The Meister speaks!

Taiwan 2011 - Baby Boss (Part 3)

2012-02-11T21:33:00.000+08:00

At last! We finally reach the conclusion of our recent trip to Taiwan with this last set of pictures!

Grunt

Join the ranks of the infantry and get a free vacation to foreign lands!

You're in the army ... now

I think Gordon's IFF needs to be reprogrammed

Race car driver
Not racing a real car obviously but rather RC cars. Unfortunately, the track was a bit too small and the cars a bit too unresponsive which meant that the kids were often frustrated.

They are smiling cos they haven't raced the cars yet...

vroom vroom!!

Dentist
Not quite sure if Gerry really wanted to be here or if he was talked into it by his mother. In any event, it was a good opportunity to refresh him on the importance of brushing his teeth.

Son, be a dentist!

Shop of little horrors

Cleaner
By the third day, Gordon was really starting to get tired and by the afternoon, he was no longer interested in queuing up for any more jobs. Instead, he wandered around the complex helping Baby Boss to keep the place clean and tidy!

The leaning tower of Baby Boss

Wrap up
The time that we spent at Baby Boss was, by far, the most tiring of our trip to Taiwan. Running around after them, rounding them up so that they queue up for the jobs (and even helping them queue up on the odd occasion), and helping them to queue up for food etc really takes it toll out of you. It also didn't help that, by the time we got to the end of the day, Gordon was so tired that he fell asleep and we had to carry him back to the hotel.

Despite all this though, the kids had so much fun that I would heartily recommend the place and fully intend to go back.

Grabbing these off the kids before they crinkled them up was a real challenge!

Taiwan 2011 - Baby Boss (Part 2)

2012-02-04T20:39:00.002+08:00

Some more pictures of the kids at Baby Boss. In case you were wondering how they managed to get to take part in so many jobs, its worth mentioning that we spent two and a half days there!

Pilot and flight attendant

The pilot and flight attendant jobs were amongst the most popular jobs available at Baby Boss. Probably understandable considering that this is one of the rare jobs where the parents get to be involved as well.

Basically, one of the parents is actually given a boarding pass and allowed onto the plane. Once onboard, the flight attendants go through the cabin and pass out magazines to the parents. As you can imagine, super cute!

Any landing you can walk away from...

The flight attendant and his luggage

Construction worker

Hi Ho, Hi Ho, its off to work we go...

Putting a mosaic onto the wall

Dock Worker

Working the crane on the docks

with the other portion of their time spent directing the actions of the crane operator

Chef
There are actually several chef jobs throughout Baby Boss and we didn't get to go to all of them. In particular, it was a shame we couldn't get a free ice cream!

Gerry with his sweetcorn pizza (which was apparently very yummy)

Dunkin Donuts

and yes, they were apparently very yummy

Golfer

Gordon lining up the putt

and doing a pretty good job considering he is just 3 years old!

Taiwan 2011 - Baby Boss (Part 1)

2012-01-23T21:36:00.002+08:00

After the fun that was Flying Ranch, we headed off to Taipei. Or to be a bit more specific, Baby Boss, as we didn't actually do anything in Taipei other than go to Baby Boss. If you are keeping count, that means we spent 3 days in Baby Boss (but still weren't able to do everything there!).

Baby Boss, as far as I can tell, is fairly unique as a concept. In brief, it allows your kids to roleplay as different jobs. For each job that they undertake, they get some Babybucks (which can be used to buy things inside the Baby Boss store) as well as a little card certifying that they completed that job.

And if you think that sounds fun, then you are right!

Gas Attendant

Gerry and Gordon in the process of getting dressed as gas attendants

Welcoming the car to the petrol station

Each kid takes turns to add petrol before wiping the windscreen

After filling up the car, the kids line up to wave goodbye

Traffic police

All dressed up and marching out

Gerry directing traffic and pedestrians

Astronaut

Getting their mission briefing (after landing on the moon)

Back on Earth

Security

Getting instructions on their destination

Picking up the cash at the bank

Taking the cash back to the security van

Fireman

One of the most popular jobs at Baby Boss was the fireman job. Its hard to show why this job is so popular with just pictures so here are a couple of video links as well.

Bee Boo Bee Boo Bee Boo!!

Gerry - after successfully putting out the fire

Taiwan 2011 - Flying Cow Ranch

2012-01-15T18:18:00.002+08:00

After Leofoo Resort, we headed off to Flying Cow Ranch. This was the second, and cheaper, farm that we stayed at during our holiday in Taiwan.

Alas, despite the name, the cow does not actually fly...

Still, much fun was had!

One of the good things about Flying Cow is that there are a lot more activities for the kids. I'm guessing this is partially due to Leofoo Resort having an actual theme park next door - this fact leading the organisers to believe that people would rather go to the theme park than stay at the resort.

One of the first activities we went to was a painting jam where we got to paint a small cow (which had no wings and did not fly).

Gordon showing his artistic side

before taking a break while Gerry keeps on going

The finished product - The Amazing Spider-Cow!

There were also lots of cooking classes where we could make different milk flavoured cakes and cookies. Being a real farm, with live cows, allowed us to use fresh milk as part of the ingredients.

I'm whipping egg white while Gerry whips the egg yolk

Here we label the final batter into little paper bases

and then we wait (while enjoying fresh milk)

Freshly baked, milk flavoured soft cake - yum!

Cookies!

The ultimate treat - milk and cookies!

Gerry working hard to make...

... ice Cream - and from his face, you can tell it was yummy!

Finally, lest you forget that Flying Cow Ranch is actually a farm - some pictures of animals

Gerry feeding some baby cows

Gerry even had the chance to milk a cow. Unfortunately, we didn't get any pictures but if we had, you would have seen him with a scowl on his face as he ended up squirting the milk onto himself!

Feeding the local wildlife

Taiwan 2011 - Leofoo Resort

2012-01-08T21:26:00.000+08:00

Our first stop in Taiwan was the Leofoo Resort.

Leofoo resort is an African themed resort (in Taiwan) which, although being quite expensive, is quite unique in that it lets you get really close to the animals. We booked a room with a balcony so that we could wander outside at any time to watch the animals. The resort also has a theme park right next to it but we didn't actually spend any time there as we wanted to spend more time with the animals.

Room with a view

Having a room with a balcony was a great decision. We naturally wandered out to view the animals as well, but having a balcony meant that the kids could watch the animals while the missus and I were getting ready.

Who is under the hat?

Peek-a-boo Gordon!

Lunchtime for the giraffes

The great thing about the resort is that it lets you get really close to the animals.

And I do mean really close

Extreme close-up!

The resort has various activities which take place over the day.

including actors dressed up as various animals

and some traditional African dancers

Taiwan 2011 - Heading out

2011-12-30T22:11:00.000+08:00

Woo - just back from a long overdue holiday to Taiwan.

We haven't really been on vacation this year as we have been using our leave to take Gerry to various P1 interviews and events. As such, its been a very long year and it was really good to just get away from everything for a week.

Its also been a while since I blogged so I'm gonna take it easy with this first post. Just some pics of the kids in the airplane on the way to Taiwan. Stay posted for more updates on what we did in Taiwan in the coming weeks!

Can you guess who it is?

Yup - its Gordon!

For Gordon, this is the first flight that he has been on. As you can guess, he was pretty excited to be riding in an airplane.

Gerry with his kids meal - he couldn't wait to tuck in

In case you are wondering, Gerry is eating mashed potato made to look like a face. There were peas for eyes (which Gerry promptly threw away - he hates peas), a slice of young corn for a nose and a carrot for a mouth.

Gordon - not looking quite so excited at the prospect of airline food

Despite the picture, I was told that Gordon really enjoyed his meal.

And just to close off - a picture of Gordon looking cute

Gordon and the fairy tale

2011-10-23T10:04:00.003+08:00

One of the things which the school did recently was to have a themed open day. The theme, as you can probably guess from the title, was fairy tales.

Getting ready to go through the rabbit hole

In one of the classrooms, they had big posters depicting different fairy tales which you could take a picture in front of. To go with the theme, they also had various props to go with them. Unfortunately, I couldn't get Gordon to play along...

oink! oink!

You shall go to the ball!

The open day was especially fun for Gordon as the PN children don't normally get to go to the playground to play.

Beep! beep!

The parents also took part in preparing for the open day as we had to prepare some of the decorations. In Gerry's case, we had to turn him into a member of the Red Queen's card army (from Alice in Wonderland).

Gerry - King of hearts

Mucking around at home

2011-10-02T09:54:00.001+08:00

Hola! Time for some more pictures!

One of the books which Gerry read recently talked about the children building a Chinese Dragon so that they could do the dragon dance. Naturally, Gerry immediately wanted to copy it. Unfortunately, there were only two of us so he had to settle for a lion dance instead.

Also, I don't have any creative talent.

The towel is the lion. Really.

It works if you add a dash of imagination. Honest.

Gordon's tastebuds continue to develop as he has now discovered the joys of jelly. Actually, Gordon is a strange one. He clearly enjoys eating and eats a lot (just like me). However, at some point in the last couple of months, he has picked up a habit of not being willing to try anything new (just like the missus).

My jelly! Stay away!

We recently bought a Junior Engineer kit for the kids. Its of box of different blocks and connectors with the tools to put them together. The whole thing is made of plastic and you don't actually need the tools to put things together. However, using the tools adds a whole new dimension of fun for the kids.

Look - a tank!!

My toys! Stay away!

Back to school

2011-09-12T21:05:00.000+08:00

After due consideration, I have decided to continue with this blog albeit in a reduced capacity. Actually, the truth is that I'm posting again because my dad asked me a question which I wasn't able to satisfactorily answer.

He asked - if you don't update your blog, how can I get to see pictures of the kids?

Hmm.

You see, I don't want to upload all my photos onto picasa or an equivalent. Which leaves me with the option of email. Obviously, I can't email all photos to him so I will need to pick and choose the better photos to send him. At which point, I might as well put them into this blog (as you can imagine, selecting photos to upload generally takes more time than the actual upload itself).

In other words, you can thank my dad that this blog is still alive (and let me just add - This was a triumph!).

Gordon's first day at school
Of course, the big thing that has happened recently is that Gordon has now started school! Huzzah!

Granted, its just PN but still, huzzah!!

Photobombed by Gerry

First day in school and Gordon heads straight for the toy car

Go on Gordon, clap!

Gordon didn't actually seem that eager to be at school. For the first several days, he didn't show much emotion in class and tended to spend his time scoping out the teachers and other kids before deciding to take part.

Still scoping

Food!!

Naturally, he reticence to partake in school activities didn't stop him from stuffing his face. :)

State of the blog 2011

2011-06-22T21:26:00.001+08:00

The first thing I should do here is apologise to anybody who is reading this blog post. You see, normally, when I write something on this blog, I write for my reader(s). It could be a picture update of the kids or it could be for the purpose of shooting my mouth off and giving you my thoughts and opinions on what is happening in the World. Either way, it is primarily written for other people to read.

However, this particular post has a completely different purpose. For a while now, I've been struggling with a fundamental question surrounding this blog. I haven't come to an answer yet but I get the feeling that my brain is going round in circles without treading any new ground. In essence, I'm hoping that by putting my thoughts into writing, it will help me clear up some of my thinking.

