Hongkie Town

Some of What You Missed

noreply@blogger.com (Spike) — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 03:35:00 +0000

I'm told that almost the entire Springsteen show I saw last night can be found on YouTube. Found four clips so far. And found multiple audience audio recordings of the entire show online as well.

Tonight he's doing the double album, The River, in its entirety. Wish I was there again but at least I know I'll be able to hear it tomorrow.

Enjoy these clips:

The opening song:

Two songs from the Wild, The Innocent and the E Street Shuffle:

The finale with Elvis Costello:

Is Social Media Fucking Up Your Life?

noreply@blogger.com (Spike) — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 16:43:00 +0000

Status post by a friend on Facebook yesterday:

I just want all my friends to know that facebook has really fucked up my life if anyone wants to find out more just email me

Then, today's Doonesbury:

Actually, for me, so far so good. I just passed the 400 "friends" milestone on Facebook. I'm spending time learning how to be a better Twitterer and I think succeeding at that, at least in fits and starts.

And also variously reading some books on blogging ... look for one result of this within a week or 10 days as I have some changes in mind.

Brrruuuuuucccccccceeeeeee!

noreply@blogger.com (Spike) — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 05:55:00 +0000

The short verdict on Springsteen at Madison Square Garden, NYC: after seeing him live about 30 times over 25 years and then not seeing him live for 10 years, my expectations were running high. And he lived up to them! A solid three hours.

I also realized during the show what's missing from every rock concert in HK - an audience that knows how to act at a rock concert. Tonight, 20,000 people on their feet, dancing, singing along, a true party atmosphere that of course feeds back to the band on stage and gives them even more energy and inspiration.

Seeing as how I got to my seat early (and I was alone), I spent time bouncing back and forth between email, Facebook and Twitter. For my iPhone, I have both TweetDeck and Tweetie and found it more intuitive to set up a search on #Springsteen on Tweetie. I got the word that the start of the show was delayed because almost all tickets were "will call" and they were having tech problems at the booth. And someone posted a photo of the handwritten set list, which turned out to be 99% correct. I had a very good seat - alongside the stage, about 10 or 15 rows up, on the Charlie/Clarence side.

During this final leg of the tour, Springsteen's been playing a different album each night as part of the set. Tonight was the first and possibly only time he chose to do his second album, The Wild, The Innocent and The E Street Shuffle. That's a difficult album to recreate live and the already huge E. Street Band (10 people including Bruce) was expanded to include 2 back-up singers, 5 horns, 8 strings and one percussion (which turned out to be Richard Blackwell, who had played on the original album). An extended version of Kitty's Back, featuring jazzy solos from Roy, Charles (Giordano, who has taken over the second keyboard spot following Danny Federici's untimely death), Nils, Steven, Soozie, Clarence and all 5 horns was possibly my favorite song of the night.

Oh, and he opened the show with Thunder Crack - a true concert rarity and one of my early faves. Clarence is still recovering from surgery on both knees earlier this year and sat for more than half the show. (And during the band introductions at the end, he held up his book. Which I've started reading and finding it better than I expected. But still.)

Another new concert staple - halfway through the show, during Raise Your Hand, people hold up large signs with requests. Springsteen walks around, collects the signs and after RYH, picks one, holds it up for the band to see, and they go into it. And then picks a second one, same drill.

Of course you don't get the spontaneity of shows from 35 years ago. But you do get a lot of energy. I got the feeling that Springsteen still actually enjoys almost every moment of this. Hey, he's 60 now and he's been doing this for 40 years. But he still gives the impression that he cares about putting on a good show, about entertaining the audience, about trying to toss in a little bit of new stuff amidst all the old, and that he will go on doing this for as long as he's physically able.

For three hours he's non-stop action, practically a blur. He still lifts a girl out of the audience to dance with him during Dancing in the Dark - and I mean lifts her up, holds her in his arms and swings her around several times. By the time he finished the 7 songs of Wild, Innocent, it was 90 minutes into the show, just halfway through, and I was exhausted! I was thinking that after they took their bows for that run of songs there might be a 15 minute break but they kept going. And even after the 20 songs of the "main set" were finished, when the lights when dim and the audience was going nuts, they didn't leave the stage, none of this faux encore bullshit.

For those who care, the song list:

Thunder Crack
Seeds
Prove It All Night
Hungry Heart
Working on a Dream
E Street Shuffle
Sandy
Kitty's Back
Wild Billy's Circus Story
Incident on 57th Street
Rosalita
New York City Serenade
Waiting on a Sunny Day
Raise Your Hand
request 1 - Does This Bus Stop at 82nd Stret
request 2 - oh jeez, my mind's blank right now! was it Glory Days?
Human Touch
Lonesome Day
The Rising
Born to Run

"encores"
Hard Time (? can't quite read the handwriting on the set list and can't recall)
Wrecking Ball (with lyrics adapted for Madison Square Garden)
American Land
Dancing in the Dark
or did he do Glory Days here - he did it but it's not on the set list
Higher and Higher (with Elvis Costello)

The only negative, if you can call it that - I only brought my Nikon D300 to the US and my gf took the Canon G-10 with her to Manila. I could have got the Canon in and would have gotten great shots from where I was sitting. But I only had my iPhone. Tried taking photos with the camera and several camera apps (Snapture, Best Camera, Photoshop Mobile). Tried a bit of video too. Will look at it later on but I doubt there's anything of even relatively decent quality there. My one attempt at audio recording, using iTalk Light, is so distorted it's painful to listen to. But I expect at least decent audience recordings to show up on the Springsteen usenet group within a couple of days.

Giving up on Linksys

noreply@blogger.com (Spike) — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 14:30:00 +0000

So I just spent about 90 minutes on the phone with Cisco/Linksys trying to get the wireless G router to work properly.

To recap, purchased this for my mother, the goal being make it easier for me to connect when I come here and give her better firewall protection. Set the whole thing up, got everything working, but speed dropped down to sub-dial-up speed. Obviously not satisfactory.

The good thing about Cisco is the response time on their tech support line. I called at 8 AM EST and only had to click through about 4 menu choices before being put through to an actual person. (PCCW, you paying attention?)(No, of course not.) But that's about where the goodness ends.

The first mistake was mine - about 20 minutes into that call, the guy asked me to cycle the cable modem. I forgot my mother also uses Optimum Online for VOIP, so when I unplugged the modem, the call was of course dropped.

Called back and yes, they did have the record of the previous call so I didn't have to start up quite from square one again. But now, before going any further, the guy tried to upsell me. For 10 smackers, they'd remote connect to the PC and try to fix it for me. But, I told the guy, my current connect speed is slower than dial-up, I don't think your guys would able to actually accomplish something even if they can connect.

An hour later, still on the phone, things were actually in worse shape than before I called. I was getting an IP address but couldn't connect to any web site at all; DNS was no longer able to resolve any web site addresses but in a weird way .... I'd get "connecting" then "waiting for http://www.yahoo.com/" and then after a minute or two it would then say it was connecting me to the google search page and then after another minute would say that it couldn't find that address either.

