Hongkie Town

Saturday there is some rugby game being played in HK called, I think, the Bledisloe Cup. Australia vs New Zealand. So lots of people flying in for this, including a friend from Australia, together with 3 of his friends, some of whom were making their first trip to HK. I don't much care about rugby but it did result in a dinner invitation.

So we went to Hunan Village at Times Square, the Maxim's outpost I'd visited for the first time a few weeks ago and really enjoyed. If anything it was better this time than last time. In part perhaps because there were six of us (the 4 Aussies, me, my gf) so we could order more dishes. We were all but licking the claypots clean. Prawns, fish, chicken, lamb, crab, xiao long bao, dan dan mian, onion "pancakes", lots of beer - it worked out to HK$250 per person and well worth it. I've got no idea how authentic this place is (I suppose the fact that a Hunan place has xiao long bao and dim sum on the menu may be some sort of clue, and while everything was kind of spicy, nothing was fiery hot) but wow, it was good.

Following dinner, a brief (for me) Wanchai tour was in order. This gave me a chance to ask one of the Neptune managers what he's hearing about Fenwick. He said he's heard all sorts of rumors, that they're closing, that they're staying, that they're moving - he doesn't know for certain.

Woke up early today so I could watch the Daily Show from the other night when Obama was the guest. One of the earlier clips they showed was something apparently real that seems like it should have been from a comedy show. Apparently the McCain campaign has had this "Joe the Plumber" out on the road officially campaigning for them. So there's this clip of some guy saying that if Obama gets elected, it's the death of Israel. And Joe the Plumber, standing by a McCain for President banner, saying, "I agree with you." Something so ludicrous that even a Fox News commentator found himself in the position of defending Obama.

Well, the election is just a few days away. My absentee ballot has gone in already. And I'll be in NYC on election day, which means Tuesday night at my mom's watching CNN all night.

And just noticed Hold Steady & Drive-By Truckers are touring together and doing two shows in NYC next week, wonder if tix are still available?

My Canon G7 is rapidly aging. I want to upgrade but have decided I probably won't go for the Canon G10 because I think I want something smaller.

Right now I'm looking at 3 cameras:

Panasonic TZ5 - which I had before and liked but it was stolen back in May. Advantages - pocket sized, 10X optical zoom (28-280 equivalent), can shoot 720p video. 9 megapixel, 3 inch screen, 1/2.33" sensor. No RAW, no manual mode. They've also now got a TZ50 which adds WiFi but I doubt I would use that much. 8.5 ounces. List price in US $350.

Canon Ixus 880 - 10 megapixel, 3 inch screen, 4x optical zoom (28-112 equivalent), 1/2.3" sensor, 5.5 ounces. List price in US $300.

Canon Ixus 990 - 14.7 megapixel, 2.5 inch screen, 3.7x optical zoom (36-133 equivalent), 1/1.7" sensor. Full manual mode available. Optical viewfinder. 5.6 ounces. List price in US $400.

Kind of stuck. The Canon 990 looks much sleeker than the 880 and of course the looks of the camera should be secondary to its functionality - I'm turned off by the smaller LCD screen and more limited zoom but like the larger sensor, optical viewfinder and available manual mode.

I'm stuck.

Not looking at the Panasonic LX3 which has been very well reviewed but the 2.5x optical zoom doesn't cut it for me. Not really very interested in offerings from other companies - haven't seen anything that appeals to me.

Thoughts?

Went to pick up my tickets for Billy Joel today. Yeah, okay, but the last time I saw him live was 1974 (when he stormed off stage after the 2nd or 3rd song because he didn't like the piano) so what the heck.

And when I was at Tom Lee, I saw a flyer for this and said, "holy cow!" In case you're too lazy to click over, February 10 & 11, Chick Corea & John McLaughlin, Five Peace Band. And the rest of the band is Christian McBride, Kenny Garrett, Brian Blade. I'm thinking about buying tickets for both nights.

Oh and in case you don't already know, Kraftwerk tickets go on sale tomorrow. They're playing one night here, first time ever for them, first week of December. How can you go wrong with lyrics like, "Machine, machine, machine, machine, machine, machine"? (Showed my gf their Minimum-Maximum concert DVD and now she's excited about seeing them too, or at least doing a reasonable job of pretending to be.)

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Hey check it out - every video ever aired on MTV in the US can now be streamed online. No geographic check so it works in HK, just tried it. And (at least for now) there are no ads.

Why no ads? Explained here:

MTV.com spokesman Tom Biro tried to explain, and if I understand him correctly, the site is supposed to be used as a sort of white-label archive that can be used both by MTV Networks, owned by Viacom (VIA), to build other video sites, as well as outsiders, both professionals and amateurs.

MediaMemo, for instance, might want to build its own De La Soul fan site, and could grab all the clips needed from the MTV site.

That also explains why the site has such a nice clean, look: There aren’t any ads there, because MTV isn’t selling it as a destination site.

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

Also noted today:

Lifehacker: DVDNeXtCOPYiTurns removes iTunes DRM with Virtual CD Burner.

Gizmodo: Lenovo's IdeaPad S-10 Ultra-Portable gets Splashtop Instant Boot-up.

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

Also also noted today:

Cindy Crawford, 42 years old, French Vogue magazine, yeah yeah yeah Photoshop involved I'm sure but still ....

One of the many feeds in my RSS reader is for a site called Pinay Celebrity Online. It's mostly pics of female Filipino celebrities, as you might have guessed. The pictures are often sexy but rarely if ever racy, and they don't publish their full feed to RSS so you have to click over to see everything - including lots of ads.

Anyway, I give you one of their entries today. Enjoy.

In the recent interview by Phil Entertainment Portal (pep.ph), Marian Rivera reveals that she had broken up with her non-showbiz bf Ervic Vijandre and denies having romance with her loveteam Dingdong Dantes.

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Noted with interest:

Lifehacker: Create an iTunes account without a credit card
Use this hack to get an account on the US iTunes store - you won't be able to buy music but you'll be able to get at the larger selection of free iPhone and iPod Touch apps in the US store.

Gizmodo: Browse censored web sites from China using Firefox plugin
For my next trip across the border

The dangers of social networking sites .... via various gossip blogs, some kids run into Bono in St. Tropez, party with him a bit, post the photos on their Facebook pages, Bono's got a tough life ....

Ending .... Fenwick's will close before the end of the year. The building was sold and the new landlord doesn't like them. Not sure if it's a case where he's refusing to renew the lease or what, but they will be shutting down in the near future. No word on if they're looking for a new location.

Ending .... Krispy Kreme doughnuts in Hong Kong is shutting down. The HK franchise was owned and operated by the same group that runs Pepperoni's, Jaspa's, Cru, Wagyu, etc. They'll probably continue through the end of this week and then that's it. But as many who frequent their shops have noted, every time I went in, they were never busy. I think it just never took off in HK.

Beginning .... after 11 years in HK (1995-1999, 2001-present), today I received my Hong Kong Permanent Resident ID Card. Once word hit the streets, the Hang Seng Index dropped 12.7 percent.

So, back home again after 6 nights in Tokyo.

Very long days each day Monday through Thursday, starting at 9 AM, no lunch break, out for dinner with the same people each night, back to the hotel around 10 PM. Not a lot of free time until Friday, when things slowed down quite a bit.

As previously mentioned, I had the good fortune to be staying at the Ritz Carlton Hotel at the Tokyo Midtown complex in Roppongi. The hotel's lobby is on the 45th floor and then there are 7 or 8 floors of rooms above. Mine was on the 47th floor, giving me spectacular views both day and night.

This is looking out towards Shibuya.


And over towards Roppongi Hills.


The same two views by night.




Several of the meals were fantastic but many of them were with, well the kind of people where I wasn't comfortable pulling out a camera for a bit of food blogging. Monday night at Maya, in the Hibiya area, for the best shabu shabu on earth (for a price of roughly US$200 per person). Tuesday night was at a sushi place in Ginza - we were told the restaurant was 150 years old but it didn't look it, aside from our waitress that is. And actually the sushi was not the best I'd ever had. I skipped the Wednesday night dinner at the tempura restaurant at the Imperial Hotel because I'd been there once before and wasn't impressed.

Thursday night was at a popular Italian restaurant called La Bisboccia, not quite sure if it's in Ebisu or Hiro-o. Most of the staff working there was Italian and most of the ingredients were imported. They had many dishes laid out on a serving counter and would carry these huge (maybe 10 pounds? 10 kilos?) wheels of cheese from table to table to scrape off cheese to top your dishes. It was quite different from the top end Italian restaurants in HK and I can't really say but it seemed more of a rustic style. The walls were lined with graffitti and autographs from previous customers dating back at least 10 years - I spotted Jeff Beck and also what appeared to be an original drawing by Keith Haring. The prices here were quite reasonable for Tokyo - most of the main dishes were in the US$30 range - I had a veal cutlet topped with prosciutto, mozzarrella and chopped tomatoes, in a simple sauce of olive oil and garlic, and it was great. I really need to do a week in Italy.

