Hongkie Town

I've started another blog, Spike's Zippos, to catalog my Zippo lighter collection. Yes, probably of very limited interest, but what the hey. I probably have somewhere around 100 of these things, and I'll update the blog as the photographing of them moves along. Here's a sample from the first post, one of three limited numbered edition lighters from the H.R. Giger collection.

Tonight's film, The Wrestler.

For director Darren Aronofsky, it marks a major return to form after the ridiculous The Fountain. (His next film apparently, will be a remake of Robo-Cop. Sigh.). Not to mention going from working with Hugh Jackman to Mickey Rourke.

Shot almost entirely with handheld cameras and also apparently mostly on location - if it has a documentary feel to it, in no small part that's because cinematographer Maryse Alberti also shot Gonzo, Taxi to the Dark Side, Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room and other notable non fiction films.

The film is a throwback to the 70s style of film that was centered more around character than plot. And that's a good thing because the plot, what little there is of it, is an old story and told in a relatively predictable fashion. There are no surprises, no plot twists, the film goes pretty much exactly where you expect it to go. But it never bogs down and rarely seems to drag. The whole thing works because the characters are convincing and two of the three lead actors are amazing.

Mickey Rourke is every bit as amazing as you've no doubt already heard. Rourke was once handsome leading man material, then he destroyed his face by spending years in professional boxing, and has been effecting something of a comeback lately, following the time honored path of being very good in small roles. So it goes almost without saying that he grasps what it feels like to play a professional wrestler who was big 20 years ago and now lives alone in a trailer, wrestling for pocket change on weekends and working in a grocery store during the week.

Marisa Tomei's role also seems to be a metaphor for her career. After winning an Oscar in 1992, she followed that up with a series of increasingly forgettable roles. She's 44 years old now, playing a stripper who's 44 years old, dancing on stage, maybe thinking about the days when she was younger and guys were lined up for private dances but now mostly thinking about her son and getting enough money to move someplace where the schools are better. Her performance is every bit as fearless as Rourke's and not merely because she spends about half her time on screen topless. And one thing that comes across is that Randy the Ram and Cassidy may be stereotypes in their public personas but offstage each is very real. Maybe they weren't smart when they were young, but age and experience has brought them both some degree of wisdom, kindness and even gentility.

I suppose at some level Aronofsky and writer Robert Siegel are comparing wrestling and stripping - the chemically or surgically enhanced bodies, some real blood and some real sex on display but at the end it's all scripted, all an illusion that many gladly pay for and that some prefer to think is real. I guess you could say movies are like that, too. And many of us reach a point in our lives where we find we're only good at doing one thing but people aren't so interested in seeing us do that one thing any more. Where do we go from there? What do we do next?

The Wrestler doesn't really answer those questions. Because for everyone the answer is different.

Go see this film if you want to see a great character piece and some terrific acting. Don't go see this film thinking it's Saturday night thrills 'n spills. See it for Rourke and Tomei, both may never have a chance to be this good again.

Both the SCMP and the Standard have articles today about the closing of 60 year old Lok Heung Yuen Coffee Shop in Central. The SCMP notes the current monthly rent at $128,000 while the Standard pegs it at $120,000. Both note that the restaurant is closing because the landlord raised the rent to ... wait for it ... $360,000. Both articles manage to interview the same customer and the owner.

The Standard notes that the scumlord may have already signed a contract with a new tenant and so raised the rent to a ridiculous price in order to force the restaurant out. There is no comment about whether such unscrupulous activity, if true, is legal.

And neither article mentions the name of the scumlord. Did both reporters forget to ask? Or are the newspapers shielding the rich?

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The Standard also reports that the MTR will now be charging senior citizens only $2 to ride the trains - but only on Wednesdays and public holidays. Last year they got the $2 fare on Sundays and public holidays. I guess that the seniors actually took advantage of the discount fare on Sundays so the MTR changed it to a day when less people would use it. Nitwits.

I've just fallen down a flight of stairs. My fault for wearing socks on waxed wood floors and not paying attention. I hurt my right ankle, my right butt cheek, my left wrist. Nothing seems to be broken but I'm aching all over.

The reason for being distracted? The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

To digress a bit, we're hitting Oscar season. And that means that the studios are sending out DVD screeners of the films they hope to see nominated. And some of those DVDs end up in the "wrong" hands and from there end up on the internet. So far I've managed to find Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Clint Eastwood's Gran Torino, part 1 of Soderburgh's presumably epic biography of Che, The Wrestler and Bill Maher's Religulous. More are sure to follow. There is no doubt that I'd prefer to see these on a big screen, but while all have opened in the US, none have yet played in HK and perhaps some of these never will.

So, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Based on, more more correctly inspired by a 25 page short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald, CCBB runs almost 2 hours and 40 minutes. It's directed by David Fincher (Zodiac, Seven, Fight Club) and I'm increasingly convinced that Fincher is one of our greatest directors. In no small part because he's taken something so potentially trifling and meaningless and made it into a movie that you can't stop watching, even as you're left wondering at the end what it actually means.

The story is pure fantasy. In 1918, Benjamin Button is born as a 70 year old man. It's not a spoiler to tell you that as the movie progresses, he gets younger and younger until eventually, a baby, he dies. Would you be surprised to learn that screenwriter Eric Roth also wrote Forrest Gump?

But Button, played by Brad Pitt, is no Gump. Apart from this one medical oddity, which is never explained, he lives a resolutely ordinary life. He does no great deeds, he crosses paths with no famous people. He has one great romance in his life, with Daisy, played by Cate Blanchett. And while people are talking about an Oscar for Pitt, if any actor should get one for this film, it's clearly Blanchett. (Tilda Swinton is also quite memorable, as always.)

Blanchett is an old woman in her 80s, lying in a hospital bed in New Orleans as Katrina approaches. Just as we watch Button un-age from 70s down to a baby, we follow her from 5 years old until her deathbed. She asks her daughter to read from a diary that she's brought to the hospital, and from there Button's tale unfolds. It's the improbable and incredibly romantic relationship between Benjamin and Daisy that forms the emotional center of the film.

When it's all over, I'm left thinking, okay, it's a metaphor, but a metaphor for what? It's a fable with a moral, but what's the moral? I honestly don't know. It's epic and it's intimate at the same time; it rarely felt overlong or forced or boring; the special effects are groundbreaking; it's going to keep me thinking about it and I expect it to reveal itself further with more viewings.
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Religulous, Bill Maher's attempt to attack organized religion, directed by Larry Charles (director of Borat) left me cold. I don't disagree with anything Maher says, I just don't like his approach to it. He rarely sits down with anyone who are prepared to conduct an actual debate with him, mostly a collection of frauds and charlatans - and if some preacher declares himself to be the actual Second Coming, in what way does that discredit the religion as a whole? What does he hope to gain by debating the finer points of Christianity with truck drivers at some tiny road side church (who treat him with far more respect that many others in the film)? He hits us over the head repeatedly with his thesis that the tenets of religions are illogical and that a lot of bad things have been done in their name. He attacks Christianity, Islam and, to a lesser extent, Judaism, almost completely ignoring Hinduism and Buddhism. But he doesn't seem to have anywhere to go after that except to say that nuclear war and pollution may destroy the planet and in the end, he's just preaching to the converted.

This in depth article in the New York Times provides a behind-the-scenes look at how Washington Mutual Bank, more than 100 years old, was driven into the ground by their policy of approving almost any loan request.

“It was a disgrace," said Dana Zweibel, a former financial representative at a WaMu branch in Tampa, Fla. “We were giving loans to people that never should have had loans.”

If Ms. Zweibel doubted whether customers could pay, supervisors directed her to keep selling, she said.

“We were told from up above that that’s not our concern,” she said. “Our concern is just to write the loan.”

........

On another occasion, Ms. Zaback asked a loan officer for verification of an applicant’s assets. The officer sent a letter from a bank showing a balance of about $150,000 in the borrower’s account, she recalled. But when Ms. Zaback called the bank to confirm, she was told the balance was only $5,000.

The loan officer yelled at her, Ms. Zaback recalled. “She said, ‘We don’t call the bank to verify.’ ” Ms. Zaback said she told Mr. Parsons that she no longer wanted to work with that loan officer, but he replied: “Too bad.”

Shortly thereafter, Mr. Parsons disappeared from the office. Ms. Zaback later learned of his arrest for burglary and drug possession.

But this represents just a symptom, not the disease. Clearly most banks were acting this way, just not to the extreme represented by WaMu.

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Ever since Apple approved a sort of "mature audiences" label for iPhone apps, there's been an explosion in applications that make fart sounds, more than 20 variations on a theme. Via All Things Digital, the developer of iFart Mobile writes:

But I had a hunch that Christmas Eve and Christmas Day would be higher. How much higher was anyone's guess.

All I knew was that a lot of people would be getting iPhones and iPod Touch MP3 players on Christmas Day.

Christmas came a day early for us. On 12/24, my jaw hit the floor when I checked my stats.

We sold 19520 units, providing $13364 in net income after Apple takes their cut.

I now knew that Christmas Day would be bigger than I would have imagined.

I made sure I was sitting down before I checked my day-after-Christmas stats.

It was a good thing.

On Christmas Day, 38,927 people purchased iFart Mobile.

Thirty-eight thousand nine-hundred and twenty seven.

