Mob and mobility

In my last post I mentioned getting a new phone. Even after one week I still play with it like a child with a new toy. It's not a toy, however, but sadly I must admit that I have very little use for its many, many, many functions. If I worked in a proper company where being reachable 24/7, carrying a portable office with me, and having all sorts of meeting schedules was important, this would be the best thing ever. As it is not so, most functions are just "cool", "interesting" or "fun".

Well, in any case, it's nice to have all those funky functions and adjustable settings at hand. It'll take some time for me to actually utilize all it can offer, but I'm getting there.

There are a few things about the phone that bother me a bit, though. First thing is the battery life, which isn't really anything to brag about. I'm happy if I can go one day without charging. Of course, I'm probably using functions that take much processing power too much, leading to fast depletion of battery. In stand-by mode, the phone is like any other, and takes practically no power to run.

Other thing that bothers me is the alarm clock. My phone runs with Windows Mobile 6.1 OS, and while being really good and fast (surprisingly so!) otherwise, for some reason it doesn't allow for custom alarm sounds. So, I got crappy pre-set alarms to choose from, none which I'd like to wake up to. There are ways to go around it, but it's too troublesome and without any good result. I also checked for 3rd party alarm software to my phone, but most I have to pay for and the free ones are even suckier than the original.

With those two aspects that annoy me aside, the phone is perfect. I like it. I've never had a phone more complicated than the absolute basic functions, and it's a funny feeling carrying a phone like this around - something with more processing power and functions than my early PC's.

That's about that. No more will I say about my phone.

Below is a random picture taken in Wan Chai. American Restaurant with Peking Food... So which are you getting? Chinese or American? It's kind of like the "Real American Bacon from Finland" that you see in some Finnish grocery stores. I don't know.. just random.


I was going to write more stuff today.

But it won't.

Black Rain

Black Rainstorm Warning Signal Special Announcement issued by the Hong Kong Observatory at 6:40 a.m.

The Rainstorm Warning Signal is now Black. This means that heavy rain has fallen or is expected to fall generally over Hong Kong, exceeding 70 millimetres in an hour, and is likely to continue.

Because of seriously flooded roads and inclement weather conditions, you are advised to take shelter in a safe place and stay there. Parents, students, school authorities and school-bus drivers should listen to radio or television announcements on schools. Do not attempt to travel until the Black Rainstorm Warning Signal is no longer in force and traffic conditions have improved.

Please listen to radio or watch television for traffic conditions and further announcements on the rainstorm.

Yep, I noticed. It kept me awake for good part of the night. Thunder and Lightning! So, finally around 10am when I could be arsed up my bed, I decided to take a few pictures.

The warning says "take shelter and don't go anywhere". Well, I never really understood the big fuss over some little rain. But then, we rarely get rain like this in Finland.

Chi got a call earlier this morning not to go to work untill weather calms down. Good for her, can sleep later.

For me, the awake-keeping thunderstorm, really wasn't all that great. I had only 4 hours of sleep from previous night as I had to wake up at 5am to go for a business trip in China, and I got off from work around 22:30 (got back to Hong Kong around 19:00 and still had to go to office to finish up some stuff). So, having a long day behind me, I kind of wanted to sleep plenty and late today. No such luck.

Stupid weather.

Oh, and Chi bought me a € 500 mobile phone. Nice. Just out of the blue she bought that thing. I had been looking at the phone for several months already, but never really thought I could buy it. I really wanted it, but a bit too expensive. Or so I thought. Well, now I go it! I need to pay back a bit to Chi, however, since I can't just accept her spending that much on a surpise present.

Info here.

It's a nice phone. I know it comes with Windows, but it seems to be working fine so far.

Below pictures from today, from my balcony.

Whiplash

If you plan to go see Indiana Jones 4 and don't want to completely ruin the experience, don't read this post. This will ruin the experience.

Like so many, I was waiting for Indiana 4 like it was the second coming (well, the fourth). I educated myself about the coming movie from making-off clips published online, and later from review in magazines.

