Blog

Updated as often as I can manage

Tuesday, July 29, 2003
I saw the amazing Finding Nemo today, and to celebrate made some Nemo (and one Incredibles) phone wallpaper. Get 'em while they're hot!

What was also amazing was packing the Hong Kong Stadium on Sunday with 40,000 other people to watch my beloved Liverpool play a friendly match in HK for the first time in 20 years. I've seen Liverpool live before (up at Anfield, no less), but it's still a special occasion and gave me the opportunity to see players I haven't seen before. And it was my first time to see the club in person for my little brother, another avid-Liverpool-fan-in-the-making.

Of course, that's all friendly matches are good for, really, since they're rarely exciting matches. The visiting team is always vastly superior to the local opposition and usually are way short of match practice (friendlies tend to be scheduled well before the season), and that combined with the fact that the match really doesn't matter in the end means that you don't see the sort of proper, cohesive and motivated performance you're used to seeing on TV from the visiting team. But again, it's the only chance people out here will have to see star names like Michael Owen, so it's worth it in the end.

Still, with the oppressive heat (36 degrees Celcius) and talk of Liverpool not adjusting well to the conditions, I expected a more lax performance even by the remarkably low standards of Hong Kong friendlies -- the nadir of which was when the England national team came out to beat a local club by the score of 1-0. I didn't expect Liverpool to beat that score by too much, despite the Hong Kong Select XI's best player being the overrated 36-year-old winger Lee Kin-wo, famous for once picking up a corner flag and throwing it as a spear towards another player.

Instead, Liverpool took to the weather better than their LOCAL opponents and it was a decent performance. French youngsters Florent Sinama-Pongolle and Anthony Le Tallec (who scored) really impressed me and overall the team played well. They probably weren't worth the 6-0 scoreline in the end but I'm not going to complain. Next up, Real Madrid (Beckham, Ronaldo, Zidane, Figo, Roberto Carlos, Raul et al), due on August 8th for a huge, huge game. Can't wait!

Posted at 11:50 PM

Saturday, July 26, 2003
Where: HOME, SWEET HOME, Hong Kong
When: 3:08am local time

And so the journey ends. There's lots to say about Australia but also plenty of time in the days ahead in which to say it, so I'll space things out a bit and just wrap up the events of the last couple of days.

I left a day earlier than expected in the end, making the predictably hectic trip home even moreso (there's simply no other way with this many kids and that many bags). For a start, I had to cancel dinner plans with Cameron (you know, Gazunta) and his fiancée Sabrina and fit them in to a lunch instead. And so we met up for lunch and cookies (McDonalds' Cookies are heavenly and only 50 Aussie cents a box!). After which Sabrina met me again for coffee. And after which the Dynamic Duo met me yet again in the evening for dinner/drinks/coffee-esque hanging out. I was almost disappointed that they didn't turn up later still for a nightcap, but for once goodbye MEANT goodbye. It's a pity that I didn't get to spend more time with Cameron, a perpetual colleague who I've been working with since 1996, but that only gives me all the more excuse to return next year for the wedding!

The day of the flight itself was predictably mad, with my mom and two youngest siblings heading off for Sydney while the three older ones (myself included) flew straight back to Hong Kong with my aunt (such is the chaos that ensues when you try to cut corners with cheap tickets). Cue lots of mad running about and plenty of stress from my sisters, the family's anointed bag-packers (because the other kids are too young and though I'm willing, I'm also rubbish at packing and thus am forced to stay three feet away from an open suitcase at all times), culminating in an almost disastrous situation at the airport. While my mom was checking into the Domestic terminal, I discovered that I apparently didn't have my own or my sister's ticket. Cue panic on her side and panic on our side until it becomes apparent that the real criminal of the piece is the Qantas ground staff for not figuring out the whole "E-Ticket" thing. Seems that not only was my E-Ticket booking not on the computer (despite my seating arrangements being on the computer, GO FIGURE), she didn't even bother to look for it. On the bright side, their incompetence also made them stick highest-priority tags on our bags for no apparent reason (all 11 suitcases for three adults, three teens, one child and one infant).

