xplosions!

Nothing much to report I suppose. It's been colder and colder and I actually have had my radiators on full power a few nights just to keep the temperature indoors tolerable. I still am amazed at how crappy the local construction work is.

I met more of Chi's family last Saturday. A kind of an out-of-the-blue situation when we were suddenly invited to a dinner. Not knowing what it was about, I casually agreed to go. Well, already on ferry to Tuen Mun I was told four of her aunties, their husbands, Chi's mom and grandmom, her younger sister and some other people close to the family are coming too. All went well, I'm glad to say. Seems I'm rather easily accepted by her family eventhough a gweilo is must be quite an oddity to them.

Understand they are really, really common people of Hong Kong and used only to dealing with locals. It's kind of like someone in Akaa dating an asian. It's not completely unheard of, but it definitely isn't common. Of course Hong Kong has many interracial couples, but usually it's between "better" people of Hong Kong.

So, what happenned isn't that spectacular, strange, or even interesting. We had dinner with the bunch of them, and it was fun. What makes it spectacular, strange and interesting for me is of course the chance to yet again dive deeper into the local way of life. What I have been observing from afar I now have a small part. Like almost everything about the local way of life so far, I have not been running into strange cultural barriers nor offended anyones traditions - just a bit of common sense and all is fine. Who needs those books about Chinese culture, really? Sure they give some insight what goes inside the head of some traditionally oriented people, but seems at least in Hong Kong all that gibberish has not really been of any true value.

Chinese(/Hong Kongese) do some things differently. Accept that. Prepare for that. Use common sense. And you're fine. Mostly it's just people dealing with other people and the universal rules apply.

That's all about that for now.

Oh, and a free household tip to all those unexperienced in the ways of living alone. And those not living alone, but still doing stuff themselves.

Do not put liquids in sealed containers to a freezer. In this case, don't put a can of coke to a freezer in hopes of making it cold faster and then forgetting it there over night, and realizing the mistake only 26 hours later. I did that. It wasn't such a awesome experience as it might sound.

So a short story even shorter. The can exploded before all of the contents was frozen so it was all around the freezer compartment. Fun. Well, that's nothing new but I just took a picture of the blown up can, and thought it's funny enough to post here. So here we go:



And here a more artistic view of the final situation. Ah, the spendor of life:



Aside from a can of coke blowing up in my freezer and the other things mentioned above, nothing much has happened. So there you have it. I'm off. Tchau!

1st Anniversary in Hong Kong

So it's come to this.

It's January 21st, exactly one year later since my original exodus to Hong Kong.

Kind of mixed feelings for that. On one hand it feels the time has passed really quick and everything is going smoothly - on the other, looking back at 2007, feels it was a really long, long year. I dunno. I suppose it's always like that when you really start thinking about it.

Anyway, one year is something to make note of.

Other than that. I don't really have anything to write about. I'm really damned hungry right now, and I want to have one beer for celebration. Hence, after 30 minutes I'll head out to the closest McDonalds, eat a burger and then go to the closest drinking hole for that beer. Then I'll go home and iron some shirts.

Life is superb.

Playstation 3 vs. my DVD-player

So, I got myself a PS3 -- or my brother got himself a PS3, bought it in Hong Kong for me to ship it to Finland to save a little money. Anyway, this all means that I have it around to play a bit since of course I didn't send it to Finland right away.

So, what can I say about PS3? Seems, I actually haven't played much with it. My brother bought one game to it, "Bladestorm", which, though probably an awesome game, is not my cup of tea. So, I'm lacking games to the console and it's mostly now a decorative item in my apartment.

From what I played, I could see it's a bit better than PS2, which of course is an improvement, but I still don't find the controls on a PS very comfortable. I'm a Mouse/keyboard-man myself.

The console main interface is very similar to that of PSP, so at least that part is quite familiar. Other than that, it's just another console to me.

What is great about it though, and to me the far best feature, is that it has HDMI-out for video. Which means that with my HDMI-ready 42" plasma TV I can watch movies with awesomenestest quality! No 5.1 sound though since I lack proper cables to connect the PS3 to my amplifier, but at least the picture is awesome!

I've been planning on buying a new dvd-player with HDMI, but I might actually buy a PS3 instead since the price isn't that different here in Hong Kong -- and so I would get the high quality picture AND I could play games too. Not that I play games that much. Maybe EDF2. Lol.

So, to summarize my PS3 experience. Not much different to PS2 but better video quality for watching movies. Awesome.

