Blog

Updated as often as I can manage

Monday, June 30, 2003
It's the night before the move now, and I still have a lot of packing to do. It's incredible just how much garbage is sitting around the house... not garbage in the literal sense, more like the various possessions that I don't want to keep and that nobody else wants -- various bits of toiletries, unimportant scraps of paper, a ton of pens (the result of me not being able to find any and thus buying more and more pens, the short of it being that now I have about 30 sitting around), and other random items.

There really isn't much to say other than I might not be able to blog for a while. Once I move out, I'll be off to the Sheraton Belgravia for a couple of nights, and then I fly to Hong Kong on the 3rd, arriving on the 4th... meaning my next entry may well come on Thursday. I'm addicted enough to the Internet to surely find some sort of access along the way (surely the Starbucks on King's Road will have Wi-Fi?), but I doubt I'll be going out of my way to do so -- I really would like some solid rest and relaxation, and the Sheraton Belgravia is a rather opulent hotel.

That and I managed to get in a last meal at Bagatti's, my favourite restaurant here and a tradition of sorts for me. It's the first place we came to in Kingston, and it's always the last place I eat at before I leave.

And so with that... I sign off from Kingston for the last time.

Posted at 7:57 AM

Sunday, June 29, 2003
My TV is gone.

With everything that I'm planning to send home already in the hands of the shippers, I'm midway through dealing with the stuff I don't want to keep. Today I handed off most of it to my aunt, and chief among the stuff she wanted was my living room table, my DVD player, and... my TV.

The set-up before the big pack-up began:

And the depressing sight after:

It's incredible how bare and boring this once-cluttered apartment is without the centerpiece to the living room. It's also rather amusing how much I rely on the TV. I tend to leave it on all the time, even when I'm not watching and have my back to it... and then there's the lack of gaming or DVD watching, let alone keeping track of Wimbledon... it's just bizarre, especially since winding down my stay here means there's progressively less to do and thus more temptation to lie back on the couch and switch on the TV. And hey, it was a really nice TV too, probably far better than I deserved.

I'm keeping busy with a few books (how quaint and Truman Show-esque) as well as this Internet thing -- cutting off broadband is akin to cutting off an arm for me, again proof of my infinite sad-ness -- but I'm surprised at how well things are going so far. Things are being done, and done on time, and you can't complain about that.

I just rather wish I had my TV right about now, as I'm sure there's something interesting on...

Posted at 7:58 AM

Saturday, June 28, 2003
I did it! Well, sort of. Most of my possessions -- the ones I want to keep, that is -- have been packed tight into boxes and are currently sitting in a Mail Boxes Etc shop in Surbiton, waiting to fly off to Hong Kong. I managed to pack 11 boxes and I have one more to go, which I'm waiting to fill with all sorts of last-minute stuff.

Incidentally, I felt rather sorry for the poor courier who came to pick up the boxes... seems someone told him his pickup was 5 "light" boxes. Instead he was faced with 11 rather heavy boxes. I'm not surprised he was rather annoyed when the dispatcher called him up...

Watching TV here for the last time, because my aunt is due over early tomorrow to fetch it. I rather like this TV. I really didn't MEAN to buy a 28" widescreen TV, honest, but we just rather "fell" into it. I had my eyes on a little 20" Sony, but a combination of my aunt and the salesman (as well as a convincing stream of excuses -- "that one's the last model, it's been discontinued", "oh it won't play NTSC games and DVDs", and most bizarrely "we don't have any remotes for that one") pushed me towards it. Not that it's a bad thing, because I love my TV, but I always felt somewhat guilty for owning it.

Actually, that's a lie. I felt guilty when I got it and I'm feeling guilty now that I'm thinking about it, but when you're playing GTA3 on the huge screen or watching DVDs in (close to) their proper resolution late at night, you really don't think about those things.

Into the last weekend now -- time's really running out!

Posted at 7:37 AM

Thursday, June 26, 2003
Ah, Wimbledon. An eventful day, to say the least. And a very long post.

I've actually been to Wimbledon before, back in 2001 with my cousin Anand. It was surprisingly easy and painless. For £8, you can get in after 5pm on a Grounds Ticket to go to any court barring Centre Court and Court 1, allowing you to walk the grounds, experience the sights and sounds and catch a whole bunch of players playing on the little courts. You also get to experience the wonderful atmosphere of "Henman Hill", a grassy slope facing a huge TV screen so named for the legion of fanatical fans that gather there to cheer on Wimbledon's most popular player: Tim Henman, the only Brit with any decent chance of breaking the country's 67-year duck and winning their home tournament.