At least I was able to connect to web sites before I called them even though it was frigging slow. Now zilch. On both my mom's PC running WinXP and my MacBook (running Snow Leopard), trying both wired and wireless.

At this point, the guy wanted me to recycle the cable modem again, knowing that it meant I'd lose the call. He gave me my case number, I wrote it down, repeated it back to him, ended the call.

And then unplugged the router, packed it back up in the box and will return it to Best Buy tomorrow. I give up.

All thumbs - mentally

noreply@blogger.com (Spike) — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 05:05:00 +0000

Oh what a groovy day. Not.

As always, went shopping with my mother, a little bit for myself, mostly for things she might need around the house, since I'm here to carry and install shit for her.

The thing you need to know for later is that my mother has two wallets - one for cash, one for credit cards and ID.

We get to Costco and she discovers she doesn't have the 2nd wallet with her, no Costco card. She wants to go but like, we're the only ones who've ever shown up without our card? Of course she can get a temporary one. It's a good chance for me to load up on over-the-counter drugs, too. Someone will have to check and tell me how much Imodium is at Watson or Manning, I'm sure it's around 10 or 20 pills for close to HK$100 or US$13. I got 400 of the generic "Kirkland" brand for US$9. And so on down the line. And the fact that she doesn't have her credit cards with her means we don't have to have the usual argument over who's paying, I win by default.

Lunch at Nathan's. Nathan's hot dogs. Yum.

I go into Best Buy. I get the DVD of Food, Inc., because I want her to see it. (And I want you to see it, too!) And I get her a Cisco/Linksys wireless router. It ought to solve my connection problems at her place and after I leave, provide a better firewall for her. Nothing fancy, just 802.11g will be enough.

I pop into Modell's, a sporting goods chain. Everyone else in the world had the same idea. Buy Yankees World Series Champions merch. Coupla t-shirts. Some nice hats but they're sized and they don't have anything close to my size.

Kosher butcher.

Bed Bath and Beyond, some stuff for her bathroom.

Then a discount drug store chain. She wants to load up on soaps and shampoos. I want to get some Dr. Scholl's foot things. These shoe inserts to provide more arch support. They sell Dr. Scholl's in Hong Kong but every shop where I find it, they don't have my size. Here they not only have my size, they have what seems like a hundred more varieties than you can find in HK.

Stop off at a nearby "gourmet shop," kind of a Bronx version of City Super, but bigger and cheaper. I grab some stuff for me for weekend lunches (prosciutto, provolone, etc.) and some cooked things I can nuke for dinner.

Back home.

NOW ... she goes looking for that second wallet. She can't find it. We tear the house apart. When did she see it last? She's not sure. What was she wearing? She's not sure. But she's convinced that I threw it down the garbage shoot. Great. I tell her it's probably in the car. She says no way. So we tear the house apart one more time. Now she's almost at the point of collapse at the thought of having to get new drivers license, car registration and god knows how many credit cards reissued. I don't say a word, put on my coat, go down to the car, and of course it's on the floor next to the seat.

Okay, one crisis averted.

After dinner, we watch Food, Inc. Unbelievably, she's glued to the TV and hardly talking while it's on. (My mother hasn't stopped talking in the 55 years I've known her. I've probably inherited this bad habit from her but it's also why I go for women who can appreciate the zen beauty of silence. My gf can do this, but it did take her a little while to catch on.)(I also come to realize that while my gf is someone I can be with 24/7 without feeling irrationally irritated or frustrated, my mother is best taken in short doses and we've been together non-stop for the entire day. I understand, she lives alone, she's grateful to have me in the house and someone to talk to all day long, but I'm hitting the wall.)

(Actually I hit the wall by lunch, when she decided to try to bash my gf, whom she's never met or talked to. But since my gf is not white, not Jewish, not rich, not other things on the list, she's not appropriate for me. She says, "Try not to get upset but I want to tell you ..." And I cut her off. "Before you start to speak, think carefully. What is the result you hope to get? Do you think if you say something negative about her I'll break up with her because of that? Or do you think I'll just get upset? And if what you want to say isn't going to give you the result you want, why bother to say it in the first place?" Thankfully, that put an end to that conversation. For about an hour ....)

I tell her I want to leave the Food, Inc. DVD with her, that she should loan it to all her friends. But she says none of her friends have DVD players.

Meanwhile, I'm staring at the box that's been delivered. It's a combination cable decoder and DVR that she ordered. Why didn't she get installation? She didn't want to pay the $35. I know nothing about her cable TV provider and have no experience using a DVR. With my luck, I will totally disable cable TV if and when I try to get this hooked in. And then the joy of trying to teach her to use it, since she refuses to read instruction manuals. She still has a VCR, the clock is still flashing at 00:00.)

And then I go to install the Linksys router. Mindful of the problems I had getting my laptop to work on her internet connection, I recycle her cable modem after everything else is installed. It all works after that, except the speed is so slow, it can be measured in Kbps, not Mbps - and I'm not talking 100Kbps or 500Kbps, I'm talking more like dial-up speeds. On both the wired connection to her PC and the wireless connection to my MacBook.

A bit of research online, I figure out how to clone her PC's MAC address on the router, but that doesn't solve the problem. And I'm tired now. Tomorrow I'll call the Cisco help line and see if they can figure it out. If not, it goes back to Best Buy I suppose.

Tomorrow is going to be a joy, at least until I can leave late afternoon and head down to MSG for the Springsteen show.

D-oh!

noreply@blogger.com (Spike) — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 10:49:00 +0000

Recycle my mom's internet modem; i.e. unplug the bastard, wait a minute, plug it back in. Hello internet on my MacBook. The only excuse I can come up with for it taking me 30 hours to think of this is jetlag. And that excuse really isn't good enough, is it? Am I slipping into early senility?

My mom's internet is seriously fast, too. Being in the US helps as well, I'm sure. Her line is showing as 10Mbps, but just downloading a 700 meg torrent (with 48 seeds) in 17 minutes, which I'm sure is more than 25% faster than I can do it in HK with my 8Mbps line.

I did get 5 hours sleep last night - um, 10 PM to 3 AM. Hopefully can get a bit more sleep this morning before we go out today.

Yesterday's food - not a foodie paradise since we didn't go out all day. A pizza delivered for lunch - not a culinary masterwork by any means but close enough to the NY style pizza I crave. And since it was raining last night, we had Chinese food delivered. It was of course American Chinese food, not real Chinese food, but that's another bit of nostalgia for me. I got some roast pork chow fun, which is hard to come by in HK - I'm told HK people find this an odd combination? But I love it. Simple enough to make at home, gotta start doing it once I get back. At least this place loaded the dish down with veggies too, but they cooked the veggies to death and beyond.

Today we'll get out. I'll take my mom for whatever shopping she needs and that will undoubtedly lead to lunch at a diner or maybe even (gasp!) Nathan's.

My mother's 88 years old. She's got a lot of little health problems. But over all I think she's set to outlive me. At least I think I've finally convinced her to sell the car - almost HK style in that her car is 10 years old and only has 20,000 miles on it. Which means she can take the money from the sale and use it for taxis.

