesterday), so back to it!

Still in Manila.  The visit to my gf's home was quite an eye opener and not sure whether or not to write about it here.  In my extremely fortunate life, I've rarely had to deal with poverty like that on a firsthand basis.   Contrasted with the warmth and generosity of the people I met.  (The cynics amongst you might comment that they were warm and generous because I'm supporting the entire family - however I'm not, far from it as a matter of fact.)  

A quick update to keep things moving along ....

Arrived in Manila late yesterday afternoon. Since the first few days are on my own dime, am trying out a hotel in the Legaspi Village area of Makati and it's working out great. The Somerset Millennium is on a quiet side street and my room overlooks Legaspi Park and is within a 5 minute walk of Greenbelt.

Last night, as always for my first night in town, dinner at Cafe Havana, where I was dismayed to find they'd changed their menu - no more crispy pata (which they called "knockout knuckles"). After ordering the barbecued ribs and a paella, I was informed that those dishes take 30 minutes. So I ordered a starter, bruschetta with Spanish ham ... which naturally arrived after the two main dishes.

Today was spent walking around Bonifacio High Street and Serendra, which for me means an hour at the four floor Fully Booked bookshop and lunch at Abe, where they also changed the menu (well, Abe and Cafe Havana have the same owner) but my favorite dishes - crispy tadyang and deep fried tilapia - were both still there, plus some garlic rice and veggies. So full that I gave up on the idea of stopping in to Krispy Kreme before returning to the hotel.

I noted that there is a lot of construction going on in the more upscale parts of town. Walking around Legaspi, Greenbelt, the Fort, I love it. Hong Kong doesn't have similar ambitious developments because real estate is too expensive to try to build anything on these scales. Serendra and Greenbelt are filled with dozens of international restaurants that offer outdoor seating and all are busy, but again, real estate prices and backward thinking laws and legislators prevent the same sort of development in central areas. Why can't Soho or certain parts of Wanchai and TST be pedestrianized at least on weekend evenings? If they can do it in Lan Kwai Fong and in Causeway Bay - and it seems to be successful and popular - why not do it in more areas?

As always, other areas of Manila seem untouched by either money or care. Violence continues to reign in the south and inflation is now at 12.5%. The loss of potential here, the waste of human lives, is depressing, to say the very least.

Ah well, tonight's another night, tomorrow's another day ... off to Laguna for the day, not the bar in HK, the city or province or whatever out here.

Off to Manila this afternoon, blogging may be light to non-existent for the next few days.

Until then ....

Here's the first of the Jerry Seinfeld commercials for Microsoft.

Southside Johnny has a new album, Grapefruit Moon. Recorded with La Bamba's Big Band (basically the band from Conan O'Brien minus Max Weinberg), it's an unusual concept - Southside Johnny giving a big band treatment to 12 Tom Waits songs. Waits turns up for a duet on one song.

Something's a bit confusing here. Amazon has it listed twice - once with a release date of Sept 2 at $13.99 and once with a release date of Sept 9 at $22.99. It's already on iTunes but the listing said "Clean Lyrics" so I spent an hour trying to find an "unclean lyrics" version but couldn't find any other mention online of two different versions. Amazon's MP3 store has the album for $8.99 but you can't download it outside of the US regardless of what credit card or address you've got registered with them. So I bought the "clean lyrics" version from iTunes, at least it's "iTunes Plus" but that means it was 12 bucks for the download. Even so, I'm curious to hear this and I suspect many of my regular readers would want to check it out as well. Will listen during the plane ride.

I should also mention another guilty fave, Elvin Bishop, almost-original member of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band and victim of an annoying hit single in the 70s on which someone else sang lead vocals, is still around and still recording and has a new album that goes the celebrity guest route in order to attract attention. The album's called The Blues Rolls On and guests include B.B. King, James Cotton, Derek Trucks, George Thorogood, Kim Wilson, Tommy Castro. So also probably worth a listen or two.

Have a good weekend.

Watch Karl Rove here, if you can without losing your lunch. They showed this clip on Daily Show last night. This is Mr. Rove, just weeks ago, when Virginia Governor Kaine was on the short list to be Obama's VP choice. Here's what he had to say, for those who don't want to click over.

"With all due respect again to Governor Kaine, he's been a governor for three years. He's been able but undistinguished, I don't think that people could name a big important thing that he's done. He was mayor of the 105th largest city in America and again, with all due respect to Richmond, Virginia ... it's not a big town. So if you were to pick Governor Kaine it would be an intensely political choice where you said, You know what, I'm really not first and foremost concerned with is this person capable of being President of the United States, what I'm concerned about is can he bring me the electoral votes of the State of Virginia, 13 electoral votes in Virginia."

So Palin is not an intensely political choice because Alaska only has 3 electoral votes.

all above nicked from Cinematical

Yesterday was not a great day for me, though Web Wednesday was enjoyable as always.  After that, a window seat at Insomnia for dinner, people watching along Lan Kwai Fong.  But after a long and emotional day, I was home early, in bed early and, sadly, awake early.  Well, it does give me time to add some new music to various iPods before heading out - Metallica, Okkervil River, Peter Bjorn & John, Matthew Sweet, Primal Scream, Calexico.