I've now been blogging for just under 4.5 years (I started in January 2007). When I first started writing this blog, it was primarily as a way for me to get familiar with what this whole "blogging" thing was about. After a while, I even realised that I liked shooting my mouth off and spreading my own unique brand of random rubbish onto the world wide web (the old adage around opinions and assholes springs to mind here).

Eventually, I got into a steady rhythm of posting 3 articles a week (2 on this blog and 1 on my gaming blog). However, you have probably noticed that recently, that publishing schedule has gone to Hades in a handbasket.

Believe it or not, this isn't because I have run out of things to say (although I will admit that I have repeated myself on numerous occasions). The problem is that, due to work and family commitments, my "me" time is, on average, limited to around 30 minutes each day with a bit more at the weekend if I stay up late. And into that brief slot of 30 minutes, I'm trying to slot in gaming, reading and blogging.

Something has to give.

The thing is, despite what I said above about spouting random rubbish, I actually try and put some thought into my blogging. I might not always succeed, but whenever I post my opinion, I try and back it up with reasons why that opinion is valid. I always try to sense check what I'm posting and sense check articles which I link you to instead of just believing anything I read online. This takes time.

Time which is increasingly hard to find. The reality is that I just don't have time to regularly post anymore and, if I'm being realistic, I don't see this situation changing for at least several years.

So what does that mean for this blog?

This is the question which I have been struggling with recently and to be honest - I really don't know. I am hesitant about formally killing the blog as, on the rare situations where I do have time to post, it would be useful to have a forum to spout off from. On the other hand - if my posting is so rare, then it is unfair to expect anyone to check on this blog either regularly or semi-regularly on the off chance that I have written something.

So, that is where my thinking is currently at. Not sure what will happen to this blog but will let you know if and when I come to a decision.

I'm getting younger!

2011-06-08T21:34:00.004+08:00

As you know, I play videogames. A lot.

This always seems to surprise people who don't play videogames. They never seem to understand why someone in his mid-thirties would be playing with videogames. Of course, one of the things they don't know is that I am actually in the perfect sweet spot for videogame publishers as I am exactly the same age as the average gamer.

Or at least, I was.

The latest news is that the average age of a gamer is now 37. Which, for the first time that I can recall, makes me younger than the average gamer (but only just). Which means that from now on out, I can expect games to no longer be catered to my tastes but to those old guys who don't have any reaction times worth speaking of.

All joking aside, for the average age to go up at a more rapid rate than my own aging is trending the opposite way to what I expected (assuming this is a trend and not just a statistical anomaly). On one level, there is obviously a pressure on the average age to go up as the people who are playing games get older (like me). However, there is another pressure on the average age to either go down or stay steady as new kids start taking up the hobby.

For the average age to go up more at a more rapid pace than my own aging seems to imply that older gamers are starting to take up the hobby. To be fair, they may not be playing the same AAA reaction based FPS shooter that younger gamers love but that doesn't change the fact that older people are taking up videogames.

Which is pretty frakkin' awesome if you think about it.

Apple sucks

2011-06-02T21:56:00.001+08:00

Apple is a strange kind of company. They have a reputation for being a consumer friendly company and, at times, they take actions which are very consumer friendly. But on the other hand, they also do stuff which looks seriously sketchy from a consumer point of view.

The latest case in point is their action against a young entrepreneur who had the idea to sell white iPhone 4 conversion kits prior to the launch of the white iPhone 4 (worth mentioning that I found this post via Techdirt - love that site!).

Reading through that article as well as the various articles it links to, it appears that some 17 year old kid in the US managed to build up a relationship with a supplier in China for white iPhone 4 repair parts from Foxconn, one of Apple's suppliers. This was before the white iPhone 4 actually launched and judging from the articles, it looks like a lot of people were really looking forward to buying a white iPhone 4. The kid realised that there was a market opportunity here (smart kid) so he sold those repair parts as a conversion kit so that people could convert their iPhone 4 into a white iPhone 4.

And for this, Apple is suing the kid for trademark infringement.

Apple - Really? You are going to sue a 17 year old kid for, what is effectively, the buying and selling of iPhone 4 parts?

What are you going to do next? Sue me if I ever sell my iPod nano?

Apple's decision is baffling on many levels and makes me suspect whether there is more to the story than initially meets the eye. With that said, I can't think of any likely scenario where what the kid did could be considered wrong (the only thing I can think of is if he tried to pretend he was an actual Apple representative but if this is the case, I'm pretty sure that the news would have covered it as well).

Update: hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

DVD Factory Ltd

2011-05-31T21:50:00.001+08:00

One of the limitations that the missus and I put on Gerry and Gordon is the amount of time that they can watch TV. Actually, they don't even get to watch TV but rather, we have a stack of kid friendly DVDs that they are allowed to watch for limited periods of time during the day. The problem with this approach is that kids are not particularly good at looking after DVDs and you can expect your nice new DVDs to get scratched, stepped on, bent and thrown around with reckless abandon.

In my dad's day, you would have to just suck it up and spend a ton of money on DVDs (or rather, VHS?) while bringing out the cane to teach those damn kids a lesson about respecting property. Damn kids today are spoilt rotten anyway and could do with a little thrashing ... sorry, where was I?

Oh yes - DVDs.

Luckily, with the wonders of modern technology, I've gotten around this issue by making a backup of the DVD and then giving the backup to the kids while the original DVD goes to a safe location. Anytime a DVD gets too beat up and is no longer playable, I simply burn another DVD and the kids are back in business. As you can imagine, spending less money makes me a happy pappy!

After running this system for a while, I recently realised that there is a downside to this approach. As the backup DVD is simply the DVD+R plus the name of the DVD written on the face, its hard for the kids to find the right DVD that they want to watch. Basically, all they see is a stack of dull looking DVDs with lots of words on them. We needed a way to make it easy for the kids to find their favourite DVD.

Cue the DVD label. Over the weekend, I went out and bought a stack of DVD labels. Coupled with a quick online image search, I've been able to print out labels with different graphics for the different DVDs and I have to admit - the results have been pretty spectacular. Granted, you can tell that they aren't original DVDs as the graphic doesn't always line up perfectly with the disc but at first glance, they look pretty authentic (particularly to kids).

Or another way of looking at it - I now have all the tools to start my own pirate DVD factory...

Laptop vs Desktop

2011-05-27T21:02:00.001+08:00

As I mentioned on Monday, I now have a new desktop PC. Which might make you wonder why I went with a desktop this time considering that I deliberately went with a laptop 3 years ago. Was this an acknowledgement that I had made a mistake with my laptop purchase?

Not as such, no.

The reason I went with a desktop is simply because I already have a laptop and didn't see the need for another one. Bear in mind, although the desktop will be "replacing" my laptop in that I will probably use my desktop more often (particularly for games), the laptop is still invaluable to me. The laptop gives me a couple of key advantages:

Portability

The first is obviously portability. If I ever go on holiday, I can take my laptop with me which clearly isn't possible with a desktop. This has several major advantages - the biggest of which, from a hedonistic point of view, is that I can take my PC gaming with me.

Also, with the installation of Dropbox on my PCs, I now have access to key files even while I'm on holiday. That is, assuming that I did adequate planning and put those key files into my Dropbox folder in the first place.

Now all I need to do is find a way to change the default save locations for my games to my Dropbox folder and I will effectively have a cloud save game system!

Multiple home PCs

The second advantage of having a laptop is that I now have 2 home PCs. In the past, with just one PC, it could sometimes get awkward when both the missus and I want to get online. Or rather, it could get awkward for me as I generally lost such arguments and corresponding PC access...

With an additional PC, we can now both be online at the same time. And with one of the PCs being a laptop, it doesn't take up much space in the event that I'm not using it. Granted, this doesn't happen that often but considering how important internet access is in this day and age, the value in being online and connected should not be underestimated.

Conclusion

In short, I don't regret my laptop purchase. In fact, I might even end up alternating between buying laptops and desktops on a go forward basis to ensure that I always have two usable PCs. With that said, who knows how tablet PCs will develop in future. In three years time, I may no longer have any need for a laptop at all as I will just be using dumb terminals to log into my home PC.

Dell XPS 8300

2011-05-23T22:37:00.003+08:00

You may recall that approximately 3 years ago, I purchased a Dell XPS 1530 laptop. And after around 3 years of use, the DVD drive has started to break down.

To be fair, this wasn't really a surprise. The DVD drive on my old XPS 1530 was a slot drive and slot drives are notoriously prone to breaking. The laptop itself is still working fine - its just that I can't use the DVD drive (which is annoying). Still, after 3 years of solid use, I guess I shouldn't complain too much. All of which is just a really long winded way for me to say that I was in the market for a new PC.

Cue the XPS 8300.

Its a pretty nice machine which, although not top end, is good enough for my purposes. I went with the i5 processor as being a nice middle ground to avoid the extremely high premiums charged for the newest tech. However, a 23" monitor, 8GB of RAM and a 2TB HDD soon brought the cost up to just under HK$8,500. Granted, not exactly breaking the bank but still considered relatively expensive by modern standards. A fair price to pay for the specs I was getting though.

And after using it for about a week, I have to say that I love how much faster this machine is relative to my old laptop. It's incredible how much zippier everything is - particularly noticeable whenever I move files around. I also played the last couple of campaign missions of SW:EAW on my new desktop and the improved graphics and speed of saving/loading just blew me away.

Sony

2011-05-19T21:39:00.000+08:00

You may recall that I am currently boycotting Sony. The main reason for this is that I felt that Sony are an extremely arrogant company which had led to them undertaking either a lot of anti-consumer activities or marketing with an attitude of "you should be privileged to own our product". And frankly, all of that added together just rubbed me the wrong way.

With that in mind, I have to admit that it was with a certain level of glee that I read about all the recent troubles that Sony has been having with hackers. Those news articles also strengthened my conviction to boycott both Ubisoft and Capcom for requiring players to be online to play their games (in short, PS3 owners couldn't play their Ubisoft and Capcom games as PSN was down).

But then, Sony went and did this.

For the first time that I can remember, Sony actually had a pretty good response. Basically, read the blog post from Shamus that I linked to as I can't believe how closely my views aligned with his with regard to Sony.

Could it be that Sony have learnt their lesson? Could it be that Sony are no longer the arrogant behemoth that I despised? Could it be that Sony would be leaving my boycott list?

Or then again, maybe not.

Gerry goes camping

2011-05-16T22:37:00.004+08:00

The highlight of the recent Easter holiday was, without a doubt, the overnight camping trip to Ma Wan that we took Gerry on.

I say camping trip but the reality is that the trip was targeted at families so the whole thing was very civilized. For example, instead of pitching our tent on the ground, we actually pitched it on a viewing platform near the top of the mountain.

Gerry helps to pitch the tent

Still, the actual act of pitching the tent and sleeping in sleeping bags was genuine so in that sense, we did manage to capture the camping feel.

Success! We are now formally "roughing" it.

The weather was also beautiful for the two days that we were in Ma Wan. In a sense, we were extremely lucky as the weather the following day turned a bit rainy.

