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Updated as often as I can manage

Friday, October 31, 2003
After much hassle, I finally got (and watched) the first episode of the third season of 24. I won't spoil anything, but I did enjoy it. Slow start, but there's a lot to think about and it'll be initeresting to see how it all pans out. The second episode (which doesn't air until next Tuesday) was bizarrely released early, and I should have that by the time I get home. I can't wait... so good to have 24 back again!

The Chinese astronaut (or taikonaut, whatever) is in Hong Kong now for a big publicity tour. He seems quite popular, despite a report noting that a lot of that has been orchestrated. Hong Kong people do tend to distance themselves from the mainland so it'll be interesting to see just how excited they are to see him here. Personally, I think it's a great story anyway -- see previous blog -- but people are spinning this as a national pride thing.

I've been playing a lot of Go! Go! Beckham!! on the MTR on the way to work. Right about now you're probably thinking I'm mad, but I'm not. Go! Go! Beckham!! is a platform game (think Mario) for the Game Boy Advance developed by a bunch of Scots deeply inspired by the Japanese and starring one David Beckham. It's not even close to a photorealistic impression of Beckham, but rather a super-deformed kiddie Becks (told you there was a lot of Japanese inspiration involved). It is a lot of fun though, taking its cues from Super Mario World but with a lot of originality and tongue-in-cheek humour. Recommended, even if it does star Beckham.

Posted at 11:27 AM

Tuesday, October 28, 2003
Firstly, let me point you to Angela's blog for some first-hand info on the big fires sweeping through much of Southern California. The latest update from Angela is that she still can't go back to her house, but it's safe (which is a relief). Here's hoping things go well over there.

Things are going very well right now for Adam Kraus, who I must congratulate on his engagement. So, er, congratulations! Adam, I'm told women everywhere will miss your pimp hand.

The release of the season premiere of 24 on to the Internet has been delayed, so instead I grabbed this 24 behind-the-scenes documentary that aired shortly before the final episode in the UK. Even though it couldn't touch upon the actual end of the last season and the various issues raised/resolved in that episode, it was a great wrap-up of everything that went before. It picked out key plots and storylines and had the actors/writers/directors/crew talk about them, which is a really cool way of getting re-acquainted with the previous season while gleaning some interesting new info. There was also a lot of humour to it, with special attention given to the patented "24 Lingering Look": The way characters at the end of every scene seem to glance at someone and keep their eyes on them in a shifty, suspicious manner. Has to be seen to be believed, really.

In the SUPER-COOL GADGETS section, I think I've found my new phone. The Nokia 6230 is basically the 2004 edition of my phone, with upgrades everywhere (better screen, more memory, better camera, video recording, Bluetooth, MP3 player) all wrapped into a similarly-sized stylish little package. And the kicker is it's available in the first quarter of 2004, which is just about when I anticipate actually having any money! Nokia also showed a couple of other cool phones. The 7200 is their first clamshell and it looks nothing like the usual metallic-silver clamshells... because it's got a fabric cover (no wonder it was codenamed "Louis Vitton!"). I still hate clamshells, though. The 7700 isn't a clamshell, but I'm left wondering just what on Earth it is. It appears to be some sort of multimedia PDA, like a Clié with a phone built-in, but I'm not entirely sure how you talk into that. Good to see someone going with a bit of innovation, though...

Oh, and something I forgot to mention the other day: I had my first ever Krispy Kreme donut. I'd have liked to have more, but needless to say it's probably better for me that there was only one to eat. It tastes like heaven in donut form -- like the Bavarian Cream from Dunkin Donuts, just sweeter and better. Which is also the problem with it. Not only does it taste divine, it's also full of sweet cream and appears to be topped off with lumps of sugar (I wish I was kidding). I can honestly see this thing being the death of me, so let's be thankful that they haven't opened a Krispy Kreme in Hong Kong yet.

Posted at 11:05 PM

Monday, October 27, 2003
Time for the Weekend Update (like SNL's Weekend Update, except all about me and not funny):

• It was Diwali this weekend, so cue lots of praying and boredom. Usually you can stomach this even if you're not terribly interested, but this time we had to sit in my aunt's office and wait a good hour for her to even show up to her own prayers, and then another hour while she got everything ready and performed the actual thing (something that we managed to do in less than 20 minutes). It was around 4pm by the time we finished, and then we had to go get lunch... which had to be vegetarian, of course, so we went to one of those funny Chinese vegetarian restaurants where they make "mock" meat dishes. You know the sort -- the ones where everything is made out of tofu and everything tastes like the original only in the sense that you could imagine getting the real thing and it tasting like this, but if it did you'd send it back for being rubbish. By the time we finished THAT it was 5:30. This is important because we had a big dinner scheduled for... 7:30. On the bright side, that wasn't too bad, since I managed to watch the Liverpool game there (Liverpool comes before everything else in my rather warped sense of priorities).

