Hongkie Town

A bit busy at the moment, dealing with various people and ideas (including stupid ones at my current and soon-to-be-past but-not-soon-enough-for-me workplace).

Anywho, my latest column in BC Magazine is now online, one of the geeky ones that I tend to put out now and then, guess one could say it's Chapter 1 of "My Cyber-History."

And while you're there, check out a feature article on charity group Crossroads Foundation, a feature article on some of Youtube's Hong Kong stars, an article on a new play being staged by local students, plus the latest column from Mafanjai and all the other regular features and photos.

Just found out about this place via a comment on Facebook. OneNow.

The deal seems to be - they give you a US shipping address. So you can shop from US online shops and that means if the product is only shipped to the US, you can get it; if the web site has free shipping in the US, you get that. The orders are shipped to your address at OneNow, consolidated if multiple orders, then shipped to you via DHL. (Sorry CatCat!) If you have to have a US credit card for payment and you don't have one, they have a payment service called PayForMe.

I think the deal is you shop using them as a gateway, so they get a percentage of your sales (like Amazon Partner). Yes, that's how it works.

About the only drawback I can figure is that normally I'm quite okay to use Amazon's standard shipping rates to HK and if I have to use DHL each time, even discounted (as they claim), that could bump up the shipping charges. Though actually their prices look quite okay - standard delivery (5-8 days) US$23 "base charge" plus US$4.5 per kilo.

But there's lots of stuff sold online that only ships to the US - electronics, Oakley sunglasses, drugs. Their "partner stores" include Amazon, Forever 21, Ralph Lauren, Nordstrom, drugstore.com, Target, Zappos (just bought by Amazon), Urban Outfitters. But they say you can shop at any US web site.

Anyone out there use these guys?

And how come I never heard about them till now?

I'm told that the Fenwicks space has been rented out, taken by someone who managed Bar 109. No idea what he intends to do with the space.

And the Bulldogs space has also been rented out. It will be called Rock School. "Sex, music, alcohol." Someone told me that fliers being handed out or ads or something have said "second floor" without mentioning the actual street address.

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I know I've been pretty lax about my Spike HK Facebook account but I'll try to do more there. I've just uploaded pictures from Tokyo and Kyoto there, and you can view them even if you don't wanna sign up for Facebook.

View shots of Tokyo here.



And a huge number of Kyoto photos here.





And of course a bit of Engrish.

Several things caught my eye today that I wanted to share, haven't had time till now.

Just returning from Japan, an article in the NY Times claiming that the hostess profession in Japan is now seen as a glamorous job and is attracting a wider variety of women. But, as the Times points out, one reason for that is that there are far fewer opportunities for women in business in Japan, yet another reason their economy remains in the shitter.

Even before the economic downturn, almost 70 percent of women ages 20 to 24 worked jobs with few benefits and little job security, according to a government labor survey. The situation has worsened in the recession.

For that reason, a growing number of Japanese women seem to believe that work as a hostess, which can easily pay $100,000 a year, and as much as $300,000 for the biggest stars, makes economic sense.

The funny thing (to me) is when I read something like this:

Young women are drawn nonetheless to Cinderella stories like that of Eri Momoka, a single mother who became a hostess and worked her way out of penury to start a TV career and her own line of clothing and accessories.

You might think it would occur to people that women like Momoka must be pretty freaking smart and that they ought to give more of them a chance.
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Hong Kong papers are filled with stories related to prostitution, "compensated dating" and violence.

A "Hong Kong resident of Pakistani origin" was convicted of murdering three women working in "one woman brothels" and received a life sentence.

Another life sentence was handed out to a 24 year old man who committed a most despicable crime. He hired a 16 year old girl for "compensated dating" (why this term gets used instead of prostitution is beyond me), brought her to his flat, killed her, chopped her into pieces that he could flush down the toilet and tossed her head in the sea. (Evidence against him included DNA collected from the pipes in his building.)

The Standard naturally goes into even more gruesome details about the crime than the SCMP, which I don't think I'll quote here because they are pretty damned gruesome.

The SCMP did run a second article on the topic, on how this "compensated dating" thing, which mostly consists of underage girls, is being taken over by the triads. They're trying to stress the dangers:

"The way the young girl lost her life is horrible. We also use the case to demonstrate how dangerous this is when we counsel these girls. But many girls are not aware of their own safety. They will do whatever their clients tell them, such as anal sex or violent sexual acts, as long as their clients promise to pay them more," Mr Tse said. "They think money is the most important thing and they do anything for money."

But somehow that doesn't seem to be working as the girls can earn up to HK$2,000 per trick, as an interview with a 16 year old would seem to indicate.

"I just wanted to make money to buy a mobile phone. I earned HK$400 to HK$500 for dating a guy and I got double that when I agreed to kissing and hugging. I could make HK$1,500 to HK$2,000 for sex services," she said.

"I have had some terrible experiences. One time, one of my clients suddenly wanted to take off the condom when we were having sex. Another time, a client demanded anal sex and he became quite violent. It was really a painful experience," Ah See said.

"But then I just thought I was unlucky. Not every client was as horrible as these two."

This last one gives our officials license to not only talk about the evils of prostitution but also about drugs, since apparently the girl and the killer took drugs together before having sex.

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Sex, sex, sex. Attendance at this year's HK Book Fair was up 8% over last year, with 900,000 people going. What helped account for this increase?

Wong Hing-hung, an assistant publishing manager, told local media that photo albums showing sexy teen models had boosted business volume by 40 per cent.

Go! Go! Pseudo-model!

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Regarding the Australian man involved in that accident with the taxi driver in Central, the one who tried to drive off and has been accused of murder, his parents are now in HK and trying to rally support for him, including having a Facebook group and a web site. But so far the police have failed to state why he is being charged with murder.

Mudd's blood-alcohol level was determined to be 184 milligrams per 100ml, over three times the limit, senior court prosecutor Edmond Chan Pak-fai told the court. The maximum is 50mg/100ml.

But he was a passenger in the taxi, not the driver, so his blood alcohol level is irrelevant, right?

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Last but not least, following a series of well publicized accidents involving minibuses, including one last week where a speeding minibus plowed into the back of an overloaded truck, resulting in 4 deaths, apparently our official reaction "might" to be to require speed governors be installed in all minibuses, making it impossible for them to exceed 80 kph. Until the drivers take their buses to some local garage and pay mechanics to disable the governors?

The department said it hoped speed controllers would be installed in all minibuses in phases, starting with new vehicles, from the end of this year, while studies on installing "black boxes" in existing minibuses would continue.

Black boxes? In minibuses? Yeah, you read that right. We're spending tax payer money to determine if we should put airplane-style black boxes in minibuses. And why? They won't do a thing to prevent an accident. And usually after an accident, it's pretty simple to figure out why the accident took place.

Now if I'm not mistaken, minibus drivers are paid all or in part on a commission basis? And if that's the case, aren't they speeding because they want to go around their route fast enough to get in another complete circle by the end of the day to make more money, because the money they make is shit? And if you changed the compensation system, maybe they'd no longer feel the incentive to drive so recklessly?

But of course that would mean cutting into the bosses's profits, and that kind of regulation is anti-business, and in Hong Kong business is more important than life.

Came across this Korean company, Seculine, via one of the photography blogs. They make several useful looking doohickeys for photographers.

The images here are all quite tiny but clicking on them will take you to much larger, more readable versions.

Managed to find the Action Level at BIC Camera in Kyoto, and it was selling for roughly the same price that Adorama sells it for on Amazon. Basically you mount this on top of the camera (in the hot shoe) and the lights on the back tell you if your camera is level or not.


They make two other things along this line - one that beeps as well as lights up, which BIC didn't have in stock. And one where you mount the sensor on the camera and then get a wired thingie with the read-out that you can hold in your hand.


Another product they have is this thing that serves as both a lens cap as well as a way to more accurately adjust your white balance.


This is something I don't need but could see how it might be useful - an electronic viewfinder that you can flip into a variety of different positions.


And something called Prodisk, which includes white balance filter, gray card and color balance card.

Their web site is one of the worst I've ever seen, but I was able to download a PDF of the instruction manual for the Action Level (because mine came with a Japanese manual, not that it's so complex that you really need one).

Any of this stuff sold in HK?

Yesterday I check out of the hotel, I'm waiting for the van to come and take me to Kansai airport, I go outside for a smoke, look up and it's sunny and gorgeous blue skies in Kyoto. Well fuck me sideways. I mean, I had a decent enough time there but bad luck with weather and this was just adding insult to injury.

After almost 2 hours sitting in the back of a mini-van (one stop to switch vans, one bathroom stop along the highway), at the airport Cathay upgraded me to business, so that was nice. But it seemed to me that the food on the flight has gone downhill - there's still a lot of it, but the entree just didn't cut it, seemed to be more like the quality of what one used to get in economy. One extremely tough piece of cheap beef in a sweet Japanese sauce, some sticky rice and some vegetables that had the life cooked out of them a year before. Starters made up for it - two small pieces of duck breast and a bit of pate, soba noodles, salad, bread. And dessert included the usual cheese and biscuits, fruit, ice cream and chocolate. Maybe I shouldn't complain because it was a free upgrade, after all, and I can just guess at the horrors being served down below in economy. Clearly CX is cutting back thanks to them having yet another bad year.

When a flight is just 3 hours and 5 minutes, choosing to watch a 130 minute movie can be a mistake. First you gotta wait about 20 minutes for them to turn on the entertainment system. Then you gotta sit through 10 minutes of the same exercise video they've been showing for years, the same Jackie Chan charity video they've had for years, blah blah blah. Then scroll through the movie list, pick a film, sit through even more commercials and finally the film starts. So do the math .... 3 hr 5 min flight, 129 min film, wait 30 minutes for the movie to start, pause once or twice to hit the toilet, and they shut the entertainment system down 30 minutes before landing. I hadn't done the math in advance and so I didn't make it quite to the end of the movie.

The movie in question was The Boat That Rocked. A fictionalized version of UK pirate radio in 1966, it's directed by Richard Curtis, whom we all know and love thanks to Black Adder and Mister Bean, but his sole previous directing credit was Love, Actually - and this is Love, Actually set on a boat.

Famous names in the cast included Bill Nighy, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Kenneth Branagh, Nick Frost, Rhys Ifans, Jack Davenport and an uncredited Emma Thompson whom, Bill Nighy informs us, was a "sexual superstar" in her youth.

I'm sure there are some good tales to tell about pirate radio. And I'm sure that elements of real DJs and real tales were worked into the script. And I'm also sure that telling a fictional story about a fictional station with fictional DJs was a lot cheaper to produce than going out and actually paying a dozen people for the rights to their life stories. You don't know who these people were before they got on the boat, no clue what happened to them afterwards (or maybe that's given at the end of the film). And honestly, you don't much care. Most of the DJs are portrayed as the 60s equivalent of computer nerds - shy and socially awkward - and there are simply too many sequences where they put on a record and we get a montage of people around the UK listening, dancing, making out and yes, sitting on the toilet (several times) while listening to the radio.

It was all pretty much by-the-numbers stuff, some of the usual funny bits you'd expect, a few manipulative tear-jerker moments, and it went on forever without too much narrative force. With the exception of the young kid (having the film start with someone new coming on the boat provides us with our "guide") who grows up a bit, these people are the same people at the end as they were at the beginning. Frankly, even though I didn't make it to the end of the film, by the time they shut down the video system I didn't much care any more.

And now, home again, back in my own bed, insanely more comfortable than the bed at the hotel in Kyoto and not to forget the presence of my gf in said bed at home, and I'm ready to face the week ahead ... even though I'm not quite focused yet and can't quite recall what the week has in store for me, short of us having tickets to go see Harry Potter 27 on the IMAX screen Wednesday night.

Oh, so last night I had all my trip photos (824 of them) copied onto a portable drive from my laptop, and I realized I could plug the drive into my Western Digital WDTV and look at the pics on my big screen TV. Slow .... shortest setting for the slide show is 3 seconds per picture and it seemed to take the box another 3 seconds to load each photo. So 6 seconds per pic, 10 pics per minute, 824 pictures, once again do the math. No, didn't look at them all last night, didn't have all night to do that. But once again I am struck by the sharpness and clarity that comes out of my Nikon D300, most photos shot with Nikon 18-200mm lens, some with the new Nikon 10-24mm lens. I'm not talking about my skills with a digital camera (though I am convinced that there were at least a dozen or two of "professional" quality), just how damn good the camera itself is when you get the settings right and you're pointing it at something as un-fuck-up-able as an ancient Japanese temple or Japanese garden. And this was just looking at the basic JPEGs. When I have time to start dealing with the RAW files and Lightroom, there should be several photos well worth sharing. Given the 100 meg per month limitation on a free Flickr account, do I need to upgrade on Flickr? Use another service like PhotoBucket? I want to share some of these to a potentially wider audience somehow.

Final Kyoto post - until I get home and put up some pictures.

Last night, dinner at Ganko Sushi, a place not far from the hotel listed in Lonely Planet. Of course in Japan, when there is a set dinner that is 7 pieces of sushi, 3 pieces of maki, tempura and udon all for under 2,000 yen, one should not expect much. And I got about what I expected. Cheap 'n cheerful, neither especially good nor bad.

Afterwards, I went down by the river banks and sat there watching couples sitting there and strolling by. If I was here with my gf, I could see how sitting there with a few cans of beer or a bottle of wine could be a very nice way to spend an evening. A quick stroll through Pontocho and back to the hotel.

Woke up relatively early (for me) and it was raining and I said to myself, "oh." But an hour later it stopped so I went to Kinakuji, the Golden Pavilion. Busy but not too bad. Reading that it was destroyed in 1950 and rebuilt in 1955 gave the whole thing a kind of Disney-esque feel, at least to me. And in true Disney fashion, before you hit the exit of the temple grounds, you walk through half a dozen gift shops selling some temple-related items but even more things that have nothing to do with it, the usual crap perceived as stuff foreigners might want to buy (and they were). Spotted one stall with a Hello Kitty sign and was hoping they might sell plates of the temple with Hello Kitty standing in front but no such luck.

No time to do anything else, so another taxi back to the hotel. The driver didn't speak a word to me when I got in and told him where I was going, which is odd here. But he turned out to be the best taxi driver of my entire trip. He pulled out this stack of small cards on a key ring and started flipping through them. Written in English, he'd hold them up and point as we passed various sites. Then he flipped the cards some more to a set that explained that he had cancer of the larynx and couldn't talk at all, that he'd been driving a taxi in Kyoto for 30 years, and questions about where I was from, what I was doing, how long I was staying, etc. He also had a small white board and would write notes to me when we'd stop for red lights.

So that's about it. Time to shower and grab some lunch before heading to the airport. Despite rainy and humid weather, despite only seeing a small fraction of the sites, I've enjoyed my stay here, charmed by the people, wanting to come back and see more. But I'll also be glad to get home and sleep in my own bed tonight (and not alone).

Coming up this week - more job searching and also taking care of some medical stuff while I still have health insurance. And dealing with loading 900 photos into Lightroom and picking out the best and editing them and uploading some of them here ....

Saturday night was actually quite boring. Went to BIC Camera (7 floors of stuff that plugs in and lights up) and found some of the stuff I wanted. Walked around Kyoto Station, tonkatsu for dinner, found the 12th floor roof garden at Isetan, good for a night time view of the city and much cheaper than Kyoto Tower - not really much of a night view here anyway. Then back to the hotel around 9 or 10. Didn't seem to be any point in walking around Pontocho a second time if I couldn't stop into any of the bars to have a drink, so a few episodes of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia and sleep.

Woke up and - hurray! Not raining. So first I walked over to Nijo Castle, closest big attraction to the hotel. About an inch on the map but far enough that by the time I got there, I was already pretty sweaty. Walked the halls of the castle and tried to imagine 400 years ago, when people actually lived there. A shogun and his ministers and bodyguards and army and wives. Tried to picture them conducting business, eating food, making laws, planning wars and probably lots of hot sweaty shogun sex with 3 or 4 hot sweaty shogun wives at a time. Get the impression I'm feeling a bit lonely at this point?

Then walked through the gardens, which were even more spectacular than the buildings. And, speaking of feeling lonely, I seemed to always be 2 steps behind some white guy and his hot (looked like) Filipino wife or girlfriend.

Okay, after the castle, I hopped a taxi - I needed some air con, I needed to sit, and decided to head for Sanjusangen-do, recommended by commenter Daniel. And since the Hyatt Regency was right next door, figured that would be a relaxing place for lunch. The ground floor restaurant was only doing buffet, so I went upstairs to the Italian place where I got a seriously good pizza. My waiter was originally from Hawaii and stopped by my table every five minutes to give me tips on things to check out.