On the second day in Ma Wan, we got to hang around the recreation centre. For some reason which I can't quite fathom, Gerry and I ended up building paper airplanes while everyone else was building butterflies. Still, I have pretty good paper airplane skills so it wasn't long before the other kids were clamoring for their own paper airplanes.

Can you spot the airplane?

The Ma Wan park also had an outdoor play area where Gerry and I managed to get a bit of exercise. Lots of fun but tiring on the muscles (hey, I ain't no spring chicken!)

Taking a quick break

Actually, one thing which did impress me was how much confidence Gerry now has in his physical ability. He was the youngest kid willing to climb the ropes and managed to do it all on his own.

Spider-Gerry goes to work on the ropes

Gerry doesn't get a bow wow

2011-05-02T19:37:00.001+08:00

Gerry has always loved singing so its a good thing that he has a pretty nice voice. This was recognised by his school recently when they put together a kindergarten choir to enter into some competition. The school hired a singing teacher to help them select children for the choir and to teach the kids the song.

By now, you can probably guess that Gerry was selected for the choir.
:)

I don't have any footage of the competition itself (video's weren't allowed) which is a shame as the children gave a really good performance in the competition. Several days after the competition, the school gave a repeat performance at one of the local fairs in HK which I managed to capture below for your viewing pleasure.

Family - harbour crossing

2011-04-19T21:07:00.003+08:00

Just realised that I'm way behind on posting pictures of the family so time for another family photo binge!

Way back in February (as I said, I'm way behind on posting pictures of the family!), back when the weather in HK was still cold and people were still wearing sweaters, we took the kids out to TST for a boat ride. Granted, the boat ride was only to HK Island, but hey, the kids enjoyed themselves!

And I have pictures to prove it! Look at that grin!

After we got to Central, we hung around the harbour area and watched people fish. While some may have called it relaxing, I think Gordon was just happy to be out of the house.

A rare contemplative moment captured on camera.

And on the way back, I finally manage to get some proof that I am along for these trips!

"Help, help - I'm being attacked!"

Browser wars

2011-04-07T22:38:00.001+08:00

Woot! It looks like wysiwyg editing is back on Blogger!

Anyway, as I mentioned last post, I recently installed Chrome on my PC. Up till then, I had been using Internet Explorer - something which you might not have known or guessed unless you had seen the stats on wikipedia which mentions that approximately 90% of people in China use IE. Wow.

Recently, I had a friend who expressed surprise, and not a little disgust, to hear that I was using IE. What I told him at the time was that I couldn't be bothered downloading a new browser just for the sake of switching. Furthermore, I'd always heard that some websites are only optimised to work with IE which means that even if I installed a new browser, I would still have to keep IE around just in case. Admittedly, this is based on just hearsay as I don't have any actual experience of this.

And then Microsoft released their latest version of IE. Which meant I had to download a new browser anyway. At this point, I also started to question whether it was really the case anymore that some websites only worked with IE.

So with that seed of doubt in my mind, I also downloaded and installed Chrome. And overall, I have to say that I like it. I don't know if this is a problem with the latest release of IE but the new version of IE doesn't look particularly great in terms of its color scheme whereas Chrome actually looks quite nice. In terms of functionality, both seem fairly close although I haven't started to play around with any add-ons yet so I'm not sure how big an impact that would have. And more importantly (from a functionality point of view), I have yet to encounter any website that didn't render properly in Chrome.

Another criteria people often use to compare browsers is speed. However, I don't have any tools to measure this myself so have to rely on other websites which seem to indicate that Chrome is faster than IE.

In short, this blog post brought to you via Google (Blogger and Chrome).

I hate html code

2011-04-04T22:53:00.001+08:00

I don't know if I told you this before but I hate html coding. Or, if I'm being a bit more precise, I hate having to deal with html coding on my blog. Why am I complaining about html coding on my blog now despite having used blogger for several years?

Well, recently, something changed.

In the past, whenever I created a blog entry in Blogger, it was always super easy. I would login to Blogger and click the New Post button. At that point, I get a big textbox and I would just type in whatever I wanted to say into that textbox. Blogger also supported basic text formatting so I could easily get to a new paragraph by simply hitting Enter twice. The html coding was still there in the background but I could just ignore it and do my own thing.

And then, over the weekend, I popped online to prepare my gaming post when - quelle horreur! Last Thursday's post was just a wall of incomprehensible text with zero formatting! Somehow, all of the text formatting had been lost after posting. I edited the post to put back in the paragraph breaks but quickly realised that none of the text formatting was being kept. In the end, I had to go into Edit Html mode so that I could manually enter in line breaks using html code which was a huge pain in the ass!

The annoying thing is that I don't know why this has happened or what I can do to correct it. I recently installed Chrome on my PC (giving it a test run which I'll talk about in future) and I can't help but wonder if that has anything to do with this. If so, considering that both tools are by Google, what a frak-up.

In any event, I hope that this is just a short term issue. If I have to frak around with html coding every time I make a blog post in future, then, well...

England the new Germany?

2011-03-31T21:27:00.003+08:00

I read this article and couldn't help but think that, assuming this isn't the usual case of media misrepresentation, Capello has started to become delusional. In short, after playing several youngsters and only managing a draw against an admittedly impressive Ghana, Capello is in a good mood about the future of England.

To be fair, this is probably an accurate assessment if you were only looking at recent games as England have done well recently. However, Capello goes on to say that he hopes that people will talk about Engalnd the same way that they were talking about Germany after the recent World Cup.

Que? Is this for real?

For starters, this impressive performance by England was in an international friendly. In case you forgot, England generally do well in friendlies and in qualifying competitions. Where England traditionally screw up is when they start playing in big tournaments at which point the players immediately fold and put in awful performances before being knocked out of the competition. By now, this is a pattern which is all too horribly familiar for any England football fan.

Now, lets look at Germany. With a squad of young players, they were able to play attractive attacking football in a major tournament and, although they didn't win the World Cup, they managed to get third place (after being knocked out by the eventual winners).

Is there any surprise that Germany were heaped with praise? There simply is no comparison and to suggest otherwise is insulting to Germany's achievement at the World Cup.

Little Zangief

2011-03-21T22:11:00.001+08:00

The latest viral craze to sweep the interwebz is the story of Casey Heynes. In case you have no idea what I'm talking about, check out this article.

In brief, a boy, who has been bullied for many years, finally snaps and delivers onto his tormentor a piledriver into the concrete. The whole thing was caught on video (by his would be tormentors) and uploaded onto multiple video sites. I won't link to the video itself as some of the sites are actively taking down the video but if you do a search on google for Little Zangief, you should be able to find it quite easily.

As a result of the fight, Casey was suspended from school for 4 days while Richard Gale, the bully who got smashed into the ground, was suspended for 21 days (I believe the school upped the suspension after initially giving a 4 day suspension).

Now, I don't want to give the impression that violence is the right solution but really? If you watch the video, its obvious that Casey isn't looking for a fight. In fact, you can see that the bully gets in several punches before Casey finally snaps and hits back. From the evidence in the video, what kind of message are you sending out by suspending him for retaliating?

Bear in mind, the bully is continually punching him. This isn't a case of verbal abuse. This is a case of actual physical violence. Furthermore, the fact that this is being filmed pretty much tells you that the bullies had planned this in advance which means that they have probably done this before. In a situation like this, are we seriously expecting the kid to just stand there and act like a punching bag?

One last comment on Tina Gale, the mother of the bully. One of the myths around bullying is that bullies are caused by bad parenting. I'm calling it a myth on the basis that I don't know if this has been proved and not because I think its false. In this case, I can believe its true.

After seeing the video, she actually has the gall to demand that Casey apologise to her son (and did I mention that Richard Gale has apparently refused to apologise to Casey for punching him without provocation?) while claiming that she teaches her kids to walk away from fights. Teaching kids is about more than just what you say. They also learn from how you act. Its patently clear from watching her reaction to this that she has been teaching her kids all the wrong lessons.

The fact that she is trying to act like the victim is laughable.

Reputation

2011-03-18T20:10:00.001+08:00

This is going to be a long post today but the concept of reputation is something which has been on my mind lately as a result of a rare personal convergence of TV shows and the gaming industry and I really wanted to get my thoughts on this down before I forgot them.

Recently, I've been watching the first season of Glee which, although the concept is a bit hypocritical, is a really entertaining show. One of the concepts explored in one of the episodes is around how a good reputation can take a lifetime to build but only a moment to destroy. Although the show was focused on the reputation of an individual, the concept also applies, to a certain extent, to companies as well.

Which brings me onto BioWare and Dragon Age II.

Who is BioWare
BioWare is a Canadian company which develops video games. Although founded in 1995, with its first game released in 1996, it wasn't until the release of Baldur's Gate in 1998 before I was made aware of this company. If you are aware of your video game history, then you would know that BioWare arguably brought about a renaissance in computer role playing games with the release of Baldur's Gate. They further cemented their reputation with the release of Baldur's Gate 2 in 2000 which many people, myself included, consider the finest cRPG to be released on any platform.

Since then, BioWare have continued to release a plethora of highly successful and critically acclaimed role playing games across multiple platforms. It is fair to say that BioWare are one of the premier, if not the premier, western developer of story based role playing games. And over this 16 year history (with 18 games/expansion packs), BioWare has deservedly built up an almost rabid fanbase. This is noticeable as, despite having some very valid criticisms labeled against the "formula" which BioWare uses in their games, their games have continued to enjoy critical as well as commercial success.

Which makes it fascinating, from a reputation point of view, to see the public reaction to the launch of Dragon Age II - BioWare's newest game. In brief, there has been a massive public backlash against DAII from some of BioWare's fans. A backlash which is probably unprecedented for BioWare. And a part of me wonders if this is due to the drop in reputation which they have suffered in recent years.

EA Effect
Looking back, the acquisition of BioWare by EA in 2007 was probably when some fans started to question their faith in BioWare. In fact, I mentioned on my gaming blog at the time that the forums were already ablaze in hate mail. Although I don't have the same level of hate for EA that other fans appear to have, I do have to admit that EA's history with purchasing developers did make me worried.

EA is a company which, despite starting with noble intentions and building an impressive reputation not long after it first launched in 1982, is now a company which is hated with a passion by many hardcore gamers (a hatred which has been acknowledged by EA as John Riccitiello, their CEO, has made excellent progress in repairing some of the bridges which EA had burned under previous ownership). In EA's defence, some of that hate is definitely misdirected. For example, EA acquired BioWare just prior to the release of Mass Effect and certainly at too late a stage to have any impact on the development of Mass Effect. Despite this, there were many claims by fans that EA had already ruined BioWare as was evidenced by the direction which BioWare had taken with Mass Effect.

Nonetheless, the impact of EAs negative reputation amongst hardcore gamers was clearly seen in the criticisms leveled against BioWare.

Dragon Age: Origins
Although the Mass Effect series of games was a radical departure in style for BioWare, it was an undisputed success for BioWare. It brought in a whole new group of fans who were less interested in the hardcore mechanics of ye olde cRPGs. Meanwhile, BioWare's older fans, some of whom were not fans of the new direction which BioWare were taking with Mass Effect, were comforted by the knowledge that they would still get some love with the release of Dragon Age: Origins - a more hardcore cRPG which was billed as a spiritual successor to Baldur's Gate.