The final night, I took my team out for dinner to a seafood place in Shimbashi. The set dinner consisted of 17 courses - some just tiny bowls and others big platters like the two pictured below. We also consumed massive quantities of beer and sake. Dinner worked out to roughly US$90 per person, including all the drinks, and I'd gladly go back again. Sorry, I didn't get the name of the place.


Friday afternoon walking around Akihabara for a couple of hours. Bought a couple of Casio watches. Camera prices were comparable with HK but I couldn't decide between 3 or 4 different ones and so decided to wait.

Apparently maid clubs are the big thing in Akihabara now.


Maid club supplies here.

Friday night, after recovering from all the booze at dinner, I decided to go out around midnight, not to a bar but to the branch of Tsutaya in Roppongi Hills that stays open 7 days a week till 4 AM. And it reminded me why I now hate Roppongi. I had to run a literal gauntlet of African guys trying to drag me off to sex clubs ("Hello my friend! Long time no see! I know what you want tonight, a quick happy ending, right? Come to my club!") and another gauntlet of mainland Chinese women trying to drag you off to seedy ripoff massage parlors.

The book prices at Tsutaya were simply ludicrous, though I suppose normal for Japan. I saw some books there that I wanted, some that would make good gifts. But I sat down in the Starbucks there, whipped out the iPhone, discovered no WiFi that I could connect to and bit the bullet and paid international data roaming prices to check the book prices on Amazon. Glad I did, because the books I liked that were US$100 there were $40 on Amazon and the $150 book I liked was $90 on Amazon.

Finishing up there, decided to take a taxi back to the hotel rather than run that gauntlet again.

Back home in Hong Kong in time to judge the China finals of Global Battle of the Bands. Three bands - previous winners from Hong Kong, Shenzhen (Bolt Action) and Shanghai (Dovetail Joints) competing. Oddly enough, both the Shenzhen and Shanghai bands consisted of westerners, the only Chinese band was the Hong Kong entry Killer Soap and I'm pleased to say that Killer Soap won. They go on to represent China in the finals which will be in London in December - 38 bands representing 38 countries, grand prize is US$100,000.

Later I was interviewed for a video that might end up on YouTube. Asked what I was looking for as I was voting, I told them that aside from the enjoyment factor itself, I was looking for a band that I would pay my own money to go see live and for a band that was hopefully unique enough to stand out in a crowded competition. And I think Killer Soap fits the bill. (Go to their MySpace page where you can stream the tracks from their demo CD.)

Props to Chris B for working so hard to make this a success in China. There are so few opportunities for independent rock bands in Hong Kong to be heard, too few venues, big ups to all the bands who are trying and those promoters (including Chris B & Underground, BC Magazine, Time Out HK, Fringe) for helping.

Oh, and btw, last night was the Lan Kwai Fong Carnival. LKF was mobbed, as was Cavern Club. So many freaking hot women everywhere, a fresh heart attack every 3 seconds.

Should be asleep now but ...

In Tokyo. The meetings start at 9 AM and go till 6:30 - not even a break for lunch, box lunch brought to the conference table. Then I have to go to dinner with the very same people I've been with the entire day.

The first two nights I have not tried to excuse myself from dinner because, well, the first night was dinner at Maya, a place I've been to twice before, where they do shabu-shabu with matsuzaka (or is it matsuzaya?) beef, something that makes kobe beef seem like McDonalds. The second night was sushi in a 150 year old restaurant (I think our waitress was one of their original staff). And of course, copious drinking both nights as well. By the time dinner is over, I have neither the inclination nor the ability to head to some bar for any sort of adventure, it's all I can do to get back to the hotel and get my suit on a hanger before collapsing on the bed.

I'm up now and doing this because I got back to the room, passed out, then woke up again and trying to get myself sleepy so I can grab a decent amount of sleep before another all day meeting tomorrow.

Got a column due on Friday, don't even have a topic for it let alone started it. Fortunately tomorrow night's dinner is in a place I don't really care for - the tempura restaurant at the Imperial Hotel, so hopefully I can excuse myself, rustle up some tonkatsu or ramen somewhere and get some writing done. Normally it's a tremendous insult to the Japanese to turn down a dinner invitation, but after 5 consecutive meals with me, perhaps they won't mind too much.

Staying at the Ritz Carlton - 47th floor. 47th floor hotel room in Tokyo? Unheard of just a few years ago. I'm facing out towards Roppongi Hills and can see the lights of Shibuya and Shinjuku off in the distance.

As always, the women on the streets of Japan seem much more attractive to me than those on the street in Hong Kong - or maybe it's just attractive in a different way. More stylish, more confident, more worldly. And a few of the women in the office have been .... well, no time to even think about it.

Hooray for Powell's endorsement of Obama. The McCain Palin campaign has become the punchline to a joke that no one asked. "Socialism"? "Pals around with terrorists"? What kind of double digit IQ does it take to focus in on that kind of bullshit when the country is in such a mess and in need of leadership? Does anyone truly believe that Obama harbors some secret terrorist agenda??????? What is with Sarah Palin and "real America"? What gives her the fucking right to say what is and what isn't real America?

I already did my last column on the election and I note that the editor chose to depict my logo in blue instead of the usual red. Good one that. Now I need something I can write a thousand words on before Friday ....... and I need some sleep .....

Heading off to Tokyo early Sunday morning. Very busy schedule so may or may not have time to blog while away.

The Opus comic strip comes to an end on November 2nd. Berkeley Breathed explains why in this article in Salon

Breathed says it's the anger that led him to close the book on "Opus," that the increasingly nasty political climate has made it too difficult to keep his strip from drifting into darkness. Breathed has described his work as a hybrid of "Peanuts" creator Charles Schulz's gentle humor and Michael Moore's crusading social justice. Perhaps losing touch with his inner Charlie Brown, Breathed has said that "a mad penguin, like a mad cartoonist, isn't very lovable," and wants Opus to take his final bow before bitterness changes him forever.

Stating the obvious:

Assume for the moment that Obama wins on November 4th. That doesn't mean the sun is going to shine and that life will become all sweetness and gravy. The country will not unite behind him. The Republican party will still exist, as will Fox "News." The torrent of antagonism and lies unleashed at Bill Clinton during his 8 years will seem like a tiny trickle compared to what Obama can probably expect.

Well, farewell Opus, for the 3rd time. Maybe in a couple of years he'll be back for a 4th round.

So glad that I live in the land of this:


and not in the land of that:

Just a few more things to note on this whole Joe the Plumber nonsense.

1 - Daily Show - "Joe the Plumber has already given more interviews than Sarah Palin."

2 - And when he opens his mouth, what does he say? Nice quote from Joe the Plumber over here:

You know, I've always wanted to ask one of these guys a question and really corner them and get them to answer a question ... for once instead of tap dancing around it. And unfortunately I asked the question, but I still got a tap dance. Almost as good as Sammy Davis Jr.

Nah, he ain't no racist!

3 - This bit from HuffPo is simply too weird to be a coincidence. Joe the Plumber's father is the son-in-law of Larry Keating. Joe the Plumber's father was an executive at American Continental Corporation, the parent company of Larry Keating's Lincoln Savings and Loan. McCain, in case you've forgotten, was one of the Larry Keating Five, a precision tap dancing group.

Years ago I worked for a very well funded start-up doing metro area networks. After a year, someone came along and offered US$600 million for the company. "No thanks," management replied, "we won't take a penny under $2 billion."

The fourth round of funding was canceled in the aftermath of 9/11 and the collapse of telecom stocks in '02. And soon after, the company declared bankruptcy. It was purchased for $20 million. Which is one reason why I don't own a beach house in Phuket.

Microsoft offered $33 per share for Yahoo. Yahoo said, "No thanks, we don't want to be part of the evil empire and besides we're worth $40 a share."

Yahoo's current share price? 2 days ago it was $11.51. Then Ballmer said that Microsoft still wants Yahoo. The price jumped up to $13.73.

Christina Aguilera is obviously in pain at this news. She's probably thinking that if they'd sold at $33, she'd have enough money to finally redo that bad boob job.

Just got an email from a headhunter who claims to be in Singapore.

OPPORTUNITY FOR "BUISNESS ANALYST"
Greetings from Softenger!

We have opportunity for BUSINESS ANALYST for OUR CLIENT
ITS A PERMANENT POSITION WITH OUR CLIENT
LOCATION -KULALAMPUR

At the bottom of the job spec is the line

only for malaysian candidates

So much for my dream of one day living in Kulalampur, wherever that might be!