The movie works surprisingly well, and Harrison Ford does an awesome role as Indiana - so good infact, that sometimes I kind of forgot how old he is, and felt definite connection between this and the earlier movies. Also, the young kid does a really good role, and really fits his role wery well.

There's a lot of good old style Indiana Jones humor, and though special effects have taken their place in the movie, a lot of the original feeling is still there.

That was the good things.

Special effects... It is amazing how much you can do these days with computers; to really fool the audience into believing in all the spectacular things. Basically since Terminator 2 and Jurassic Park, we've seen completely realistic CGI's in movies. With Lord of the Rings, the technology peaked for a while, and what they did in the moview was simply awesome (aside from a few Legolas shots).

Well, then came the new Star Wars movies. They proved that even with big money your CGI can suck.

The came several other movies.

I am Legend.

With a budget like that you'd expect to get much more than what they had in I am Legend. If there is anything that ruins that movie (a good one too) it's the fake-looking CGI. They don't fit. They don't look real. They don't work the magic they're supposed to.

Well, guess what? Indiana Jones has plenty of that going on. CGI that doesn't seem real.

The storytelling of the movie was quite clumsy. You don't really feel the movie as such: you don't get into it. It feels distant. There is way too much action compared to actual storytelling. You know, kind of like the over-long sword scenes in Pirates of the Caribbean 2 and 3. There are life-or-death situations and it seems no one is even worried by it. It's acrobatics. Clever shots without any depth into them.

The plot of the movie is not anything to shout about. It sucks. I mean, the story around the plot is ok, but the plot itself... I mean, who cares about a stupid crystal skull? Especially once you start learning the plot has more to it than supernatural.

From the reviews I learned that there would be some lame references of how the South American Indians were in contact with aliens, and how they helped the Indians to build their cities and temples, and brought them technology.

Well, you can rest assured and curse the gods for Indiana Jones 4 has references to aliens. In fact, it HAS aliens. Aliens and paranormal. Way to go Lucas, thank you!

And to make it worse, the aliens are made in that crappy CGI!! If there is one way to ruin a perfectly good movie series, it is changing everything about it and letting people hope you didn't ruin it too badly. Well, I hoped. No reward. The movie has crappy CGI and aliens. Way to go Lucas, thank you!

I can only imagine how much better the movie would've been if they had just tossed all post-1990 technologies away from movie-making, and concentrated on the plot instead.

In the Making-of documentary of the original movies, Lucas and Spielberg say Temple of Doom was the least good of the three. So my question is, why would you try to repeat Temple of Doom - instead of Raiders of the Lost Ark, or Last Crusade?... And even failing in repeating Temple of Doom.

Well, it's a nice movie still. Just don't fool yourself into thinking it's another Indiana Jones.

National Treasure was better. And it hurts me to say that. It really does.

Thank you Lucas. First you ruined Star Wars, now you ruined Indiana Jones. Luckily that leaves very little for you to ruin anymore.

Pancake Colours

The happy pills worked, so it seems. I still don't feel 100% ok, but it's close enough for me not to bother the doctor anymore. The pain is gone, and there's nothing more but a slight discomfort left. If anything should go bad again, I'll be quick to go to doctor. As it is, however, the situation has been resolved and no need to discus it further.

In other news, me and my colleague headed for lunch in Causeway Bay. Being a relatively unknown area for both of us in terms of restaurants, we decided to pick something random. So we went to a building where they have plenty of restaurants (in Hong Kong it is common to have a tall building almost full of restaurats and you take a lift where each floor has its designated place(s) to eat). Going through the list of names of restaurants, we decided upon a Korean place.

We never got there.

We took the lift but accidentally got off the wrong floor. The floor held two establishments. One was a cafe, the other was a place called "Pancake Colours". As a joke, we went to the latter. To our surprise the place was actually really nice and the food was good.

I ordered a chicken steak and got something I thought was fish. Anyways, it was good and well worth recommending.