Then Sanju etcetcetc. 1,001 Buddha statues. Each one different, as they were done by 70 different sculptors. Together with 28 larger statues representing 28 different gods - it's said to be unusual that a collection of this age has remained intact and, unusual or not, it's seriously impressive. But the 28 of them put together were not as impressive as the 11 foot "main" Buddha statue - one of the nicest I have ever seen. No photos allowed in here (sometimes it doesn't seem to me as if I've actually been to a place unless I've taken pictures) so this is the one place where I bought a souvenir book. And I made a small donation, burned some incense and made a silent prayer asking for help finding a job and tossed in a wish for my mother's health. Thanks to Daniel for the tip, loved it!

After that, I made the biggest mistake of the day. I decided to walk to Kiyomizu-Dera. The walk ended up being at least a mile, if not more, in the Kyoto heat and humidity, and nothing of note to see along the way, just a lot of small shops closed because it's Sunday. I started hearing thunder, made a few wrong turns, and ended up in a mausoleum as the rain started coming down. Once the rain slacked off, I checked out the huge graveyard behind.

(Seriously, I never like group tours, but perhaps this is one place where booking a one day tour might have made more sense - I would have covered a lot more ground and had an air conditioned bus to sit in between stops. Too late now but noted for next trip to wherever.)

And then back on the road to Kiyomizu-Dera, which is all uphill. And on that hill was a guy walking backwards, pulling up a rickshaw carrying a family of 3. I seriously wanted to jump on the back of this thing but didn't want to kill that guy who managed to keep smiling and talking all the way up the hill.

At Kiyomizu-Dera, one of the most famous temples in the world, there were stairs. Lots of them. And I confess, at this point, my legs gave out. My sweat rag was completely soaked, as were my clothes, my hair, my skin, my feet. My feet hurt, my legs ached and my shoulders were hurting from the camera strap and camera bag strap pressing the wet t-shirt into me. Hey, I'm not that young any more and I just got over a serious illness, I think I did pretty okay. Anyway, I got part way up the stairs, stopped and took some photos, sat down for a bit, more stairs, more pictures. Then I looked up, saw even more stairs ahead, realized that wherever I went, I'd need to come back down and just gave up. Sat down, marveled at some of the women who'd made the trip in high-heels and platform shoes and thought, yeah, I was young once too.

Walked down the stairs, walked down the hill, stopped in a few souvenir shops along the way (mostly for their air con), and then hopped into a taxi back to the hotel. Halfway back, the driver started having the most amazing coughing fit. It started at a red light but the light changed and he kept hacking as he was driving - I thought he was going to cough up his left foot at the rate he was going. "O genki des kah?" I asked and he nodded and said he was fine and then kept on coughing away. Back at the hotel, looking at myself in the mirror in the hotel elevator, 'twas not a very pretty picture (yes, I took a photo), my face all red, my hair soaking wet and all over the place, argh, maybe people looked at me and thought, "Jesus, this gaijin is just seconds away from a heart attack" but aside from being hot, wet and tired, I felt okay. Hung my clothes up to dry (seriously, they're soaked), crawled into the shower and now, after I finish this, nap time.

This is my last night here, tomorrow afternoon I fly back to HK from Osaka. If it's not raining in the morning, I may try to get to the Golden Pavilion before I head to the airport. I will have only seen a tiny percentage of the sights here, not even close to all 17 UNESCO World Heritage spots, but even so, I saw enough to get a taste of it. Kyoto's pretty damned nice, isn't it? I'm sorry I waited so many years to come here - had I made a trip here sooner then by now I would have also made 2 or 3 return visits.

Woke up to find the raining pissing down. Not just raining, serious rain. So I figured I'd start the day at the famous Nishiki Food Market, which is covered and not far from the hotel. Thanks to the winds on the cross streets, I was pretty much drenched by the time I got there.

The market itself is not as exciting as I'd hoped. I think if you're not from Asia it might be a big deal, and it was nice to see some stalls with Japanese specialties laid out ... but it's no Tsukiji by any means. And half the market is now clothing stores and typical souvenir shops - a thousand variations on Hokusai's famous view of Mt. Fuji, cheap samurai swords, you name it. Now and then a few "real" places selling some genuine artistic stuff, especially Japanese lacquerware, plates and bowls. I found a shop with hand painted fans, with bamboo instead of plastic, and got a couple of those as gifts.

Much like Uma Thurman in Kill Bill, I needed Japanese steel. I knew I was not going to find Hattori Hanzo to custom make a samurai blade for me, but I could visit 400 year old knife shop Aritsugu. I got two knives, one a general purpose kitchen knife, the other more heavy duty for cutting through bone. They custom engrave, so I got "Spike" on one and Spike written phonetically in Japanese on the other. I took photos of the guys who did the "final sharpening" and engraving of my knives. At first they thought I was crazy taking photos of them, but when I showed them the pictures, they couldn't tear themselves away. It occurred to me that plenty of tourists must take photos there but few ever bother to show them to the people they've taken the photos of! The variety of knives was what you'd expect from this kind of specialty shop - knives for every kitchen purpose from sashimi to eel to noodles. I would have loved to fill up a bag with stuff from here but this stuff ain't cheap and the shop was cash-only.

The food market eventually connects to two other covered shopping streets, so I ended up spending several hours checking stuff out. Lots of stores selling "vintage" and "surplus" American clothing, lots of places with wacky t-shirts but none truly wacky enough for me. Each time I'd hit an open area I'd note that the rain was still coming down nicely. Got a couple more Zippos to add to the collection. Discovered that when trying to buy cigarettes from a vending machine, you have to tap a smart card against a sensor to prove you're old enough to buy them - discovered this by putting money in, pressing a button, and standing there looking bewildered until someone came by, saw my predicament, and tapped his own card on the machine for me.

Finally by 3:30 the rain stopped. Loaded down with packages and soaked through with sweat thanks to the high humidity here, I made it back to the hotel. Shower and a bit of rest is called for before heading out again.

And that means that on one of my only two full days here I did not hit any temples or shrines. The weather forecast for tomorrow calls for 100% chance of precipitation. This is not good, is it? I'm just going to have to wait for occasional breaks in the weather and perhaps rely on taxis instead of walking, but I do need to at least glimpse a few more of the major sites here.

Oh well, I'm still grooving on walking around here. Kyoto is so much smaller than Tokyo so it's quite quick to get around. And the city is laid out in a grid pattern, so it's very easy to find your way around. Definitely Japanese, more laid back, people seem very friendly and helpful and of course the food here is great.

So not a complete loss but still quite a disappointment. And no, there's no opportunity for me to try to stay for a couple of days longer; wish I could.

Photos later, getting this down while the memories are fresh in my tired little head.

For a three star hotel, Monterey Hotel Kyoto is doing just fine by me. They have made up a little English language map of their own, indicating all the restaurants near the hotel, cuisine, price range and whether or not they have English menus. What could be easier?

So I went to Kushikura, a yakitori place where I could fill my belly for around 3,000 yen. Seven skewers, my favorites were the duck with leek and the chicken skin. The "chicken breast with plum labiate" was also quite interesting.

After that, I walked over to Pontocho, the night time entertainment district. Guide books go on and on about this place but honestly, it wasn't too much - maybe because I can't drink so bars hold little interest for me and it just struck me as Shibuya or Kabuki-cho on a smaller scale. Some long and short narrow streets and alleyways loaded with bars and restaurants and of course clubs catering only to Japanese men.

Along the banks of the river something (the print on my map is too tiny for my eyes, even with glasses!) couples and small groups sat in the dark talking and watching the water.

Crossed the river into Gion. This is where you're supposed to be able to see geishas walking around. But all evening, I'd seen groups of guys dressed in white - white shorts, white open robes, headbands. And now I was to find out why, because just as I went digging for my guidebook, I heard a lot of noise. Looked up and there were hundreds, maybe even thousands of men, all dressed like this, coming down the street. There were flags and several guys carrying some huge thingamabob on a platform, and a guy on a horse. They were all shouting - it sounded like "gyoza hey!" and I thought, oh nice, a parade for dumplings, but of course that's probably not even close to what they were saying.

As the parade passed, I went into the street and followed them. Eventually they reached the Yasaka-Jinja shrine, which Lonely Planet informs me is considered the "guardian shrine of Kyoto." Lots of people in front of the shrine, on the steps, but the paraders did not go in. They stayed in front for half an hour, chanting, raising and lowering that thing they were carrying, before heading down the street in another direction, perhaps to another shrine.

But at this point, after walking two hours, I was again completely soaked thanks to the humidity here (good for continued weight loss!). So I grabbed some drinks at Family Mart and hopped a taxi back to the hotel.

Tomorrow, more shrines and temples and also the famous food market here, where I may buy some Japanese kitchen knives if I can afford them.

First of all, the bullet train is a pleasure. Just over HK$1,000 to ride in a 300 kph express for 2-1/2 hours. The trains run every 20 minutes, have toilets, vending machines, smoking cars, snack cart wheeled through every hour. The ride is smooth, quiet and you get as much leg room as you get flying business class. No two hour bus ride to the airport and walking for miles in the airport and the same on arrival. Maybe most of you know this already but my only similar experience has been with the high speed rail in Taiwan (also a pleasure).

Temperatures are a bit lower than normal for this time of year in Kyoto but the humidity is way up there. I just walked for around 2 hours - from my hotel to the Imperial Palace Gardens, around the gardens (can't enter the palace without making an advance appointment) and a nearby temple where they seemed to worship the boar. Photos will come later - but definitely at that boar temple my new wide angle lens was more than a nice-to-have.

The hotel is a nice 3 star running about HK$1,000 per night. Flat screen TV, fast free internet - of course the room is small but it has all the attention to detail you'd expect from the Japanese. Haven't checked what TV channels they offer yet but apparently for the pay channels, you have to go down the hall to a vending machine and buy a card.

But no TV for me tonight. I'll go walking around Gion and Pontocho and hopefully find something tasty for dinner. After all that walking, some kind of meat may be in order. Wild boar?

So, a shower, a little rest

Yesterday lunch with an old friend, who said he may be in a position to offer me a job ... but probably a year from now.

Dinner at a tiny "charcoal grill" restaurant in Roppongi Hills called Tora, everything grilled at your table over charcoal in a small ceramic pot. No photos this time. Huge clam, huge shishamo, "best quality of beef," "tongue of cow," "stick salad," salmon grilled on a leaf and a potato croquette that looked and tasted exactly like a potato knish.

Last night I had the opportunity to do something probably very bad and much to my surprise, I didn't do it. And felt really crappy about being good for the rest of the night. If being good feels so bad, what's the point of being good?

Following which, I spent an hour staring at a book that costs US$40 on Amazon and US$65 here. And magazines? US$15 for Wired, US$20 for GQ, US$20 for Empire. Bought an ice cream sandwich instead.

Leaving Tokyo (for the last time?) today, bullet train to Kyoto (first time for bullet train, first visit to Kyoto). Weather may remain wet through the weekend though temperatures will also be lower than normal for this time of year.

Actually now that my work day is done, my pleasant dinner with friends is over and I'm back in the hotel alone, nothing on TV, I have time to think. And not many pleasant thoughts to focus on.

Yes, there's my job search, which so far is yielding nothing. I still have time to deal with that but may need to be a bit more creative in my approach to this.

The other thing much on my mind is my mother. A google chat with a cousin last night in which he expressed some concerns - most of which I think are unfounded but did get me thinking anyway.

She's 88 years old and lives alone halfway around the world. I have no brothers or sisters. Most of the women on her side of the family have lived well into their 90s and she seems set to do the same. But if her health suffers a protracted period of decline, I have no idea right now how to deal with it and I realized it's an unpleasant subject that I'm going to have to start researching. And when the inevitable comes, I believe I'm emotionally prepared but in terms of all the arrangements and aftermath, I need a plan to deal with that as well. Maybe I'm not as emotionally prepared as I think; maybe that's why I've put off doing this for so long.

So there's that, too.
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Did you read about some guy in China who works for Foxconn and lost a prototype for the next generation iPhone and killed himself? Some people place such little value on their own lives? There's always an answer, maybe not always a pleasant one, but there's always something out there, at least as far as I'm concerned.

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But what if everything was to come crashing down at once? What if I'm out of work, can't find another job, run through my savings and then need to deal with heavy medical or care bills for my mother (or even myself! note to self - I lose medical insurance on November 1st, better start looking for that, too).

It does happen to people. Every day. The newspapers are filled with such stories. Why couldn't it happen to me, too? The answer is - it could. I'm not immune.

Well, it did kind of happen to me once already, in my distant past. I was out of work for a long time, out of money, the bills were piling up and the creditors were trying to smash down the door. I survived that and came out the other end just fine, eventually. I did it once, I can do it again.
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On a very different topic .... Monocle Magazine once again lists their 25 most liveable cities in the world. Based on public transport, education, cultural outlets, crime, hours of sunshine, global flight connections, "chain store pollution," ease of opening a business, major infrastructure improvements under way. Guess what, Hong Kong ain't on the list. Matter of fact, only one US city is on the list and that's in Hawaii. In Asia - 3 cities in Japan, Singapore. Two choices in Australia and one in NZ. Here's their picks, in order:

Zurich
Copenhagen
Tokyo
Munich
Helsinki
Stockholm
Vienna
Paris
Melbourne
Berlin
Honolulu
Madrid
Sydney
Vancouver
Barcelona
Fukuoka
Oslo
Singapore
Montreal
Auckland
Amsterdam
Kyoto
Hamburg
Geneva
Lisbon

They certainly seem to have a jones for Scandinavian places, don't they? Or are they really that good? Doesn't matter - I'm no longer equipped to deal with snow and ice.

I'd definitely consider Tokyo if everything wasn't so freaking expensive here. And I'd consider Singapore. Paris, Madrid, Barcelona? A dream for my next incarnation, I think.

Ah well, it's late. Time to sleep. That's if I can sleep.

I'm told the rainy season in Tokyo was supposed to end last week. Clearly Mr. Rainy Season didn't look at the calendar. But a few dry moments here and there. This is the spider at Roppongi Hills that Skippy-san mentioned in a comment.


My plan was to take pictures of places that mean something to me, but the weather has interrupted that so far. But this bar is where I met my first Japanese girlfriend in 1994 - actually she was passed out at a table here and I was talking to her friend, but later we went to Gaspanic and out of nowhere she asked me out on a date. She was smart and funny and dressed in black and a bit of a nihilist.

This is where Almond's used to be. And apparently will be again at some point in the near future.

The somewhat infamous Motown House, probably a pale shadow of what it was back in the 90s, when it was the pick-up joint where everyone ended up around 2 or 3 AM. Then it morphed into a place filled with Filipino transsexual hookers. And still playing the same crappy CDs they played 15 years ago.

And the Hard Rock Cafe, King Kong still scaling that wall.

For dinner we went to Gonpacho (fairly certain I screwed that name up), a kind of kitschy touristy robatayaki place at Nishi Azabu crossing in a converted warehouse. English menu, English speaking staff, African maitre d'. But I enjoyed the food, especially the Iberico pork and the duck breast with wasabi.




After dinner we walked over to Roppongi Hills and had dessert at L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon - there's a small bakery area attached to the restaurant and you can get cakes and drinks and take them outside to relax and enjoy. Here's the main part of the restaurant - quite lovely.


Yes of course, Tokyo Tower by night from Roppongi.


Fashion shop along Roppongi-Dori.

Vending machine find - Camel "Nutty Menthol" - I may have to get a pack and check these out.

Nominations for the British Mercury Prize for album of the year - oops it's now the Barclaycard Mercury Prize, sheesh - along with odds furnished by Brit bookmaker William Hill, courtesy of Billboard:

• Bat for Lashes, "Two Suns" (6/1)
• Florence & The Machine, "Lungs" (5/1)
• Friendly Fires, "Friendly Fires" (8/1)
• Glasvegas, "Glasvegas" (6/1)
• Kasabian "West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum" (5/1)
• La Roux, "La Roux" (6/1)
• Led Bib, "Sensible Shoes" (10/1)
• Lisa Hannigan, "Sea Sew" (8/1)
• Speech Debelle, "Speech Therapy" (8/1)
• Sweet Billy Pilgrim, "Twice Born Men" (10/1)
• The Horrors, "Primary Colours" (8/1)
• The Invisible, "The Invisible" (10/1)

Of these, let's see, I wasn't impressed by Bat For Lashes. Glasvegas - left out for future listening. Kasabian - still not as good as their first album, guess I'll give it one more try. LaRoux - listened in Tower last night, 80s disco amped up for the 00's, not sure.