The flight itself was just as bumpy (if not worse) than the flight on the way in, the difference being that this one took place during the day (no chance to sleep, as much as they encourage you to) and that the pilot decided to leave the Fasten Seatbelt sign off for the vast majority of the flight. I whiled away the hours watching The Core, arguably the stupidest movie of all time. It makes Armageddon look like the work of Einstein and wasn't much distraction from the bumping and rolling and dipping constantly swaying the airframe, so it was good to finally put down in Hong Kong and race through the hyper-efficient airport. I'm not kidding when I say the first bag was out no more than seven minutes after we stepped off the plane, and that Immigration usually takes thirty seconds or so.

From there it was straight home to dig into the 13 boxes from London that await my attention, and I'm typing this now from my (former) UK desktop computer. Ah, it's nice to be home.

Posted at 4:04 AM

Tuesday, July 22, 2003
Where: My flat, Brisbane
When: 2:41am local time

We're leaving Australia on Friday, so it's the last few days out here. It's been a really busy trip thus far and the last few days have been no exception.

On Saturday, we all went out for a family picture of all the grandchildren before heading off for a boating session on the river. Despite living in Hong Kong and by the river in London, I don't really take to the water too often or anything. In HK the harbour is way too busy and boat rentals too expensive to have any real fun on (unless you want to go drinking), and the Thames by my old flat in London is dull and lifeless. Here, on the other hand, the river is quiet and the boats are fast, so it was a lot of fun to speed up and down in a friend's boat.

And the next day -- at the extreme insistence of my uncle, who should be credited for his dogged determination to make sure we all have a great time here -- we headed out to do some fishing up on the Sunshine Coast in Noosa. We caught absolutely nothing. Well, not nothing: My uncle caught a branch and my cousin caught some seaweed. Still, I got to skipper one boat and drive it around, which was especially good because I don't even have a driver's license ("it's just like driving a car", says the instructor, "HE DOESN'T HAVE HIS LICENSE", shouts my family). And despite the other boat managing to run aground, stray into a danger zone AND flood their engine, we managed fine under my command. So much for skippers going down with the ship, eh?

That almost brings us up to speed. We're closing off all our affairs here before leaving and the stress of spending most of the day rifling through my grandparents' things (my grandmother died nine years ago but we just put all of her belongings in a warehouse) led the adults to desert the children and seek some alcohol. And the only place in Brisbane open late on a Monday night was the Casino... so, off to the Casino we went. Now, I hate gambling. I hate it because I really don't have good luck with these things, partially because I really don't know how to play most of the games and thus doom myself. I also hate it because I don't really think I have the right mentality for it. Take my uncle, for instance. He started with A$50, worked his way up to $150, but ended the evening back on $50. His reasoning is that he had fun gambling and ended up not having to pay for the priviledge, so it was worth it. I can see that, but I can't agree with it because I'd keep thinking about the winnings. To have had tripled your initial sum and then lost it again would not have been fun for me. But then having said all that, my mom forced me to shove $5 into a slot machine and I won $60 back immediately. I quit then and there and kept the winnings. A good night, for sure.

Posted at 3:32 AM

Friday, July 18, 2003
Where: My flat, Brisbane
When: 10:32pm local time

Aggravation consumes me.

As you might have noticed by the location, I now have net access in the flat I'm staying in, thanks to a wireless link to my uncle's house. So why am I all annoyed? Because despite the excellent signal strength... the link dies anytime anyone picks up his cordless phone. And people use his phone all the time. This makes the net a very... annoying experience. I can't connect to any IM service (MSN, AIM etc) or IRC because I get disconnected every few seconds. I can surf the web just fine -- kinda, because every so often I'll have to wait a bit for someone to get off the phone so my page can load -- but anything else just won't work. Which is, you know, annoying.

Also annoying me is the quack doctor I went to. Medical care in Hong Kong is rather expensive, and with good doctors here we figured it was a good time for everyone to get check-ups. He gave five minutes over to checking me through physically and then spent twenty lecturing me about spirituality. And then he goes to tell my mom quietly that I'm depressed. Of course I'm depressed! I had to sit there listening to him drone on about spirituality for twenty minutes!

In happier news, the Lakers signed Karl Malone and Gary Payton! Go LA! Go LA!

Posted at 10:59 PM

Thursday, July 17, 2003
Where: Uncle Manjit's House, Brisbane
When: 1:42pm local time

I DO NOT WORK FOR MICROSOFT.

