Hongkie Town

We've hit this patch of grey skies and humidity a bit early this year, haven't we? I was expecting another month of comfortable temps and blue skies. Ah well. It's been a weird and tiring week overall and I suppose the crappy weather gives me an excuse (as if I needed one) to spend the day in front of the computer doing meaningless crap to take my mind off stuff.

Earlier in the week, Dusk Till Dawn had their 10th anniversary party and it was a good one indeed. Tonight The Bridge celebrates its 7th anniversary and a good chance I'll be there. OOPS - it's March 7th, my bad.

A blog I just found - Never Get Out of the Boat! Yeah, I presume the guy's an Apocalypse Now fan, but that's not the purpose the blog. He's hosting links to some amazing archival material - some bootleg, some pirate, some stuff he assembled himself - 9 hours worth of rare Dylan songs that at one point or another were available on Dylan's web site; 15-1/2 hours of Dylan B-sides, compilation-only tracks, soundtracks; out of print comedy albums by Albert Brooks and Lenny Bruce; rare Zappa; 6 volumes of Richard Thompson rarities; the list goes on and on and on. There's so much there that I've actually ponied up for a RapidShare account so I can grab this stuff down in a reasonable amount of time.

A few weeks ago I came across a couple of articles that mentioned that HK architects were complaining that building codes in the SAR were preventing the kind of creativity one sees in major cities in the PRC. At the time I thought they were probably right but that there are far more urgent items to deal with. I thought of those articles when I came across this thing on Gizmodo about some new towers planned in Shenzhen:

Rooftop garden ponds to recycle rainwater, solar tracking screens around the buildings' exterior and circular footprints for the towers, enabling wide-open social spaces to face the sun. And of course the position of the buildings, arranged in a horizontal linking pattern so they double as giant sun umbrellas for the Stock Exchange. The buildings will be linked by underground rail as well, so the only time you'll have to venture outside is to partake in all the rooftop garden festivities.

Hmmm, my mouse is blinking red, needs a recharge, time to take a break from all this ....

Since both E@L and Phooey have blogged about our meet last night, I suppose I ought to mention it as well.

Since E no longer lives here and I knew we'd have just a short time to get together, my idea was to bring him to some place relatively new and not one of the same old hangdog hangouts. I've been to Uno Mas a few times since its opening and have enjoyed it each time, so it seemed a good choice, and I'm happy that my friends agreed with me.

One thing is bugging me about the place. They have a jamon iberico plate, two sizes, $188 and $388. And they have a charcuterie platter at $188 that includes some of the jamon, some salami, some chorizo, one other bit of meat, some pate, a bowl of olives. So:

First time to order charcuterie platter - there's a healthy helping of the jamon iberico.

Second time to order the charcuterie platter - there's just two thin strips of jamon iberico.

Last night, ordered the $188 jamon iberico platter; later we order the charcuterie platter and it had the same amount of of jamon iberico on it as the individual order.

I don't think it's nitpicking to ask them to use the same amounts of an ingredient each time they serve the same dish. However, last night, I'd had a bit too much wine and beer to even think of how to mention it to the manager. The thing is, you go to a place and you enjoy the meal and you want the same quality level each time. It's a failure to maintain consistency that leads to so many HK restaurants opening strong and then fading quickly.

I have to wonder ... the mid and upper tiers of the restaurant scene in HK are ruled by corporations. It's one thing if some French guy comes to HK and decides to open a French restaurant - he knows the food, he's committed to it, he sticks to it. But a corporation opens 10 different restaurants, each a different style that they hope will catch the mood and be in fashion, and six months later they shut them down and convert them to the new flavors of the month. The results are just not the same.

Later, E@L took off to meet some other friends while Phooey and I hit a few more spots. It was a good night for me, one in which I managed to not think too much about the rest of what's going on in my life at the moment ... with the exception of an increasing stream of SMS messages from my gf, who is out of town and gets worried when she hears that I'm frequenting bars in a certain district here. But my goal is not to do anything that I can't tell her about afterwards, and I think I did relatively okay last night.

Here's a piece I did for the current issue of BC Mag on Corea/McLaughlin, written before the concert, so it's a review of a CD, along with a hopefully funny tale about seeing Mahavishnu Orchestra in the 70s. My first feature article for BC should be appearing in the next issue. It's a long time since I wrote something aside from the column and the blog, and my first time to write a piece based on an interview conducted via email, so I hope people like it.

Just watched this week's episode of No Reservations and it is easily one of my favorite episodes of the show ever. And where is it set? Tokyo? Mumbai? Paris? No. New York City. Bourdain visits a bunch of places that represent the old school New York, "the golden age of Manhattan," places that are rapidly disappearing. Where does he go?

Esposito's Pork Shop in Hell's Kitchen
Manganaro's Grocery
Keen's English Chop House
Russ & Daughters Appetizers
Katz's Delicatessen - back in the days when I drove a taxi, I used to pray that I'd have a fare that would put me near here during lunch time. Those days when my prayers were answered AND I could find a legal parking spot, those were some of the best days in some damned dark times.
Eisenberg's Sandwich Shop
Schaller & Weber
Hop Kee in Chinatown for old school American Chinese food
Le Veau D'Or for 30s style French cuisine

These places are all at least 50 years old, some of them 100. I could think of some places that he missed - but you can't fit everything into a one hour TV show and besides, some of those places I remember are probably gone now. They do have a shot of McSorley's - the real 150+ year old McSorleys, my college hangout, not the faux Irish burger joint in Soho here - but they don't go in. Yonah Schimmel's ain't on the show, but one of the guests on the show wears a Yonah Schimmel t-shirt, so that's sort of something.

The final stop is Sophie's, a dive bar in the East Village with writer Nick Tosches. Some of the best quotes in this episode come from Tosches - "These days, I mean, there are bars that I go to in the morning, bars that I go to in the afternoon, they're sort of like, for me, compromise bars, For me, most of New York exists only in my memory, my fading memory." And, "What disheartens me most about the loss of the New York I knew is like, it seems that the forces that be have no sense about what should have been or should be preserved."

Jeez, he could be talking about Hong Kong with that last line, couldn't he?

That's why I can never go back to New York. The New York that I remember simply doesn't exist any more. It's been replaced by plasticized, homogenized, franchised, bastardized places for tourists and kids who simply don't know any better and don't care.

And lemme ask you, are there any real bars in Hong Kong? Certainly not in Wanchai or Lan Kwai Fong, where it seems every bar has to have a "theme" or a "gimmick." Okay, I'm old, but I'm tired of the faux Irish bars and British pubs, the discos where the music is so loud you can't possibly have a conversation, even with yourself. And the Chinese bars seem filled with karaoke, dice games and cheesy house music, at least the ones I've tried. I want something old school, some place where I can sink in, slowly drink myself to death ("Drown in a vat of whiskey? Death, where is thy sting?" - W.C. Fields), like every song I hear on the jukebox, something Mickey Rourke Barfly style (and was it really Bar-fly, or was it barf-ly as in "he was feeling kind of barfly"?).

Like McSorleys. No jukebox. No TV. No pinball. No one sitting there with a fucking laptop computer or looking at their Blackberry every two seconds or texting on their cell phones (okay, it was the 70s, I guess if it's still there it's changed at least in that way). No designer burgers. You had a choice between porter and stout, nothing else!, and you grabbed at least a couple of them at a time because they were cheap and the mugs were small, or at least they seemed small. Ham and cheese on rye bread lathered with British mustard and a really sharp bit of onion. You could talk to anyone in there or no one. A single communal bathroom where women had to push past you while you stood at the urinal to get at the booths (well, they didn't let women in there at all for the first 90 years or so). You'd go in there and time would stand still, time just didn't exist. You didn't need all those modern distractions.

I'm not saying Hong Kong bars are bad. And I've certainly drank my fill in more than just a couple of them. Guess it's just my mood tonight.

Penelope Cruz's Oscar acceptance speech:

I always felt that this ceremony was a moment of unity for the world. Because art, in any form, is, has been and will always be our universal language and we should do everything we can to protect its survival.

From Wikipedia:

"The Serenity Now" is the 159th episode of the NBC sitcom Seinfeld. This was the 3rd episode of the 9th and final season. It aired in the U.S. on October 9, 1997. Frank is advised to say "serenity now" aloud every time his blood pressure is in danger of going up, but he yells it instead.

I'm going to be saying it a lot today.




Only bright spot so far on a very bad morning - hard to believe but a previously unheard Beatles track all over the intertubes last week, "Revolution Take 20." Extremely awesome.

This is the newly-surfaced 11-minute stereo version of Revolution.

