Shooting some pool

Recently, one of my friends (henceforth known as fatboy) from the UK came over to HK for a quick holiday. If the name sounds familiar, its because he was the one who challenged me to a game of badminton via the comments section on this blog.

Despite his challenge, fatboy showed up in HK without any badminton kit and without any prior warning of when exactly he would be in HK. This basically meant that we were unable to book a court. Anyway, even if we did play, the challenge would have been meaningless as I'm sure that, come the moment of my inevitable victory, the sneaky git would have used the excuse of not having his normal kit!

So, instead of playing badminton, we ended up shooting some pool.

The last time I played fatboy at pool was when I was still seconded to the UK. At the time, the result was inconclusive primarily because the table was crap as we were in a bar/arcade. This was really annoying as, from watching him play, I was pretty sure I was better - the problem was that I just couldn't get any results due to crappy equipment! This time, I made sure we went to a proper snooker club with decent tables and decent cues.

Despite fatboy winning the first game, I could tell straight away that I was better than he was. And sure enough, I won the majority of the following games. I wasn't actually keeping score but according to fatboy, I was up by 4-2 at one point. Unfortunately, after a couple of games, I started to lose interest.

What can I say? I have always preferred snooker to pool as snooker seems to give more tactical options. So after playing pool for a couple of games, I started to watch other people playing snooker and my concentration drifted. As anyone who plays snooker (or pool) will tell you - concentration is crucial to playing well.

With my concentration down the drain, fatboy took full advantage and pulled the score back to 5-5. We were on even terms again. His come from behind challenge was almost complete - he only needed 1 more frame to pull ahead of me and snatch a famous victory from the jaws of defeat. Unfortunately (for him), fatboy make a critical and fatal mistake.

Just before we started the last frame, he turned to me and said "Last frame - this will decide the winner of the HK-UK Pool championship!".

The change was as sudden as it was startling. Gone was your friendly neighborhood jokemeister. Instead, where he had been standing just moments before, was the competitive jerkwad.

The challenge had been laid. The gauntlet thrown down with force. With renewed vigor, I started the final frame.

Getting a lucky pot on the break, I proceeded to pot another four balls with some good close control shots. Unfortunately, the 6th ball rattled in the corner pocket and bounced back out. Fatboy's turn at the table and he managed a couple of pots before missing. My turn again - all I needed were another 2 pots followed by the black.

Luckily for me, the ball that rattled in the corner pocket was just over the pocket and easy to pot. Unfortunately, fatboy had left the cue ball straight on and the 7th ball I needed was tight on the cushion next to the 6th ball. Normally, in snooker, I would have just hit the shot with backspin and tried to cut in the 7th ball. However, this is pool - and pool tables have bigger pockets.

Hitting the cue ball hard (which I rarely do due to the loss of accuracy) with a small amount of backspin , I hit the 6th ball slightly off center. The bigger pockets on the pool table meant that the ball still went in (to be honest, it would have taken a monumental cockup to miss that pot). However, the strength of the shot plus the angle was enough to take the cue ball off the cushion and cannon into the 7th ball thus knocking it off the cushion. This set me up perfectly to pot the 7th ball.

However, the black ball was also tight against the cushion near the middle pocket. Not an easy pot. Putting a small amount of sidespin onto the cue ball (the sidespin helps to keep the black tight against the cushion), I tapped it gently and the black started to roll gently down the cushion.

Motionless, I watched as the black ball trickled up to the pocket before wavering on the lip of the corner pocket. And then, with a gentle sigh, it finally dropped in. With fatboy just managing one visit to the table in the final frame, I absolutely annihilated him (and it felt good!).

Final score: 6-5.
The competitive jerkwad wins.

Happy Birthday

Today is the missus' birthday. In celebration of this momentous occasion, a haiku:

Married for six years
known for over a decade
Recall when we met

Black suit and black dress
also long flowing black hair
still fresh in my mind

Bright yellow t-shirt
and blue denim dungarees
meeting outside work

Although mood was right
in dimly lit restaurant
not first date as such

Hence too soon to kiss
and meeting was all too brief
still the spark was born

When the prince beckoned
there followed declarations
though Egypt would wait

A hug not bear like
an exchange of nervous words
a kiss most tender

Sincere wish that all Your heart's desires come true on This happy birthday
Hugs and kisses from He who will always be near Your love, jokemeister

Gerry in Disneyland - part dos

Some more pictures of Gerry in Disneyland.


Inside Disneyland are some old cars and buses (which actually work). The idea is that you can get on the bus and go for a short ride down Main Street. While one of the buses was parked, we jumped on board and managed to get several good pictures inside. This is one of Gerry driving the bus.


And a rare family picture. The bus driver was quite old but you can see from this picture that he was quite hip in terms of knowing how to take a good photo!

Gerry also took a ride on Dumbo the flying elephant for the second time. This is us just having got on the elephant.

And this is what Gerry did all through the ride - constant up and down!

The marching band they have in Disneyland is also quite good. The guys are always very friendly and willing to pose for photos (well, they are in Disneyland!).

Gerry in Disneyland - part uno

We don't take as many pictures of Gerry as we used to. As a result, we made a concerted effort over the weekend to take Gerry to Disneyland for the main purpose of getting some new photo's.