But after one listen, gotta say, Florence & the Machine sounds seriously impressive. Definitely on my replay list.

Bus ride into town, here's the building I grabbed some shots of and then everyone else on the bus jumped up to do the same.

Night time, Shibuya crossing:




Along Centa-Gai


The "money shot" - the only decent photo I got of this group hanging out in front of a shoe store preparing for who knows what.

The robot belt sushi place in Shibuya


Tokyo Tower by night, shot through the window at the Grand Hyatt lift lobby, 16th floor (my room faces a different direction)


Dinner tonight, loads of different starters.

The busy sushi counter

Aw jeez, another stupid gaijin taking my picture



The sashimi platter looked great from every direction


Sushi

Second sushi platter with seared tuna and seared salmon (and a bit too much mayo for my tastes)


There was also some cooked fish, some custard with uni and prawn, soup, other courses I didn't photograph but that helped really fill me up.

Tonight stopping at the AM/PM store. Fanta Zero Cider. Hmmm, maybe tomorrow.

Pepsi Shiso? Do I even want to know?

This week's KitKat flavors. I guess the one on the left is supposed to be peach, tasted sort of apple-y to me. I'll check the other one tomorrow.

At the airport I saw a bottle of Coke with green tea flavor - didn't buy it at the time and haven't seen it again but keeping an eye out for it.

Hope the rain stops for at least a little while tomorrow. Tomorrow or Thursday perhaps a quick run to Akihabara.

Well, it's pissing down rain in Tokyo tonight. I can't drink so no point going to a bar. And can't walk around taking pictures. So just chillaxin' in the hotel. If I feel more awake later, maybe post some other pics.

Hong Kong calls itself a world city. HK people call HK a world city. But sometimes I wonder, based on what? Yeah, good mass transportation. Good infrastructure. But not as cosmopolitan as some people believe. A mixed bag. In some ways, it's the year 2170, in others just 1970.

Today's case in point. In my office in Quarry Bay, in a soaring tower owned by Swire, I think the air con is set year round at 17 degrees. I keep a hoodie in my office to stay warm - in the summer. Here in Tokyo, where they plant rooftop gardens wherever possible, the office thermostats are all set at 24 degrees. I asked someone if that was the law - they said yes but not sure they entirely understood the question.

Sure, Tokyo's economy has been in the shitter for 20 years and everything here costs way too much and they get a new government every two months (maybe for HK that wouldn't be such a bad idea).

And then again ... tonight we went back to a popular seafood restaurant in Ginza. There were four of us; a fifth said he would join us later. For whatever reason, we only got a table for four. They do a set menu (pics later, maybe) that's an incredibly reasonable (for Tokyo) US$60 per person - a cornucopia of fresh tasty raw and cooked fish.

So the fifth guy shows up. There's no 5th chair. The other guy at the table says he is going to go out and do a little shopping for awhile. So new guy sits in his place. Waitress comes over (she was Japanese/Mexican, not that it has anything to do with this tale but she was as cute as you might imagine a Japanese/Latina combination would be). She tries to explain to new guy the rules but gives up after 30 seconds and has one of the men come out of the kitchen.

He explains to new guy that we're halfway through the meal and their rule is that he can't join us halfway and start from the beginning. Heh? Say what?

So new guy gets up, goes outside, finds old guy (who was just sitting outside the restaurant), sends him back inside to finish off.

Well, this place is very popular, so I guess they can afford to turn away business. What a lovely position to be in. Wish I could say the same.

For now, I'll leave you with this, found on Gizmodo. All Windows users should appreciate this one.

Couple days ago I included recent Drew Friedman art in this post.

I've known his work for decades - in Heavy Metal, National Lampoon and Spy. As his work continues to find a more mainstream audience, even my 88 year old mom has enjoyed his Old Jewish Comedians and More Old Jewish Comedians books. Me, I love the stuff he does on the Three Stooges, Tor Johnson and others.

Well, today I had a Facebook friend request from Mr. Friedman, who found my blog thanks to that post. Of course Facebook friend and real life friend are two very different things. But it was close to a thrill.

So some bonus Friedman for y'all.

Count Cheney:


Jerry Lewis Goes to Death Camp:

Spock and Kirk:


Guilty pleasures of the literary greats:


Robert Crumb shows Janis Joplin the cover of Cheap Thrills:


And he doesn't just do celebs - comic shop clerks of North America:

Well, I used to get here once every 3 months, now it's been 10 months since my last visit. What's changed? For one thing, that big branch of Almond's at Roppongi Crossing (Almond-o) where everyone meets to start their night is gone. The whole building is gone! "Very old building," the taxi driver explained. Speaking of which, lots of taxis here are now Toyota Prius.

Outside of that, not much else that I've seen is different so far. Went to a robot belt sushi joint in Shibuya - these joints in Tokyo are actually halfway decent - and ended up sitting next to 8 people from Hong Kong. Even if I hadn't heard their Cantonese, I would have guessed Hong Kong because they asked for wasabi. (In sushi joints in Japan, even the cheap ones, the chefs put what they consider to be the proper amount of wasabi on the rice already. In Hong Kong, the fish in the robot belt joints has no flavor, so people make up for it with huge glops of wasabi.)

And the Indian guy at the Shibuya branch of yakitori chain Nanbantei remembered me. I go there 2, 3 times a year for a few years, they have no other regular customers? Well, maybe they don't have any other gaijin regular customers.

And the women in Shibuya, holy jumping jesus, there are more of them and they get hotter each time I come back. I did try snapping a few pics along Centa-Gai but I'm just too self-conscious to stand there trying to nab pictures of hot women. Maybe one or two good shots, will check later.

Internet connection in the hotel? 70 mbps. And free. Takes 42 seconds to download a 24 minute sitcom over usenet here.

Had my camera in my lap for part of the bus ride from the airport. Spotted some wacky new jumbo Victorian-style building - a new hotel maybe? - and snapped a few pics as we went by. The Nikon D300 is big. And loud. Within seconds of grabbing the first shot, it seemed as if everyone else on the bus (well, the other gaijin) said, "Oh!" and jumped over to the window, mostly with camera phones.

Well, back in the hotel early. No sense in going to Roppongi if I'm not drinking. If I can't sleep and go out again, all I'll do is hit the nearby Tsutaya Records & Books, which is open from "0700-2800."

The SCMP runs a profile on Neil Armstrong, 40 years after his moonwalk. It is accompanied by this illustration by Terry Pontikos.


It's obviously taken from this photo of Armstrong taken by Buzz Aldrin:


Yeesh.

Since it's 40 years since man's first walk on the moon, I watched the documentary For All Mankind, newly reissued on Blu-Ray by Criterion. 80 minutes long, it's 100% NASA film and audio footage from the various Apollo missions, assembled into a single continuous "mission." I don't think it's as great as some would claim though some of the footage is awe inspiring. About a third of the film is spent on the moon itself (not too much footage from the Armstrong/Aldrin mission) and got me thinking, "Us crazy Americans, we go to the moon just so we can drive a car around there." It also highlights Buzz Aldrin's first words as the second man on the moon, roughly, "That may have been a small step for Neil but it's a big one for me!"

Everything was shot on 16mm, so going to Blu-Ray doesn't bring out much in the way of detail, but it does preserve the film grain, making it feel more like watching a film than a video.

Following that, watched The Right Stuff, which remains a tremendously entertaining film despite its length and helped my gf put that first trip to the moon (which happened before she was born) into more of a historical context. Added synchronicity - Levon Helm has a prominent role in the film (Yeager's friend who always has a stick of Beeman's gum handy for him) and as I mentioned a few days ago I've been playing his new album a lot.

And then today, an Op-Ed piece in the NY Times from Tom Wolfe (author of the original book The Right Stuff), One Giant Leap to Nowhere. He claims that the space program "died in infancy at 10:56 p.m. New York time on July 20, 1969, the moment the foot of Apollo 11’s Commander Armstrong touched the surface of the Moon. ... How could such a thing happen? In hindsight, the answer is obvious. NASA had neglected to recruit a corps of philosophers."

NASA’s annual budget sank like a stone from $5 billion in the mid-1960s to $3 billion in the mid-1970s. It was at this point that NASA’s lack of a philosopher corps became a real problem. The fact was, NASA had only one philosopher, Wernher von Braun. Toward the end of his life, von Braun knew he was dying of cancer and became very contemplative. I happened to hear him speak at a dinner in his honor in San Francisco. He raised the question of what the space program was really all about.

It’s been a long time, but I remember him saying something like this: Here on Earth we live on a planet that is in orbit around the Sun. The Sun itself is a star that is on fire and will someday burn up, leaving our solar system uninhabitable. Therefore we must build a bridge to the stars, because as far as we know, we are the only sentient creatures in the entire universe. When do we start building that bridge to the stars? We begin as soon as we are able, and this is that time. We must not fail in this obligation we have to keep alive the only meaningful life we know of.

Unfortunately, NASA couldn’t present as its spokesman and great philosopher a former high-ranking member of the Nazi Wehrmacht with a heavy German accent.

Speaking of Great Philosophers, check out this Drew Friedman artwork. It came from BoingBoing but I didn't save the link back to their source.


And speaking of heavenly bodies, here is Lala Perezrivera, nabbed from F-Listed.

And from sublime to geeky, this handy dandy chart from here.

Questions that have been on my mind lately - would appreciate comments from those of you in HK. Even if you don't usually comment here. And if you don't want to post a comment publicly, please comment via email to hongkietown at gmail dot com.

First off - how many of you go to The Wanch on a regular basis - meaning at least once a month? How many of you even know about The Wanch?

If you don't, Wanch, which bills itself as Hong Kong's #1 Live Music Bar, is on Jaffe Road, between Fenwick & Arsenal Streets in Wanchai. They present live music seven nights a week, different bands each night, sometimes original, sometimes cover bands. They have a jam night, acoustic music on Sunday afternoons and it's where the BC Unplugged show takes place each month.

But it's on a "dead" street, a street that has no casual foot traffic at night. It's a street where only rarely you might find a group of friends passing along, walking by, hear the music and decide to step in and check it out. Almost no one ends up there by accident. People who go there are going there because it's their destination.

And it's a very small place. I've stopped in there sometimes and the only free space has been right in the center of the floor. Nowhere to sit, not even a piece of wall to lean against. I get frustrated after 10 minutes and leave.

(I realize the above might be taken as aspersions against Wanch but far from it! I think they do an amazing job there and the fact that it's lasted so long is a testament to a lot of hard work. I hope they last for many, many more years.)

Of course, all the other bars in Wanchai that have live music - let's see, off the top of my head there's Neptune, Traffik, Dusk Till Dawn, Spicy Fingers, Amazonia, Galaxy, Swindlers, maybe 1 or 2 I've forgotten - all have Filipino cover bands, some of them quite good. Some of them even play original music in the Philippines but are contractually committed to only playing cover tunes in Hong Kong.

Over in Lan Kwai Fong and Soho, you get some spots that feature original music on a somewhat irregular basis. The only bars I can think of that have live music every day - Insomnia and Cavern Club - also feature Filipino cover bands. (There may be some spots in Soho or along Wyndham Street that have something different?) Time Out HK is doing some promoting, sometimes there's something at Grappa's Cellar, The Fringe Club of course, and others.

I've got nothing against Filipino cover bands. Some of them are quite good. The lead singer in one of those bands, a regular in Lan Kwai Fong some years back, is now the lead singer in Journey.

However ....

Each time I attend a show by Underground HK or BC Unplugged, I'm struck by how much talent there is in Hong Kong - both locally born and expat. I have seen so many performers whom I feel are professional, who if they were based in London or Los Angeles would probably be able to fill a 300 seat club on a regular basis. Here their names are only known to a select few.

And for the younger performers, the ones who are bursting with raw talent, how are they going to develop as artists and gain an audience if they don't have places where they can play on a regular basis?

So I'm curious as to your opinions ... would a bar featuring live music from local bands seven nights a week in Wanchai draw a crowd? If it was on a main street, on Lockhart Road or a different section of Jaffe Road, a place where people are walking by all night long and maybe some of them hear the music and go, "hey, let's stop in and check this out," would that kind of bar stand a chance of success? Of course such a bar couldn't have a door charge or cover charge - that would scare people off.

Let's do the math for a minute. Assume that a decent sized space along Lockhart Road would rent for $100,000 per month. Assume that on a $50 pint of beer, $30 is gross profit. That means selling 110 beers per night just to pay the rent. Not counting other overhead ranging from salaries to utilities, not counting advertising and marketing, not counting (hopefully) some profit. I think you'd have to be able to sell an average of 300 pints per night in order to do better than break even. Is that possible in Wanchai?

Or are people who go to Wanchai only interested in sports pubs and hooker bars? Are they only going out to get shitfaced and laid? Is the reason we don't have a CBGB's type place because there's not enough of a market for it, or just that no one cares enough to do it?

I'm really curious to hear from as many people as possible on this.

My mother always complains that I only tell her about the meals I have in restaurants and so she thinks I eat in restaurants every night. Maybe some readers feel the same way?

So here's tonight's dinner at home. A couple of months ago I asked my helper to learn how to do roast chicken, covered with herbs and plenty of fresh vegetables on the side. She worked it out and I now have her make this for me at least twice a month. And honestly? It tastes even better than it looks.

Woke up today to news that Walter Cronkite has died at the age of 92. Cronkite was best known for anchoring the CBS Evening News in the US from 1962-1981.

Think about those 20 years. The assassinations of JFK, RFK, MLK. The Vietnam war. Landing on the moon. Watergate. And so much more.

He was the product of a very different era. CBS's news broadcasts weren't meant to be pretty or nice or happy, they were meant to be good. The news wasn't meant to be a profit center. The airwaves were (and are still supposed to be) a public trust. Cronkite, "the most trusted man in America," had heavy duty field reporting credentials and strove to present the news in the most objective manner possible. But one of his more famous moments was when he momentarily choked up on the air announcing the death of President Kennedy.





And in 1968, when Cronkite gave an on-air editorial in which he said that the Vietnam war was unwinnable, President Johnson was reported to have said, "If I've lost Cronkite, I've lost Middle America." Such was his influence.

Cronkite was more than just great, he was so great that he elevated his entire profession.

Today, with news spread across 24 hour global cable networks that put the dollar above getting the story right, that push happy news and constant editorializing disguised as reporting, his loss is keenly felt.

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A passing of another sort - rumors have it that Apple is getting ready to kill off the iPod Classic soon. This is based on reports that stock of the 1.8 inch drives that the iPod uses are stockpiling at the manufacturers. I think that's about right. With the iPhone, iTouch, Nano and, ugh, Shuffle, I think the demand for the older iPod must be way down. I've still got my 160 gig one and will hold onto that one for as long as I can keep it going - but with 32 gig on my iPhone, that's really all I need for my upcoming trip. (Well, that plus my Archos PMP, 80 gig hard disk, larger screen, plays AVI files without needing to spend hours on conversion.)

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And another passing. The edge of Molave has hit Hong Kong. (This one sounds like something you'd order in a Mexican restaurant. "I'll have a chicken burrito, a beef molave and a mango margarita!") The storm has just started here in Sai Kung. The rain is coming straight down. Not too much wind yet. Here's the current predicted path, courtesy of Weather Underground.



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Of course last night the weather was quite different and here are some of the shots I took - JPGs run through Picasa because the RAW files processed through Lightroom are just too damned big to upload here. (Look for my Flickr stream soon.) But do please feel free to click on the images to view the larger size versions.

What's cracking me up is that I thought the Bank of China building was bending in all these photos and that something was seriously wrong with my lens. It wasn't until I saw the last picture below that I realized the "bend" was the result of the AIA Tower in front.




The following 2 photos show the classic night time dilemma. Expose for the scene at large, in which case all the giant neon signs are blurred out, or expose for the signs and lose the detail in everything else. Yes, I will be getting into HDR soon.



Should I have had a bit more "air" on top of IFC 2?

As I've said a few times already, Monday I'm off to Tokyo. In the past I got there on average once every three months so it was relatively easy to keep up with what's new. But it's been almost a year since my last visit and I'm sure a lot has changed. Any recommendations from anyone on new stuff that I shouldn't miss?

And on Friday, going to Kyoto for the weekend, the first and possibly only time I'll ever get there. With just two and a half days to explore, aside from the heritage sites and temples, what are the things I shouldn't miss there? Sightseeing, restaurants, shops?

Hoping a few people will chime in with some tips!

