Blog

Updated as often as I can manage

Friday, August 29, 2003
I'd blog more if I was doing more, but in the last few days I've literally been doing nothing. You'd figure with free days being at a premium now I'd make the most of them, but uh... nope!

Probably the only interesting thing was dinner tonight. We tried out this new place in the local mall called Mi. I suppose the best way to describe it is a classy Asian food court. When you get in, you're assigned a table and everyone gets a smart card. You then walk around and check out various food stalls (over 20 in total) serving everything and anything Asian. You can get Chinese dishes, Japanese (sushi and tempura), Korean (barbeque), Thai, even Macanese/Portuguese food. Once you've spotted a good dish, you select what you want from a touchscreen computer menu, hit confirm, and then wave your smart card. And that's it. The food is automatically delivered to your table and that's that. Once you're done, just take your cards to the checkout and get your bill. It's a cool system, but it wouldn't be anything without good food... and Mi has good food. Slightly pricy, but definitely enjoyable.

Posted at 11:08 PM

Tuesday, August 26, 2003
It looks like my boss is leaving for Paris early, and so... my IHT internship finishes tomorrow! Yay! I'll have a long weekend to enjoy before CNN starts, which is always good.

Posted at 11:43 PM

Sunday, August 24, 2003

That little symbol up there signifies that Typhoon Signal #3 is now in effect for Hong Kong, meaning that we're expecting high winds from Typhoon Krovahn (it's apparently a Cambodian name) to hit the city over the next few hours. Signal #3 generally isn't serious enough to properly disrupt life here, but ferry services are usually iffy and some flights are diverted. For the rest of us, it's a sign that a typhoon is approaching and to expect a LOT of rain.

I love typhoons. Living in Hong Kong, we're rather lucky. Thanks to a wall of mountains sheltering the harbour and surrounding lowlands where the majority of the population lives, as well as years of proper government planning and preparation for events like this, even direct hits cause minimal damage. In the last five years, less than 20 people have been killed by typhoons. It's not totally safe, of course, and you have to take precautions (it might sound obvious, but walking around when the wind is whipping up debris and loose objects is never smart, and nor is fooling around in areas liable to flood), but in general it's probably one of the safer places to observe strong tropical storms blowing in. So my dad and I used to head off in the middle of the night to drive around and observe any storm damage in the city, gauge how strong the winds are, check out the harbour conditions and generally cruise around. That and typhoons used to close schools (duh), so any kid would look forward to their imminent arrival!

Having said that, it doesn't look like Typhoon Krovahn will provide for any interesting conditions at all. It'll pass more than 300 kilometres away from Hong Kong (barring any super-dramatic shift) and signal #3 is probably the highest we'll get. Incidentally, the Typhoon Signals are #1 (early warning), #3 (strong winds), #8 (gale/storm-force winds), #9 (winds expected to increase significantly -- only used as a precursor to...) and #10 (hurricane-force winds), the signal for a direct hit. There have only been two of those in my lifetime, and one of them came two days after I left for London.

Liverpool play tonight! Go Liverpool!

Posted at 6:48 PM

Saturday, August 23, 2003
I'll have more details about my new job later, but one thing about it I will mention is that it's from 5pm to 11pm. This means that I won't (for the most part) have to re-jig my preferred lifestyle of sleeping late and waking up late, but it does mean that I have to sacrifice my evenings and avoid going to the cinema or attending family parties on weekdays... which can actually be a perk. For those who don't know yet, my hyper-large and extended family -- all 100+ members -- often hold fancy parties either at home or at my cousin's hotel. With so many family members, there's always an occasion for a party, and this time around it was my grand-uncle's 81st birthday. This was a problem because firstly the big Newcastle vs Man United game starts an hour before the party, and secondly because with so many people out of town there is a genuine shortage of people my age in the family. Mind you, I had Kavi and Haneal, but it's always nice to hang around with the rest of the family.