• And speaking of which: Liverpool won 3-1, which made the entire day worthwhile and allowed me to begin Monday's work with a smile for the first time in months. Owen scored too.

• I spent Sunday doing the usual lazing-around-playing-games thing. I nabbed Star Wars: Rebel Strike on Saturday with my Diwali money (there is an upside to it!) and I'm liking it so far. It's the sequel to a long-running series of Star Wars flying games set in the Classic Trilogy. Not as good as the first two, but still fun. All the Star Wars action there though just made me want to play Knights of the Old Republic again... so I did. I really don't know why I stopped playing. I don't know if I ever described it before, so I'll go ahead now. It's an adventure/role-playing-game set in the Star Wars universe thousands of years before the movies (during the time of the Old Republic that the prequel trilogy shows the end of). It's set far back enough that although there are familiar themes, planets and creatures, there's complete plot freedom for the game. You're a Jedi, and in your battle to save the Republic from the Sith (the evil cult that would eventually dwindle to the Emperor and Darth Vader) you can pretty much choose between the Light and Dark sides of the Force, and thus become good or bad. There's also tons of stuff to do and unlike most video games, you can actually progress in the game and grow stronger through non-combat solutions (like using Jedi Mind Tricks, or hacking computers, etc). Great, great game.

• Major props are in order to both John R and Gazunta. John, being an insanely lucky bastard, managed to win one of those fancy and super-cool Famicom-styled Game Boy Advance SPs Nintendo was offering in EXTREMELY limited quantities over the summer. He's got some pictures of his amazing catch here. And as for Gaz, he managed to get his pet project (What Was That Game?) in his all-time favourite magazine, EDGE, with a snap of the glorious event here. Just remember me when you go all Jeff Bezos on us, alright Gaz?

• We also got a new car. It's probably going to be "mine" when I actually get my damned license, and I won't complain. It's a pretty simple Toyota Corolla (we needed to replace the Demio that the driver uses for little things like picking up the kids or going to the market) but it's outfitted nicely and feels comfortable enough. Mind you, it won't really be "mine", but probably the car I'd use most. I'd never be allowed to touch my dad's car or my grandfather's car, the van is too unwieldy for a rookie like me, and I don't even want to go near my mom's car (it's French, and therefore is awfully cramped, smells funny and is lacking in basics).

That's all of the Old Business, so now on to New Business. Which is, er, not much. So instead I present to you a new Interesting Link of the Day, which is Forbes' list of the Richest Dead Celebrities. Elvis (boo! hiss!) is a solid #1, followed by the creator of Charlie Brown and Snoopy, Charles Schultz. Predictably, J.R.R. Tolkien is third (if you're in the middle of the BIGGEST MOVIE TRILOGY OF OUR TIME you'd figure he'd be rolling in it... wait, that sounds awful), and John Lennon only fourth, but it's great to see George Harrison in fifth. Supposedly his album sales are trouncing Lennon's (which shouldn't be a surprise), but there's also the fact that he's entitled to a quarter of the Beatles' royalties. That helps.

And finally... right now in Asia it's Tuesday, October 28th. The season premiere of the third season of 24 is just hours away. This is an awfully good time to cue that bleep-BLOOP, bleep-BLOOP, bleep-BLOOP clock that runs during every cliffhanger.

Posted at 11:42 PM

Friday, October 24, 2003
Concorde flew for the last time on a scheduled, transatlantic flight today. From here on in, it's going to be consigned to museums, flight shows, and the history books. Since I grew up next to an airport (and I still live there -- except the airport moved away!), I've always been in love with planes and Concorde was always a special one. I mean, it was just DIFFERENT, you know? Boeings and Airbuses, they all look... the same, really (barring the 747, but Asia is so full of 747s that they're wholly unremarkable). Concorde was something else. It had that distinctive shape, the distinctive nose, and it travelled at twice the speed of sound. I'm a lover of super-cool tech facts, and Concorde is full of them. You may have heard that it's faster than a speeding bullet (it is), but did you know it's also faster than the rotation of the Earth? During one flight, they followed a solar eclipse for over an hour (normal solar eclipses are 3-6 minutes long) because it was the only plane fast enough to match the speed of the Earth and Sun. You may have heard that it can fly "at the edge of space", but did you know you're so high on Concorde that not only are you above all turbulence, but you can also see the curvature of the Earth? It's been said also that Concorde is effectively a big, 100-seater fighter jet... but did you know that those fighter jets can't maintain their supersonic speed for as long as Concorde can? And come on, how cool is it to be able to land in New York "before" you've taken off in London?