Her latest email:

DEAR SPIKE, I HAVE RECEIVED YOUR MAIL AND LET ME QUICKLY INFORM YOU THAT YOU ARE NOT SEROIUS WITH THIS TRANSACTION. YOU MAIL AND YOUR STATEMENTS ARE SOUNDING VERY UNSERIOUS. LISTEN MR SPIKE, I AM NOT HERE FOR CHILDS PLAY AND LIKE I SAID BEFORE THAT I WANT YOU TO INDICATE YOUR POSITION IN THIS TRANSACTION AND TELL ME IF YOU ARE INTERESTED OR NOT. ARE YOU IN A POSITION TO TRAVEL TO LONDON TO CLIAM THE CONSIGNMENT FROM THE SECURITY COMPANY IN LONDON??. I WILL NEED YOUR URGENT RESPONSE TOWARDS THIS QUESTION. EXPECTING TO HEAR FROM YOU SOONEST. REGARDS, MRS MARIAM ABACHA.

My reply:

Darling,

You are still yelling at me. If you don't calm down, I will withdraw my proposal of marriage.

I will be happy to join you in London. Please send the plane ticket to the address I sent to you earlier. I prefer to travel business class.

Hugz!

The Spikinator

Stay tuned .....

Had a meet & greet with a software vendor the other day. They mentioned they'd send me a CD giving further details on their product offerings. I received a follow-up email from them today, which included the line:

I’ll email you a CD with has the ABC demo video (more than 10MB) later on this week.

Nice one, that.

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Hey, Joe the Plumber ain't a licensed plumber! And he doesn't pay his taxes! And his name's not really Joe!

Ya think the Republican spinmeisters shoulda spent 10 seconds looking into this guy before telling John "Boom Boom" McCain to mention him every 5 minutes during the debate?

My company's new CEO is in Hong Kong this week. There are these big presentation sessions and managers from all over the region have flown in. I'm not invited, which is odd because I got invited every time the last CEO came to town.

Tonight, I'd arranged dinner with the managing directors of 3 Asian territories. And around 7 PM, they phoned me up and told me to meet them at The Box, a bar on the 4th floor deck at IFC. I'm wearing khaki pants, short sleeve shirt, sneaks.

I see our company's regional head of security standing outside the bar. He's a friend so I go up and ask him what's going on? "Are you supposed to be here?" he jokes. "No, I'm not. Are you gonna shoot me?"

I walk into the bar and see that everyone managers and directors everywhere. The men are all in business casual, which for my company means suits but no ties. There are still cameras and video cameras recording the momentous event. And the CEO is standing 5 feet away from me, probably looking over and wondering how the hell some street person snuck in. All the MD's are telling me, don't worry about it, you're fine (the Japan MD kept poking me in the stomach), but nevertheless, when I found myself with an opportunity to introduce myself to the big boss, I decided it might be better if I didn't. He struck me as a much more formal, less approachable type than the last CEO, who was definitely a "people person."

Well, anyway, after that little shindig broke up and we were looking for dinner, I suggested we just stay in the same place and go to H-1, Harlan Goldstein's second outpost in the IFC. I've eaten at Harlan's but never at H-1 and I'm curious to try it out. I love it when people from out of town come to visit and I get to eat in places like this for free.

So we walk over to see if we can get a table and we can, but in the first room, not the big room with the panoramic harbor view. There's this long counter with an entire leg of pig on a stand, then some salamis, a huge wheel of parmesan cheese, different oysters and other shellfish on ice.

The menu mentions that they have a new chef there, forget his name, born in Italy and served some time under Marco Pierre White. The waitress told us that the first two pages were the new menu created by the new chef and the last two pages were hold-overs from the previous menu. The hold-overs consisted of pizza, grilled meat and fish, Thai and Indian food. The new menu is all high end Italian. Pretty damned schizophrenic if you ask me.

All of us choose the 3 kinds of ham starter - some prosciutto and other varieties with melon, rocket, parmesan, some oil and balsamic vinegar - at $328. Like I said, I love it when I go to these sorts of places and I'm not paying. For the main, I noticed an "organic" pork chop and asked the waiter if I should go with that or with the tagliatelle with a half Maine lobster. He first offered to do a smaller size plate on the pasta so I could have both, but I told him that despite my huge stomach, that would be too much for me. So he said he thought the pasta was more special there so I went for that. The lobster was ever so slightly overcooked but the pasta was perfectly prepared, the sauce was nice and I ended up being too full to order anything from the dessert menu, which read really well.
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Apparently all the rumors were true and Madonna and Guy Ritchie are getting divorced. Does this mean he can go back to making good movies again?
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Yeah, I know they're expensive, but the new MacBook and MacBook Pro both look very lust-worthy. I can't entirely justify going out and buying a laptop but I'm gonna read the reviews as they appear and then think long and hard about it.

from MRS. MARIAM ABACHA. reply-to marmrs50@gmail.com to date Thu, Oct 2, 2008 at 6:08 AM subject INTERNATIONAL INVESTMENT. ( THIS IS MY PICTURE BELOW )

hide details Oct 2 (13 days ago)

Reply

MRS. MARIAM ABACHA,
MARMUD INVESTMENT INTERNATIONAL LTD,
PLOT 720,AHMADU BELLO WAY,
VICTORIA-ISLAND,
LAGOS- NIGERIA.

ATTENTION; PRESIDENT/C.E.O,
DEAR SIR/MADAM,

I,MRS.MARIAM ABACHA HERE WITH YOU, THE WIFE OF LATE GENERAL SANI ABACHA,FORMER HEAD OF STATE TO FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF NIGERIA. I GOT YOUR PUBLISHED CONTACT AND WILL LIKE TO ASK FOR YOUR CO-OPERATION IN INVESTING THE SUM OF US$15M WITH YOU.

MY HUSBAND BOXED AND SHIPPED THE FUNDS TO A SECURITY COMPANY IN ABROAD AT THE PEAK OF THE POLITICAL UPRISING THAT ROCKED MY HUSBANDS DEATH FEWS YEARS AGO. I NEED A TRUSTWORTHY PERSON LIKE YOU TO PROCEED TO THE SECURITY COMPANY IN ORDER TO CLEAR THE FUNDS ON MY BEHALF AND AFTERWARDS, I WILL COME DOWN TO YOUR COUNTRY TO START A JOINT BUSINESS VENTURE FOR MUTUAL BENEFITS.THIS FUND/CONSIGNMENT IS CURRENTLY DEPOSITED IN A SECURITY COMPANY IN EUROPE. YOU ARE REQUIRED TO TRAVEL TO THE SECURITY COMPANY IN EUROPE TO  CLEAR-OUT THE CONSIGNMENT FROM THE SECURITY COMPANY  FOR MUTUAL BENEFITS

YOUR NEGOTIATING PERCENTAGE FROM THIS FUNDS TOWARDS COMPENSATING YOUR EFFORTS AND ASSISTANCE IS GOING TO BE MADE IN RECEIVING AND SAVING THIS FUNDS FOR ME, IS HIGHLY WELCOME, PLEASE ADVICE.IN OTHER WORDS, I WILL LIKE YOU TO NEGOTIATE FOR A PROFITABLE BUSINESS INVESTMENT IN YOUR
COUNTRY TO INVEST THIS FUNDS WHILE YOU WILL TAKE CARE OF INVESTMENT UNTIL IT GETS TO A MATURED STAGE. OR BETTER STILL TO INVEST IT IN YOUR EXISTING BUSINESSES IN BUYING SOME SHARES.PLEASE REPLY ME ONLY THROUGH YOUR PERSONAL CONTACT AND I WILL BE GLAD TO GIVE YOU THE DETAILS AND WHERE THE FUNDS IS.

PLEASE FORWARD TO ME,YOUR FULL NAMES, YOUR PERSONAL TELEPHONE AND FAX NUMBERS.THE NAME OF YOUR COMPANY AND ADDRESS

NOTE; THIS IS MY PICTURE FOR YOUR PERUSAL AND ASSURANCE.

AWAITING YOUR KIND RESPONSE,

YOURS SINCERELY,

MRS. MARIAM ABACHA.

To get from the carpark to my house, I have to walk down a dark alley way, roughly 75 feet, no lights. There's a drain covered by a metal grate that runs the length of the path. It's straight and relatively level and I know it by heart so walking it at night isn't a problem.

Coming home tonight, I'm about halfway down the path when I step on something squishy. Oh great, I think to myself, someone didn't clean up after their dog. I stop, turn around to look at what I stepped in, and see a snake. I didn't step in shit, I stepped on a snake.

I looked at it, it looked at me, and then it slithered off into the drain.
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Had a fabulous dinner tonight at Hunan Garden at Times Square. Of course all the "Garden" restaurants are owned by Maxim's but I'd never tried their Hunan variety. It's in the space that used to be the home of Shooters 52 ("sooter mmm sap yee!" as their movie ads used to proclaim), a place I ate at dozens of times when I worked in Times Square more than a decade ago, so it was kind of funny sitting there, remembering where the bar and the booths used to be, half expecting to see the posters of girls in bikinis in the toilet.

Anyway, service is impeccable, prices are reasonable (for Times Square) and I enjoyed all the dishes - prawn in chili sauce, a claypot chicken dish, a claypot curry lamb, dan dan mian, daou miu - the lamb was probably my favorite.