And with that in mind, we set off for the hotel early, grabbed a seat at the bar and decided to watch the game from there (or as much of it as we could before we'd be forced to go down to the party). It was a generally entertaining game (Man U won 2-1) but the bar had a... strange atmosphere. Despite a good 80% of the bar patrons sitting down to watch the game, the TV was muted and instead soft lounge music was played. As if that wasn't bad enough, halfway though the second half the music went off... to be replaced by a live band. Urgh.

Saw Pirates of the Caribbean yesterday. It's surprisingly good. I wasn't expecting much at all, and though it does drag slightly in places and contain a plot that trips over itself on a regular basis, it's a great movie. It's always fun to watch with some great action pieces, dash of humour and an all-star cast ably headed by the superb Johnny Depp. And the clever little references to the Disneyland ride are also appreciated.

Lastly, one other thing I've been watching over the past few nights is the new Simpsons Season 3 DVD set. It's great so far, given that it's too old to be one of the seasons constantly re-run on the BBC, and recent enough that the less-funny-more-morals attitude of the first two seasons have been dropped for the familiar formula we know and love. And so I've been watching a lot of episodes that I haven't seen in a long, long time. And this is the interesting bit: The last time I saw half of these episodes was when they first ran in the US, and I was spending four months with my ailing grandmother in Los Angeles. Brings back a lot of memories...

Posted at 11:37 PM

Friday, August 22, 2003
I got the job!

Posted at 3:36 PM

Wednesday, August 20, 2003
After finally meeting the producer at CNN (I turned up 15 minutes early this time), he's confirmed that I do have the job... as long as they can get funding for it. So I'm waiting on that now and should know by the end of the week. It seems quite likely, but I'm still somewhat nervous that it'll fall through at the last so I'm not quite taking it for granted just yet.

Having had and used the 3G iPod extensively over the last few days, I've got a fair amount of thoughts about the device. The new slimmer design is great, for a start. Rounded edges make a huge difference because now I don't have to worry about chipping the edges, and it just feels better in your pocket. Another advantage comes from the "touch buttons" (think elevator buttons, you don't have to push them, just touch), which means that it's much harder for anything else to touch any of the iPod's buttons, since it's really designed for the touch of a human finger. The old iPod's mechanical buttons used to go off all the time. The scroll wheel on the old iPod used to move (and thus turn the volume up/down) just by the motion of my walk. That doesn't happen anymore... but the flipside is the design on the old iPods was much more intuitive. it doesn't take long to learn that up is menu, down is pause, etc. With the new ones, all the buttons are lined up, and it's much harder to instinctively peck at them through your shirt pocket... and much easier to hit the wrong button. I've done that far too often lately. On the other hand, the On-The-Go playlist creation feature is great. I rarely use the remote now because I tend to know what I want to listen to next, and then seek and queue it up on the iPod itself. Incidentally, I HAVE noticed that the battery life is lower on this model than the other, but given that I haven't gone below three (out of four) bars yet, I'm not too concerned.

Other than that, not too much going on. I got the Season 3 set of the Simpsons (best. show. ever.), but with Season 2 of 24 still waiting for me (and Knights of the Old Republic, and F-Zero GX, and Viewtiful Joe, and WINNING ELEVEN 7) I have no idea when I'll be able to start watching! I guess one solution is to not go to Dragon-i as often as I do, but then I'd miss the glory of Wednesday's legendary Models Night!

Posted at 9:32 PM

Monday, August 18, 2003
A note on comments: It's a bit buggy at the moment, but it's not my fault at all. Honest. I followed the instructions, it didn't work, I got pissed off, left it... and a day later, without modifications it worked. Even then it's been going up and down intermittently, but the bottom line is: IT WORKS (sometimes), and when it doesn't, it's NOT MY FAULT (at all).

I was supposed to meet the executive producer at CNN that hooked me up with the job-to-be today, but after waiting for him for an hour, he had to run off to produce the evening broadcast and we had to bump it to Wednesday. It's somewhat frustrating because it's just serving to make me more anxious and nervous. Although the job seems to be in the bag -- he said I had it on Friday -- I'm assuming this meeting is more of a final check-up. After all, no matter what the credentials or recommendations, you really need to meet the person you're hiring, lest you're about to make a huge mistake. I'm looking at it as being the equivalent of a "medical" in a football transfer: It's a basic thing and a formality, but still necessary in light of the possible consequences. Having said all that, the longer we go on without sealing the deal (even if it's being put off for innocent reasons), more doubt always creeps in, and you get all the more nervous...

