Gerry's 2nd birthday

I'm very happy - Gerry liked the brownie. You have no idea how gratifying that is - the warm and fuzzy feeling you get. I'm starting to understand a little better why some people like cooking so much. You get a much better feeling of satisfaction relative to just buying a cake from a store.

Or maybe thats just because I don't cook very often...
:)


Anyway, here is Gerry wondering what all the fuss is about as we sing Happy Birthday.


And this is Gerry tucking in with his spoon.


His first bite - and he is still smiling!!


Nothing but crumbs, although he was a very good boy and gave some to daddy and mommy.

My Xmas Brownie

Wow - what a Christmas. Looking back, I can't believe how much food I ate over the last week. So much for my diet! :)

Today is boxing day. More importantly, tomorrow is Gerry's 2nd birthday (so look forward to a slew of pictures of Gerry soon!). In preparation for his birthday tomorrow, I decided to bake a brownie. Naturally, seeing as Gerry can't eat too much birthday brownie, the missus and I will have to help him out!


This is a picture of the finished brownie. It may not look like much in the picture but that monster is approx 10" by 8".


This is 1 serving of said brownie. What can I say, I believe in big portions! :D


Of course, simply having a brownie for dessert isn't good enough. This is the finished article. A large slice of chocolate and cherry brownie with Rocky Road ice cream and freshly brewed tea. Delish!!


The missus tucking in. Just in case there was any doubt, she enjoyed the brownie immensely. In fact, she liked it so much, she had another serving!


Proof that she liked it - an empty plate!
:)

Don't worry - we left some for Gerry. It is after all, his birthday brownie!

Happy Holidays!

Wishing all of my loyal blog readers a joyous holiday season. At times, its hard to believe that I managed to keep this going all the way to Xmas!

Have fun, drinks lots of wine and remember - you can diet in the new year!!


We wish you a Merry Christmas,
We wish you a Merry Christmas,
We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Good tidings we bring to you and your kin,
Good tiding for Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Oh, bring us a figgy pudding,
Oh, bring us a figgy pudding,
Oh, bring us a figgy pudding and a cup of good cheer.

Good tidings we bring to you and your kin,
Good tiding for Christmas and a Happy New Year.

We won't go until we get some,
We won't go until we get some,
We won't go until we get some, so bring some out here.

Good tidings we bring to you and your kin,
Good tiding for Christmas and a Happy New Year.

We wish you a Merry Christmas!
We wish you a Merry Christmas!
We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Bad consumers

Long time readers of this blog know that I occasionally post articles talking about how consumers are being ripped off by corporates (most of these coming from the consumerist).

For a change, here's a link to a blog by a guy in tech support for a broadband company. Its a general blog but every once in a while (actually, quite regularly!), he will post a transcript of one of his tech support calls. Good for a laugh if nothing else.

Now obviously, I have no idea if these are accurate transcripts. However, considering the absolute idiocy of people in general, the issues which come up seem genuine enough. :)

The power of positive reinforcement

When it comes to raising children, pretty much everyone agrees that positive reinforcement is a good thing. If you have children in the modern age, you probably already know what positive reinforcement is - but if you don't then you may be sitting there wondering what I'm talking about.

Positive reinforcement is basically encouraging the child whenever he does something right. So for example, whenever Gerry points at a cup and says the word "cup", then the missus and I will both say "Yes, thats right - well done Gerry!". This praise lets him know that he did something right. He feels good for getting praise and therefore, he remembers. Furthermore, he is encouraged to continue doing things right. Hence the term - positive reinforcement.

Positive reinforcement obviously applies to actions as well as objects. For example, we will ask Gerry to put away his toys after playing with them. If he does this, then again, we give him praise and say "Well done". Again, this encourages the correct behaviour in your child.

So, as I said above, everyone pretty much agrees that positive reinforcement is a good thing when it comes to raising kids. Unfortunately, noone ever warned me about the dangers of positive reinforcement. Dangers? "What could possibly go wrong" I hear you cry!

Well, remember how I mentioned that everytime Gerry names something correctly, we say "Yes, thats right - well done Gerry!". Well, it appears that Gerry really likes positive reinforcement. In fact, he likes it so much that he now does it himself instead of waiting for us to do it!

How do you positively reinforce yourself? Simple. Nowadays, Gerry will point at a cup and say "Cup, yeah!"...

Sony Rootkit Disaster

For those of you who used to purchase Sony BMG CDs, you probably know all about the Rootkit disaster. This was the incident where Sony BMG decided it was a good idea to illegally install spyware and rootkit software on your PC via their music CDs. And yes, I am justified in calling it a disaster in view of the subsequent legal tussle which Sony BMG got involved in.

Anyway, if you are interested in this case, you might want to check out this PDF link which goes into a bit more detail about the whole incident. Its a very long article and I'm still reading it myself. However, its quite good in that its not written in legalese.


