Belated post

Just over a year in Hong Kong and I thought I was just about acclimatised to all the wacky Hongky things that I could have.

That is, until I saw this name on my company e-mail ...

Charming Chen.

And speaking of funny names, click here

Crocodile hunter

Man, I'm devastated. Steve Irwin died today.

I remember seeing him years ago and thinking - wow, how embarassing. And the movie, gawd that was terrible.

But it didn't take long before watching his repeated leaps into the unknown with these fantastic wild-animals, his amazing zest for life, as well as that genuine feeling of "... Man, this guy just seems like a really nice and friendly guy .. someone you'd just want to hang out with" just kinda rubs off on you, y'know? And the terrible irony of it all is that he was filming a show to help demystify the apparent danger behind sting-rays.

Funnily, I went all teary-eyed when I heard about it - I'd been watching his show (go the Discovery channel) on almost every weekend. David Attenborough's great, and so is that Austin Stevens (the crazy South African snake-hunter) ... but the Crocodile Hunter is still one of those rare people that leave you with the urge to jump onto the nearest flight and head out to the Amazon. Or ... Australia.

My girlfriend told me today that they had a little show on Triple M going, where listeners were just calling up and havin' a go at Stevey - just some light-hearted (and perhaps not entirely appropriate) pokes/digs - a mere several hours after he had gone. But it was funny and helped everyone remember all the amusing things that had happened over the course of his career, and went down a lot better than something solemn. And apparently, somewhat fitting.

Hats off to you Steve. God bless your family ... though it's not much, at least they'll have a lot of memories (and footage) of you to remember you by.

Random thought

Is the plural of gelato -

Gelati?

... or Gelatos.

Amusing MSN conversation with Harry

Background: My mate Harry's working at call centre with a bunch of Lebs (Lebanese). One of them walks in, shoulders swinging and sits down next to him. He's got a rock-head, short-thick neck - looks like a typical Leb. And proceeds to like .. y'know, talk .. like in a -fully- professional voice.

[16:45] harry: bro
[16:45] harry: you ever heard of help being massive?
[17:09] me: eh
[17:09] me: nope
[17:09] me: wasat
[17:09] harry: lol
[17:09] harry: this lebbo said it yesterday
[17:09] harry: killing myself laughing
[17:09] harry: im just temmping at this place
[17:09] me: wtf
[17:09] me: lol
[17:10] harry: his lebbo was finishing his call "you've been a massive help"
[17:24] me: ohhhh
[17:24] me: hahahahahahaha
[17:24] me: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Birthday

Sorry about the lack of updates - it's gotten really busy at work. It's funny how the days pass by so much quicker when you've something to do.

Anyway, it's my birthday today - I am at work - bored out of my wits. Going to karaoke and dinner tonight in Causeway Bay.

Running around from lack of sleep combined with too many mocha coffees from the office coffee dispenser.

*yawn*

Random Occurences in a Fob Workplace

Yawn. Morning everyone. Hot day in Hong Kong today, decided to do an update about work.

• I taught everyone a new word yesterday. That word was "pimp". There is now a person whom we call Pimp Leung.
• I found out on the same day that the translation of "gigolo" in Chinese is someone who sells his bum.
  
• I've managed to get a decent number of people into the Circle game (see previous post). It's hilarious to see accountants punching one another.
• I won the official work bet for the Barcelona v Arsenal final. I win a cup of tea.
  
• Having a smoke downstairs with someone from the filing room. He asks me if I listen to Spice Girls. I laugh and shake my head. He proceeds to sing "Wannabe" to me, though the only word he knows in the entire song is "wannabe".
• My nickname (or name) has developed into Lai Fun. This is because jong lai fun, which means Scoop Milk Powder, sounds like Jonathan to them.
  
• Everything has a nickname. Eugene = gene gene. Computation = com. Manager = ah jer. Yannick = yun yun ... etc.
  
• Not a single person has a social life on my level. They either work 7 days a week, or work 6 days and sleep on the 7th. Their idea of a social time the bunch of us playing the PSP after work.
• The average work hours are 8:30am - 10:30pm. I get advised when I work 8:30 - 6:30 that it doesn't look good to the managers. I actually feel the need to sneak out if I leave around that time (our work contract specifies that we are meant to work till 5:30pm). There is a dude in front of me that works 8am - midnight, 7 days a week. He has a family too. I regularly see him sleeping at his desk after work.
  