Something good to read today is this link from the Harvard Magazine. It's a speech given by Harvard alumnus and all-around funnyman Conan O'Brien. For those not familiar with Conan, aside from hosting his own show, he's also penned episodes of Saturday Night Live and The Simpsons -- which isn't a bad resume at all, really. Not that it really matters anyway; his speech is hilarious, read it!

Posted at 11:57 PM

Sunday, August 17, 2003
I bowed to pressure and introduced a comments system. Wondering where it is? Well, so am I. Despite following all the instructions to a T, it's not working. Go figure.

Only bit of news today... I got Slashdotted! Not this site, anyway, but the Winning Eleven 7 impressions I put up on Tokyopia. And for those unaware of what Slashdot is, it's a great geek website with a readership so large it frequently crashes servers with all the traffic. Needless to say, the featherweight Tokyopia server is still standing up well, so I guess that tells you how enticing a football video game story is for the Slashdot crowd.

Posted at 7:07 AM

Friday, August 15, 2003
Alright, so it starts with me sitting in the Foreign Correspondent's Club, surfing the net and generally trying to do some work (the majority of which you can see right here at Tokyopia). Membership of the FCC is one of the perks of this internship, and it's not bad. Not plush, but it has a very central location (behind Central and next to Lan Kwai Fong), and apparently the drinks are some of the cheapest in town. Anyway, while there I took out my iPod to listen to some music, and... the sound is full of static. I figure it might be the headphones, but I have a sneaking suspicion that my old faithful iPod -- by far the best gadget I've ever owned -- is reaching the end of its life.

I planned to test it out at home, but I had to get ready quickly for a Smirnoff party. They're launching some new flavours of vodka here, and we figured that even if the party is rubbish the drinks are free. But before I could head off with Haneal and Kavi, my mom rushes in to tell me that a high-placed friend of ours in marketing at CNN found a job for me there, and that I had to email them immediately. And so I did, and thus a carefree night of drinking became somewhat worrysome as I pondered the consequences. I'm three DAYS into my internship at IHT; CNN apparently want me right away. And though it's what I want to do, the CNN job (fully paid, none of this intern stuff) would be in TV. I've never done TV before, so what if I screw it up?

As predicted, the Smirnoff party was pretty bad, but the drinks were great. To enhance the "party" mood they handed out whistles (WORST IDEA EVER) and threw out those confetti poppers... one of which landed on our table, knocked over the only glass with any alcohol inside, and spilt said alcohol all over my pants. It shouldn't come as a great shock then to learn that we left once we had our fill of their new Citrus, Orange and Raspberry (aka Cough Syrup) vodkas for Dragon-i. Where we, as always, had a great time in the company of (but not quite in the company of) a gaggle of stunning models.

Despite it being a Thursday night, I managed to get home at 2am, and checked my email instantly to see... no reply from CNN. OK, now I'm even more nervous. While I was up, I decided to try my iPod with other headphones. No dice. Tried it with the Nokia Music Stand. Same deal. Looks like it's not just those headphones, then.

As I'm just about to leave for work the next morning, mulling how I'm going to manage to get someone to read my email for me and alert me the instant CNN reply, suddenly I hear the mail chime and look back to see CNN's response. They have a position, they think I'd be good for it, and I should call them ASAP. And I did. They want someone to help out in the control room and write stories for their evening show. The hours are 5pm to 11pm. And they can wait for me to finish my IHT internship and start September 1st. And so there you go -- once the formality of a proper, official offer comes in when I meet them on Monday, I should officially have a proper job starting September 1st at CNN, and I absolutely can't wait to start.