For reasons that I won't go into, my gf and I have a difficult time agreeing on what should be our anniversary date. So this being roughly our 1st anniversary week, give or take a couple of days in either direction, and since I'm about to head out for a week on a business trip (weather permitting), I wanted to take her out to a special dinner. Having been to Cucina at the Marco Polo HK Hotel in TST last week with a friend and having spotted something unusual on the menu that I knew would appeal to her, this seemed like the perfect choice .... and it was.

Of course there's the great harborside view at night (which, I was surprised to find out, she had never seen, at least not from the TST side). Had I given it more thought, I would have booked the dinner earlier so that we could have been sitting there at 8 PM for the nightly light show. But I'd booked for 8:30. Although getting there at 8:20, the parking lot at Ocean Terminal was all but full. I think a lot of people must head there each night for a prime viewing spot.

Sorry, no food photos tonight, this was a night for the two of us to relax together. We started off sharing seared scallops wrapped in pancetta - yum. For my main, I went with a relatively boring ribeye steak (though a nice one indeed). And for her main .... ta-daaa! .... prime pork belly basted with apple cider, rosemary and garlic and then slow roasted for 72 hours. This dish is only available on Fridays and some weeks sells out early in the night, so if you want to try this, do what I did - I booked the dish at the same time that I booked the table.

So she looks at it silently, almost reverently. Cuts off a piece - some fat, some meat, some skin. Puts it in her mouth. Chews silently for almost 3 seconds. Then her eyes go wide as saucers and she almost yells out, "WOW!" Luckily for me, she allowed me a couple of small bites. I can honestly say I never tasted anything like this. Her final verdict? The pork dish at Uno Mas used to be her #1, but now it's only #2, this is her new favorite. And remember, she comes from a country that is second to none when it comes to cooking and eating pig.

We shared a dessert - all their desserts are semi-wacky deconstructed molecular gastronomy thingies and we had one called Strawberry Rose that had strawberry and rose and yogurt cheesecake and other things that I lost track of and it was indeed good.

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

Being pragmatic (or selfish?) as much as I am romantic, I'd loaded the camera and tripod into the car and after dinner, set up along the roof deck to take some night time harbor shots. Haven't downloaded them from the camera to the computer yet but will of course share tomorrow if there are any worth sharing. On the small camera LCD, some looked quite nice.

What's a pleasant surprise for me is how good my gf's eye is becoming. I take the shot and then stand back and let her examine the frame. She's looking at exposure, sharpness, composition, the whole shebang .... maybe I gotta turn her loose with a camera of her own and see what she comes up with because as a critic, she's more impressive (and difficult to please) with each passing day.

(Actually last night at BC Unplugged, she was sitting behind me, looking over my shoulder, and giving me thumbs up/thumbs down on each shot I took.)

Okay, maybe it's not quite so selfish because this is turning into something that we do together and she's showing a real interest in the process and results. Which is very nice.

From Macworld, some tips on using Flickr to promote your photos. Just 3 tips here and they seem pretty basic. Anyone got any others?
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Speaking of time passing and anniversaries .... when the Beatles first came to the US in February, 1964, they made their first stop on the Ed Sullivan Show. 45 years later, David Letterman's show is taped at the Ed Sullivan Theater. And last night, Paul McCartney was the guest on the show, with the band set-up over the theater marquee to play a mini-concert for anyone lucky enough to be on Broadway at the right time.

Read more about the show, see photos and links to Youtube clips over at Celebitchy.

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In the Talkback section of SCMP, they managed to find one person who says he supports the police's use of a "human roadblock" to stop furious driving:

If the police had not set up the roadblock they would not have been able to stop the racing as quickly as they did and we could have seen a more serious traffic accident. However, in this case, there were few injuries. I think it was a price worth paying to prevent a more serious traffic accident.

Yeah dude, it was a price worth paying because you weren't one of the injured or one of the terrified innocent bystanders (bysitters?) forced to sit in a stationary vehicle and watch other cars come at you at full speed. I suspect that the writer of this letter is apparently a very un-precocious pre-schooler.

The second letter asks a more sensible question, "Why didn't they use portable road spike mats that can be deployed in minutes like in many other jurisdictions?" Probably because no one in the police department is aware of the existence of them. Or they only bought one for the entire SAR and it's always deployed to prevent people from getting close enough to toss lemon meringue pies at Donald "Boom Boom" Tsang.

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Then they ask, "has the full no-smoking ban affected your choice of venue?" And an answer comes from someone who is an obvious non-smoker - which makes about as much sense as asking a llama what it thinks of the Dalai Lama. Maybe smokers are too busy having nicotine fits to take the time to write in? My answer is yes .... I now tend to choose bars that are on street level, where I don't have to spend 10 minutes going up and down in an elevator to reach the street in order to grab a smoke every now and then. Fortunately in Wanchai, most of the places are ground floor so this crosses very few venues off my list and mostly those were ones I stopped going to a long time ago anyway (see: 1st anniversary with girlfriend).

Last night I thought of another benefit to the smoking ban - when shooting photos at The Wanch, my shots came out super clear because I was no longer shooting through a haze of smoke and I didn't have to worry about my flash bouncing off the indoor clouds either.

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

Well, I could go on. But gonna try to grab some sleep now.

From Weather Underground.

I don't mind getting stuck in the house on Sunday (though walking the dogs in a typhoon isn't pleasant). But I'm supposed to fly to Tokyo Monday morning, hope this doesn't wreak havoc with that.

Inquisitr has Forbes' top ten highest paid people in the American entertainment industry, based on earnings from June 08 to June 09. Some of the names on the list make sense but some just escape me. Here's the list with some comments ....

1 – George Lucas - $170 million - a handsome sum for destroying our memories with the latest Indiana Jones film & the Star Wars Clone Wars TV series.

2 - Steven Spielberg - $150 million - also Indiana Jones, plus he's one of the producers of the Transformers film

3 - Jerry Bruckheimer - $100 million

4 – Jerry Seinfeld - $85 million - did he do anything last year? Is this all from DVD sales and syndication of his show?

5 – Dr. Phil McGraw - $80 million - bad advice sells, I should do this too.

6 = Tyler Perry - $75 million

6 = Dick Wolf - $75 million - I don't even know who he is! Had to look him up on Wikipedia. He produces the Law & Order tv shows.

6 = Simon Cowell - $75 million - X Factor, American Idol, XXX Got Talent, SyCo records

9 = Bruce Springsteen - $70 million - because he toured last year

9 = Howard Stern - $70 million - this much money from the satellite radio show? What else is he involved in?

If any of the above want to give me 1% of their earnings in a single year, they won't even notice it but I'll be eternally grateful and write really nice things here about them.

Another terrific night of free music with BC Unplugged at the Wanch. I am continually struck by how much professional-level talent there is in Hong Kong and how the community-at-large seems not to care. I'm going to write more on my feelings about this when I have more time.

Anyway, kind of pressed for time today, so these are from the JPGs, not RAW, and not retouched in anyway, just using Picasa to resize them for upload.

Opening act was Jingan Young. I'd seen her perform at Underground HK several months ago and recommended her to the Unplugged crew. Her set tonight was even stronger than the previous one I'd seen. Young performers like this need to play in front of an audience on a regular basis in order to develop and there should be more outlets for them, don't you agree?




Don't ask me to explain this one!


Here you've got singer-songwriter Sue Shearman, about whom I know nothing, but clearly she knows what she's doing - good voice and guitar, good original songs. She's being backed by photojournalist and former London session musician Steve Cray on guitar, mandolin and harmonica.










Following Sue's set, Steve did a solo set of his own. Unfortunately we couldn't stay for final act Joey Basha but hope to catch him next time.

Here's your bog standard view looking down Jaffe Road - Neptune sign partially obscured because it's actually covered by bamboo scaffolding - guess it's being "modernized."

3 AM, crescent moon, finally I am able to get a shot that captures some detail on the moon itself! Again, this is just unretouched (except for crop and resize) JPG - can't wait till I have time to deal with the RAW files from this. The shot was taken at 1/20th of a second at f/22, ISO set to "L3" which I think is equivalent to 100. And my lens is 18-200mm, yielding 300mm 35mm equivalent at full zoom. Imagine if I spent the money to buy something 500mm or greater? (No, please don't, I don't have the money to spend right now.) Please click on this to see it full size!

And some of these panorama shots I took, I may be able to do some stuff with them once I have time to play with the RAW files. 1/5th of a second, f/4.5 at ISO 800. Since I'm not ready to jump to HDR yet, tried to find a compromise that would leave the lights of the villages visible and the moon as something other than a big blur.

Nominations in the top Emmy categories (US TV prime time awards)

COMEDY SERIES
"Entourage" "Family Guy" "Flight of the Conchords" "How I Met Your Mother" "The Office" "30 Rock" "Weeds"

DRAMA SERIES
"Big Love" "Breaking Bad" "Damages" "Dexter" "House" "Lost" "Mad Men"

MINISERIES
"Generation Kill" (HBO) "Little Dorrit" (PBS)

ACTOR IN A COMEDY
Alec Baldwin - "30 Rock" (NBC) Steve Carell - "The Office" (NBC) Jemaine Clement - "Flight Of The Conchords" (HBO) Jim Parsons - "The Big Bang Theory" (CBS) Tony Shalhoub - "Monk" (USA) Charlie Sheen - "Two And A Half Men" (CBS)

ACTOR IN A DRAMA
Simon Baker - "The Mentalist" (CBS) Gabriel Byrne - "In Treatment" (HBO) Bryan Cranston - "Breaking Bad" (AMC) Michael C. Hall - "Dexter" (Showtime) Jon Hamm - "Mad Men" (AMC)
Hugh Laurie - "House" (Fox)

ACTRESS IN A COMEDY
Christina Applegate - "Samantha Who?" (ABC) Toni Collette - "United States Of Tara" (Showtime) Tina Fey - "30 Rock" (NBC) Julia Louis-Dreyfus - "The New Adventures Of Old Christine" (CBS) Sarah Silverman - "The Sarah Silverman Program" (Comedy Central)
Mary-Louise Parker - "Weeds" (Showtime)

ACTRESS IN A DRAMA
Glenn Close as Patty Hewes - "Damages" (FX Networks) Sally Field - "Brothers & Sisters" (ABC) Holly Hunter - "Saving Grace" (TNT) Mariska Hargitay - "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit" (NBC) Kyra Sedgwick - "The Closer" (TNT) Elisabeth Moss - "Mad Men" (AMC)

MADE FOR TELEVISION MOVIE
"Coco Chanel" (Lifetime) "Grey Gardens" (HBO) "Into The Storm" (HBO) "Prayers For Bobby" (Lifetime) "Taking Chance" (HBO)

REALITY COMPETITION PROGRAM
"The Amazing Race" (CBS) "American Idol" (Fox) "Dancing With The Stars" (ABC) "Project Runway" (Bravo) "Top Chef" (Bravo)

VARIETY, MUSIC OR COMEDY SERIES
"The Colbert Report" (Comedy Central) "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart" (Comedy Central) "Late Show With David Letterman" (CBS) "Real Time With Bill Maher" (HBO) "Saturday Night Live" (NBC)

VARIETY, MUSIC OR COMEDY SPECIAL
"Chris Rock - Kill The Messenger" (HBO) "Kathy Griffin: She'll Cut A Bitch " (Bravo) "The Kennedy Center Honors" (CBS) "Ricky Gervais: Out Of England" – The Stand-Up Special (HBO) "Will Ferrell: You're Welcome America. A Final Night With George W. Bush" (HBO)

and these two are relatively interesting:

WRITING FOR A COMEDY
"Flight Of The Conchords" - "Prime Minister" (HBO) - James Bobin, Jemaine Clement, Bret McKenzie,
"30 Rock" - "Reunion" (NBC) - Matt Hubbard
"30 Rock" - "Apollo, Apollo" (NBC) - Robert Carlock
"30 Rock" - "Mamma Mia" (NBC) Ron Weiner
"30 Rock" - "Kidney Now!" (NBC) - Jack Burditt, Robert Carlock

WRITING FOR A DRAMA
"Lost" - "The Incident" - (ABC) - Carlton Cuse, Damon Lindelof
"Mad Men - "A Night To Remember" - (AMC) - Robin Veith, Matthew Weiner
"Mad Men - "Six Month Leave" - (AMC) - Andre Jacquemetton, Maria Jacquemetton, Matthew Weiner
"Mad Men" - "The Jet Set" - (AMC) - Matthew Weiner
"Mad Men" - "Meditations In An Emergency" - (AMC) - Kater Gordon, Matthew Weiner

30 Rock gets 22 nominations, a record for a comedy series.

99 nominations for HBO, once again the most nominated network

The big awards are handed out on September 20th and it looks like nominee Neil Patrick Harris will host the show.

Again, today's laugh comes courtesy of the SCMP. "It could take 10 to 20 years to deal adequately with the youth drug problem in Hong Kong, Chief Executive Donald Tsang Yam-kuen said on Thursday."

In other words (1) no country in the world has successfully dealt with the issue of illegal drugs (except maybe Holland where they're mostly legal or Singapore where they just kill you) (2) but I'm going to be the one to do it because I'm so special .... except (3) it's gonna take 20 years and I won't be CE after another coupla years so you can't blame me if it doesn't work; blame the poor sods who come after me and have to try to stand firmly on the muddy ground I've left them.

Let's face it, Lord Tsang might make more sense if he had a puff or two from time to time - or he'd make more sense if we all had a few puffs before listening to him. Can you picture it, Tsang starts getting high, grows his hair long, shows up to work in Hendrix t-shirts, starts suggesting that we put a dome over Hong Kong island and paint it patchouli. Oh no! What if he suggests painting Hello Kitty all over the dome? That wouldn't be good, would it?

I tend to feel a little guilty when I report on a news story and then don't also blog follow-up items as the story progresses. Not that I think I'm a primary (or even tertiary) news source for anyone - but sometimes I feel as if I've left the story incomplete if I don't write more. So ....

Regarding the human roadblock story, apparently the police are now seeking witnesses - to the race, not the complete incompetence by the police during that event. Danny Mok in the SCMP reports that 5 drivers were arrested for "furious driving." Well, that's what the SCMP terms it. Creative translation? It now turns out that there were 20 cars in the race, not 14. And one thing that The Standard reported a day earlier than the SCMP - when the cops seized those 5 cars to create the roadblock, the drivers of those 5 cars were forced to remain in their cars. That's right, they had to sit there, watching 20 cars come at them and had to sit there as 6 cars plowed into their cars. There is no mention of any punitive actions being taken against the policemen involved in this.

Regarding the story a few months back of an Indonesian maid who put her own menstrual blood into food she was cooking for her employers to make them love her more or something, charges against that maid have now been thrown out of court after medical experts testified that fully cooked human blood, while "psychologically disgusting," was not poisonous. And since the helper had only been charged with serving a poisonous substance to her employers, she's not guilty.

Of course, if doing stupid stuff was against the law, we'd all be in jail, wouldn't we?

Going to Tokyo and Kyoto next week. Which means I'll be in Japan at the same time as this year's Fuji Rock Festival, probably the largest event of its kind in Asia.

It's tempting to go, but I've never been to Kyoto and this may be my last chance. And there are plenty of bands playing that I like, but none that make me jump out of my seat and scream, YES!!!!

But you may feel differently. Here are just some of the bands appearing:

Oasis, Paul Weller, Patti Smith, Lily Allen, Doves, Neville Brothers, Robert Randolph, Simian Mobile Disco, Peaches, Tortoise, System 7, Gong, Franz Ferdinand, Ben Harper, Public Enemy, Bad Brains, Gaslight Anthem, Dinosaur Jr, Bright Eyes, Trashcan Sinatras, Booker T, Eli "Paperboy" Reed, Weezer, Fall Out Boy, Royksopp, Animal Collective, Maximo Park, Wilko Johnson, Steve Nieve feat. Glenn Tilbrook, Juana Molina, Basement Jaxx.

Tempting, but not tempting enough - at least for me.

Seems to be a shortage of marvelously named Japanese bands this year. No "Bump of Chicken." But we do have (not really sure if these are Japanese or not, they're new to me) the wonderfully misspelled The Inspector Cluzo, the enticingly named Mass of the Fermenting Dregs, The Airborne Toxic Event, Billy Boy On Poison, 9mm Parabellum Bullet and (ahem) Holy Fuck.

Well, as Ian Hunter once sang, "It's a mighty long way way down rock 'n roll ... and you gotta stay young man, you can never be old."

Quick link to this post by Siu Yeh, Say No to Shark's Fin Soup, a sentiment that I strongly agree with. An excerpt:

1) Sharks Fin has no flavor and little nutritional value. The flavor of the soup is a result of chicken and pork stock. And recent studies have found high levels of mercury and methylmercury in shark fin above World Health Organization levels that can cause a variety of severe health problems in humans, including sterility in men, central nervous system problems and kidney diseases.