Last time around, we arrived at 5pm, saw the huge line, winced and then marvelled at the fact that it took us only thirty minutes to get in. And so when I arrived with Anand and Herbert at 3:30pm this year to see an even longer line (approximately a kilometre long, at best guess), I didn't worry too much and assured Herbert that though it will probably take a little longer than last time, it won't be TOO long. Instead, we were stuck in line for almost three hours. It just didn't move at all. This of course makes things worse, because the longer you stay in line the more you feel you HAVE to stay there, else you've wasted all your time for nothing. With British summers keeping daylight around until 9-10pm or so, there was little trouble of there being nothing to watch, but it's still somewhat aggravating to wait in line for so long and see only a couple of matches.

Though we did manage to catch more than a few matches, on a day with few must-see games we walked in just as the biggest one -- favourite Andy Roddick against Canadian-born Brit Greg Rusedski -- finished, which was a bit disappointing. Still, a brief tour of the grounds revealed much interest around Ivo Karlovic, the hiherto unknown Croat who took out reigning champion Lleyton Hewitt in the first round. Amusingly, most people were there not to marvel at his skill, but rather the fact that at 6'10", he's the tallest player on the tour ("Look! It's him! He's huge!" was an all-too-common comment). Walking away from Karlovic's match, I also got accidentally slapped by a random woman for no apparent reason, and the look of shock and horror on her face at her mistake rather made up for it.

With no real stars about, the mission I had from the start began to emerge... see Daniela Hantuchova. Hantuchova is ridiculously cute, and she can play. Naturally, she's thus dubbed the "new Anna" (Kournikova, in case you've been under a rock), though it makes no difference to me; she's cute nonetheless and has ridiculously nice legs (click here for a picture). And so the three of us went out to watch her match on Court 2. Unfortunately, we weren't the only ones with that idea -- not by a long way. There was a huge line for her court, and it wasn't moving (who'd give up a spot there?). Given that her match seemed about to end, a bit of forward planning revealed that she was due next for a doubles match on Court 6. Being the sort to plan ahead, I thought we should get a good spot at Court 6 and wait for her to show up.

No sooner than we arrive at the almost-empty Court 6, where a men's doubles match was taking place under virtual anonymity than Herbert spies an allegedly cute Japanese "bird". So he goes off to hunt and do his thing, impeded somewhat by a little kid sitting in front of him making OOOOOOOOOOOOHHHH noises. This was amusing for a while, but the general awkwardness of a friend "getting his groove on" (so to speak) in front of a completely dead game (well, it was alright, but it was between total unknowns and had no atmosphere) so Anand and I decided to go for another walk, since with the game still well in progress the lovely Daniela wasn't expected on for a while yet.

After another tour of anonymous games and players you've heard of but never properly seen, we happened upon another rather busy game and soon found out why: It starred the volatile but popular Jelena Dokic in a doubles match-up with Ashley Harkleroad, dubbed the "American Anna" (yes, any time any female tennis player looks remotely attractive, she's the new Anna). Aside from making for a good view, it was incredibly amusing to see men walking past, doing a double-take and snapping back to their mates jabbering "OH MY GOD WAIT IT'S ASHLEY HARKLEROAD SHE'S SO FIT!". One even motioned to get his camera and was rewarded with a huge slap from his girlfriend, right in front of me. Nice one.

After a while of that we made our way back to Court 6 to grab a seat (American Anna she may be, but Harkleroad and Dokic are not Hantuchova). Herbert rejoined us, and we soon had cause for concern. It turns out that Hantuchova could not close out her match after all and was engaging in a titantic final set with her opponent on Court 2 -- which happened to be right next to where we were on Court 6. Thus began the amusing concept of us watching one tennis match while listening intently to another on the next court, hidden behind a large brick wall. With Hantuchova's match going on (and on), it became apparent that she'll never make it down on to Court 6 for her doubles match, losing our chance to see her in the flesh. Desperate times call for desperate measures... and as the doubles match on Court 6 ended, leaving the court vacant (it's bad form to move around while someone is playing), we then tried to figure out a way to watch what was going on at Court 2. Eventually we settled on climbing to the top of the stands, scaling the wall behind the stands, and leaning back out over the seating to catch a glimpse of Hantuchova and take pictures galore. It felt vaguely stalker-ish, to be honest, but we certainly weren't the only ones doing it (hell, half of Court 3 had their backs to their own game and were watching her's). And they resulted in a bunch of rubbish photos like the one below (she's the one nearest the camera on the bottom, obviously). It also resulted in one of the most dodgy exchanges after her match (which she lost) finished.