As I'd mentioned, I'd taken all her old photo albums and scanned them - close to 3,000 pictures in all. Copied it all onto her computer, installed Picasa, made a screen saver for her that randomly cycles through all these photos. She spent hours looking at the pictures, as I knew she would. Later she dug out some VHS tapes of old 8mm movies she'd converted to video. One thing on there - super 8mm footage I'd shot of Delaney and Bonnie with Eric Clapton at the Fillmore East - silent unfortunately, but clear. I wonder if there's more stuff like this lurking in some box in the back of some closet. Gotta convert this stuff to digital soon.

That's about it for now. Looking forward to the Springsteen concert Saturday night! (And getting some more sleep now?)

AT&T Completely Bites

noreply@blogger.com (Spike) — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 21:42:00 +0000

Things are so slow with the Huawei modem that it's inches away from useless. Since the modem works fine in HK, I'm assuming the issue is the AT&T network here. Despite seeing full bars for reception, things load so slow that trying to do anything other than email is an exercise in frustration.

More on my networking issue

noreply@blogger.com (Spike) — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 13:36:00 +0000

The problem I'm having specifically is that on plugging in an ethernet cable to my MacBook, I get the error message "Ethernet has self-assigned IP address, cannot connect to the internet." Googling this error phrase yields thousands of hits ranging from 5 years old to the present. None of the solutions I've come across have worked for me. (If I hadn't lost my fricking Huawei modem I probably wouldn't be having this problem now.)

The best way to give a full description of the problem would be for me to repost the message I just posted at MacOSXHints Forums.

Hi, I've seen some similar threads here but nothing that's 100% the equivalent of what I'm getting, so hoping by starting a new thread it might yield a few clues.

My hardware - 15" MacBook dual-booting Snow Leopard and Windows 7 (via Bootcamp).

I've had no problems networking the MacBook under either OS until I arrived in NYC last night to visit my mother. Now I'm getting the "Ethernet has self-assigned IP address" error that others have reported under various circumstances.

In this case, my mother uses Optimum Online as her ISP. I have checked her networking configuration (she uses WinXP) and everything is automatic - DHCP, DNS, etc, no user ID or password required for internet access.

I took the ethernet cable from her PC, plugged it into my MacBook, and I get the error with both Snow Leopard and Win7.

I have tried deleting the airport preferences file from the library, I have tried setting TCP/IP preferences manually and then going back to DHCP again, I have the firewall turned off, allow all connections. I have turned off Airport since there is no WiFi. There is no router, wired or wireless.

Because there's no router, trying to fix this is especially frustrating - I connect the cable to her PC, google around a bit for some possible answers, connect to my MacBook, apply the answers, reboot the MacBook, still doesn't work, reconnect the ethernet cable to her PC, google some more, repeat and repeat and repeat!

None of this is working. If I have to spend the next 7 days on her PC it will drive me crazy! (Because it's old and slow, because my files are all on my MacBook, etc.)

I'm almost ready to go out and buy a pocket WiFi travel router (except there are no guarantees that would solve the issue, right?)

Any thoughts, tips, ideas, jokes or lines from obscure movies (except "frankly my dear I don't give a damn!") would be most appreciated!

As it says, any thoughts, tips, etc. most appreciated!

In the meantime waiting to hear from the driver if he's found my Huawei thing or if I'm screwed on that too.

MacBook Networking

noreply@blogger.com (Spike) — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 06:48:00 +0000

This day is not ending well.

I was using my Huawei pocket WiFi in the back of the cab from the airport to my mom's. Got to my mom's but the modem didn't. It's probably sitting on the back seat of the cab. Fortunately this is a private car service and a driver my mother has been using for years and I was his last ride of the night. Hopefully it's sitting on the back seat (I went back down to the street with a flashlight but couldn't find it) and he'll find it and return it at some point tomorrow.

So in the meantime, my mother is on Optimum for cable TV, IP phone and Internet. She has standard internet settings, DHCP, etc, you plug the ethernet cable into the back of her PC and she's good to go. And last time, I'd simply pop that cable into my laptop and also be good to go. I've looked at the network set-up properties on her computer and there's nothing special there, no login name or password, all the usual stuff.

But my MacBook is being finicky. It shows an ethernet connection, shows that it's set for DHCP, but giving me some error message about the connection and not connecting to the internet. I'm tired, didn't write the message down, got some Snow Leopard books on my Kindle, take a look tomorrow I guess. Until then .... sigh.

WiFi'ing high

noreply@blogger.com (Spike) — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 00:21:00 +0000

Hey, what can I say, Virgin~~Atlantic~~America has inflight WiFi, I hadda try it out, even if it costs freaking US$13 per flight. Well, it's new, and us early adopters have to pay for all the r&d I guess.

Web sites are coming up fast. Web speed tests are giving unreliable results because they are trying to guess my physical location - speedtest.net thinks I'm in Dallas and gave my download speed at 0.7Mbps. Over on pingtest.net, they also think I'm in Dallas and a ping to AT&T Worldnet in Houston is 202ms, giving me a rating of "D" - "most online applications will not perform well but should function in some capacity."

Meanwhile, Virgin ~~Atlantic's~~America's vaunted seatback entertainment system, Red, has touch screens. What a fucking bad idea. Why? Because the neanderthal sitting behind me doesn't get the concept of a touch screen, he thinks it's a poke screen or a jab screen or something. This could end up being a long flight.

Things People Told Me Today

noreply@blogger.com (Spike) — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 12:22:00 +0000

Apple's new tablet device will be called the Slate.

In conversation, someone thought this quote came from Winston Churchill:

I got more from drinking than drinking ever got from me.

But he wasn't sure if it came from Churchill or someone else. Googling it revealed nothing. But it did remind me of a quote from Vivian Stanshall, from Sir Henry at Rawlinson End:

If I had every nickel I ever spent on drink, I'd take it and spend it ... on drink.

A very good day indeed!

noreply@blogger.com (Spike) — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 06:59:00 +0000

I'm tired, so no links provided where they otherwise might be.

After years of global travel, I still don't handle jet lag well. So I was concerned that with just one day to do everything in L.A., would I manage? The answer is yes.

I got about 6 hours of sleep last night, and puttered around in the hotel for another six hours till it was time to go out and meet an old friend for lunch. Greenblatt's, a deli on Sunset in West Hollywood, where I had a real pastrami sandwich and a Dr. Brown's Black Cherry. Was gonna go for a potato knish too but realized that would be too much food for me. The pastrami was great - maybe not the best in the world but so much better than what you can find in HK. The lunch conversation not so great - I realized that my old friend and I were talking at each other, not with each other. That's what happens with relationships sometimes.

Whenever I go out in L.A., I always think that everyone around me is a celeb and I just don't recognize them. Today, ditto, if I saw or was near any celebs, no idea.

After lunch, over to Amoeba. I was going to take some photos inside but got caught up in the fever of being in a real record store again for the first time in a very long time. So did my shopping - I'd "budgeted" an hour but spent closer to two.