After dinner, my guests wanted a drink, so we walked over to Inn Side Out, completely packed at 9:30 on a Tuesday evening. They don't have a lot of competition in the area any more and the fact that half the seats are outside makes it a rather pleasant place on a night like this.

Got home, stepped on the aforementioned snake and watched last night's episode of Mad Men which was truly astonishing, one of the best of a great series. So here are two pictures of series co-star Christina Hendricks. Click on those links to see the larger versions.




And doesn't Jon Hamm look like he's auditioning for the role of James Bond in this shot? (Too bad there's no photo online of him in the suit with the fedora poolside, just a great image, you'll have to watch the show.) And soon after, the girl, whose name is Joy, says to him, "Why would you deny yourself something you want?" And later, offering him a new life, "My father will take care of you. He likes you. You're beautiful and you don't talk too much."

from xkcd

Lately a lot of issues, both personal and external, have had me lying awake in bed at night. Combined with my OSA, this is making me a total wreck during what ought to be "waking hours."

Also, any time I have something scheduled for early in the morning, I lie awake in bed worried that I won't get enough sleep. This morning I had a 7 AM conference call. I went to bed at midnight, sort of slept, but was wide awake at 1:30. I think I eventually fell asleep around 5 and then woke up at 6:30, dreaming that I'd overslept and missed the call.

One thing I've been thinking of is religion, god knows why. Let me state for the record that I was born and raised Jewish and remain culturally Jewish and like many American Jews I am an admirer of Buddhism but at the core of my non-existent soul I am an atheist.

One of the things that bugs me about Christianity is the notion that you can basically do whatever the hell you want during your lifetime and as long as you say you're sorry right before you die, you get to go to heaven. At least that's my understanding of how it works. So Hitler is responsible for killing 10 million people but if he'd said "oops" before killing himself in the bunker, he could be sitting at God's right hand right now?

The whole heaven/hell thing is clearly predicated on the notion that bad people don't realize they're bad and so they won't ask for forgiveness before it's too late. Otherwise the only people in hell are those who died unexpectedly and suddenly. It's like, if Gary Glitter dies a slow death in a hospital and has a chance to say, "I'm sorry I screwed all those children in Asia" before he dies then he goes to heaven but if he dies in a train accident then he goes to hell? That hardly seems like justice to me.

In a similar fashion, this whole reincarnation bit. You know, if you do something really bad in this life, you come back in the next as a termite. But when you die and your soul is being routed to its next incarnation, how do they know what you did? Who's in charge of this? How do they decide? Is Buddha sitting up there with some book and your soul goes flying by and he says, OH, right, Spike, you killed a salamander when you were 12, you're coming back as stinky tofu. I think it must be more like a cosmic Pachinko game, with levers being flicked and balls flying around, souls landing in different slots almost randomly. And if you keep coming back and keep coming back and it's random, then it doesn't much matter what you do while you're here, does it?

It also makes little sense to me that one's behavior during one's 60 or so years walking this planet should then determine where one gets to spend eternity. I mean, that's a really long sentence. What happened to second chances? Parole? It just doesn't make sense. If I covet my neighbor's ass (and she's got a nice one), okay, maybe a few hundred years in hell, but 15 billion for wanting to cover her ass in chocolate and lick it off? That's excessive.

Religion was invented as a way for primitive people to explain natural events that were beyond their understanding. Where does the sun go at night? What's that flash of light in the sky? Why can't our team win a division championship just once? Religion is also an easy way for monarchs to maintain control - they're a god, they're descended from a god, they're doing god's will, blah blah blah.

It became convenient to codify laws into religions. Those laws may have made sense at one time but when they become outdated, they don't go away. So when people kept getting sick and dying from eating oysters, the rabbis would go, "What the hell is wrong with you people? We told you not to eat that shit, that you'd get sick!" And the people would respond, "But rabbi, it tastes so freaking good, we can't stop." And then the rabbis thought for a bit and said, "A-ha! God said you shouldn't eat them, you'll roast in hell if you do!" But with modern refrigeration techniques, you usually won't die from eating shellfish now, yet the fact remains that an observant Jew isn't allowed to eat lobster, which really makes no sense to me at all. Why is it a sin if I have a bacon cheeseburger and a chocolate milkshake - aside from the fact that with my weight I'd be better off having a salad.

Basically, whenever some group comes along and conquers another group and forces the losers to take on their religion, they've added in bits of the losers' religions to make the new stuff more palatable. So the holidays remain the same, just the names and the rationales change. Jesus (the Greek variant of the name Joshua or Yeshua, which is more palatable to Christians because it doesn't sound so Jewish) wasn't born on December 25th but that was the date of an existing holiday and so people didn't need to change their holiday bookings when the Christians took over. "Ah," they say, "we still get to keep Whack-A-Mole Day but now it's called Easter? I can live with that."

Then the whole bit with the angels and the saints. Judaism made this big deal about being superior to earlier pagan religions because it was monotheistic, but then they included all these angels running around doing stuff. Christians kept the angels and added saints. Now what's the point of praying to a saint? If god is omniscient and all powerful, do the saints have the same powers? Can they hear peoples' prayers and act on them and if so, why aren't they also gods?

If science tells us that the universe started with a big bang, what came before that? Was there a 15 billion year cycle of expansion and contraction that started and ended with a big bang before our big bang? And if so, how many of these cycles could there have been? One? One million? And if there's a god, did he survive through these cycles and has been around for trillions of years, or do we get a new one after each big bang? Did the universe as it existed prior to our big bang have to put up with Sarah Palin and George W. Bush? Enquiring minds want to know.

Then I started thinking .... well, we don't really know how big the universe is, do we? We have lots of educated guesses but we'll never know for sure. Let's say there are billions of stars. And circling these billions of stars are trillions of planets. It's fair to assume that millions of planets have some form of life on them and that at least thousands, if not millions, have intelligent life, some advanced much further than us, some still rubbing sticks together to make fire.

If some planet did figure out a faster than light drive or how to exploit wormholes or black holes or quasars in order to travel the vast distances between inhabited planets in a reasonable amount of time (I personally hate plane flights that last longer than 90 minutes), did they come here and seemed so much more advanced that they were seen as gods? And did they not return because there are so many other places to check out or because they were smart enough to know that one day High School Musical was going to be the hottest thing around?

But let's say there's an omniscient god who controls the entire universe and is lord over millions of planets with intelligent life. Is it possible that god set up the universe as a giant sociological experiment and that his rules are different on every planet, just to see how things turn out? On our planet you shouldn't covet your neighbor's wife and on some other planet having sex with sheep is desirable? On planet X women walk around with their breasts out but their elbows remain covered in public while on planet Y people generally rate New Kids on the Block as being better than Shakespeare? And if that is indeed the case, is it possible that we're losing, that other planets are doing better than us in the whole life thing and that god prefers the planet Zukuleron, where people build shrines made out of insects instead of concrete, to us?

In an infinite universe, there are infinite possibilities.

And I clearly need some rest.

In Defense of Piracy

by Lawrence Lessig

We are in the middle of something of a war here -- what some call "the copyright wars"; what the late Jack Valenti called his own "terrorist war," where the "terrorists" are apparently our kids. But if I asked you to shut your eyes and think about these "copyright wars," your mind would not likely run to artists like Girl Talk or creators like Stephanie Lenz. Peer-to-peer file sharing is the enemy in the "copyright wars." Kids "stealing" stuff with a computer is the target. The war is not about new forms of creativity, not about artists making new art.
....

This war must end. It is time we recognize that we can't kill this creativity. We can only criminalize it. We can't stop our kids from using these tools to create, or make them passive. We can only drive it underground, or make them "pirates." And the question we as a society must focus on is whether this is any good. Our kids live in an age of prohibition, where more and more of what seems to them to be ordinary behavior is against the law. They recognize it as against the law. They see themselves as "criminals." They begin to get used to the idea.

That recognition is corrosive. It is corrupting of the very idea of the rule of law. And when we reckon the cost of this corruption, any losses of the content industry pale in comparison.

......

—Adapted from "Remix" by Lawrence Lessig, to be published by The Penguin Press on Oct. 16, 2008. Copyright by Lawrence Lessig, 2008. Printed by arrangement with The Penguin Press, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

Lawrence Lessig is a professor of law at Stanford Law School, and co-founder of Creative Commons.

Went to Immigration today to apply for my Permanent ID card. Relatively painless.

Two weeks ago I applied basically for permission to apply. You fill in some forms, show them proof that you've lived here, wait a week, go in for an interview and you get a piece of paper saying, "yes, you have lived here more than 7 years."

After that, make an appointment on the internet to file the application and download the relevant form. My appointment was at 2:15 today. I showed up about 3 minute early. No one ahead of me on line. They gave me a number and told me to wait till I was called.