Wow.

Thats $27,249 net.

Them's US dollars folks, not Hong Kong.

iFart Mobile is currently the #1 best selling paid iPhone application. It sells for 99 cents. And the guy netted 27 grand in under a month. I think I need to download the SDK and come up with some silly but attention-grabbing concept myself. I've got an idea or two ....
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Along with the recent passings of Harold Pinter and Eartha Kitt, I was especially sad to note the death of Delaney Bramlett at age 69.

Bramlett, together with his then-wife Bonnie (reputedly the only white woman to be a member of Ike & Tina Turner's Ikettes) led the influential Delaney & Bonnie & Friends, a group that at one point included Eric Clapton, George Harrison and Dave Mason amongst its members.




I saw Delaney & Bonnie (with Clapton) at the Fillmore East in NYC. Somehow we'd managed 8th row center seats (which meant that this incredibly cute blonde who'd snuck up from the back rows sat on my lap for the entire concert). Opening the bill was Wilbert "Kansas City" Harrison, doing some bizarro one man band thing. Next was Seals & Crofts, long before they'd had any hits. And then Delaney & Bonnie. Without taking any drugs, their southern/gospel/blues/folk/r&b hybrid left me feeling higher than I'd ever felt before, a simply amazing show, very similar to the one on the "On Tour" album. I'd also highly recommend "Motel Shot," an acoustic album that came along long before the term "unplugged" was coined.

Delaney also wrote or co-wrote some hits that have become standards - Superstar, Neverending Song of Love, Let It Rain. Bramlett didn't enjoy commercial success after he and his wife split up in 1973 but he continued to pursue an active career, releasing what will now be his final album of new material this year. Any collection of rock albums is incomplete without "On Tour With Eric Clapton."

Stayed pretty much close to home for my 5 days off. Didn't do too much but now that it's Sunday night, seems as if the days just flew by. Let's see ....



Wednesday night - drinking in Wanchai, gf got extremely drunk, 3 of us carried her to the car, but only me to carry her from the car to the house.



Thursday - recovery day. Dinner at Sai Kung waterfront, lobsters, prawn, clams.

Friday - shop till you drop. But first, lunch at the best wonton noodle shop in the entire world - hadn't been there in awhile but they're still there, the wontons are still amazing, and a bowl of wonton noodle soup is still just $16. (Middle of Stanley Street, hole in the wall joint, no English name.) I got a light box on Stanley Street, planning on using it to photograph my collections of Zippo Lighters and Hard Rock Cafe pins (2 more blogs coming to hold this stuff). But wasn't till I got home that I realized the lens on my DSLR doesn't have macro capability, so perhaps during the week ahead will look to get a wide angle/macro zoom. GF spent an hour in H&M while I spent an hour on the street watching the girls go by and checking my watch.



Neither Dymocks nor Page One had Mark Bittman's "How to Cook Everything, 10th anniversary revised edition" - guess he's not famous enough here to have his books imported so file away for next Amazon order. Finished off Times Square by buying several steaks at City Super (dry aged U.S. black angus ribeye and striploin).

Saturday - resting my feet. A friend joins us for dinner, I barbecue steak and corn, our helper whips up (literally) a batch of mashed potatoes. The City Super steaks were frigging expensive but the taste was unbelievable - and fortunately I cooked them exactly right, charred on the outside, rare and juicy on the inside. I'd put plenty of kosher salt and pepper on them before grilling - once done I thought they were fine as is but my gf practically covered hers in the chili sauce we'd bought at the wonton noodle shop the day before - she claimed she could still taste how good the steak was but I think she was jiving me. At any rate, age old lesson confirmed, start with great ingredients, don't fuss with them too much, you're gonna enjoy.

Sunday - spring cleaning in winter - going through old boxes piled in the hallways, discovering artifacts from my life that I forgot even existed. I've got my father's junior high school, high school and college diplomas - do I really need to save these? Old Playbills from Broadway shows I saw - including Waiting for Godot with Steve Martin and Robin Williams; Speed the Plow with Madonna; Pirates of Penzance with Linda Ronstadt - could this stuff be worth decent coin on eBay? How's about the program/magazine from the 1973 Star Trek convention in NYC? Old Fillmore program books. Pages torn out of Billboard with my name underlined. Issues of Trouser Press with record reviews I wrote. I need to organize this stuff. Relaxing dinner at Cru, always dependable, still warm enough to sit outside and SK town is quiet at 9 on a Sunday night. Cru has a roast turkey dinner special, and I never order turkey but this time I did - turkey, ham, stuffing, mashed potato, baby asparagus, broccoli, carrots, tomato, baby corn, gravy for HK$155, not too bad a deal. Noticed that the new Japanese restaurant in the town square has a sign that says "Shushi Bar" - need to get a pic of that. Planning a trip around Chinese New Year - thinking 10 days in Vietnam, Vietnamese sandwiches, pho, bun cha.

And, well, it's Monday already. Back to work, short week, another long weekend coming up ....

Lost my HSBC SecurID, which is needed for logging into internet banking. Got the new one in the mail along with a letter. The letter explains that I need to log on using my old SecurID before I can use the new one. Right.

Reading on the letter has the phone number I can call to activate the new gadget if I lost the old one. The letter is dated 5 days ago. The phone number has since changed to a new number to offer me better service. I know this because when I called the phone number in the letter, I had to listen to a 2 minute explanation in Cantonese before getting the English explanation. The recording offers to transfer me to the new number if I press "1." Oh good.

Get transferred to the new number. Navigate the bewildering maze of menu options. Have to listen to a 2 minute recording about how to use the SecurID before I can press "O" to talk to a human being.

Said human being asks for my name and pertinent ID information and then informs me that their system is down and they can call me back later. Why did she ask for all that info if she couldn't do anything?

An hour later, the phone call, SecurID is activated.
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Going through boxes taking space in the hall, coming across old papers. Bills from 1996 - that I shipped from HK to SF and back again. The instruction manual for the cable TV box when I lived in SF, that I shipped to HK. And so on.

Then something I knew I had but had no idea where. My grandfather's (father's side) passport. From 1928. Born in 1877 in "Austria, now Roumania" written in pencil. I never knew my grandfather - he died before my parents met. There's a photo. A stern expression, round glasses, suit, tie & overcoat. 5 feet 8 inches tall, blonde hair, gray eyes. Do I see myself in him? A little.

The oddest thing about this ... one of those mysteries of life that no one living can answer. I know the family name is Fiedler. I know my grandfather changed it when he came to the U.S. (According to my father, he was a cabin boy on a German cruise ship, jumped ship when it reached the US, swam to shore and changed his name. I have never believed that story.) My grandfather's surname is different from my father's. A slight variation in spelling. A 'u' instead of an 'e,' an 'l' instead of an 'r.' How did we get from his name to my father's name? I'll never know.

Hmmm, visas for Germany, Romania, Poland. Entry stamps for several eastern European countries. Transited France in April 1928 - guess he arrived by boat and then traveled by train. Left France again, back to New York, in September. Visiting family?

"Applications for passports by persons in the Virgin Islands, Hawaii, Porto Rico, Guam, or the Philippines, should be made to the chief executives of those islands."

"The fee for a passport, including one dollar for the execution of the application and nine dollars for the passport, is $10.00."

Anyone know if there are any places in HK that sell Frye boots? Dug out my one old pair of Frye's to wear on Xmas eve and couldn't even get them on. Kind of worn inside but it looks like it says they are size 8-1/2 ... and I wear size 11. How long have I had these?
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Xmas eve was actually not that good a night. Out with friends and my gf decided it was a good night to get drunk. And she decided it was a good night to mix her liquor - vodka, tequila, beer - meaning that by midnight she was in the toilet puking her guts out and shortly after that three of us had to carry her to the car - had no help in getting her from the car to the house though.

But Xmas day was one of those days that I really enjoy being here. In the US, the traditional Christmas day meal for Jews is Chinese food - and that's not a problem here! (The reason is that decades ago, Jews would want to get out of the house on Xmas day to get away from all the Xmas shows on TV and the only restaurants that were open in those days were Chinese restaurants. And now it's a tradition.)

Decided to do the tourist thing - 5 minutes into Sai Kung town, waterfront seafood restaurant. The waitress (who was at least my age) kept calling me "handsome boy." Okay ....

One lobster steamed and covered in garlic, a pound or two of clams in black bean and chili sauce, another pound or so of steamed prawns, dau miu stir fried in garlic, fried rice with salted fish. Sitting outside because the weather was really fine, watching the parade of people passing by (and a cute girl at the next table wearing Ugg boots, leg warmers and gym shorts)(and a group of girls dressed like Japanese cos-players - wish I'd had my camera).

Just thinking to myself how nice it is that I'm living minutes away from this funky little town that offers so much choice on just three short streets, country living on a mountainside with a sea view, less than 45 minute commute to the office .... sometimes I really appreciate Hong Kong. So it's not Thanksgiving but I found myself thinking about how thankful I am for the way things have turned out.

On the other hand, today is one of those days when I'm sitting around, kind of bored, no idea what I want to do.
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Having now played around with the WD TV box a bit, I'm mostly pleased.

It can play all the MKV files that my previous box didn't. It's been kind of hit and miss with displaying subtitles, but still an improvement over what I had before.