I had to get that out of the way for two reasons. The first is that right now more than ever I despise PCs. Using a Mac, we don't get virii or worms or adware or spyware or spam like PC owners do (simply because there are way more PCs than Macs, so the creators of those programs focus on the bigger market), and now that I actually have to USE one to get on the net here I am getting incredibly frustrated with the amount of junk you get just being on the Internet. It's ridiculous. An ad window pops up regardless of the website you're on every minute here, freezing the computer. What makes life even better are the new ads running on websites now that just appear in the middle of a block of text that you're reading. What makes them even WORSE are the fact that they all are required to have CLOSE WINDOW buttons, except only a few actually WORK. Very, very frustrating.

The second and more pertinent reason is that my mother has been carrying around a copy of the Official Australian Xbox Magazine to show everyone my column and picture... and to say how her son works for Microsoft. And of course, once she says that, everyone listens, including the other relatives here and the kids, meaning I'm bombarded with constant questions about working for Microsoft. I don't work for Microsoft. Hell, I don't even work for the Official Aussie Xbox Magazine anymore -- I used to contribute a monthly column from the UK for them, but given that I do not live in the UK anymore I had to resign. Mind you, it was kinda cool to pick up a magazine with your face in it on random newsstands.

Still, this Microsoft thing is annoying me. My mom is certainly not a dumb woman by any stretch of the imagination but I don't know why nobody can quite get their heads around the fact that Microsoft do not publish their own magazine. Can't anyone see the stupidity in Microsoft reviewing their own products? Think they (or any other company for that matter) would be fair? Come ON people!

The irony is that the "Microsoft" work I do is the smallest part of my monthly freelance work, but because my picture is there it happens to be the only one anyone cares about or remembers. And it extends to everything. I went for lunch yesterday with the esteemed Cameron "Gazunta" Davis, an old friend and colleague who I've worked alongside for a long time, the last time being with... the Aussie Xbox Magazine. And so even though he now works for Brisbane's own Krome Studios on Ty the Tasmanian Tiger 2, everyone thought I was going to meet with Microsoft for lunch. And even though I said it was an informal lunch with an old friend, when I got back to see everyone the first words that left my uncle's mouth was "So did you get the job with Microsoft or not?". What job! What Microsoft! What is going on!

Incidentally, lunch with Cameron was good. I didn't get to hear much about Ty 2 -- serious security lockdown, apparently, which is why the front door was wide open and a whiteboard full of info on their new game was sitting unguarded in the entrance hall (no, I didn't have my digicam, yes, I should have brought it). Still, what I DID hear sounds good, so all seems well out there.

Posted at 2:11 PM

Sunday, July 13, 2003
Where: Uncle Manjit's House, Brisbane
When: 7:02pm local time

My brother turned 10 on Friday and to celebrate we've been taking the kids -- that's all 13 of us grandchildren -- out to theme parks on the Gold Coast, just south of Brisbane. All the major theme parks are located out here, and there were even proposals to bring Disneyland here before Hong Kong offered a better deal. The only downside is that for some incredibly bizarre reason, the theme parks close at 5pm. Yes, it's winter, and thus it gets dark by around 5, but still it's ridiculous, especially since Disneyland -- the gold standard for theme parks -- only really comes alive at night.

And so because we tend to be late-rising people and because the parks close early, we spent both Saturday and Sunday at Dream World, a generic Aussie park with the usual rides and a local touch in the form of native wildlife attractions (koalas, kangaroos, etc). I've got a ton of pics to share from that, but my laptop still doesn't have a reliable connection to the Internet so I can't upload them just yet.

There's no rest for the wicked either because on Monday we're finishing off the madness with a trip to Warner Bros Movie World, the big park out here. It should be fun but to be honest I'm totally exhausted already. I've never been one for rides -- not being a fan of heights things like roller coasters are not exactly my thing -- so I've been trying to look after the kids instead ("trying" being the key word). I gave up on Sunday and just strolled around instead. Oh, and I ate a lot of ice cream too. Ice cream is good.

Posted at 7:20 PM

Thursday, July 10, 2003
Where: Queen Street Mall, Brisbane
When: 3:55pm local time

Funny how when you finally manage to grab Internet access it's mostly irrelevant. Thanks to the kids (there are 13 of us grandchildren here, and most of them have yet to hit their teens) ALL having their own email address and MSN accounts and ALL insisting that as such they have important emails and affairs to attend to and thus have as much right to use the single Internet-capable computer in the flat as I do, I haven't had the patience to get on and check stuff (emails, news etc) as often as I should.