• There are actually people who leave 10 minutes after lunch starts just so the managers think they're working hard.
  
• Jonathan is strange name to my workmates (as opposed to Vega or Eros).
• My Spice Girls buddy keeps getting me to teach him English swear words. He now enjoys greeting me every morning with a "You f*cking guy", or "F*cking a**hole mothergirl."
• I crept up on Silent Li ... silently. Just to see if she would appreciate my punning-through-action.

The Circle Game

You remember the game we used to play in high school?

Where you make a circle out of your index finger and thumb - and if people look down at it, you get to give them a punch?

Well, I've started teaching the fellow Honkys at work how to play, they're actually getting quite into it.


"Why Kaiser Kwan, someone drew smiley faces all over your tax return!"

"What!? Let me have a look ....... Hey wait a ... "

*pow*

Da Vinci Code

With all the hype surrounding the upcoming "The Da Vinci Code" movie, I've decided to summarise briefly how I really feel towards the book. I'll still go watch the movie and enjoy it though - I love Tom Hanks and Audrey Tautou.

I think everyone here, whether they like Da Vinci Code or not - can agree that the novel is a work of fiction.

The book is no doubt an easy and interesting read. Most educated readers probably take it at face-value and understand that it is merely a work of fiction, despite the author heralding at the beginning of the novel that "all descriptions of artwork, architecture, documents [...] and secret rituals in this novel are accurate".

Thus, the critical difference here is that unlike other works of fiction, Brown hails his book as being "accurate". The carefully worded opening is a somewhat deceptive, yet powerful statement, and has lead to many perhaps-more-trusting individuals to accept writing as being "factual". Just, watching the 6 o'clock news the other day, a group of women were interviewed on camera - each of them boasting that they "believed that every single part of the novel was definitely true."

Now, I would not say I am a religious fanatic, atheist or conspiracist. Like most of us, I am merely an interested reader that is also concerned about the impact of novels such as these. By categorizing a book as fiction, and then proclaiming to the world that it is "factual" - there are always going to be a few poor buggers that won't spend the ten minutes researching to see how un-true Brown's "research" really is.

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Random quote for those interested (taken from http://www.aina.org/ata/20060511101121.htm)

"... But (and this is a big 'but') because Dan Brown wrote in the beginning of his book that all information about the texts and rituals and history were accurate, people have been duped into thinking that he has written historical fiction that they can trust.

"In fact, Dan Brown has not based his book on scholarly knowledge and does not have the simplest facts straight. Because Americans have been taught nothing about the history of religions in public schools (a result of the separation of church and state), unless they have taken college courses on the subject or worked hard to educate themselves by reading scholarly publications, Americans are largely ignorant about the history of Christianity. So they have had no way to critically judge Dan Brown's account, and many think it represents scholarly knowledge. It does not.

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Mm hoe choe

Went to the movies the other night. I watched Silent Hill.

Met a new colleague today. Her name is Silent Lee.

... coincidence?

Next time Gadget ... next time.

Started doing a bit of work today and began developing a slight paranoia of becoming workaholic. Consequently, I decided on trying to figure out would make the the greatest super-villain of all time.

Been going through some of them in my head. Feel free to add.

• Magneto is without a doubt one of the most badass (human) supervillains out there. With the mutant power of manipulating anything or anyone that carries a trace of metal (even the iron in their blood!), he can single-handedly take on most of the villains in this list. He is well-developed as a villain as well - being a Jew in Auschwitz, his family was further persecuted for his mutant powers - which contributed to his hatred of all those non-mutant. He has a sick outfit too - especially when his consciousness manifests itself as Onslaught.

• One of the first supervillains I came across was Shredder (from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles). Vengeful, spikey and equipped with antique ninja gear the chief problem is he can't do much besides martial arts stuff. He's also not very developed as an villain; rather he runs around and performs evil acts simply for the sake of being evil. The fact that he had to enlist Krang after failing to take on the turtles on his own cost him a few points as well.