And in fact, the release of DAO seemed to placate many fans. The game was another critical and commercial success. It garnered a metacritic rating of over 90% and picked up numerous awards. In addition, although I don't have any actual sales figures for this game, reports indicate that by February 2010, the game had shipped over 3.2 million units.

Which finally brings us to Dragon Age II.

Dragon Age II
From an older, hardcore fan point of view, problems with Dragon Age II showed straight from the start. Some of the changes being planned for the sequel had been announced in previews and the forums had been set alight with complaints about the direction which BioWare were taking. In essence, some fans were afraid that BioWare were turning the Dragon Age franchise into an action RPG.

And then the game itself was released.

Despite receiving critical acclaim, the game was disappointing to many fans who stormed onto the user reviews section of metacritic to pan the game (BioWares extremely clever response to this was to blame 4chan and to get their employees to post positive user reviews - there is so much wrong with that but I will have to skip for now as this post is already too long!). In essence, a lot of fans were disappointed that Dragon Age II had departed from the hardcore cRPG style of the original Dragon Age and was geared more towards the "console" crowd who liked Mass Effect.

But what is wrong with Mass Effect "style"?
The answer, of course, is that there is nothing wrong with the Mass Effect "style". I suspect the reason that fans are so up in arms is twofold.

Firstly, the Mass Effect franchise was always developed more as an action RPG. So when BioWare released ME2 with an even greater focus on the action elements, the fans generally accepted this as it was a refinement of the style of game they were always making (although its worth mentioning that there were also a lot of fans who weren't happy).

I suspect the other key reason is that the Dragon Age franchise was originally billed as a more hardcore cRPG style game. The switch to an almost, but not quite, arcade RPG style with DAII meant that a lot of the original fans of DAO felt they were being left high and dry. And with no other hardcore cRPG in the works by BioWare, it really does feel as if BioWare have moved away from this particular niche of fans. Is it any surprise that the older hardcore fans are pissed?

The upshot of all this is that a lot of the reputation and goodwill which BioWare has built up over the years has been eroded. And this lessened reputation is having an interesting knock-on effect.

How many people believe what EA and BioWare say?
The biggest recent uproar surrounding Dragon Age 2 is to do with the EA account which your BioWare games are tied to. In brief, a forum ban for a user lead to him being locked out of the game he legally purchased although EA very quickly apologised and said that this was a mistake. You can get some more details around the controversy here.

What I find interesting here is that EA and BioWare aren't being given the benefit of the doubt by many people. In fact, there are a large number of people who have already decided that the only reason EA backed down was simply due to the amount of bad press they had been getting. Looking at it another way, if EA and BioWare had a better reputation - would people be so cynical?

Long term impact
At the end of the day, I have no idea what long term impact, if any, there will be from this. In fact, I can't even tell you whether a good reputation is important to a company selling video games. After all, the only people who pay attention to the issues outlined above are hardcore gamers which only make up a small portion of the market.

One thing I do know though. Now that BioWare has lost their halo - it will be extremely difficult for them to get it back.

Gerry and the hotpot

2011-03-14T21:59:00.005+08:00

One of the good things about the school which Gerry currently goes to is that the teachers also take a fair amount of pictures of Gerry in class. Recently, during the cold, cold month of January, they had a hotpot in the classroom where each of the children took one food item into class.

Some vegetables, sausages and noodles. Overall, a decent selection of food.

Gerry finally gets his chance to grab some grub

At home, Gerry won't eat sweetcorn unless we cut if off the cob.

Cueing up for seconds :)

I can't actually tell what he is eating in this picture - looks like he is enjoying it though!

Tablets

2011-03-07T22:46:00.003+08:00

The Tablet market is something which I have been watching with keen interest. As you know, I have no interest in the iPad and to date, there really hasn't been a serious alternative. Of course, that has recently changed as a slew of Tablets are about to hit the market - the most prominent of which is probably the Motorola Xoom which is running the new Honeycomb OS.

However, despite my interest in the market, the truth is that I don't really see how I would benefit from having a Tablet. Or rather, I don't see the benefit in having a Tablet outweighing the cost of me having to cart it around with me on a daily basis.

Currently, the only gadgets that I carry around with me are my iPod Nano and my phone. The phone goes on my belt and the iPod Nano is so small that it easily fits in my pocket. This is a great setup as it means that I don't need to carry a bag when I leave the home. If I buy a Tablet, this would mean a significant change as I would have to start carrying a bag even if the Tablet was all I was carrying (and I know I would hate this from my past experience with carting a PDA around).

All of which meant that I was actually pretty excited to hear about the HTC Flyer. The Flyer is a 7" Tablet to be released by HTC and, with all the excitement focused on Xoom, the Flyer really didn't get much press.

What really makes the Flyer stand out for me is the pen. One of the pens functions is to sync up what you write with audio that you are recording. In effect, the Flyer, in addition to being a normal Tablet, also doubles up as a digital pen ala the Livescribe. Of course, the major bonus of the Flyer is that you no longer need the specialised paper that Livescribe requires.

This is a major selling point for me as it immediately pushes the Flyer beyond the normal media consumption device which most Tablets are and into the realm of productivity boosting tech. This is something which I could easily justify carting around on a daily basis. The only problem is that it only has an estimated 4 hours of battery life when watching video which is pathetic when you compare it to the 10 hours which the iPad gets or even the 8+ hours which the Xoom gets.

le sigh. I guess I just need to keep an eye on the market a little bit longer.

Family - a day in Disneyland

2011-02-28T21:10:00.005+08:00

With the HK weather improving in January, it was time for another trip to Disneyland!

As you can see, Gordon was really eager to get inside.

We were actually quite lucky in that we got there just in time for the afternoon parade. We managed to get some seats by the side of the road and I managed to capture this great picture while we waited for the parade to start.

Of course, the problem with that plan was that little children tend not to have the patience required to sit and wait.

A rare picture where Gordon is looking at the camera.

And here is Gordon defending the Earth from Zurg and his diabolical plot to capture all our energy!

Gordon - in and about

2011-02-25T21:57:00.004+08:00

After so many pictures of our holiday in Japan, its time to bring things back down to Earth. The more observant of you will have noticed that there weren't any pictures of Gordon in Japan. This is because we didn't take Gordon with us.

So, as an apology to Gordon, here are some pics of the little tyke at home.

Normally, Gordon doesn't like me touching him. Luckily for me, the nice shiny camera has him distracted.
:)

You have no idea how precious this picture is. I'm holding Gordon and hes actually smiling!!

I get the feeling he is standing there and wondering why the scooter isn't moving.

Thomas the tank engine gets another young male fan.

For some reason, he looks positively vicious in this pic. I'd better remember to stay on his good side...

Gerry in Japan - Tokyo

2011-02-21T20:54:00.001+08:00

As you can probably gather from the previous posts, we didn't actually spend much time in Tokyo itself. This was mainly because there were more interesting family activities outside of Tokyo itself. Which isn't to say that there wasn't anything to do in Tokyo or that we didn't spend any time there.

On the last day, we went to a Toy Kingdom where, after paying the entry fee, Gerry was allowed to spend several hours playing with whatever he liked inside the Kingdom. There were a huge variety of different toys which he could choose from. However, he didn't actually get to see most of them as he was captivated by the toy trains right from the start and didn't want to leave after he got started.

Here you can see him pushing his trains around. The trains themselves are battery powered but he preferred to push them manually. Never realised that he was a control freak until now.

To be fair to Gerry, the toy trains were actually the most popular section among boys - which you can see reflected in this picture.

Gerry with the full setup. Other than the elevated ring section, Gerry built the entire thing himself.

And after a hard day of playing, what better to top it off than a snack! Gerry is eating a crepe filled with cream and chocolate (and his mouth doesn't stay that clean for long!).

Gerry in Japan - Mount Fuji

2011-02-15T20:59:00.001+08:00

The main reason that we chose to go to Japan with Gerry is because of the Fuji-Q Highland theme park. It sits pretty much at the base of Mt. Fuji and is a pretty big themepark, the main highlight of which (for Gerry at any rate) is the Thomasland mini-theme park inside it.

Here we are at the base of Mt Fuji which, for those of you who aren't aware, is an active volcano.

This is Percy. I wouldn't have known that 3 years ago.

One of the cool things about Thomasland is that it has mini versions of popular adult rides. Here you can see Gerry after a brief plunge down a water coaster!

And here is Gerry on a roller coaster. Its worth mentioning that I am suffering from hat hair and that the ride isn't actually that fast.

The theme park also had a lake which had frozen over. This was Gerry's first time to go ice skating and, despite a couple of falls, he really enjoyed himself.

Gerry in Japan

2011-02-11T23:02:00.002+08:00

Some more pics from our recent trip to Japan.

On the second day that we were there, we headed out to a small island with a theme park. I can't remember the name of the place in English but cest la vie!

This is him at the entrance posing with the theme park mascot. This picture is actually proof of how friendly Japanese people are. The customer service lady spotted us taking a picture of Gerry and grabbed the plushie so that he could take a picture with their mascot. How cool is that!

One of the many rides at the theme park there. These rides seem to be quite popular in Japanese theme parks and are kind of like mini dodgem's but without any crashing.

One of the more fun activities at the theme park was this giant needle which you could ride up in. Once it got to the top, it would come slowly down, spinning in a circle, so that you got a pretty good view of the entire island. You can probably imagine how difficult it was to get Gerry to look at the camera instead of looking outside.

And of course, how could any trip to an island be complete without a small boat ride.

The theme parks version of the Mad Hatters Tea Cup - this one themed to the Power Puff Girls (don't ask me how I know that).

Gerry in Japan - Mother Farm

2011-02-07T23:02:00.002+08:00

The Meister is back!

At last, my internet connection has been restored to me and I can finally start uploading photos of our "recent" trip to Japan. I say Japan because, although we stayed in Tokyo, we didn't actually spend all that much time there. Most of our time was spent on the road going to various remote locations with activities for kids.

The first place we went to was a farm called Mother Farm. I say farm but the reality is that the place is so clean, it really doesn't feel like a farm. I would say it was cleaner than my own home but I'm afraid of upsetting the maid...

One of the animals at the animal farm. This picture was taken when Gerry still liked that particular animal. At some later point in time, when Gerry was getting close for another picture, the thing sneezed and blew snot all over Gerry. After he had gotten over the shock (and was done crying), he firmly declared that this animal was naughty and that he wouldn't play with it anymore.

This was taken right after one of the fun activities at the farm. Basically, this was a pig race and each child was assigned to one pig and was responsible for driving the pig across the field and into the paddock. Gerry didn't win but he had a great time slapping the pigs backside and telling it to hurry up!

Aww - a cute widdle wabbit!

One of the shows the farm had was a sheep shearing show. This was actually really well done and the guy doing the show had a lot of charisma and was a good entertainer. Shame that the entire thing was in Japanese...

