nwoT eikgnoH Hongkie Town

Just how batshit is she?

2008-05-24T18:49:00.003+08:00

A year ago, if anyone had bothered to ask, I was supporting Hilary. Gender (and some troubling Senate votes aside), I thought she was someone whose beliefs somewhat aligned to mine and with enough knowledge of how Washington works to actually effect some change or at least undo some of the Damage done by Resident Tush.

One big reason that I've switched to supporting Obama has been the increasingly despicable way in which she has run her campaign this year. She has been bordering on downright evil. And as the nomination slips further and further from her grasp, she shows signs of seriously losing it. The latest being this quote:

My husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June, right? We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California.

The New York Times makes the point that she basically said the same thing back in March:

Primary contests used to last a lot longer. We all remember the great tragedy of Bobby Kennedy being assassinated in June in L.A. My husband didn’t wrap up the nomination in 1992 until June. Having a primary contest go through June is nothing particularly unusual.

There's a lot of different ways to read this, but none of them are good. Primary campaigns run as long as they need to run before someone locks up the nomination. The fact that sometimes it's a close race and goes all the way out to the convention isn't a given; that's just how it happens in some years. But the only example she can find of this is RFK? And she has to mention RFK's tragic murder in conjunction with Obama's run and the fear that the US is so filled with hate groups that some might stoop to any depths to stop him?

If she can't control the crap coming out of her mouth now when she's just a candidate, if her judgment is so careless now, how would she handle herself if she actually got elected and the pressure was on her? It's a future I'd rather not contemplate.

Of course I'd sooner vote for a 1958 Studebaker than John McCain. And probably a Waring blender would do far less damage to the US than he would.

To tell or not to tell

2008-05-23T01:57:00.003+08:00

One thing I often grapple with, "behind the scenes," is how much of me to reveal in the blog. Of course in years past I was a lot more open, a lot more heart on my sleeve. There are several reasons that I don't do it any more, or at least I don't do it as often as I used to.

This extensive article from the NY Times magazine section by Emily Gould is a painfully honest first person account from a woman who blogs in NYC (her own blog and for awhile she worked for Gawker). For awhile she got a lot from blogging but she possibly lost even more.

Anyway, I will say I've made some very hard choices lately and in many cases have possibly made the wrong decisions, but in making those choices I've also unfortunately burned some bridges as well. I'm not amazed that it's so difficult for me to get what I want in life; I'm amazed that at such an advanced age and after having given so much thought to the topic, I still don't have a clue as to what it is I really want.

Oddly enough, a couple of recent evenings out - the first with my writer friend from L.A. who was in town for a bit, the second just last night with a longtime friend in Shanghai - have served to tell me that those are the kinds of evenings that I want more of.

I did gain a lot of useful information from last night's dinner. That friend has led a life of accomplishment and achievement. When I look at the list of things he's done, I always feel like I haven't even learned how to tie my shoes by comparison. I told him this and he said, if I can recall it correctly (he also said I should start to carry around a digital voice recorder for nights like that, wish I'd had one then), that we both possessed similar drive, energy and intellect, but we've focused our efforts in very different areas. I know he meant it as a compliment and yet it couldn't help but make me feel as if I've wasted my life in pursuit of things that provide only momentary pleasure, distraction or relief.

Add to this the break-up with my girlfriend last month. The dinner with my ex-wife last week. Followed by an unusually bad bar experience (even for me). The feeling that I'm just marking time at my job, trading my soul for a very nice paycheck each month, giving my life to a corporate entity that couldn't really care much either way. Yes, I know, I'm not unique. Most of the world has it far worse than I do. But these are things that tell me my life is on the wrong track right now.

And yet knowing all of that and actually doing something about it are two very different things.

It's sort of like that board room meeting scene in Monty Python's Meaning of Life, where one character says that studies have shown that man doesn't pursue meaning in his life because he is too easily distracted and also that people aren't wearing enough hats. And the next character asks, "What was that about hats?"

And it's also true that many of today's new hat styles don't look good on me. I look silly in those Ed Hardy hats, as one example. I've thought about going the Samuel L. Jackson route with the Kangol thing and I think it looks kind of okay but worry that others will think I'm a total prat. Perhaps paired with the proper sunglasses?

Oops.

Wujiang Street, Shanghai

2008-05-23T00:01:00.002+08:00

As promised ....

This shot taken around 8 PM, Tuesday night. You can see how the street fills up at dinner time.

Most places doing barbecue, and people are lined up at every shop for the goodies.

Just look at that mountain of prawns.

Here's one of the branches of Yang's (not Yan's, my bad), with people lined up.

Inside, they're working as fast as they can

That big bowl is minced pork, dumped out of a huge plastic bag

And here they are

Oh, I wish I was back there already!

duh

2008-05-22T00:27:00.002+08:00

The Paul bakery has 20 branches in Japan. 330 in France. 20 in London. 6 in Florida. 5 in Shanghai, including one at the Shanghai Centre, right next to my hotel - didn't need to go all the way to Xintiandi for one of their chocolate tarts. All in all, they're in 16 countries.