This is the first time that Gerry rode on the Dumbo ride (which he really enjoyed). What's great about this ride is that the elephant has a switch in the middle that allows you to move the elephant up or down. Naturally, we spent the entire ride constantly going up and down as Gerry played with the switch!


Love this picture - particularly cos he is now starting to look more like me!


We also took a ride on the Autopia car. Quite good fun. The ride itself is an electric car for which you control the gas and the steering. In the middle of the road is a barrier which prevents you from going too far astray. Nevertheless, it was a good opportunity to let Gerry pretend to drive a car.

Minibonds

And the minibonds saga in Hong Kong takes another twist as Legco voted to invoke special powers to investigate the Lehman Brothers minibonds saga. If you don't know what the minibonds saga is, then you can probably forgo the rest of this post. Or you could search for it on google - up to you, ya know?

Looking around at other blogs, I think this Singaporean dude sums up my view the best. I basically agree with most of what he says (isn't it great when I can point you to other people who share my view but are much more eloquent than I - saves me so much work!!). The one thing where I don't fully agree is with regard to the uncles and aunties.

On some level, I can kinda sympathise with all the uncles and aunties who bought minibonds and lost all their savings. Regardless of their own culpability, its tough to suddenly have little or no money (esp considering the current economic climate). But throughout this whole sordid affair, one question keeps popping up in my mind - how much responsibility should these uncles and aunties bear for investing in minibonds?

The papers are full of sob stories from illiterate uncles and aunties who lost their life savings. If they were illiterate, why on Earth were they investing in the first place? I mean, its not like they had any chance of really understanding what they were investing in (and heaven forbid we actually expect people to understand what they are spending their life savings on!!).

But here's the thing. Part of the reason they don't understand what they are buying is because they have no interest in understanding (in essence, I think the willful ignorance argument applies equally to them). All they are worried about is missing out on an easy opportunity to make money. A lot of HK people (and I include the uncles and aunties in this) are terrified of missing the boat. So instead of evaluating what they want and what they should do, they just assume that if someone else bought it, it must be a good thing.

"This complete stranger I met during lunch bought some minibonds. It must be a really good investment! Lets cash in as well. Wait! If we put all our life savings into minibonds then we can earn an even bigger return and be even richer. Hoorah!!"

Another cause for consolation is the fraud angle. Were the mini-bonds misrepresented by unscrupulous salesmen? I'm sure that in many cases, they were. Of course, we don't know the extent to which they were mis-sold - was it fraud or just the usual hyperbole of salesmen? Obviously, if it was fraud, then the usual legal recourse should apply.

However, the point is that, as an investor, you really need to understand what you are investing in regardless of your age and literacy. And if you don't understand the product (perfectly understandable considering the complexity of modern financial products), then you really shouldn't be investing in that product at all.

Let me repeat that - if you don't understand the product, you shouldn't be investing in that product at all.

Prop 8 sucks

Another post about the foibles of the US of A (Why am I spending so much time on US websites if I constantly pour derision on them? Because I can't read Chinese which kinda limits me to UK and US websites!).

Proposition 8 is a controversial issue for which you can find more details here (wikipedia - the font of all knowledge!). As usual, summary below.

In California, the supreme court previously had a decision that recognised same-sex marriages as being a fundamental right. This was a fantastic decision for which the judges deserve full praise. Subsequent to this, lots of gay people have tied the knot in California (the most prominent being George Takei - also known as Captain Sulu of Star Trek fame). Although I never blogged about it, this was one of the rare things for which I felt the Americans could be truly proud (the other being the fact that they elected a Black president!!).

Unfortunately, the course of US politics is never easy. Subsequent to the court ruling, Prop 8 was introduced which would add to the consitution the line "Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California". In other words, they would get around the precedent court case by changing the law itself.

Prop 8 was passed by a majority vote of 52.5%.

Obviously, those in support of prop 8 have various reasons (excuses?) to support it. Unfortunately, I couldn't find any definitive source with all the reasons in support (the official line, albeit brief, seems to be available at this site) but the best way to find out is to run a search for proposition 8 using Google's blog search and read about the various reasons people have posted for supporting prop 8 (you can also read all the blogs posts opposing prop 8 at the same time).

I don't really want to cover all the various points in this blog post as it would make the post too long. To be honest, there are plenty of other blog posts with similar views to my own and which make a case to oppose prop 8 much more eloquently than I could (and yes, I think its shameful that the black community, which voted 70% in favour of prop 8, is being targeted for racial abuse as a result of this).

Personally, after having read several blogs in support of prop 8, I can't help but come to one conclusion - Bullshit. Regardless of how you cut the cake or how you justify the decision, the end result is always the same - voting for prop 8 is a vote for non-equality.

Obama - A New Hope

Well, as expected, Obama won the election. I've mentioned before that I'm anti-McCain so obviously, I think this is a good thing.

In celebration of this moment, I would just like to send my congratulations to Mr. Obama and share this wonderful campaign video with you.

How not to translate road signs

I'm back!!

After a brief hiatus from blogging, due to various reasons which I'll go into in a later post (maybe), I am now back in business.

However, after such a long gap, lets start with something simple to get me rolling. And what could be more simpler than a link to someone elses work!

The story speaks for itself really.
:)

via: boingboing.net