Note that his post includes some necessarily shocking photos.

How can you not love the HK police when they do things like this?

Monday night in Kwun Tong, in an attempt to stop some folks racing illegally at 2 AM, the cops stopped 3 taxis, a truck and a private car in order to create a roadblock. They've obviously been watching too many movies.

Of the 14 cars in the race, 6 smashed into the "roadblock" leaving 6 people injured.

Now, get the further efficiency of the HK police. Of the 6 cars that hit the road block, 3 made U-turns and drove off. These three cars were stopped a bit later but only two of the drivers were arrested because a third "assaulted police officers and fled." No word on what happened to the 8 drivers that didn't hit the roadblock - presumably they drove off scott free.

Why the cops didn't have trays filled with cream pies to throw at the offenders escapes me.

For the five people whose cars were commandeered by the fuzz, they may be SOL because, according to the head of the Taxi Drivers Association, cars may not be covered by insurance if they are damaged while being "loaned" to the police. Which means they'll have to claim damages from the police department and I'm sure that would be settled quickly.

As for the nimrods who came up with this nimble plan? Apparently nothing. The Police Commissioner says police will review their procedures. The SCMP reports, "The Independent Police Complaints Council said it had asked for information about police practice in such cases and would look into whether there were any faults or deficiencies that might lead to complaints. If any faults were found, the council would make recommendations to the police to rectify them."

It's good to be a cop.

In a separate article, one of the 3 taxi drivers reports that one cop told him that he was just following orders and the driver should complain with his commander.

=========================
And let's take note of two separate articles in today's SCMP:

"The swine flu virus is more virulent than previously thought and not similar to seasonal flu, scientists in the United States claim."

And

"Stringent swine flu policies for schools will be eased in the new academic year and the disease handled similarly to seasonal flu, the government decided yesterday."

I think no further comment is needed on that one.

Ah, technology. Where would we be without it? 600 frames per second - extreme slow motion. And what better use to put it towards than filming jiggling breasts. Jiggling Japanese breasts. Even the phrase trips tenderly off the tongue, doesn't it? Jiggling Japanese breasts. America doesn't stand a chance. (Dedicated to Skippy-san.)

Warning - the link above is SFW and you'll find the link to the actual clip there. The clip is also SFW but other stuff on the page is very NSFW.

Via Gizmodo, don't ask me how these guys did this. It covers Hong Kong island from Causeway Bay over to Kennedy Town or so, and the lower part of Kowloon. Tamar is shown when it still had the Ferris Wheel and other rides there. But it's still a Thing Of Beauty.

For those who have been following with baited breath please use some mouthwash I now have in my possession a Mophie Juice Pack Air (ugh what a name) in black.

My twice weekly Mandarin lesson is in Central and after it was finished, I thought I'd walk over to the IFC and stop into the "DG Lifestyle Store" just for the hell of it. And lo and behold, a whole big stack of them sitting there on the rack in all three colors. And while the shops in Wanchai Computer Centre had this for $680, DG was selling it for $628 - US$81 roughly. So it became a no-brainer - literally.

The sales clerk told me the stock had arrived at the store about 5 minutes before I got there. So for once, luck was on my side. Though I also had a chance to stop into Dymocks in IFC (got my 3rd book by Michael Freeman - "Night and Low Light Digital Photography") and then Chaip Coin magazine shop in Worldwide House before getting out of Central.

The MJPA fits around the phone nicely and doesn't increase the size by much. But it does seem to almost double the weight of the phone! The glossy plastic back seems just as prone to fingerprint smears as the iPhone itself.

The battery capacity, at 1200 mAh, is less than those of other 3rd party batteries, but they claim this is the extended use you can get from this:

which is more than enough for me. I'm in good shape for my Japan trip next week and a possible Australia trip next month - presumably if I wanna sit on the airplane and do crossword puzzles for 9 hours (no, I don't plan to do that), I won't need to worry about having some power once the plane lands.

New Entourage was okay. After 6 years, one doesn't expect any revolutionary changes and there were none, more of the same, but that's okay. And tonight, will stretch out with a new episode of Anthony Bourdain.

That's about all for now ....

Meant to comment on this bit in the SCMP yesterday, "Expat Voting Rights 'Worry Beijing'". The lead:

The right of non-Chinese nationals to vote and stand for election in Hong Kong is part of the "international influence" that is "troubling" to Beijing, a former mainland researcher for the Basic Law Committee argues.

Take out the word "nationals."

It will make implementing universal suffrage in the city more complicated, Cheng Jie, associate professor of law at Tsinghua University, believes.

Any port in a storm, any excuse in the book.

"Not only civil servants but also judges can be foreigners. This unique arrangement may have been a great mistake of the Basic Law ....

If you're not ethnic Chinese, doesn't matter if you were born here or if you've been here for more than a decade, you're a foreigner.

"Consequently, universal suffrage in Hong Kong would be more complicated than for nation states where only its own citizens are eligible for elections."

If you're not ethnic Chinese, becoming a citizen of Hong Kong is next to impossible - unless you're Allan Zeman.

In November 2003, the then chairman of the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment of Hong Kong, Tsang Yok-sing, sparked controversy among expatriates when he told a forum that the right of non-Chinese nationals to vote in Hong Kong was "rather dubious". He is currently president of the Legislative Council.

Take out the word "nationals."

"Foreign influences were noticed during the July 1 demonstration and in later elections," she wrote. The 500,000-strong march targeted both the Hong Kong and central governments, she noted.

"Foreign influences" most likely a euphemism for non-Chinese residents of Hong Kong.

"The surprisingly broad-based resentments illustrated by the protest brought an end to the central government's former laissez-faire policy, and called for new thoughts," Dr Cheng wrote.

Farewell one country, two systems.

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

Want a Hong Kong passport? From the Government's web site:

You are eligible to apply for a HKSAR Passport if you are:

• a Chinese citizen;

You are regarded as a person of Chinese nationality if you are a Hong Kong resident:

(a) of Chinese descent who was born in Hong Kong or other parts of China; or

(b) who fulfils the criteria of Chinese nationality in the Nationality Law of the People's Republic of China.

Article 7 Foreign nationals or stateless persons who are willing to abide by China's Constitution and laws and who meet one of the following conditions may be naturalized upon approval of their applications:

(1) they are near relatives of Chinese nationals;

(2) they have settled in China; or

(3) they have other legitimate reasons.

Good luck if you're not Allan Zeman. At least that's what I've been told. If I'm wrong, please tell me.

Just a weird day all around. Nothing huge, lots of small stuff leading up to a general feeling of ... I don't know what.

Last night not a lot of sleep, no particular reason, but I think I didn't fall asleep until after 4 and I was up around 9 this morning. After work, what will be my final visit to the chiropractor (insurance coverage for this has run out) - but I'm feeling 99% normal now (not that I'm claiming that I am 99% normal) so probably no need anyway.

Bought tix for the new Harry Potter film. Hong Kong only has 1 IMAX theatre (until some time in the future when a second one opens up at the ICC, I think). Even though it hasn't opened yet, the Harry Potter film is all but sold out on the IMAX screen for the next two weeks but managed to get some not horrendous seats two weeks in the future.

What really cheeses me off is UA Cinemas garbage web site (not gonna bother a link). Because I was trying to book last night at 1:30 AM. You go to the web site, choose the movie, choose the seats, enter your credit card information and ONLY THEN are you told that you can't book tickets online between 1 AM and 6:30 AM. What? They need to bring their system down for maintenance for 5 and a half hours every freaking night? Is their site not run by computers, it's run by a team of gerbils that are allowed to get off those wheels for a few hours late at night to catch their little gerbil breath? And they can't tell you about that sooner? Like as soon as you click on "Buy"? I think they must be partying in the office late every night, getting drunk, watching the screen, "Oho! Here comes another one! Wait .... wait .... wait .... gotcha!"

Anyway, some late afternoon trekking around to find the Mophie Juice Pack Air. If I wasn't sure that I wanted it before, the fact that I can't find it makes me crazy to have one. (Yes, I know, this is not rational.) It would appear that stock arrived on Friday or Saturday, only to sell out instantly. I went to Windsor House, Times Square and the Wanchai Computer Centre, all with no luck.

Took a look on Amazon, US$80. and it says "usually ships in 1 to 2 months." HK shops, when they had it (in white and purple but not black, the one I want, of course) were selling it for around US$85. It's on Ebay, where some guy has a "buy it now" price of US$100 - plus $35 for shipping to Hong Kong, so I ain't going that route. And the guy who's selling it for $90 won't ship internationally. It's also on the US Apple store - $80, ships in 3-5 days, but this is starting to be too much trouble.

Actually I've yet to run down the battery on the iPhone 3GS. I love the readout that shows percentage left on the battery (no idea how accurate it is or not). Everything, and I do mean everything, loads and runs noticeably faster than on the 3G. I'm very happy with it.

At least I accomplished something at Times Square, because there's a store-wide sale at Page One - 10% off any purchase, 20% over $300, 30% off purchases over $600. So I grabbed two books by Michael Freeman, one on HDR.

Hooked up with my gf, got some snacks that turned into an early dinner, and by the time we got home at 8, it was all I could do to make it upstairs and go to sleep. I woke up at 10:30, which knowing me means I'll be up for the rest of the night. (And no, it's not an especially clear night and this is one of those rare nights where there are no fishing boats anchored in the stretch of water in front of my house, so nothing to take pictures of.) My gf, meanwhile, seems to be out for the rest of the night. We were gonna watch Duplicity but I guess I'll have to be satisfied with the season premiere of Entourage.

Just took a look on Monster, where I uploaded a new CV last week. In one week, 350 views, not a single email or phone call. Sigh. (Yeah, I know, you're gonna say must be something wrong with my resume, but I've worked and reworked it dozens of times and I think it's pretty strong.)

All Things Digital's Quote of the Day led me to this bit on Huffington Post. Seems that Albert Hoffmann, the inventor of LSD, wrote a little letter to Steve Jobs in 2007 asking for help.

Dear Mr. Steve Jobs,

Hello from Albert Hofmann. I understand from media accounts that you feel LSD helped you creatively in your development of Apple computers and your personal spiritual quest. I'm interested in learning more about how LSD was useful to you.

I'm writing now, shortly after my 101st birthday, to request that you support Swiss psychiatrist Dr. Peter Gasser's proposed study of LSD-assisted psychotherapy in subjects with anxiety associated with life-threatening illness. This will become the first LSD-assisted psychotherapy study in over 35 years.

I hope you will help in the transformation of my problem child into a wonder child.

Sincerely,

A. Hofmann

HuffPo reports that after Jobs received the letter, he and Hofmann had a 30 minute conversation but that Jobs never donated any money to the cause.

Not that Jobs having tripped on acid is a huge surprise, but it does explain a lot though, doesn't it?

The SCMP, happy for an excuse to run the above photo (as am I!), reports that 30,000 people have signed an online petition asking that models be banned from the HK book fair.

The five young ladies shown above are featured in a book published by Sony called, ahem, Summer Blooming.

K.L. Chan, occupation not given but apparently an expert on literature, is quoted as saying:

... the albums were not proper books and the models sent the wrong message to young people. "These are not books. The models are likely to set bad examples to children, telling them that they can earn a lot even if they don't read enough."

So some paper bound together and featuring text and photos isn't a book? And, yes, around the world, good looking people can earn a lot even if they don't read enough. Sarah Palin, Britney Spears, Donald Tsang ....

But bikinis or not, some patrons want them barred. Isaac Cheung Chun-hoi, 18, who is organising the concern group, said sexing up the fair was indicative of a wider malaise.

"This is not just about the pseudo models. The book fair's quality is deteriorating and, in fact, many people are not happy with cultural matters," he said, pointing to concerns over the West Kowloon Cultural District. "We want to get more people involved to pay attention to this issue."

Mr Cheung said his group had 20 members and would meet for the first time tonight.

Twenty whole members? The Trade Development Council must be collectively trembling in their Crocs.

(And clearly the above is not a reference to Victor Isaac Cheung, famous HK blogger who is slightly older than 18 and if he organized a group, it would have far more than 20 people in it and most of those in the group would be wearing bikinis.)

Elsewhere, two lunatics university professors in Guangzhou have decided that Hong Kong is faced with a severe land shortage and the answer is:

.... reclaiming the waters between Lamma, Cheung Chau, Peng Chau and two smaller islands.

The reclamation would create 25 sq km of extra land - roughly the amount of built up land on Hong Kong Island, they say. The ambitious plan would cost HK$11.2 billion.

May I be the first to say to these lunatics professors, "Sod off!"

Elsewhere, the SCMP takes the bold step of trodding on the toes of Hong Kong's elite with two articles in the "Life" section. The first says that tap water may be healthier and safer than bottled water - the two major purveyors of bottled water in HK being Swire (Bonaqua) and Li Ka-Shing (Watsons). The second is an article that I cannot find online that finds that real estate advertisements and brochures might be misleading!

Oh brave new SCMP, nibbling at the hand that feeds you.

Okay, Sunday night, waiting for my computer to finish doing some stuff so I can reboot and go to sleep ... time for another rant!

Let me start off by saying that while I may be an aspiring foodie, I don't have a foodie's budget. Diary of a Growing Boy seems to eat gourmet tasting dinners with multiple wines every night but I can't.

And when we're going out at night, if we're not sticking around Sai Kung, more often than not we end up in Wanchai. A few simple reasons, starting with the fact that I can park for free here and that we both like the two bands at Amazonia. And in the past 18 months, I got into the habit of having a lot of meals at bars not because I liked the food but because you could sit there and smoke. It's more gourmand than gourmet (especially because it seems that everything on the menus at the Brit-style pubs is guaranteed to help you gain weight, clog your arteries and stop your heart) but the price is pretty cheap and some of these places actually seem to care about the food they're giving to you as well as the drinks.

You all read here about the mess at Trafalgar last week (didn't you?). The flip side of that, the only other place I'm going to name, is Doghouse. And I'm naming them because right now I can't have any alcohol and I've gotten used to waitresses and bartenders looking at me cross-eyed when I order a bottle of water in a bar. But in Doghouse, I was talking with one of the owners one night, and I apologized that I wasn't getting more than just a coke and he responded by saying, "that's all right, I'm happy just to see you back here again!" Now that's the kind of attitude all these places should have, right? Actually most of the places know me by sight if not by name. They know I'm a fairly regular customer. I don't expect preferential service but I also don't expect them to think they can slack off and treat me worse than an average customer either.

Earlier this week, in another Wanchai bar for dinner, I ordered a steak sandwich. Now when you get a steak sandwich, you may not expected imported Kobe beef but you would at least expect that you'd be able to pick this up and bite into it, right? But this piece of steak had so much gristle in it that I had to resort to opening up the bread, cutting around the gristle and putting what's left back onto the bread - and not an easy thing to do when you're given a knife that wouldn't cut through warm butter. Yes .... I should have complained there and then. But I didn't. Sometimes I'm that way. As we paid the bill, the manager asked how the food was and I told him that the steak had too much gristle to enjoy. Now if I was the manager of that place, I would have said, "sorry, your iced tea's on me!" And I would have left feeling a little bit better about it. Instead he peered at the plate with a quizzical expression as we left.

Saturday night, we couldn't work out what to eat. We ruled out Sabah because my gf had already had a curry for lunch. That also ruled out Thai Farmer. We weren't in a mood for Agave or Amici or the cheap 'n cheerful Beijing dumpling joint. My gf decided she wanted fish & chips, so we hit one of the, you guessed it, Wanchai bars.

We sat down, about half the tables were occupied, maybe more. We ordered our food at the same time. After awhile, they brought my plate out. I sat there picking at it while my gf kept saying, "Go ahead, don't wait for me." After five minutes, a waitress walked by and I asked her if she could see what happened to my gf's dinner. Nothing. Five more minutes and I asked another waitress where my gf's food was. All she had to do was say, "Sorry, let me check," and that would have at least made us feel better. Instead, she practically yelled at me. "The kitchen's very busy, everybody ordered at the same time." And walked away. Apparently it was my fault that I'd ordered two dishes at the same time and expected them to be prepared and served at the same time.

Finally, my gf's food arrived but she's more sensitive than I am and she'd lost her appetite. She picked at her food until I finished. When the waitress came by to clear the plates, she asked if we wanted another round of drinks. In truth, I would have been happy to order some more and hang out there for another hour or so. But looking over at my gf, I just asked for the bill. As soon as we got out the door she said to me, "Don't ever ask me to go there again. If you want to go there another time, I'll wait for you someplace else."