Then off to a sporting goods shop. Looking for Vibram Fivefingers but they were out of my size. But they did have some Chaco's in stock - and while they didn't have the color I had in mind, they did have my size and at 50% off so I said, "I can deal with black instead of blue." Extremely comfortable, very different feel from Teva's and the other similar items you can find in HK.

Then back to the hotel, time to suit up.

An hour talking at the office. Followed by dinner at what seemed to be a very popular Italian restaurant, Toscano's in Brentwood. They have their own cookbook coming out soon, something about simple, classic Italian recipes. Had some really nice beef carpaccio with excellent cheese on top, they had some great flat breads accompanied by excellent balsamic, and then I went right to the veal chop, minimal seasoning, thick, bone in, perfectly cooked, serious char on the outside but tender like butter. And a glass of really nice red wine, never caught the name. Followed by an espresso - my first ever, believe it or not, but I needed a shot of something to keep me going. Then another hour sitting outdoors at a Peet's Coffee, talking some more. Getting close to 10 and the temp was below 15 and I realized I was shivering and sniffling at that point.

Anyway, my meeting got the positive reaction I wanted. The deal is far from done, nothing was signed or delivered, but if the moon should go into the seventh house and if Jupiter aligns with Mars, I will have a new job by February. Doing something different and challenging. And still based in Hong Kong.

Back to the hotel by 11. Tired as hell. Ready for bed soon. Tomorrow afternoon flying to NYC. My work here is done.

Oh ... in advance of the trip, I'd loaded City Search, Urban Spoon and Yelp on my iPhone. All three are amazing and it's a damned shame there's no HK equivalent, at least not in English. Urban Spoon concentrates on restaurants only. City Search and Yelp each look at your current location via GPS and then tell you what's nearby - restaurants, shopping, banks, attractions, etc. Yelp wins by virtue of having what seems to be a more active community behind it - it had far more reviews per location than City Search. And within mere seconds, I'd found listings for several shops right near the hotel that I might go and check out in the morning before I head to the airport.

But I gotta say, AT&T is as bad as everyone says. Their network coverage in L.A. sucks and apparently famously sucks. People said they were surprised I was able to get any signal at all in the airport. And I'm here in a busy area, Century City, sometimes just getting a single bar on my iPhone, which also means low reception on my Huawei pocket WiFi. At Greenblatt's, I didn't have my friend's mobile number, so I tried to send him an email (I know he's got a Blackberry) and after typing the message (short, two sentences) and hitting send, it took almost 5 minutes to send the message.

Reese's Peanut Butter Cups with white chocolate, what will they think of next?

Nighty night, y'all!

If I Could Just Get Off Of That L.A. Freeway

noreply@blogger.com (Spike) — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 06:43:00 +0000

... without getting killed or caught, heading off in a cloud of smoke, to some something something something ... Fumier will get the reference, Jerry Jeff Walker, Viva Terlingua, can't recall who wrote the song.

I know I was flying Cathay business class on mileage, not on money, but damn, has it gone downhill. I'm talking about the food. Used to be your choice was a steak or some kind of shellfish. Today it was a Chinese style "fried" pork, tiny bits of pork that were mostly fat, with white rice or ling fish, whatever kinda fish that is, also with rice. The only thing that differentiated this pork dish to me from what you get in economy is that the portion was larger. And the breakfast, the dim sum choice, in any real restaurant you'd send that back - four pieces, just awful stuff. And how come after dozens of years they still just offer that Lee Kum Kee "Guilin Chili Sauce" packet?

Reading on my Kindle was pure pleasure. My eyes have been very tired lately, can't stare at a computer screen for too long right now. And even flipping through a magazine was getting to my eyes. But the Kindle - that gray background, I'm convinced - every time I'd think I'd take a break at the end of the chapter, I just kept reading onward. Starting to really love it.

At least the flight arrived 90 minutes early ... to a bus gate instead of a real gate. And in L.A., they don't pay any attention to those "priority" labels that they stick on your luggage, your luggage comes when it comes.

Got out of the terminal, turned on my PCCW WiFi thingie, which in the US roams via AT&T, which is famous for their crappy coverage. Everything was kind of flaky because I only had a couple of bars on the antenna - both Skype and email were usable but only just.

Got to the rental car place, Alamo ... my choices were a Nissan, a Toyota, some Chrysler thing, one other. I chose the Nissan. Got in the car and had no idea of how to start the engine! The key is just an electronic thingie, you stick it in a slot and then press buttons all over the place, including for starting and stopping the engine. I had to dig out the user manual from the glove box and look up how to start the car! (Press "start" once for ACC, again for "start," then push down on the brake pedal and push the button again.)

Hard enough to get used to left hand drive again but the city is covered in dense fog, making driving doubly difficult. Of course, I put the bag that had the hotel address and my printout from Google Maps in the trunk. Stopped at a 7-11 to grab some drinks and snacks (Reese's Peanut Butter Cups new "Big Cups" and one of those things that I really miss, Hostess cupcakes - probably a good thing I don't actually live here and have daily access to this stuff).

Staying at a Marriott Courtyard in Century City, free on Marriott Rewards points. The room is nicer than I expected, quite large, with a sofa and coffee table and good work desk. Free WiFi in the room and throughout the hotel. This is meant as a longer stay sort of place so there are DIY laundry rooms every floor, I've got a microwave, flat screen TV, clock/radio with iPod port and the fridge is empty, not stocked with over priced crap. Of course, this being California, hotel rooms are all non-smoking. And since I requested a quiet room not facing the main road, I've got a ten mile walk to the elevator when I wanna go downstairs to smoke. "You could always try not smoking," said the semi-cute Chinese American girl working the front desk. "I'm not ready to do that yet" was the best my already jet-lagged mind could come up with.

Anyway, that's it, nothing terribly exciting, let's see what tomorrow may bring.

On the road again

noreply@blogger.com (Spike) — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 11:15:00 +0000

My gf flew out to Manila this morning, I'm off to L.A. in a couple of hours. We both return on the 12th.

My short attention span should be well-catered to on the flight, with about 25 gig of music on my iPhone, 20 or 30 hours of videos on my MacBook and a dozen or so books on my Kindle.

But I've barely slept in the past 24 hours, so I could end up sleeping most of the flight away. That would be a disaster as it arrives in L.A. at 9:15 local time and I'll need to try to get into the time zone as quickly as possible.

Have just weighed my suitcase. It comes in at 25 kilos. That's under the limit but pretty effin' heavy to me. I've had to pack for two somewhat different climates. On Tuesday, L.A. will hit a high of 28 degrees (that's Celsius). And on Wednesday night, when I arrive in New York, it's gonna be 3 degrees. So a heavy jacket and a couple of sweaters in the bag.

Also, on the theory that used DVDs and CDs would fetch a higher price at Amoeba than in Mong Kok, there's a few of those stuffed in that I'll sell off (though odds are I'll trade them off for a couple of things instead of taking the cash). While this might make my bag lighter for the LA to NY leg of the trip, I ordered a bunch of stuff from Amazon in a kind of before-I'm-unemployed-spending-spree. That should all fit in for the trip home - though I'm dreading the physical size of that Time-Life Rock & Roll Hall of Fame 9 disc set, something else I ordered.