Another PS related story. You remember Onimusha? The PS2 game I was playing; the game kind of like Kingdom Hears but in medieval Japan? Well, I saw "Onimusha the movie" at a local DVD-store. A classic example of a situation where I should have waited a bit and check the internet for information -- but, I bough it. I remembered the game has some great cinematic parts to it, and thought a movie with that stuff could be quite awesome. Well, it wasn't. I should have known the Japanese were up to something!

So, what was the movie?.. It was two hour compilation of all the in-game plot animations (not those cool rendered animations but the actual game ones, which you could see when playing the game) and a girl's voice narrating the story. The cinematic parts where there too but mostly it was just mediocre picture quality with awkward movements (acting) and complicated plot being explained in ultra-fast speed.

I watched the whole damned thing and regretted every minute of it. But seeing it was weekend then, I didn't have anything better to do.

I can't believe that I spent the price of a normal movie on that. I could've bought some lame-ass animation from Pixar for the same money.

"An Internet troll, or simply troll in Internet slang, is someone who posts controversial messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum, with the intention of baiting other users into an emotional response." - Wikipedia, 'Definition of an internet troll'

Bird's Nest

Funky food experiences in Hong Kong resume! I had a mango drink on Saturday while walking in Causeway Bay. Mango is one of my favorite tastes and I never refuse mango. This time, however, it wasn't just mango in my drink. There was an old Chinese add-on in the drink: Bird's nest.

The name "bird's nest" as a spice sounded a bit weird to me, but I just thought it's one of those Chinese things.

The drink was ok. And I was told that bird's nest has numerous health benefits like aiding digestion, raising libido, improving the voice, alleviating asthma, increasing concentration, and an overall benefit to the immune system. Not too bad.

Well, what is bird's nest, then?

I took a piece of paper from the shop explaining numerous details about bird's nest - it failing to mention what it actually is. Well, seeing I got no help from there, I turned to the help of my trusty friend Wikipedia.

"The edible bird's nests are among the most expensive animal products consumed by humans. The nests have been traditionally used in China for over 400 years, most often as bird's nest soup."

Animal products, eh? Ok.

"Bird's nest soup is a delicacy in Chinese cuisine. A few species of swift, the cave swifts, are renowned for building the saliva nests used to produce the unique texture of this soup."

Wonderful. So, my mango drink was mixed with expensive bird spit. I'm glad I didn't know this beforehand - albeit had I known, I wouldn't have had the drink in the first place. It's a good thing Chi recommended me this one. Ha. Well, that's how life is here. Always new things. Never thought they'd make food of bird saliva though. Everything else I could've pretty much imagined.

Wikipedia on Bird's Nest Soup

So, that's one more thing for the menu.

Intestines, skin, bones, funky sea-creatures, saliva.

Only thing left untested is insects. I'm glad they're not big of a fad nor a tradition.

On other food-related things. Saturday was also the first time I went to IKEA's "restaurant" where they also have a small food's shop. To my sheer amazement and joy, they had Estrella potato Chips, DAIM chocolate, Hyvää Makumaasta bags of candy and all sorts of familiar sweets and foodstuff. I almost went bananas there. If only I wasn't on a diet of "If you don't need to eat it, don't eat it". So I only bought one bag of chips for Chi to try. She liked.

101th Post Celebration

I just realized last post was the 100th in my blog. Hurray for triviality. This makes today's post the 101st. If most of my writing wasn't utter crap, this could be now made into a book. A book by the name "Scribbles of a Scribbling Scribbler - First full year in Hong Kong". Or something.

Nothing much going on here.

Except I've been getting to know Chi's family lately. Last week Friday we went to dinner with her mom, yesterday with her sister. Honestly, I was terrified at meeting her mom at first, but it was quite ok in the end. I lived to tell the tale. In fact, I am now invited to take part in the family's Chinese New Year celebration --- which means I will meet the whole family from both sides and until most distant cousin and auntie possible. Scary, yet bound to be funny.

I mean, as far as I know, no one in Chi's family really speaks English (or Finnish) except a for a few special cases. So, I'll mostly be relying on Chi to translate everything, and she will definitely have a lot of work on that. As I gather, I am the first gweilo ever to join this celebration. No gweilo-boyfriends before.

Oh, yesterday's dinner was hotpot. Hotpot is a nice concept for dinner and comes with a lot of stuff to eat. Basically what you have is a round table with a kettle in the middle. The kettle is set to boil, with a soup base. Then you're brought whatever you order; usually different kinds of meat, seafood, and vegetables (so the whole bunch) and they key is they're brought in raw. Your job is then to, at your own pace, to throw in the foodstuff and cook them yourself. This will allow you to eat as fast as you want, and converse with your friends and party while at it. It's a really nice social event.