Look, I know this ain't 5 star hotel cuisine and service. I know you get what you pay for. But is it too much to ask people to at least be professional and courteous to the customers who are paying their salaries? Or is it a case where since there's relatively little tipping in HK, since waitresses don't have to work to get 20% out of you, they just don't give a damn?

The thing is, I don't completely blame the waitresses. Of course they're gonna do the minimum required and they know if they get kicked out of one place, there's 27 others that will hire them the next day. It starts with the owners, who set the standard. And continues on through the managers. You train your staff, they treat the customers well, the customers come back. Not rocket science, is it?

All right, I know, it's all a tempest in a teacup, isn't it? But I feel so much better for having written all that!

By the way, you know the corner of Lockhart and Luard, right? There's that Chinese place right on the corner, Hay Hay, open 24 hours, decent enough roast meats, noodles, eggs, other cha chan teng things, cheap & cheerful for decades. And in front, there's a newsstand. The guy who works the newsstand at night, round glasses, ponytail down to his waist, always remembers what magazines I buy and what cigarettes I smoke and always has a smile even when I walk by and I'm not buying something from him at that minute.

Thursday night, the newsstand was closed. And Saturday night, Hay Hay was closed as well. Closed for renovations? Forced out by 300% rent increases? No idea right now. Are we gonna end up with another 7-11 or Mannings or Starbucks in its place? Who's looking out for us? Apparently no one.

These are unretouched JPGs, not from the RAW file, just shrunk down the file size to make for quicker uploads/page loads. Please click on image to view full size

18mm, f/5.6, 1 second, ISO 400.


Same as above but 1.3 second exposure.


Same as above but 0.769 second exposure.



Same as above but 0.625 second exposure.

And so on and so on ...

So my question is - look at the lights on the boats. They're not single points of light, they're blurred and hazy, because they're so much brighter than everything else in the picture.

I'm not sure HDR is the answer here, because even in this shot below, stopped down to F18, if you look at it full sized - yes, it's better - but still not quite where I'd want them.


I guess stopped down all the way and an exposure time of around 1/60? But is there something else? Something easier? Tried using a polarizing filter because that's the only other thing I could think to do tonight but obviously that's not the answer. Some other kind of filter perhaps?

And yes, standing outside for 10 minutes to grab 35 variations on this shot at different settings, I think I got at least 35 mosquito bites!

Levon Helm, former drummer and singer with the legendary The Band, is 69 years old. After recovering from throat cancer, in 2007 he released his first solo album in 25 years, Dirt Farmer, and it was nice, and it won a Grammy.

Now he's back again with Electric Dirt, and I don't think it's an understatement to say that this stands shoulder to shoulder with his best work.


And if you don't believe me (or even if you do), watch this fabulous performance of "Tennessee Jed" on Letterman a couple of nights ago.

From here.

Taken with iPhone 3GS, not retouched/photoshopped/picasa'd/lightroomed

Far be it from me to bite the hand that feeds me (like that's ever stopped me in the past).

I bought the Blu-Ray edition of Watchmen today. I liked the movie enough and want to see the extended directors cut version. Three disc set - one disc movie, one disc bonus features, one disc "digital copy" (AKA waste of plastic). Didn't need the special edition from Amazon that comes in a huge plastic mock-up of Night Owl's flying thingie.

Only had a chance to watch some of it tonight, the first half, didn't really spot anything that seemed new - maybe a few shots here and there more graphically violent but no new scenes.

Thing is, you flip through the bits of paper in the box and you find .... "coming in December 2009, Watchmen Ultimate Collectors Edition." Five disc set, with an even more extended version of the film (they've edited in the Tales of the Black Freighter thing into the film itself) and even more bonus features. Oh and there's a discount coupon there in case you decide you wanna buy this.

So, you go out, you spend $30 or $40 bucks on this, bring it home, open it up .... and find out you should have waited another five months? Coupon or not, doesn't anyone realize how negatively this will be perceived? Had I known about this in advance, I would have happily waited to download a pirate 1080p copy off the internet and then maybe by December would have forgotten all about the movie.

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

(Oddly enough, all the spare space on my new iPhone makes me think ---- spend hours converting AVI files and DVDs to MP4 format? Or pony up some money for videos at the iTunes store? Ah, probably the former. I gots lots o' spare time these days.)

Yes, I did get my 32 gig black iPhone 3GS today. Here's what I figured - wrong or right. 3's upgrade price is actually cheaper than AT&T's in the US. I could have bought it outright from the Apple store online without extending my contract but I'm gonna need a contract with someone, right? And I'm happy enough with 3. So yes, I extended the contract by another 12 months and I'll just tell myself that I got a 1/3rd discount off the retail price.

My plan is to give my iPhone 3G to my gf and take back the iPhone 2G that I previously gave her and sell it off. But ... she's resisting. She says I should sell off the 3G one because I can get more money for that and, unlike me, she's happy enough with the older phone. We'll see.

I spent a lot of time - too much time - tonight going through my iTunes to see which music I want to carry around, now that I have all this extra space. I went through iTunes twice (170 gig on my PC) and so far have just come up with 14.5 gig of "essential." Which leaves me room for a couple dozen new albums and a bunch of videos. I love having the extra storage space.

But I haven't had enough time to really run the phone through its paces. I forgot how much time it takes to set up favorite numbers, ringtones, wallpaper, WiFi passwords, organizing all the app icons in some logical sense. Haven't even tried the camera yet! But with another typhoon approaching this weekend, I guess I'll have lots of time to work it out.

The bigger problem was that I got so involved with all this that I forgot I had a deadline today. Around midnight my editor dropped me a line to ask how it was coming. Oh shit!!!! But fortunately I've got two columns half-written, so just another hour or two to finish one of them off and fortunately my editor claims to have forgiven me.

Ah, two final "jokes" for the evening. A week has passed and my manager (not in the mood to call him "my boss") has not sent out the announcement of someone else taking over my job responsibilities in another 3 weeks. Were they having second thoughts? Could it be that on the last conference call when he couldn't understand a single word that guy said and I needed to step in and clarify/translate, he started to get a glimpse of his future and decided he didn't like what he saw? Or did he send it out and neglect to include me on the distribution list? That one would have been less of a surprise. However, the answer is far simpler - he forgot to send it and thanked me for reminding him.

Oh, how I almost wish I worked in Japan. And here's why. I have one team member in Japan who gives new meaning to the word "incompetent." I've wanted to fire him for several years, but the country manager and the HR department wouldn't let me. So now we're doing the global lay-offs and I find out this person's last day will be September 11th. I sit back and wonder if there is any special significance to that. I ask if there's been any fuss or noise. And I find out, no, he's not being fired or laid off or let go or whatever euphemism you care to use. After 9-11, he will no longer be a part of the MIS team. But the company has to find a new position for him in a different department. Because in Japan apparently you have to agree to be fired and bought off and if you don't agree, they can't do it, and this person knows he cannot find another job.

So if you wonder why Japan's economy has been in the toilet for decades, that's gotta be a clue.

The National Enquirer reports that 72 year old actor Morgan Freeman is marrying his 27 year old step-granddaughter. I think this makes Woody Allen look like a saint by comparison.

Something else I wanna mention and should develop more thoroughly but here's just a quick thing on it ..... Sacha Baron Cohen's "Bruno" opens in the US today. It looks outrageous and funny and of course I want to see it. I'm a huge fan. Cohen has now made feature films with all three of his best known TV characters - Ali G, Borat and now Bruno.

Ali G of course was a completely fictional film set in the UK. But with both Borat and Bruno, Cohen (and director Larry Charles) are out to use a faux documentary format to throw a spotlight onto prejudices that by all rights should no longer exist.

But the thing is, Cohen is British and the characters were originally developed for UK TV. So why are these two films set in America? Is it merely a commercial consideration - by setting the film in the UK it would not do as much box office in the US? Or is there something else, something more? Does he see something in the "character" of Americans that he doesn't see in Britons?

Just curious.

iPhone just delivered. Gotta go play.

A letter in the SCMP this morning from James Griffiths of Kennedy Town commences with the line, "I write to express my frustration at the smoking ban that is now in force in all bars in Hong Kong. " As a smoker myself, I can understand his frustration. For almost 2 weeks now, I have been forced to spend almost 30 seconds walking from my bar stool to the exit, to stand on the street by myself watching pretty girls walk past or striking up conversations with other smokers for several minutes while feeding my incessant nicotine addiction. The horror!

Mr. Griffith says, "I am a smoker and I know the risks involved. However, we live in a democracy (or a kind of democracy), where we can choose what to do as long as it does not affect or impact others around us." I wonder if he was drunk when writing that section?

"Why not give an option to bars to be smoking establishments. Perhaps a few of these bars could be designated in different parts of the city and they could pay a fee. " Think this through, James. Let's say there are 1,000 bars on HK island. Let's say the government decides to issue 50 licenses for smoking establishments. The 950 bars that don't get a license will surely not mind. They'll just quietly accept this and go about their business, won't they? And most of these bars serve food as well, but the surrounding 5,000 restaurants won't complain about any inequity either, right?

I have no doubt that any bar or restaurant that could legally allow smoking would be extremely popular. But I don't think the owners of these places want the government to be able to choose which ones of them are allowed to sanction smoking and which ones don't. And I wouldn't want that either. It's all or nothing at all as far as I'm concerned. It has to be a situation where there is either no choice or the choice is left up to the owner of the establishment. That is what you get in a "kind of democracy."

Mr. Griffiths says he will now stay home to drink and smoke, rather than going out. And then this bit: "This is a shame, because when I go out I spend at least HK$1,000 in a bar, maybe another HK$500 on food and HK$50 on taxis. " He spends $1,000 in a bar in a single evening just on drink? Assuming for the moment that money isn't being spent on commission drinks for women in Wanchai bars, he thinks his biggest problem is that he can't smoke in a bar? I think his liver must be happy for the vacation it's now getting.

In all seriousness, as a heavy smoker who has tried to quit unsuccessfully many times, the first thing I know is not to force my smoke on others. Secondhand smoke or not, I know that most non-smokers find it objectionable.

The second thing I know is that this ban will eventually be all but global and is not likely to be rolled back in Hong Kong or anywhere else. I don't think that arguing that the ban is inconvenient is likely to change anyone's mind. And I suspect that if Mr. Griffiths does indeed spend so much in a single night in a bar, he's not permanently going to switch to doing all his drinking at home. Give him a couple of weeks and he'll be right back out there again.

Let's just be thankful that we don't live in places like certain counties in California where even smoking at home - if you live in an apartment building - is illegal!

Okay, iPhone 3GS is online at Apple HK store now - $5,388 for 16 gig, $6,288 for 32 gig, unlocked, no contract required. What to do, what to do?

Yeah, I know the upgrade prices from 3 for the iPhone 3GS are every bit as insane as they are for AT&T in the US - and even a little bit more so, because 3 is charging different prices to users depending on which monthly service plan they're on. And yet, crazy me, I believe that one is being delivered to my office Friday afternoon.


The following photos taken from the roof deck of the car park at the Ocean Terminal Shopping Centre or whatever it's called. Pretty much your standard ranch stash and these are taken from the JPGs as I don't have the energy to play with Lightroom tonight.






The reason I was there? A good friend whose taste in food I trust 1,000% is now at the Marco Polo Hongkong Hotel and insisted that I should try their Italian restaurant, Cucina.

Here's a thing of beauty - their veal chop. This may well be the best veal chop I've ever eaten. In the background you can see truffle mashed potatoes - I'm told that last week a New York-based food critic said these were the best mashed potatoes he's had in his entire life, and I think I could say the same.



All of the desserts are deconstructed oddities with so many ingredients that I can't recall any of them. This one is called "bubble tea."



And "mango," the one I had. (That's not a banana in the center, it's some kind of pudding or custard.)


I am gonna have to go back there soon, not just because I enjoyed this meal so damned much but because of something else I spotted on the menu. Unless memory completely fails me, it was pork belly basted in apple cider and slow roasted for 72 hours. It's only available on Fridays and I am certain my gf will go gonzo for it.

So, anyway, Cucina is immediately adjacent to the car park deck, which means an amazing view from the restaurant and then just step outside for even more. Lots of people go up there and line up with cameras on tripods to shoot the 8 PM light show and just the view in general. Naturally I wasn't carrying my tripod but couldn't resist taking some shots. In order to be able to shoot handheld, 1/30th of a second, ISO got boosted up to 1600. So just one of many, taken from the JPG, not the RAW file, but you get the idea. I think I'll be back there again, with tripod, next time there's a clear night AND I feel up to dealing with TST traffic.



Almost forgot ... given the time of year, lots of high school students (or their parents?) rented out some of the private function rooms at the hotel for graduation parties. The women were all done up, make-up and hair as if for wedding photos, formal-ish dresses that mostly were short, not long. And I guess they're legal age and many of them looked so damned hot but they also looked so young. No, I didn't stand around in the hallway trying to take pictures of them. I just smiled watching them having so much fun on their big night.

So the iPhone 3GS goes on sale in Hong Kong tomorrow at 3's shops. Here is the pricing plan for new customers, taken from 3's web site.


The two lines in green are for existing customers who want to upgrade. Extend your contract by 12 months, no further details on pricing. So I called the hotline and they couldn't tell me yet - they said they would call me back.

The HK online Apple store is one of the few, maybe only, places in the world to buy an unlocked iPhone (at full price) from Apple with no contract required. They have not updated their 3GS page yet. Perhaps 3 gets a small window of exclusivity before Apple puts it on general sale.

When I got my iPhone 3G a year ago, I did it at work via 3's corporate sales and got a small discount. Trying to find out from that guy if the same will apply if I want to upgrade now. And again got a response of "will let you know."

I'm really hoping to have one of these monsters in my hands tomorrow. The faster speed and the increased storage size are enough to make the upgrade worthwhile for me. My gf will get my iPhone 3 and I'll sell off the iPhone 2 that I previously gave her.

Well, I'm still learning my way through Adobe Lightroom. So many, too many options there. And it seems as if each time I return to a photo, I "develop" it slightly differently. I suppose that as I get more experienced with it, I'll develop something resembling a style.

Anyway, I was going kind of nuts last night because it was a full moon over the sea, and I wanted to capture a shot of the moon in the upper right corner, the lit up villages along the coast in the lower left corner.

Those of you with far more experience than I know what I ran into. A full moon is much brighter than you realize. So despite trying all sorts of combinations of F stops, shutter speeds, ISOs, I ended up with shots where the moon was relatively well exposed and you couldn't see the villages, or you could see the villages and the moon was a giant white blob. I suppose the answer is to do this in stages - two separate pics photoshopped together - yet I think there must be some way to capture this in one photo. Which means I'm either up against my limitations as a photographer or up against the limitations of my camera.

I finally settled on this shot of the villages along the coast.



11:42 PM, 46mm, 2 seconds at f/4.5, ISO 1600. And that last bit means some noise, duh. Because I had the ISO set to auto, duh. Next clear night like this I'll drop the ISO down to 400, 600, 800, and go for longer exposures. But this shot has nice detail, check out the full sized version.

And in the morning, a gorgeous sunrise.

5:35 AM, 12mm, ISO 200, 1/40 second at f/3.8. Played around a bit in Lightroom to restore the pinkish red on the clouds. Click on the photo for the full sized version, it looks nicer than the thumbnail above.

Well, if the best way to improve as a photographer is to just keep on taking picture after picture, that's what I'm doing.

Tips and comments always welcomed. (Luke, thanks for the reminder to clean my sensor. I really need to clean my monitor and get it more properly calibrated.)

We've all got our guilty pleasures in music, right? Abba, Michael Jackson, Monkees ... Leonard Bernstein was a fan of the New York Rock & Roll Ensemble fer crissakes.

So I loves me some Lady Gaga. I suspect that most of my readers either hate her or just don't know who she is. And with just one hit album so far, of course it's too soon to know if we'll even remember her in five years. But I think she's the Madonna of the 00's. My pulse quickens a little bit every time I hear "Just Dance" - even though I've heard it dozens, if not hundreds of times by now. It's consummate pop music.

And whether you think she's a beauty or a buttaface, her public fashion sense makes a statement. Half the time she just completely cracks me up with some of the stuff she steps out in. Like this pic, grabbed from Celebitchy:



And I quite like the gallery over at Bastardly, from which I grabbed these two shots:



And if you wanna see her full-on topless, check this out over at Inquisitr.

I hope she sticks around.

Or maybe I'm just not getting enough sleep these days.

Gmail is finally out of beta!!!!!!

Ah yes, every night hanging out with the stars. Tonight we were having dinner with Uncle Ray and Maria Cordero dropped by to say hi.