• Orochimaru of the popular Japanese anime Naruto. An outcast ninja powerful enough to take on the Third Hokage (the most powerful ninja of Konoha), he excels with ninjitsu techniques of various types and has refined his art to a point where he can defy death itself. His specialty is with snake-like techniques and can generally seen riding a giant snake. Even when stripped of his ninja powers and the use of his arms, he still has enough power to fight toe-to-toe against two of the most powerful ninjas in Konoha. Sick bastard but reminds me of Michael Jackson sometimes.

• Professor Chaos is a re-curring alter-ego of Butters from South Park. Aided by his side-kick, General Disarray, he seeks to spread fear and chaos as revenge upon the world that has forsaken him (made him socially unpopular), but has a problem with scale. An example of his typical exploits is attempting to flood the planet by leaving the backyard hose on.

• Darth Vader from Star Wars is definitely one of the most recognised super-villains of all time - having three (be it crap) movies dedicated his journey towards the dark side goes to show how much complexity and interest surrounds this Jedi. Even the thematic elements of the original trilogy (namely, the antithesis between the 'Light' and 'Dark' side) can be reflected in the internal struggles of our young Anakin Skywalker. Plus he's got the Force Choke Power.

• Professor Moriarty from Sherlock Holmes is one of those diabolical masterminds. I'd say that within his own domain, he would kick other villain's ass through sheer intellectual power alone (he's the only villian that was successful at killing off Detective Holmes; before some lame attempt at resurrecting said detective a decade later). Problem is that compared to any of the other superheroes or villains, he doesn't actually possess any special powers whatsoever.

• Captain Pollution the polar opposite of our good friend Captain Planet. Created from Professor Blight's dark variants of the original Planeteer's rings - Deforestation, Super Radiation, Smog, Toxics, and Hate (how can you go wrong with Super Radiation?), this villain represented everything that Captain Planet was not. Definitely an interesting deviation from the usual preachy episodes (does anyone remember Planetwatch?), yet his beach-surfer voice quickly got on my nerves.

• Megatron is the chief antagonist against the mighty Autobots in the Transformers universe. His primary weapon is "arm-mounted fusion cannon, capable of levelling a city block in one blast, which he can sub-dimensionally link to a black hole, generating even more powerful antimatter blasts." (how can you mess with someone that can summon a black hole?) Though powerful and highly megalomaniacal in each of his manifested forms, Megatron seems to lack the patience or the tactical ability to succeed in each of his tasks. The fact that when he transforms, he turns into a gun a fraction of his original size doesn't make sense to me either.

• Gargamel (courtesy of Pickos) from The Smurfs. This horrible sorcerer is evil, cunning and somewhat of a dimwit - he hates the Smurfs and is constantly in pursuit of them but the Smurfs always outwit him and manage to escape. Like so many other lame cartoon villains, after each setback Gargamel swears he shall be revenged. I always thought his cat Azrael was kinda cool though.
  
• Dr Evil
• Mr Burns crossed my mind too.

But my favourite has to be Venom from Spider-Man:

Formed from an alien symbiote combining Eddie Brock - a journalist whose reputation was tarnished by (I've just realised I sound like a huge nerd), the alien had the effect of fusing with whichever organism it touched to form a black mesh-like costume with the powers stronger than Spider-Man and his own form of webbing. The symbiote's shapeshifting ability allows Venom to camouflage himself like a chameleon or to assume the likeness of nearly any person. Venom's also undetectable by Spider-Man's spidey-sense.

Unlike Carnage (one of the offsprings of the symbiote, with the same crazy powers but bonded with the mind of a death-row inmate), Venom is curiously protective of those he sees as 'innocent'. In his quest for vengeance against Spiderman, he'll avoid killing bystanders or innocents - and has teamed up with Spiderman (and The Punisher) as an anti-hero ...

Oh ... and he's in the next Spidey movie :)

Random MSN

Funniest thing I've heard all day ..

[17:23] j: im gettng desert
[17:23] d: you're getting a large body of sand?

Lame-chop

Saw a couple of good movies recently thanks to my good friend Jason.

Now they're not movies I normally go out to see - so I was quite impressed by how refreshingly amusing they were.