"Damn, my right hand really hurts."

"Yeah, and my arm is tired."

Hrm...

That pretty much concluded our day; with Hantuchova out and most of the matches winding down, nothing major happened. All in all, a fun day, and an event not to be missed... I'm rather happy that I managed to catch Wimbledon again, because it's a lot of fun and something special. Everyone knows what it is -- even if they don't care about tennis or sports in general, they know of the importance of Wimbledon.

Still, I've virtually wasted a day right here -- only six days to go!

Posted at 7:58 AM

Wednesday, June 25, 2003
I've been meaning to blog when I realised that I really don't have anything to say. So I'll make it brief: Nothing is really happening. Packing is going on in full force now because time is of the essence; there is no time to do anything except get this place stored in boxes.

Having said that, I'm heading off to Wimbledon tomorrow, so I will have pictures a-plenty to go online soon... though whether they'll appear on this computer is debatable, because that needs to be packed too.

7 days to go!

Posted at 7:38 AM

Monday, June 23, 2003
I meant to blog yesterday -- I really did! -- but two of the things I talked about in the last entry rather took up all of my time.

The first, and predictable one...

Yes, I got (and finished) Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. No, I won't spoil the contents of the book. I will say that it was probably the best of all the Potter books thus far. It's probably the Empire Strikes Back of the series, where it switches tack somewhat, ups the stakes and brings in a whole load of backstory to set up a killer finale. Very enjoyable; now I have a nagging urge to read the other four books again to catch some of the subtle details to the latest one.

Mind you, on Saturday morning I didn't think I'd get it at all. I was worried that Royal Mail might not be able to get it to me in time, and my fears were confirmed when a single piece of mail (spam) dropped through the slot with nary a "knock knock" to indicate that there was a package waiting outside. I bounded to the door to check and be sure, and then chased down the postman to ask just where my books were. He said he only had the one book and that he didn't think they'd be sending anyone else out with books. I figured it wouldn't come until Monday and vaguely debated running to a bookstore and buying a copy now. Half an hour later though there WAS a knock at the door and a postman did appear with my Amazon.co.uk box... and about six others, all precariously balanced in his arms. Probably my last order with Amazon.co.uk, for whom I've been a frequent and very satisfied customer. And why not? Everything is cheaper, and next-day shipping costs no more than £2. It's really hard to beat that in terms of price or convenience.

The second, and surprising thing to take up my time was Midtown Madness 3. It's ridiculous how much fun I'm having with this. I'm having four to five hour online multiplayer sessions and the whole thing is a blast. Voice chat working perfectly helps too; it makes the whole experience feel less anonymous and it adds to the proceedings by having what is both a running commentary of sorts (the cheers and/or insults can give you an ideal picture of happenings if you're on the other side of the map) and a lot of trash-talking, which is always fun to hear and an integral part of any multiplayer game.

8 days left! AARGH!

Posted at 5:09 AM

Saturday, June 21, 2003
Countdown status is as such: 10 days left until the move, and eight hours (!) until my Harry Potter arrives. It's actually out as I type this; all over town kids are at midnight launch parties buying and reading the book. Amazon.co.uk sent the dispatch notice out last night, so it should DEFINITELY be here tomorrow morning. One potential hitch though is that unless Royal Mail lay on more postmen tomorrow, I might be unlucky and not get it at all. You see, health and safety regulations say that postmen are not allowed to carry more than 16kg in their bags... and with the hardcover book weighing in at over 600 pages...

There was actually football on TV today. Live football. And a decent match at that. Although it's the Confederations Cup -- a tournament none of the big teams really care about anyway -- it's still football of sorts, and the France - Japan match was fun to watch. France won 2-1, though Japan played really well and had enough chances to win. It's wonderful to see how the team I've been watching ever since professional football began in Japan has progressed to the stage where they can give a decent game to one of the best teams in the world (not a full strength one, of course, but not weak by any means), with Nakamura and Nakata excelling. And there's no shame in losing to the European Champions in their home ground.