So first test of new lens. Shot on tripod with remote release, but a little tripod movement when switching lenses. Still, you get the idea.

This is with the new 10-24mm, at 10mm:


And this is the 18-200mm, at 18mm:



Since Nikon also has a 12-24mm lens (f4 throughout the zoom range, as opposed to this one that runs f/3.5-4.5), I did this comparison, both shots on the new lens.

This is at 12mm:

And this is at 10mm:

So yeah, even those extra 2mm do make quite a difference.

Click on images for larger size (if you care).

Well, not sleeping yet.

CompuServe has finally shut down. And a tear comes to my eye. From here:

The original CompuServe service, first offered in 1979, was shut down this past week by its current owner, AOL. The service, which provided its users with addresses such as 73402,3633 and was the first major online service, had seen the number of users dwindle in recent years. At its height, the service boasted about having over half a million users simultaneously on line. Many innovations we now take for granted, from online travel (Eaasy Sabre), online shopping, online stock quotations, and global weather forecasts, just to name a few, were standard fare on CompuServe in the 1980s.

CompuServe users will be able to use their existing CompuServe Classic (as the service was renamed) addresses at no charge via a new e-mail system, but the software that the service was built on, along with all the features supported by that software, from forums for virtually every topic and profession known to man to members’ Ourworld Web pages, has been shut down. Indeed, the current version of the service’s client software, CompuServe for Windows NT 4.0.2, dates back to 1999.

CompuServe members can convert their existing addresses to the new e-mail system at the CompuServe Mail Center.

Compuserve was a massive, all-inclusive online environment long before the WWW and the internet because a public resource. Compuserve was my first gateway to the world. I was actively involved in helping to manage two of its online forums (Rocknet and Consumer Electronics Forum). I made friends online there that I still have to this day.

Compuserve was eventually eclipsed by AOL's more aggressive marketing techniques. AOL bought them out many years back.

R.I.P. Compuserve 1979-2009

You served us well.

Well, that's just me. And I suppose I need shopaholics anonymous or something, but, as we addicts always say, "later, I'll start tomorrow, I can stop any time."

See, I want to get the Mophie Juice Pack Air for my iPhone. There's several reasons I want this particular one. It fits all around the phone, top and bottom. It has an on/off switch, so you can decide when to suck energy out of it. And it will fit the iPhone 3GS, which I assume will some day be sold in HK, but just try to get 3 to tell you when.

So it came out in the US in April. I didn't want to order it from the US. Since the company has an HK distributor, I figured it would hit here eventually. And it's finally started showing up this month.

But of course, for the past two months, every time I went out to the shops, I'd look to see if they had it yet. And also of course, the staff in these shops have almost no clue about what they're selling or what's available. "I see you have the Mophie Juice Pack. Do you have the Juice Pack Air?" They'd run off to the computer and go look. After 5 minutes they'd come back and tell me no. "Do you know when you'll get them?" I'd ask and for some reason they'd always answer, "Okay."

Then I was in the DG Lifestyle shop in Times Square on Friday and they had it in stock, but only in white. Then in the Wanchai computer mall today, one shop had it in stock, but only in purple. I want black. I was in Causeway Bay so stopped into Windsor House and no one had it in stock, not even DG (who are supposed to be their HK authorized retailer). Sigh.

Still in Windsor House, I went to a camera shop because last week I saw a Kata bag there that I thought I wanted. I didn't have my camera with me that day. I had it with me today. And of course now it's sold out in that shop. (Do I want to go to TST to get this? Maybe.)

I was feeling so frustrated that instead of congratulating myself on not spending any money, when I spotted the Nikon 10-24mm lens on the shelf, I asked if I could take a look at it. Popped it onto my camera. Took some test shots. Zoomed in on the screen to look at the results and they were nice. Added bonus - the price they quoted right off the bat was the lowest price as listed in E-Zone magazine and also on YG Billy's web site, $6,980. (And not the $8,000 price quoted by every shop in Times Square on Friday - yes, I know, I should know better than to shop there. But I was already there for City Super and Page One.) And to make it absolutely irresistible, the shop was willing to do the HSBC 12 month no interest installment plan. So yeah, I bought it.

(The reason I went with the Nikon over Sigma or Tokina or Tamron? I read a lot of reviews online of all. And all said basically the same thing - that if it's sharpness you're after, the Nikon wins hands down. They all questioned if it was worth the extra money, as the 3rd party lenses are selling in the $4-5,000 range. But I believe I'm with Nikon for life and so I'm building a lens collection meant to last and the investment will be worth it in the long run.)

Tomorrow I'll start shooting with it, do some wide scenic vista landscape shots. Actually I should shoot tonight - clear night with full moon, pop the camera on the tripod, go outside, get some shots. But I'm freaking exhausted and I just don't have an hour to really play around with different settings and fill up the memory card to see what works. There will be other nights. I am going to sleep ..... now!

Who says there ain't no free lunch? For reasons that I won't go into, I had an offer for a free lunch at Dakota Prime. And today I took them up on it. So, since I was getting comped, up to you if you want to factor that in to the rest of what I've got to say.

Their basic 3 course set lunch menu is $198 and, for what you get, appears to be quite reasonable. My friend started with black pepper prawns with sundried pineapple jicama salad and followed that with the grilled USDA prime 8 ounce flat iron steak, served with mash and veggies.

I decided I didn't want to eat 3 courses so looked at the bottom of the menu, where the sandwiches are, and thought I'd try the reuben, as I'd read about it elsewhere. But then the hostess also insisted that I should try their lobster bisque and I can see why they're proud of it, it was quite nice. Although the reuben wasn't piled as high as you'd get in a New York deli and I think the corned beef might have been a little more tender, otherwise all the tastes were there and it was probably the most authentic reuben I've had in Hong Kong. Served with fat cut chips that were proper ones - seriously crispy on the outside, all potato-y inside. After the soup, I couldn't finish more than half the sandwich and got the other half (and the rest of the chips) wrapped to take home. If I didn't like it, I would not have asked to take the leftovers with me.

The dessert was mango cheesecake - a light, fluffy sort of cheesecake, not the New York variety. My friend, who is not from New York, was wishing it was New York style. Me, from New York? I practically inhaled it, it was quite nice.

I came away thinking that the lunch menu (heavier on non-beef choices) is a pretty good value for HK considering what you get. And I wanna go back and try the Kobe beef burger with cheddar cheese and applewood smoked bacon which looked pretty nice and seemed reasonable at $148.

Dinner's probably a whole different story. At the budget end of the scale is USDA Prime grain fed beef, with a 14 ounce ribeye going for $495. There's a 35 ounce bone-in Porterhouse Rangers Valley for $980. And at the top end of the scale, how do you feel about Japanese 100% Full Blood Wagyu Beef A-5 Kagoshima Prefecture Bms 9-12 12 ounce ribeye for $1,600?

Now, I won't say that my palate is the best in the world. I am pretty darned sure I could tell the difference blindfolded between a $150 steak from Outback, a $300 steak from Wooloomooloo and one of the high end steaks here. Could I tell the difference between a $925 American kobe beef ribeye and the $1,600 Japanese one? I don't know.

There's also an oyster bar, a good selection of fish and shellfish including live Boston lobster at $85 per 100 grams (so $1,700 for a roughly 2 pounder), and the top item on the menu is Russian Caspian Golden Oscietre (wild) caviar at $2,455 for 30 grams.

But the small "chilled seafood mountain" for two, with oysters, clams, crayfish, prawn cocktail and crab & shrimp ceviche is a reasonable $288 - plus $375 if you want to add on a chilled Boston lobster or Alaskan king crab legs.

So, overall? I think if I worked in the area this could be a regular lunch spot for me (regular meaning once a week or so). Emphasis on the word "work" because I won't be having dinner there until my employment future is more certain. But I did enjoy it and will happily return.

So, 4th of July, in Shenzhen with my gf and another friend.

We started off at Lee Yuen restaurant in the Luo Hu Mall for dim sum. We were super hungry after getting through immigration and didn't want to waste time scouting around - the mall is right there and this place could seat us right away. About 10 plates of reasonably okay stuff (didn't take pictures) and several cokes came out to Y239. No complaints on that.

Later, from the men's toilet on the 4th floor of the mall, I noticed that on the Hong Kong side there are these graveyards facing the river and Shenzhen. Shot through a window but you get the drift.




Lots of Chinglish signs around but I didn't always have the camera handy. And I was shooting in full program mode, no flash, to get the shots and not get noticed, so several are blurrier than I'd prefer. But one time that I did slow down, two guys ran up and asked if one could take a picture of the other with me. I'm a New Yorker at heart and this is Shenzhen and I had this image of handing the camera to one guy and watching the two run off with the camera so I respectfully declined their generous offer .... (and I had my small Canon with me, not my Nikon DSLR of course).

Discount pomotion?


"Full plus one free service charge" I don't have a clue.


After lunch and a bit of shopping, we headed back to the ground floor of the train station to check out the sauna deals. We chose a place called Gold Coast Sauna, in the Luo Hu district, and after a short wait jumped in the van for a free ride over. (We didn't opt for the place that we were told had a "30,000 square foot swimming pool" because we didn't have bathing suits and I'm sure my friend misheard the size of the thing. But maybe next time.)

This place was great. New, clean as a whistle, not too busy, cheap enough. The basic package is a 100 minute "Chinese" massage, no oil, for Y118. If you want oil, which we all did, then you had to opt for the "Turkish" massage, 100 minutes at Y198, getting towards the pricey side. They also offered Thai, Indian and several other international varieties at increasing prices. Their "menu" was bilingual and they had one staff member in the lounge who spoke English.

Their pool had these great jacuzzi chairs to lie in and these little waterfall things to stand under, plus of course steam room, sauna, all the usual bits. In the lounge, the two ladies opted for foot massage while I went for the deep ear cleaning as I always do. Iced tea, plates of fruit, ice cream cones (not for me, sadly) all included. The massage was great. My masseuse had whiter skin than I did! I was convinced she was going to tell me she was from Dalian or Harbin, but she turned out to be from Guilin.

Following the massage, we took advantage of the 1 hour free internet, checked out the ping pong and pool tables and video game room, took a peek at the restaurant and found the "movie theater" - projection TV showing DVDs in a room with huge reclining chairs. Some more coffee and tea, another shower and then off.

So after all this, including the foot massages, ear cleaning, a pack of smokes and tips, it came out to around Y350 per person. Which is what I pay for a 90 minute massage (not including tips) in Wanchai where all you get is a massage (albeit a really good one) and a drink.

A friend had recommended a Sichuan restaurant called Ba Shu Feng, which has 5 branches in Shenzhen, including one in Luo Hu. We hopped into a taxi and he didn't recognize the street name (Ai Guo Lu), but when we told him the name of the restaurant, he knew exactly where we were going.

Here's the entrance.


The interior of the restaurant is done to resemble an old-style Chinese house and courtyard, and they even had this huge fake tree off to one side. The restaurant had four floors. We ate on the ground floor which was full and saw people coming and going from the elevator and stairs pretty constantly. The restaurant has a bilingual picture menu.


Pouring the water for the tea. (Yes, I loved the smiley face buttons on all the staffs' uniforms. Was the owner a big fan of the Watchmen movie?)

And this was some great tea! Just look at all the various things that I have no idea what they were that are sitting in that cup. And even though I'd ordered a Coke, I quickly discovered that this tea did a seriously better job of cooling my mouth down from the spicy food, so the Coke went untouched the rest of the meal. And each time I emptied my cup of tea, okay a little corny, I kept thinking, where is Mr. T? I pity the fool who don't refill my teacup fast! No, no, I didn't say it out loud.


A simple yet hearty and spicy soup with tofu, tomato and mushroom. We also had a starter of cold chicken and bamboo shoots in Sichuan oil (starter? there was enough there to feed a family of four!) but I forgot to take a picture of it because I was too busy soaking the bits of chicken in that hot oil and wolfing them down.


Ah, my favorite chicken dish. Spicy as hell but also tasty as fuck and we made pretty quick work of this. Behind it you can see sliced asparagus quick fried in oil.


Ah, the bowl of beef and veggies. This beef was melt-on-your tongue tender.


And some stir fried crab. This was the most expensive dish we ordered at Y62. We also got some dan dan mian (no picture) and I gotta tell you, the noodle itself was nothing special but the sauce was one of the best I'd ever had.


And a quick shot of the table as we were shoving the food into our mouths as fast as we could.

My gf loves spicy food. Sometimes I think she pours an entire bottle of tabasco on a slice of pizza. She'd never had anything approaching real Sichuan food before and she was sweating like crazy after just a few minutes. Oh yes, she wants to go back.

Meanwhile, she thinks that I don't eat spicy food, so she was amazed to see me packing this stuff away as fast or faster than she was. Yeah, it was pretty spicy, but so many other flavors as well, I kind of got high because I was loving this meal so much. (Which explains my Mr. T remark, okay?)

So .... tofu soup, cold chicken & bamboo shoots, spicy fried chicken, beef, stir fried crab, asparagus, dan dan mian, coke, beer. How much did all this cost? How about Y232? Yep. What's that, about US$30?

And yes, it cost less than our dim sum lunch - which of course is also because we had the lunch in the Luo Hu Mall and this dinner was in a "normal" location.

Taxi back to the train station and home by midnight. Next time maybe we'll go up on a Friday night, get dinner first, spend the night in the sauna, and then can spend Saturday shopping till we drop. Next time. Maybe.

Hey baby! It's the 4th of July! I'm celebrating by going up to Shenzhen today for a massage and maybe some Sichuan food. It's been at least a year and a half since my last visit. I don't imagine much has changed.

Woke up to the news that Sarah "Boom Boom" Palin, governor of a state whose citizens are so bored they'll vote for the biggest idiot for entertainment value, has quit her job. In her resignation speech she mumbled something about preferring to be a lame fuck instead of a lame duck.

Back in Hong Kong, the SCMP reports that one supermarket chain, Ka Hing, is getting around the plastic bag levy by not selling items that require the levy. Rather than continuing to sell unimportant crap that people don't need like, um, medicine, they've taken it off their shelves. So now they don't have to charge 50 cents per plastic bag. Which is further proof that the law was poorly thought out, improperly written and poorly presented to the citizens of our little SAR, who of course have no say whatsoever in the establishment of laws.

And ya know, writing the previous paragraph on this auspicious date does make one think back to the founding fathers who decided that taxation without representation (and perhaps other less politically correct motivating factors) was a no-go and then did something about it. I'm certainly not suggesting a revolution - that's a no-win scenario for all involved. And whereas England in 1776 had Mad King George, I think the leaders of China are quite sane. We've got Mad King Donald, but that ain't quite the same thing, is it?

I stand by my assertion that Hong Kong has a lack of charismatic leadership on the pan Democratic front, someone who can convincingly present the case and move the hearts and minds of the people. (And no, don't tell me about Long Hair. He's not The One.) There's no Abraham Lincoln, no Franklin Roosevelt, no Barack Obama. There's no Bob Dylan singing protest songs, just Cantopop. Does anyone think that China is just going to hand democracy to Hong Kong on a silver platter? I think not.

So, here's X's classic 4th of July:

She's waitin' for me
when I get home from work
oh, but things ain't just the same
She turns out the light
and cries in the dark
won't answer when I call her name

On the stairs I smoke a
cigarette alone
Mexican kids are shootin'
fireworks below
Hey baby, it's the Fourth of July
Hey baby, it's the Fourth of July

She gives me her cheek
when I want her lips
but I don't have the strength to go
On the lost side of town
in a dark apartment
we gave up trying so long ago

On the stairs I smoke a
cigarette alone
Mexican kids are shootin'
fireworks below
Hey baby, it's the Fourth of July
Hey baby, it's the Fourth of July

What ever happened I
apologize
so dry your tears and baby
walk outside, it's the Fourth of July

On the stairs I smoke a
cigarette alone
Mexican kids are shootin'
fireworks below
Hey baby, it's the Fourth of July
Hey baby, Baby take a walk outside

And John Mellencamp's Pink Houses:

There's a black man with a black cat
Living in a black neighbourhood
Hes got an interstate runnin through his front yard
You know, he thinks that he's got it so good
And there's a woman in the kitchen cleaning up the evening slop
And he looks at her and says: hey darling, I can remember when you could stop a clock

Oh but ain't that America for you and me
Ain't that America something to see baby
Ain't that America, home of the free
Little pink houses for you and me

Well there's a young man in a t-shirt
Listening to a rock 'n roll station
He's got a greasy hair, greasy smile
He says: lord, this must be my destination
cuz they told me, when I was younger
Boy, you're gonna be president
But just like everything else, those old crazy dreams
Just kinda came and went

Oh but ain't that America for you and me
Ain't that America were something to see baby
Ain't that America, home of the free
Little pink houses for you and me

Well there's people and more people
What do they know know
Go to work in some high rise
And vacation down at the Gulf of Mexico
Ohhh yeah
And there's winners, and there's losers
But they ain't no big deal
cuz the simple man baby pays for the thrills,
The bills and the pills that kill

Oh but ain't that America for you and me
Ain't that America were something to see baby
Ain't that America, home of the free
Little pink houses for you and me

And finally, Bob Dylan, it's still as true today as it was 47 (!!!!) years ago:

How many roads must a man walk down
Before you call him a man?
Yes, 'n' how many seas must a white dove sail
Before she sleeps in the sand?
Yes, 'n' how many times must the cannon balls fly
Before they're forever banned?
The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind,
The answer is blowin' in the wind.