Now that the serious business is through, though, there's still one more little thing that needs to be resolved... my iPod. I've been looking to buy a new 15GB iPod for the last month or so anyway, so I was mulling buying a new one to replace the old one anyway. In the end, I figured I'd take it to the good people at Viewcon to take a look at, in case it can be repaired (relatively) cheaply. If they can repair it, I'll give it to my sister. If they can't, well... I have a stylish 5GB portable hard disk. So as I'm paying for the new 15GB iPod, suddenly I hear some rather distinctive Legend of Zelda music in the background. Surely that has to be mine, since nobody else is dorky enough to carry THAT on their iPods, right? Right. It was mine. They plugged my iPod in to test it, and it worked. They tried plugging it into something else, and it worked. I was flabbergasted, and it made me look like a complete idiot! Still, not willing to trust the apparently faulty equipment at home, I bought a new remote/headphones set (I broke the last remote) for my sister.

I'm kinda sad to have given the old iPod away, since (as I noted) it is probably the best gadget I've ever had and has served me well over the years... but the new iPod is sweet. Aside from having three times the memory, it's also MUCH slimmer and comes with a neat dock. I snapped a picture of it sitting in the dock below:

The buttons aren't as intuitive as the last one, but what is REALLY cool about it is how all the buttons and the scrollwheel aren't mechanical anymore, they're touch-sensitive (like the trackpads on laptops). It's just so much slicker that way.

Incidentally, I've been told that I should implement a comments system here. Should I? Will anyone actually use it? Do tell!

Posted at 11:13 PM

Wednesday, August 13, 2003
Today wasn't quite as boring as yesterday, but it was pretty pointless. I basically took all the news clippings featuring my boss' name -- and often they had nothing to do with the International Herald Tribune -- and filed them away. On the bright side, this meant that I could actually read the clippings and the newspapers they were clipped from, which provided some entertainment at least.

The biggest problem with work though is that it's in the middle of the ghetto. Well, not quite ghetto, but as close as you can get to it on Hong Kong Island. I took a walk around to discover any places to eat, and aside from some of the foulest, dirtiest daai paai dongs (think food stall, normally not-too-bad) seen yet there was nothing aside from a Delifrance. That's about it. All anyone seems to be selling around there are nuts, Chinese herbal medicines (anyone want deer antler complete with scalp?) and cheap clothes... and nobody seems to be buying anything, either. I honestly have no idea how these people stay in business. The sick thing is that it's an annoying distance away from Lan Kwai Fong and Central, which isn't just packed with eateries but also stuffed with acquaintances to meet for meals. It's either a 20-30 minute walk (in this heat, I don't think so) or a ten minute walk to the MTR, two minute ride to Central, and ten minute walk to Lan Kwai Fong again. Annoying. I did find a McDonald's in the end, and rather close at only ten minutes walk, but really... I like my junk food and I am unfit, but I really can't stand the prospect of a solid month just eating McDonald's (and/or Delifrance).

Still, on the bright side, I found the first images of the THIRD SEASON OF 24! And what do I do with new images? I make wallpaper, of course. If you haven't seen the second season though, do remember that these contain a spoiler, so don't download the Season 3 wallpaper until you've seen Season 2 (and if you haven't seen Season 2, you know the DVD box set is out now...)!

Posted at 11:00 PM

Tuesday, August 12, 2003
Sorry for the lack of updates yesterday -- I wanted to update, really, but I completely forgot. Oops.

Lots has been happening since I last blogged, so let's go through them in chronological order...

• The "interview" went well, and I got the job. I say "interview" because it was hardly a serious job interview at all -- more of a, "are you sure you want to do this?" And despite this meaning I will not write any stories for the International Herald Tribune and rather than working in their newsroom I work alone with their senior correspondent... I am. Incidentally, ex-KGVers may be interested to learn that the previous intern, who finished last Wednesday, was also a former KGVer: Lina Tornquist.