Had a thought today. McCain wanted Lieberman for VP candidate. But the true powers in his party told him no. So maybe he thought to himself, "I'm gonna be fricking president, I should get to choose who I want. Since I can't, I'll show them. I'll pick the worst freaking candidate, the most unqualified person on the planet, and then when she goes down in flames, I'll get Joltin' Joe Lieberman to save the day."

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

Torn from the grease stained pages of the SCMP:

A senior Malay leader in Umno, the dominant party in the ruling National Front coalition, has sparked anger among the Chinese population, describing them as "squatters" in Malaysia, who are not eligible for equal rights. ... Mr Ahmad was campaigning against opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim in the August 26 by-election when he made the remarks to Malay villagers. "Being immigrants from China, how can they ask for equal rights," Mr Ahmad was quoted as saying in several Chinese-language newspapers on the eve of the vote. ... Racism and discrimination against Chinese, who make up nearly 30 per cent of the Malaysian population, is not confined to Umno. Last month a lawmaker and senior leader of Mr Anwar's People's Justice Party disrupted an inter-faith forum where he shouted at Chinese lawyers to "go back" to China. Mr Anwar apologised, but no action was taken against Zulkifli Noordin.

Yep, Malaysia, Truly Asia.

This bit in Huffington Post caught my attention this morning.

During the run-up to the election that made Sarah Palin the governor of Alaska, the right-wing pro-life group Eagle Forum sent a detailed questionnaire to each of the candidates.

Among its many questions was this one:

"In relationship to families, what are your top three priorities if elected
governor?"

This was Sarah Palin's response:

"1) Creating an atmosphere where parents feel welcome to choose the venues of education for their children; 2) Preserving the definition of "marriage" as defined in our constitution, and 3) Cracking down on the things that harm family life: gangs, drug use, and infringement of our liberties including attacks on our 2nd Amendment rights."

William Fisher's post goes on to point out that not only does the Constitution not define marriage, the word "marriage" itself does not even appear in the US Constitution.

So she doesn't know what's in the Constitution, which makes her equivalent to George W. Bush and the other members of his evil cabal that have been trying to destroy the Constitution for the past 8 years. She'll fit right in.

She used to belong to a political party that wanted Alaska to secede from the US.

She used the power of her office inappropriately.

As a small town mayor, she tried to have certain books banned from the town library.

She does not believe in evolution.

She does not believe in global warming.

Yep, a typical republican.

This week's DVD releases in the US, as listed by Amazon.

Time After Time - an all time favorite, written and directed by Nicholas Meyer, who later was involved with the Star Trek films. Malcolm McDowell plays H.G. Wells, who, it turns out, has actually built his time machine. David Warner is one of his best friends who, it turns out, is actually Jack the Ripper and steals the time machine, going for present day (well 1980s) San Francisco, where he finds he fits in just fine.

Fist of Legend - possibly my favorite Jet Li movie, definitely his best pure martial arts film, his own personal tribute to Bruce Lee. Now getting the semi-deluxe treatment from the Weinstein's Dragon Dynasty label.

Itty Bitty Titty Committee - not a t&a film, apparently, but a recent favorite on the film festival circuit from the director of "But I'm a Cheerleader"

Lagerfeld Confidential - documentary about the iconic German fashion designer

Kraftwerk and the Electronic Revolution - documentary about the iconic German rock band

Soft Machine Live in Paris - a 1970 concert, Robert Wyatt was still in the group at that point

Quark complete series - 70s Star Trek spoof done in a Mel Brooks vein, starring Richard Benjamin

Honey West complete series - 60s detective series with Anne Francis in a black leotard

It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown - one of the best from the series of animated Peanuts specials

TV on DVD: The Office season 4, Supernatural 3, Desperate Housewives 4, The Big Bang Theory 1, Ghost Whisperer 3, Cheers 10

New to Blu-Ray: Transformers, Eraser, Outbreak, Gauntlet, Every Which Way But Loose

and last but not least, the Bavarian Sex Comedy Collection, four feature films on two discs, apparently for people who like breasts and beer.

I'm getting more into tagging items in Google Reader for sharing. I'm a bit loathe to give out the URL because the resulting page has my full name and photo. However, anyone who uses Google Reader and is in my Google address book has access to this already. Just go into Google Reader and click on "Friends' shared items" and I should show up there.

A few things that I just tagged:

An independent music distributor has teamed up with a ringtone distributor in China to offer downloads of up to 88 songs per month for 20 RMB. Nice in concept, but since they probably offer few, if any, mainstream artists, will this really go anywhere?

T-Bone Burnett's records (BB King, John Mellencamp, Robert Plant & Allison Krauss) all share an identifiable sound. And now Burnett says he's come up with new technology to improve audio sound. Mellencamp's recent album comes with a second disc (a DVD) that features this technology. And it supposedly includes ipod-ready versions on the disc as well.