This track (presumably not speed corrected) is taken from Revolution… Take Your Knickers Off, a two-CD set from His Master’s Choice, which has just been released.

Not that I delude myself into thinking that this blog is your first choice for news, but in case you haven't seen it anywhere else, here are the Oscar results. As expected, a big night for Slumdog, winning in 8 of the 10 categories in which it was nominated. Actually, the only thing close to a surprise was Waltz for Bashir not winning foreign film.

Picture - Slumdog Millionaire
Director - Danny Boyle, Slumdog Millionaire
Actor - Sean Penn, Milk
Actress - Kate Winslet, The Reader
Supporting Actor - Heath Ledger, Dark Knight
Supporting Actress - Penelope Cruz, Vicky Cristina Barcelona

Original Screenplay - Milk
Adapted Screenplay - Slumdog Millionaire

Documentary Feature - Man on Wire
Foreign Language Feature - Departures (Japan)
Animated Feature - Wall-E

Cinematography - Slumdog Millionaire
Art Direction - Benjamin Button
Costume Design - Duchess
Make-Up - Benjamin Button
Visual Effects - Benjamin Button
Sound Editing - Dark Knight
Sound Mixing - Slumdog Millionaire
Editing - Slumdog Millionaire

Original Score - Slumdog Millionaire
Original Song - Jai Ho, Slumdog Millionaire

I haven't done much of anything yesterday or today and I'm tired. Meanwhile Leonard Cohen just kicked off a North American tour. He played for three hours (including intermission). He didn't just sit at a piano for 3 hours - "Leonard Cohen kept returning to the stance of a supplicant at the Beacon Theater on Thursday night, dropping to one knee, or both, to intone his wry and ruminative songs. ... He literally skipped offstage at the end of each half, and after each of his several encores. He sashayed back on, with the slyest of grins." Oh, yeah, he's 74 years old.

Steering clear of my RSS reader for 9 days has left me with this huge backlog of reading. Since Google's reader doesn't display numbers over 1,000 (just 1,000+), I think I've got somewhere in the range of 3,000 unread items. 406 unread items in CrunchGear, 452 in Engadget, 519 in Gizmodo. 1,000+ in Huffington Post. 1,000+ in new iphone apps. My mouse keeps moving itself to the "mark all read" button. Maybe that's the only sane way to catch up.

Last night, unable to convince myself to anything remotely useful, I was browsing Facebook, finding people that I haven't seen or spoken to since high school (grad. 1971) or college (grad. 1975). I've sent friend requests to them, they've responded, but now what? What do you say to someone you haven't seen in 37 years and who lives on the other side of the world? "Lotta water under the bridge, eh?"

Reading more about Amazon's Kindle 2. Since I have a US credit card and US shipping address, I could get one. Last week in Manila, I got so frustrated going into bookstore after bookstore with my little list and coming out with zero each time. I ended up placing two orders with Amazon. The notion of getting instant delivery instead of waiting two weeks, of getting books at a seriously lower price, of being able to tote my entire library along with me wherever I go - it's extremely attractive. But the price is way wrong - US$359. Sell the thing for $199, make it a loss leader, make back the money on digital book sales (give the razor away for free, make a mint on razor blades) ... that's what I'm waiting for.

Note that despite the band's best efforts, U2's new album is already available via the usual sources on the Internet. How did it leak in advance? Apparently their record label accidentally put it up for sale digitally on their New Zealand web site a wee bit early. It was pulled quickly but not quickly enough. And now it's everywhere. (Sounds quite good, too!) Oh, if you wanna be all legal about it, you can stream it now from their MySpace page.

Dumb joke that you've heard a million times already: If they make olive oil from olives and corn oil from corn, what do they make baby oil from?

Top Chef keeps getting better and better; Hell's Kitchen continues to plumb new depths yet, like a train wreck, I can't look away.

Last thing I wanna link to for now is this article from last week's NY Times about the annual ice sculpture festival in Harbin, China. An annual tradition for 35 years, this year management of the festival has been taken over by a company that has decided to license images from Disney. Instead of the Great Wall and the Forbidden City, this year there are sculptures of Mickey Mouse and Snow White. And oh, yes, the price of a ticket has doubled since last year. That's progress for ya.

And here we go with the Boracay pics.

The left hand side of the picture shows West Cove, the right hand side is Diniwid Beach, where we stayed.


This is Diniwid Beach, or what's left of it. This all used to be sand leading down to the water, but more than half has been washed away in storms the past few years and this wall was built in its place. A friend tells me he heard that the water level is rising here at the rate of 1 cm per year.


First night sunset, shot from our balcony.


My view for the next few days.

Blue skies, crystal clear water, can't ask for much more, can you?

Plane headed for Caticlan airport, bringing more tourists our way.

This is the bit of Diniwid that remains a beach. This is about the largest crowd that I saw there; most people stick to the more famous White Beach.

That's the Nami Hotel, cost about double what our place did, the restaurant there is supposed to be quite good but we never made it over there.


Peace, quiet, rest, stress-free.

Nice action shot of my gf.


This was a little weird. This group of Filipino women came down the beach, spotted my gf, they all wanted their picture taken with her. Then with me. Then with the couple sitting a few chairs away. Yes, they stuck around to chat. Yes, we got the life story of everyone in the group. That's Philippines style for ya.


What a nice place for a day dream.


Another day, another sunset.

We had one rainy day while there. Hung out on our balcony, ran out to swim whenever the rain took a break.


Off in the distance, a ferry.


Yes, that's right, another day, another sunset.

And the next morning ....

This is where we stayed, Artista Beach Villas. If you want to stay in a small place, family run, where they go out of their way to make you feel like you're a part of the family, this is the place.

A new place under construction. To the right, Wahine Lounge, where we had lunch every day, and Diniwid Divers.


The water is really calm and also really shallow - you can walk out for quite a distance.


Nice clouds ....

More dramatic clouds

Our final sunset in Boracay ... till the next time.

This is going in reverse order for no special reason ... Boracay pics will come later on.

At the Caticlan Airport, notice that the air con will be upgraded, which doesn't help anyone there that particular day, or week, or month, or year? Things move slowly in the Philippines sometimes.


Oh yes, and when they upgrade those air cons, it won't matter, cause there ain't no power.


Probably should have availed ourselves of a massage while waiting for our flight, delayed 2 hours.

Actually, I quite liked this handmade art on the wall. Seemed much more meaningful than some generic mass-produced poster. Like someone there actually cared.

And this cute little girl wandering around the waiting room.

In Manila, since we were on the top floor of the Shang, more out-the-window skyline pics.





Friday, second visit to my gf's family in San Pedro Laguna. She asked them not to invite as many people as last time and mentioned that the videoke machine wasn't really necessary.

Every family has a crazy uncle. My girlfriend's family has at least two. This is Uncle Wacky, whipping up a huge batch of pancit for lunch.

I can't resist the kids' faces.

Lumpia, Philippine spring rolls, home made, can't eat enough of these.

We also had chicken adobo, fish, rice. Followed up by cakes from Philippine bakeries Goldilocks and Red Ribbon (I wanted to bring Krispy Kreme but was out-voted, 1 to 1.)

One of my gf's brothers (she has 2 brothers, 2 sisters) with the latest family addition. (Sister #2 is pregnant so yet another coming soon.)

This little girl, every time the camera is pointed at her, the "V" goes up.


The other crazy uncle, about to go to work. Both uncles helped take care of my gf when she was younger, so when she built her house, she made space for them. (Later she built an addition on the back for her 72 year old aunt.)

Night time shots of Makati. Friday night traffic far as the camera can see.



Also want to mention that on Thursday night we joined a friend for dinner, one who recently moved to the Manila area. This is someone who not only knows his food and his restaurants, he knows all the chefs and managers as well. So obviously we were going to let him pick the place, and he picked a fabulous one.

Chef Laudico - Filipino Bistro is a small restaurant located by the Fort. The chef is doing a modern, almost playful take on classic Filipino dishes. The restaurant itself is really nice, with some classic design touches. The service is first rate and the menu does a great job of explaining the dishes. Sorry I don't have any photos but I knew we were in for a great meal when the starter, a take on rice noodle rolls that included seared tuna, a hint of wasabi, and other things that covered the full range of textures and flavors, served on six spoons - well, I could have just had a dozen more of those and been very happy.