Came across this one odd bug - it has this built in "media library" thingie in which it scans and saves metadata for any disks attached to the box. Straight out of the box, the media library is turned on. I later found it in the menus and switched it off.

So here's the bug. I unplugged the USB drive, added new files, and in one particular directory did a mass renaming of the files in there. Plugged the drive back into the box and went to that directory. All the box "saw" was the old file list, now reporting that each file was only 0 kb in size. I had to turn media library back on to force a rescan of the disk. Following that, it worked just fine.

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A new watch from the good folks at Tokyo Flash.



I like the black one. They won't ship to Hong Kong. The only place I know that sells Tokyo Flash watches in HK is at Delay No Mall and they don't seem to have the latest models.

Yeah, because on a grey day like today, all I can think about is shopping.

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Well, it's not quite all I can think about. I'll leave you with the former Mrs. Salman Rushdie and current host of Top Chef, Padma Lakshmi.

From CrunchGear - this is a solar battery charger. Comes with two batteries, a solar charger cell and can be plugged into the wall to charge those batteries if there's no light available. It has a USB out, which means it can then be used to plug almost anything that charges via USB (iphone, blackberry, etc.). Don't know what the actual charging output is, but it will "debut" shortly at CES and then sell in the US for $50. Could be a handy little toy.



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If you're traveling through London, more specifically Heathrow Terminal 5, Gordon Ramsay's got his own take on fast food and take away in the terminal, called Gordon Ramsay's Plane Food. As reported on Serious Eats, you can get a 3 course meal in an insulated bag for 12 pounds. And it looks like this:



and this:



In other words, a definite step up from economy class food.

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Here is something I am buying later today, Western Digital's WD TV. I've bought units like this before - generally a box that you slip a hard disk into and then connect up to your TV and/or stereo, allowing you to watch media you've downloaded on your home entertainment center rather than on your computer.

Previous boxes I've owned all come from Korean companies that went out of business rather rapidly - which translates to no firmware updates. The current box I'm using can't handle MKV files and can't deal with subtitles on AVI files. And as it happens, the remote is on the same frequency as my NOW TV set-top box, which as you can imagine is a pain.

The WD box is different in that you don't slide a hard disk in, you can connect any USB storage device. (They'd like you to use a WD one but you don't have to.) And it handles all those options with a variety of outputs including HDMI at resolutions up to 1080p. And since this is Western Digital, hopefully they won't go out of business in six months and I can get ongoing support and updates. Costs between HK$800-HK$900. Here's CrunchGear's review.






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The new must-have free iPhone app? Pundits are saying it's Animoto, which takes the photos on your iPhone and turns them not just into slide shows, it turns them into music videos. Free. Will try it over the weekend.



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Here's another free iPhone app that could be quite useful to us .... Shizhi converts Chinese measurements to western ones. I can never remember how big a catty is supposed to be (and of course it's always different, especially if you're a gweilo).




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Last but not least for now, I know this looks like a photo taken in Fenwick's, but actually it's the otherwise talentless Pussycat Dolls. Lead singer Nicole Scherzinger (center) is half Filipino.





TTFN!

Yes, relatively quiet the past couple of days I know. In part that's because I picked up yet another 2 terabyte RAID drive and have been busy shuffling files around. And also things were a bit busy at work the past couple of days.

Which leads to an obvious lesson that is not known by my company's senior management:

Over the past 3 or 4 years, a significant portion of our MIS support has been outsourced - most going to a single Indian firm, some going to other agencies and independent contractors.

The public face of outsourcing - IT people are told that contractors are being brought in to do the grunt work, leaving employees free to do the creative stuff. Management is told that headcount is reduced and contractors save money for a variety of reasons - mostly that they're easier to get rid of.

Contractors have no sense of ownership and therefore most show little if any initiative. Especially when they come from a big outsourcing firm that has tens of thousands of employees and tends to shift them around from project to project every few months. Most of them simply do things as told - to the letter and are not adaptable to a rapidly changing environment.

See, most of the employees of this Indian firm have told me the same thing - the firm has this reputation in India that if you work for them for 3 years, you can jump to a better job or start your own company. With that knowledge in mind, how many are going to stick his or her neck out? Few, if any.

Here is this week's example.

On Monday, Australia needed to do their year-end accounting close. Only when they started, they discovered that the previous week's sales data had not made it into the data warehouse. So they called the only person on my staff who supports that warehouse in the region. But that person was not trained in some of the technologies that support the warehouse and, thanks to Sarbanes-Oxley segregation of duty rules, does not have the administrator passwords for the database.

So this person waits for Mumbai to open for business. People in Mumbai supposedly spend the next 5 hours looking at the problem but are unable to resolve it.

At 6 PM HK time, London opens for business. So Mumbai passes the problem off to London - to more consultants from the same company who are "embedded" at our site. Eight hours later, they are still unable to resolve the problem. At 6 PM London time, I am informed that for some reason, they cannot successfully load the Asia Pacific database even though they can load the EMEA one. No problem, the contractor tells me, the people in Australia can just access the EMEA database.

Except ....

We've also outsourced systems account management to yet another company. And of course we're SOX compliant. So the users in Australia can access the mirror database but first they need accounts and to get those they need to file forms with this third party company.

"That's not gonna work!" I try to stay calm. They were supposed to close on Monday. They'll come in on Tuesday, file the forms, and the accounts won't be created until Wednesday at the earliest. "There's nothing I can do, I'm just a consultant," he responds. And he goes home for the day because it's 6 PM.

So it's now 2 AM HK time, 5 AM Australia time. I'm well aware that the users will be showing up for work in another 3 or 4 hours, expecting the issue to be resolved. I'm an employee, not a contractor. I think of my users as my clients and I'll be damned if I'm going to let them down.

I've already sent my boss in London an email earlier. He's on vacation but said he'd be checking email regularly. No response from him, so I try his mobile phone, which of course rings right over to voicemail.

I send an email to the guy in London who has global responsibility for the data warehouse. I get back an auto-reply - he's on vacation too! But a short while later, I get a real reply from him. At 8 PM London time, 4 AM Hong Kong time, we discuss the problem and what's been attempted so far. And at 8 PM, on his vacation, he makes the decision to go into the office to try to resolve the problem.

The first thing he does once he gets there? He creates an account for the Australia EMEA users and creates and files a SOX exception report to explain why this needed to be done. So when the users arrive for work, they have an email explaining to them what's been done and they can immediately start on the year-end close.

Several hours later, we find out why the files are loading on the EMEA server but not the Asia one. Somehow, over the weekend, the file gawk.exe managed to "disappear" from the Asia server. (gawk is a free implementation of awk, something that basically processes files with text-based data.) How this file managed to disappear is something that the wizards who tend to our servers are so far unable to explain. But I don't plan to let it go.

Some corporations are run by giving their users the best possible tools and support for those tools, enabling people to be more effective in their jobs, hopefully leading to higher revenue. But I suspect those are in the minority.

The company I work for is in the majority - doing as little as possible and still pushing people as hard as possible to perform. This is a company that made the decision that when there's a customer-facing requirement in a local language, that requirement will be met, but if the local language requirement is internal only, screw 'em.

While this saves money on the front end - not implementing language packs for double-byte characters saves some money and time during installation and set-up and doesn't serve as any inconvenience at all for the US or western European countries. But Eastern Europe and Asia (they did make an exception for Japan) are screwed. And I think if they add up all the time those employees spend having to manually produce local language reports, perhaps the dollar savings isn't that great after all.

Corporations' first responsibility is to make a profit for their shareholders. Those decisions are made by people though. The people who make those decisions receive million dollar bonuses and are in the bar each night at 5:30. The people who suffer through the results of those decisions make $10 bonuses and have to work around the clock.

Yes, I know, that's life.

But excuse me if I'm feeling a little grumpy right now.

Yeah, I know, I'm from NYC, this is barely jacket weather back there, but I've been in HK 11 years and I'm acclimated. 10.6 degrees up in Sai Kung, a bit chillier on this mountainside I call home, luckily with my gf and my 2 dogs, the bed remains quite warm.

I find the temperature variations in our little SAR amazing. Wong Chuk Hang 13.2 while Ngong Ping, home of the famous plunging cable cars, is 5.9. Quite a difference.

Of course, this little thing is just for a day or two, by the weekend we're supposed to be back up to 20 degrees.

Couple of gossip items just caught my roving eye.

The first is here, via Defamer.




The man pictured above is Eric Mika, the publisher of trade paper The Hollywood Reporter, owned by Nielsen Media. He started this job in March of this year. Apparently this year all of the writers' expense accounts have been frozen and they may be unable to attend and report from the Sundance Film Festival. Apparently the reason is that Mr. Mika has burned through the company's cash in 9 months by flying back and forth to some unnamed city in Asia where he has a "close personal friend." His contract is up at the end of the year - anyone wanna bet if he gets renewed?

And any Wanchai devotees spot this guy?
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This one is just funny, also from Defamer - Jeremy Piven, Emmy award winning co-star of Entourage, had been starring on Broadway in a revival of David Mamet's "Speed-The-Plow." But he's missed a lot of performances. And finally dropped out. His reason? He's not feeling well and apparently he has a high mercury count in his blood stream.