Couple of Fridays ago we went to watch at the International Film Festival at the outdoor theatre in Tamar. Astounded by the size of the huge blow-up screen and blow up castles (there was actually a blow-up Shaolin Soccer field), the Asian in me quickly jumped to the conclusion we could easily avoid going paying to enter the outdoor theatre altogether and watch it clearly from the bridge outside of the cinema. In fact, several other like-minded cheapskates had already leapt to the same conclusion and were happily indulging in a free presentation of "My Neighbour Totoro" from the opposite skyway.

Alas, we had already bought tickets (just kidding guys, I'm not that tight), and went to watch I Not Stupid 2.To be honest, I wasn't sure what to expect - having not seen I Not Stupid 1. The movie is about a bunch of kids in "Singapore's regimented education system ... that and their parents just don't understand lah!" Hilariously funny (though some of us seemed to think it was a tad preachy?), my favourite quote went something like this:

Dad and son are eating dinner. Dad tries to be cool, as dads generally do.

"Waiter, could you get me a laaaame-chop?"
"Oh, waiter? Could you please move this laame?" (points to a lamp)

Kid groans and mutters, "... so lame."


You know what else I've realised? Honkies have a twisted sense of humour. They'll happily laugh away at the troubles of others - and they love to bitch and gossip. In one particular scene where on of the main character's father dies (dies!) from a major head trauma ... and the next thing you see a picture of his coffin, and the entire audience decides it's an appropriate time to piss themselves.

So you'd think - of course, there must have been something somewhat amusing about his death right? No, he dies from a major head trauma. Falling down stairs after getting beaten up by three guys whilst trying to save his teenage son. Coming out of a coma, whilst crying and pleading to the headmaster of the school to give his boy another chance with his studies ... anyway its a sad moment - I'm actually am in the middle of wiping my eyes (yeah real men cry too yer know?) whilst the two girls sitting behind me are in laughing so much you'd think rice is going to come out of their nose.

Last week we also went and watched The Heavenly Kings. To be honest, I'm not too sure how I'm going to go about describing this flick. It's a documentary (I think mock-umentary is the correct word?) that follows a Honky boyband named "Alive" from its humble roots to stardom. Now I know that's not much to go by - but trust me, it was funny as hell (lucky I didn't eat rice) and it was extremely well-made. My mate was actually passing by whilst they took the photo above Watch it if you ever get the chance!

Almost as funny as what's on tv right now - they're advertising for vibrating tummy-exercising machines.

Motherland

Noticed this recently:

Number of mass protests in China:
2004: 79,000
2005: 80,000

An interesting thing about those numbers is this - public protesting is completely forbidden in China. Last year, a group of Chinese who had their homes forcibly demolished by the Government (in preparation for the upcoming Olympics) were banned from any kind of public outcry at all. An 80-year old man who was had his shelter torn down - without any form of compensation - was taken into custody for merely refusing to move out of the house that he and the other 4 families were crammed into.

Everyone outside of China knows about the abuse of human rights that go on. I live in Hong Kong, a city taken back over from the motherland less than a decade ago. One important factor regarding the takeover was that Hong Kong would exist for "50 years without change". Yet change is present everywhere; a spread of newspapers and other media have coincidentally become pro-China, while any propostions for democratical rights for Hong Kong are often met by egg-throwing and abusive words.

The public police and hospitals in China is so poorly-staffed and corrupt that those who venture into the mainland carry specially-made "insurance cards". That way, if you happen to be stabbed or injured in the streets of China, and someone happens to take you into hospital (after others had stripped you of anything of value of course) the hospital staff will find it "profitable" for them to treat you. Police will only help you with burglaries or murders if you have the money to make it a worthwhile venture for them.

I am not exaggerating on any level here. There are those in China who are content with their way of life - I believe this is heavily influenced by the control the government holds upon the access of information. While there are still people in China who have never heard of SARs or avarian disease, the recent clean-up of the Songhua river was heavily publicised by all the national newspapers. Yet the only reason the government decided to release any information at all is because the Songhua river flows into the waterways of Russia.