We noted a dish called "adobo overload", which if memory serves consisted of adobo rice stuffed with adobo chicken covered with adobo flakes and several other things. We didn't go for that but my friend went for a Filipino steak, done with Black Angus beef, while my gf went for what is now my favorite crispy pata - this was melt in your mouth goodness, as complete and refined a dish as you could hope to have. My appetite was actually not that strong so I ordered a salad featuring some salmon, which seemed like the lightest thing on the menu. At 300 pesos (about HK$60) this salad could have served two and again, managed to hit all the right notes. It's another addition to my list of favorite spots in Manila.

Coincidentally, just last week, Anthony Bourdain's Philippines episode aired in the US. I can't say for certain but it's possible this is the first major show to feature Filipino food for an American audience. Now Bourdain loves his pork and when he says the lechon he had in Cebu was the best pork he's ever had in his life, that's a pretty meaningful statement. Honestly, the best episode of his show in the current series, which has had some great stuff (loved the Mexico City episode especially).

Friday night, at Gerry's Grill, I took advantage of what I learned from that show and ordered sizzling sisig for the first time. In case you don't know, I guess you could summarize this dish by saying it consists of chopped up pig face, fried in oil and garlic and served on a sizzling hot platter. (I can just imagine telling my mother I ate pig face for dinner.) Won't say this is a new favorite but the crunchy bits were especially nice.

12 years ago when I started going to Manila, I knew nothing of Filipino food and thought I didn't like it. I ate all my meals in Outback and TGI Fridays. 12 years later, when I go there, I've got a few favorite restaurants and dishes and never even think about eating at those American joints. And I'm far happier for it.

This was actually a pretty good visit to Manila, except for two very stressful days in our local office there. Traffic was never bad, weather was nice, food was good, what more could one ask for?

Sunday night the owners of Artista decided to try something new and invited the guests to a rooftop party. "We'll supply the food, you will have to pay for your drinks." So a dozen or so of us spent the evening getting happy, talking ... how many hotels do that? I got more stories from Jimmy about the history of Boracay - including pirate attacks as recent as 10 years ago!

Monday, some unexpected excitement. We knew coming in that we had been given what the owners described as the "best" room in the hotel and that we had to move out for the last night. A couple was arriving on Monday and they'd reserved and paid for it last June, so not much we can do. I saw them arrive as we were sitting on the beach.

Later, as we were stretched out at Wahine having lunch, they sat down at the next table and said hello. "Hi! You guys got our room!" But I was smiling, wished them a great stay, we chatted a bit and then turned to our food.

I soon regretted the joke. Not five minutes later, one of the guys starts screaming, "Help me! Help me!" I jumped up, ran over to their table. The other guy was in the process of passing out and slipping out of his chair. Filipino but his skin had turned whiter than mine, his eyes rolling up in his head.

I helped grab him and keep him in the chair till a few guys brought a sofa over. We lifted him onto the sofa. The woman who runs the dive shop quickly called the doctor and wheeled over an oxygen tank and mask and strapped it onto him. The first guy started asking for ice but the girls working there were slow to respond, so my gf started translating everything and lighting a fire under them. She went to work rubbing the ice on the guy's face, chest, hands.

The guy slowly comes back to life. His eyes open, he looks around, sees me and my gf, and the first words out of his mouth are, "We took their room." Yeah, I felt really thrilled about my feeble joke.

Finally the doctor arrived. It turns out this guy had some food the night before that didn't agree with him. He'd spent the morning in the toilet, purging from both ends, never ate anything afterwards, flew to Boracay. The sun, the heat, the dehydration, it all took its toll on him. The hotel staff carried him up to his room, the doc stuck an IV in his arm, and we went back to the beach.

That night, they wanted to buy dinner for me and my gf. I couldn't accept. We didn't do that much and we didn't do anything that special, just stuck around and helped as we could. These guys are from L.A. so I told him the company I work for and one said, "Funny, I saw your t-shirt and thought you might be in the industry." (I was wearing my Kill Bill shirt, but that's not from my company, I just like the tattoo motif.) Well, I am, sort of, but for how much longer, I have no idea.

Tuesday morning, the goodbyes took almost half an hour. Jimmy, Nenita, the staff, all the friends we'd made, trading phone numbers & email, etc. Speedboat over to Caticlan Airport. We sat in the "pre-boarding" area where the air cons weren't working. There were signs all over apologizing. "Commercial power" had failed and "local power" was overloaded, they're "upgrading" so they can put in bigger air cons, thanks for your patience.

To make matters even happier, we saw no plane on the runway. And at 12:50, the time when our flight was scheduled to leave, they announced that our plane would be late, with no further details. I grabbed my smokes and went outside and asked at the counter if they had any more details. Nope. One hour? Two hours? They don't know.

Go outside, grab a smoke, go back in, put my smokes and lighter on the conveyor belt and get told that I can't have a lighter with me. It has to go in my check-in luggage. And I don't have the luggage slips with me. So they escort me out onto the tarmac so I can point out our suitcases and they can slip the lighter in.

Back inside. An hour goes by. I grab my smokes again. I ask the guard who took my lighter if I can borrow a lighter and he grabs one out of the bin for me. I go to the Cebu Pacific counter. Any updates? Nope. Has the plane left Manila? They're not sure. They're not sure? Systems are down in Manila and they have no communication. Hello, you have mobile phones? Sorry sir. Okay, what about coupons for some drinks, it's really hot sitting in that room? Sorry sir. I go back in, give the lighter back to the guard, get some Chummy prawn chips and a Gatorade and settle in.

Finally at 2:30, a Cebu Pacific plane comes in for a landing and 15 minutes later they announce it's our flight. We're in the first row. The first row faces backwards. The plane is half empty. I ask the attendant if we can change seats and she says we have to wait till after the plane takes off. Why? I don't have the energy to ask. She hands me two barf bags.

Anyway, we get to Manila, drop off our bags at the hotel, wash up and head over to the Fort. I've got a list of books I want and, sure enough, Fully Booked, the largest branch in Manila, has none of them. The Kindle is starting to look better and better.

Then over to Abe, my current fave restaurant here. Crispy beef ribs, crispy pork adobo, some prawns in olive oil and garlic, some veg, some garlic rice, a mango shake, all is good.

Oh yes, six days in Boracay, I look like a lobster. Red. Bright red. Everywhere. As Woody Allen once said, "I don't tan, I stroke."

Coming up on night 4 of 5 nights in Boracay. Photos and links will come later.

This is our first time coming here. For those who don't know, you have to fly from Manila to Caticlan, about 1 hour, prop plane, not a jet. Fortunately I'd pre-arranged for someone to meet us at the airport, otherwise I don't know if we would have gotten here as easily.

From Caticlan airport, we walked to the beach and got on our hotel's speedboat. A 15 minute ride to Boracay, Diniwid Beach, where we had to walk up and down and up and down stairs, through different hotels before reaching ours, Artista Beach Villa.

Although White Beach is the famous beach here, I'd made a conscious decision not to stay there. We didn't want noise and crowds and I figured the island is small enough that getting from Diniwid to the shopping and nightlife would be just a short ride, and that's the case.

We're paying roughly US$110 per night (20% discount for prepayment) to stay in a simple room with some Filipino craft touches, a balcony overlooking the beach and ocean - and at that price we have split A/C, free Wi-Fi, free breakfast.

Artista is small, just 9 rooms, right on the beach. Husband and wife owner (Swiss and Filipina) and very friendly staff. Of course we met all the other people staying here, most of whom have been here before. They were filled with tips for things to do, places to go, restaurants, but we decided that since our visit is relatively short, we were just gonna chill. Tonight though the owners have invited us to join them for dinner.

Owner Jimmy is Swiss and has lived here for more than 10 years, though he started coming to Boracay in 1983. (He also lived in HK for ten years.) He was filled with tales of how things have changed on the island. He talks of living off the land, hunting and fishing, how no one here even had any idea they should buy land or build. He says they didn't even have power here till 1994 - before that there was one guy with a generator and every day he'd turn it on at 3 PM to make fruit shakes.

Diniwid Beach is small and actually 2/3rds of the beach has been lost to erosion due to storms the past few years. The remaining strip is white sand, crystal clear water, and never crowded. I gotta figure that White Beach is filled with noise from the bars. Boat Station 1 has larger resorts and looks quite okay but Boat Station 2 is filled with tiny places right next to each other, bars lining the beach ... and I figure day time filled with the noise of jetskis and boats, touts and vendors coming up to you as you're trying to chill, trying to sell tourist stuff, boat trips, massages. There's almost none of that at Diniwid. We just stretch out on the lounges and walk down the stone steps to the water - you can walk out about 1/4 mile and it's just 4 or 5 feet deep the whole way.