By the time I walked away from the window and found a seat, my number was already up on the screen. Thumbprints and pictures taken. The booklet said that I needed my birth certificate - one friend was positive that I wouldn't have it (no jokes about being hatched or created in a test tube, she just didn't think I'd brought it with me from the US) but yes, I do. The officer never asked for it, but I pulled it out and showed her I had it if she needed it. She took a look and said, "That's old!!!" I said, "Yes, and I'm old too, thanks."

Then another wait, this time all of 2 minutes before I got called to the next window where a different officer checked my thumbprints, reviewed the documents and handed me back my passport. They kept my old ID card and gave me a piece of paper that serves as a temporary ID. My new card is ready to be picked up in two weeks, which means that when I leave town this Sunday, I'm actually going to have to queue up and not just use the electronic thingie coming and going.

Yes, off to Tokyo on Sunday for 5 nights. Going to try out the Ritz Carlton at Tokyo Midtown for the first time, looks quite spiffy on the web.
========================================

I was thinking about applying for a vanity plate for my car. SPIKE or SPIKE1 or SPIKE88 or something like that. So I checked into how to do it.

The transport department only takes applications for personalized plates 3 months a year - January, May and September. So you fill out the form with your requested plate and give them a deposit of $5,000. If the number of applications in a given month is greater than the number specified in the "Gazette Notice," the Transport Commissioner chooses which ones to process via lucky draw.

So if you've got one of the lucky ones, you get the plate, right? Wrong.

Now they hold a freaking auction. All of the ones submitted go up for auction, starting price of $5,000. If no one bids on the one you've submitted, your $5,000 deposit is collected as the fee and you're issued the plate. If someone else bids, the price obviously goes up and maybe you get outbid by the other person.

And the $5,000+ is just for the license, you pay separately for the car registration itself.

So with this ridiculous process in place, I decided to live with my random license plate even though it ends with the digits 58 which I think in Cantonese means "no money" or "never get rich" and ain't that the truth.

Oh ... here are some of the ones that were issued after the last auction:

LES PAUL
ABC - $160,000 for this one!
WL - $150,000 for this one!
BOSS - $320,000 for this one!
HK SKY
BABE MAG
ULTRAMAN
MY - $170,000 for this one!

Total proceeds from this auction: $3,329,000.

Looking at previous auctions, someone paid $370,000 for BEATLES

1 LOVE YOU went for $1.4 million

It cost someone $450,000 to be COOL but only $130,000 to be HANDSOME.

Someone paid $40,000 to be ANDY LAU and someone paid $120,000 to say GOOD DAY.

Ain't it fun that all this info is online and publicly accessible for our entertainment? (Yes, I'm easily amused.)

This has got to hurt. Allen Salkin of the New York Times gets Ferran Adria to come over to his house and cook dinner - and Adria can only do it on Yom Kippur, which means Salkin only gets to taste the left-overs the next night.

Mitch Easter was in Sneakers with Chris Stamey in the 70s, Let's Active in the 80s, and produced R.E.M. (back when they were good), Marshall Crenshaw, Suzanne Vega and many others. And last year he released his first solo album, Dynamico. And I didn't hear about it or hear it until today. And it is wonderful.

Brian Eno and Pete Chilvers have teamed up to make an iPhone app called Bloom. Make your own ambient music, with visuals to match, just by tapping the screen randomly, or listen and watch some of the ones that are already there. Four bucks and worth it.

Hey Katy Perry, I kissed a girl and I liked it, too!

After a week of attacking Obama relentlessly, things were getting ugly. McCain was making speeches to crowds that were responding like racist mobs. The only thing missing, it seemed, were pitchforks and torches.

McCain pulled back a little on Friday,

When a man told him he was “scared” of an Obama presidency, Mr. McCain replied, “I want to be president of the United States and obviously I do not want Senator Obama to be, but I have to tell you — I have to tell you — he is a decent person and a person that you do not have to be scared" of "as president of the United States.” The crowd booed loudly at Mr. McCain’s response.

Later, a woman stood up at the meeting, held at Lakeville South High School in a far suburb of Minneapolis, and told Mr. McCain that she could not trust Mr. Obama because he was an “Arab.”

Mr. McCain replied: “No, ma’am, he’s a decent family man, citizen who I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues. And that’s what this campaign is all about.” At that, the crowd applauded.

But a few minutes later he made the assertion that “Mr. Obama’s political career was launched in Mr. Ayers’ living room.”

Crowds in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania have repeatedly booed Mr. Obama and yelled “off with his head,” and at a rally in Florida where Ms. Palin appeared without Mr. McCain, The Washington Post reported that a man yelled out “kill him.” At the same rally, a racial insult was hurled at an African-American television cameraman.

Off with his head? What country is that? What people are they? It certainly doesn't seem like my country any more.

Meanwhile, one day after clearing herself of abuse of power as Governor of Alaska, an investigation by the Alaska legislature says she did it - but whether or not they will act on this is not clear.

Why is Palin so confused? Huffington Post references a post on Gawker showing Palin's (as yet unathenticated) high school transcript - she had a 2.2 average (where 4.0 is the highest). That same report shows her combined SAT score to be 841 (1600 is the highest and the national average is 997). Would love to see results of her IQ test.

The HuffPo post also links to this site where they show SAT scores of famous people. Paul Allen got a perfect 1600 while Bill Gates only got 1590. Bill O'Reilly scored 1585, Al Gore 1355. George Bush got 1206, Bill Clinton only 1032. Mine, if memory serves, was somewhere between 1300 and 1400. I know, if I'm so smart, why ain't I rich?

Probably because I spend too much time thinking about this:



See a whole lot more of her here.

Since some readers have been so helpful in the past for this sort of thing ....

In the past, I'd take MP3s that I'd downloaded and burn 'em onto DVD-R for storage. But with hard disks so cheap, I'm just storing everything on RAID arrays. And that means taking all those all DVD-Rs and copying them over to hard disk. Quicker access, eliminate duplications, ensure proper file names, etc.

When I burned DVD-Rs on a PC using Nero, if the file name was over 63 characters, I'd get a pop-up box warning me of which files needed to be renamed, and I'd rename them before burning.

When I burned DVD-Rs on a Mac (I don't recall what software I used), if the file name was too long, the software would simply truncate the name without any warning. So now I have a number of DVDs with MP3s where the names were truncated from the right.

When I try to copy these to disk using a PC, sometimes the PC cannot copy those files with truncated names. I get an error that says it can't find the file or it can't read from the disk.

Various bits of copying software that I've tried, such as CopyCat, also cannot deal with these files.

The result is that I'm left with a fair number of probably irreplaceable albums that are missing one or more tracks.

I can't try copying on a Mac because my 3 year old Mac Mini is toast and I'm not going to spend the money to revive it.

Any thoughts or suggestions on how to retrieve these files?

Salma Hayek says thanks!

The McCain mud slinging machine rolls on, having apparently decided that they will forego any semblance of truth in order to win the election. Here is the text of the latest campaign ad.

First still on the whole, thoroughly debunked Bill Ayers thing. McCain seems to think that Ayers will be Obama's Willie Horton. That's the extent of his creative thinking.

Obama's Blind Ambition. When convenient, he worked with terrorist Bill Ayers. When discovered, he lied. Obama. Blind Ambition. Bad Judgment.

Bill Ayers, Chicago's 1997 Citizen of the Year. McCain's pal? Larry Keating.

Then a new tactic:

Congressional liberals fought for risky sub-prime loans. Congressional liberals fought against more regulation. Then the housing market collapsed, costing you billions. In crisis we need leadership, not bad judgment. "I'm John McCain and I approved this message."

Funny isn't it how Republicans always accuse Democrats of wanting too much regulation and how Republicans believe in the free market and deregulation ... but all of that gets tossed out the window when you're down in the polls and pitching to an audience consisting of people with double digit IQs who can't spell "google" to actually check the record.

Back-up information released with the ad cites a speech given by Obama and he is quoted as saying, "Subprime lending started off as a good idea - helping Americans buy homes who couldn’t previously afford to.”

That was the first sentence. They don't supply the rest. Because it shows that the liars are the Republicans, not Obama.

Subprime lending started off as a good idea - helping Americans buy homes who couldn’t previously afford to. Financial institutions created new financial instruments that could securitize these loans, slice them into finer and finer risk categories and spread them out among investors around the country and around the world.

In theory, this should have allowed mortgage lending to be less risky and more diversified. But as certain lenders and brokers began to see how much money could be made, they began to lower their standards. Some appraisers began inflating their estimates to get the deals done. Some borrowers started claiming income they didn’t have just to qualify for the loans, and some were engaging in irresponsible speculation. But many borrowers were tricked into glossing over the fine print. And ratings agencies began rating bundles of different kinds of these loans as low-risk even though they were very high-risk.

Most everyone knew that some of these deals were just too good to be true, but all that money flowing in made it tempting to look the other way and ignore the unscrupulous practice of some bad actors

Read the rest of the speech here.