Apple's got something new for iTunes coming next month, "interactive albums" for the iPhone and iPod Touch that will provide lyrics and artwork.

Cuil, the search engine that couldn't find itself, uses an indexing bot that is crashing many of the web sites its trying to index.

With the success of Apple's App Store, both Microsoft and Google are planning similar ventures. Imitation being the sincerest form of flattery.

Anthony Bourdain explains what goes into making No Reservations. He claims that a one hour episode takes up to 9 weeks to produce, which I guess is why we get so few of them each year.

James Gandolfini married a hot former model. Yes, she's Chinese.

People think Xia Xue is a slut and love Dawn Yang.

24 photos of a hot Japanese girl in a bikini. Just because.

Tomorrow, Google launches their own web browser, Chrome.

My first reaction to this news was along the lines of WTF. We've got IE, Firefox, Safari, Opera and probably dozens more. Why do we need another one?

Then I read the Chrome comic book. Warning, this is not for the non-technically inclined.

I got to page 4 and read, "We're applying the same kind of process isolation you find in modern operating systems. So. Separate processes rendering separate tabs." I didn't need to read any further (although I did) - as soon as I read that, I knew I wanted it.

I also liked page 9, "Google Chrome is a massive, complicated project that will need to load billions of different web pages, so testing is critical. Fortunately, here at Google, we have an equally massive infrastructure for crawling web pages. Within 20-30 minutes of each new browser build, we can test it on tens of thousands of different web pages."

And page 15, "V8 looks at the javascript source code and generates machine code that can run directly on the cpu." "Like" isn't a strong enough word for this one.

Anyway, read the whole comic and be ready to download tomorrow.

Sarah Palin.

First she supported the so-called "Bridge to Nowhere." Now she doesn't. That's fine, people are allowed to change their minds. Except now she's lying about that former support, even though it's a matter of public record.

However, there may be an even bigger skeleton in her closet than a $220 million dollar bridge.

Her fourth baby, born early this year. Is it really hers? Daily Kos has a detailed story on how the mother of this baby may actually be Palin's 16 year old daughter. Since she's an evangelical Christian (who believes in creationism and not evolution), I guess she thought it would be the Christian thing to lie to the entire world.

ABC News details how Palin was such a last minute choice for McCain (who really wanted Lieberman and had to be talked out of it) that his staff never had the chance to do a complete vetting process on her. And so McCain chose a relative unknown who he himself had only met twice and knew little about.

Kind of reminds me of the way Resident Bush chose people. Like Michael Brown, the guy fired because he couldn't stage horse shows and was hired to run FEMA.

Now another hurricane is bearing down on the gulf region and there are fears that it will be a big one. It is a vivid reminder of the way Republicans left this city to die. It's also, in a sad sense, an opportunity to show that they've learned from their mistakes and won't screw up like that this time. But McCain voted against the Katrina Commission (twice), against unemployment assistance for Katrina victims, against Medicaid access for Katrina victims.

Also, after Obama's speech got higher TV ratings than the Beijing Olympics opening ceremonies, it will take air time away from the Republican convention, just when they need it the most.

Stuart Shepard of "Focus On Family" asked his viewers to pray for rain of "biblical proportions" to interrupt the Democratic convention. Guess he got his wish, just a little late?

This is the thing about some Republicans, like this nutjob Shepard or the people on Fox News shouting down people who disagree with them. They're not true Americans. Bill O'Reilly is not a true American. He isn't looking out for you. He is looking out for ratings and sales. They don't support the constitution, they don't support freedom of speech, they only support freedom for people who believe what they believe and that is not America.

I am not praying for rain of biblical proportions. I'm hoping the weather folks got it wrong and that Gustav is just a fraction of what they're predicting. Let McCain strut his little barbie doll grandma around on stage. And let's just wait for the debates ....

This morning, on the drive to work, I decided to listen to the Katy Perry album. I was curious as to how old she is (her lyrics make her sound about 17) and looked her up on Wikipedia and was surprised to discover she's 24.

Something else in her Wikipedia listing surprised me. Wish I had screen grab software on this PC but I don't, so please believe me when I say that this is there right now - probably by the time many of you click on this to check it out, it will be gone.

Personal Life

On August 21, 2008 Perry revealed in an exclusive interview with Rolling Stone Magazine that she had in fact sucked Wesley's penis. She described the experience as one of the best of her life. She said, "Everything that has happened to me in the past year pales in comparison to my experience with this penis." she went on to describe the experience as a "sticky situation." It is in fact unclear if she swallowed for him, but we can assume from the author's wording of the article that she did at least gargle for him. She said, "I really love sweaty testicles smacking my face, especially big and salty ones like his."

There is nothing anywhere else in the listing to indicate who this Wesley might be.

UPDATED: I went to look at the history page for the article, went back to the main page and the section has already been removed!