Next door to us is Micro-Tel, which has a tiny pool, Mama's Fish House, and where most of the rooms are facing the side - just alleyways for views. We've got a balcony overlooking the sea. Just past Micro-Tel is a shack called Wahine Bar, where we've settled in under grass huts filled with pillows for a leisurely lunch each day - Italian food, pizza, seafood and some very nice Filipino food. Then we walk the 20 feet back to our lounge chair, take a nap and go swimming.

At night, the center of activity is D*Mall, which is not an enclosed shopping mall but a maze of streets featuring shops and restaurants. Thursday and Saturday we chose to eat on the beach, grilled seafood (and some grilled pork belly, have to have that when you're here!). Most of these places have set tables out along the beach and you just sit back and relax.

Friday night, we made the mistake of listening to suggestions and going to the only-on-Fridays buffet dinner at the Fridays resort. It was expensive at 950 pesos per person and not too far removed from horrible. They did have a cultural dance show included with dinner but just a waste of time otherwise.

Saturday night, Valentine's Day, we ended up at Cocomangas, one of the busiest bars on the island. DJ, lasers, loud sound system, and the expected combination of tourists, locals and a few working girls (many of whom seemed to be underage).

Transport here is mostly motorcycle taxi - the motorcycles have these big sidecars bolted on, similar to Thailand, here they seat two in front, two or three in the back, and someone can even climb on the back of the bike behind the driver. Loaded down, they don't do too well on hills. And half the road from here out to the main road is a very bumpy dirt road. Seems like anywhere you're going, they ask for 100 pesos.

So we're really enjoying it. The main section of the island is built up, but nowhere near Phuket/Patong Beach craziness yet. Diniwid Beach is small, quiet, relaxed, friendly. I can't recall the last time I took a vacation where I just sat and did nothing all day long, but man, this is what I needed right now given the stress at work.

That's all for now. Tuesday back to Manila, Saturday back to HK. And I definitely want to come back here again.

Not a lot of time to write about this but did want to note the wonderful show I attended tonight - Chick Corea/John McLaughlin Five Peace Band. The concert hall holds 2,000 and there is barely a bad seat in the house. This second of two nights was marked as "full" but there were some empty seats, notably in the balcony behind the stage. Excellent acoustics and the musicians so close you can practically touch them.

First set one hour, 15 minute break, second set 45 minutes, no encore?!?!

I think the playing is tighter than on the CD recorded on the European tour. McLaughlin - superb throughout. Corea - still wish he'd give up on the synths and stick to piano. Garrett - I recall being so impressed with him when I saw him with Miles; his playing was really emotional and he pushed himself hard at times to good effect.

Christian McBride. I thought I used to play bass. After hearing him, maybe not so much. Electric bass, acoustic bass (both plucked and with a bow) - I've have never seen or heard better than what I heard him play tonight.

Brian Blade - I thought we were getting the short end of the stick because Vinnie Colaiuta is touring with Jeff Beck again instead of these guys. No, everyone else got the short end of the stick. Honestly, in the last 15 minutes, I was focused totally on Blade. This tall, thin guy, long arms, elbows out, keeping time with the bass drum and high hat and soloing the entire night, non stop, 3 beats of time keeping and then something sharp, bam, wow, 3 more beats of time keeping and then something totally different.

Even though the show was a bit shorter than I'd expected, it was wonderful, started strong and just got stronger and stronger the longer they played.

Oh, McLaughlin introduced one piece by saying, "This is from our new CD released just three days ago ... but you can get it for free on the Internet!" Yes, more of an expression of exasperation than an actual endorsement. Cute moment.

Tuesday

10 AM phone call, country manager from country x: they tell me that we are making k (my one staff in that country) redundant and that i already know this and how come i haven't discussed with him? (k has worked on my team for 5 years, loyal, hardworking, gets good performance review every year, i've watched this guy grow, learn, mature)

me: this is the first i'm hearing, you know me well enough that if i knew about it i would call to tell you.

him: don't do anything let me get more info.


5 PM: email from regional head: you need to fire k, need to do today or tomorrow, tell him his last day friday "please action this"

me: shouldn't we have hr involved? can't you give me details if he's getting severance or anything?

(5 years and you want me to give him 3 days notice and can't do this with hr in the room and details of his severance? just call and say "you're fired" and that's it?)

5:10 call country manager, he's "in meeting," never returns my call

5:20 call his direct manager in that office. k is on vacation. he's on his HONEYMOON. no one in the office knows what day he comes back. how does he go on vacation and not get the days approved? how do you not know what day he comes back? "um, er, ah, oooooh, "

6:30 pm m gets me a bottle of absolut from 7-11, his bar doesn't have liquor license yet. i get some food too. "hey dude, someone put food in my food!"

7:30? 8? sloshed. (either i'm a cheap date or i finished a bottle of absolut within an hour, not sure). start making the rounds of other bars. keep on drinking. trying to stay only vodka, tequila gets in the mix

11 pm. stop drinking

11:30 go to car, push seat back, sleep for one hour

12:30 am wake up, feel okay enough, drive home slowly, windows open, music loud

1:15 am email from hr in head office saying "stop! don't do anything! we must do properly!"

1:30 am email from country manager to hr saying "it was all detailed in my email to you last week and we must act now." so why that phone call from him this morning? why he acts like this whole thing a surprise to him?

bernie bernbaum, the schmata kid, it's a matter of ethics, like he ain't gone none

Every curse word from every episode of the Sopranos every (via All Things Digital). This clip runs 27 minutes. If someone did the same thing with Deadwood, it would run 27 hours.



the sopranos, uncensored. from victor solomon on Vimeo.

As expected, Amazon announced Kindle version 2 today, shipping on Feb 24th.

• Slim: Just over 1/3 of an inch, as thin as most magazines
• Lightweight: At 10.2 ounces, lighter than a typical paperback
• Wireless: 3G wireless lets you download books right from your Kindle, anytime, anywhere; no monthly fees, service plans, or hunting for Wi-Fi hotspots
• Books in Under 60 Seconds: Get books delivered in less than 60 seconds; no PC required
• Improved Display: Reads like real paper; now boasts 16 shades of gray for clear text and even crisper images
• Longer Battery Life: 25% longer battery life; read for days without recharging
• More Storage: Take your library with you; holds over 1,500 books
• Faster Page Turns: 20% faster page turns
• Read-to-Me: With the new Text-to-Speech feature, Kindle can read every book, blog, magazine, and newspaper out loud to you
• Large Selection: Over 230,000 books plus U.S. and international newspapers, magazines, and blogs available
• Low Book Prices: New York Times Best Sellers and New Releases $9.99, unless marked otherwise
• Content Formats Supported: Kindle (AZW), TXT, Audible (formats 4, Audible Enhanced (AAX)), MP3, unprotected MOBI, PRC natively; PDF, HTML, DOC, JPEG, GIF, PNG, BMP through conversion.
• Today, the Kindle Store has more than 230,000 books available, plus top newspapers, magazines, and blogs. This is just the beginning. Our vision is to have every book ever printed, in any language, all available in under 60 seconds on Kindle. We won't stop until we get there. Whether you prefer biographies, classics, investment guides, thrillers, or sci-fi, thousands of your favorite books are available, including 103 of 110 books currently found on the New York Times® Best Seller list.

What I like about it ....

The ability to take dozens books with me on a trip instead of just one. Actually 1,500 books on a trip instead of just one, in a device that ways just 10 ounces.

The ability to download a book instantly rather than pay international shipping charges and wait a week before its in my hands.

Six font sizes - won't need my glasses to read.

What I don't like ....

• Still expensive at US$359
• WiFi downloads still only in US.
• On an airplane, you gotta wait 15 minutes before you can turn it on and have to turn it off 15 minutes before landing?
• No reading in the bathtub!

But I am definitely thinking about it. You can pre-order it now and given the problems they had keeping the first version in stock, if you know you want it, definitely place your order today!

Just a couple more days till Thursday, when I board a plane for Manila, where my gf will join me and we will head off to Boracay for 5 nights.

The night before the trip I'll be going to see Chick Corea/John McLaughlin Five Peace Band. The live double CD is fantastic and I'm expecting some revelatory music that night.

A friend was in Boracay last week and he sent me these photos. I don't think he'll mind my sharing them here.

Yes, I'm going to have my laptop and Blackberry with me but hoping that I can manage to keep the Blackberry turned off for the entire time.