Also been playing a lot of Midtown Madness 3 online via Microsoft's Xbox Live service. It's a fun game that (as the name implies) is not a serious racer, but rather an arcade-styled irreverent free-for-all set in open-plan cities (ie, no set tracks -- you go where you want to go!). It's a great multiplayer game and playing with 8 people online is fantastic. I've been dying to play a good game on Xbox Live; the service is easy to use and offers a ton of features (like keeping track of your friends via an MSN-style Buddy List, voice chat, etc) but there really hasn't been a good online game that I've WANTED to play on it. Until now, of course. Typically though, I'm only going to get this weekend to play it, because my Xbox has to be packed by Monday at the latest.

I'll no doubt be back tomorrow with Harry Potter talk -- no spoilers!

Posted at 7:59 AM

Friday, June 20, 2003
11 days and counting...

Of course, while that countdown refers to the big move, there's another countdown currently going on here (and indeed in most of the western world), because the wait for Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is almost over. I started reading the books after the first movie and devoured all four in a matter of days. The frustrating thing then was that book 4 almost ends on a cliffhanger -- it's not a proper cliffhanger per se, but it leads you on more than the other ones did -- and whereas with Books 1-3 I had the next one ready and waiting for me to begin right away, it's been a year and a half since I finished Book 4. I have two copies on order from Amazon.co.uk. They better deliver on Saturday morning.

Saw Identity today too. Very interesting film, certainly enjoyable. It looks predictable, but it really isn't. Great cast too, with the always-great John Cusack, Ray Liotta, Amanda Peet and a bunch of supporting actors you've probably seen everywhere but (like me!) have no idea what their names are. Highly recommended!

With all the packing that (still) needs to be done and the Potter-reading that doesn't (but will be done anyway), it's sure to be a busy weekend. The clock is ticking...

Posted at 7:56 AM

Thursday, June 19, 2003
I was woken this morning by a call from British Telecom. It seems I hadn't paid my phone bill (oops) and as part of cost-cutting measures, instead of sending out the red reminder letter it's cheaper for them to call you and remind you. Fair enough. Except the woman calling me was in India. It boggles the mind to think it's cheaper for them to call me from India rather than send out a reminder letter.

There was an amusing story on the morning news (it didn't involve Beckham, really). It seems a new study claims that in 50 years' time the entire population of the United States will be obese. Uh, yeah, a very believable story there. On the other hand, the author of the study did make a pretty good point. Our bodies haven't changed much genetically over the last thousand or so years, but our lifestyle has. Before, calories were expensive, hard to come by and immediately burnt off by all the hard labour we had to do. Now, calories are everywhere and it's the labour (read: gym) that's expensive!

I finally tackled and beat one of the last remaining page bugs, and now the mobile version of the site -- which consists solely of a download area for wallpaper right now -- is split into seperate pages, to make it easier to scroll through the huge list of wallpaper available. Given that I finally figured out how to add seperate pages (it's not the same as HTML), I might add more to the mobile version -- suggestions here please!

D-Day is approaching fast; the move is scheduled for June 30th. 12 days and counting...

Posted at 7:54 AM

Tuesday, June 17, 2003
Two weeks left. I can't believe it either. I guess I'd better start the whole packing thing now, huh?

I've been holding off on any "serious" packing for a while because, of course, the quicker I shove my PS2 into the box the less time I have to actually PLAY with it. And then I'll have nothing to do. Which really is not terribly good.

I might not need my PS2 though, because all I've been playing lately is SimCity 2000. The game is almost 10 years old, and I still play it. It's probably mostly to do with my life-long fascination with cities and urban planning, but it's also a testament to the game's solidity and structure that it still holds up well today.

Interesting link here about the Segway, that super-hyped two-wheeled self-standing scooter that you can actually buy from Amazon.com. It's a sneak preview of a new book about the creation of the Segway and the segment posted to the web details a meeting the Segway people had with Amazon's Jeff Bezos and Apple's Steve Jobs. It's a fascinating read and gives a lot of insight into the way Steve Jobs works and thinks -- he was incredibly rude and forceful, but in doing so he brought up a lot of valid points and completely shredded the Segway presentation and business plans.