For the avoidance of doubt, I think Sony BMG are frigging idiots to pull something like this and I hope that the people responsible burn badly for it. The music industry is already suffering badly from dropping CD sales. Stunts like this simply discourage people from buying CDs which makes the problem even worse.

Quite frankly, considering all the various shit that the music industry in the US is doing (I'm looking at you - RIAA), I hope that the entire industry in the US crashes and burns. Hopefully, at that stage, we can get something decent to replace it...

Neil Gaiman is cool

This is just too sweet.

In brief, a guy in the Philippines wants to propose to his girlfriend. He finds out that Neil Gaiman (the famous author) is going to be in Philippines for a book signing and, knowing that his girlfriend is a Neil Gaiman fan, asks Neil (via the authors blog) if he can help him to propose. And Neil agrees!

Working together with the book signing venue etc, they set things up so that when the guy's girlfriend goes to get a book signed, Neil writes the marriage proposal on the inside cover of the book. How cool is that!

Really not much more I can add to this except to say - "Neil Gaiman, you rock!!"


PS You can find some more photos and a video of the event on the girlfriends blog here.

Ruth's Chris redux

As regular readers know, Ruth's Chris Steak House is my favourite steak house in HK.

One of the reasons for this is that, in my opinion, US steak is the best in the world (and yes, I have had wagyu beef from Japan - but more on that in a moment). The reason for this is that the beef flavour seems to be stronger with US beef than with beef from other countries. As I mentioned above, I have had wagyu beef once when I was in Japan. The texture was superb but, in my opinion, the beef flavour wasn't as strong as the beef flavour I got from US steaks.

Being such a fan of US steaks, you can imagine that I was very annoyed during the ban on US steaks in HK not that long ago. During this period Ruth's Chris used Australian beef instead of US beef and we stopped going to Ruth's Chris for a while as the flavour wasn't good enough in our opinion - we kept getting hung up on the fact that we were paying full price for what seemed like 2nd grade beef. Of course, it wasn't second grade beef - it just felt like it because it didn't taste as good as US beef.

Anyway, after the ban on US beef got lifted (again, a while ago now), Sarah and I rejoiced by going back to Ruth's Chris. However, despite the fact that US beef was back on the menu, when we ordered the New York Strip - the beef flavour that we remembered from US beef of old wasn't as strong. I have no idea why. Possibly its because US beef is now chilled before being imported (this is a guess - I have no idea if this is true or not).

Either way, it was very disappointing to me that US beef seemed to have lost its strong beef flavour. So you can imagine my delight to discover that US beef seems to finally be back!

Last night, on a whim, Sarah and I went back to Ruth's Chris. We hadn't had a steak in months and felt that it was okay to splash out seeing as it was Xmas. We went to the PP branch rather than our usual TST branch as it was closer to our office and we didn't want to travel all the way to TST East.

And the steak was fantastic.

We ordered one 16oz New York Strip to share between us and the beef flavour was very intense - very much back to the flavours that we used to enjoy so much when we ordered US beef in the past. I have to admit to a pang of regret that I didn't order 12oz for myself and was stuck with just my half of the steak amounting to a measly 8oz.

The problem I now have is - was last night a one off lucky occurrence or is US beef really back to its best? Also, how long can I resist before going back to find out for sure?

Gerry in Glasgow

I mentioned recently that we went to the UK, more specifically Glasgow (or Glesga), and took Gerry with us. A couple of pictures to share with you of our time there.


This is a picture of us at the local supermarket while still in the carpark. You can tell from the heavy jackets that it was quite a cold day - in particular cos it was very windy that day. Gerry even wore his cute little gloves (which go "squeak squeak" when you hit them together!) although he didn't wear them for very long.


To my eternal shame and regret, we didn't get any decent pictures of Gerry and my dad together. Although grandpa got to hold him lots of times, for some reason, we never actually took a photo of any of them. :(


Lunchtime! As you can see, Gerry is already waiting for his portion of dim sum! And yes, they were home cooked by my dad (home cooked not homemade!).


Gerry playing with one of our friends who popped by to visit. This is actually a very lucky picture as most of the time, Gerry was too shy to play with people.


Gerry - all pooped out!

Back home in HK again!

Back home in HK again - hoozah!

So as I mentioned in my last post, I was out for dinner with one of my friends last night. He took me to a local restaurant near our office for which I can't remember the name. My friend described it as a "mom & pop" store so I was completely unprepared for the crowd of waiters and guests waiting for seats when we got there!

The restaurant itself is famous for claypot rice and aluminium wrapped chicken wings. Considering how cold it was in BJ, we decided that claypot rice was definitely called for and ordered some spare ribs claypot rice, chicken wings and some veg.

The claypot rice was quite nice. In some ways, its very similar to the claypot rice that you can get in HK with the exception that the claypot up here is a lot bigger - basically, portion sizes being for 2 as a minimum.

The chicken wings were very good. They were individually wrapped in aluminium foil so the juice had been very well preserved. The sauce used to cook the chicken was also really tasty but for some reason, I can't escape the feeling that I've had that flavour of chicken wing before. Or if not before, then a very similar flavour. A little bit like soy sauce but mixed with something else.