Anyway, the L.A. stop-over is primarily for a potential future job, so wish me luck! (And, no, don't fear, said job would not be in the U.S.)

I'll Get 'Em Hot, Show 'Em What I Got

noreply@blogger.com (Spike) — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 09:53:00 +0000

Christopher Walken "covers" Lady Gaga's Poker Face on Friday Night with Jonathan Ross. Naturally done in the style that only Christopher Walken can do. Found here.

One of those things that stick with you

noreply@blogger.com (Spike) — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 06:31:00 +0000

Note that the person responsible for managing me (as unmanageable as I am) for the past two and a half years was on a different continent from me. I have a theory that he may, either purposely or inadvertently, be responsible for the fact that I wasn't one of the few chosen to stay. I could be wrong.

Anyway, last week, my final week at the company, I changed my voicemail message at work. "This is my final week at the company. Friday is my last day. I'm not checking voicemail too often this week. If this is urgent, please call me on my mobile phone, 9xxx-xxxx. Thanks."

Thursday, my manager left me a voicemail message. "Hi Spike, wanted to have a chance to say goodbye to you, wish you luck. Hope your job search is going well. I heard your voicemail message so I'll try you on your mobile. Or you try to call me when you have a chance."

Four days have elapsed and not a call from him. Hell, in the time it took to leave that message, he could have dialed my mobile and had that conversation with me.

Perhaps I'm mistaken but it seems to me that the protocol of the situation demands that he call me and not vice versa. And there are times, believe it or not, that I do stand on ceremony.

So this really bugs me. But one is not supposed to burn bridges, right? I guess I'll send him an email.

QOTD

noreply@blogger.com (Spike) — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 00:47:00 +0000

Or at least of the minute.

"In many countries, city planning is for people's well-being, but in Hong Kong city planning is for money-making."

-- Winston Chu Ka-sun, founder of the Society for the Protection of the Harbour

I guess I'm doing something wrong

noreply@blogger.com (Spike) — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 22:45:00 +0000

If someone adds me on Twitter, I will generally take a look at their profile and their most recent tweets. If it looks interesting enough, I add that person. And if that person lists a web site on their profile, I'll check it out.

This morning, I was added by charlesfrith. He's got 1,173 followers on Twitter. I've got 116. He's in Hong Kong and has a blog I've never heard of, Punk Planning. I'm not aware of any blog that I subscribe to that links to him. And I don't subscribe to any of the blogs he links on his page; haven't even heard of them.

In one of his recent posts, he publishes this chart of his recent Feedburner stats:

I rarely check my stats on Feedburner, but I did after seeing that. And here's what I saw for myself.

67 subscribers (on average)

In terms of direct hits on my blog, I seem to average about 500-600 unique visits per day. So somewhat less than 10 times the number of people coming here in a browser as opposed to a reader. If that kind of ratio is universal (and I have no reason to believe it would be), does that mean that his blog is getting 10,000 unique visits per day?

Like my blog, his blog is all over the map in terms of subjects. Some stuff related to his occupation, some stuff related to t-shirts he's wearing or stuff he's lost in taxis, a bit of politics, some books he's read, lots of links posted on del.icio.us with a couple of lines of commentary. Googling his name doesn't reveal anything special.

So how is he drawing so many people to his blog? (For one thing, most of his posts are a lot shorter than most of mine.)

Okay, my blog is not a commercial enterprise (neither is his). In my 4 (or 5? or 6?) years of blogging, I've earned all of US$100 from AdSense. So in theory, I shouldn't get too worked up over comparative numbers.

Of course, ego is involved. I write what I write the way I want to write it and I'm happy with that but of course I'm happier knowing that people read my ravings and droolings and sometimes feel stirred (or pissed) enough to want to comment.

And then again, now that I am unemployed, I find myself thinking more and more about the "Spike" brand and how I might turn that into a career with a reasonable rate of return. My blog, my column in BC, my investment in the PASM Workshop, a relatively good network of contacts across a broad spectrum - I think I've laid the architecture for something, even if I'm still not sure what that something is.

(And while I wish I had a more unique handle than "Spike," the fact is that it's a nickname I've been using since 1991, when it was bestowed upon me in a sarcastic fashion by a VP in the bank I worked for at the time, and I held onto it as a tiny act of defiance.)

I just downloaded to my Kindle the first chapter of a book titled Crush It!: Why NOW Is the Time to Cash In On Your Passion by Gary Vaynerchuk. Yes, a difficult to spell last name and a vaguely obnoxious title. I read that first chapter and it seemed like it was all surface, all pop self help superficial crap, all 160 pages of it. But it's number 48 on the Amazon best seller list, not too shabby. And of the 89 reviews on Amazon, 74 rate it at 5 stars. And one of the quotes about the book on the Amazon page is:

"Gary was the first person to push me on the importance of personal brand and transparency - this was months before anyone was talking about it, he's always two steps ahead of anyone else." (Kevin Rose, Founder of Digg.com )

So maybe I ought to take this book a bit more seriously.

Well, I'm leaving for the US tonight. I'll be spending much of the time sitting in my mother's apartment in Da Bronx without much to do, which means giving this subject a lot more thought.

One thing I may need to do is to stop hiding behind this "secret identity." It was convenient for years because I didn't want people in my workplace to know about the blog or the column, as I frequently covered topics related to my industry in a way that people would have frowned upon. But now I don't have a job, so that's no longer a concern. And the Spike HK Facebook profile has 123 friends, while under my real name I've just added my 400th friend there. So that's something else I need to think about.

Your thoughts on any of the above (or anything else that's on your mind) are always appreciated.

Kindle 2 Review Part 3

noreply@blogger.com (Spike) — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 19:19:00 +0000

I installed Amazon's Kindle app to my iPhone and tried it out.

With the application installed and my account details entered, I was able to see all of the books I had purchased on my iPhone. The books remained "in the cloud" until I selected one, then it was downloaded to my iPhone for me to read.

On opening an eBook, it opened to the spot where I had left off on the Kindle. And when returning to the Kindle, the book opened to the spot where I had left off on the iPhone. This integration is the most powerful and useful feature.

On the other hand, I've taken advantage of the "free samples," the free downloads of first chapters on more than a dozen books. I was disappointed to see that I did not have access to these on the iPhone. There's also no access to the PDF files I converted and installed on the Kindle myself - but this is to be expected and is actually welcomed, proving to some extent that Amazon has no view into the items I've installed on my own.

Reading on the iPhone was actually better than I expected. There are three different font sizes and naturally you can read in landscape as well as portrait mode. With the phone about a foot away from my face, it was pretty easy to read the text and use iPhone's "finger swipe" to change pages. But the experience is quite different because you're seeing black text on a bright white background as opposed to the Kindle's gray background. And I'm now convinced that this gray background is easier on the eyes for extended reading sessions - less bright light shining up at your eyes makes for less eye strain during reading.