So here we are, in the midst of what could well be the biggest economic meltdown in 70 years. And instead of debating potential solutions, we have name calling.

Is this the ugliest campaign ad ever? The biggest pack of lies ever foisted on the public by a major party candidate? Has McCain lost all his honor? Has he completely abandoned his scruples in his naked pursuit of power? You betcha.

Fabulous slideshow from Sequoia Capital on the current financial crisis - how we got here, where we are now, where things seem to be headed. Strongly recommend you take the time to look at this.

Seth MacFarlane's Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy (via The Movie Blog): A Scotsman Who Can't Watch a Movie Without Shouting at the Screen.

Also in animated TV news, South Park is back, and in last night's episode, Steven Spielberg and George Lucas repeatedly rape Indiana Jones, parodying rape scenes from other movies. One bit here, another bit here. I wouldn't say that Indiana Jones 4 is the worst sequel ever (it's better than Weekend at Bernie's 2) and these clips are actually a bit over the top for my taste but judge for yourself - note that they are quite graphic even if they are cartoons.

Paris Hilton is actually funny on purpose in her second campaign video, as she asks Martin Sheen, one of our greatest fake presidents, fake advice on how to be a fake president.

And for more news, we turn to the Beautiful Newsmakers blog for this photo of Lee Hee Jin. Just because.

I like this article in the NY Times magazine section on tipping. It revolves around a restaurant in San Diego which has eliminated tipping in favor of a fixed service charge. It also goes into the history of modern tipping.

Even though I read Waiter Rant (and even read his book), too much of it revolves around tipping. And apparently his next book is going to be 100% devoted to tipping.

Economists have struggled to explain tipping. Why tip at all, since the bill is presented at the end of a meal and can’t retroactively improve service? And certainly there’s no reason to tip at a restaurant you will never revisit. “Using a rational and selfish agent to explain tipping, one reaches the conclusion that the agent should never tip if he does not intend to visit the establishment again,” Ofer Azar, the economist, writes. “Yet this prediction is sharply violated in practice: most people tip even when they do not intend to ever come back.”

In the US, waiters in full service restaurants are generally paid well under the minimum wage, with the expectation that tips will make up the rest of their income. Then hopefully the waiter will tip out a percentage to the bus staff and kitchen staff, but that rarely happens. And sometimes the waiter is expected to kick back a percentage to supervisors and managers.

(Earlier this year, a California judge ordered Starbucks to pay its baristas $105 million for tips the company diverted to supervisors.)

And perhaps as much as 40% of tips go unreported to Internal Revenue. In short, the entire system is a mess and should be eliminated.

In Hong Kong, the situation is bad in another direction ... almost all restaurants charge a 10% service charge, but that frequently goes to the owner and is not split amongst the staff.

How did we get into this mess? Blame the Brits, apparently:

THERE WAS A time, not so long ago in this country, when the Linkery’s no-tipping policy would not have stood out. Tipping was imported from Europe, and when it arrived in America, it met with impassioned and organized opposition. While the precise origin of tipping is uncertain, it is commonly traced to Tudor England, according to “Tipping,” Kerry Segrave’s history of the custom. By the 17th century, it was expected that overnight guests to private homes would provide sums of money, known as vails, to the host’s servants. Soon after, customers began tipping in London coffeehouses and other commercial establishments. One frequented by Samuel Johnson had a bowl printed with the words “To Insure Promptitude,” and some speculate that “tip” is an acronym for this phrase.

Tipping began as an aristocratic practice, a sprinkle of change for social inferiors, and it quickly spread among the upper classes of Europe. Yet even at its outset, tipping engendered feelings of anxiety and resentment. In the mid-1800s, after leaving the Bell Inn of Gloucester, the Scottish writer Thomas Carlyle complained: “The dirty scrub of a waiter grumbled about his allowance, which I reckoned liberal. I added sixpence to it, and [he] produced a bow which I was near rewarding with a kick.”

After the Civil War, wealthy Americans began traveling to Europe in significant numbers, and they brought the tip home with them to demonstrate their worldliness. But the United States, unlike Europe, had no aristocratic tradition, and as tipping spread — like “evil insects and weeds,” The New York Times claimed in 1897 — many thought it was antithetical to American democratic ideals. “Tipping, and the aristocratic idea it exemplifies, is what we left Europe to escape,” William Scott wrote in his 1916 anti-tipping screed, “The Itching Palm.” One periodical of the same era deplored tipping for creating a class of workers who relied on “fawning for favors.”

Opposition to tipping was not limited to the media. In 1904, the Anti-Tipping Society of America sprang up in Georgia, and its 100,000 members signed pledges not to tip anyone for a year. Leagues of traveling salesmen opposed the tip, as did most labor unions. In 1909, Washington became the first of six states to pass an anti-tipping law. But tipping persisted. The new laws rarely were enforced, and when they were, they did not hold up in court. By 1926, every anti-tipping law had been repealed.

Several of the most important restaurants in the US - Chez Panisse, French Laundry, Charlie Trotter's - don't allow tipping. More should follow that example.

Here's a good tip for you - Co-Ed Magazine's 50 best natural breasts of all time.

And stolen from celebslam.com, Nicolette Sheridan is 44 years old but I don't think anyone's complaining about seeing her in a bikini.

The Hang Seng Index closed at just above 15,000 today. That's its lowest point in more than 2 years. The HSI is down 50% from the start of the year. Is this a buying opportunity? Maybe for day traders. I don't think we've hit bottom yet.
===============================
A letter from the SCMP worth reprinting in full:

More than 1,500 members of the public objected to the Urban Renewal Authority's (URA) H19 plan (Staunton and Wing Lee streets) in the first round of the Town Planning Board's consultation in April.

However, the URA has given no consideration to these views and has decided that, in spite of this, it will go ahead with its destructive plan for SoHo.

Residents are worried that this development plan, which will add three more towers to a small site in SoHo, will worsen the area's already crowded living environment, bring more traffic to the congested streets and endanger the old retaining walls and buildings in the vicinity.

Even the Central and Western District Council, after consulting residents in the area, passed a motion in July demanding that the URA redraw its plan. This was ignored by the authority.

A 30-storey tower is planned to sit on top of the historic but fragile Bridges Street market, the site where Sun Yat-sen was baptised and lived.

This huge tower will extend to Wing Lee Street at the back of the market where a row of 12 beautiful tong lau [Chinese tenement housing] will be demolished to make way for the residence's clubhouse and shops.

This huge tower will block the air flow and sunlight to the surrounding groups of residential buildings.

The blocks of tong lau, tastefully renovated by existing owners in Staunton Street, will not be spared by the URA.

They will be pulled down and turned into another monstrous high-rise.

Could we get anything worse? This public body, whose mission is to improve our living environment, is in fact doing the exact opposite.

What is all this talk about reviewing the urban renewal strategy, when a planning disaster like this will not be stopped?

If the government and the Town Planning Board allow this project to go ahead, it will be the end of common sense for Hong Kong.

One wonders whether the second round of public consultation, which ends on Friday, will be able to stop this madness.

Katty Law, Central

Where to even start? That there are "public consultations" that are consistently ignored seems a good place. We are given the pretense of having some say and then the government goes ahead and does what it wants, seeking as always to benefit the big realtors at the expense of ordinary people.

The destruction of wedding card street. The ongoing debate about that monstrous addition to Hopewell Centre. The piers. The cruise terminal (good editorial by Philip Bowring in the SCMP on that topic.) Who's looking out for us? No one, apparently.

Thomas Friedman on dummy Sarah Palin:

Criticizing Sarah Palin is truly shooting fish in a barrel. But given the huge attention she is getting, you can’t just ignore what she has to say. And there was one thing she said in the debate with Joe Biden that really sticks in my craw. It was when she turned to Biden and declared: “You said recently that higher taxes or asking for higher taxes or paying higher taxes is patriotic. In the middle class of America, which is where Todd and I have been all of our lives, that’s not patriotic.”

What an awful statement. Palin defended the government’s $700 billion rescue plan. She defended the surge in Iraq, where her own son is now serving. She defended sending more troops to Afghanistan. And yet, at the same time, she declared that Americans who pay their fair share of taxes to support all those government-led endeavors should not be considered patriotic.

I only wish she had been asked: “Governor Palin, if paying taxes is not considered patriotic in your neighborhood, who is going to pay for the body armor that will protect your son in Iraq? Who is going to pay for the bailout you endorsed? If it isn’t from tax revenues, there are only two ways to pay for those big projects — printing more money or borrowing more money. Do you think borrowing money from China is more patriotic than raising it in taxes from Americans?” That is not putting America first. That is selling America first.

Just to offset the Aaron Kwok photos, a couple of new magazine covers for y'all

Since some people said they couldn't see the Aaron Kwok photos in the previous post, here they are again, uploaded in a different manner.

Laugh now, we'll all be wearing this next year.