But not in Hong Kong.

There Will Be Pie

2008-05-21T21:25:00.002+08:00

I doubt anyone else remembers, but last year when I went to Paris, I had two enjoyable visits to the Paul patisserie. One commenter mentioned they also have a shop or shops in London.

And now they have a branch, or a franchise, or a something, at Xintiandi in Shanghai. (The sign says they can also be found in Casablanca, Dubai, Miami.) I want one in Hong Kong! Actually, strikes me a little weird that they went for Shanghai rather than Tokyo; I'd think they'd be huge in a spot like Midtown or Roppongi Hills.

And yes, I did buy a few things there. 'Scuze me, I'm about to get busy.

question

2008-05-20T21:45:00.002+08:00

The question of the day is why is the street food in Shanghai so much better than the street food in Hong Kong?

Well, not exactly street food per se. But you know, you walk around HK and you come upon some hole in the wall joint that has some cookers in front and the choices are fish balls on a stick (guaranteed 10% fish), sausages wrapped in bacon, bits of green pepper with fish meat, deep fried chicken wings, other cheap greasy eats.

Tonight I was walking down Nanjing Road and remembered this side street, found it and strolled down. If I'm not mistaken, the name of the street is Wujiang Road and it can be found off the corner of Nanjing Road and Shimen No. 1 Road. At least a couple of dozen shops with counters open to the street. Lines at every shop at least 10 or 20 people deep. The most basic stuff was different barbecued meat and fish on sticks. There was one place that had heaps of barbecued prawns. Another place was taking barbecue shredded pork and shoving it into buns along with a bit of veggy.

And then I spotted Yan's Fry Dumpling around the middle of the street. They had two shops next to each other. People lined up all the way down the street for each shop. I looked inside and saw three women frantically putting minced pork onto squares of dough and wrapping them, filling up these huge pans with perhaps 50 dumplings each that someone else was then frying. As fast as these four people were working, they couldn't keep up with the demand. I had to try these.

Went to the cashier, four dumplings for four RMB. Got my ticket, got on line, waited 15 minutes to get to the window. And was rewarded with four of the best dumplings I ever had. Soup dumplings, like xiao long bao, but about twice the size. They don't get flipped over in the pan, so one side was brown and crispy, the other side white and soft. And loaded with soup inside that just exploded in my mouth. I wanted to go for some of the barbecue after that but I was just too full after eating all four of those beauties. Lots of photos but didn't bring my card reader along - perhaps will post after I get home.

As always, look for where the locals go. They know.

The thing is, if you go over to Dongmen in Shenzhen, you can find similar snacks on the street. Why not in Hong Kong? (Or can you find it some place that I haven't found yet?)

The Great Firewall

2008-05-20T11:40:00.002+08:00

Last night could connect to blogspot, today can only connect to blogger, so can't leave responses to comments at the moment except to say, on the last post ...

DBC, I agree with anon, just because the White House says it doesn't make it so. Bush's speech was a campaign speech in a most inappropriate venue, another blatant Republican swift boating attempt to use sound bites to twist the position of the opposition party. And the fact is that the only time there has been any advancement in the peace process has been when opposing parties talk to each other (with certain preconditions met, of course).

As for Soros, I'm only passingly familiar with him, but I do agree with some of the things he's said in the past. I've previously written that I think Bush's war and financial policies have negatively impacted the global economy, not just the US's. The drop in value of the US dollar, the massive amount of debt instruments owned by China, the further destabilization of the Middle East leading to massive increases in the price of oil ....

Let me put in a large bit from an article in Esquire by Charles P. Pierce, and for some reason cut and paste ain't working at the moment so no link and I will type this in:

Someone will have to measure the wreckage. Someone will have to walk through the ruins. Someone will have to count the cost.

More than anything else, the presidential election ongoing is - or as a right, ought to be - about ending an era of complicity. There is no point anymore in blaming George Bush or the men he hired or the party he represented or the conservative movement that energized that party for what has happened to this country in the past seven years. They were all merely the vehicles through whome the fear and lassitude and the neglect and the dry rot that had been afflicting the democratic structures for decades came to a dramatic and disasterous crescendo. The Bill of Rights had been rendered a nullity by degrees long before a passel of apparatchik hired laywers found in its text enough gray space to allow a fecklessly incompetent president to command that torture be carried out in the country's name. The war powers of the Congress had been deeded wholesale to the executive long before Dick Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz and a passel of think-tank cowboys found within them the right of a fecklessly incompetent president to make war unilaterally on anyone, anywhere, forever. The war in Iraq is the powerful bastard child of the Iran-Contra scandal, which went unpunished.

The ownership of the people over their politics - and therefore, over their government - had been placed in quitclaim long before the towers fell, and the president told the people to be just afraid enough to let him take them to war and just afraid enough to reelect him, but not so afraid that they stayed out of malls.