My final Kindle test will come tomorrow night, when I have a 13-1/2 hour flight from HK to LA. I will not bring any physical books with me, but I will have 6 full eBooks, a dozen converted PDF files and a dozen "first chapters" on my Kindle - a huge selection of reading material weighing in at mere ounces instead of pounds.

As a postscript, I've now got the files coming to me from Amazon direct to my computer's hard drive, allowing me to save the $1.99 wireless fee per purchase - not sure why I had a problem before but it's working okay now. Based on the documentation, it should be possible for me to "decommission" this Kindle before I return it and transfer all of my purchases to the one I've just bought (and that's waiting for me at my mom's place).

100 Things Restaurant Staff Should Never Do

noreply@blogger.com (Spike) — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 08:32:00 +0000

In the NY Times, from Bruce Buschel, this week numbers 1 to 50. I can't think of a night out in Hong Kong where I haven't been subjected to at least half a dozen of these at a time, at least not when I was paying less than HK$500 or so per head, and even then not always, so I'm re-posting the entire thing. Bolding some of the stand-out consistent HK offenses here.

1. Do not let anyone enter the restaurant without a warm greeting.

2. Do not make a singleton feel bad. Do not say, “Are you waiting for someone?” Ask for a reservation. Ask if he or she would like to sit at the bar.

3. Never refuse to seat three guests because a fourth has not yet arrived.

4. If a table is not ready within a reasonable length of time, offer a free drink and/or amuse-bouche. The guests may be tired and hungry and thirsty, and they did everything right.

5. Tables should be level without anyone asking. Fix it before guests are seated.

6. Do not lead the witness with, “Bottled water or just tap?” Both are fine. Remain neutral. [Hell, most places here won't even volunteer the choice.]

7. Do not announce your name. No jokes, no flirting, no cuteness.

8. Do not interrupt a conversation. For any reason. Especially not to recite specials. Wait for the right moment.

9. Do not recite the specials too fast or robotically or dramatically. It is not a soliloquy. This is not an audition.

10. Do not inject your personal favorites when explaining the specials.

11. Do not hustle the lobsters. That is, do not say, “We only have two lobsters left.” Even if there are only two lobsters left.

12. Do not touch the rim of a water glass. Or any other glass.

13. Handle wine glasses by their stems and silverware by the handles.

14. When you ask, “How’s everything?” or “How was the meal?” listen to the answer and fix whatever is not right.

15. Never say “I don’t know” to any question without following with, “I’ll find out.”

16. If someone requests more sauce or gravy or cheese, bring a side dish of same. No pouring. Let them help themselves.

17. Do not take an empty plate from one guest while others are still eating the same course. Wait, wait, wait.

18. Know before approaching a table who has ordered what. Do not ask, “Who’s having the shrimp?”

19. Offer guests butter and/or olive oil with their bread.

20. Never refuse to substitute one vegetable for another.

21. Never serve anything that looks creepy or runny or wrong.

22. If someone is unsure about a wine choice, help him. That might mean sending someone else to the table or offering a taste or two.

23. If someone likes a wine, steam the label off the bottle and give it to the guest with the bill. It has the year, the vintner, the importer, etc.

24. Never use the same glass for a second drink.

25. Make sure the glasses are clean. Inspect them before placing them on the table.

26. Never assume people want their white wine in an ice bucket. Inquire.

27. For red wine, ask if the guests want to pour their own or prefer the waiter to pour.

28. Do not put your hands all over the spout of a wine bottle while removing the cork.

29. Do not pop a champagne cork. Remove it quietly, gracefully. The less noise the better.

30. Never let the wine bottle touch the glass into which you are pouring. No one wants to drink the dust or dirt from the bottle.

31. Never remove a plate full of food without asking what went wrong. Obviously, something went wrong.

32. Never touch a customer. No excuses. Do not do it. Do not brush them, move them, wipe them or dust them.

33. Do not bang into chairs or tables when passing by.

34. Do not have a personal conversation with another server within earshot of customers.

35. Do not eat or drink in plain view of guests.

36. Never reek from perfume or cigarettes. People want to smell the food and beverage.

37. Do not drink alcohol on the job, even if invited by the guests. “Not when I’m on duty” will suffice.

38.Do not call a guy a “dude.”

39. Do not call a woman “lady.”

40. Never say, “Good choice,” implying that other choices are bad.

41. Saying, “No problem” is a problem. It has a tone of insincerity or sarcasm. “My pleasure” or “You’re welcome” will do.

42. Do not compliment a guest’s attire or hairdo or makeup. You are insulting someone else.

43. Never mention what your favorite dessert is. It’s irrelevant.

44. Do not discuss your own eating habits, be you vegan or lactose intolerant or diabetic.

45. Do not curse, no matter how young or hip the guests.

46. Never acknowledge any one guest over and above any other. All guests are equal.

47. Do not gossip about co-workers or guests within earshot of guests.

48. Do not ask what someone is eating or drinking when they ask for more; remember or consult the order.

49. Never mention the tip, unless asked.

50. Do not turn on the charm when it’s tip time. Be consistent throughout.

Things That Piss Me Off On Sunday

noreply@blogger.com (Spike) — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 07:31:00 +0000

Another report in the SCMP today about a woman conned into having sex with a man, this time under the pretext of exorcising ghosts in her flat. This time it's a 63 year old unemployed man and a 47 year old housewife. Once again, the man is charged with "procuring unlawful sexual acts by false pretences." (I guess that's the British spelling of pretenses?) Jeez, if that's really against the law, is there any man in Hong Kong not guilty of that? What guy, at some point in his life, at least one time, hasn't said shit he didn't mean in order to get a woman naked? "I love you." "I promise not to come inside you." "I won't tell anyone."

Once again, the "victim" was introduced to the "criminal" by a mutual female friend, but apparently unlike last time, this time the mutual friend is being charged with aiding and abetting. No word on if any money changed hands but the article seems to imply it.

I suppose they don't make stupidity a crime, otherwise Donald Tsang would end up in jail, too.

Stephen Vines writes:

Now that Chief Executive Donald Tsang Yam-kuen finds himself unfavourably compared to his hapless predecessor, Tung Chee-hwa, he appears to be trapped in the vortex which forces flaying politicians further and further down a hole from which they are unlikely to emerge.

This impression was confirmed this week by Tsang's response to accusations of nepotism. He unwittingly fuelled his descent by ignoring every lesson of political behaviour. The great minds in Government House think they know better and launched him on a disastrous course of counter-attack.

However, the Tsang regime has only itself to blame. Its arrogant behaviour encourages the idea of cronyism and indifference to the needs of ordinary people. A slew of government appointments to official posts and bodies that the chief executive controls suggest that what matters to this administration is who you know, not what you know.

Moreover, while the door remains largely closed to meetings between the government and its critics, it is flung wide open to the rich and well connected. By unfortunate coincidence, on the day that the chief executive chose to rebuff criticism of nepotism, his financial secretary was greeting tycoons from the property sector; such is the state of insularity in this government that this coincidence was unlikely to have been noticed.