• Got home to see a new package of magazines from the US waiting for me. I actually completely forgot what I wrote about this month, so there was more than one surprise there. Also in the package was a new Star Wars game for Xbox: Knights of the Old Republic. I'm still at the beginning, and it's slow going so far, but it's kinda fun. And rather than the glut of games set in either the time of the Classic Trilogy (Luke Skywalker, etc) or the Prequel Trilogy (Anakin Skywalker, etc), this is set 4,000 years before both... so you're getting your Star Wars fix in while exploring a totally new environment. Also, though combat plays a central role in the game, you can get quite far by doing other things, like talking your way through (JEDI MIND TRICKS!) or hacking computer terminals to do your dirty work. Oh, and on your path to becoming a Jedi, you can choose the light side or the dark side of the Force. Which is just too damned cool.

• And speaking of cool, I then got a call from HMV telling me that the second season of 24 was out on DVD. I rushed over there and bought it ASAP, despite having every single episode right here on this hard drive. There's a ton of extras (commentaries, featurettes, deleted scenes) but ultimately, 24 is one of my favourite TV shows of all time. It just had to be bought. Much like the third season of the Simpsons, due out on DVD at the end of August.

• Roll on work the next morning, which was... awkward. It definitely wasn't what I expected. All I had to do all day was:

1) Go out and buy printer cartridges -- a task rendered unnecessary since the printer had ink.

2) Find a picture frame for an A4 certificate... which is no big deal, unless you're stuck in the ghetto of Sheung Wan, where they seem to exclusively sell nuts, herbs and spices.

3) Type up a two-sentence letter to twelve people, and address them. This was the day's biggest task, taking as it did all of 15 minutes.

4) Stuff the letters into envelopes and mail them.

That was it. In between there was a lot of reading (of magazines and newspapers; whatever I could get my hands on, really) and staring blankly out the window. I couldn't even access the Internet, since that office has no broadband and dialling up to check football news would mean taking the fax machine offline (which I imagine to be a bad thing). On the bright side, realising that I had done nothing all day and that there was nothing to do anyway, I was let go at 3 with a vague promise that some sort of plan of action for me would be in place tomorrow. That's a good start, I guess.

Still, I'm hopeful some good will come. Firstly, this internship is only a month long. Secondly, it's wildly different from CNN, and not just because of the rather enviable fact that I was "one of them" at CNN and here I'm effectively an assistant. At CNN, all our stories were -- ultimately -- rewrites of someone else's story. Original content did exist (I penned at least two totally original stories in my time there, which was more than a few other dot-commers), but the focus was on just getting the news out... never mind that you're basically polishing up and fleshing out a Reuters/WSJ/Bloomberg story. Working with a correspondent for the IHT is different because he has to create his stories from scratch. He has to firstly filter out everything coming from HK to find and extract the most relevant story for the rest of the world from HK, find an angle, and then tell the world. And often this comes before any word hits the wires or any of the other papers. It's more front-line investigative reporting, and I figure I can only learn from the methods employed... because I honestly have no idea how the process works.

• Since I got off work early, I met my family in Dragon-i (that's the SIXTH TIME since I got back). Why were they out? Because we decided to get a new dog, apparently. He's a golden retriever and his name is Max. He seems to be getting along fine with fellow puppy Bobo (a miniature shnauser) and queen of the house Gucci (a mongrel, cross between labrador and retriever apparently). It'll never be quiet in this house again.

• And lastly... I made more phone wallpaper, this time of super-cute Katie Holmes. I've always found her excessively beautiful, so I'm somewhat surprised that I hadn't made any phone wallpaper of her before. Normally, when I make wallpaper I start with 5-6 images at a minimum, edit them to fit the phone and remove some colours (saves on space; the phone can only display 4096 colours anyway, why waste the space displaying a 16.7 million colour picture when it looks the same?), and then I test them to see how they actually look on the phone itself. When I'm all done I usually end up with three images at the most that I like and keep. This time I started with five Katie Holmes images and I finished with five. They all came out great! Download them now!

Posted at 11:50 PM

Sunday, August 10, 2003
The aimless, slow summer is coming to a close. I have an interview tomorrow morning for an internship with the International Herald Tribune, so a job -- albeit a temporary one -- is on the horizon. I'm pretty nervous about it. Jobs are really hard to come by right now in Hong Kong so I'm looking to do a few internships while I can to get some experience, beef up the CV and hopefully one of them will pan out into a full-time thing. It's that and I've also never done any newspaper work and I don't know what to expect, really.