Mamet's response when questioned? "I talked to Jeremy on the phone, and he told me that he discovered that he had a very high level of mercury. So my understanding is that he is leaving show business to pursue a career as a thermometer.”

This trip to Seoul has been total boredom for me. No one from the office was available for dinner any night. And it's fricking cold here, right now it's -1 C, so I'm not in a mood to go out and wander streets aimlessly in search of dinner.

Which means the shopping mall under the hotel. Heading down there at 9:30 (after watching Steve Coogan in Hamlet 2, quite disappointing for the most part), the fast food joints are closed and there are only a few restaurants still open.

If you find yourself in such a situation ....

Do not decide to first head to the bookshop, which has a small section of English language books.

Do not decide to purchase An Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan.

Do not decide to eat your dinner at TGI Fridays.

Do not start reading the book after ordering your food.

By the time my food showed up, I had finished reading the introduction. After those few pages, the food that showed up looked barely edible but I went for it. As I read the next 15 or 20 pages, I looked at what was left of what I had been served and totally lost my appetite before coming anywhere near finishing what was on the plate.

I am now sitting my hotel room eating corn (chocolate Oreos) and drinking corn (Mountain Dew).

What's ultra-depressing, and I admit this is far from new, is how cultures that have amazing food traditions based in healthy and natural foods, especially Asian cultures, are replacing these traditions with the heavily marketed synthetic crap that America has almost literally rammed down the collective throats of the rest of the world.

The funny thing (to me) is the extraordinary amount of willpower and discipline it now takes in order for me to consistently eat healthy. It's not easy to break the habit of decades of junkfood, especially when it's so pervasive around the globe.

Okay, nothing horrendously original, just what's on my mind at the moment.

Excuse me now, I think I'm going to hurl.

I'm in Seoul now. This is probably my last business visit here, at least with my current company, as our division in Seoul shuts down at the end of the year. My last chance to say goodbye to the people who've worked their guts out in this office for close to a decade.

My first visit to Seoul for this company was also in December, 7 years ago. The temperature was minus 3 degrees and the taxi driver couldn't find the office, dropping me off quite a distance away, giving me my first clue that Seoul street addresses are just as random as Tokyo's. Normal mobile phones didn't work then, and I went from building to building, showing a piece of paper with the address, until I found someone who spoke English and could direct me.

These days I stay in a hotel that's above a shopping mall and also above the Seoul Subway - I don't even have to go outside to get to a train and two short stops later, I'm at the office (moved from its more remote location several years ago).

Anyway, we'll see if I have anything worth blogging about while I'm here. But it is a weird feeling coming to a place I've come to at least 30 times knowing it could be the last time.
==========================
When I'm single, I never have any luck when I'm traveling. All the luck is when I'm in the middle of a relationship, and what kind of luck is that?

First on the plane, rather than some old man (well, older than me), I'm seated next to a cute young woman. I'm not hitting on her and she has no interest in talking to me. If I was single I might have made an attempt but I let it go.

Off the plane at Incheon. Right into the smoking room. Only one person in there before me, a woman sitting there with earphones stuck in her ears - I'd noticed her sitting two rows in front of me on the plane. When I walk in she smiles, removes her earphones, starts talking with me. Korean, lived all over the world, single from what I can tell, possibly over 40 but still very fit, very attractive, the way so many Korean women are. And in no time at all, volunteers practically her whole life story. And then asks for mine.

We leave the smoking room. She says, "Goodbye. God bless you!" But then we walk together to the shuttle train, ride the train together, walk to immigration together, wait for our bags together.

She lives in a completely different part of town from where I'm going so no interest in sharing my limo. But I think maybe she was waiting for me to ask her out for dinner. Which I don't do, because I'm being a "good boy" these days. And she tells me she goes to HK 3 times a month on business and I'm picturing the consequences if I do ask her out. so I don't. But I do hand her my card. She didn't offer hers in return, so maybe I misread the signs. I'm good at that.

And now I find out that for my three days here, I'm only getting taken out for lunch each day, looks like I will be free for dinner each night. And could have called her, would have had time to go out for dinner, even just for some friendly conversation (not to mention someone local who speaks the language).

Doh!

I will now probably lie in bed awake all night wondering why the porridge bird lays its eggs in the air.

... which is of course a great Kirsty MacColl song. Yesterday we weren't walking down Madison, we were walking in Mong Kok, down Tung Choi Street (Ladies Market) and Fa Yuen Street (Sneaker Street). Not wanting to deal with Mong Kok traffic, I decided we should take the mini-bus from Sai Kung to Mong Kok, $14 a person. The thing is it's a red mini-bus - which basically means two things. First, for some reason, they don't take Octopus cards. Second, unlike the green mini-bus, I can't find route maps online for the red ones. And since we didn't get off at the last stop, I had no idea where to find the bus to go back to SK. So we had to take a taxi home - the new fare schedule meant $129.40 on the meter translated out to a $116 fare.

Earlier, around 12:30 yesterday, there was a traffic accident somewhere along Hiram's Highway. This street is the main road to connect Sai Kung to the rest of the world. (The only alternative is to head around to Ma On Shan and Shatin.) So a traffic accident in one lane effectively shut down the entire road for close to an hour. There are so many horrendously bad drivers in HK combined with badly designed roads and constant road construction everywhere. How can it take a year and a half to install sound barriers along Tseung Kwan O Road? Anyway, the taxi driver who brought us from home to Sai Kung town warned us about this, so we sat and had lunch until we saw traffic start to move again.

Anyway, some photos. Ladies Market:



Sneaker Street not only has gazillions of sneaker stores, it also has gazillions of short time hotels. How to choose?

Well, the Golden Rainbow Hotel has deluxy rooms.


Or you can get an Over Nightless rate at the Regent Hotel.

Naturally the discerning gentleman chooses the modestly named Romance Highclass Hotel.


In vague connection with that, a shirt spotted last night in Wanchai.

Bettie Page has died, age 85. The ultimate pin-up and fetish model, subject of a pretty good bio-pic a few years back, a unique talent.

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

Another unique talent is John Hodgman, whom you may recognize via his many appearances on the Daily Show. Turns out he's got two books out there, each a compendium of made-up facts.

The first is called The Areas of My Expertise. Actually the full title seems to be:


The book includes 700 hobo names - like Rex Spangler, the Bedazzler and Senator Cletus Scoffpossum. And also idiosyncrasies of the great detectives, hints on building snow forts, colonial jobs involving eels and history's worst men's haircuts.

The second book is titled More Information Than You Require, and it literally starts where the last book left off - the first page is page number 237.

This second volume include not just 700 mole man names but also their occupations. There's Dr. Hieronymous Sandpuppy, pharmacist and creator of "Dr Sandpuppy's Miraculous Mole Tonic," a popular mole tonic. There's Miss Screechina Humid-Closepassage, a cave painter. And of course Good Ole Woolsey Shitsdirt, a hole fellow.

Plus Some Less Scientific Methods of Telling the Future that Actually Work. Hangover cures involving gin. A guide to hermit-crab racing. And several sexually suggestive Christmas songs.

Yes, this is seriously weird stuff. Which of course is why I like it.

Tech Crunch says this is the best TV commercial ever made. Not sure I completely agree but I see their point.




It's a Danish ad for a washing machine. About a hundred hot women get on an airplane, take off their clothes and then jump out of the airplane. Follow the link to view it. Probably not safe for work. Holds up well after repeated viewings. Happy Friday!

Getting into film awards season, starting with various U.S. cities critics' associations.

NY Film Critics:

Film: "Milk"

Director: Mike Leigh, "Happy-Go-Lucky"

Actor: Sean Penn, "Milk"

Actress: Sally Hawkins, "Happy-Go-Lucky"

Supporting Actor: Josh Brolin, "Milk"

Supporting Actress: Penelope Cruz, "Vicky Cristina Barcelona"

Screenplay: Jenny Lumet, "Rachel Getting Married"

First Film: Courtney Hunt, "Frozen River"

Foreign Film: "4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days"

Animated Film: "WALL-E

Documentary: "Man on Wire"

Cinematographer: Anthony Dod Mantle, "Slumdog Millionaire"

Meanwhile, the Los Angeles film critics went this way:

Picture: "Wall-E"
Runner-up: "The Dark Knight"

Director: Danny Boyle, "Slumdog Millionaire"
Runner-up: Christopher Nolan, "The Dark Knight"

Actor: Sean Penn, "Milk"
Runner-up: Mickey Rourke, "The Wrestler"

Actress: Sally Hawkins, "Happy-Go-Lucky"
Runner-up: Melissa Leo, "Frozen River"

Supporting actor: Heath Ledger, "The Dark Knight"
Runner-up: Eddie Marsan, "Happy-Go-Lucky"

Supporting actress: Penelope Cruz, "Vicky Cristina Barcelona" and "Elegy"
Runner-up: Viola Davis, "Doubt"

Screenplay: Mike Leigh, "Happy-Go-Lucky"
Runner-up: Charlie Kaufman, "Synecdoche, New York"

Foreign-language film: "Still Life"
Runner-up: "The Class"

Documentary: "Man on Wire"
Runner-up: "Waltz With Bashir"

Animation: "Waltz With Bashir"

Cinematography: Yu Lik Wai, "Still Life"
Runner-up: Anthony Dod Mantle, "Slumdog Millionaire"

Production design: Mark Friedberg, "Synecdoche, New York"
Runner-up: Nathan Crowley, "The Dark Knight"

Music/score: A.R. Rahman, "Slumdog Millionaire"
Runner-up: Alexandre Desplat, "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button"

New Generation: Steve McQueen, "Hunger"

Douglas E. Edwards independent/experimental film/video: James Benning, "RR" and "Casting a Glance"

Washing Tundy Sea critics went for Slumdog Millionaire.