The Segway, incidentally, is famed for using an insane amount of technology (two computers, five gyroscopes, a $3,000 price tag) to keep itself standing no matter what. There is, however, evidence of one rather well-known person getting it all wrong and falling off a Segway. I don't usually do what most people do and berate his lack of intelligence, but that's pretty compelling evidence...

Posted at 7:57 AM

Saturday, June 14, 2003
Not a bad day at all, for a change. Trekked out to Camden to play Nintendo's slate of games for 2003 (more on that in a minute). Man, what a freakshow Camden Town is. It's just slightly north of Central London and not too far from all the main parts of town, but it feels like a whole new world out there. A world full of people with exotic hairstyles and tattoos a-plenty. Not my sort of thing, if you couldn't tell before.

Even though they didn't quite bring everything they showed off at the big E3 convention last month in LA, there still was a decent selection to play at Nintendo's little event. And it was a fun and chilled-out event. I didn't have to cover it for anyone (everyone I work for wrote about these games last month), so I booked my timeslot for late on the second day to avoid all the over-eager fansite reporters. It's great to just go and play games without any angle or agenda and just play it for FUN. Don't get me wrong, it hasn't quite reached the stage where my enjoyment of gaming is lessened by the analytical side of my work, but it's good to not worry about rushing home on time to write a story up, or having to give a poor game a full and proper workout for the benefit of being fair in an article. It's also not the best atmosphere to play certain games in. Games with more complex control and an ongoing storyline -- like Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles, or the Metal Gear Solid remake -- can't be properly judged in an environment where you can only sample 5-10 minute snippets of the action, but yet the job almost requires it at times. I'd rather not play either game and wait until release, and quick play-time (curiousity got the better of me) pretty much confirmed that; I didn't enjoy my five minutes with either, but still plan to check out the final versions when they come out.

With that said though, you can easily sample the delights of other titles, and without needing to give every game equal and fair consideration I spent most of my time with F-Zero GX. Super-fast, looking incredible, and it controls like a dream. Viewtiful Joe was another that I spent an inordinate amount of time with. It's an old-fashioned beat-em-up with some wildly original and inventive touches (and a very distinctive look). I replayed the same stage at least four or five times and thoroughly enjoyed it. The other to look out for is Mario Kart: Double Dash. I think it still needs some work, but despite that it's still a total blast in multiplayer. Probably the best part is that you can link two GameCubes together for an 8-player session of Mario Kart. With two GameCubes and more than enough people at home in Hong Kong, I'm already looking forward to huge Mario Kart bashes in August!

Met up with Reshma for a drink after the show. I love how you find a nice, relatively quiet bar (as in you only have to speak a little louder than you do on a busy street) to have a chat in and they steadily increase the volume of the music... and increase it... and increase it... and within 45 minutes of walking in you're shouting to be heard. Is this a conspiracy to force me into exclusively meeting people at Starbucks?

Posted at 7:57 AM

Friday, June 13, 2003
Beckham, Beckham, Beckham. Well, everyone else is mentioning him, so I figure I'd join in!

In all seriousness, I'm somewhat amazed at the coverage devoted in the worldwide press to the Beckham Saga. Alright, so it's to be expected that the front and back pages of the tabloids would be all Beckham, but it was the top story on ITV's News at Ten and featured as the second-lead even on AMERICAN sports websites like SI.com and ESPN. It's great to see worldwide coverage of the sport, mind you, I'm just shocked at the scale of it.

They're showing a lot of tennis on TV now in the run-up to Wimbledon... I was lucky enough to visit (it's one of those seminal sporting events known the world over) in 2001, and if everything goes to plan I'm hoping to go again this year with Reshma. If I don't, I'll probably put the pics from 2001 up on the site...

In other news, I have a gigantic pounding headache on a scale I've never experienced before. Thank god for the wonders of Panadol, huh?

Posted at 7:53 AM

Thursday, June 12, 2003
You know, I've been meaning to blog for the last three days but there never really was anything to say. To be perfectly honest, there still isn't really anything. The last few days have generally been composed of plenty of phone calls (ironic that my phone usage should dramatically increase when the two people I talk to most leave the country), various preparations to move back to Hong Kong, and a selection of totally random things.