Only 10 awards given out during the telecast but approximately a zillion and a half given out in ceremonies prior to that. Winners included:

• Album Of The Year: "Raising Sand," Robert Plant and Alison Krauss (Rounder)
• Rap Album: Lil Wayne, "Tha Carter III" (Universal)
• Male Pop Vocal Performance: "Say," John Mayer; track from "Continuum" (Columbia)
• Record of the Year: "Please Read The Letter," Robert Plant and Alison Krauss; T Bone Burnett, producer; Mike Piersante, engineer/mixer; track from "Raising Sand" (Rounder)
• New Artist: Adele
• Rock Album: "Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends," Coldplay (Capitol Records)
• Pop Collaboration With Vocals: "Rich Woman," Robert Plant and Alison Krauss, track from "Raising Sand" (Rounder)
• Song of the Year: "Viva La Vida," Guy Berryman, Jonny Buckland, Will Champion and Chris Martin, songwriters (Coldplay), track from "Viva La Vida Or Death And All His Friends" (Capitol Records; Publishers: Universal Music-MGB Songs)

Here's what looks like the full list, courtesy of Idolator.

Overall, a big year for Coldplay, but also a big year for Robert Plant and Allison Krauss, who took home 5 trophies.

I'll bet Rick Rubin is happy to win producer of the year, since it looks like he could be on his way out as president of Columbia.

Springsteen best rock song for Girls in Their Summer Clothes

BB King's One Kind Favor best trad blues album. Produced by T-Bone Burnett, who also did the Plant & Krauss album.

Contemporary Blues - City That Care Forgot, a great album by Dr. John

Tia Carrere gets a grammy for best Hawaiian music album!

Raconteurs - best engineered (non-classical) album?

Classical Contemporary Composition: "Mr. Tambourine Man: Seven Poems of Bob Dylan," John Corigliano (JoAnn Falletta); track from: "Corigliano: Mr. Tambourine Man: Seven Poems of Bob Dylan" (Naxos)
&
Classical Vocal Performance: "Corigliano: Mr. Tambourine Man: Seven Poems of Bob Dylan," Hila Plitmann (JoAnn Falletta; Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra) (Naxos)

Can that possibly be better than William Shatner's version? I don't think so.

NY Times - La Dolce Video:

If you live in NYC and love movies, then you know Kim's Video, a 20 year institution on St. Marks Place.

It was an adventure that extended to the assembly of the collection. Over the years, Mr. Kim, now in his late 40s, built a staff that traveled the world scouring for additional titles — the only way to find obscure films in the pre-Internet age. By 2008, the collection had swelled to 55,000 eclectic works, many impossible to find anywhere else.

But the store was suffering in the age of Netflix and the Internet. By last year, there were only 1,500 active customers, not enough to support a store that occupied an entire building in the East Village. So the founder and owner, Yongman Kim, decided to shut the store down.

Last September, in a move that swept through the Internet at viral speed, he issued a public challenge. In a notice pasted on a wall inside the front door, he wrote, “We hope to find a sponsor who can make this collection available to those who have loved Kim’s over the past two decades.” He promised to donate all the films without charge to anyone who would meet three conditions: Keep the collection intact, continue to update it and make it accessible to Kim’s members and others.

Enter the town of Salemi, Italy:

According to the report, an ancient town in western Sicily called Salemi had initiated an unusual renewal project. Founded around the fourth century B.C., the town achieved brief renown as the site where Giuseppe Garibaldi first planted the country’s tricolored flag in 1860 during his quest for a unified Italy.

But Salemi’s moment of glory lasted only a day before the place slipped into oblivion. A devastating earthquake in 1968 proved the final blow, and for decades, the historic center sat abandoned, the town largely forgotten.

Now, an ambitious effort was under way to reverse the damage.

The town had invited prominent artists and intellectuals to assume control of the government. An art critic and onetime anarchist named Vittorio Sgarbi was elected mayor. A prince was put in charge of town planning, and a performance artist was officially declared alderman to nothing. The provocative Italian photographer Oliviero Toscani, whose ad campaigns for Benetton included a series on AIDS patients and inmates on death row, was named alderman of creativity.

And so Kim's unique video collection is moving from the East Village to Sicily:

“Salemi is the future,” Mr. Toscani concluded. “New York is the past. That’s why Kim’s is coming here.”

Plans under way include what is described as a Never-ending Festival — a 24-hour projection of up to 10 films at once for the foreseeable future. The town also plans a relationship with the Venice Biennale, a collaboration with the University of Palermo and a professional translation company to subtitle the films, a Web site with a searchable database and, eventually, the conversion of all Kim’s VHS films to DVDs to ensure their preservation.

Projection spaces and lodging for visitors will be created within a restored 17th-century Jesuit college, which will house the collection. The building, which now serves as the town’s municipal museum, has a large inner courtyard perfect for public projections.

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

NY Times - For Bank of America and Merrill, Love Was Blind:

Since I used to work for Merrill Lynch, I'm interested in the details of how it could have fallen so far, and so fast. This is a good story on the merger with Bank of America, with echoes of Bonfire of the Vanities and the AOL/TimeWarner merger.

... the merger, in which Bank of America agreed to pay about $50 billion in stock for Merrill, soured at light speed. Back then, the combined companies would have been valued by the stock market at about $176 billion. Today, the combination has a market capitalization of only $39 billion.

This was messy from the start.

But before Wachtell lawyers, who were representing Bank of America, signed off on the deal, they told Merrill’s lawyers that they wanted to be sure about just one more thing: the size of the bonuses that Mr. Thain and his colleagues would snare at the end of the year. A page was ripped from a notebook, and someone on Merrill’s team scribbled eight-digit figures for each of Merrill’s top five executives, including $40 million for Mr. Thain alone.

Although Merrill had been bleeding money all year — and would continue to do so — the bonuses weren’t, as Merrill executives later explained to colleagues, about that performance. Rather, they were fees for getting the merger done, akin to what investment bankers receive for blockbuster deals. Mr. Thain in particular felt he deserved a hefty payout for his deal-making heroics, according to five individuals with detailed knowledge of the situation who requested anonymity because of their personal and business relationships with those involved.

Thain is the man who spent $1.2 million on renovating his office. He joined the company in 2007, he presided over the destruction of the company, and in addition to his multi-million dollar salary decided he needed an 8 figure bonus.

He paid $25 million to Peter S. Kraus, who ran Goldman’s investment management unit, to oversee business strategy at Merrill. He shelled out $39 million to Thomas K. Montag, who was co-head of Goldman’s global securities unit, to run Merrill’s trading operations.

Them's is nice signing bonuses. I'd be happy to get a check like that even in HK$.

Can't believe that it's been more than a year since my last trip to Shenzhen. And a year later, at least around Lo Wu, everything is pretty much the same.

So, train up to Lo Wu, over to the Luo Hu mall. First stop, yum cha at Laurel, which remains the most popular restaurant there. Always a queue, any time of day. The dim sum is solid and reliable, the price is cheap, service is friendly, English menus. Six dishes, tea and coke, well under $200.

Walking around the mall, there was one shop where I used to buy a fair share of jeans and they actually remembered me - the girls who work there are cute but even so, I don't think they have too many customers who tell them they're willing to pay a higher price if they get the girls' phone numbers. Then my friend and I allowed ourselves to be dragged off to some apartment about 10 minutes walk away, a "warehouse" filled with bags, watches, luggage, pens, etc. Didn't have exactly what I was looking for but managed to find nice Valentine's Day gifts for my gf and her daughter.

Over to massage, a spot very close to the train station, sorry the name escapes me. This is really the first time I noticed a smoke detector, sprinkler and emergency lighting in the massage room. They didn't cheap out on this place. Our massage girls told us that after the big fire in that SZ night club last year, a lot of saunas shut down and now there's more attention paid to safety everywhere.

Of the two massage girls, one was 21 years old, from Xi'an, and had only been in Shenzhen for six months. Since she'd just graduated from school six months ago, she said she could remember some English and would understand me if I talked really slowly. She said she didn't like it at all there, that everyone is only interested in money, no one wants to talk about feelings, so she hadn't made any friends. The other girl, perhaps 25, from Hunan, said she'd been there for four years. This second girl was my masseuse and when I showed her my swollen kneecap, she pulled out some Chinese version of Ben Gay and very carefully rubbed it on, instant relief!

Both girls said that their conversation with us was the first time they'd ever had a conversation with customers during a massage session! Most of their customers are from HK and seem to assume that if they talk to the girls, then the girls can't concentrate on the massage. So the only chatter is "more pressure here! get that spot there!"

Then back to the Luo Hu mall for dinner, second floor spot called Choi Dim something, I'd been there once before. English picture menu. Not too busy around 9:30. We filled up - spare ribs, chili peppers stuffed with fish meat, tofu with prawns and veggies, some fried fish chunks, some sichuan style pork, tea and coke - and the bill was $209. For all the years I've been going to Shenzhen, I can't recall ever having had a bad meal there, as long as I stick to Chinese food. The few times I've gone western, it's been mostly awful, and I learned my lesson a long time ago.