So the wireless access all throughout the open-air Queen Street Mall SHOULD have been a godsend, but right now it doesn't exactly feel like it. For some reason, my email program absolutely refuses to download my email, even though it works just fine over the web. MSN, AIM and ICQ also refuse to work. I'm not entirely sure what's going on, but I'm left pretty much with only the web... and for some reason I don't feel like tackling the mounting pile of websites I have to get into. It's just... boring right now.

Mind you, it's not that everything else has been too exciting. Fairly slow days here, but it's pleasant enough. And I got new shoes! New shoes are good!

Posted at 4:18 PM

Tuesday, July 08, 2003
Where: Uncle Manjit's house, Brisbane
When: 12:53pm, local time

Settled in Brisbane now, with most of the various funeral-related prayers and events all done and dusted. The funeral itself started off in a rather surreal fashion, because I walked in halfway through to be mobbed by my rather cheerful family -- cheerful to see me after six long months, but still, we were in a funeral wake so I wasn't entirely sure how appropriate that was. It was a combination of that, my lack of sleep, and the fact that I haven't actually seen my grandfather for almost a year that accoutned for none of it hitting me. It just didn't register that the body in the coffin that looked kinda like my grandfather actually WAS my grandfather. And it didn't hit me until they played a tape he made for his wife of him singing Unchained Melody against what sounds like a karaoke machine. The song is incredibly cliched, the singing was in all truth not the best, and the backing music was cheesy in the extreme, but none of that mattered because it hit me so hard right then and there that that voice was now gone for good.

I don't want to dwell on all that for too long, but it was definitely worth a note.

We spent the rest of the day reminiscing at my aunt's spectacular house out in the Brisbane suburbs. Actually, I don't think they were even suburbs. See, Brisbane itself is rather large, but given that only about a million people live there, everything is spread out and uncluttered... so while her area would probably be known as the countryside in Hong Kong, it's vaguely suburban here in Brisbane. And while I despise the sparse country life, her house is quite simply amazing. Just... amazing. If I had my camera, I'd post pictures galore, because it was an astonishingly beautiful house.

The last time I was in Australia, I was five years old. My main memory of Australia then was that it was very, very quiet. And generally that's proved to be true. Thanks to Brisbane not being densely populated (unlike London or Hong Kong), everything here just seems... quiet. Hell, when I arrived at the airport and stepped out into the carpark I was greeted with silence. No wailing of kids and adults struggling with luggage, no cars beeping, no planes flying overhead, nothing. I'm familiar with noise, and indeed arriving in Hong Kong on Thursday I had all of that waiting for me at the airport, but not here.

Last time I came we also flew out to the Gold Coast, an hour south of Brisbane, and I went there again yesterday with my entire (extended) family. That's all 13 grandchildren, with myself being by far the oldest. These kids have it lucky in that Gold Coast now is far better than the one I had (Movie World, Dream World and Sea World weren't here then, for a start), but it's still not exactly my thing. It's winter here now, remember, so the beach is out of the question (despite my little brother's protestations, the Wet n' Wild waterpark is also out of the question), but I get a very odd vibe from the place. Despite this being Australia, Westernised in culture if not in geography, Gold Coast felt an awful lot like a far less seedy version of Phuket or Bali. Then again, maybe that's because most of the tourists out in Phuket and Bali actually ARE Australian, but...

Posted at 1:18 PM

Sunday, July 06, 2003
Where: Qantas Lounge, Cairns International Airport
When: 9:19am local time

I've arrived at Cairns en route to Brisbane, and seeing as I managed to wrangle a way into the lounge (unlike my sister, who is waiting outside) I figured I should quickly post from here. Unfortunately, thanks to the brilliance of the aging Compaq sitting next to me, the lovely post I had all typed out simply vanished. I love Cairns already!

Not that there's much to love. The airport has all of five gates and two planes... though it happens to have a sushi bar, too. Strange, but hey.