Billions of Chinese live in abject poverty. During my last trip to the mainland, I was confronted by a group of 8-year olds begging me for the equivalent of US$0.10. Pointing to their worn-out feet, they said they just wanted this money just buy sandals for the 16km return-walk to school every day. While this kind of poverty is prevalent both in the cities and countryside - it is far more noticeable once you decide to step a few kilometres away from the tourist strips. Yes, China is growing and advancing into a potential future superpower. But the rich are getting disgustingly rich, while the poor are ignored and deprived of basic human rights.

Yet the government deems it still important to spend the taxpayers' precious yuan to send a manned-rocket into space.

Undercover Hidden Dragon

My girlfriend and I just watched a Honky movie tonight, called Undercover Hidden Dragon. I think it was meant to be some sort of a parody of 'Infernal Affairs' and 'Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon' (both popular Chinese movies). Suffice to say, it was retarded. Yet it still got me laughing.

Watch this clip and I think you'll see what I mean.

Gummy bears ... bouncing here and there and everywhere ...

Say theres a lot of little teddy bears.

One day, an evil goblin king enslaved these poor teddy bears, and put these evil magical headbands on their heads. Then he sent the bears to go work in the mountains.

Now these magical headbands are cursed, so the bears aren''t able to take them off by any means. Each headband is also either black or white. As the bears cannot take off their headbands, each bear is unable to tell the colour of his or her own headband. Due to the cursed headbands, each bear is not able to inform other bears what colour headband they have. So simply put - there is no way of observing what colour headband a bear wears himself, and due to the evil power of the headbands (and because teddy bears can't talk) there is no way of alerting a fellow bear what colour headband he or she is wearing.

After one particularly tiring day of working in the mountains, the bears trudged down from the mountain, and stood side-by-side in a line-up ... as they do every evening at the stroke of midnight . The goblin king normally takes this short period of time to count them all (though there is little need to - the bears have no way of escaping anyway). However, this night was different. The evil goblin king eyed them all with his evil eyes, and boomed,

"I AM GIVING YOU ALL A CHANCE FOR FREEDOM!
IF EACH OF YOU MANAGE TO FIGURE OUT THE COLOUR OF THE HEADBAND ON YOUR HEADS, I WILL SET YOU ALL FREE!
HOWEVER, IF EVEN JUST ONE OF YOU, GUESSES WRONG ...

YOU WILL ALL ... DIE."

And so the evil goblin king cackled, evilly.

Each bear glanced at one other and nervously gulped. Now the bears knew that they had a chance to escape, but they must do so without any kind of communication with each other. In fact this is not a trick question at all, it works on the assumption that all the bears are quite brainy (they like playing these kind of problems too!).

Every evening, the bears line up as usual at the stroke of midnight and are given a short period of time to try. As the bears cannot speak, the bears with the black headbands should take one step forward, while the bears with the white headbands should remain where they are. They are not allowed to do anything else (they cannot gesture, or even interact with one other - due to the evil power of the headband). Once all the bears with the black headbands have taken a step forward, then all the bears will be set free. However, as the goblin king mentioned - if just one bear with a white headband steps forward, then they will all be killed (and turned into fluffy pillows).

I repeat, the only thing that the cursed power of the headbands lets them do, during the entire course of the day, is to let them either stay where they are during the line-up, or to take that one step forward. The cursed headbands also forbid them from communicating with each other.

But the bears know two things that should help them - that there is at least one bear with a white headband, and there is at least one bear with a black headband. They know that somehow, this will help them solve this problem. Thankfully, the goblin king didn't set a time-limit, so they can take as long as they want with this (that is, they can use as many line-ups as they wish)

How do the bears solve this? (remember, there is absolutely no way they can communicate/interact with one other, and theres no way they can observe the colour of their own headband either - ie. no glancing into reflective streams etc.)

This one's a bit tricky so the winner gets a beer.

And I repeat, this is not a trick question. Post any questions in the comments - have fun and no cheating!

Update: solution posted up in comments section.

Bored

I was so bored today, that I did some work.

But afterwards I felt guilty ... so I blogged.

;)

Half-baked

SECURITY cameras at Sydney airport have been sabotaged, raising fears over drug cases and terrorism. Sydney Labor MP John Murphy claimed the security breach cast fresh doubt on the guilt of convicted drug trafficker Schapelle Corby.

"Intelligence from other law enforcement agencies suggests some Asian-recruited Qantas crew may be involved in narcotics," the report found.