From The Economist:

AS THE financial crisis pushes the economy back to the top of voters’ concerns, Barack Obama is starting to open up a clear lead over John McCain in the opinion polls. But among those who study economics for a living, Mr Obama’s lead is much more commanding. A survey of academic economists by The Economist finds the majority—at times by overwhelming margins—believe Mr Obama has the superior economic plan, a firmer grasp of economics and will appoint better economic advisers.

Our survey is not, by any means, a scientific poll of all economists. We e-mailed a questionnaire to 683 research associates, all we could track down, of the National Bureau of Economic Research, America’s premier association of applied academic economists, though the NBER itself played no role in the survey. A total of 142 responded, of whom 46% identified themselves as Democrats, 10% as Republicans and 44% as neither. This skewed party breakdown may reflect academia’s Democratic tilt, or possibly Democrats’ greater propensity to respond. Still, even if we exclude respondents with a party identification, Mr Obama retains a strong edge—though the McCain campaign should be buoyed by the fact that 530 economists have signed a statement endorsing his plans.

......

There is an apparent contradiction between most economists’ support for free trade, low taxes and less intervention in the market and the low marks many give to Mr McCain, who is generally more supportive of those things than Mr Obama. It probably reflects a perception that the Republican Party under George Bush has subverted many of those ideals for ideology and political gain. Indeed, the majority of respondents rate Mr Bush’s economic record as very bad, and Republican respondents are only slightly less critical.

“John McCain has professed disdain for ‘so-called economists’, and for some the feeling has become mutual,” says Erik Brynjolfsson, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sloan School of Management. “Obama’s team is mainstream and non-ideological but extremely talented.”

(Above from NY Times)

I think the HK Standard has completely given up. Today on their "editorial" page they reprinted an article from the L.A. Times asking people their opinion of the OJ Simpson verdict.

The Standard also doesn't publish letters from readers. In the space where those letters might go, they instead publish a daily column from Nury Vittachi.

The headline on this "newspaper" today ... "Last of the Big Spenders" which is about the downturn in tourism during Golden Week last week. Less people are coming here from China and those who do are spending less. Allan Zeman suggests less promotion dollars spent in the west and more spent in China. Federation of HK Hotel Owners exec dir Michael Li suggests more promotion in Russia, India and the Middle East.

Nowhere in the article does it draw a line between all of the horror stories that Mainland tourists have faced - tour guides forcing people to buy crap and threatening them with abandonment, a bank foreclosing on a hotel and tossing out all the paying guests with no warning - the kinds of things that just might give HK tourism a bad name in China, let alone anywhere else.

Right now the Dow is below 10,000 for the first time in 4 years. Wasn't it just a couple of weeks ago that McCain was saying how great the US economy is?

Expat@Large has moved his blog to here. One of these days I'll get around to updating my links.

In times of economic hardship, Americans have sought escapist entertainment, which explains why during the Depression the #1 star at the box office was Shirley Temple. But does it explain why Beverly Hills Chihuahua grossed almost $30 million at the box office over the weekend?

And how does anyone or anything explain the appeal of Aaron Kwok? Bus shelter ads for his new CD/VCD/DVD feature this image among others:




You can choose between a 3 CD set, a 4 DVD set or a 6 VCD set documenting his concerts here last year. I have never understood Kwok's appeal and understand it even less after viewing these images. Did women actually go to the concert and come away saying, "Wow, he was so hot!!!"???

More later while I think about that.

Springsteen makes his speeches through his songs. But he gave a speech when he appeared at the Vote For Change Rally in Philadelphia yesterday. Here is the text of the speech, courtesy Huffington Post. (Follow the link to see the video of the speech.)

Hello Philly,

I am glad to be here today for this voter registration drive and for Barack Obama, the next president of the United States.

I've spent 35 years writing about America, its people, and the meaning of the American Promise. The Promise that was handed down to us, right here in this city from our founding fathers, with one instruction: Do your best to make these things real: opportunity, equality, social and economic justice, a fair shake for all of our citizens, the American idea, as a positive influence, around the world for a more just and peaceful existence. These are the things that give our lives hope, shape, and meaning. They are the ties that bind us together and give us faith in our contract with one another.

I've spent most of my creative life measuring the distance between that American promise and American reality. For many Americans, who are today losing their jobs, their homes, seeing their retirement funds disappear, who have no healthcare, or who have been abandoned in our inner cities, the distance between that promise and that reality has never been greater or more painful.

I believe Senator Obama has taken the measure of that distance in his own life and in his work. I believe he understands, in his heart, the cost of that distance, in blood and suffering, in the lives of everyday Americans. I believe as president, he would work to restore that promise to so many of our fellow citizens who have justifiably lost faith in its meaning. After the disastrous administration of the past 8 years, we need someone to lead us in an American reclamation project. In my job, I travel the world, and occasionally play big stadiums, just like Senator Obama. I've continued to find, wherever I go, America remains a repository of people's hopes, possibilities, and desires, and that despite the terrible erosion to our standing around the world, accomplished by our recent administration, we remain, for many, a house of dreams. One thousand George Bushes and one thousand Dick Cheneys will never be able to tear that house down.

They will, however, be leaving office, dropping the national tragedies of Katrina, Iraq, and our financial crisis in our laps. Our sacred house of dreams has been abused, looted, and left in a terrible state of disrepair. It needs care; it needs saving, it needs defending against those who would sell it down the river for power or a quick buck. It needs strong arms, hearts, and minds. It needs someone with Senator Obama's understanding, temperateness, deliberativeness, maturity, compassion, toughness, and faith, to help us rebuild our house once again. But most importantly, it needs us. You and me. To build that house with the generosity that is at the heart of the American spirit. A house that is truer and big enough to contain the hopes and dreams of all of our fellow citizens. That is where our future lies. We will rise or fall as a people by our ability to accomplish this task. Now I don't know about you, but I want that dream back, I want my America back, I want my country back.

So now is the time to stand with Barack Obama and Joe Biden, roll up our sleeves, and come on up for the rising.

It's an understatement to say that there are a host of important issues in the United States at the moment. The economy is floundering. President Bush has just signed a $700 billion bail out bill for Wall Street, which has an extra $150 billion of pork riding on its back. Health care reform. Immigration reform. Iraq. Afghanistan. Energy. Pollution.

Candidates for public office could address these issues in a civilized, intelligent debate, bringing both sides before the American public to enable the voters to make informed choices.

As if.

On October 3rd, the NY Times ran an article by Scott Shane with the title, "Obama and 60s Bomber: A Look Into Crossed Paths." The article summary is:

Records of a school reform project suggest Barack Obama has played down contact with Bill Ayers, a founder of the Weathermen, but they do not seem to have been close.

(Italics mine.) Excerpts from the article itself:

Twenty-six years later, at a lunchtime meeting about school reform in a Chicago skyscraper, Barack Obama met Mr. Ayers, by then an education professor. Their paths have crossed sporadically since then, at a coffee Mr. Ayers hosted for Mr. Obama’s first run for office, on the schools project and a charitable board, and in casual encounters as Hyde Park neighbors.
....
A review of records of the schools project and interviews with a dozen people who know both men, suggest that Mr. Obama, 47, has played down his contacts with Mr. Ayers, 63. But the two men do not appear to have been close. Nor has Mr. Obama ever expressed sympathy for the radical views and actions of Mr. Ayers, whom he has called “somebody who engaged in detestable acts 40 years ago, when I was 8.”

“The suggestion that Ayers was a political adviser to Obama or someone who shaped his political views is patently false,” said Ben LaBolt, a campaign spokesman. Mr. LaBolt said the men first met in 1995 through the education project, the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, and have encountered each other occasionally in public life or in the neighborhood. He said they have not spoken by phone or exchanged e-mail messages since Mr. Obama began serving in the United States Senate in January 2005 and last met more than a year ago when they bumped into each other on the street in Hyde Park.
....

Federal riot and bombing conspiracy charges against [Ayers] were dropped in 1974 because of illegal wiretaps and other prosecutorial misconduct, and he was welcomed back after years in hiding by his large and prominent family. His father, Thomas G. Ayers, had served as chief executive of Commonwealth Edison, the local power company.

Since earning a doctorate in education at Columbia in 1987, Mr. Ayers has been a professor of education at the University of Illinois at Chicago, the author or editor of 15 books, and an advocate of school reform.

“He’s done a lot of good in this city and nationally,” Mayor Richard M. Daley said in an interview this week, explaining that he has long consulted Mr. Ayers on school issues. Mr. Daley, whose father was Chicago’s mayor during the street violence accompanying the 1968 Democratic National Convention and the so-called Days of Rage the following year, said he saw the bombings of that time in the context of a polarized and turbulent era.

Doesn't seem to be much there, does there? But that doesn't stop Republicans. They can't campaign on the issues since polls show that most Americans no longer favor the Republican stance on those issues.

So all they can do is sling mud. It's a time honored tradition for the Vice Presidential candidate to do that. This way the Presidential candidate can seem above it all. But it comes from the overall campaign management and does not occur with McCain's knowledge and permission.