What's helping to ease my, er, unease is that the football season is almost upon us. The opener to the English season, the Community Shield, is on right now and the season itself starts next week. I can't wait!

Posted at 10:50 PM

Saturday, August 09, 2003
After all the hype, the line, the scalpers and all the sordid party details in the papers, Real Madrid finally played their match. And it was well worth all the hassle and effort. Aside from coughing up HK$1200 (US$154) for $500 (US$64) tickets, we also arrived there three hours before kick-off because seating wasn't reserved... and people had been lining up for good seats for two days. And despite the evening kick-off, the same oppressive heat we experienced during the Liverpool match was there (just without the danger of sunburn). Still, it was worth it.

The picture above gives a decent example of the view we had. Basically, the only place we could find enough seats for everyone (around fourteen people in all) was really, really high up in the stands... so we just moved right to the top row, by the centre line, to ensure a good view of everything and catch the breeze (essential on a hot day). And it really wasn't all that bad. You get a unique view up there. HK's Stadium really isn't that big (only holds 40,000 people) so you're still close enough to make out the numbers on the back of shirts, but far enough out that you can see virtually the whole pitch at once. It's a great tactical view because you really get to see the things you can't catch from TV (or from closer to the pitch), like the general shape of the teams, how they hold their defensive lines, off-the-ball runs, and the general effort each player puts in.

Speaking of effort, I really wasn't expecting much from the game. Friendlies in general are slow and mundane affairs, notable more for the fact that you're seeing Player X in the flesh than the actual match action, and Real's previous two friendlies in Beijiing and Tokyo were rather workmanlike performance. Omens were good before kick-off though with Real's starting lineup having their complete first-choice XI on view for the first time: Casillas, Salgado, Pavon, Helguera, Roberto Carlos, Makalele, Figo, Beckham, Zidane, Ronaldo, Raul. It's an awesome, star-studded lineup. I joked that they were the Harlem Globetrotters of our time, and they lived up to it in a lightning opening ten minutes that saw them score twice and have another goal disallowed for offside. For the most part, they were really trying to put on a show, playing fancy one-twos, backheels, flicks and spins. Even Ronaldo -- the laziest of the bunch, refusing to run off the ball and never even close to 100% -- managed to score a great goal, running at the defender, doing a few stepovers and flashing the ball into the near corner.

Hong Kong managed to pull a goal back, much to the delight of the crowd. Having said that, it's not like they were actually rooting for HK; it's a curious bit of crowd behaviour unique to a place like HK. You see, everyone came to see Real Madrid, everyone loves Real Madrid, so everyone's rooting for Real Madrid. But everyone also likes an underdog, particularly when the underdogs are your own people shaming the world's best, so they get cheered on. But when Real score... well, they cheer loudly too. And they did when Ronaldo struck again and Raul -- one of my favourites -- coolly chipped home a fourth. He's an incredibly natural finisher and it was Raul at his finest there (he also does a lot of work tracking back to defend, but you never really notice it until you watch a game). Real were dazzling in attack but poor at the back and managed to concede a second goal to HK after some sloppy defending leave the half-time score at a boggling 4-2.

The great game was a bonus, because everyone just came to see the stars. Actually, just one star: David Beckham. We all wanted to see him take one of his trademark free-kicks, and when Real got a free kick near the edge of the area (ironically drawing arguably the loudest cheer of the night), Becks stepped up to take -- and miss -- the free-kick, as photographed above. And though it was great to see the world's most famous footballer, and see him hit one of his classic 60 yard passes (from the high angle it was spectacular), he wasn't the reason to go. Nor was Raul's finishing, Ronaldo's acceleration, the sheer energy and SPEED of Roberto Carlos (again best viewed from up high) or the class of Figo. It was Zidane. Zinedine Zidane was, in a word, unreal. Everything he did was magic. His feet are insanely quick, but crucially so is his brain. Tackles were flying in and Zidane can sidestep them, control the ball and flick a perfect pass to a teammate every time. He spun and pirouetted at will. He surged past defenders. His control was flawless. Every pass -- be it a 40-yard long ball to a quick tiny flick -- was accurate. Before the game, I thought Zidane was definitely a great player, and one of the best in the world. Now, I believe him to be the best without a shadow of doubt. I wasn't alone in commenting after the match that Zidane alone was worth the inflated ticket price.