All this would be overlooked if there was a feeling that the government was not being run largely for the benefit of those who have most. As house prices soar, the government self righteously announces that it will not assist less-well-off potential homeowners but will listen to property developers anxious to secure cheaper land for development.

As low-income parents battle to find places for children in overcrowded schools with limited resources, the government outlines plans for more schools and universities for the better off - and so it goes on.

I mean, how bad do you have to be to make Tung Chee-Hwa look good? Well now we know the answer. You have to be Donald Tsang bad.

This is the overwhelming argument in favor of democracy in my opinion. When you have a government that is appointed, not elected, this is the result - a government that is clearly in the pocket of big business and that ignores the general public, because they don't have to even pretend to give a shit about public opinion and don't need to worry about re-election.

I can think of two reasons off the bat that Tsang is worse than Tung. Tung at least meant well and at least gave the impression of caring, even if he was an abject failure at almost everything he tried. And Tung wasn't working overtime to put more money into the hands of the rich at the expense of the poor.

But Tsang doesn't even bother with that. If the guy is not actually corrupt, if he is not taking pay-offs (and there's no allegations that he is), he is certainly morally corrupt for the way that he has abandoned the people of Hong Kong and worked so hard to further enrich the wealthy and increase the gap between the rich and poor.

This ridiculous government project at Tamar would never have been allowed to go forward in a democratic society. And this HK$60-but-we-know-it-will-be-HK$100 billion rail project - a project that is arguably useful but that would save up to 50% if they just made some slight alterations to the route but they won't do it because then the billionaires won't make as much on the project?

Meanwhile, the SCMP gets cluttered up with articles like the one about the silly drug bust on Lamma. "The biggest operation in anyone's memory" had 60 police going into 4 bars and detaining 10 people and collecting all of HK$71,000 worth of drugs. See, the cops go after this rather than the dealers selling drugs to school kids because those dealers are triads and the cops don't really go after the triads. (There's also a report of police seizing a significant amount of drugs kept in a mini storage place in Kowloon - in this case HK$8 million worth. The article mentions that the two men arrested are "suspected members of an organised crime syndicate.")

And another "top story" informs us that taxi drivers like old mobile phones and don't use them for contacting mistresses in Shenzhen but for taking calls from customers looking for rides. This story runs for 18 paragraphs!

Actually, my favorite letter in today's letter section comes from one Wan Ka-Yan in Shatin.

It is not a good idea for a culture-oriented secondary school to offer students professional Cantonese opera training.

It is an old-fashioned extra-curricular activity. Therefore, there will not be sufficient interest to justify opening a training course.

Instead of wasting money on this kind of activity, schools should conduct a poll on which activities the students would like.

I suspect that Mr. or Ms. Wan is a student him or herself. Conduct a poll of which activities students would like? And what would they choose? Smoking dope? Drinking? Sex? Karaoke? Going to the beach? Anything that allows people to study something for the sake of culture and enriching their lives as opposed to studying things that can lead to lining their pockets while leaving their souls empty is seen as a "waste of money." The best and the brightest, indeed.

there are really people like this in the world?

noreply@blogger.com (Spike) — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 12:37:00 +0000

A letter in the SCMP today, from one Tim Storey, of London, not Hong Kong, begins this way:

The pagan feast of Halloween is foreign to Christian tradition and has become a superstitious way of imposing mindless triviality.

Following that auspicious opener, does anyone really care about what else he might have to say?

But I do wonder why the SCMP decided this letter was worth printing.

Employees First? It Is To Laugh

noreply@blogger.com (Spike) — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 05:49:00 +0000

Well that's it. I'm now officially unemployed. I'd like to draw your attention to that sign on the right side of this photo, the one that says "Employees first!"

For years I used to joke that they should have changed it to, "Employees first .... as long as you're in Burbank!" (Because the level of perks and benefits offered to the staff at headquarters was on a far different level from what staff around the world received.)

Now I think they should change it to, "Contractors first!" I mean really, talk about your empty bullshit slogans. "Employees first" from a company that just replaced 1,000 employees with contractors in India and eastern Europe. Like so many companies, they're fond of putting slogans on signs that sound good, but when it comes to actually living up to them, um, not so much. Not that I'm bitter or anything.

So there was a farewell lunch for me and one other person who also left yesterday. No big whoop.

Last night, a pre-Halloween party at the PASM Workshop. I got there, they only had coke and beer, I ran downstairs to the 7-11 and found a bottle of Chivas. I took a plastic cup, kept filling it halfway up with Chivas and the other half with water, I guess the equivalent of a triple. And I had 3 or 4 of these within an hour. Considering that I haven't really had any alcohol worth mentioning for more than six months, I got seriously ripped. The fact that I never had any dinner also helped. There was some food delivered and there were bowls of assorted fried bugs and worms and that's about all I ate.

I managed to get off a few photos here and there before passing out. Finally around 1 or 2 AM I felt stable enough for the taxi ride back home.

This is Clarice - she's one of the models I shot the previous week, when her hair was up and she was wearing a floor length black gown. Quite a different look last night!

Sorry, I don't know her name. But wow, right?

Well, being that drunk means I actually slept for 8 hours and at a relatively normal time. This morning when I got up, no hangover, a little bit dizzy perhaps. I went to look for my BlackBerry to check email and then I remembered I no longer have any BlackBerry to check.

Oh, in the spirit of full disclosure, I'm going to be investing in the PASM Workshop. In fact, I'm going to be one of the partners (assuming they still accept the check from me following my performance last night). So expect a lot more posts and photos from me related to this great place.

This 'n that

noreply@blogger.com (Spike) — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 18:56:00 +0000

Well, in about 10 hours, I'll be heading into the office for the last time. I'll be turning in my laptop, BlackBerry, ID card, office keys, corporate AmEx card. I will be walking out of there with my balls and my self-respect (and a more-than-decent amount of severance pay).

During the course of the past 8 years, I always made it a point to have a welcome lunch for anyone who joined the team, employee or contractor, and a farewell lunch on those rare occasions that people left. So I was more than a little upset that there was no mention of a farewell lunch for me (all of my staff are laid off but we all have different end dates - the contractors are already gone, the first batch of employees are gone starting tomorrow). Finally today I received an invite. So, one less thing to be grouchy about - there's plenty of others on the list.

A few misc things that are neither here nor there but maybe of interest ....

I needed to burn a DVD of jpgs for my mom and that's when I realized that I hadn't bothered to install any DVD burning software since my last full re-install of Windows. I looked around at some freeware options and then noticed that Nero has a 2 week trial period with full functionality. So, okay, I downloaded and installed Nero. During the set-up process, it asked if I wanted to install the Nero/Ask.com tool bar to my browser. I un-clicked that, and on the next screen the set-up program told me it wouldn't function properly without that and wouldn't proceed with the installation until I'd rechecked that option. I should have shit-canned the install then and there and gone for something else, but I didn't. And I paid the price.

Maybe I wasn't paying attention during the installation but I don't think that's the case. Nero changed my file associations for all audio and video formats on my hard disk without asking me. It installed an icon for itself in the Quick Launch bar without asking.