Like going to the supermarket. I usually go to the 7-11-esque convenience store to nab more Cokes (there really aren't any other consumables that I use, given that I don't cook and am leaving within three weeks), but every so often there are things you need to grab from a proper supermarket. It's remarkable that for someone so addicted to various forms of junk food, I eat very little of it here. Probably because there is nothing I like. It amazes me that they sell about eight or nine different varieties of Pringles' Potato Chips here... but not the one I like, Cheese Ums. Fantastic.

Saw England's 2-1 win on TV today. Despite my Hong Kong roots and British nationality, I don't feel any allegiance to England (probably because unlike some of my fellow HK-born Brits, I do realise that the UK is not solely composed of "England"). Still, I DO have an allegiance to England's Liverpool players... like vice-captain Michael Owen. It boggles the mind to think that Owen already played (and scored) in two World Cups, captained his country, scored 22 goals for them (including goals against Argentina, Brazil, France and a hat-trick against Germany in Munich), scored over a hundred goals for his club, single-handedly won the FA Cup with a last-minute strike, won the UEFA Cup, and most importantly was named European Footballer of the Year in 2001. Which is a feat that even current England golden boy David Beckham cannot match.

And he did it all at the age of 23. I'm 22. Yes, I feel rather pointless in comparison.

On a less depressing note, there should be a few good things to come in the next few days. I'm working on the long-promised Gadgets page right now, and I was invited to check out Nintendo's new games lineup on Friday, so I've got something to look forward to. I'm also running out of time. As of writing this, it's the 11th of June, and that means I have exactly 19 days before I must vacate my flat. The clock is ticking!

Posted at 6:59 AM

Monday, June 09, 2003
Look ma, no ad! Finally moved the blog across to my own server, and so now the ad is gone. Took ages to re-direct the links on all the other pages, so hopefully I haven't made a mistake there...

The so-called cousins reunion didn't QUITE happen as planned... only Reshma and Krsna made it over in the end. Shaman had a prior engagement (which is fine and all, considering that he had little more than 12 hours' notice) and Sheeva was just being Sheeva. Didn't matter too much in the end, as Krsna and Reshma drove over to check out the flat one last time and have a nice big, fat American dinner at TGI Friday's. I had the world's biggest burrito. I swear, it was huge. You could easily fit two Coke cans end-to-end in there.

TGI Friday's is also known for apparently being the UK's number one birthday destination. In the two hours we were there, we heard Happy Birthday sung EIGHT different times. Yikes.

In entirely unrelated news, the movie gods at Pixar have released the teaser for their latest movie, The Incredibles. It isn't due out until NOVEMBER 2004 (ouch!), but I can't wait to see it. The Toy Story films and Monsters, Inc. are some of my favourite animated films (right up there with the best Disney put out), and this already looks pretty funny. Check out the trailer here.

Another funny link to follow is this one to a clip called "60" from Late Night with Conan O'Brien. For those who aren't acquainted with Mr. O'Brien, he hosts one of the funniest late-night talk shows in America. He was also a writer on The Simpsons during their glory years, so everyone's probably seen his work. This clip spoofs one of my favourite shows, 24. Conan's version is called 60. Each episode in the series is one second of the same minute. It's riveting stuff. Click here and then click "60" to see it.

Incidentally, it's still freaking hot here. And so desperate times call for desperate measures: Despite being scheduled to leave in about three weeks, I went out to buy a stack of short-sleeved shirts from GAP (yes, I know, shh). It's helping some. Now all I need is an air-con and I'm set.

Posted at 6:33 AM

Saturday, June 07, 2003
This post is a bit late thanks to a few bugs with the new Blogger, but I think everything should be working fine now... as usual, if there are any problems, please email me using the handy button at the top.

TROGDOR THE BURNINATOR. A must watch. No, really, watch it.

Picked up all the packing boxes for my stuff. It's a daunting job, but I think once I get started it'll be better. I can't believe that I'm going to fit everything in here to just a few boxes, though. I'll take pictures before I start, though, so the "glory" of this monument to pizza, Coke and videogames is preserved in a form other than fragile human memories.

Of course, I haven't started packing yet. Instead, I'm still ADDING to my collection. Before anyone freaks out, I'm really just picking up a few small things -- like books -- that are far more expensive in Hong Kong. And given how heavy all my junk is already, I can't see that adding too much to the total weight. I hope. Either way, I also need a new shirt for this awful weather (yes, it is still REALLY HOT) and so I picked up the new Liverpool away jersey for 2003/4. Football shirts are perfect for this weather, having all sorts of high-tech fabric designs and such to help players keep cool while sweating like mad. I might not be doing any exercise, but I'd like to keep cool, and so this does the job.