My friend (Chinese) had picked up a Shenzhen guide at Circle K before we made the trip up. This thick, full color book (all in Chinese, of course) was organized by district and had lots of beautiful color photos as well as reviews of restaurants, bars, saunas, hotels, shops and theme parks. Plus maps galore, including the Shenzhen MTR. For $78, even if you don't read Chinese, it could well be worth getting this - find a photo of something you like and then jump in a taxi and show the driver the page.

Here's the Happy New Year cow at the mall.

Tea for sale at Laurel Restaurant:


Lots of signs like this around.
And despite warnings like this one, still the usual group of people running up to you, tugging at you, "hello, you want bag, rolex, dvd, what you want?"


A new business model? Bring us your old unwanted cash, we'll recycle it for you. There was a line here, too, guess there's money to be made.

When I moved into this house 11 months ago, there were quite a few problems; quite a few things that the landlord had promised to do before I moved in that weren't done. Since she doesn't speak English and I don't speak Cantonese, I had to ask my assistant to call her on my behalf. But since then, it's all been smooth sailing. Haven't had any need to contact her in at least 7 months.

So, fine, she's left me alone, I'm happy with the house, I wanted to wish her a happy new year. I asked my assistant to call and tell her kung hei fat choi for me. The conversation, apparently, went a little something like this:

Asst: Hi Mrs. L, this is Spike's assistant.

Landlord: What's the problem now? Okay, tell him I'll be in the area tomorrow and I'll come over to take a look.

A: No, no, there's no problem, Spike just wanted to wish you a happy new year. Kung hei fat choy!

L: I'm very busy now, I'll call you back later.

(Not that she needed to, but she never did.)

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

Here's what I get for not being a superstitious fool. Today was lion dance day at Taikoo Place. Some "official" lion dance group brought in by Swire, going from floor to floor, making a racket, available to bless your office for a small fee.

Crap, right? I closed my office door and tried to work through the racket, thinking to myself, "it's two thousand freaking nine, how can these people still believe in this stuff?" though grudingly admitting that respect for traditions can be a good thing.

So no blessings for me, none for my office.

An hour after they left, I swung my chair around and bashed my right knee into the desk harder than I've ever done in my life. So hard I almost passed out. Nothing broken but I wasn't entirely certain that I'd be able to drive myself home. (I managed.) Any thoughts I had about going out tonight were forgotten. Nine hours later, it's still hurting like a sonofabitch.

Next year I suppose I'll have those lai see packets ready and waiting.

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

Shenzhen tomorrow, assuming I can walk without too much pain. Wish I had a Segway.

Hard to believe, used to go up there almost every other weekend but I realized it's been about a year since my last trip there.

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

An article in the NY Times, Digital Pirates Winning Battle With Studios. "Hollywood may at last be having its Napster moment — struggling against the video version of the digital looting that capsized the music business."

Basically the proliferation of broadband as well as web sites that are now streaming videos of films and TV series mean more video piracy than ever.

Of course, it wasn't simply piracy that killed CD sales. Predatory pricing, crappy music and a refusal to embrace modern techology all played a big part.

Trust me, the movie studio execs are very well aware of what happened to the major record companies. And were constantly running around saying, "we're not going to let that happen to us." Except they did, and it did.

The article doesn't mention the first point below and lightly touches on the second:

1. Piracy is proliferating because the Hollywood studios procrastinated in getting their digital act together. They wasted years worrying about DRM when they could have been building business models and web sites that catered to the consumer, allowing the consumer to build up a legal digital habit before the illegal one had a chance to set in. But they didn't do that, and now they are paying the price.

2. "... each episode of “Heroes,” a series on NBC, is downloaded five million times, representing a substantial loss for the network." Yes, well, hello. No statistics on this but I'll bet the lion's share of that downloading happened outside of the US. Because our TV doesn't show the episode until a year later and hulu.com don't work here. And the lag time for most films to make it to our pitiful shoebox cinemas is inexcusable.

I would have loved to watch Slumdog Millionaire on a big screen with digital projection and sound. So why did I watch a copy downloaded from the Internet? Because it's not available to watch here. And won't be for another 3 weeks.

So the content providers were so busy protecting their foreign licensees and distributors, because that worked 20 years ago, but it doesn't work now. You want me to stop downloading TV shows? Don't make me wait a year to get them. Is it illegal, immoral or fattening to use Bit Torrent or some Chinese web site? You haven't given me any reasonable alternative. I'd be entirely happy to watch it on hulu, with ads or whatever, but it doesn't work and I don't want to futz around with proxy servers to make it work.

Fans want it day and date and if you can't provide that, they're not going to sit on their hands and wait. iTunes and Netflix are great, if you live in the US, but oddly enough a lot of people live in other places.

In other words, the Hollywood studios have NOT learned their lesson from the record companies. They could have prevented the "napster moment" from arriving. But they didn't.

The second floor of Heat Bar in Wanchai has been redesigned, remodeled and rebadged as Uno Mas, "Barcelona Tapas and Bar." Tonight was the soft opening. Judging from tonight, I want to live here.

The design of the place is clean, simple, modern. One of the nice things they've done here is to push back the windows, creating two balconies with an open view onto Lockhart Road (and two places to smoke, at least for now).

I was greeted at the entrance with a big glass of a very smooth Spanish red wine (sorry, forgot the name), with a little crystal dish on top holding a welcome snack - a piece of chorizo, a bit of pepper, an olive, a pearl onion.

The menu contains about two dozen different tapas and one nice is thing is that almost all of them are under $100. Then there are some cold cut platters featuring Iberico ham, so you know that's gonna be more than $100. And paella, in big portions meant for sharing.

We started with one of the cold cut platters - generous servings of Iberico ham, chorizo, another meat, pate, dip, bowl of olives and some bread. This stuff was great - the portions were generous for the price - but of course that doesn't really test a kitchen.

But then some paella - and this was fabulous paella - moist rice, complex seasonings, lots of stuff in the pan, just what you want from a paella. We also had some fried manchego cheese, stuffed calamari, and these big fat churros served alongside a cup of superb chocolate (with a noticeable amount of alcohol) and cream. Sorry if my descriptions are a little off - that first big glass of wine went to my head pretty quickly.

Never having been to Spain, I can't vouch for the authenticity of what we got - but I can tell you that everything tasted really nice. If the idea is to have a comfortable spot where you can settle in with friends for some good talk, some nice wine, and the occasional high quality nibble, this place seems right on the mark. There's really nothing else like it in Wanchai that I'm aware of and I plan to go back and gradually work my way through the entire menu.

Sorry to not be blogging as much this week. Not sleeping well. Plus prepping a feature story for BC as well as the usual column. Pressure at work. And Time Warner just posted a loss for 2008 of $16 billion dollars.

Also waiting for vacation day ... crazy to take one now? I didn't go away during CNY. Matter of fact, aside from visiting my mother in NYC in November (which doesn't really count), the last vacation I took seems like a distant memory. So next week Thursday, 6 days in Boracay.

Grabbed the new double live CD Chick Corea/John McLaughlin Five Peace Band. Ponied up for the Japanese import (which I didn't do for the new Return to Forever reunion thing, waiting for a US release on that) because I want to hear it before going to see them live next week. Only had a chance to sample it a bit, probably be my commute music or lunch music tomorrow. The Bird and The Bee's second album also sounds quite nice (Inara George is Lowell George's daughter; last year in between B&B albums she did a very nice record with Van Dyke Parks).

I don't think I'm completely insane but ... well, new MacBook, Intel chip, can run Windows as well as Mac OS X, so what the hell, tonight I installed Windows 7 on the sucker.

Actually the install was pretty smooth except for one screw-up I made at the beginning. When I was partitioning the hard disk under Boot Camp, I didn't look at the screen too closely. So I went with the default presented to me, a 5 gig partition. Win7 needs at least 15 gig to install. So I dumped out of the install, rebooted the PowerBook, and was greeted with the message that there was no operating system. Obviously it was trying to boot off the Windows partition. Had to dig around a bit, but finally a restart with Command-Option-P-R pressed simultaneously brought me back to Mac. Then deleted that partition, created a new one, proper size, and the whole thing went smoothly. Got Windows running, loaded up the Boot Camp drivers, it's all good y'all.

From Ricky Gervais's blog:

Dear Mr President,

Firstly, congratulations on your historic win. I have never been so behind a candidate for what must be considered the boss of the world.

You seem to be a man of grace and integrity, who would never shirk responsibility in any way.