And they have pancakes.

No point to this post. Thanks for reading though.

Not so supercool

I got a damned infection in my ear and it hurts like crap. I've had it for a few days now. It frigging hurts. And I haven't really slept properly for the least few nights since sleeping involves placing your head on a pillow - head, to with the ears are connected, including the ear that hurts like crap. Crap, I tell you!

Now, I don't know why I was bestowed this grand gift of pain, but I sure ain't thankful for it.

Had to go to the doctors too to get some meds for this. The frigging visit cost me HKD 400 (including the meds)! It's not too bad, but it's still money I could've spent on something useful, like 16 BigMac meals. Well, he gave me some happy-pills and ear drops and it should be getting better withing a few days. Taking too damned long though.


I shit you not. Above are the actual pills I got. My antibiotics say "nice" and they are happy and yellow-gray. Super! Also got some painkillers but they just look like normal drugs.

Well, let's see how long it takes for them to really kick in. I wouldn't really like to visit doctors again if the pills don't do the trick. Not because of the money, not because of the trouble - but because I have to wait 3 more days before my medication ends. So, if they don't work - I'll have 3 more days of PAIN ahead of me.

Haha, can't imagine myself, a big man, making such a fuss about a thing like this.

Anyways, life goes on.

Supercool

Gloomy Wednesday.

It's a turn for the better, though, since we had a few days of Typhoon-comparable rains and wind. No typhoons here, however, just crappy weather. But it's better now, at least it's calm - albeit gray.

It's funny how you can feel cold, even if it's over 20 degrees out. While living in Finland, that seemed like a ridiculous thing to say.

A friend is coming by for one evening to Hong Kong from Guangzhou so I'm expecting moderate consumption of alcohol in a civilized manner within the safe perimeter of a drinking house. Since tomorrow is a working day, I expect things to go smoothly and without incident.

Nothing more to say today. Except that lately I've been less tired, less pissed-off, and less stressed. And that is a really awesome feeling after a few months of all three of those.

Life is sweet, life is super. If only it was brighter outside.

Lazydayz...

It's Friday and that means that weekend is just around the corner! Now, I don't take much pride to it but I've become extremely lazy during weekends. Seems I can't be arsed to do anything, really. Well, that is going to change now that I'm having a bit more energy.

See, laziness was direct result of being exhausted by work during week - so any time off I could have, I would really take easy. Well, now luckily things are back to a state that is within limits of acceptable and I can once again start adventuring around Hong Kong! Fun times ahead!

Anyways, weekend's are nice no matter what.

The thing is, living in a place like Hong Kong may sound really fancy to anyone who hasn't done anything similar. However, the basic routines of life are the same everywhere. Of course there are differences between locations but once you get used to one routine, it's the routine you know and follow. So, with routines this place has lost some of its initial charm.

During weekends the routines break a bit and there's time to live. It's really similar to any place, you know, in Finland weekend's are for special things also, whereas weekdays are for work/study. So, you can see my point.

To further the point, in a place like Hong Kong during weekend's it's easy to do a lot of things that refurbish that charm. No matter I've lived in Hong Kong over 2 years, I still find myself amazed by certain things time after time. And of course there are plenty of new things here I haven't even had a brief glimpse of.

That's actually one of the interesting things about Hong Kong, there's so many things packed in this small area that it never seems to cease amaze me. Within a few kilometers you can go from such extremes of wealth, lifestyle, anything.

So, Hong Kong still is kind of a cotton-candy-land for me. There's no denying it.

Actually, I would really enjoy a few weeks of well funded holiday just in Hong Kong - to have the chance to go around in more detail, to see places that take too much time to go to, or are otherwise something I can't - for one reason or another - see at this moment.

Well, let's see what I can come up with during this weekend. Don't have that much money to do anything, unfortunately... made some big investments that hopefully pay off later on. Let's see, let's see.

It's a splendid, sunny day outside with a temperature of 27 degrees Celsius. I'm sitting in an office. I need an outdoor job.