I never did fly on Concorde myself, but I always rather wanted to. It flew to HK a couple of times during my lifetime, and it's something you can't miss because it IS window-shatteringly loud. In Kingston, you could barely hear the roar of planes taking off from Heathrow -- you COULD hear them, but only as faint background noise. Concorde, however, made everyone stop and look up. It sounded like it was literally right there, even though it was actually further away than most planes passing overhead. And even if you knew it was a Concorde, people still stopped to look anyway. That is, I suppose, another of the minor things I miss about the UK: Driving to Heathrow, seeing all the Concordes in their hangars, and then passing by BA's giant Concorde model in the entrance to the airport itself. They really did love the Concorde there, far more than in France... which explains why BA is giving Concorde a huge send-off, while Air France quietly retired its own fleet months ago.

I guess the reason I'm talking so much about it and the reason I'm rather sad by its retirement is that I always did cling to the hope that Concorde was the future, and all planes would eventually do what Concorde does. Yeah, it had many drawbacks, but I figured we'd work around them. Not so. Any future planes on the drawing boards are purely larger capacity (see Airbus' 580-seater double-decker A380), or longer range (Boeing's new 777 can fly for 19 hours -- yes, NINETEEN). Concorde lost on both tallies, since it could only hold 100 passengers (in one "class" only, so no cheap economy tickets), could only fly a short range (hence the London-New York staple route), and did both so inefficiently that it burnt three times the fuel as a slower plane. I love flying, but flying for 19 hours would kill me... as would being stuck in a plane with 500 other economy passengers (sorry Airbus, I don't buy your story that a double-decker plane means we have room for casinos and gyms -- it means we have room for more economy seats). People just seem to have totally given up on supersonic travel. The best we got was Boeing working on a plane that was supposed to fly as-close-as-possible to Mach 1 without breaking it... which they scrapped. It's sad, because really a new Concorde (one that could fly further, in particular) would have revolutionised travel, just as the first promised. Can you imagine crossing the Pacific from Tokyo to Los Angeles in under six hours? The implications of travelling so fast across the International Date Line would be pretty insane, too. I wonder how many hours you'd "gain" from that?

Either way, it's all a pipe dream now, and will likely remain one until people get fed up of travelling for NINETEEN HOURS. Farewell Concorde. I hope we haven't seen the last of your kind.

Posted at 11:27 PM

Tuesday, October 21, 2003
Throughout my time in London there were lots of things that bugged me. One of them was Champions League football coverage. The Champions League is arguably second only to the World Cup in prestige, and involves all the top European teams. In the UK, however, they would only show matches involving British teams, no matter what. So you had this ludicrous situation where last year, the lone live match on local TV was between Man United and Switzerland's FC Basle... rather than the mouth-watering clash between the eventual champions (Milan) and the reigning champions (Real Madrid). I moaned and whined that they'd never do that in Hong Kong. No, in Hong Kong the best matches are ALWAYS on.

I took a gander at this week's Champions League schedule and felt like crying. On Thursday morning, they're going to show Real Madrid against Partizan Belgrade live, and leave Chelsea versus Lazio as a "delayed" game. This is staggering. Yes, Real Madrid are Real Madrid -- internationally-recognised, full of stars, and the best team to watch -- but it's Partizan freaking Belgrade, the weakest team in the whole competition by far. And though I'm sure we'll get a lot of fun highlights of Real slicing Partizan to shreds, I'd much rather watch a tight game between two quality teams like Chelsea and Lazio. And the ultimate irony of all this? While I'm stuck with a choice of two live games and one delayed game, in the UK every single Champions League game is live. You can watch whatever you want there now. Typical.

In other Ravi news, the lovely people at 1UP have put my Made in Wario impressions up. Read them!