An observation on Japanese people

2010-12-30T17:51:00.003+08:00

Woo - back from a long holiday in Japan (and boy oh boy, is Tokyo expensive!). I'll post some pics of my trip next week but first, I wanted to share an observation I had while I was there. Japanese people have a reputation for being very well mannered and from what I could see in Tokyo, this reputation is very well deserved.

One of my pet peeves in Hong Kong is the lack of even basic manners which you regularly see on trains. One thing which I noticed while in Tokyo was that on the platform, everybody waited until passengers had gotten off the train before they got on the train. I have NEVER seen that in HK (there have been plenty of times where people in one particular section have been willing to wait but even when that happens, you will see people in another section try and push their way onto the train past people trying to get off). Granted, we were never on the trains during rush hour (I have heard enough about Tokyo rush hour to know to avoid it) so I don't know how things will change during rush hour but still - wow!

The amazing thing is that this level of manners seems to extend to other areas of their life as well. While we stayed in Tokyo, we actually spent most of our time in the countryside surrounding Tokyo and as such, we hired a car to make things more convenient. I have spent many years complaining about the lack of manners which HK people show on the road. However, this has always been based on a comparison with Glasgow which is a bit unfair to HK in that Glasgow is a relatively small city in comparison.

Tokyo, on the other hand, is a city which gets gridlocked during rush hour and is a much fairer target for comparison purposes. Unfortunately for HK, this comparison doesn't favour HK either. While driving around in Japan, it was amazing to see that people actually had good road etiquette even while we were stuck in a traffic jam.

I'm not going to comment on any other aspect of Japanese society, but when it comes to basic manners and regard for other people, Japan seems so far ahead of HK that its embarrassing.

Nike are dicks

2010-12-17T20:25:00.001+08:00

Wow - two of my favourite ranty topics in one post!

This latest news out of Blighty not only shows that some UK laws are absurb, but that Nike are also dicks. In summary, a guy buys a pair of Nike shoes off the internet. It turns out that those shoes are counterfeit shoes and are seized at the border. Nike is notified of these counterfeit shoes and decides to sue the customer. The customer says that he wasn't aware that the shoes were counterfeit but this doesn't matter as the law says that the customers intention is not relevant.

First off, I'm operating on the good faith assumption that the buyer really didn't know the shoes were fake. With that said - wow, its like the UK is trying to kill off sales of physical goods over the internet!

Granted, this is hyperbole but this case is a pretty clear warning to anyone buying something over the internet in the UK that they need to be careful. Regardless of what you thought you were buying, if it turns out to be fake, you are liable. Particularly if you were thinking of buying Nike shoes because Nike have proven that they are willing to take you to court even if you thought the shoes that you were buying were real.

Secondly. Nike - what are you doing? On face value, this is someone who was willing to pay money for your shoes and was likely to have paid more money for your shoes at a later date. By suing him, you have pretty much guaranteed that neither he nor his friends and family will ever buy Nike shoes again (as well as any people who read this news and sympathises with they guy).

Also, how does this help Nike sell more shoes? The thing is, I actually accept their argument that they can't fight the supply side. What I don't understand is how reducing demand for your goods will help you sell more of those goods. Bear in mind, this guy thought he was buying genuine Nike shoes.

And even if you go on the assumption that this guy knew he was buying a fake pair of Nike shoes, studies show that 46% of people buying fake goods will go on to buy the real thing within 2.5 years. Of course, that number is going to be a lot lower for Nike if they sue people left, right and centre! And even if people don't buy the fake goods, studies show that this doesn't mean that they will buy the genuine article either.

All in all, I only see this kind of action as having a negative consequence for Nike.

Full disclosure - all of my sports shoes are Nike brand. Genuine too (at least, I think they're genuine).

Gerry and Gordon down the local playground

2010-12-13T22:19:00.002+08:00

Time for some more picture updates of the kids! In particular, I'm going to Japan next week and I need to get some of the older pictures out of the way before I start posting holiday pics!

What do you think we are doing in this picture? Despite appearances to the contrary, we are not waiting for a taxi. Gordon just wanted to look at the cars and all I'm doing is making sure he doesn't jump out into the street.

In hindsight, that sounds really boring. Next time, I'll make up a story!

Gordon is now at the age where he is fascinated by the camera. Ah, this brings back memories of giant close-ups of Gerry...

A rare family photo where Gordon is actually looking at the camera. You would be surprised how difficult it is to get kids to actually look at the camera and smile. Unless you have kids of course in which case you are probably wondering when I learnt to use Photoshop.

I don't know why but this picture makes me think of a movie poster.

Mummy and baby with a cheesy grin - tons of photos like this but its still good to see Gordon with a smile.

Newcastle United FC

2010-12-09T21:16:00.001+08:00

By now, you will probably have heard that Hughton got the sack. This is despite him having managed to get Newcastle promoted to the Premiership at first go while also managing to get Newcastle in mid-table in the Prem. Granted, they aren't that many points clear of the relegation zone but considering that Liverpool, who have had a dreadful start to the season, are only 7 points off the CL palces (which amounts to just 3 games), its not a surprise that Newcastle are close to the bottom.

It's worth mentioning that he has achieved this with what is arguably a sub-standard group of players considering that a lot of pundits were predicting that Newcastle would struggle this season (with some people predicting relegation). Despite this, they have managed to pull off some impressive wins when they had a fully fit squad. But even more than this, the most incredible thing that Hughton had managed to do was bring stability to a club which seemed to careen from crisis to crisis (and have done so again now that Hughton has been removed).

With Hughton's removal, this means that, according to wikipedia, Newcastle will have changed managers 7 times over the course of a 3 year period. That's an average of just over 2 sacking's per year. Is it any wonder that this club struggles to do anything? Or that Mike Ashley is possibly the most hated man in Newcastle?

In a way, its a shame that this club is once more plunged into turmoil (although I'm sure that the owners would disagree, from the player and forum comments, it certainly seems that this is a club in crisis). Having said that, for such a ridiculous sacking, I hope NUFC get relegated.

Munchkin

2010-12-03T21:20:00.002+08:00

If you have been a nerd as long as I have, then the name Steve Jackson will bring back many happy memories. Steve Jackson is one of the premier develop of geek games and one of the most succesful games he has developed is a card game called Munchkin.

I was first made aware of Munchkin through a post of Wil Wheaton's blog. Although I've never played the game myself, the game sounded really interesting as it was the kind of game where most of the fun seems to derive from the hilarious and ridiculous situations that you can inflict on other players. Having said that, based on just that blog post, I never had a clear idea of how the game actually played.

Good thing then that the clever people at SJ Games have put together a flash demo of the game so that you can get a feel for how it plays! Now all I need are some nerd friends...

Leslie Nielson R.I.P.

2010-11-30T21:26:00.002+08:00

Another day passes and I continue to feel older as the death roll on this blog keeps rising. By now, I'm pretty sure you will have heard that Leslie Nielson passed away over the weekend and read numerous testimonials on his life.

So you may as well read one more!

Believe it or not, I only know Leslie Nielson through his comedy movies and only realised he started his career as a serious drama actor upon reading the recent testimonials to his film career. In some ways, considering that I was born in 1975, its not a surprise that my only exposure to him was as a comedian.

Of course, all that justification flies out the window when you realise that, despite being a sci-fi fan, I had no idea that he was the lead in Forbidden Planet...

Ultimately though, films like Airplane! and The Naked Gun series are hilariously funny and remain so even to this day. Obviously, some of that success is due to the writers ability to create such quotable dialog. However, a large part is also due to Nielson's ability for deadpan acting and comedic timing.

In many ways, it was a shame that he was never able to replicate the critical and commercial success which he enjoyed with those early films. Having said that, having seen some of the later "flops", I have to admit that his antics still managed to raise a chuckle from me and the particular brand of comedy which he created, and specialised in, is the lesser for his passing.

UK plans to legalise racial profiling

2010-11-18T21:25:00.001+08:00

Alas, the UK seems hellbent on proving that they have gone mad and are determined to ruin the country. The latest news coming out of Blighty is that London intends to legalise racial profiling.

Wow. Just wow.

For those of you who couldn't be bothered clicking the link, it basically says that police in the UK have stop-and-search powers even when there is no reasonable suspicion. Currently, under those rules, black people are 26 times more likely to be stopped than white people (that isn't a typo - the number 26 pops up several times in the article). Just think about that for a moment - 26 times more likely to be stopped.

And under an environment where this happens, the Home Office intends to allow race to be considered by police in deciding whether to stop someone for a search or not.

Yeah, I have NO idea whatsoever how that could end badly...

Christmas shopping

2010-11-15T21:54:00.001+08:00

The missus and I had taken a day off work today and while we had some spare time, we headed out to Toys "R" Us to do some Christmas and birthday shopping. An all-round good idea primarily as we avoid the Xmas shopping crowd this way and also due to the early bird discounts available for purchases in November.

One of the things which the missus noticed while occasionally visiting Gordon at the pre-nursery he goes to is that he really likes to play with the kitchen set during the free time period. Interestingly enough, Gerry also loves playing as a chef which resulted in the missus commenting that it was funny how gender roles have been reversed in HK as it seems that guys are generally the ones who like to cook.

We do have a kitchen set at home but its pretty beat up as we purchased it several years ago when we were in the UK. As a result, when we saw a pretty big kitchen set on sale (big enough to allow two kids to play with it at the same time!), we jumped at the chance to add it to our shopping cart. We figured that this would make a great birthday present for Gordon come January.

We knew that the kids would kick up a big fuss if they saw this huge kitchen set so as soon as we got home, we tried to hide the box away. Its funny, you don't really get an appreciation for how big a box is until you try to find somewhere to hide it. In the end, we stuck it away in a corner away from where the kids normally hang out.

Gerry has a great eye for detail which is normally a good thing. Unfortunately, it worked against us today as our hiding place couldn't escape his eagle eyes. Within minutes of coming home, he had spotted the kitchen set and threw a sulk when he realised that a) it wasn't his; and b) it wasn't going to be opened today.

Ultimately, he got his way. After dinner, we opened up the kitchen set and built it up. After wishing Gordon a quick happy birthday, he set about to playing as a chef with Gerry - who ended up playing with it much more than Gordon did as he kept grabbing pots and pans out of Gordon's hands (before ruefully handing them back after a quick scolding from me!).

Happy Birthday Gordon - hope you enjoyed your present...

Stonegrill

2010-11-12T21:10:00.004+08:00

Looking back over my blog, I find it hard to believe that I've never talked about Stonegrill before.

If you have never been to a Stonegrill (or a steakhouse of similar style), then you are really missing out on a fairly unique way of eating steak. When you order a steak from Stonegrill, it comes to the table in raw form on top of a superheated stone which you use to grill the steak at the table. In practice, you tend to cut off small pieces of meat as those small pieces cook relatively quickly allowing you to slowly eat up the steak piece by piece.

As an early birthday celebration for the missus, we went to a Stonegrill last night and ordered the deluxe dinner set. This basically consisted of a range of 4 different types of steak with Angus steak at the "low" end before moving up to shortrib and two types of wagyu beef at the high end. Which was pretty good as it gave us the opportunity to compare and contrast the textures and flavours of the different types of beef.