It had been happening, bit by bit, over nearly forty years. Ronald Reagan sold the idea that "government" was something alien. The notion of a political commonwealth fell into a desuetude so profound that even Bill Clinton said, "The era of big government is over" and was cheered across the political spectrum, so that when an American city drowned and the president didn't care enough to leave a birthday party, and the disgraced former luxury-horse executive who'd been placed in charge of disaster relief behaved pretty much the way a disgraced former luxury-horse executive could be expected to behave in that situation, it could not have come as any kind of surprise to anyone honest enough to have watch the country steadily abandon self-government over the previous four decades. The catastrophe that is the administration of George W. Bush is not unprecedented. It was merely inevitable. The people of the United States have been accessorial in the murder of their country.

Someone will have to measure the wreckage. Someone will have to walk through the ruins. Someone will have to count the cost.

here I am

2008-05-19T22:23:00.002+08:00

In Shanghai. First time back in slightly over a year and all I see different is the pollution is worse and that mega-tower going up next to Jin Mao seems to have topped out.

Landed at the new (to me, anyway) Pudong Terminal 2 and discovered the one questionable benefit of the China visa kerfuffle - long lines at immigration for Chinese citizens, practically no lines for foreigners. The immigration guy at the counter not only spoke English, he smiled! Maybe I landed some other place?

Traffic from the airport to Puxi was the worst I've ever experienced. We inched along the highway for about 90 minutes till the driver finally reached some semblance of a short cut, but it was over two hours from hotel to airport.

Dinner with a friend tonight at chain restaurant Lulu, the branch in Plaza 66. Pretty much what I had in mind - drunken chicken, crab meat with asparagus, the stewed pork in the heavy sweet brown sauce, reasonable hot and sour soup, horrible xiao long bao. But two hours to sit, relax, catch up with a friend I hadn't seen in a year (we've both been through some major changes), not a bad start to the trip.

It's the start of an official 3 day mourning period in China for the earthquake victims. The Shanghai Daily newspaper printed a notice that they wouldn't be running any ads during this period. And all of the non-news channels on TV, including international ones like HBO or Discovery, are blacked out. Only news channels.

Caught a news clip of Obama striking back at Resident Tush after his horrendous grandstanding attempt in Israel. Finally a Democrat who doesn't turn the other cheek.

And then saw this clip of Huckabee saying he'd be thrilled to run as VP with McCain. No indication of whether or not McCain wants a fringe bass playing evolution denying nutjob on his ticket.

Another food post

2008-05-18T16:41:00.002+08:00

So last night, my ex-wife is in town and she comes up here with a friend, wants to see the dogs for a bit. After that, we decide to go for dinner. Her friend wants hotpot and wants to do it somewhere around Causeway Bay. I suggest Little Sheep.

Little Sheep is a chain with dozens, if not hundreds of branches scattered across China. They have at least one branch in Hong Kong, in Causeway Bay Plaza 2. It's terrifically popular and I've been there a few times. It's always been worth the wait.

Last night the entry way is lined with bouquets. It's clearly not their grand opening, but the place has been renovated - perhaps new management?

We wait half an hour for a table.

Odd sight while waiting - the hostess at the front podium asks people to clear a path for one of the managers coming towards the restaurant. Not some rich guy coming to dine, not the big boss, just a guy in the uniform with the restaurant's logo on his lapel pin. As he enters the restaurant, the hostess bows to him several times with a look of fear in her eyes. He must be a fun guy to work for.

Once we're seated, we order drinks right away. We wait 10 minutes for a menu. The drinks have still not arrived.

They keep asking what kind of tea we want. We keep saying we don't want tea, just watermelon juice. Finally they tell us that they are going to charge us for tea whether we order it or not so we might as well order it. I'm not in a mood to make a stand on this point, though some would likely say that I should have.

We wait ten minutes for the bowl of soups to come out. We wait another ten minutes for food to start appearing. The cold appetizer we ordered because we wanted some food on the table fast ends up arriving after the raw food for cooking arrives.

The food itself is okay but nowhere near as good as I remember it from previous visits. The spicy soup is not too bad but the non-spicy soup is practically tasteless. Every time I try cooking something in the non-spicy side to cool my mouth down, I end up dipping it back into the spicy side so it will have some flavor. We get little bowls of sesame sauce for dipping and this has been thoroughly watered down.

We had some sort of spicy poached chicken appetizer, then some stuffed intestines, a plate of beef, a plate of mutton, a plate of meat balls, straw mushrooms, bok choi, cabbage, rice noodles, a plate of tofu, some of those big airy tofu balls. Half the dishes we order don't arrive until we bug the staff at least three times for them.

When I ask for the bill, it takes 10 minutes for that. The above food, plus two pitchers of watermelon juice and, yes, the tea and service charge, come out to $717. Not at all cheap for what we ordered.

As a former taxi driver, as someone who once depended on tips to earn a living, I almost never don't tip (except, of course, in places like Japan or Korea). So you can imagine how fed up I was to pay with a credit card and just pay the exact amount of the bill. Zero tip. I never do that. I did it here.

They offered us a voucher good for a discount on our next visit. We gave it to the people seated at the next table. I certainly don't intend to return there anymore.

limping towards the weekend

2008-05-16T01:10:00.002+08:00

Even with the holiday on Monday, this week feels like it's taking forever to come to an end.