I'll get to the point.

As I'm sure you are aware, one of your flock has strayed. A Miss Paris Hilton, who is, I believe, a resident of Beverley Hills, is in England doing a reality game show for ITV2 called Paris Hilton's British Best Friend. Fine. I have no problem with that. I don't have to watch. But now it has come to my attention that she has bought a house in North London a few miles from me, and is out and about ingratiating herself with the Great British public.

Mr President. We are not stupid. This is clearly a retaliatory strike for Posh Spice moving to LA. I know it, and you know it, so let's cut the "it's a free country" nonsense and come to some agreement.

A bit of trainspotting here - someone tracking release dates on movies theatrically and release dates of various pirate versions (screener release date, camcorder release date, etc.).

Out of 26 nominated films, an incredible 23 films are already available in DVD quality on nomination day, ripped either from the screeners or the retail DVDs. This is the highest percentage since I started tracking.

Didja catch Slumdog Millionaire's Dev Patel on The Daily Show? Was it just me or did Jon Stewart, who has interviewed everyone, seem a little bit in awe of Patel?

Stewart: Has this just completely changed your life in a way that you did not expect?

Patel: Yeah, I mean, I'm 18 and I'm on this show! It's crazy! I shouldn't be doing this.

Too lazy to click over? Then enjoy this shot of Freida Pinto, Patel's co-star.

If you look at the list of films directed by Danny Boyle, he's all over the map. What do Shallow Grave, Trainspotting, The Beach, 28 Days Later, Millions and Sunshine have in common? Relentless energy (well, maybe not so much Sunshine) and a sweet chunk of optimism at their core (well, maybe not so much Sunshine).

And it all comes together in Boyle's Frank Capra tribute, Slumdog Millionaire. Oh, there are scenes that are beyond gruesome and this is definitely adult viewing. There's young Jamal covered head to toe in shit (referencing back to Trainspotting), there's violence, there's murder, there's torture, there's abject poverty and yet the film is very consciously designed as a feel good picture that hearkens back to American films from the Depression era, and what better time to give us one like that as when the economic world seems to be collapsing around us?

The plot, in case you've been living in a cave, is about an 18 year old boy, someone who grew up an orphan in the slums, getting by on his wits, now working as a tea boy in a call center. He goes on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, not because he wants the money, but because he hopes a girl he's searching for might spot him on TV. He gets every question right and advances through the rounds till he's facing the 20 million rupee question, and gets arrested and tortured by the police, convinced there's no way that a "slumdog" can know all this stuff. And in flashbacks, he tells the story of his life and how those experiences put him where he is today.

Boyle captures all the color and spectacle and energy of Mumbai and shows us things on screen that we have rarely, if ever, seen before. On the other hand, the love story that is at the heart of the film feels contrived to me. A five year old boy never forgetting the five year old girl he knew as a friend for just a few weeks and spending so much energy and effort to find her again? And oh, yes, when he finds her, she's grown up to be freaking gorgeous, of course.

I enjoyed this film a lot. I knew how it would end from the very beginning and yet I found myself biting my nails during the last ten minutes. I think the success is one of timing as much as anything else - in a year dominated by super hero movies, people are desperate for a well told tale about actual people. This is an epic story, well told, but I have a feeling that this is one film that will not grow with the passing of the years.

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

One director who is not short on ambition is Oliver Stone. While succeeded in making some good and some controversial films in the 80s and 90s, the last ten years have not been kind to him at all. Alexander remains a huge flop despite being released three times with three different edits. World Trade Center was just wrong from start to finish. Given Stone's outspoken politics, people thought they knew what they could expect from an Oliver Stone film about George W. Bush and were hoping for a return to form.. But "W" is a letdown in a variety of ways.

Told in flashbacks (sigh), we see the son of a successful man who gives his life over to drinking and partying. He fails at everything he does. His famous father can do nothing but express frustration and indignation at his actions. Then he finds religion, cleans up his act, achieves a goal no one thought he could, and fucks it up completely. W is the tale of a man trying to win his father's approval at all costs, it's pop psychology and is trivial as a result.

(Spoiler?)

One of the big problems is that the film crosses the line between historical fact and speculation. The fantasy sequences of Bush in the baseball park, a dream sequence where his father tells him that he has destroyed the name that the family built for 200 years - that stuff doesn't belong here at all.

Another problem is making a film on this topic when the story is far from over. Even with Bush leaving office, there are still many unknowns, many grey areas.

Also, by attempting to cover so many years and events in a 2 hour period, too much is left out. There is no mention at all of Katrina. Wiretapping? Guantanamo? Torture in Iraq? None of it makes it to the screen. What about the moment when the Trade Center is attacked, when Bush is in that Florida classroom? What more dramatic moment to portray onscreen? Apparently Stone didn't think so, because it ain't there.

By focusing so intently on Bush, the other players in his presidency become caricatures, thumbnail sketches of real people, played by famous actors, with little clue given as to their motivation. The war room scenes are superbly staged and played and an entire film could have been based around that, but they account for perhaps 10 or 15 minutes of the running time.

Josh Brolin will come out okay. He's in every scene, in practically every shot, and really inhabits the role. James Cromwell never convinces me that he's George HW Bush though Ellen Burstyn does a decent job as Barbara. Richard Dreyfuss does okay as Cheney, Stacy Keach as preacher Earle Hudd, Thandie Newton seems desperate as Condie Rice, Scott Glenn is neither here nor there as Rumsfeld. Toby Jones as Karl Rove just reminds me of Toby Young on Top Chef. Jeffrey Wright gives us a good Colin Powell, a bit more fleshed out of a role than some others.

I guess Stone's point is that Bush is a man in the shadow of a famous and successful father, an intellectual lightweight and serial failure who never should have become president (something even his father all but says in the film - the dynasty had been reserving that post for brother Jeb) but who got there by being a people person, and, once he did, completely screwed the pooch. In one key scene, trying to find out why the WMDs were not found, he screams at his staff, "who's in charge here?" meaning one of them - they all sit there in silence thinking, "well, duh, George, it's supposed to be you."

By covering too much ground in too little time, too much is left out, too much is simplified, the end result is superficial. One way that W succeeds is that it will unite both the left and the right in their dislike of this poorly conceived film.

Can't sleep. Doing what should help me to sleep - looking at SuperBowl TV commercials. This year a mostly sorry bunch.

But this one is a winner - Alec Baldwin for Hulu.com. "Once your brain's reduced to a cottage cheese-like mush, we'll scoop them out with a melon baller and gobble them right on up."




Conan O'Brien's Swedish TV Commercial - vroom vroom party starter:



And, god help us, Bob Dylan and that Black Eyed Peas guy duet for Pepsi. Huh?

Just watched Springsteen on the Superbowl Half Time Show. If I'm not the Springsteen fanatic I once was, every now and then he still manages to do something that kicks it up a notch, and his 12 minutes on stage there was just flawless, even if the "it's Boss Time!" was a tad on the hokey side. Nice to see Nils back in the line-up with his new hips and Soozie Tyrell join them on stage and the gospel choir was a great touch.

I think the new album is pretty good, been meaning to write something on it but no time right now.

Also wanna say that so far this year, the only other album besides Working On a Dream to resonate with me at all would have to be Noble Beast by Andrew Bird. First of all, the guy can sing - seems like almost every record that made critics 2008 lists had poor excuse for singers; it ain't like I'm looking for American Idol contestants but if you're gonna sing flat all the time, you better have lyrics as good as Lou Reed or else stf up. Bird can sing, and he could be in the boring singer-songwriter James Blunt category except for his lyrics and that he's got a lot more going on sonically than your standard ranch stash Dan Fogelberg imitator. I think this guy's got potential.

Directors Guild of America awards announced. My prediction was wrong.

Feature film - Danny Boyle, Slumdog Millionaire
54 times in the past 60 years, the DGA winner has also won the Oscar for best director. I think after Christopher Nolan didn't get an Oscar nomination, the intention of the voters became clear.

(Originally to be released by Warner Independent Pictures, a unit of Warner Bros, which was shut down in cost-cutting measures last year. Picked up by Fox Searchlight. Which I mention just because.)

Some other winners:

TV Comedy Series - Paul Feig, The Office
TV Drama Series - Dan Attias, The Wire
TV Movie - Jay Roach, Recount

Documentary Film - Ari Forman, Waltz With Bashir

Honorary Lifetime Membership - Roger Ebert

So have been playing around with my new Mac Book for a couple of days now. I think that what I'm going to be writing here will fall under the category of, "Duh, of course!" for people who already use Macs.