The Angus Steak was probably what you would normally think of as steak - relatively lean with a full body flavour. The shortrib had a very distinct flavour and texture. I'm not sure how you would describe the flavour but if you have had it before, you would definitely recognise it. What makes the shortrib stick out though is the slightly chewy texture which you get from the tendon. Last of all is the wagyu beef which is highly marbled with fat and as a result, almost melts in your mouth. Even across the two types of wagyu beef that we had (which were classed as M6 and M9), there was a clear difference in both texture and look as the M9 clearly had more fat content.

In some ways though, the ordinary Angus Steak was my favourite. Although the wagyu beef tasted nice, the flavour goes very quickly and doesn't last as long. The Angus Steak on the other hand, has more lean meat in it which means that you spend more time chewing the meat which ultimately results in the flavours of the steak remaining in your mouth much longer. And as you should know, all your taste buds are in your mouth, which means that the full body flavour of the Angus Steak is able to come out stronger after chewing it for a while.

Naturally your mileage may vary and its always good to mix things up, but the classic New York Strip remains my favourite cut of meat.

Gerry at school

2010-11-08T21:44:00.003+08:00

A rare treat today as we look at some pictures of Gerry at school. One of the good things about the Kindergarten he currently goes to is that the teachers take quite a lot of pictures during the class so you can get an idea of what they get up to during class.

This picture was taken during a school outing to the dentist. Those giant teeth are used to show kids how to brush their teeth properly.

A chance for Gerry to show off his balancing skills. I love the fact that there is a beanbag on his head!

Not quite sure what is happening here - he looks happy enough though!

This picture was taken during the mid-autumn festival celebrations at school.

Another picture from the mid-autumn festival celebration. I think the taekwondo lessons he has been taking are finally paying dividends in this shot!

Gordon goes to Disneyland

2010-11-01T22:21:00.001+08:00

Now that Gordon is a bit older, we have reinstated the Jokemeister family weekend tradition - going to Disneyland! This was a rare occasion when we took Gordon out and left Gerry at home (can't remember why though!).

On the way into Disneyland, Gordon looks a little apprehensive - probably as he has never been to anywhere s fake before!

He cheers up considerably once he gets to drive (although he doesn't look it here, he was laughing just a second before!).

Gordon is starting to take an interest in the camera - won't be long until we get extreme close-ups!

Just like Gerry, Gordon loves to run around chasing the birds.

Buzz Lightyear striking the pose for little Gordon. I can't help but wonder what Gordon is thinking right now - probably wondering why so many people are lined up!

Grease is the word!

2010-10-25T21:59:00.001+08:00

One of the great things about growing up in the UK is that it has a fantastic history of musical theatre. Although there were less opportunities in Glasgow, some of the travelling musical productions would make their way up to Glasgow or Edinburgh. And of course, you could always pop down to London for a quick trip and catch some musicals or plays while you were down there.

Incidentally, musicals are also one of the things I miss most about the UK since I came to HK. Admittedly, some of the musicals do make their way to HK on occasion. The problem is that tickets generally tend to be prohibitively expensive. For example, when Phantom came to HK, good tickets were priced at well over the HK$1,000 range. Considering the relative price of other things in HK, that's pretty steep for 2 hours worth of entertainment.

All of which made me pretty happy when I noticed that Grease had come to HK and that good tickets "only" cost in the HK$600+ range. Although still expensive, it was a cost I could justify.

The show itself is very well done and really manages to capture the feel and energy of the movie. All the old classics from the movie are here although the songs are spread around the cast instead of being primarily sung by Danny Zuko. Understandable otherwise they may have had trouble finding actors willing to take on those roles.

One of the best things about the show though is how funny it is. You can tell the producers went out of their way to make this a funny show. The producers have also done a great job in realising that most people watching this on stage will have already seen the movie and be very familiar with the songs and stories. To ensure that the show remains interesting throughout, there are a couple of set pieces which play very cleverly on the audiences expectations of what would happen next based on the movie.

All in all, this was a fun show. The only downside was that the theatre they used in Hong Kong wasn't great as the seats were a bit cramped. Still, considering how long since I've seen a musical on stage, it was well worth the slight discomfort.

Doctor Who

2010-10-22T21:42:00.000+08:00

Whooo-whooo-whooo.

If I knew how to embed sounds into blog posts then, right now, you would be hearing the sound of a TARDIS dematerialising. Unfortunately, I don't know how to do that so instead, you will have to put up with "whooo-whooo-whooo".

The reality is that if you are in anyway familiar with British culture, then you will know what sound I'm referring to. You will also know who the Doctor is and how important Doctor Who is to British Sci-Fi culture (and if you aren't, there is always wikipedia). Being the nerd that I am, would it surprise you to learn that I loved watching this show as a kid?

Quick aside - Peter Davison is, and will always be, my fav Doctor by virtue of the fact that he was the encumbent Doctor when I first started watching.

Anyway, when I heard that the show was being relaunched in 2005, I have to admit that I was ecstatic. I couldn't wait to start watching again. Despite that though, I never actually got round to watching the show until recently.

Overall, I have to say that I like the new Doctor Who (although I have to admit that I don't think its as good as old Doctor Who). Granted, this may just be nostalgia talking but the sight of the Doctor tooling around with his sonic screwdriver just sends a tingle down my spine. If you get the chance, and were a fan of the old Doctor Who shows, then I would recommend you take the effort to watch.

Having said that, there are some areas of the show which I'm not particularly enamored with. Most are probably a little nit-picky but the first two I talk about below are issues which I feel really negatively impacted my enjoyment of the show.

For those who haven't watched yet - spoilers!

Romance
My first major dislike of the new show is the introduction of romance into the Doctors life. In the old Doctor Who, the Doctor was an ancient alien with no interest in romance whatsoever. However, the new Doctor seems to run around picking up companions based on how likely he is to get a bit of the 'ol nudge-nudge-wink-wink. What is particularly galling though is that they reintroduced Sarah Jane Smith and retconned her so that she also loved the Doctor. WTF!?!?

Deux ex machina
My other major gripe is the number of plot resolutions which rely on deus ex machina. Not sure if this is something which can be classified as a bad decision or just down to having bad writers but so many episodes seem to rely on a deus ex machina to resolve the crisis instead of relying on the cleverness of the Doctor.

Again, this may be nostalgia, but the overwhelming memory I have of the Doctor is his ability to use his brains to solve a problem.

Target market
The show seems to be primarily targeted at a family audience and this really shows in the dialogue sometimes. To be fair, Doctor Who was always targeted at a family audience so the criticism is probably more on me than the Doctor. Still, after watching fantastically mature shows like Battlestar Galactica, I can't help but wonder what a mature Doctor Who would be like.

Still, its probably for the best that its a family show. Can you imagine the outrage if they tried to make it mature and fluffed it?

Daleks
I should clarify here that I don't dislike the Daleks. I just dislike how often they show up for a race which is supposed to have been genocided during the Great Time War.

The thing is, the first Eccleston Dalek episode, where you found out that the Daleks were extinct, is excellent. When you find out that the Doctor had to wipe out both his own race and the Daleks in order to end the Time War, this brings a real gravity to his situation as the last of the Time Lords (which Ecclestone acted out brilliantly). However, the constant reappearance of the Daleks (from between 2-4 episodes each season) completely diminishes the dramatic aspect of their death in the first place. Which is a bit of a shame really.

He can do what now?
Another issue I had was the constant introduction of new abilities. Again, this may be nostalgia, but the skillset of the Doctor was pretty well known in the past. Now, whenever he's bored, he just whips a new ability out of his pocket.

Epic storylines!
Granted, we are getting into major nitpicky territory here but it was annoying how often the danger that he was facing was of "epic" proportions and of threat to the entire World or Universe! The problem with making so many "epic" storylines is that, after a while, it loses the dramatic impact and is no longer epic. Sometimes, smaller storylines can be fascinating as they allows you to focus on the relationships and character building of the main characters in your show.

How Liverpool tactics have changed

2010-10-18T22:43:00.001+08:00

Wow. Things have been a bit hectic lately so I haven't had much time to blog. Hopefully, they will settle down a bit now though so with any luck, I can get back to my regular blogging schedule.

A couple of weeks ago, I briefly mentioned that Liverpool were in an unbelievably poor run of form and that October would be a tough month for them. Unfortunately, things look much bleaker than I would have thought possible (I really thought that we would at least have 3 points courtesy of Blackpool). The only upside in recent times has been that those American owners have finally gone (here's hoping the new American owners are better!).

Now, the key challenge going forward is to improve results on the field. With that in mind, I found this article talking about the way that Liverpool now play under Hodgson to be really fascinating.

The first thing I would say is that I still think we should give Hodgson some time to get things right. Removing him now would do be unfair on Hodgson as he really hasn't had enough time to stamp his own style on the squad and for the squad to adjust to the way he wants to play. However, discussing his tactics is obviously fair game (and ever since I started playing FM2010, I have to admit that I find the whole topic really fascinating)!

The second thing I want to say is that I don't really watch Liverpool games as I just don't have the time. What this means is that I have no real idea if the playing style being adopted is indeed as the author claimed. In other words, I'm taking a lot on faith here!

With all that said, from reading the article, it certainly seems like Hodgson is trying to fit square pegs into round holes. Reading that article reminded me of when I first started to play Football Manager 2010. If you read my gaming blog, you would know that I spent a fair amount of time analysing the players I had and devising some tactics and playing styles to cater to the strengths of the players I had. Fundamentally, my view is that, until you have had time to buy some new players that fit the system you like, your only real tactical option is to play to the your existing strengths.

Granted, this is a game I'm talking about, but I'm pretty sure the principal is true to real life football as well.

Anyway, the biggest concern I have about the current Liverpool tactics is with Torres.

Torres is not and never has been a target man. However, this seems to be the role that he is being asked to fill. As I said above, I don't really watch the matches anymore as I don't have time. However, I have a tendency to believe that he is being asked to play as a target man as many of the match reports I see all mention the fact that he is often left alone up the pitch without any real supply or support. Of course, this may not be a huge problem if Hodgson can buy a traditional target man during the Winter transfer window. At this point, I guess a lot will depend on whether he has any money to spend.

Newfound respect for authors

2010-10-04T22:35:00.000+08:00

I have to admit that I have always had a huge amount of respect for authors of fiction. The ability to dream up new worlds or to come up with crazy situations or characters while at the same time making everything seem realistic and possible. Amazing.

That level of creativity is something which I've always struggled with. For some reason, despite not really understanding the rules of grammar, I don't have a huge issue in writing (generally) technically correct English (I can already tell this sentence is going to bite me in the ass at some point down the line!). The problem for me has always been coming up with something interesting to write about and then to make that "thing" engaging to the reader. If anything, this feeling has intensified recently with my attempts to do a bit of fiction on my game blog.

The whole affair started with a series of journals (the so called Aladuchar Journals) tracking one of my characters in a role playing game. I thought that if I didn't have enough creativity to come up with new situations or characters, then I could just "borrow" them from an existing game. In effect, I was doing a fanfic.