I burned the DVD I needed for my mother and then promptly uninstalled the program. And won't be looking at software from this company ever again.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, I went to install Norton Internet Security on my new Win7 set-up. The only physical disk I have is the 2008 version - I'd upgraded and renewed my virus protection subscription online. The disk I had naturally didn't recognize the operating system and refused to install. I went to Norton's web site, couldn't figure out what to download or even where to get a download from.

But clicking on the "support" link, there was an option for live chat. I did that and explained the situation to the help desk person, who then used remote control software (with my permission) to log into my PC, download the upgrade files and install them for me. And then added a small extension to my subscription period as a way of saying they were sorry I was having troubles with the upgrade. I know Norton has its share of detractors but their customer service is first rate and I'll remember that.

Now, retail customer service. This is a little silly, but who's surprised when I do stupid shit? I watch the Showtime series Californication every week. I think it's a bit of a train wreck but it continues to hold my attention. I realized that I really like the sunglasses that David Duchovny wears on the show. What brand? What model? Yeah, there's a web site for that - lost the link - a site that looks at all the shows and figures out the fashions that the stars are wearing. Duchovny's wearing Ray-Ban Highstreet RB 3301.

Go to the Ray-Ban web site, check for international stores, for Hong Kong they list the LensCrafters chain. I went to their shop on D'Aguilar today and asked for that specific model number. The guy checked the computer and said they don't stock that model. I asked if he could check inventory for other branches, he said he'd already done that in the computer and that none of their HK shops stock that model.

And that was it. No "can I interest you in something else?" No "would you like to see something similar?" It's not like the shop was crowded and he went to help another customer. He just walked away from me and went off to do something else.

Later, I stood in front of a shop called, I think, Hong Kong Optical, on Queens Road. Not too busy, a salesman came to the door and asked if he could help me. I asked if they stock Ray-Ban and he said yes. So I went in and told him the model number. They're not some fancy chain with modern systems. He pulled the Ray-Ban catalogs out of a drawer and checked through them. "It's an old model," he told me, "We don't stock it any more." Oh.

And then ... "Why don't you take a look at the latest Ray-Ban models?" Well, okay, why not? I tried on a couple of them, didn't like them too much and was about to leave the shop. He said, "Here, try these, I think they'd look good on you." And he was right. They did, even though they were a completely different style from what I originally had in mind. Serengetti. Polarized lens and that whatchamacallit process that gets darker as the sun gets brighter. Since I'm useless in deciding on this thing, I called my gf, who was in a shop around the corner, asked her to come over and give me her opinion and she really liked the look.

And so that guy closed a sale on someone who was walking out of the shop by offering a little something called "customer service." Some shops get it, some don't.

Of course I'm still kind of thinking about those Ray-Bans. I see them in stock in lots of online sunglass shops in the US ... thinking about it ....

Oh, the big man, Clarence Clemons, just accepted my friend request on Facebook! I'm so thrilled, even if it's probably just someone at the record company or his manager's office. So I've gone and downloaded the first chapter of his new book, Big Man: Real Life & Tall Tales, to my Kindle.

Kindle 2 Review Part 2

noreply@blogger.com (Spike) — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 13:58:00 +0000

Today I had more time to spend with the Kindle 2 that Amazon kindly loaned to me. So there I was, sitting on the MTR, pulled it out of my backpack, flipped the switch and was instantly at the page where I'd left off. (Chuck Klosterman's Eating the Dinosaur.) That's super convenient.

One of the nice features of the Kindle 2 is that you can receive a free sample of the book you're interested in - generally seems to be from the title page up through the first chapter. I'd done that with the Klosterman book, received the sample.

I sat there reading through the introduction, really dug it - thought it was his best, most mature and thoughtful writing to date. And so, there I am on the MTR, in the tunnel, going to the menu and clicking on "buy this book." And the full book was downloaded onto my Kindle before the train pulled into the next station. That's the good bit.

The negative bit, a minor annoyance but still worth noting, was that the entire book came down as a separate file from the free sample. So I had to go back to the home page, click on the new file, and then find my own way to the part where I'd left off in the sample file. Let's hope in some future version of the software that they find a way to merge your purchase with the sample you'd previously received, so that you can keep your place.

Now that I'd successfully done that, I decided to wirelessly browse the store while still on the train. One of the books they recommended for me was Super Freakonomics. I haven't read Freakonomics, so I decided to simply go for the sample free chapter. I got it in seconds.

But that led to my next negative surprise. I was charged $1.99 for the wireless download of the free sample. So for us international users, it turns out the free samples are not really free. Of course these charges can really add up quickly. So I think I'll be turning off the wireless service and relying on downloads direct to my computer in the future. It's really a shame that we have to pay a significant premium for what people in the US get for free.

UPDATE: My bad. I wasn't charged $2 for sample downloads. Amazon has this current deal where if you buy Eating the Dinosaur, you get Klosterman's Killing Yourself to Live for free. I never specifically ordered this book but it was delivered to me and I was charged the $1.99 download fee. I was not charged download fees for free samples. But I am not happy about being charged a $1.99 download fee for a book I didn't order!

Overall, I've found reading books on the Kindle 2 to be a tremendously comfortable experience - both in terms of holding the device and the actual reading itself. There are six font sizes and, for the sake of this review, let's call 1 the smallest, 6 the largest, and I've found that setting it at 4 works for me.

I find that the gray background, instead of the white you get on the printed page, to be comfortable - I think scientifically it probably goes back to the less bright light reflected back to your eyes, the more comfortable it is. At least that's my guess.

At any rate, I find myself metaphorically tearing through the pages, reading at a very fast rate. When the train came to my stop, I didn't have to fumble for a book mark or turn a corner down. I simply shut off the Kindle, knowing that it would come back on at exactly the spot where I'd left off. That's nice.

I should note that when you're reading a book on the Kindle, there are no page numbers, there are "locations," which seem to correspond to paragraphs. So one "page" will have multiple locations. And naturally, since the fonts are re-sizable, the number of pages that an eBook contains will vary depending on the font size you've chosen. There is also a status bar on the bottom of the screen showing where you are in the book in terms of a percentage.

Most books have a table of contents and you can click on the chapter heading and be taken instantly to that chapter. Otherwise, you can specify a location to go to, the location generally being a matter of guesswork of course, and you're taken to that. The Klosterman book has copious footnotes, and you can click on the footnote number and be taken instantly to the footnote, then click on the "back" button to return to where you were in the main text. Nice.

For kids, students and people for whom English is a second language, position the cursor next to any word and the word definition appears on the bottom of the screen, taken from the dictionary that comes with every Kindle.

One thing I miss is the ability to "flip through" a book. You can go page by page or enter various location numbers, but I found myself wishing there were more navigation options - in particular "skip 5 (or 10) pages," "skip to next chapter," etc.

Overall, I'm still enjoying this.

Coming up in part 3, I'll review the iPhone Kindle app and investigate how it syncs your library and notes and more with the Kindle 2 device.