All in all, it was a good night out (decent food, cheap price!) and a chance to catch up with my buddy.



And now - quiz time! I have in front of me right now a product with the following warning sign on it - "It is a violation of Federal law to use this product in a manner inconsistent with its labeling."

I'll give a brownie to anyone who can guess what that product is!

Off to BJ

You would think, after my previous post wherein I came to terms with the fact that HK is now my home, that I would actually spend some time there. Instead, I find myself gallivanting off to Beijing again for another business trip despite the fact that it is freezing cold in BJ at the moment. Luckily for me, its also dry so it doesn't feel as cold as it does in say, HK.

I guess I should also be thankful that I can at least access my blog here (its not always the case - sometimes my blog is blocked in China).

Unfortunately for me, my friend in BJ (the one who took me to all the nice restaurants I blogged about before) is currently in HK. Nice timing right! The typical Jokemeister luck holding true to form!

Luckily for me though, I have more than 1 friend (my, aren't I popular!). The guy is currently in BJ on a 3 month secondment to learn to read/write Chinese and I'm going to meet him for dinner tomorrow night. He's been here for a couple of months already so he is going to suggest a venue for dinner.

I can't wait to see where we are going to go and see what new dishes I will get to chomp on.

Mate - if you are reading this, I just want to say that there is no pressure regarding the venue. Having said that, the other restaurants in BJ that my other friend took me to were VERY nice.
:)

Back home in HK

Well, I'm back in HK and updating this blog again. In fact, as I write this, I am sitting in my office at work (just in case my boss is reading this - I want to say that this is done during my lunchbreak!!) surrounded by the remnants of my lunchbox and numerous tissues for wiping my nose with.

Thats right folks! The Amazing Bulk has managed to fall sick again!

Anyway, despite the fact that I feel like shit (jet lag plus sneezing/runny nose plus cough), I have decided to brave the cold waters of the internet and keep you, my loyal readers, entertained with more meaningless drivel. Ha - little do you know that today's post isn't as meaningless as normal but will actually contain some insight into my psyche!

But before we get to the good stuff - a little Jokemeister history. As you may or may not know (or even care!), I have now been in HK for 11 years. Although born in HK, all of my edumacation was in the UK. This has meant that I considered my home to be the UK. In fact, in the past, I used to travel back to the UK to visit friends and family every 2 years (although I haven't been back in 5 years now - not counting my recent visit of course).

On this trip to the UK, things started off as normal. I got to Heathrow airport only to discover that the plane upto Glasgow had been delayed by several hours. Yup - just like normal. :)

Then we got to Glasgow and the cold hit me like a sledgehammer. Having not been back in so many years, I really wasn't ready for how cold Glasgow can get (particularly at the airport). Luckily, my dad was there to pick me up otherwise we would have needed to get a very expensive taxi.

Then we got to my dads house. The first thing I do is throw off my shoes and head upstairs to check out my old room. This is always the first thing I do when I get to my dads house as going to my old room makes me feel like I have come home.

My old table was still there. The table where my old 486 PC used to sit (although its now been replaced by a newer Hewlett Packard). I used to spend hours sitting at that table playing computer games or doing homework on my PC (primarily computer games though!).

My old bookcase was still there. Still filled with some old books and comics that I didn't take back to HK with me. Some of my favourite hours spent as a kid still sit on that bookshelf. Lots of Judge Dredd and Spider-Man graphic novels - man, I used to spend a fortune on those things. Good thing I had a job even back then!

My old chest of drawers was still there. The old HP Deskjet sitting on the top gathering dust. I understand the thing still works although it was currently out of ink - which is a testament to how well built HP printers are!

My old posters and other bric a brac is still stuck on the wall (although someone took the USD100 that I had stuck up there - don't ask me why there was USD100 stuck on my wall!). In particular, there were two handdrawn posters of a TIE fighter and an X-Wing. Handdrawn by yours truly I might add (in a rare feat of artistic genius!).

All of my old stuff was still there - my dad had basically preserved the room the way I had left it all those years ago. Enough to bring a tear to anyones eye right?

Except that it wasn't. Although things looked the same, they felt different. It looked like my room, it had all of the stuff that used to be mine. But it didn't feel like my room anymore.

In the past, everytime I have gone into that house, I have felt like I had come home (after all, this was the place where I spent a good portion of my life, including my Secondary school and University years). However, as I wandered around the house, and my old room in particular, everything looked familiar and yet not familiar.

I eventually realised that at some point during the last 5 years, I have come to consider HK my home (instead of Glasgow). I'm not sure the exact reason. Perhaps its the fact that I'm now married (5 years and counting!) to a HK girl. Perhaps its the fact that I have now bought my own flat in HK. Or perhaps its the fact that I now have a baby boy to look after in HK.

Either way, the title for this post says it all - I am now back home in HK.