But what food is ordered is another story. Usually I prefer beef, sausages, some vegetables and a small selection of seafood (fish/octopus balls mainly). Of course what I prefer is totally different from whatever the other prefer. Last night's specialties included cows stomach (though I wasn't told from which of the four compartments) that wasn't too bad, and pork intestines that I didn't even dare trying. There was a number of other stuff I wasn't sure what it was since it was minced into balls of random colors and tastes - but those I could eat without complaining.

The bottom line is, with Cantonese foods, that if you can ignore what you're eating, you can eat pretty much anything. Generally the taste isn't too bad - though of course there are stuff that would be better left uncooked, uneaten, and just generally thrown away at earliest possible stage.

Anyway, I don't have much else to write about - and I still go work to do. That said, I will stop now. More to come later.

Alien Socket vs. Predator Radiator

This morning I woke up, tired, and the first though in my head was "thank god it's almost weekend....." Then the harsh reality of an unrested weekend comes to play. It's Monday, not weekend. Damn it all.

I have a few updates to make.

After my last post I was still too lazy and tired and I didn't buy the stupid radiator. I did one day later. I actually bought two; one bigger oil-filled and the other a small fan heater. Now my bedroom is nice and warm and sleep is better. Unfortunately, however, I have very little use for the small heater because the stupid apartments in here don't come with a power socket in the bathroom. I wanted to use the small one for bathroom so it wouldn't be so damned cold in there - the small fan is even 'bathroom compatible' and can take in moisture and water without electrocuting people or blowing up - but the damned bathroom lacks a socket. I mean, what the hell?

Want to shave using an electric shaver? Better do it elsewhere.
Want to dry your hair with a fan? Do it elsewhere.
Want to do carpentry using an electric chainsaw? No can do!

What is the point? Oh, sure, this way no one gets electrocuted but wouldn't that just be normal evolution? Darwinism at its best? If you're stupid enough to get electrocuted, well, you're obviously not very familiar with contemporary way of life where a magical force from a funny nostril in a wall can kill you. If you don't respect and understand that, well, fine. But I just want that damned socket.

I could go for an extension cord from an outside socket but it's not really aesthetically pleasing to the eye. I don't know. It would be so much easier with the damned socket ready in place.

At least my bedroom is warmer. That's enough for now.

Other thing is, I went to see the new Alien vs. Predator movie.

Without much of expectations for it to be a good movie, I must say it definitely surprised me in a very positive way. It's not a movie masterpiece, it's not going to win Oscars, nor will be a big blockbuster. But it is still what Alien vs. Predator should be.

The first AvP movie sucked donkey ass. It was terrible. It had some good ideas but they totally ruined them with a totally shitty movie. The plot was ok but everything else sucked.

In the new AvP, the plot kind of sucks (but is acceptable) but everything else is pretty much awesome - or at least cool. You have a lot of people dying, you have many good alien-moments, plenty of good predator-moments --- and you have plenty of people dying (oh, said that before already).

They used quite a lot of concepts from earlier Alien and Predator movies. Especially Aliens (the second of the series) and first Predator. There are similarities in some characters, there are some similar concepts and there are some similar quotes even.

I must say I really actually liked the movie. Anyone and Everyone is of course entitled to an opinion of the movie but please go see it first before judging it. It's nothing like the first AvP, so if you didn't like that one don't let it stop you from seeing this one.

I must say, the predator in all its coolness throughout the movie was still a bit of a pussy. And the aliens still weren't 100% what they were in the Alien movies 1-3. Nevertheless, I'd say this is still better than what you'd get if you combined Alien Resurrection (the 4th in the series) and Predator 2. Think of if more like a combination of the first Predator and Aliens, with a 'crappy contemporary Hollywood idiocy'-factor of 20%.

I give it 4/5. As a good attempt to get the concept work.

That's all for today. Tchau!

Into the void

Second day of January, in the year of our Lord two thousand and eight. Slightly cold, but a clear day. Life is shifting back to normality after a short season of random vacation days.

Again I woke up to the cold during the night and thus my determination for buying a radiator to my bedroom increases by the second. In fact, I will most likely go purchase one from the local Tung Chung electronics shop today.

I will not do any 2007 review today because I'm lazy and tired. I will write such thing later on. Maybe during the weekend. But yes, now I'm too lazy and tired. Can't be arsed to do anything really.

In fact, I'm so lazy and tired I'll just cut this crap short right here. I'll write something more later. Tchau!