The second half could never match the first, and despite Real missing a string of chances (from Raul hitting the bar from the halfway line to Ronaldo hitting it from six yards out to Portillo missing an open goal) the game slowly petered out into the dull spectacle we saw in Beijing and Tokyo. Which, ultimately, was what we came for anyway. And what a great setting for it -- check out the HK skyline peeking out from behind the stand in the picture above!

The night almost got all the more spectacular later on when -- on another tip-off -- word was that Ronaldo would make a post-match appearance at posh members-only nightclub Kee Club. I sped home, showered, and headed out for Kee (this time with friends in tow) but Ronaldo was nowhere to be seen. We weren't the only ones fooled though, since Cable News broke the news on-air and caused a media and fan scrum outside Kee Club's entrance. Though everyone was disappointed not to see Ronaldo or any of the other players, we still had a great night at Kee, Dragon-i, Backroom and (of course) Insomnia. I met a few people from CNN (some of which I vaguely knew from my internship last summer), including one of their Atlanta anchors, and we all partied until 6am. A spectacular night all around.

Posted at 8:01 PM

Thursday, August 07, 2003
I was going to save today's blog to write about Australia, or post some pictures from my sister's birthday. Instead, something else came up.

Around 9:30pm, my parents got a call. "Beckham and Ronaldo are going to Dragon-i Club tonight! We're waiting for you! Hurry!". By 10pm, we were well on our way and downplaying expectations. They've got training tomorrow morning, so they're not going to stay long -- if they're still there. Hell, they might not be there at all. When celebs are in town, their minders tend to make reservations all over the place just in case they decide to go out, and some clubs like to take advantage of it and spread some false buzz to generate business. Yeah, it's probably that.

We walk in, and my god. Over in the far table polishing off a meal I spot Ivan Helguera, a lesser-known but extremely important player. I discreetly mention this to my mom... and see next to him goalkeeper Iker Casillas... next to him pocket dynamo Roberto Carlos... and next to him, Real Madrid's holy trinity: Luis Figo, Zinedine Zidane and Ronaldo. All three are former World Players of the Year. And they were sitting no more than ten metres away.

I really didn't know what to do or say at that point. I was awestruck. Zidane and Ronaldo alone are arguably the two best footballers playing today, and Figo's not exactly bad either. I picked up the phone and immediately called Haneal. See, we were actually supposed to come to Dragon-i tonight anyway to take advantage of (ahem) Models Night, but Haneal cancelled. When my parents called me to go, I was thinking of calling him but he was with friends -- and at this point, we didn't want anyone to know (lest they all demand we get them in to meet the players). Needless to say, he rather regretted his decision, because once Beckham walked in five minutes later with the rest of the Real team (McManaman, Solari, Portillo, Michel Salgado, Makalele, etc) the doors were shut and the screaming fans and paparazzi kept firmly outside.

It was an incredibly surreal sight inside. On the right were the incredibly good-looking models, due there anyway for their own big night out, but here in greater force (and dolled up even more) for Real Madrid. In the middle was the team, with a small cadre of bodyguards and minders keeping an eye out on proceedings. And on the left, surrounded by even more bodyguards than the team, was the club owner (a, um, "big" local businessman).