Also, the Golden Globe nominations have been released. These are the awards given annually by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, a group of just a few dozen foreigners who spend their time on as many press junkets as possible. This is the same group that once gave Pia Zadora the award for newcomer of the year, pun very possibly intended. This gets a lot of attention and the ceremony even gets televised in part because they can find advertisers to pay for it and in part because they're seen as some sort of Oscar predictor.

So here are their noms for film (they also do TV):

BEST FEATURE - DRAMA
“The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”
“Frost/Nixon”
“The Reader”
“Revolutionary Road”
“Slumdog Millionaire”

BEST FEATURE - COMEDY
“Burn After Reading”
“Happy-Go-Lucky”
“In Bruges”
“Mamma Mia!”
“Vicky Cristina Barcelona”

ACTOR - DRAMA
Leonardo DiCaprio - “Revolutionary Road”
Frank Langella - “Frost/Nixon”
Sean Penn - “Milk”
Brad Pitt - “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”
Mickey Rourke - “The Wrestler”

ACTRESS - DRAMA
Anne Hathaway - “Rachel Getting Married”
Angelina Jolie - “Changeling”
Meryl Streep - “Doubt”
Kristin Scott Thomas - “I’ve Loved You So Long”
Kate Winslet - “Revolutionary Road”

ACTOR - COMEDY OR MUSICAL
Javier Bardem - “Vicky Cristina Barcelona”
Colin Farrell - “In Bruges”
James Franco - “Pineapple Express”
Brendan Gleeson - “In Bruges”
Dustin Hoffman - “Last Chance Harvey”

ACTRESS - COMEDY OR MUSICAL
Rebecca Hall - “Vicky Cristina Barcelona”
Sally Hawkins - “Happy-Go-Lucky”
Frances McDormand - “Burn After Reading”
Meryl Streep - “Mamma Mia!”
Emma Thompson - “Last Chance Harvey”

SUPPORTING ACTOR
Tom Cruise, “Tropic Thunder”
Robert Downey Jr., “Tropic Thunder”
Ralph Fiennes, “The Duchess”
Philip Seymour Hoffman, “Doubt”
Heath Ledger, “The Dark Knight”

SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Amy Adams, “Doubt”
Penelope Cruz, “Vicky Cristina Barcelona”
Viola Davis, “Doubt”
Marisa Tomei, “The Wrestler”
Kate Winslet, “The Reader”

BEST DIRECTOR
Danny Boyle, “Slumdog Millionaire”
Stephen Daldry, “The Reader”
David Fincher, “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”
Ron Howard, “Frost/Nixon”
Sam Mendes, “Revolutionary Road”

SCREENPLAY - MOTION PICTURE
Simon Beaufoy, “Slumdog Millionaire”
David Hare, “The Reader”
Peter Morgan, “Frost/Nixon”
Eric Roth, “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”
John Patrick Shanley, “Doubt”

FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
“The Baader Meinhof Complex” (Germany)
“Everlasting Moments” (Sweden)
“Gomorrah” (Italy)
“I’ve Loved You So Long” (France)
“Waltz with Bashir” (Israel)

ANIMATED FEATURE FILM
“Bolt”
“Kung Fu Panda”
“Wall-E”

ORIGINAL SCORE
Alexandre Desplat– “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”
Clint Eastwood — “Changeling”
James Newton Howard — “Defiance”
A.R. Rahman — “Slumdog Millionaire”
Hans Zimmer — “Frost/Nixon”

ORIGINAL SONG
“Down to Earth” — “Wall-E” (Music by Peter Gabriel, Thomas Newman; Lyrics by Peter Gabriel)
“Gran Torino” — “Gran Torino (Music by Clint Eastwood, Jamie Cullum, Kyle Eastwood, Michael Stevens;
Lyrics by Kyle Eastwood, Michael Stevens)
“I Thought I Lost You — “Bolt” (Music & Lyrics by Miley Cyrus, Jeffrey Steele)
“Once in a Lifetime” — “Cadillac Records” (Music & Lyrics by Beyoncé Knowles, Amanda Ghost, Scott McFarnon, Ian Dench, James Dring, Jody Street)
“The Wrestler” — “The Wrestler” (Music & Lyrics by Bruce Springsteen)

They think we're idiots part 137:

Newspapers today are reporting that bus companies next year will be dropping special discounts and increasing prices, resulting in fares that in some cases are five times higher than current fares. The reason for this? One reason cited - higher fuel costs. Apparently they managed to keep a straight face while saying this.

Also in the news today:



To paraphrase Brian Eno, burning buslines give you so much more.

from Da Standard:

Internet images of a bare-chested woman posing in various public locations in Tai Po have upset local Democratic Party district councillor Kwan Wing-yip.

He feels both the practice of taking the snaps in a public place and posting them on the internet is offensive and needs to be clamped down upon. On his second point the police seem to agree, and now the lady and her friend in our photos could find themselves the subject of a conspiracy to issue indecent material charge, if a team of computer crimefighters from Asia's finest has its way.

The naughty snaps were taken at Tai Po Waterfront Park, Plover Cove Reservoir and Tai Po Industrial Estate and posted on a website - with an age warning - which has now been blocked. Kwan says there is far too much of this sort of thing about these days and he doesn't want it polluting the minds of the good people of Tai Po - he even called a press conference to say so.

To put the furor into perspective, the good councillor has received one complaint about the photos and before closing down, the website had just 85 visits.

But it's a good way to get your name in the newspapers, isn't it Mr. Kwan?

Well, about a month after the fact ....

Dinner last night at a new Thai restaurant on Lockhart Road, smack dab in the middle of the go-go bars, but clearly aimed towards patrons of those establishments. The place is called NaNa Banana - which I imaging was deliberately chosen to make frequent Bangkok visitors think of Soi Nana and Nana Plaza.

It's a bright clean spot with big LCD TVs on the walls showing sports. More to the point, all of the waitresses are female, Thai, friendly, wearing miniskirts and boots. Pretty much everyone eating there was male - and actually very few people were eating, most were just drinking.

We tried three dishes and all were just okay - I think my mistake was asking for them to be prepared just a little spicy and perhaps if I'd gone for full-on they might have tasted more authentic. The king prawns were over cooked and the khao klik kapi didn't have as many side things on the plate as you get elsewhere. In general, I'd say if Thai food's your thing and you're on that street, you're better off going to Thai Hut or Thai Farmer.

On the other hand, I'm fully supportive of anything that opens along that stretch that isn't a go-go bar, so I hope they make it. I don't mind the girls sitting outside the clubs in their tiny little outfits (duh) but I hate when the mama-sans come running over and grab you by the arm and try to drag you in. It's gotten to the point where I don't walk down that street if I'm alone.
===================
In the US, the Dark Knight DVD sold 3 million copies on its first day of release. That includes 600,000 copies on Blu-Ray. This more than doubles the record set by Iron Man, which sold 250,000 Blu-Ray discs on its first day of release. After reading this last night, I had the best night's sleep I've had in months.

From SNL's Andy Samberg, who gave us Dick in a Box, here's I Jizzed in My Pants. Yes, it's about what you think it's about. Cameos from Justin Timberlake and Jamie-Lynn Sigler. Watch. Enjoy. Discuss.

from here (via BoingBoing)

In the UK, a single page in Wikipedia has been effectively banned in England by the Internet Watch Foundation, a non-government group - the result being that many British ISPs have blocked people in the UK from viewing this page. The page in question shows the cover for a 1976 album "Virgin Killer" by the German heavy metal band Scorpions. This is not simply an instance of the censors showing good taste in music. The cover image depicts a naked girl who is undoubtedly under the age of consent. The band has never been prosecuted for this image. This image has never been officially declared obscene. And what will the IWF decide people shouldn't look at next? I suppose it would be too much to hope it would be anything to do with Hannah Montana?

Back home in Hong Kong, the downturn in the economy has left people with too much free time on their hands. As reported in Kaiju Shakedown and EastSouthWestNorth, one idiot decided to watch the 1997 Stephen Chow classic comedy From Beijing With Love. There is a scene in there where Chow gets shot and Anita Yuen removes the bullet. Since there is no anasthetic, Chow watches a porn film to distract himself during the operation. Anyway, this moron decided it would be a good use of his time to figure out which porn film Chow is watching in this 11 year old movie. Guess what? It's a porn film starring Traci Lords, who lied about her age to get into the porn business decades ago. And apparently, if this is one of those films that was made when she was underage, under Hong Kong law, they can prosecute Stephen Chow for "exhibiting a film depicting sexual intercourse with a minor."

Okay, he's not being prosecuted yet. But if they did, what possible good could such an action do anyone anywhere in Hong Kong or the rest of the world?

Yesterday, the Craptard devoted its pseudo editorial page to running an article from a French news agency detailing how business in Bangkok's red light districts is down following the blockade of the airports. It includes this bit of detail for all you punters out there:

Prostitutes offer two hours of sexual services for 800 baht (HK$173) instead of the normal 1,500 to 2,000 baht that would cost.