Underground 59 Friday night at Cavern.

Two years ago CBS said they would not pay $1.6b for Youtube. Today they paid $1.8b for CNet. Go know.

Going to Shanghai on Monday for a few days. Presuming they don't find some quibbly reason to reject me at immigration. (I've got two months left on my current one year visa.)

Need to seriously consider booking some vacation time once I get back from that. Same ole same ole or someplace I ain't never been?

Yadda yadda yadda

Only a pawn in their game

2008-05-14T16:01:00.002+08:00

When it comes to free lunch, I'm there. And I wasn't going to miss a chance to try a new restaurant. In this case, The Pawn, at the corner of Johnston and Luard in Wanchai. This is run by the same people who run The Press Room over in Sheung Wan.

The building itself is one of those redeveloped ones, in this case where they kept and gutted the old facade and then built inside and on top of it. The corner shop had been a pawn shop for decades, hence the name of the restaurant (and they even use the traditional bat sign as part of their logo).

The first floor is the bar, with an open balcony. Second floor is the restaurant, again with balcony. And they are in the process of setting up the rooftop. The look of the place is fabulous - an attempt to look new and yet look ancient. So the ceilings and floors are made from these old wood beams found somewhere in Shenzhen. A lot of the furniture is antique stuff brought over from the UK, but not stuffy antiques, huge scuffed wood tables, comfortable heavy wood chairs. There's an open kitchen off to the side, surrounded by a marble counter with stools, for those who like to see what's going on. The fact that the place is divided into several smaller dining areas rather than one big room, combined with all of that wood, serves to keep the noise level down a bit. Like I said, the place is beautiful. They spent more than six months on the design and it shows, it's right out of Architectural Digest.

The menu. Modern British. We're told a few constant dishes but the bulk of the menu will change daily based on what the chef finds in the market that morning. Portions are generous and a lot of thought goes into presentation on the plate. But I thought the food was just okay; there wasn't really anything that made me feel like I had to run back there right away. I had pan roasted duck breast with wild berries and it was nice yet not nice enough that I'd rush to order it again. The quality of the meat for one friend's char-grilled rump steak was top notch. But the dish that seemed to come out the best was a fairly traditional fish and chips. On the other hand, the desserts were amazing. My British friends said that the apple and rhubarb crumble tasted exactly right and my chocolate souffle cake with fresh whipped cream and chocolate sauce was a major chocolate overdose, in a good sense.

Prices are also quite huge. There is no set lunch. Starters were averaging around $100, mains from about $160 up to $280. Desserts are $75. A 500 mL bottle of water was $60. Lunch for three - with no alcohol - would have run us $1,200. That's not a trivial amount. I assume dinner is the same or higher. This is a place for expense account lunches (and is it just a coincidence that someone at the next table looked a lot like Donald Tsang?)(no, it wasn't him, but close).

I'm really happy this place (and some other new places nearby) have opened up. I've been wanting some more upscale dining choices in easy walking distance of the Wanchai bars. Perhaps given a couple of months, things will come together more solidly. In the meantime, I 'll come back for the bar or the rooftop once it's open. But perhaps next time I take a walk in that direction for food I might give Himalaya or Asian Ghetto a try instead.

Smart and dumb at the same time

2008-05-14T11:17:00.003+08:00

From money.co.uk via CrunchGear, a true Horatio Alger style tale. A 13 year old boy in Texas calls the bank, gets them to send him an extra credit card on his dad's account, and goes on a $30k spending spree which included hiring hookers - not for sex but to play XBOX with him.

These kids today, I'm telling you.

Ralph Hardy, a 13 year old from Newark, Texas confessed to ordering an extra credit card from his father's existing credit card company, and took his friends on a $30,000 spending spree, culminating in playing "Halo" on an Xbox with a couple of hookers in a Texas motel.
Police said they were alerted to the motel by a concerned delivery clerk, whom after delivering supplies of Dr Pepper, Fritos and Oreos had been asked by the kids where they could score some chicks and were willing to pay.
Asked why he ordered two escorts, Ralph said he thought it was the thing to do when you win a "World of Warcraft" tournament. They told the suspicious working girls they were people of restricted growth working with a traveling circus, and as State law does not allow those with disabilities to be discriminated against they had no right to refuse them.
The $1,000 a night girls sensing something up played "Halo" on the Xbox with the kids, instead of selling their sexual services.

And here' s the kicker:

Ralph's ambition is to one day become a politician.

Defrauding a bank. Stealing from your family. Hiring hookers. Pretending to be a circus midget. What else could he possibly grow up to be?

UPDATE: In a subsequent discussion on this post IRL, it has been suggested that the kid probably did a bit more than play XBOX with those ladies and that the whole videogame thing was cooked up as a story so that the women don't get charged with statutory rape. And thinking about it, if this kid was smart enough to come up with that circus performer bit, he could well have invented that bit as well.