Still, early on it was pretty empty. The Real players -- yes, including Beckham -- were just sitting there as normal, with only a few model groupies throwing themselves at the players, but as the night wore on more people made their way in, more models threw themselves at the ever-more-tipsy players, and bodyguards effectively formed a VIP section inside the VIP section for the team. That and the nightclub atmosphere (it's not the sort of place where you run up and ask for an autograph) didn't really make the team approachable, but there were other ways to shake hands with a superstar. Most people waylaid them on their way to the toilets, grabbing a player and asking for a picture. Incidentally, in case you're wondering why I don't have any pictures here, I didn't take any. It's partially because we know the management, and given that they "discouraged" picture-taking it would have been rather rude, but partially also because by the end of the night I thought it almost cruel. It took Beckham a good 30 minutes to actually take a trip to the toilet with everyone grabbing him (and this is the VIP section, remember, where people are supposed to be more... refined), and poor old Roberto Carlos took a picture with everyone in line for the loo. All ten of them. He did chat and share a joke with me there though, so it was cool.

The best way to meet the stars is to know somebody there who can get you close, and by sheer luck, their minders on the trip are close friends of my parents... so over the course of the evening I managed to bump into Figo, Zidane, Ronaldo, Roberto Carlos, Javier Portillo and good old Steve McManaman. My parents did one better than me, with my dad being introduced to his hero, Ronaldo, my mom meeting her hero, Zidane, and my aunt managing to both dance with Roberto Carlos and hold Beckham's hand in the toilet (don't ask).

Of course, the last way to get close is to be a hot model and throw yourself at the players. Zidane -- shy, awkward-looking Zidane -- had two at his side at all times, and wild Ronaldo was with three or four at a time. Ronaldo was really a bit of a party animal, always dancing (most of the time with a few models). Apparently, the perks of being a top football player is that you can actually REQUEST these models to show up at the same clubs as you and generally flirt (and in Ronaldo's case, probably a bit more). Lucky, lucky folks.

I think I've gushed for far, far too long, but to be honest I'm in too much shock and awe right now (and I'm a bit drunk). It's almost taking the gloss off the match on Friday, because I doubt I'll ever get this close to the players again.

Unless I get arrested, that is.

Update: Amusing postscript to the story here. It's a quick read and well worth it given what I've just said!

Posted at 4:02 AM

Monday, August 04, 2003
Just thought I'd chime in with a post of my current desktop set-up as a preview for the forthcoming Gadgets section (it's coming, honest, it really is).

The computer -- the heart of the operation -- is a Power Mac G4 with a built-in DVD burner. I just added the Philips 17" LCD to the system and it's fantastic. LCDs offer so many advantages to regular hulking CRT monitors. They're much smaller and take up far less space yet the screen size itself is much, much bigger. Alongside the monitor are two Apple Pro Speakers, and up front is a new Apple iSight webcam. It's built for video-conferencing and uses the FireWire port for amazing clarity and image quality. I've been testing it out and it works really well so far. And the football poster in the back is of Roberto Baggio, my favourite player of all time. Ahem.

Incidentally, I managed to score Real Madrid tickets in the end. Can't wait for Friday!

Posted at 4:32 PM

Friday, August 01, 2003
With Real Madrid due in town next Friday and tickets due to go on sale today, it seems all of Hong Kong has gone mad. This isn't JUST due to the fact that Real Madrid boast three former World Players of the Year in Zidane, Figo and Ronaldo (alongside perennial runner-up Raul), but rather one David Beckham. Real Madrid would already be something of a social event, given football's new "cool" status among the upper classes and Real's standing as the most prestigious football club of them all, but the mass appeal of Beckham has elevated them even beyond that. Everyone must be there, be you a football fan, socialite, or screaming teenaged girl.

By Monday night, a full five days before the sale date, 40 people were in line. By Wednesday night, it was 5,000. Everyone -- and I do really mean everyone -- wants to be at this game. I've been desperately trying to cobble a set of tickets off anyone who could possibly get them, despite the fact that the tickets are going for HK$1500 a pop (approximately $200, £120 or €171 -- take your pick).

Of course, this does bring some amusing moments. Like the fact that my cousin Sheeva, one of the groupie types who doesn't care too much about football other than the fact that it's cool and Beckham plays the sport, is actually in line with her friends for tickets. Meanwhile, the three biggest football fans in the family (being myself, Haneal and Kavi) sit at home playing videogames.

Mind you, if she gets tickets and we don't, she'll be the one left laughing.

Posted at 3:57 AM