For those who seek other entertainment there, we get this information:

The airport closures also hurt the capital's other entertainment options, such as the famous "ladyboy" cabaret shows.

"The shutdown of the airports seriously affected our business," said Nipon Boonmasuwaran, sales and marketing manager of the Calypso show, where flamboyantly dressed transvestites lip-sync and dance to famous tunes.

"Our guests have dropped 90 percent - we have less than 50 guests in our 350-seat theater," Nipon said.

The Calypso also canceled its second daily showing during the November 25 to December 3 chaos, when images of frustrated tourists trying to flee Thailand from a military airbase beamed around the world.

"We handed out thousands of free tickets for the stranded hotel guests in order to entertain them and hope that they would buy drinks - otherwise we will have no business," he said.

The article also takes the time to inform us that since 2005, Thailand has only been the #2 destination for sex tourism - Brazil is now #1. Book your holidays accordingly.

The slowdown in the sex business is worldwide. The NY Times reports on a drop-off in business in Prague, focusing in part on a brothel where you can now have sex for free with a hooker as long as you allow them to film you doing it.

But Mr. Borowitz said Big Sister hoped to offset a 15 percent drop in revenues over the past quarter by expanding into the United States. The brothel also produces cable TV shows that air on Sky Italia and Britain’s Television X, as well as DVDs like “World Cup Love Truck.”
....
In Prague, even brothels in the most touristy areas complain they are suffering from economic hardship. On a recent night near Wenceslas Square in Prague, dozens of young men loitered outside a row of neon-lighted sex clubs, beckoning passing tourists with offers of complementary alcohol and racy strip shows.
.......................
Many Czechs are more than happy to see Prague shrug off its reputation as one of the world’s top 20 sex destinations. But some in the hotel industry are so alarmed by the drop in tourists that they are lobbying the government to legalize the trade, in the hope that it will help lure more clients.

While some critics have warned that legalization would effectively transform the Czech state into the country’s biggest pimp, the Czech government is considering whether to emulate the Netherlands and Germany by regulating prostitution like any other industry. It is considering passing legislation by the end of the year that would require the Czech Republic’s estimated 10,000 prostitutes to register with the local authorities.
......

Even with the downturn, she added, prostitution was far more resilient than other industries, though the downturn was discouraging adultery.

“An Austrian farmer from a remote area who is not married will still cross the border to the Czech Republic looking for sex,” she said. “On the other hand, the recession is helping to keep husbands at home who might otherwise be cheating on their wives.”

.........

Only a few years ago the town of Dubi was so overrun by prostitution that a nearby orphanage was opened to provide refuge for dozens of unwanted babies of prostitutes and their German clients. Sex could be purchased for as little as 5 euros — the price of a few beers in Dresden — drawing a daily influx of more than 1,000 sex tourists.

Today, more than three dozen brothels have been winnowed down to four; several were converted into goulash restaurants or golf clubs.

The article also notes that Nevada's famous Mustang Ranch recently laid off 30% of its staff due to the economic downturn.

Dinner tonight at Bo Innovation. My first time to experience molecular gastronomy, let alone Chinese style.

The restaurant is on Ship Street, off Johnston Road. A glass elevator to the second floor brings you to this great setting. Note the huge mosaic portrait of chef Alvin Leung, the self proclaimed "demon chef" (and that's what his tattoo says).



We had the chef's menu - $1,680 per person with wine. Starting with a glass of champagne, followed by a mixture of whites and reds from Australia, New Zealand, France, Spain that beautifully complemented the various courses. (Probably should mention that we were comped - the staff knew in advance we were there to review for a magazine. However from my observation, all the other tables received the same food and attentive service we did.)
#1 Century egg with super sour foam. As a rule I don't eat eggs and I've certainly never tried a century egg before. But I was resolved to at least taste every dish put in front of me. And as eggs go, it was actually kind of pleasant.


The clam, served with a bloodless Bloody Mary - sorry no photo but a fascinating two layered non-alcoholic drink.



We were told this was one of the signature dishes - a quail egg smoked with brown sugar and tea leaves, covered in taro, topped with beluga caviar. As I said, I don't care for eggs. But I asked if I could have ten more of this one.


Vegetable cappuccino - I forget the vegetable used - and a crouton made with anchovies!

Thin slice of toro "paper" - the pincers were there for rolling it up.


Very sweet peas, sticky rice and a sauce made from Chinese pickles.

Another signature dish - this is xiao long bao! The dark red square is dried vinegar - place on your tongue, let it melt, then take in the rest - my gosh, it tasted exactly like a perfect xiao long bao.


Hairy crab souffle, with vinegar and fruit salad


Not on the menu but brought to us at this point anyway - Chinese sausage ice cream! We got two spoons each, I would have been happier with four.



Steamed foie gras with a sauce that included rice foam, lotus, char siu, chinese mushrooms - this is the only dish I didn't finish as I'm not a fan of foie gras and even with that amazing sauce, after one bite of the liver I pushed that aside and just scooped up the sauce on its own.

Leung's take on sweet and sour pork. Five more of these please!


Australian Wagyu beef with black truffle soy and cheung fun - as odd a take on dim sum as you're likely to find but look at this amazing piece of beef.


Dessert varied slightly from the menu ... we were told to eat from right to left - red bean creme brulee, gingko nut foam soda, sesame and banana and something else


And then ... apple crumble! With egg batter foam

More views of the restaurant - we ate outside, surrounded by heaters and a clear sky.




So what did I think? Having read both pro and con about molecular gastronomy, I decided I fall into the "pro" column. When I picked up something that didn't look like anything I'd ever seen before, put it in my mouth and went, "wow, that's xiao long bao!" I was smiling like a kid. The servers did a very good job of explaining what each course consisted of. The dishes are actually much more complex than the menu states.

Leung changes the menu every month and we were told that most "regulars" only go there once a month. There is a tasting menu that costs $680. The chef's menu is $1,080 or $1,680 with wine. There is no a la carte except during the day when they have some dim sum.

The dinner took four hours and it was an event - it was dinner and theater all rolled into one. If it was not the best meal I ever ate, it was certainly one of the most memorable. On that basis, Bo Innovation definitely merits its two Michelin stars.

And I don't think I've ever been so full in my life.

"Hungry?" my admin asked. "There's a new Indonesian place nearby, want to try?"

So we walked over and of course it's an Indian place. She's from Amsterdam so I have to cut her a lot of slack. On walking in, the owner introduced himself to me by name, shook my hand, and came over every three seconds to tell me that someone would be over to take my order soon.

The place is called Royal India, and it's near Taikoo Place, but on a back street. The young Chinese man who took my order barely spoke any English and a young Chinese girl came along two minutes later to confirm the order since he'd jumbled everything.

Set lunches start from $38 - my $48 got a bowl of soup, beef brisket curry, naan, papadum, fried okra, salad and a drink. And it was pretty darned good.

The owner came by again, told me I was a very handsome man and adjusted the collar on my shirt. After we paid the bill, he gave me a VIP card and insisted I join him in the kitchen to meet the cook. So I went in the kitchen and met the cook who stood there wondering why this nobody was being introduced to him.

As we left, the owner stood in the doorway. "See you again," I said. "I'll be waiting for you," he replied.

"Now I can never walk down this street again," I said to my assistant, who was more concerned over why I got a discount card and she didn't - even though she didn't order any food and wasn't the one who paid the bill. She's from Amsterdam so I have to cut her a lot of slack.

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

On my "real" Facebook account I had 215 friends. But checking this morning, I only had 213. Two people unfriended me!

I've defriended about 3 people so far - two were people I didn't know who kept sending me invites to attend boring events on a different continent. The third was a Facebook stalker who kept filling up my inbox and news feed with trash.

But who would defriend me? Of course you don't get any notification. I looked down my list of friends and all of the ones I thought were borderline were still there.

Scratched what's left of my brain. Hmmm, one - oh, yeah, someone I met once who tried to chat with me every time he saw me online. Every time. Guess he was insulted that I always said I was busy.

But who was the second?

Losing friends is stressful. Actually, no, not very.

A quick overnight visit to Macau Macao Ao Men, my first in more than a year and a half. Casino gambling holds little appeal for me but there are other aspects of the place that I like - although most of the old world charm is rapidly disappearing in the face of construction. I would hope that someone there takes note of what happened to Atlantic City after the advent of casino gambling, but I doubt it.

We booked a quick & cheap hotel room/ferry ticket combo at one of the travel agents at Shun Tak Centre, who promised us that the Emperor Hotel was newly renovated. On arrival in Macau, there were a gazillion busses for the New Emperor Hotel and the Grand Emperor Hotel and the Emperor's New Clothes Hotel but we had to wait half an hour for the one little bus to the Emperor Hotel. On arrival, we were told that there were no smoking rooms available at the rate we'd booked and could I promise not to smoke? Um, nope. So free upgrade to a suite. Perhaps they hadn't gotten around to renovating the suites yet or maybe the renovations consisted of buying the cast-offs from other hotels that had just renovated.

A quick check of the TV channels available showed that there were only two English language news channels - Fox and Russia Today. I suspect RT's broadcasts might have more relationship to the truth.