And you have to love technology. As I browsed the book selection at the local Waterstone's, a few of the books I wanted were looking rather pricey. Out with the mobile phone, activate mobile web browsing, search for the book title in Amazon.com and there it is, 35% cheaper and available right now. Ordered it then and there and saved a few pounds. The Internet is so useful that it scares me. I mean honestly -- I'm even accessing it on my phone as I window-shop. How on Earth am I going to go without it on trips or anything?

(Yikes, the mere thought of that is bringing a shiver down my spine. Note to self: Look for wireless internet hotspots in all holiday destinations.)

Tomorrow I'm expecting Reshma, Krsna, Shaman and Sheeva -- ie, most of the UK-based clan -- down here to Kingston for a cousin's get-together and farewell to me. I will of course have pictures and the scoop here tomorrow...

In the meantime, TROGDOOOOR!

Posted at 1:28 PM

Thursday, June 05, 2003
Don't get comfy with this URL, because I'll be moving the blog over to a new one in a matter of days. I'm looking at putting it at www.hiranand.net/ravi/blog/ -- OK, it's kinda long, but I get to remove the ad and get more flexibility. I'm also planning to put a forwarding page at hiranand.net/ravi, too, which makes the URL much easier to remember. All I have to do is fix the URL on every single page, which WILL take a while, so bear with me.

Saw the film Bringing Down the House yesterday. Despite the fact that 90% of the jokes in the movie played on racial stereotypes -- you know, all black people are law-breaking tattooed gangsters and white people are stiff racist suits devoid of any emotion -- it actually was funny. Nothing outstanding, but I enjoyed it and the reaction seemed to be the same throughout the cinema. Interesting then that the film has garnered only hatred from the critics. Pity, really. There's a long diatribe to be had about people being too uptight to admit they laughed at a movie poking fun at the usual black and white stereotypes, but not here, and not know. Just know that Steve Martin is funny, and that should be enough.

The last thing to note is a rather... interesting email I received. The folks behind the giant Consumer Electronics Show held annually in Vegas are looking for panel moderators for the conference program that runs alongside all the exhibitions, and they want me to moderate and select speakers for the Wireless Gaming panel. Could be interesting, but it's also far too early to know what I'll be doing in January 2004. I also fear that I'm somewhat out of my depth here; I get the feeling they don't quite realise that I'm 22 and am more of an enthusiast with journalist connections rather than a pro wireless gaming journalist. Which could mean that it'd be a good opportunity...

Posted at 2:30 AM

Monday, June 02, 2003
My first solid month of blogging for almost two years yielded 15 posts, which is quite impressive, I reckon. There's surely more to come; I have the will , it's mainly a question of time. Why? Read on!

I gave in my 30 days' notice to the company that let out my flat, and so I'll be out of here for sure by June 30th. I should be leaving the UK within a few days of that at the very latest. From there, it's off to Hong Kong for only three or four days to rest, recharge and have all my clothes washed (look, even if I actually wash them, my parents don't believe me and wash them again -- so hey, free laundry, why should I complain?) before heading off to Australia, for reasons you all probably know about. How long I'll be there is a mystery... unlike the rest of my family, I don't have to fly back by September for school, so I could be there for as long as is necessary. Hopefully I'll have more time to spend in Hong Kong, but...

In the meantime, it's FREAKING HOT here in the UK. And I only have a couple of short-sleeved shirts and no shorts. And there's no point buying any when I have ample stock in Hong Kong and am in the process of shipping everything back there anyway. Sigh. I hate this weather.

This weekend, however, was all about Kavi leaving. My insane cousin has been here at Kingston for the last two years and visited me in my first summer, so he's has been a permanent fixture in my British life since then. Last year when he was staying in dorms he pretty much lived with me. My house is in the middle of town (and thus easy to stumble back to from clubs) and had a comfortable spare bedroom... as well as ample food... and plenty of entertainment in the form of TV, broadband Internet and a ton of games... so it wasn't too hard to entice him to come over as much as possible. It worked out well for me, though, because I effectively had the advantages of a roommate (minus the whole "he pays the rent" bit) with the advantages of not having one... being that everything was mine and if I wanted privacy I could tell him to take a hike.