Sure, blame us fobs again.

Does anybody else think this whole Corby thing is a bit of a joke? Like - let's ignore the fact that three of Corby's family members have been convicted on drug charges and the fourth is currently facing drug charges. Disregard the fact her father, Michael Corby has been fined in Australia for possessing cannabis but was not convicted (not to mention he's best mates with a hydroponics dealer himself). Lets even ignore that she her whole case centers upon these evil, drug-smuggling Asian bag-handlers in Brisbane who've just decided to put the cannabis in her bag without her knowledge - mind you, without a single dustmite of proof.

The fact of the matter is - you cannot possibly pick up a bag (a bag containing her boogie board, the size and weight of which she should be quite comfortable and familiar with) and not notice it being 4.1 kilograms heavier. Now, 4.1kg ain't an insubstantial amount of weight. It's heavier than two of those 2-litre milk jugs you get at supermarkets. It's about the equivalent of standard medicine ball - the average person would probably find lifting a 4kg dumbbell with one hand fairly straining. In fact, her boogie board probably weighs less than 4kg itself (imagine the sheer volume of it all as well - 4 kilograms of pot is a helluva lot of dried grass).

Simply put, you cannot possibly lift a bag that has increased in weight by over 4kg and not realise it.

Hutz: Thank you, Dr. Hibbert. I rest my case.
Judge: You rest your case?
Hutz: What? Oh no, I thought that was just a figure of speech.

(Lionel Hutz, that funny lawyer guy in The Simpsons)

Be a Man!

This video's been out for a while, but I've just put it here for the benefit of those who have to constantly put up with me and Derek reciting random quotes from his act every single time we are out - and having absolutely no idea what we're going on about.

Basically, he's a Indian/Canadian comedian who does a fantastic job of poking fun at Honkies, Indians and other races. What's also amazing is the number of people I've bumped into who absolutely love this guy - I think one of the last times was when I shared a table with old Indian couple at a Chinese restaurant, in London (Oh wait, no .. it was when I was out with Derek and we were reciting random quotes from his act).

(I think you can actually just click play below to watch it)

What is fob la?

I had an amusing time at work the other day trying to explain what a fob was one of my fellow honky co-workers. Have you ever had to describe what a fob is ... to a fob?

Let that thought settle in for a moment ...

How do you even begin?

"Um ... theres er.. a boat you see. Well, theres quite a few of them, a long time ago. And asians used to go on them to get away from their own country. But they don't really do the boat thing anymore - but thats kind of beside the point - its more like they spoke funny and now you're stuck with this label. So we kind of call those asians ... er, fresh off the boat ... yeah fresh - no, no not like vegetables ..."

So the conversation getting confusing already, and no doubt slightly offensive - that is if they've understood what you mean so far.

Then I got to the stage where I had to describe these so-called fobs.

"The older male species of the fob tends to adorn himself in characteristically light blue jeans, tennis shoes, and a white polo shirt. The younger types ... like they wear tight stuff. Especially the guys. And tight tops. Yeah, kinda like the top you're wearing. Oh, and really colourful stuff too - especially if they're Honky. And they kinda talk like ... Why harlo my lame is Circle and it was so very good to be meeting you today on this fine morning and I love to eat watemelon. When the man on the street turn green you can go-go-go! How many peepo?"

Before the person in front of me had any idea what I was crappin on about, I quickly changed topics and managed to convince them that everyone in Australia wears opals and drinks Fosters.

Incidentally, Wikipedia defines a fob as this,

Fresh off the boat (often abbreviated as F.O.B., FOB or freshie, or fobbie) is a slang phrase applied to people of foreign nationality, who have arrived in an English-speaking nation as tourists or, most commonly, as work permit applicants.

Derivative adjective forms of FOB include fobby, fobbish and fobulous, a portmanteau of fob and fabulous.


How fobulous.

Something to tickle that thinking thing in your head

Here's a neat little IQ puzzle I read the other day. See if you can figure it out. First person to post the correct answer + solution to this (you gotta say why your answer is correct) receives $0.50.

"... fifty cent a lot of money!"

So there's a bear.

He decides to amble around ... he goes:

• 1km south
• 1km west
• 1km north

And he ends up right back where he started.

What colour is this bear?