Anyway, outside after sunset for a walk around town.




My gf commented that perhaps the best business to be in there would be the electricity business.

Anyway, the wider angle lens on the G10 (as opposed to the G7) certainly comes in handy. This shot was grabbed in full auto mode, no tripod.



Inside the old Lisboa, there's still the mini museum of Stanley Ho's treasures, but we were the only ones taking time to stop and look at them.

Also still inside the old Lisboa Hotel, a basement still filled with mainland hookers. These however seemed to have been renovated as they were all babes - tall, fair skinned northern Chinese women wearing a ton of make-up and very little clothing. Cleavage down to their navels, short skirts that barely cleared their butts, a veritable army patroling the basement, a few eying me but taking note that I already was well taken care of in that regard.

The Lisboa reflected in the glass of the building next door:


Across the street at the Wynn, we arrived in time for the dancing lights & fire show.


I noted with a mixture of horror and glee that after opening with Also Sprach Zarathustra, the next song played was Monty Python's "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life." It was a jolly new arrangement that managed to omit the verse that goes:

Life's a piece of shit
When you look at it
Life's a laugh and death's a joke, it's true.
You'll see it's all a show
Keep 'em laughing as you go
Just remember that the last laugh is on you.

Hmmmm, wonder why that might be.

We then hopped a taxi for dinner at Fernando. I know many people don't like this place, many more do and I'm one of those who do. Fortunately it's not mentioned at all in the new Michelin guide. You already have to wait an hour for a table as it is.


Waiting is a pretty painless experience though when you're sitting in this nice outside spot, accompanied by a pitcher of sangria and a plate of grill chorizo and olives and a basket of bread. No complaints from us!

Once inside, more sangria, garlic prawns, clams, grilled sardines, we stuffed ourselves silly!

Of course leaving Fernando's late, there are no taxis, but there is the reliable and cheap mini-bus. $6.40 per person and it dropped us off right near the Lisboa. I was thinking about going back into the basement there again to try to grab some photos of the "patrol" but we were too tired, too drunk and too cold! We made it back to the hotel and collapsed on the bed for what should have been a nap but ended up being about 10 hours of sleep.

Today, after we checked out of the hotel, over to check out the Venetian. Jesus H Christ on a bicycle, this place is huge. As a matter of fact, a bicycle would have made it a lot easier to get around. We ended up criss-crossing and doubling back many times.

As you can see, the main part of the casino was quite busy ....

But that doesn't tell the whole story, as about half of the casino was empty on a Sunday afternoon.

The entrance to the shopping mall ...

The food court ...
We didn't eat there - we went to Roka, a Japanese restaurant that originated in London and has a branch at the Venetian and another at Pacific Place. They're currently offering a weekend lunch special of all you can eat robata and tempura for $138 per person and most of it was quite tasty. A large space that was about 80% empty when we sat down at 12:30, the waiters told us that the place was quite full when they first opened but doesn't seem to be busy now, which is why they've got this lunch special (their "tasting menu" is $788 per person) and a "very long happy hour."

The Venetian lists 35 restaurants currently and a lot of them are probably quite worthwhile but, forgive the stereotype, I think it's probably true that most people coming there are from the mainland and spending as little as possible and sticking with what they know when it comes to meals.

The "canal" complete with gondolas and gondoliers


Coming soon on the Cotai Strip - more of the same.



We considered going to the Asian Adult Expo, but we'd already walked a helluva lot. And the $100 per person ticket price didn't make it seem that enticing. (I later heard from one person who went that it wasn't very good.)

And so, back to HK ....


I used to spend a lot of time in Macau and wouldn't mind doing so again - except I'm not at all interested in the casino frenzy. Yes it provides a lot of jobs and clearly there's plenty of people who love to gamble ... and I don't mind that now there are even more restaurants, the taxi drivers seem to speak a bit more English, I'm sure Cirque du Soleil is worth a visit. But I'm probably not gonna hurry back.

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

Driving home this afternoon, passed a Black BMW convertible with the vanity license plate SP1KE. Damn! Wonder if I can sue him?

Kraftwerk at Asiaworld December 5th. Their first time to play HK and my first time to see them live.

Basically the show they did was pretty much the same as found on their Minimum-Maximum CD/DVD set - the four of them dressed identically, each standing in front of a podium with a laptop computer and a single keyboard, a screen behind them showing computer animation. It's next to impossible to figure out which guy is playing what part. They barely move on stage and barely register any expression on their faces, feet tapping in time to the music is about it. As they unleashed hit after hit (Man Machine, Tour de France, Vitamin, Autobahn, The Model, Neon Lights, Radioactivity, Trans Europe Express, Computer World, The Robots and more), the effect was mesmerizing. The music is gorgeous as ever, huge sweeping melodies, gigantic dance beats, lyrics that are seemingly an afterthought.

The place was pretty full and the audience basically stood there (the concert was "free standing"), some people yelled that people should dance - at one point during The Model a woman jumped on stage and started dancing until the guards carried her off. Several encores and The Robots was "performed" by robots, about two hours altogether.

As I said, this was pretty much exactly the same show that I've watched on DVD, the only thing different being the song order. But maybe it was standing there in the dark, surrounded by a thousand people, it was a different experience from lying in bed and watching it on TV. I seriously enjoyed it, but don't ask me to pin down the reasons.

My gf said she enjoyed it more than the Billy Joel concert.

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

I'm less than thrilled with the results from my Sanyo Xacti HD 1010 camera. It had a hard time maintaining focus with the ever changing lights and backgrounds, though some of the video came out relatively okay - picture and sound are nice for sequences where the lighting and backgrounds were relatively static. Noting to myself that only Quicktime is doing an acceptable job of playing back the MP4 video. The picture keeps breaking up and freezing with VLC and the audio sync is seriously off with Picasa.

The still photos are all almost unusable, the one posted above about the best of a sorry batch. Since I got a pretty good deal on the camera to being with and since I've had it just a couple of weeks, think I'm gonna sell it off.

The latest:

Hello,

I am a banker and not a businessman.

Meanwhile I will like to know if you are capable to handle

this transaction with me or Not.

About the women business, I have a good friend of mine who can help you,

so I will get all details information and send to you when ever you reply back to me.

Meanwhile send to me the age of the woman you need and how many women??

Malik.

I need a little time to come up with a good response to this one.

Please feel free to submit your ideas for future letters for me to write.

His reply:

Good Morning ,

Thanks for your reply to my request. I would like to inform you that this transaction is 100% legal and very genuine, and the issue of the documents should not be a problem to you. I am part and parcel of this bank, and I will use my influence and position to make sure that everything work out well for us. I want to assure you once again that everything will be ok if you will give me your total support and co operation.

Here is my proposal after the
completion of the transaction:

35% of the total money goes to you.
60% for me
5% for any expenses that will done

My reason of taking part in this pending transaction is because I have worked with this bank for good 11 years now and nothing to show for all my effort and service , but our greedy politicians are busy every day transfering the state fund into their accs in swiss banks ,while others are suffering in silence.

I choosed you because a civil servant is not allowed to operate a foreign account in this country and beside the deceased person is a foreigner and there fore there is need for a foreigner to stand as her next fo kin.

All the information about the deceased person is under my desk, and with that , there is no more problem again. Send to me your identity or photo as I will have to you my photo, it is attached in this mail. I hope this will help us to build a solid business relationship based on honesty and sincerity of heart.

Upon your confirmation and acceptance, I will send to you a letter of demand which you will forward to the Bank Management to put a claim to the fund.

Listen there is no problem about how to transfer the fund, I will guide you as a banker on how everything should be done successfully and perfectly.

Mr. Malik Ali +226 76742191

And my reply to him. If he responds to this he is either desperate or seriously stupid?

Dear Mr. Mali Kali,

This is me making the thankings of you ever so much and humbly for your fastest response to my earlier electronic message. But saddly, there were no photographic identifiers attached to your messages to me. As you are making the understanding of the natures of my busness, I am shur you make the understandings that I cannot divulge my identitys to you so soonly, as I do not know who you am and you could be the policeman trying to make a trick on me.

By the way Mr. Kali, one of the most hardest parts of my busness is getting new womens to serve in the operation. I am wondering what country you are making the living of in and if you could be of helping me in attracting new womens to serve as prostititues in south East Asian cuntrys. How many womens could my 35,000 dollar buy? We do not have to make the telling of the truths to these womens. Most oftenly we tells them that they will be workings as waitress or singers and only when they make the arrivings to Indonesia do they finds out the truths. Alsos, it is usually helpfuls if they have familys so that we can make the big threats of hurting they're familys if they do not make the good boom boom with the customer. If you wish to make the trying out of them women either before or after you drug them and ship them to me, that is okay with me. Your very detailed reports will be usefuls.

I am making the thinking that with 35000 and your Important helps we can have a big success in the prostitituetion world!

Stay tuned!

From FunnyOrDie.com, it's Prop 8 - The Musical! Starring Neil Patrick Harris, John C. Reilly and Jack Black as Jesus.

Grammy award nominations announced, if anyone cares. See the entire list here, here and here - well, there's 110 categories this year.

Noms for album of the year:

Coldplay - Viva La Vida
Lil Wayne - Tha Carter III
Ne-Yo - Year of the Gentleman
Robert Plant & Alison Krauss - Raising Sand
Radiohead - In Rainbows

Lil Wayne's album is the best selling album of the year and he's got the most noms this year, 8.