Tuesday night

2008-05-14T01:44:00.002+08:00

Nothing much to say about the horrific tragedies of the past week, except to note that the Myanmar junta continues to display its total lack of humanity by refusing entry to foreign aid workers and seizing aid shipments. And whatever else you want to say about China (and Buddha knows there's plenty wrong there), give them some kudos for practically killing themselves to get as many rescue workers and supplies on scene as quickly as possible. (Hell, compare what they're doing with the way George Tush handled Katrina .... )

On another subject, noted by me late this evening but reported a few days ago, PCCW has been dropped from the Hang Seng Index. As Hong Kong Telecom, it was a rock solid stock. As reported in the SCMP, the price soared to $28.50 in anticipation of Li Ka-Shing's son taking it over, regardless of the fact that he had lied about his academic accomplishments and his previous business ventures had been colossal money losing failures. And within two years of buying the company (based on huge bank loans that he most likely received because of who he was, not what he had done or was deemed capable of doing), the renamed PCCW became the first blue chip to go for under $1 per share. They then consolidated 5 shares into one and brought the stock price to $7. Today it trades at around $5. I can remember back in '02 when HSBC wouldn't give mortgages to PCCW employees because their jobs weren't deemed stable. Probably the biggest success for PCCW in the past several years has been NOW TV, but that's a project that was started back in the HKT days. And Cyberport? It is to laugh.

Today, Richard Li continues to live the lifestyle of a billionaire. But he has squandered the wealth of the thousands who trusted him. (And no, I never bought any PCCW stock. I did work on an early iteration of the NOW TV project.) Oh, and another company, Cheung Kong Infrastructure, run by another Li Ka-Shing baby, is also being kicked out of the index. Daddy must be so proud.

spicks 'n specks

2008-05-13T01:05:00.004+08:00

Are they offering 1,953 chicks? Chicks vintage 1953?

Is "My Deer Noodle" a bit of Chinglish or is there something that just didn't translate well from the Chinese?

Test the limit of your taste - very chilli indeed!

Van with loudspeakers for voter registration drive. No further comment.

Washing away last night's sin.

Big Fish

2008-05-12T11:41:00.004+08:00

As most of you already know, the harbor area of Sai Kung is lined with seafood restaurants. It's a popular dining spot for tourists and, I suppose for some locals who come up there on the weekends. But most people know that the cooking is indifferent at best and the prices are also tourist prices.

One of the ways a restaurant can attract attention is to have something really fugging big in its tanks. And last night there were big crowds gathered around to watch these really big momma fish - Super Garoupa? I doubt this actually translated to getting people to eat at this place. And anyway, if someone was going to actually get one of these to eat order one of these monsters, I'm sure it would cost tens of thousands. (And does the restaurant even have anything big enough to cook these guys in without chopping them up first?)

Got a friend visiting from L.A. and thought he'd appreciate seeing a different side of Hong Kong life. Fortunately he decided he just wanted to take a look at these places and not actually eat at them. So a relaxing dinner at Cru, a stroll along the harbor, and then back to my place to sit outside on the patio and talk until late.

As he's a somewhat well known writer, I got tales of what went wrong with the film Martian Child and what's going right with Star Trek Phase II. I actually hadn't heard of STPII before and was amazed to learn that they are getting some of the original cast to appear in these, use some of the original sets, props and costumes and have shooting budgets of up to $300k per episode.

a lesson many people need to learn

2008-05-11T17:32:00.001+08:00

(click on the image to see it full size)

the art of the movie poster

2008-05-10T10:51:00.003+08:00

Maybe not the best movie poster ever, but you can look at this and then NOT want to see the film?

Eihi Shiina previously starred in Japanese cult classic Audition.

Trailer can be found here. Very, very, very bloody. But what else would you expect from a movie with this name?

A Tale of Two Newspapers and some other stuff

2008-05-09T22:02:00.004+08:00

Hong Kong's tabloid newspaper The Standard has been loudly playing up the fact that its circulation is now double that of its only real competitor, the South China Morning Post. Of course, the fact that the SCMP charges for the paper and TS is free would account for a big part of the reason. But I suspect that TS's tabloid approach is also paying off.

Here's a story from today, one of those tales that impacts no one's life except those involved and their immediate family. This is the full article as posted in the SCMP:

A Hong Kong man appeared in the Kowloon City Magistrate’s Court on Friday charged with the murder of 16-year-old Wong Ka-mui.
Transport worker Ting Kai-tai, 24, appeared in the court charged with killing the girl – who earlier this year had been attending secondary school. The man has been remanded in police custody and the case has been adjourned to May 15.
Another man – arrested in connection with the murder – has been released on bail pending further inquiries.
Police officers are continuing to investigate the case.
Early this year, Wong Ka-mui had been a top secondary school student.
She had been living in Tai Po with her mother, step-father and a sister, before the 16-year-old decided to leave school in January.

Zzzzzzzz. So boring, why bother to even print it. To find out, let's see just some excerpts from The Standard's coverage, starting with the lead paragraph:

Police have charged a transportation worker with the murder of Wong Ka- mui, 16, whose body was reportedly dismembered and her parts flushed down the toilet and others dumped at sea.