The flight was incredibly annoying. At six and a half hours, it's too long to while away watching TV and reading, and too short to sleep through. Not that I could sleep though, since the Fasten Seatbelt sign came on just after dinner and didn't go off until an hour before landing thanks to rather severe turbulence. Now, I know a few people who LIKE turbulence. They think it's fun. I don't. I hate it. It scares me. And to make matters worse, I had to go to the toilet really badly (naturally, the episode of Friends I was watching featured a similar dilemma of a person with bladder problems).

Either way, I'm almost there. No idea what state I'll be in when I arrive but I gather that everyone else probably won't be in tip-top shape either, so it shouldn't be too bad.

Posted at 9:31 AM

Saturday, July 05, 2003
Where: Gate 64, Hong Kong International Airport
When: 10:56pm local time

Those two lines will be something of a feature in the days to come as I struggle to find places to log on and blog from in the coming days. As it says, I'm sitting in the airport awaiting my departure for Brisbane, where I'll arrive with minutes to spare before the funeral. After that... I really don't know what'll happen.

It's sad to be leaving Hong Kong so soon -- and indeed under such circumstances -- but I'll be back in a couple of weeks so it's not as bad as leaving for London. Indeed, I'm almost worried by how calm I am right now. I think I've packed and done everything, which is unsettling because I'm usually wracked withd doubt and worries. But everything seems fine, and that's good, because I imagine over there in Australia things are rather more messy, so me being organised will help (I hope).

Incidentally, I've been struggling with the incredible annoyance that is Starbucks in Hong Kong. Aside from not having large sizes (what?!), every time you order anything, they sing out your order. And the next person sings it out. And the next. And the next. It's a constant cacophany of GRANDE RASBERRY FRAP-PUCCINOOO in there, and it's annoying. Quiet Wi-Fi hotspots HK Starbucks certainly are not...

Posted at 11:09 PM

Where: Home, sweet home, Hong Kong
When: 4:32am, local time

I wanted to blog tonight because I'm leaving for Brisbane tomorrow and had to post at least once from Hong Kong, but as usual it seems events elsewhere have rather curtailed plans for a normal, casual update.

My grandfather passed away a few hours ago.

Most of you probably do remember me saying that he was very ill (indeed, he's pretty much the only reason why I'm scheduled to fly to Brisbane at all), and so it didn't come as a surprise. In truth the only surprise was that he lasted so long; initial assessments when he was admitted over a month ago indicated that he should have only lasted a couple of weeks at best. Though this did prolong his suffering somewhat -- his cancer had all but taken over by the time they detected it and aside from being virtually untreatable was hurting him rather badly -- on the bright side, he did have enough time to see all of his children and his grandchildren one last time (my sister and I being the lone exceptions, sadly) and they had time to let go.

As for how I'm feeling (not that I want to be all self-centred, but it tends to be a common question) I'm actually surprised again at how I'm taking it... or rather, how I'm not. Which is that it hasn't affected me at all yet. I did say when I first heard of his illness that I didn't seem to be affected by it -- it didn't seem real -- and the same is true now. I'm sure that I will be in a completely different state when I get there, but until then I've kept things together almost too well. I almost feel that it's wrong to be so completely unaffected by something like that, some guilt tugging away at me whenever I speak to anyone there in Australia. Should I be? Am I being insensitive by not reacting unduly? I'm really not sure.

Either way, there isn't much more to say here. I'll probably blog another update from the airport before I leave (thank god for airport-wide wireless internet) with more of the trivial notes from Hong Kong, and I'll definitely find a way to send in updates from Brisbane, when I will no doubt be unable to avoid talking about events over there. And so until I get more direct information, I'll leave it at that.

Posted at 4:39 AM

Wednesday, July 02, 2003
Why more Starbucks don't have wi-fi access here is beyond me. This is ridiculosuly comfortable -- big plush armchair, air-con and a cool drink at my side, and wireless Internet in my lap.

Having said that, I'm used to being pampered right now because the hotel is ultra-posh and ultra-comfy. Major props are due to my uncle Aron, who not only owns the hotel but also got two rooms for my sister and I -- including what appears to be a suite for me (my sister wasn't too happy when she noticed that I had a couple of couches and a coffee table in my room and not in hers).

The move appears to have gone well -- no complaints yet from the cleaners or the letting agents. Not that I'm anticipating any. Ahem.

Last day in London now... will no doubt blog from the other side when I get home!

Posted at 1:32 AM