Song of the year:

Estelle - American Boy
Adele - Chasing Pavements
Jason Mraz - I'm Yours
Sara Bareilles - Love Song
Coldplay - Viva La Vida

Click over to see the rest of the noms. Note that Neil Young gets nominated for best rock vocal performance .....

And now, stolen from theblemish.com, I present to you Ms. Anne Hathaway.



You're welcome.

I don't like everything Hemlock posts but once in awhile he hits the nail on its proverbial head, as in this post (Thursday December 4):

... the Top 10 Official Screw-ups of 2008, as voted by our readers. There was the political appointees, allowed to keep foreign passports one day and then arm-twisted into losing them the next. There was the political appointees’ salaries, starring a 28-year-old bag-carrier getting HK$130,000 a month, almost 10 times the city’s median household income. There was the old people’s ‘fruit money’ allowance, to be means-tested one day, not means-tested the next. There was the levy on foreign maids, suspended in such a way as to cause an administrative nightmare, then in a less stupid way, first for two years, then for five, when all they had to do was kill it.

There was the HK Monetary Authority and the Securities and Futures Commission blaming each other for letting banks sell high-risk ‘minibonds’ to illiterates. There was the Great Bank Run Panic. There were embarrassing Executive Council members like David Li and Henry Fan, featuring respectively in an insider trading charge and the grotesquery that passed for corporate governance at CITIC Pacific. Then there was the predictable bed-wetting about the economic downturn, with every round of layoffs at banks, restaurants and retailers being met with promises to create more and more construction jobs. (This last trauma came with a silver lining, in that few politicians – even among the opposition – raised so much as an eyebrow at the announcement that the administration would spend HK$100 billion on infrastructure to create 40,000 jobs. Divide HK$100 billion by 40,000 and you get HK$2.5 million – rather a lot to create, say, two years’ work for a HK$10,000-a-month imported labourer. But apparently fine by our genius pro-democrats.)

Of course it would be nice if Hemlock would fix his RSS feed (broken since February), have links to individual posts and allow comments. Some may say I'm a dreamer ....

The pitch:

FOR YOUR KIND ATTENTION.

COULD YOU PLEASE CONSIDER TO HELP ME TO RELOCATE THIS SUM OF NINE MILLION,THREE HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS(US$9.3m) TO YOUR COUNTRY FOR ESTABLISHING A MEDIUM SIZE INDUSTRY IN YOUR COUNTRY.

THE SAID 9.3 MILLION DOLLARS WAS DEPOSITED IN OUR BANK BY MRS JOYCE LAKE AN AMERICA CITIZEN WHO DIED IN A PLANE CRASH IN 2000.WE HAVE TRIED TO CONTACT HER IMMEDIATE FAMILY TO COME FORWARD FOR CLAIMS BUT COULD NOT SUCCEED.
WE DISCORVERED THAT THE LATE AMERICAN DIED ALONG SIDE WITH HER HUSBAND AND CHILDREN WHO ARE SUPPOSED TO BE HER NEXT OF KIN.

CLICKHERE(http://www.cnn.com/2000/US/02/01/alaska.airlines.list/).

I WILL GIVE YOU ALL VITAL INFORMATION CONCERNING THE AMERICAN AND THE 9.3MILLION DOLLARS IN OUR CUSTODY SO THAT YOU WILL CONTACT MY BANK
FOR THEM TO RELEASE THE MONEY TO YOU.

YOU CAN COME HERE IN PERSON OR YOU CAN REQUEST THE BANK TO GIVE YOU THE CONTACT OF THE BANK LAWYER'S WHO CAN REPRESENT YOUR INTREST IN THE TRANSFER PROCESS.
I AM ONE OF THE BANK DIRECTORS, I WILL PLAY A ROLE TO MAKE SURE THAT THE 9.3 MILLION DOLLARS IS RELEASED TO YOU.

AS SOON AS I RECIEVE YOUR REPLY, I WILL GIVE YOU AN INSTRUCTION ON WHAT YOU SHOULD DO.

REPLY AND LET ME KNOW YOUR FULL NAME,AGE,ADDRESS,OCCUPATION,AND YOUR TELEPHONE NUMBERS IF AVALIABLE.

I AWAIT YOUR URGENT REPLY.YOU CAN REPLY ME THROUGH THIS EMAIL malikali101@yahoo.fr)

MR. MALIK ALI

My reply:

Dear Mr. or Mrs. Mali Kali,

Thank you so very very much for your making the writing of your letter to the personage of myselfs.

I am willing to be making the helping of this effortses between myselfs and yourselfs.

I am currently earning my livings and being in the full time carere of a professional pimp. I am involved in the marketing of women's sexual servises to lonely and horney travellers in Indonesia. Your investment will alllow me to expand my offereings to other countries like MaLAYsia and Singapoor. I belief that I can offer you a retrun on your investment of at leest 20% per month.

Is that acceptable to you?

Given the natures of my business, I prefer to not share my details of contact with you until we have become better akwainted.

Thank you Mr Malikali and bless you for your help with my holy mission.

Did I lay it on too heavy? Let's see if he replies.

Thailand .... these people who shut down the airports have inflicted long term damage on Thailand's economy and longer term damage on the country's international reputation as a business hub as well as a tourist hub .... the courts ruling that the party of the democratically elected leaders is illegal is a joke .... not that I'm any fan of Thaksin but why is there no respect for the democratic process and the rule of law? endemic corruption at every level. every level.

Mumbai .... don't even know where to start here .... I'll simply mention that I've stayed at the Oberoi, of course I've been in the Taj, and that after a 1,000 or more years, this is the first time it's been dangerous to be Jewish in India. I've been there three times, it's the only place in India I've been to, and I think it's a very special city.

Hong Kong taxi drivers .... bitch and moan that they didn't get a fare increase for years and then they get two in one year for some reason, leading them to bitch and moan that the higher fares mean they're losing business .... as a former taxi driver myself, I know this is a seriously tough and wearing job .... as a frequent passenger I know there are almost as many good taxi drivers in HK as bad ones .... almost

U.S. auto companies bailout? .... yes if they go under, millions of people lose their jobs .... but they have had 30 years to see this coming and have not been able to effectively compete with the Japanese or the Germans .... save the auto companies if it means saving the jobs of the assembly line workers and the people in the shops and restaurants that they patronize .... fire the CEOs and the boards of directors who still get multi-million dollar salaries in the face of colossal failures ....

Black Friday sales in Hong Kong? Not in our lifetime

Why is Swire co-sponsoring a two month Vivienne Westwood exhibition at Taikoo Place? Why do I have to see the right half of this photo every 10 paces for the next two months, not to mention one poster that's about 30 storeys tall.





Not Hard to Figure Out .... the proper supplements on a DVD can elevate a film to a higher level. Case in point is the new Criterion two disc release of Spy Who Came In From the Cold, starring Richard Burton, Oscar Werner and Clare Bloom, directed by Martin Ritt, based on John Le Carre's third novel. My parents took me to see this when it first came out. I was 11 years old and I don't think I really understood much of what was going on in the first anti-James Bond film.

A 38 minute interview with Le Carre, conducted this year, is extraordinarily detailed and penetrating, trivia one moment, pungent analysis the next (for example, how Paramount wanted to cast Burt Lancaster, he wanted Trevor Howard; not having read the book I didn't realize that Bloom's character was also Jewish and the plot can be seen as the British and German secret services almost teaming up to kill two Jews; and Le Carre's final thoughts on the film as well as his book's relationship to reality). A 60s TV interview of Burton by Kenneth Tynan told me more about Burton than I ever knew, in terms of what he says, how he says it, what he doesn't say, as he smokes non stop and proclaims Elizabeth Taylor to be the finest actress in the world and that he acts mostly so that he can get good tables in restaurants and good seats in airplanes. And more. You watch the film, you watch these extras, they highlight things from the film you didn't see, didn't realize, didn't appreciate, you watch the film again and it shines, in a noir sort of way.

The Hong Kong & Macau Michelin Guide is finally out and Cha Xiu Bao has been kind enough to post a summary of the results.

The sad news is ... just one three-star restaurant in HK, one in Macau. Seven two-star restaurants and 14 one-star spots.

(The Four Seasons Hotel gets 5 Michelin stars - 3 for Lung King Heen and 2 for Caprice.)

(Note that Ming Court gets one star - no, I don't think it's the hotel in Wanchai.)

Even sadder, I've only eaten at 3 of the 23 starred restaurants. Yes, I know, plenty of people are going to take issue with which ones got stars, which ones didn't. Either way, guess I've got my work cut out for me.....

Amazingly enough, there are now more than 10,000 applications in the iTunes App Store for the iPhone and iPod Touch. 10,000 in less than a year.

Go here to see all 10,000 of them on a single page.

Of those 10,000, more than 2,400 are free while 3,500 cost 0.99 cents. There are 2,332 games.

And that's now counting all the apps for jailbroken iPhones, hundreds of those as well.

Of course, at least a thousand of these are garbage or redundant - 20 tips calculators! Dozens of apps that countdown to a single event (days until xmas, days until your birthday, days until your anniversary).

I've downloaded 55 apps for my iPhone so far, paid for about 25% of those.