However, I soon found that even doing a fanfic is not easy. The problem I found myself facing was that the journals soon became a pretty boring log of what I was doing in the game. And quite frankly, even I found myself bored to tears upon reading them. I can't imagine what anyone else would have been thinking.

As a result of this, I scrapped the journals and decided to do something on a smaller scale. Instead of cataloguing the adventures of a character over the course of a 100+ hour game, I would just catalog one quest. Hopefully, the smaller scale would be easier to manage and keep interesting.

The result was a write-up of the Blood Ties quest in Fallout 3 (part one here and part two here). Overall, although there are a couple of area's which could be improved, I have to say that I'm relatively happy with the results of that writeup. It's also worth mentioning that your enjoyment of the story probably depends completely on knowing about the background of the Fallout universe.

Of the things I learned while writing that story, the most important one is probably the need to plan out the story. When I first started writing, all I was doing was cataloguing what I had actually done in the game while adding in the occasional commentary on events as they unfolded. If I had a proper plan to the story, I would have been able to incorporate some foreshadowing into part one.

In addition, with a proper plan, I would have been able to make the change in tone a bit more consistent. In writing part two, I felt that I had to keep the start of it lighthearted as well so that it had a consistent tone with part one. Having said that, I'm still in two minds about this. Part of me likes the way that the tone suddenly changes at the end of part two as it serves to make you reevaluate all the stuff that came before.

Liverpool 2 Sunderland 2

2010-09-27T21:19:00.001+08:00

Dear oh dear oh dear.

I have to admit that recent performances from Liverpool have been unbelievably poor. And when I say poor, I don't even mean the fact that we have shipped 3 goals to both Man Utd and Man City. The fact is that in the Prem so far, the only team that Liverpool have beaten are WBA - and even that was only by 1 goal. And to be honest, if it hadn't been for that freaky first goal, we might not even have had a point from this game.

I don't want to hop onto the bandwagon that is already calling for Hodgson's head as I still think that he should be given more time. Hopefully, things will eventually "click" and the results will come. However, if things don't click soon, we may well find ourselves in the relegation zone as October brings some tough fixtures.

Okay, granted, the first match in October is against Blackpool at Anfield which Liverpool should really be winning. However, after that, we go up against Everton, Blackburn and then Bolton. All three of these sides have shown in prior years that they are not easy sides to beat (although you have to wonder what happened to Everton this year) and if Liverpool continue to play as badly as they have been, a defeat against all three sides is not as far fetched as I would once think.

So far, the only positive this season has been the fact that we have been able to score goals (Stevie G FTW!!!). Still, my pitiful performance in FM2010 doesn't seem so bad now...

Twitter

2010-09-20T20:47:00.004+08:00

By now, the more observant of my readers (so no, not you) will have noticed the twitter feed on the right hand side of my blog. For the extremely unobservant, I should add that the twitter feed is mine and that I have indeed created a twitter account.

The catalyst for this was basically last Thursday's post. I had some random thoughts which I wanted to share. The problem was that there wasn't enough meat on those random thoughts to really justify a blog post in its own right but other than ignoring it completely, what could I do?

Well, it turns out that I could have created a twitter account and micro-blogged about it. Who knew, right? Too late now I suppose but hopefully, such short and random thoughts can be kept to twitter in future.

Also, somehow I have managed to pick up three followers. I have no idea how I managed this or why they would be interested in my tweets considering that my tweets so far have consisted of random crap. But there you go.

Some random links and thoughts

2010-09-16T22:39:00.002+08:00

This rant perfectly echoes my thoughts on people who are consistently late. There really isn't much that I can add to that which hasn't already been said. So why am I writing this post if I don't have anything to say?

The truth is that I really wanted to send that link to the missus. However, at the last moment, I chickened out so I'm posting it here instead. If you never hear from me again, then I want you to know one thing - the missus did it.

*********************************************************

Also - Oh, how I wish this didn't resonate with me so much.

Gerry and Gordon go to the mall

2010-09-13T21:29:00.001+08:00

The weather in Hong Kong has been extremely unpredictable lately. At any moment in time, you are either going to be pelted with thunderstorm levels of rain or baked by heatwave levels of sun. The net result of all this is that we have been spending a lot of time in shopping malls recently.

Still, Gordon doesn't seem to mind. Having said that, I think he is just happy with any chance to get out of the house.

A rare picture with Gordon looking at the camera while Gerry is looking elsewhere.

Closeup of Gordon - he is starting to look really cute now. :)

Huzzah - its me again!

For the life of me, I can't remember what they saw that is so fascinating.

Gerry at Pizza Express

2010-09-06T22:18:00.002+08:00

Gerry actually learned to love pizza at a very young age. At some point in time, the missus and I couldn't be bothered going out to eat and ended up ordering Pizza Hut for delivery. In those days, Gerry only ate a little bit of the pizza dough but it wasn't long before he started eating whole slices!

Being the fan of pizza that he is, we naturally jumped at the chance when we got an invitation from a parent of one of his school friends to join a pizza making party at Pizza Express.

Here you can see that he is kitted out in his chef's hat and already has his pizza base ready for the topping.

Halfway through the process and you can already see that this is going to be a yummy pizza!

Huzzah - the (almost) finished product. In case you are wondering, this is a ham, mushroom, pepperoni and olive pizza. If I recall correctly, Gerry looks so upset because he wanted to immediately run off and cook the pizza (instead of standing there while daddy took a picture).

And here is the final finished product. Unfortunately, I don't have any good pictures of Gerry eating the pizza as he wasn't willing to stand still while holding a slice (I have lots of blurry pictures though!).

Even little Gordon managed to get some. Considering our nickname for Gordon is "little pig", would it surprise you to learn that he really enjoyed the pizza?

Werewolves

2010-09-02T22:21:00.001+08:00

Short post today as I'm linking to entries on someone elses blog which are really worth reading.

In my travels through the interwebz, I sometimes come across some really interesting stuff that I wish I had the time to partake in. The online forum game of werewolves is one such circumstance as it sounds like a perfect mix of paranoia, psychology and dumb luck.

If you want to know what Werewolves is, then you should check out this post which gives a good introduction to the rules while also giving you a pretty good gameplay example. And if you have the time, I seriously suggest you read the gameplay example (which lasts for a couple of posts).

The level of paranoia, downright sneakiness and all round back-stabbing which goes on during a game of Werewolves sounds deliciously delightful. It also convinces me that I would be an awful Werewolves player as I would probably be way too trusting. Probably a good thing that I don't have the time to get involved in a game.

British citizenship

2010-08-30T21:49:00.000+08:00

The other thing on my to-do list which I have been researching is whether my grandkids would be eligible for British citizenship. And after a fair amount of research, my conclusion is that a greater morass of uncertainty and confusion has yet to be devised in the history of mankind.

Naturally, the first place I went to was the website for the British Consul in HK. I guess I should have known what I was getting myself in for when the only information they had on this was to ask you to contact the consul!

So much for the British Consul in HK. But, where else could I go? Well, it turns out that there are a raft of different options. As a quick aside, isn't it sad that the clearest indication of whether my grandkids can claim British Citizenship comes from a wiki? Anyway, I wouldn't particularly recommend that you read through all of that in detail unless you have a lot of spare time...

So, after all that laborious reading, I have finally come to the conclusion that my grandkids aren't likely to get British citizenship as Gerry and Gordon are British Citizens by descent i.e. their British Citizenship is gained through their parents (or more particularly - me!). As pointed out in the glossary of terms for By descent:

"British citizenship gained through your parents. This type of citizenship cannot normally be passed on to your own children."

It goes without saying that this only applies if Gerry and Gordon don't become eligible for British Citizenship status via some other means (such as becoming naturalised themselves). It does go without saying, right?

How to cure my cold

2010-08-26T21:34:00.001+08:00

People who have known me for a long time will know that I have a really sensitive nose and that I tend to pick up the common cold very easily. Various remedies have been tried for this over the years. Some of them simple (drinking vitamin C regularly) and some of them less so (regular nasal spray). For various reasons, nothing has really worked.

However, there is hope that a solution has finally been found!

Actually, to be completely honest, I don't think this solution will work either. Having said that, the method certainly sounds like it has merit so I don't intend to stop anytime soon.

PS Just realised that I haven't actually said what the solution is yet. Well, check out number 3 on this list!
:D

University tuition rates

2010-08-23T21:51:00.002+08:00

I've said before that one of the advantages of growing up in the UK was that the British Government paid for my education. However, in researching whether this benefit will be available to my kids, I came across an interesting realisation - that first statement of mine may not be true for all UK citizens.

First off, I should say that all comments below are based on my current research. I have no idea what the position was like when my brother and I went to University (I guess I can ask my dad next time I talk to him).

So, it turns out that the proper terminology for the different University tuition fees are "home" rates and "overseas" rates. Growing up in Scotland like I did, I would have been paying the "home" rate. In the case of my alma mater (ie the University of Strathclyde), the "home" rate is actually zero for Scottish-domiciled students (whereas Sassenach's will need to pay a fee).

Which makes me wonder if my brother, who went to some posh University in England, actually had to pay a tuition fee? Or, as is more likely, whether my dad had to pay a fee?

Not quite the free ride I initially thought. Still, considering the heavy discount on "home" rates compared to "overseas" rates, the British Government is footing the majority of the bill so still highly generous.

Anyway, the bigger question behind all this is whether my kids will be able to enjoy "home" tuition rates. Unfortunately, the answer would appear to be no. Rules for determining eligibility for "home" rates in England, Wales or Northern Ireland is here while the rules for those studying in Scotland is here.

While there are two different sets of rules, the broad themes are the same. In particular, there appear to be two major stumbling blocks to my kids claiming "home" tuition rates.

First, they would have to be ordinarily resident in the UK for the full three years prior to the start of the course. Unless my kids go to school in the UK, this criterion isn't likely to be met. In addition, during that 3 year period, the main purpose of residence in the UK must not have been for the purpose of receiving full-time education. In other words, even if the kids went to school in the UK, they would still not be legible for "home" rates if they were only in the UK for the purpose of going to school.

So, as I said above, it seems likely that my kids won't be able to claim "home" tuition rates.

Pity.

My to do list

2010-08-19T21:48:00.005+08:00

I currently have three very important tasks on my to do list.

1) Find out if Gerry and Gordon can attend University in the UK for free
One of the benefits of growing up in the UK was that my education was paid for by the British Government (or the British people depending on your point of view). However, will Gerry and Gordon be able to avail themselves of this benefit if they decide to study in the UK? Is British citizenship enough for them to get a free pass or are there other requirements?

2) Check out the classified section of the newspaper for job listings
I need to identify some nice jobs that Gerry may be interested in based on his current interests and find out the skill set that those jobs require. With this in mind, we can then start planning the kind of extra-curricular activities that Gerry should get involved in. This will allow us to "sell" him on those activities early so that he can have a head start in building up certain key skills which will be relevant to him in future. For example, getting him involved in speech competitions will help build his presentation skills which is important no matter which career he ultimately chooses.