Given that for the last two years I had pretty much lived in isolation it was always great to have company, and family at that, hanging around to just do stuff with -- go out, have dinner, play games etc. Although Haneal (another cousin of mine) has been in London over the same period of time, and though I do talk to him almost every day, he's out in Central London and had his own set of friends and people to hang out with, so it was different than with Kavi. Over the last week we've kinda been enacting our "last time" to do virtually anything and everything, from the traditional Thursday night curry at Wetherspoons' to the never-ending Winning Eleven battles (I won the last game on penalties after a 2-2 draw thanks to Buffon's save and Doni's kick; apt that we were so close).

In a sense though, it's not so much about him as me. He'll be here next year, but I won't. It's my last time to do and see all these things, really. I have exactly 28 days -- four weeks -- until I move out of this flat and presumably depart forever from Kingston-upon-Thames. Although I can't say that I've enjoyed my time in the UK, I have always loved my flat and come to feel vaguely comfortable in the environment around it. No matter what, it's four years of my life, so there are a lot of memories attached to this place.

And it's appropriate that the song currently playing is the Beatles' classic, "In My Life".

Posted at 7:46 PM

Sunday, June 01, 2003
More bad news, hence the lack of posting. It's not that I have nothing to talk about -- there are lots of things, for a change -- but there's no desire thanks to recent events in Australia, where on top of my grandfather's illness, my uncle's baby daughter passed away. It wasn't as sudden as that might imply though, because she was born with a serious illness and wasn't given much hope to survive even a period of weeks. Personally I am somewhat happy to think that despite the adversity she survived for over a year and thus had the chance to experience as much of life as possible, but I can also see how this is harder for the family to take, since they've had that much time to be with her.

To be honest, I haven't taken the news well at all, even though I never did get a chance to see the baby in the flesh. For some reason, it's just hit me a lot harder than my grandfather's illness, even though the consequences of the latter are clear to me. So forgive me for trying to forget everything and taking a more trivial approach to the rest of the post; I really don't want to be depressing.

It has to be said that the weather around here really doesn't help. People complain about the cold but really, it beats the heat. It's a funny thing to say, coming from infinitely-hotter Hong Kong, but I can't stand the heat here. Maybe it's because summer days last from 5am to 9pm. Maybe it's because of the total and utter lack of humidity -- normally a sticky nuisance, but somehow the dry hot air makes me very, very sleepy. The unfortunate caveat is it's virtually impossible to sleep in this heat without air-conditioning. I don't have an air-con. Uh oh.

The other problem with the heat is the bizarre and almost amusing British attitude to it. Every time there's a little bit of heat, everyone dresses and acts as if they're going to the beach. Women bare as much as possible, which usually means "too much" given that like America, there's a bit of an obesity problem here. Men start wearing sandals and only buttoning up their shirts at the bottom. It's exactly the sort of beachware you tend to see foreigners don in the likes of Phuket and the Philippines... except this is the middle of London. The only funny thing about their peculiar dress sense though is the fact that all the flesh-baring clothes tend to reveal and highlight how pasty-white most people are. Again, coming from the tropics, that's an unusual sight.

Perhaps the most bizarre bit though is their fondness for picnicking. Actually, I digress. Although again picnics are not exactly common in Hong Kong -- nobody wants to go to the beach, and though we do have nice country parks, I cannot recall any of my extended family ever even expressing a DESIRE to picnic there -- it's not the actual act of doing so that I find amusing. What I find amusing is WHERE they choose to drop the mat and eat. Even though I find the River Thames by my little town to be stagnant and especially full of flies at summertime... alright, there's a case for setting up there, by the water and with trees, cafes and pubs nearby. Ditto a park, full of lush grass. Just fine. But I really wouldn't expect to see anyone having a picnic in my carpark... and people do, regularly. You see, there's a little grass verge between the actual road and parking slots and where the building is. It's only about three to four metres across, surrounded by cars and enclosed by a building, but people still like to lie there, sun themselves and eat.

I wonder if any of them realise that in addition to the fact that they're sitting in the middle of a carpark... the little bungalow-esque huts scattered about the verge are the apartment's trash collection point.

Posted at 5:28 AM