On October 4th, Mrs. Palin made a rare public speech, citing the above New York Times article and then saying:

This is not a man who sees America as you see it and how I see America. We see America as the greatest force for good in this world. If we can be that beacon of light and hope for others who seek freedom and democracy and can live in a country that would allow intolerance in the equal rights that again our military men and women fight for and die for for all of us. Our opponent though, is someone who sees America it seems as being so imperfect that he’s palling around with terrorists who would target their own country?

It's vicious in a lot of ways. A vicious distortion and exaggeration of the truth, of course. But there's an even more disturbing subtext. "He's not one of us. He has a funny name. He's not white. He's one of them."

The McCain campaign has already given up on Michigan, pulling out of a crucial state after spending more than twice as much on ads as Obama, seeing that they just cannot win there.

Nine consecutive months of job losses in the U.S. and McCain is firmly on the side of those who have driven the US economy into the ground for the past 8 years. So on Friday, McCain's campaign basically announced that they will stop talking about the issues and talk about Obama being too liberal and inexperienced for the job. They will, to use the parlance of the times, attempt to swift boat him and delude the American voters. This Palin speech is the first step in their new strategy.

It's a time honored tradition, isn't it? It's not how you play the game, it's if you win. If you can't win fair and square, fight dirty.

Just announced - this year all polling stations will be required to have a supply of moist towelettes on hand for McCain voters to wipe the shit off their hands after casting their votes for him.

Tonight I was one of the judges for the third heat in the Hong Kong edition of the Global Battle of the Bands. To be honest, I was dreading doing this because I wasn't sure what I'd be hearing but I didn't think it would be very good.



And then, much to my surprise, of the 7 bands playing, four were okay, 2 were quite good, and 1 I'd actually pay money to see again. That one is called Killer Soap. Seriously, click on the link there, check out their MySpace page, stream some of their music.



I probably should mention that even though the judges had a prominent table and were introduced from the stage (Chris B introduced me as a "celebrity judge", go ahead, believe da hype!), the only person who came over to talk to us was the lead singer of Killer Soap, who handed each of us a demo CD. That didn't affect my scoring of the band but it did show that here is a band that is talented, has a look that says they know who they are, has great stage presence and is serious about getting somewhere.

All three of the bands that I liked have advanced to the regional final, which will be held at the Cavern in Lan Kwai Fong on October 10th. Aside from Killer Soap, I'll be rooting for Chochukmo and The Quasar.

Seriously, I was really impressed that there are so many indie bands in Hong Kong that are really trying to do global rock music with a local flavor. And kudos to Chris B for organizing the China part of the competition and finding so much talent to put on stage.

I currently have 2 mobile phones. One has my regular Hong Kong number, the other is a Philippines number so that my gf can send me SMS's at Philippines local rates. She is the only person I have ever given the number to.

This morning at 7 fucking 25 in the morning, the phone goes off. It was an SMS but not from my gf. It came from this number in the Philippines: +639095142627

And it said:

D'AUDITORS of The Phil. Charity Foundation nform u that ur Cp# w0n
P950,000 2nd prze wnnr drw last. OCT./03/20. Pls Call me n0w. M Atty.
ARMANDO M. LOPEZ

Clearly some scammer sending this SMS to every possible number combination hoping that some people are stupid enough to call back. I'm thinking of calling and having some fun. If others also want to try and abuse that number, please feel free.

Last email I got from a Nigerian scammer, I wrote back and asked, "Are the women in your country beautiful? How many are whores and how many can I fuck with that money?" Still waiting for an answer. I'm sure all the women in Nigeria look like this:



Of course in the Philippines you get this - and they're sisters ....

Don't ask me why but for IDD phone service, I use 007, owned by Wharf New T&T, owned by whatever crappy real estate tycoon owns them. Their rate for calling the Philippines, as one example, is exactly the same per minute as the SkypeOut rate and I figure I get a better connection using a traditional line for that sort of thing.

So I attempt to make a call to my gf this evening. And the phone is answered by someone who speaks Cantonese. I hang up. Dial again, answered by someone else who speaks Cantonese. They put me on hold and transfer me to someone who speaks English.

This person explains to me that my account has been suspended due to an unpaid bill. I tell them that I never received the bill or I would have paid it. They check my address, it's correct. Then they tell me that they sent me an SMS when the bill was overdue. I ask the woman if the SMS was in English or Chinese, because if it was in Chinese I wouldn't understand it. Oh.

Then I ask her how much is overdue. HK$32.60. That's just slightly over US$4.

I hit the roof. I said to her, check my customer record, how many years have I been a customer of 007 IDD? She didn't understand the question. So I said to her, I've been a customer of yours for more than 5 years and you suspend me for $32? I know you didn't suspend me personally but your company did. Does that seem fair to you? Does that seem reasonable? Is that a way to do business?

She wouldn't admit to anything but then told me she would update the system and that my service would be restored within the next 15 minutes.

If anyone wants to recommend an alternate IDD service, I'm open to suggestions.

By the way, ever since I moved out to a tiny village in Sai Kung district, my mail service sucks. I'm not getting about 25% of my mail each month. Of course the only thing I get by mail is bills, and I've switched to electronic billing wherever possible, but there are still a few companies that aren't operating in this century yet. I guess I need to develop my own reminder system to accommodate the local post office foul-ups.
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In other news, speaking of Manila, a nice article in the Wall Street Journal about some recommended restaurants there. My opinion is that there's currently a renaissance going on with the food scene there and especially a new generation of restaurant owners and chefs who are taking pride in presenting the local cuisine properly. Ten years ago I hated Filipino food. Today, no, it ain't French or Japanese, but it's taken huge strides.

Advertising Age (via All Things Digital) notes that the clip of Letterman lambasting McCain for his no-show on the Late Show has generated 3.5 million views on YouTube. I don't understand how a smart person like McCain can be running such a stupid campaign.

Sorry, no pics for this post ...

Warner Bros has announced that in Korea they will soon offer video downloads of complete movies two weeks before DVD availability. South Korea is a unique market in that 97% of homes have broadband internet and DVDs never achieved popularity there, despite the presence of consumer electronics giants Samsung and LG.

The MPAA is suing Real over the release of their new RealDVD copying software. Real thought they'd get a pass because they included massive amounts of anti-consumer DRM, but the MPAA basically operates under a zero tolerance policy. So double whammy - they released software that no sane person would ever want and they're getting their asses sued for it.

Thursday night U.S. time/Friday morning Asia time will be the Biden/Palin debate. Palin has been sequestered, memorizing her responses to expected questions. And the debate format has been rigged to not allow much interplay between the two candidates. I expect the Barbie doll who believes that men and dinosaurs once walked the earth together and that women who are raped must carry their rapist's baby to term will come out of this okay.

This is cool - some French news agency did an article on Sarah Palin but the accompanying photo was of Tina Fey. (via TV Squad.)

This site does computer generated Palinesque responses to interview questions. Though here is an actual interview answer from Palin.

Question:Why isn't it better, Governor Palin, to spend $700 billion helping middle-class families struggling with health care, housing, gas and groceries? Allow them to spend more and put more money into the economy? Instead of helping these big financial institutions that played a role in creating this mess?

PALIN: That's why I say, I like ever American I'm speaking with were ill about this position that we have been put in where it is the tax payers looking to bailout.

But ultimately, what the bailout does is help those who are concerned about the health care reform that is needed to help shore up the economy - Helping the - Oh, it's got to be about job creation too. Shoring up our economy and putting it back on the right track. So health care reform and reducing taxes and reining in spending has got to accompany tax reductions and tax relief for Americas. And trade we've got to see trade as opportunity, not as a competitive scary thing. But 1 in 5 jobs being created in the trade sector today. We've got to look at that as more opportunity. All those things under the umbrella of job creation. This bailout is a part of that.

Is it just me or is Dan Quayle starting to look reasonable?

11 Myths about Sarah Palin. Such as

THE MYTH: "She took the luxury jet that was acquired by her predecessor and sold it on eBay. And made a profit!" — John McCain, at a campaign stop in Wisconsin

THE FACTS: No one bought the jet online. It was eventually sold through an aircraft broker — at a loss to taxpayers of nearly $600,000.

and

THE MYTH: "I have protected the taxpayers by vetoing wasteful spending." — Sarah Palin, convention speech

THE FACTS: As governor, sought travel reimbursement for 312 nights she spent in her own home.

A recent trend seems to be rockers performing classic albums in their entirety in concert. In the past few years we've had Brian Wilson doing Smile, Lou Reed doing Berlin, Arthur Lee (Love) doing Forever Changes, and others. November 7 & 8 will see Van Morrison doing the same with Astral Weeks, live in Los Angeles, with some of the same musicians who played on the original album roughly 40 years ago.

Bruce Springsteen and Billy Joel will play at an Obama fundraiser in New York on October 16th. Springsteen is also set to perform at the Super Bowl half time show.

Korean actress Kim Ha Yeon.