Whoa! Body dismembered and flushed down the toilet! How did the SCMP miss that? The Standard also has a photo of the victim, taken from her blog. And there's more:

According to a police source, Ting had used the internet to hire a prostitute.
When Wong arrived at his subleased flat on the second floor of Yan Fat Building on Shek Kip Mei Street, they both took ketamine.
The police said Ting had confessed to killing Wong when they were both high on ketamine and after Wong had expressed a desire to die.

16 year old hooker! Drugs! And even more:

Ting then allegedly chopped off her head and limbs and stripped off the flesh, some of which was flushed down the toilet and the rest dumped at Shek Kip Mei market.
The girl's head and limbs were allegedly weighted with bricks and thrown off Kowloon City Pier.

Holy crap. This guy Ting is clearly a monster. What punishment could possibly fit this crime?

Aside from that, you know the Chinese newspapers probably went into even greater detail on this. An earlier article in the SCMP did have the photo and a mention of prostitution and that the police feared her body may have been dismembered. But all of that disappeared from their latest update. Why?

And the SCMP seems to have missed this one in its entirety, something of particular interest to Fumier and other avid Hong Kong motorists.

In a landmark ruling, a magistrate yesterday branded the Road Traffic Ordinance requiring the owner of a car to disclose the name of the driver involved in a traffic violation as both draconian and a breach of a persons right to silence.

The way it works is there are traffic cameras, some hooked up to radar guns, they take a picture and then mail you something (I've never gotten one, by the way) and they then order you to tell them who was behind the wheel at the time.

So when this happened to journalist Richard Latker, he refused to provide the information. He said it was a violation of the very basic right of freedom against self-incrimination. And the judge agreed.

Another headline in TS today: Hu in Charm Offensive. I agree, I find Hu quite offensive.

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

What's even more unspeakably offensive is the military junta that is ruling Myanmar. With 22,000 confirmed dead, up to 100,000 dead and who knows how many injured and homeless, the generals are not allowing any foreign relief workers into the country and have been seizing all shipments of food and relief equipment. As reported in the New York Times:

"The frustration caused by what appears to be a paperwork delay is unprecedented in modern humanitarian relief efforts," said the official, Paul Risley, a spokesman for the United Nations World Food Program, in Bangkok. "It’s astonishing."

Who will rid me of these meddlesome generals?

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

Not quite as offensive but still way up there would be U.S. Republican presidential candidate John "Boom Boom" McCain. At the end of April, McCain showed that there were no depths too low when it comes to his slavering thirst for power. In an interview session, the "man" actually said, "I think it's very clear who Hamas wants to be the next president of the United States." If he's sinking to the sewer level now, what subterranean depths will he plunge as the election gets closer?

And now that despite a firsthand account (corroborated by two witnesses) that at a dinner party McCain confessed that he did not vote for George Bush in the 2000 election, rather than 'fess up to it, McCain is allowing his attack dogs to make personal attacks on the writer who went public with this.

And, oh yeah, McCain's wife has said that come hell or high water, no way she's ever going to release her income taxes for public scrutiny. Wonder what she's hiding.

Here's what the NY Times recently had to say about Mr. Straight Talk: Senator John McCain is shaping up as Bush the Sequel — neverending war in Iraq, tax cuts for the rich while the middle class struggles, courts packed with right-wing activists intent on undoing decades of progress in civil rights, civil liberties and other vital areas.

Republicans. Scum and scummier.

Oh, what the hell

2008-05-07T01:12:00.002+08:00

Saw this on Expat@Large and thought I'd give it a go ....

Put your iPod (or iRiver) on shuffle (unless it is an early version iPod, one that doesn't have shuffle) and press next for each question. Write down the song that's playing as an answer.

1) How would you describe yourself?
Don't Keep Me Wonderin' - The Allman Brothers Band

2) What do you like in a guy/girl?
You Got Lucky - Tom Petty (okay, this is getting funny, let's see where it goes next)

3) What is your motto?
Gettin' By - Jerry Jeff Walker (this is getting spooky)

4) What do your friends think of you?
Let's Make This Precious - Dexys Midnight Runners (possible)

5) What do you think about often?
Dog Shelter - Burial (I never knew that!)

6) What do your parents think of you?
Lovely 2 C U - Goldfrapp (my ipod is haunted)

7) What do you think of your best friend?
Fall On Me - R.E.M. (metaphorically of course)

8) What do you think of the person you like?
Shaft - Malik Adouane (yeah, depending on how you define "shaft")

9) What do you want to be when you grow up?
Sometimes Good Guys Don't Wear White - The Standells (that's me, I wear blue)

10) What do you think when you see the person you like?
Your Time Is Gonna Come - Led Zeppelin (I mean that in a good way of course)

11) What song will they play at your wedding?
Still Life - Van Der Graaf Generator (well, I'm so old, if I get married again I won't be moving all that much at that point)

12) What will they play at your funeral?
John Allyn Smith Sails - Okkervil River (oh no, they got my name wrong at my funeral?)