Posted at 11:59 PM

Sunday, October 19, 2003
Not the best weekend. I've somehow managed to bruise my tailbone, which makes sitting awfully uncomfortable, and thanks to some bad weather that's pretty much what I spent Sunday doing. Well, that and watching Ferris Bueller's Day Off, The Two Towers and Milan beat Lazio 1-0. And then there's work tomorrow. Guess how I spend most of my day? SITTING DOWN. Aaargh.

Posted at 11:21 PM

Saturday, October 18, 2003
I'm really late on this, but it's great to see China sending a man into space. Forget that nationalist stuff, or the gripes about how their space program was virtually bought from the Russians, or even that this still puts them 40 years behind the US and Russia... it's a landmark moment for all mankind. Hopefully it'll kick-start the Americans again to get their space program going. It feels like we've been treading water throughout my lifetime, shooting shuttles up without a proper end "goal" in sight. My mind still boggles at the fact that it took humankind 66 years to go from the first powered flight of any kind (the Wright brothers) to landing on the moon... and then next to nothing in the 35 years since then.

Basic wrap-up of the last few days:

- Went out on Wednesday night to Dragon-i with Dhij and Herbert (just back from the UK!). We're trying to make Wednesdays a regular thing, but at this rate I'm not going to be able to survive since I now have no cash. I'd probably be doing better if I had my own ATM card, but given that right now my ATM is my grandfather -- and even though it's my CNN pay I'm withdrawing from him, I feel awfully guilty asking him every so often for cash because I think I know I should be spending less.

- I visited my old school on Friday afternoon with a couple of friends. One kid shouted "WELCOME TO OUR SCHOOL" when we walked past, and before my friends could angrily retort that it was our school first (hey, it was!) I deadpanned "Thanks! I've never been here before and I'm thinking of sending my kids here!" Unfortunately, I don't think he realised I was being sarcastic. I've only been gone four years! Having said that though, in conversation with an old teacher we realised that 50% of the staff has turned over in the last four years. That's just wrong.

- And lastly, I picked up the GameCube version of Made in Wario today. It's effectively a multiplayer version of the Game Boy game that I'm literally playing every day on my way to work (which is rather remarkable, considering it came out in March). It's a great party game and a lot of fun, though I can definitely see why it's not fully-priced. Well worth it, though.

Oh, and yet again Liverpool lost, so I'm really not talking about anything like that. So don't mention it. Thanks.

Posted at 11:15 PM

Tuesday, October 14, 2003
Another day, another shoot. Today we went to HK's City University for a story on the "Body Baton", a set-up that allows you to create music through movements. Basically, it's a set of infra-red cameras that detect your basic "shape" -- how wide and tall you are -- and then as you manipulate your "shape" by moving or waving your arms around, it changes the noises. Stretching your arms out (which makes your shape "wider") creates a louder sound, while stretching upwards ("taller") creates sounds of a higher frequency. It's generally a cool system to play around with as you walk in and make all sorts of noises, and since it's computer generated you can change the noise to anything from a xylophone to birds chirping to even the Japanese taiko drum (which produces earth-shatteringly low notes). Just a fun little thing, really. You can see the story online here.

Oh, Interesting Link of the Day is back, and it's a must-see. Drunken Schumacher trashes suite while smoking a cigar (PICS INCLUDED). Fantastic.

Posted at 11:52 PM

Monday, October 13, 2003
Fun stuff today. Firstly, my Kirby Air Ride review went up on 1UP on Friday, and only today did the shit hit the fan as people suddenly realised that... I didn't like it. And complained about it. Repeatedly. In a big thread on a message board. Honestly, I'm not out to create controversy or anything, but I'd be lying if I said that this didn't put a big grin on my face or amuse me.

I met up with Kristie earlier than usual today because we had to do a shoot in Sham Shui Po to finish off this story we've been working on. It's about exploding Nokias. Yeah, you heard me right. In the last two months, three Nokia mobile phones have exploded (two in Holland and one in Vietnam) thanks to what seem to be faulty counterfeit batteries. All the more reason to stick to the real thing, I guess.

For anyone interested, the segment will air tomorrow on CNN International's NewsBizToday morning show (around 7-9am Hong Kong Time) and on the Asia Now evening show (7pm and 10pm HKT). The segment will also likely appear (for free!) on CNN.com's TechWatch microsite, so check it out here sometime tomorrow and you should have it.