How many years can a mountain exist
Before it's washed to the sea?
Yes, 'n' how many years can some people exist
Before they're allowed to be free?
Yes, 'n' how many times can a man turn his head,
Pretending he just doesn't see?
The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind,
The answer is blowin' in the wind.

How many times must a man look up
Before he can see the sky?
Yes, 'n' how many ears must one man have
Before he can hear people cry?
Yes, 'n' how many deaths will it take till he knows
That too many people have died?
The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind,
The answer is blowin' in the wind.

So after a week filled with bad news for me, one final bit to end the week. Though I suppose in this case some would see it as good news.

See, a year ago, when I first got word that the company would be drastically scaling back in the region, I predicted that I would be gone at some point thereafter, and that's proven to be true.

Why did I choose to stay? Well, first and foremost, because none of the opportunities that came my way were that interesting. And second, because I was hoping that when the time came for them to dump me, there would be a golden parachute, which has proven to be true.

I also correctly predicted who would replace me. Knowing which territories were shutting down, which were remaining, it was easy to predict which one of my staff would get the nod - someone already in one of those remaining territories, so they wouldn't have to pay relocation costs. And someone whom they thought would be capable of doing my job - although I don't believe he is.

The thing is - even though my last day is November 1st, this guy will be taking over my position on August 1st. "So what do I do for three months?" I asked my boss. "Um, er, uh, ah, help him out if he needs anything?" So you can tell they thought that through about as well as they think anything through in this company.

Of course, one way to look at it is to say that for three months I will continue to get paid and have nothing to do except fill out my time sheet on Monday mornings. And I probably don't need to go into the office. Mobile phone, Blackberry, VPN - what little I have to do I can do just as easily from home or from Timbuktu as there. I can focus in on making plans, doing a job search or writing a business plan for a start-up, and I can do it all while sitting at home in my underwear and chain smoking.

But for reasons that I just can't (or maybe don't want to) put into words, the whole thing pisses me off. And since I can't drink, the only thing I do when I'm pissed is I shop. A thousand bucks at City Super today on pata negra and cheeses and sun dried tomatoes and they even had ONE package of Hebrew National hot dogs. And next week if I'm still in a lousy mood I'll probably pop for that Nikon lens.

Anyway ........

Latest issue of BC Magazine is out. My latest column, a review of Neil Young's Archives Volume 1 can be found here.

And my second feature article for the mag, a look back at the Beatles concerts in Hong Kong in 1964 combined with an interview with Uncle Ray is here.

The pic at the top of the article is mine, too. Here's another shot from that evening at RTHK's studios.

A plea for tolerance?


As always, so many more good ones here, I wanted to post them all.

First, quick question for camera folks out there.....

As you may know, my main camera is the Nikon D300. So far I've got just one lens, the 18-200mm Nikon zoom, which is a splendid lens indeed. But I think I could also do with a wide angle zoom lens. And going to Tokyo and Kyoto in a couple of weeks, I think such a lens might come in awfully handy. I've never been to Kyoto and odds are this will be my one and only time to go there.

Nikon makes a 10-24mm f/3.5-4.5 zoom that's been seriously well reviewed but sells in HK for around HK$7,000. Checked around a bit and Tokina has 12-24mm f/4 zoom that's been well reviewed and sells for around HK$4,200. You don't get the Nikon Silent Wave motor but the Tokina's said to be pretty sharp. So, do I look to save $3,000 bucks? Or if I buy the Tokina, will I find myself 3 months down the line selling it off and buying the Nikon anyway?

Anyone?

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

Dinner tonight was just plain weird. In Wanchai, in search of someplace different, a friend and I decided to give Trafalgar a try. Trafalgar is a new British style sports pub located on the 5th floor of a building along Lockhart Road. The space used to be the home of an Indonesian restaurant, Dirty Duck aka Bebek Bengil (spelling?).

I know what you're saying. Wanchai already has Devil's Advocate, White Stag, Delaney's, Bull & Bear, Doghouse (Bulldogs is now closed), why would it need another place like that?

For starters, their spot has a huge outdoor balcony. Where you can smoke. And they have a couple of projection TVs aimed at the walls on the buildings on either side, so you can sit there, eat, drink, smoke and get your sports fix. Take a look:



(Oddly, this projector doesn't seem to have keystone adjustment; the one pointed at the wall behind me does.)

The food though is something else again. Example? We were handed two menus with color photos on the front. My friend pointed at one photo and asked what that dish was. The waitress explained it and then further explained that they don't have that dish, "it's a concept dish." Yeah, that's right. Their menu has pictures of food on it that they don't serve.

Also on the front, immediately underneath, were pictures of three daily specials. Thursdays is Pie & Pudding Day, so we asked what the choices for today were. They don't have that either. They're revamping the menu, this is the old menu, the new one will be ready soon. Sigh.

I went with an old favorite, shepherd's pie. I should have guessed I was in trouble when the waitress told my friend which dishes the chef recommends from the menu and she didn't mention shepherd's pie. "Mine's no good?" "Oh, no, that's good too." I should have changed my order.

Anyway, my pie came. In an oval bowl, relatively standard. Let's say the bowl had a height of 1.5 inches. 1.4 inches of that was potato. Good potato. Real potato. Lumpy and fresh. Could have used a bit more salt and definitely in need of more cheese. Under neath that potato, there was about 0.1 inches of meat, sauce and diced carrots. Tasty enough for what little there was of it. On the side? A few sprigs of lettuce. Not terribly inspiring.

I should mention that my friend, much wiser than I, went with one of the dishes the waitress had pointed to. He got liver and onions. And he loved it. He was wiping the plate clean. On the other hand, aside from the liver, onions, gravy and mash, there was no veg at all on the plate, just some lettuce. I suppose that's British MALE style, no veg. But with my new diet regime, veg is now important to me.

(Last night my gf and I had dinner at Firenze, an Italian restaurant in Sai Kung that's quite decent even if a bit odd - owned and managed by an Indian family, the chef is Indian as well. I ordered these grilled king prawns and was thrilled that there was lots of roasted veg on the plate - zuccini, eggplant, broccoli, red & yellow peppers. I remarked to my gf how tasty the yellow pepper was. And then I stopped dead in my tracks. Because I used to be the kind of guy who'd push the veg aside and maybe have a little at the end if I still had room. But the new thinner healthier me loves this stuff now.)

Oh, the guy at the table behind us, he'd ordered one of the Indian dishes from the menu. Smelled quite okay. But the menu said it came with naan and when his plate arrived, there was no naan to be seen. The waitress said they don't have any naan. He said that the menu said it comes with naan. She said they never have any naan but she could bring him a few slices of white bread. And he went with that. Me, I woulda told her to keep the food under the heat lamp and then run downstairs and at least get some pita from Ebeneezer, right next door.

Anyway, you wanna drink, you wanna watch sports, you wanna sit outside and smoke, Trafalgar is a great choice. With the food, it seems to be really hit and miss. Perhaps things will improve once they get their "revamped" menu on the tables.

Took this picture back in April, forgot I had it till today.

Before my nap (!), want to share this NY Times article with you about the perfect burger. Because this caught my eye and it makes so much sense and I can't wait to try it at home:

There’s a lot you can learn from a man who’s griddled thousands of burgers. Michael David, executive chef at Comme Ça brasserie in Los Angeles, had already earned his burger stripes on the team that developed Mr. Boulud’s French-American DB Burger.

At Comme Ça, Mr. David finally nailed the consummate burger on the 11th try.

The genius of his Comme Ça burger is that it is consistently juicy, perfectly seasoned and precisely medium-rare. The patty is charred on the outside and rosy pink from edge to edge.

It is a radical improvement on what most people already do, but it’s not much more complicated. His trick is to treat the burger the way many chefs do a steak.

He puts a good hard sear on both sides using his plancha, the freight train of flat tops, then transfers it to a 375-degree oven to finish cooking. After it comes out, there’s a built-in resting period while he toasts the buns and makes a last-minute lettuce salad.

His method translates to an amazing amount of flexibility. Home cooks who don’t have a plancha can sear the meat either on a grill or on the stovetop in a cast-iron skillet. It works equally well for one or two people, or for a crowd, because you can sear in batches.

The final cooking works beautifully in a toaster oven as well as a regular oven. Or, if you have an outdoor grill that is as large as some people’s kitchens, you can simply move the burgers to a cooler spot once they’ve been charred.

Oh, and after that, take a peek at these movie trailers -

The Road - based on the Cormac McCarthy book, starring Viggo Mortensen, Charlize Theron and Robert Duvall.

Pressure Cooker - audience fave at film festivals, a documentary about inner city kids vying for college scholarships in cooking.

Shutter Island - Looks like Martin Scorsese has made a horror film, of course with Leonardo DiCaprio ... and Max Von Sydow!!!!!

Okay, so it's 12 years since Hong Kong "returned" to the "Motherland." The newspapers report that China is "nervous" about the expected size of the annual democracy march planned for today. And yeah, I confess, I'm a bit nervous about China being nervous. No, I don't expect to see PLA tanks cruising down Nathan Road any time soon. I expect that after Donald Tsang, whose sole accomplishment was making Tung Chee Hwah look good, China will give us someone even more hopelessly incompetent to make us long for the days of Sir Bow Tie.

I'll say this - normally it rains in HK on June 30 and July 1. This year we have the bluest skies I've seen in Hong Kong in recent memory. It's gorgeous out there. And I think it will result in an even larger turnout for the march than usual.

As for me, I'm spending the day off at home. And it's a day of peace for me, because my gf's friends are visiting her. There's a troop down in the kitchen cooking, eating and chattering non-stop in Tagalog. It's not quiet but I am being left alone to do whatever crap it is I usually do when left to my own devices.

I'm still quite broken up over the death of my friend and former boss on Monday. Yeah, it wasn't always peaches and cream between us, but in the balance, he was a very good person indeed and someone I'm better off for having known. I posted some photos of him on my Facebook page and people reacted strongly to those, including a suggestion that I get them to the family so that they can be displayed during the memorial service on Thursday. Which I've done. I'm not as good a photographer as I'd like to be, but it's easy to take great pictures when the subject is great.

I guess in my life, I haven't been personally touched by death that often. Oh sure, older family members drop off as their time comes. My father's been dead for 17 years. (My mother, on the other hand, just keeps on going and going and going and going.) But very, very few friends are gone. So when it does happen, it's still a major shock to me.

Anyway, what else is on my mind today to distract me?

Please make sure to pick up the latest issue of BC Magazine when it hits the stands - I think tomorrow? Aside from the normal crap in my column, I've got a feature article that I'm quite proud of: a look back at the Beatles' concerts in Hong Kong in 1964 and an interview with Uncle Ray.

A report that Paramount studios has dumped a fistful of their executives and a further report that they are looking at out-sourcing most of their home video operations to another studio. This from the studio that's currently riding high on Transformers. This is of course coming on the heels of my own employer deciding to out-source 99% of their MIS functions. Hollywood in crisis? I'm past the point of caring.

As you might have read elsewhere, Rackspace, a major services provider to the web, had some major outages yesterday. Michele Malkin's blog went down, so maybe it wasn't such a bad thing after all.

Simon Cowell's contract with American Idol ends after the next season. He's been making noises about not returning, presumably a negotiating tactic and one that's working because reportedly Fox has offered him somewhere in the range of US$100-144 million PER YEAR. Just for American Idol.

And it's like, last night, we were watching the movie Knowing. And I wouldn't ordinarily waste my time watching a Nicolas Cage movie. I mean, outside of Adaptation, he hasn't done anything worthwhile in at least 10 years. I watched it because it was directed by Alex Proyas, whom I kind of like because Dark City was amazing, and some have said that Knowing is at least a partial return to form for him. And yes, it was recognizably a Proyas film, but also recognizably a Cage film, with his overwrought acting. But most of all, he's supposed to be this big brain, a professor at MIT teaching astro-physics, and here he is running around with a gun into places that no intelligent person would ever run, simply because it gives him a chance to look concerned and makes room for some spooky effects. You just can't take it seriously, even though you're meant to.

(Yeah, okay, the other day we watched Some Like It Hot. And those people do A LOT of stupid shit in that movie. But they're SUPPOSED to be stupid people! And all of the lunacy is at least logical! And, yes, as I expected, my gf fell off the bed laughing at Joe E. Brown's final line of the film. Where is another Billy Wilder when we really fucking need one?)

But it got me thinking. I mean, Cage started out doing great work in interesting films. Rumble Fish. Raising Arizona. Racing With the Moon. Wild At Heart. Birdy. And then he hooked up with Michael Bay on The Rock and hasn't been the same since. What has he done in the past few years? Two National Treasures movies? A remake of Bangkok Dangerous? A remake of Wicker Man? (And soon a remake of Bad Lieutenant.) Ghost Rider, FFS? But all these movies make tons of money, don't they? He's probably clearing around $25 mil plus percentages for each of these films. And that means he's probably got several hundred million lying around. For being bad in bad movies that people inexplicably love. Well, whoever said life was supposed to be fair?

Speaking of movies, Michael Mann's Public Enemies, starring Johnny Depp and Christian Bale, opens in the US today. I'm a huge Mann fan and the reviews I've seen have all been strongly positive. The NY Times says it's "a grave and beautiful work of art." They also say it " doesn’t look like the usual gangster picture, not only because it’s been shot in digital, but also because Mr. Mann is searching for a new kind of gangster story to fit the times, one that makes room for greater ambivalence, and lawmen and outlaws who are closer to one another in temperament and deed." As usual, I have no idea when it's opening here.

30s gangster films have been out of vogue in Hollywood since Untouchables. But with the current economic depression, it makes sense to think that people might want to look back at that era.

We are getting Ice Age 3-D quickly, and Roger Ebert said it was the best in the series; though the Times called it "idiotic."

Well, that's about all for now. Time for a break. More later, as usual.

Back in the real world, a world where people actually give a shit about something called music, the massive Glastonbury Festival took place in Old Blighty again this past weekend. And to show you how times have changed from when I was just a lil tyke, BBC TV broadcast a highlights show each night with gobs of live performance footage. And thanks to the internet and various illicit technologies associated therewith, said highlights shows can be downloaded via the usual sources. (As if it would show up on TVB? As if!)

For some reason, the math part of my brain ain't working tonight, but what I got came in 7 separate files totalling somewhere around 8 or 9 hours of music - well perhaps two hours after one subtracts all the between song chatter from the various BBC hosts. Nah it's not quite that bad.

What's there to watch and listen to?

• Over an hour and a quarter of Springsteen's set (so you know I'm happy just from that)
• Probably close to an hour of Blur's reunion set.
• A healthy chunk of Neil Young including him covering A Day in the Life and shredding his guitar!

And on top of that, how's about ....

• Spinal Tap with special guest Jarvis Cocker!
• The Specials - who sounded freaking marvelous
• The Doves
• Kasabian
• Crosby Stills Nash but no Young
  
• Franz Ferdinand
• The Prodigy
• Yeah Yeah Yeahs
• Madness
• Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds
• Bon Iver

I believe they passed a law in England stating that Tom Jones and Status Quo need to appear at every festival, so they're also here.

And, oh, Ting Tings, Lady Gaga, Paolo Nutini, Bloc Party, Fleet Foxes, Dizzee Rascal, Maximo Park, Black Eyed Peas, Bat for Lashes, Roots Manuva, Amadou & Mariam, Glasvegas and more.

Put very simply, if this is the kind of thing you like, you'll like this!

Oh, almost forgot, the next day or the day before or something, Bruce played at something called Hard Rock Calling in London's Hyde Park. He opened with London Calling. And here's an amateur shot vid of it from the back of the crowd:



If you wanna see/hear Bruce do London Calling, much much better video and audio, here ya go, April 29, 2009 in Philadelphia: