Anti-Communist Party Demonstration

Hong Kong, 27 May 2007

First, "Singapore Fried Noodles", and now this

The latest promotion by McDonald's in Hong Kong features Chicken McNuggets with four unique Asian dips : Malay satay sauce, Chinese sweet and sour sauce, Japanese curry sauce and something which I did not know we invented.

Cute

The Help menu of iSquint, a file converter freeware for video iPods.

There is no Help. It's freeware and any idiot can use it.

Like Steve Needs The Money ... ...

After serving me well for over 32 months, my 40Gb iPod finally died on me. Efforts to resuscitate it by the prescribed reset method (holding down both the "Menu" and "Select" buttons at the same time) only coaxed the fleeting appearance of an Apple logo on the monochrome screen, like a dying patient giving his loved ones a final look before expiring.

The un-DIY-able battery must have reached the end of its useful life. I searched the Apple website for info on a battery replacement program, but there was none for Hong Kong. Or Singapore, for that matter.



With an iTunes library full of songs and podcasts nearing the magical 10,000-mark, I needed a new iPod. Although I also have a Nano, it has only 1Gb of storage. Every time I add new tracks to it, I have to decide what to take out.

At first, I thought I'd wait till sometime around September/October when Apple tends to announce new breakthrough products. About a year ago, it was rumoured that Apple would release an iPod with a touchscreen - that turned out to be the iPhone. After making only incremental improvements to the iPod platform during the past year or so - like increasing the storage capacity to 80Gb - I've got the feeling that Steve Jobs will be unveiling an overhauled version of the iPod later this year.

I couldn't not wait that long without a "full-sized" iPod, and did not want to spend a sizable chunk of dough on a brand new 80Gb one which costs HK$2,780 (S$545). So I ordered a refurbished 60Gb iPod from the HK Apple Store and paid HK$1,788 (S$350) which is a 25% discount from the original price.

It looks good and works well so far. Comes with a one-year warranty.



CNN's Anderson Cooper 360 video podcast




Put an Apple logo on a simple cardboard box and it gets to stay on my desk for a little while longer.

Chinese Teamwork

During a dinner over the weekend, the wife and her friend were talking about their Mandarin teacher.

Friend : "She's really hard-working. After she leaves her day job teaching at a high school, she gives private tuition to students - young and old - and even does training at an insurance company."

Me : "Really ? Teaching insurance agents to speak Putonghua ?"

Friend : "Yes, as part of her course, she does motivational training by talking about great examples of teamwork in Chinese history."

Me : "Like what ?"

Friend : "Mmm … I don't know, actually."

Me : "Chinese history is full of stories of people screwing and back-stabbing one another. I really can't think of any historical examples of great teamwork."

Dear reader, can you ? (Construction of the Great Wall does not count)

Bus Uncle II - Young Person Strikes Back

From today's South China Morning Post :

A worthy sequel to the "Bus Uncle" episode has made its way onto the video sharing website YouTube.

"Bus Four Eyes bullies 82-year-old man” features a bespectacled young man refusing to give one of his two seats to an elderly man and then calling police.

The six-minute clip begins shortly after the bus is pulled over by police to the astonishment of passengers.

It soon becomes apparent that the man in his twenties refused to remove his bags from the adjacent seat to allow an elderly man to rest his legs.

“He won’t let me sit down,” says the elderly man, who claims to be 82 years old. “He says I am being hostile so he called the police.”

In one of his few comments during the clip, the younger man says, “If you had any manners then I would let you sit” and accuses the old man of lacking culture.

Emotions reach a climax when the younger man is led out by the bus driver to talk to police, causing other passengers to erupt in cheers.

The clip ends with both “Bus Four Eyes” and the elderly man being interviewed separately by police.





Sorry, no time to write subtitles. Maybe someone will post a subtitled version soon.

Who Da Man ?

Let's see ... ... one gets paid five times the salary of the other, and his wife is on Time Magazine's Most Influential People List.

While the other brings pain and digust to people of the world most of the time, and joy to some people some of the time ... ...

I Need An Image Overhaul

The wife has a very cute two-year-old niece who calls out to strangers when she see one that looks like a family member or relative.

So we were all having dinner one evening at my in-laws' when the trailer for an upcoming TVB series came up on the television. Upon seeing the actor Moses Chan Ho (陳豪), the lead actor of the series, Little Niece called out "叔叔 !" (Uncle) - which is what she calls the wife's youngest brother.



We all laughed. The actor does bear a slight resemblance to my brother-in-law, who's also the tanned, lean and athletic type.

The evening news then came on and several minutes into the report, Little Niece cried out, "姑丈 !" which is what she calls me.

The image on the screen then was of this guy's visit to Japan :



WTF ?!? Yes, I do wear glasses and I comb my hair (what's left of it) neatly but surely I'm nowhere close to looking like the Slap-Him-And-He-Might-Cry Chinese Premier !?!?

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A few nights ago, we had dinner with an old university friend from Singapore who's in town on biz. It was the first time that the wife was meeting the friend, and we were telling her funny stories about old times.

Eventually, the friend went into Sing Your Pal's Praises mode, which is expected of every guy when meeting a pal's wife or girlfriend for the first time.

"You know, you're really lucky to marry Noodles," said Friend. "He's so mild-mannered ! When my wife met him for the first time years ago, she said, Your friend's so NICE ! It's hard to get angry and yell at someone like him !"

For someone whose most often-used blog comment involves dousing stooopid/Taliban/obnoxious people with petrol and burning them alive, I think I need an image overhaul.