Posted at 11:18 PM

Sunday, October 12, 2003
You know, this is a good example of why I think the UK is so ass-backwards. For those of you who didn't click the link, it's about a new super-cheap "broadband" service launching there. In the UK, anything faster than 128k -- yeah, that's double a regular 56k modem -- is considered broadband. So this pathetic 150k service (that's less than three times faster than dialup) can properly be called broadband. When I was there, I had the fastest connection available at the time and it's basically what other countries would consider the minimum allowed speed for broadband. Mind you, it wasn't bad -- still 10 times faster than a 56k -- and playing online games with Americans was smooth as silk, but back in HK more people are wired and they're on faster connections to boot. I pay less than I do in the UK and my connection is a whopping six times faster. It's fast enough that my ISP offers to pipe TV channels down this line!

Anyway, enough of that. I've been on a bit of a comedy kick this weekend. The movie I actually desperately wanted to see on DVD was the Jim Carrey classic Dumb & Dumber, but nobody had it. So I tried to buy it. And still, nobody had it. So instead I settled for that other Farrelly Brothers classic: There's Something About Mary. Yeah, I know, everyone's seen this film a million times now, but it's still hilarious. It's one of those movies where you just want to pick out a highlight actor or moment but can't because there are too many. Ben Stiller, Matt Dillion, Chris Elliot and Lee Evans are all wonderful in the main roles. The cameos, from Farrelly Brothers collaborators (like the hitchhiker and his SEVEN. MINUTE. ABS.) to Mary's dad to even Brett Favre ("Brett Fav... ruh") are awesome. And the gag scenes (the "zipper", the dead dog, the dog on speed, the "hair gel"... it goes on and on) are so funny you think you're going to seize up. Hell, even the credits are funny thanks to the out-take-ish rendition of "Build Me Up Buttercup". OK, if there's one highlight I can pinpoint, it's Cameron Diaz. She's perfect at playing the role of, well, Miss Perfect. And it's not so much about her looks as her comic timing (how many major multimillion dollar actresses can do comedy like this?) and willingness to look stupid.

The other big comedy I saw was Wayne's World. I haven't seen this one in years, and I still love it. Mike Myers is a genius -- first Wayne's World, then Austin Powers, then Shrek? For all that he's done he's received way too little credit. And Dana Carvey... man, what happened to him. He was brilliant on Saturday Night Live and great here. His "Foxy Lady" is one of the funniest bits of movie humour ever.

Incidentally, with the money left over from not buying Dumb & Dumber (grr), I picked up The Lion King. The last great Disney animated movie? Definitely, especially since they are apparently not doing any more after they release their next two films. Years of losses will do that, but then years of crappy movies will result in you losing money in the first place. Supposedly all their 2D animation guys are moving over to do computer-generated movies now, which is probably a wise thing to do because if Pixar (you know, Toy Story, Monsters Inc, Finding Nemo) leaves Disney -- as it seemingly wants to do -- they'll literally have nothing. Funny side-note: I read Roger Ebert's review of The Lion King, and in it he says that computer-generated films have been hyped in the media but scoffs at the notion that computers could ever replace hand-drawn cartoons. That review was written in 1994. In 1995, Disney and Pixar released the first ever full-length computer-generated film, Toy Story, to widespread acclaim (including from one Roger Ebert). Nice one.

Posted at 11:55 PM

Monday, October 06, 2003
Odd night... the dogs went absolutely nuts around 4am (while I was watching the Milan derby, no less), so I figured there might be someone prowling around. Our house -- like most in HK -- is walled-in, but we've had plenty of attempted (and successful) break-ins before, and with my parents and grandfather gone any half-decent thief can't miss the fact that the house is darker and less busy from the outside. Either way, whatever it was was probably stopped by a cacophany of barks from Gucci (that would be the black dog here). About a year ago she actually stopped a robber inside the house. He managed to climb over the fence, jumped on to the garage roof, open a window, wrench out the bars, and tumble into the room... before Gucci sprinted up the stairs to frighten him off. He didn't take a single thing and left as soon as possible.

The weekend wasn't great, it has to be said. Friday night was surprisingly fun -- it was Nitesh's birthday, so I had to go -- but the rest of the weekend was a wash. Barring a quick trip to Sham Shui Po for more games, it was a hideously boring affair featuring two-and-a-half good football matches and wasted plans. It's amazing how enthusiastic the kids were to actually go out and do something before the weekend arrives, by which time they suddenly realise they'd rather be somewhere else. And so go somewhere else. Without telling me. Grr.

And yes, Liverpool lost. Lost despite playing Arsenal off the park. Lost despite creating (and wasting) a host of chances. Lost. I hate weekends.

Posted at 9:46 PM