13) What is your hobby/interest?
Sly - Massive Attack (yes, I practice this every day)

14) What is your biggest fear?
Sexed Up - Robbie Williams (actually my biggest fear would be getting sexed up by Robbie Williams)

15) What is your biggest secret?
I Believe to My Soul - Van Morrison (no, no, I'm an atheist)

16) What do you think of your friends?
The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress - Linda Ronstadt (I tripped and I missed my star)

17) What is your theme song?
Loose Fit - Happy Mondays (um, er, for shoes, yes)

18) What do you think of your family?
Nine Feet Underground - Caravan (I lurve my family)

19) What is your best friend's theme song?
4% Pantomime - The Band (he might agree)

20) What is your mood right now?
Gimmie Gimmie Gimmie - The Dirty Projectors (that's my mood all the time)

21) If your heart could talk what would it say?
Open To Ideas - Faces (truer than you know)

22) What do your co-workers think of you?
Untrue - Burial (no that can't be true)

23) What does your future look like?
Up On Cripple Creek - The Band (very possibly)

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

I tag .... everyone. You're it.

oops i forgot to blog

2008-05-06T23:45:00.003+08:00

Sorry, it's been a busy few days, with lots of annoying things on my mind. Garbage at work, car repairs, getting new glasses, blah blah blah, catching up on stuff in real life.

Distractions:

If George Bush has attained an historically low approval rating of 28% and John McCain is running on a platform of basically continuing Bush's policies, how come he's running at 48% in the polls?

If life was a movie directed by Frank Capra, following the devastating cyclone in Myanmar (notice how some TV news, such as Sky, continues to refer to it as Burma?), the psychopathic military junta running the country would hold a news conference and say, "Well, we thought we knew what we were doing, but it turns out we can't even protect our people from a little bit of wind so clearly we're unsuited to our jobs and we're going to hang ourselves for our crimes against our people."

New Steve Winwood album is kinda nice, very reminiscent of mid-70s Traffic (though I prefer the earlier stuff when Dave Mason was still in the band). Can't decide on the new Elvis Costello yet. And the new Aimee Mann sounds just like all the old Aimee Mann, which is fine by me ... plenty of her typically biting lyrics, distinctive voice.

booger

2008-05-03T12:14:00.002+08:00

The hole could be patched, but you can't match the color, and it will really stand out in a bad way, would look horrible. The only real option is to replace the entire top. Which is going to cost HK$20,000. The guy said I could maybe save a little money by trying to get the top from someone in the US so I'll be browsing web sites this weekend. In the meantime, the hole is patched up with duct tape, which definitely means no parking on the street for me in the meantime.

The funny thing is, the guy did a relatively nice job with the slice - he cut only the minimum size hole he needed to get his arm through, he didn't cut through the liner underneath, didn't scratch up anything. He probably thought he was doing me a favor. But it would have been a bigger favor if he'd smashed the window, that would have been cheaper to fix - but I guess he figured that would be noisier. He just grabbed the bag - didn't touch the car stereo, didn't take the 50 bucks in change sitting in the center console, didn't find the slot where the ipod is hidden away. And when I think of all the things I might have put into that bag (DSLR instead of pocket camera, Bose headphones, etc.) I guess I got off relatively okay.

Anyway, lesson learned. Even in HK, don't leave stuff sitting in the car when parked on the street.

the morning after

2008-05-03T09:59:00.002+08:00

Turns out I did lock the car. Someone took a knife and sliced a hole in the top.

As for why I didn't see it last night, I plead a fifth ...

stupid is as stupid does

2008-05-03T02:22:00.003+08:00

Getting robbed on one's birthday isn't fun. Though it's my fault.

Flew back from Manila this morning. Another upgrade to business, this time in one of the planes fitted with the "new" business class cubicle. The seats are distinctly narrower than the old ones and because of the partitions, it's impossible to have a conversation with anyone - which can be good, can be bad, depending on circumstances.

Anyway, drinks with a dozen friends at LKF and Wanchai tonight. I had a small shoulder bag which held my Panasonic camera, my prescription reading glasses, spare pack of smokes. When we went from LKF to Wanchai, I tossed the bag into the back seat. When we parked in Wanchai, I put the bag onto the front seat.

Now I distinctly remember locking the car. But when I returned to the car around 1:45 AM, I hit the unlock button on the key from some distance away. Normally I have to be almost on top of the car for it to work, but when I reached the car the doors were unlocked. And the bag was not on the front seat. So perhaps I didn't lock the car and the temptation was too great for someone to resist. Couldn't they have just taken the camera and left the glasses?

And I suppose the sign that said "I'm a fucking idiot, please rob me!" was much larger than the one that said, "Be nice, it's my birthday and I'm old and forgetful."

Sigh

finishing up

2008-05-01T18:15:00.002+08:00

Moving slowly, ever so slowly, eventually I got myself dressed, out of the room, and over to Serendra and Bonifacio High Street. BHS is a two block long outdoor shopping mall, with a large green promenade in the center.