First of all, of course, it is a beautiful and elegant piece of machinery, as I've previously written. It seems powerful and the controls are very well thought out, which of course is something that Apple specializes in.

I did have some prior Mac experience - I'd bought the first Mac Mini, which seems ancient now because that was before Apple switched over to Intel chips. I'd enjoyed using some of its features but just never felt comfortable in the Mac environment. That's probably not a huge surprise because I'm someone who has been on Windows since Windows 3 - I can remember back when I started working at Barclays, circa 1990, and the standard back then was the DOS version of WordPerfect and I was one of the people spearheading the change-over to Windows and Microsoft Office.

Anyway, odd as it sounds, and while I haven't done it yet, it's a weirdly comfortable feeling knowing that I have the option to run Windows and run some of the programs that I have been living with for a decade or more, having that "fallback" option if I need it. It's also quite comfortable that my Logitech VX Revolution mouse works flawlessly with the Mac Book. Having something in hand that I've used for awhile helps quell that panic feeling. (I'll probably look for a bluetooth mouse soon so that I'm not sacrificing a USB port to Logitech's wireless receiver.)

Also it's nice that with Apple's increasing market share the past few years, there are Mac versions for many of the programs that are a part of my life - things like Firefox and VLC. A few years back, I was not a fan of iTunes and used 3rd party software to manage my iPods. Between advances in iTunes and my heavy iPhone usage, of course iTunes is now a huge part of my life and of course the interface is the same PC or Mac.

Most importantly, the internet. In the past few years, I have become increasingly less reliant on apps that run on the desktop and have been basing my computer activities around web-based apps. Things like Google Reader, Remember the Milk and others. Of course the experience of using those on a Mac is the same as on a PC. (Which is exactly the thing that terrified Bill Gates and which he was powerless to stop.)

I've purchased Lightroom and MS Office (yes, I know about Open Office but I have specific reasons for needing the MS version). And I've downloaded many of the programs featured on Best Mac Software, a link sent to me by one of my readers, though I haven't had a chance to play with many of them yet. One that I'll probably try out today is Q Emulator, a bit of open source software that basically does what Parallels does, let you run Windows in a window instead of needing to reboot, but for free. If I want to be really insane about it, perhaps I'll install the Windows 7 Beta there. I've also put about 40 gigs of music onto the laptop - perhaps a tad redundant as I'm always walking around with a fully loaded iPhone but for now, I've got the disk space so why not.

I like the Mac Book so much that I want to carry it with me every day. But this needs to be balanced against WiFi access in Hong Kong. Free Wi-Fi has not spread far enough. And, as you may have discovered, many of those bars around Wanchai that have "Free WiFi" signs in the window actually require passwords to access. You ask the waitress for the password, 30 minutes later she comes back to you with a piece of paper with a 30 letter/number string on it for you to laboriously type in.

What are the alternatives? Get by with my iPhone - I didn't choose the unlimited data plan when I signed up, but 500 meg per month is not too bad. But aside from the usability factor - virtual onscreen keyboard, relatively small screen that requires lots of resizing and scrolling to navigate web pages - the simple truth is that 3's 3G network is not that fast. There's a free Cisco iPhone app that tells you your actual network speed (regardless of if you're on 3G or Wi-Fi) and the numbers for 3's 3G network are atrocious - I'm getting average speeds of 164 kbps.

PCCW does have a huge paid Wi-Fi presence in Hong Kong - they have access points in every street phone booth, every 7-11, every Circle-K, Starbucks and a variety of restaurants and shops around the territory. For a laptop, they charge $48 per month for unlimited access. I might decide that amount is worth it.

Yes, I confess, I do look at those tiny netbooks with a little bit of envy. But I know that as nice as they look, they simply don't have the power I need for the things I plan to do. I'm really glad I've gone Mac and very impressed so far with the advances they've made over the past few years. To state the obvious - it's impressive the way that Apple has leveraged their success with the iPod and the iPhone to drive more computer sales, and they wouldn't have been able to do that if the computers themselves didn't offer as much as they do.

Another gorgeous day. Here you see my helper, who valiantly rolled up her jeans and waded out in the water, in a mostly vain attempt to get Bogey to try to swim. Meanwhile, Spikey was literally dog paddling back and forth, oblivious to everything else.

I love the look on her face as Bogey is shaking off what seems like gallons of water.

This attracted a crowd of at least 20 people who sat on the rocks or stood along the promenade, enjoying the show, commenting loudly each time she'd drag him out yet again, he'd stand there for a minute or two and then scamper back up the steps.
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Went to Jaspa's for dinner. Momentarily forgetting how large their portions are, even though I was alone I ordered both a starter and a full salad. By the time I finished the starter, I was full. Even though I was too embarrassed to ask, the waiter volunteered to check in the kitchen. They hadn't put the salad together yet, so no problem to cancel. I managed to find a little room for some dessert though.
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Back home, time for a movie.

One of my favorite directors is the surrealist Luis Bunuel. Even though I've seen far from his total oeuvre, those films that I have seen have resonated with me deeply. Right up until his last film, That Obscure Object of Desire, made when he was 77 years old, he was still surreal, humorous, political, happy to fuck with the world as much as he was when he made his first film, Un Chien Andalou at the age of 29, collaborating with Salvador Dali. Criterion Collection, the platinum standard of DVDs, has just released two more of his films and today I watched Exterminating Angel.

Made in Mexico in 1962, this film has a very simple plot. "The guests at an upper class dinner party find themselves unable to leave." That's the synopsis on IMDB.

After a night at the opera, a group of 20 people go to an opulent mansion for a late dinner party. Before they arrive, the servants all feel impelled to flee, without knowing why. After dinner, the guests move over to the living room, and are then unable to leave the room.

Why can't they leave? There is no storm or revolution outside, the doors are not locked, there is no one in the house holding them hostage. But every time they go near the entrance, they turn back.

Days pass. They break through the wall to get at a pipe for water. Sheep wander into the living room and a cello is destroyed (Bunuel was having a feud with Pablo Casals) to provide firewood. (Sheep in the living room? There's also a bear. Don't ask.) Meanwhile, the families and the police gather outside the house. It's not locked but they can't seem to cross the threshold and go inside.

That's your basic plot. As you can imagine, the rules of genteel society break down, and the break down brings both comedy and death. But this is no Lord of the Flies. If I was to compare it anything else, I'd say it's a precursor to one of Bunuel's true masterpieces, Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie.

Try to figure it out? It's open to multiple interpretations. One of the stars, Silvia Pinal, interviewed in 2006 (one of the bonus features on the second disc) says that more than 40 years later, she still can't figure the movie out. Why do the guests enter the house twice? Why not, was Bunuel's reply, some days you bath twice, why not enter a house twice? She's not concerned, it's Don Luis, that's all she needs to know - and all you need to know too.

The accompanying booklet also has a great interview with Bunuel. It both explains and further mystifies the film. I love the bit in the interview where Bunuel says the people had to be upper class, that if he'd set this in a working class home, they would have been able to figure a way out sooner.

Bunuel wasn't happy with the film. Most of all, looking back he thinks he didn't take the concept far enough, he should have let things devolve into cannabalism. He didn't want to make it in Mexico, he wanted to make it in England, where he felt that type of bourgeoisie existed. Mexican actors weren't up to the roles, the proper props couldn't be found, his list of complaints goes on. But this was the only place where he could get the money and have complete artistic control.

There are some interesting reviews of the film on the net, well worth taking a look at.

Roger Ebert's reviewed the film when it originally opened in the US and said, "It is impossible to say what this film means," but he gave it four stars. He thought this might be Bunuel's final film (it wasn't, there were 8 more to come, 5 of them even better than this one).

Ebert reviews the film again 30 years later, as part of his "Great Movies" series. In this review he sees it as a social satire on Franco's Spain. I'm not so sure.

Bosley Crowther, the grand old man of NY Times film reviews, had a negative take on the film. "... my feeling is that his canvas is too narrow and his social comment too plain to keep our interest fixed upon his people and their barren stewing for an hour and a half. This is a case in which the ennui and frustration, so purposely conveyed, creep into the patience of the audience as fast as they suffuse the characters."

Casual movie watchers may feel the same way. They may long for a Bruce Willis to tear off his shirt, grab a gun and fight his way out. But this is not that kind of film.

If you're new to Bunuel, don't start with this, start with Discreet Charm. Or Belle Du Jour. I also have a fondness for Phantom of Liberty, which is truly subversive filmmaking. Or that last film, That Obscure Object of Desire, about an older man, desperately in love with a much younger woman, who is played by two different actresses who are swapped back and forth on screen randomly. Why? Why not?