The main draw there for me was unquestionably the four floor Fully Booked book store. While not as comprehensively stocked as, say Kinokuniya in Singapore, it is easily the best book store I have been to here. I didn't expect them to have the more obscure titles on my want list, but I did find Four Hour Work Week by Timothy Ferriss and Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnson - maybe these books are available in HK, I confess I never really looked for them there. But beyond those two, I spent my time doing what one does in a bookstore, browsing through books I'd never heard of and picking half a dozen to try.

After that, I just wanted something simple like a non-fast-food burger, and ended up going into a restaurant with a name like Texas Barbecue Grill or something like that. The waitress, the very definition of cute, made a point of telling me her name and then leaving a comment card with me (and a pen). When the food came, before I could even take a bit, the manager was at my table asking me if everything was okay. And as I ate, two separate times other people came over to ask if my burger was okay. I know that Filipinos often bend over backwards to be helpful, but this to me falls under the heading of Trying Too Hard. On the other hand, they did refill my "bottomless" glass of soda before I even thought of asking for a refill.

(One thing I've noticed - if you eat in a highly rated restaurant, the staff will never come over and interrupt you in the middle of the meal to ask if you're happy with your food. They know what they're serving, they have confidence in it, they leave you alone to enjoy it. And in a cha chan teng, no one's gonna come over and ask either. Just these mid level franchise chain places seem to think that it shows some degree of caring but it never comes off that way to me.)

I think tonight I'll go for Filipino food - either the local chain Gerry's Grill which does nice Filipino style barbecue or a new place over at Greenbelt 5 recommended by a friend. And then over to Handlebar, which will have a band tonight and hopefully be jumping.

Oh, best t-shirt noticed on this trip: "Whip me, Beat me, Fuck me, Just don't mess up my hair!"

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

Unbelievable to read about the bus tragedy in Sai Kung today. At least 15 people dead in a tour bus ("elderly passengers being carried to a religious event") that reports say was "dangerously overloaded" when, according to the driver, the brakes failed at the bottom of a steep hill. Drivers who are experienced in this area know that there is often a speed trap around a curve near the bottom of the hill. They proceed slowly until they reach that point, but many then put the pedal to the metal after that and often barely brake for the hard left into the traffic circle at the bottom. I note that the driver has been arrested but I wonder if the number of passengers or the lack of proper inspection to the vehicle was his fault.

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

Any news about the torch procession in HK today? Haven't seen anything online, so I assume all is quiet, as expected since HK Immigration has been turning away people whom they think will incite protests, no regard for the part of the Basic Law that's supposed to guarantee freedom of speech. Mia Farrow did get in but I suppose she's too famous to reject; that would result in some uncomfortable global headlines.

I have a t-shirt with the poster for the Hitchcock movie Vertigo on it. The shirt is orange. Thinking about wearing it when traveling home tomorrow.

oompa loompa

2008-04-30T23:31:00.002+08:00

... which has been my phrase of the day, but not in a mood to reveal context.

Found out that in order to see Speed Racer, I'd need to extend my visit by a day, which I'm not in the mood to do. Will have to see it when it hits theaters, which is just ten days away (not sure if day and date in HK though). I might spend part of tomorrow going to see U2 3D, which is playing on an Imax screen here, just a matter of if I feel like dealing with getting from Makati to Mall of Asia and back again, no inconsiderable feat when thinking about Manila traffic.

Lunch today was a return to the Serendra Mall at Fort Bonifacio, back to a restaurant called Abe (ah-bey), dedicated to a famous Filipino writer and featuring some classic Filipino dishes, including my current fave, crispy tadyang. Apparently there was some local female celeb eating there when we were there. I only got to see her from the rear (enticing) and as she left, the entire restaurant staff ran outside to have their picture taken with her.

Real estate tip: I'm told that a lot of Americans bought condos at Serendra when it first went on sale. And that now that the recession is taking hold of the US, many of those Americans are seeking to sell off their condos - and are taking losses of 30% or greater on the deal. It's almost tempting.

And tonight, snagged passes to a special opening day screening for Iron Man - I guess friends of the distributor, radio contest winners, etc. Best I can say for the movie is that the weirdness comes from Jon Favreau directing Robert Downey Jr as if it was a CGI remake of Swingers. Downey is the one thing that lifts the movie from your basic comic book feature film. And it's quite weird to see Jeff Bridges with a shaved head and big gray beard. A large portion of the film takes place in Afganistan, so it's telling that at one point you can see the poster for Rambo: First Blood. And, as expected, the end theme music is Black Sabbath's Iron Man. Well, good to see it on a huge screen in a THX certified theater.

If you do go see the film (and I suppose that many will), do sit through the extremely long end credits, because there is a two minute sequence after the credits to set up the next film in the franchise.

It's definitely summer - trailers screened before the film included Speed Racer, Indiana Jones 4, Mamma Mia, Incredible Hulk, Kung Fu Panda, Narnia 2, that Angelina Jolie hit-woman thing and some nonsense about a huge crocodile nomming a bunch of unlucky people in boats.

(Gotta say Kung Fu Panda didn't look half bad. Voices by Jack Black, Jackie Chan, Dustin Hoffman, Ian McShane. There's an Imax version coming of this. But did they really have to use the Kill Bill music (at least in the trailer))?