3) Find out whether my grandkids are eligible for British citizenship
Both Gerry and Gordon can claim British citizenship on the basis that I am a British citizen (and in fact, Gerry has already done so). However, in some countries, this only applies for one generation - so if the UK follows this rule, then my grandkids would not be eligible for British citizenship. What I need to do is find out if the UK follows this rule and if so, what we can do to counter it.

Oh - one last point. One of the above tasks is a joke - can you guess which one?

The Premiership starts anew

2010-08-16T22:19:00.001+08:00

Hoozah - the new Premiership season is underway and, despite "only" managing a draw against Arsenal in the opening game, there is hope that Liverpool will do much better than they did last year. More importantly, this is a good opportunity to plug another website which I enjoy reading but which I haven't yet mentioned on this blog.

Which website is that? Zonal Marking of course!

Zonal Marking is a website dedicated to analysing the different football tactics which teams use. I first started reading this site after I realised that the match engine in FM2010 was good enough that tactical nuances could be analysed and then exploited. The problem was that my lack of knowledge re football tactics meant that I didn't know how to analyse or exploit opposition tactics.

Naturally, the first thing I did was to jump onto the forums at sigames to start reading forum posts on favoured tactics. However, one thing very quickly became clear. There was no super tactic that would always work. The key was in finding the right tactics for your players, having squad depth so that you could change the way your team played by using subs and then using all this to exploit opposition gaps. Easier said that done - as I said above, I didn't know how to do this.

Luckily for me, one of the posts had a more general discussion of football tactics which included a link to Zonal Marking. I started reading ZM last season and the in-depth analysis it provides is a great way to better understand what is happening on the pitch and why the players are doing what they are doing.

Definitely recommended reading for footie fans (irrespective of whether you play FM2010 or not!).

Banoffee pie

2010-08-12T21:49:00.004+08:00

Banoffee pie is a deliciously decadent dessert from the UK. And if you have never had one, then you are truly missing out on one of life's great indulgences. Of course, if you have never had one, then you will have no idea what I'm talking about so let me enlighten you.

This is a banoffee pie:

In essence, it is a biscuit base (although the original recipe uses a pastry base) with a layer of dulce de leche, banana's and lashings of whipped cream topped off with chocolate shavings.
Yum!

Here you can see a side view with the soft caramel oozing onto the plate. Although hard to spot, there is a layer of banana's under the cream.

And below, proof of the delicious nature of this world famous pie.
:)

Look - even the people on the TV wanted some!

Gerry caught in the act of snarfing some down.

Even little Gordon, so often left out of family activities, managed to get some!

Why parents hate parenting

2010-08-09T22:19:00.001+08:00

As I make my travels across the series of tubes that is the internet, I occasionally find an article that rings so true to my own experiences that I can't help but wonder why people actually needed to conduct a study to prove the point. As the father of two children, this article rings of such truth.

Its hard to summarise such a long article while keeping the key message intact so I strongly urge you to read the full article if you have the time. In brief though, the article talks about how parenting doesn't make the parent happier and, if anything, actually makes the parent less happy.

Anyway, two points in the article resonated with me in particular and I wanted to add a little more comment on those points from my own perspective.

Moments of transcendence
It's possible that the author doesn't buy this argument herself but one of the points mentioned in the article is that children "offer moments of transcendence, not an overall improvement in well-being". The author labels this as being a "fatalistic explanation" but I'm not sure that I concur.

As a father, those moments of transcendence are unbelievably powerful and pack one heck of an emotional punch. I've talked before on this blog about one such moment with Gerry. Another such situation occurred over the weekend.

Normally, Gordon doesn't like me much. He spends most of his time cozying up to either his mother or the maid. In fact, the only time he willingly lets me hold him is when we are getting into the car (I'm the only one who knows how to put him into the baby seat). However, over the weekend, Gordon deliberately held up his arms for me to hold him. And this was despite the fact that the missus was holding him at the time.

Moments like this are treasures for which words cannot do justice. Moments like this make all of the other crap you have to put up with as a parent worth it.

Kids destroy every other joy
One of the other quotes in the article which really resonated with me is on page 3. Kids are "a huge source of joy, but they turn every other source of joy to shit".

The reality is that I have given up all pretence of having a life, with the exception of videogames which can be played after the kids have gone to sleep. All of my social activities have basically died as a result of the time I spend with the kids (although I do go out and meet with some friends whenever there is a blue moon). This is likely to continue until the kids get a bit older and realise that hanging out with your parents is seriously uncool.

This used to bug me a lot. I used to regret having to give up all the fun things that I used to do like badminton, snooker or just hanging around with friends in a pub. As you can imagine, this isn't a healthy state of mind and over time, it would probably have negatively impacted the kids as well. Luckily for me, I eventually came to a realisation which helped me get over this.

In the end, I realised that my favourite leisure activity was playing videogames and that I was damn lucky to be able to have kids while keeping my favourite hobby.
:)

Back in Phuket - part three

2010-08-05T21:49:00.003+08:00

The last set of holiday pics. :)

One of the really fun activities that the hotel had was an animal towel folding tutorial. And basically, its exactly what it says on the tin - teach you how to fold towels into animal shapes!

This is a picture of me making the head of some animal - can you guess what it is?

That's right! It was the head of an elephant!
Here you can see the finished product.

A couple of swans. How lovely - I actually have this in crystal form as well!

Elephant, rabbit, monkey and two swans. By now, we have a veritable zoo!

The only thing missing was an aviary!

Back in Phuket - part two

2010-08-03T22:36:00.004+08:00

Some more pictures of our holiday in Phuket.

One of the advantages of taking Gerry to a resort hotel is that the hotel has a shallow swimming pool for children. In this particular case, the swimming pool had a water slide which Gerry absolutely loved. He must have been up and down that water slide at least a hundred times over the course of the week that we were there!

Here you can see Gerry as he gets to the bottom of the slide. You could always tell that he was on the slide as the foam board that he has would make this horrible screeching noise on the slide.

Check out that grin on his face! If nothing else, that grin tells you exactly how much he loved that slide.

Here is a closeup of Gerry as he hits the water. Even with his eyes closed, he is still grinning away.

A rare break to take a rest from the sun. Unfortunately, we didn't have any shades so had to improvise...

And a clear photo just in case you weren't sure that the person in the photo above was really me.
:)

Back in Phuket - part one

2010-07-29T20:42:00.003+08:00

As promised, here are some pictures of our recent holiday to Phuket. Gordon was left at home as we didn't have confidence in our ability to look after both Gerry and Gordon without a maid. Poor Gordon.

It will be no surprise to my readers to learn that I really love going to Thailand. It seems that I end up going there at least once to twice a year. The people there are friendly, food is cheap and the weather is lovely! What's not to like?

Me and my homeboy checking in at the hotel!

This is us wandering into the local village. Believe it or not, the coffee shop at the local village does some really nice pasta! They also have pesto sauce which isn't very common in HK.

Gerry - getting into the local spirit.

We stayed at the Marriott while in Phuket. One of the good things is that the resort hotel has a very good kids club with lots of activities. One of them was an ice lolly making activity from which you can see the results here.

Probably the only way that Gerry will eat cold food is if he made it himself!

Another picture from inside the kids club. They had a very small indoor playground which Gerry had some fun clambering around in.

Coming to America

2010-07-26T22:54:00.001+08:00

Wow - what a fortnight!

Two weeks ago, I was sunning myself in Phuket, Thailand (pictures to follow soon so keep tuned!). This was followed by a trip to Washington DC last week for a 2 day meeting. With the vagaries of international travel being what it is, I only got back to HK yesterday despite leaving Washington DC on Friday!

So, what did I make of my very first trip to the US?

TSA
Getting through customs in America really is as annoying as you have heard about. I'm not going to bother moaning about it too much here as my views on this are well known anyway. However, I think the border patrol guy at customs tried to catch me out in a lie!

After scanning my passport and asking a raft of questions, he asked me if I enjoyed my last trip to the US. The thing is - I've never been to the US before and I'm guessing he should have seen that when he scanned my passport. Naturally, I told him that I had never been to the US before but I can't help but wonder if I would still be in the US, locked away in a dark and dingy cell, if I had said anything else!

Streets
I knew about the street names in America before I went so this wasn't a surprise. Nonetheless, the European in me just can't get used to the way streets are named in the US.

In case you didn't know, streets in US cities are laid out in a classic Sim City grid. The first street is named 1st Street and the second street is named 2nd Street. Meanwhile, the streets running perpendicular to these are named A Street, B Street etc. As you can imagine, this makes it supremely easy to find your way around.

Having said that, while I love the ease of finding your way around, it does feel very artificial and manufactured. I guess its no surprise that The Matrix was made by Americans!
Zing!

Hot Dogs
The number of locations selling hot dogs is also unbelievable. Not sure if this is a symptom of the fact that I was walking around a tourist area but it felt like every couple of blocks, there was another street vendor selling hot dogs with an appropriate line of waiting customers, hungry for their processed meat and bread!

Chatty
Americans (or should that be DCians?) also seem to be incredibly chatty. They seem willing to chat about anything to anyone at the drop of a hat. While checking in to the hotel, it felt like the girl at the reception was trying to do a background check on me! Normally, I wouldn't mind but after a 20+ flight in economy class (the company wasn't willing to stump up the cash for business class tickets), the only thing I wanted to do was get to my room and crash.

And this isn't just the receptionist either. As another example, while on the metro, I noticed one of the passengers accidentally step on the bag of another passenger. After apologising profusely, the two people started to talk about what they had just bought and how it was a good deal!

Just feels so strange. In HK, if someone steps on your bag, they are more likely to give you the evil eye ("how dare you place your bag where I might step on it!!") before cursing at you and walking off!

Great day
They also seem to love saying "Have a great day!". On the metro, in hotels, in restaurants. And they say it with such passion as well - as if they really do want you to have a great day! Considering how friendly the general population appears to be, I wonder where they get custom agents from...
Zing!

Pictures

Not sure why but a lot of the buildings in downtown DC use this architectural style. When I showed the missus the pictures, she said it felt as if I had gone to Italy instead of DC. Didn't feel like I was in Italy at the time but there you go.

The Washington Memorial (or is it Washington Monument?) - one of the most instantly recognisable landmarks in DC. I've seen pictures of it before, but the pictures don't prepare you for the sheer size of the monument. That thing is frakking huge!

Also, as a Castle fan, I have to point out that in miniature souvenir form, this is also a deadly weapon!

A picture of the Lincoln Memorial taken from the National World War II memorial. Being the sad tourist that I am, I naturally went to the Lincoln Memorial and sat on the famous steps to take the below picture:

What can I say - its an iconic image!

Capitol Hill. Considering this is taken at night without a tripod, I'm fairly happy with the results. Also, the light at the top apparently means that congress is in session. Amazing what you can learn while on a business trip!

Measuring cost and benefit

2010-07-08T22:20:00.002+08:00

Quick question. What benefit do you (as in you personally) get from donating to charity?

If you answered "none", then you may be interested in reading articles like this one from Terry Savage who may have a similar mentality to yourself.

In brief, while in an "upscale neighborhood", the author drove past 3 children who had setup a lemonade stand. Upon finding out that the children were giving away the lemonade for free, she then proceeded to lecture the children about how they should charge for the lemonade in order to cover the cost of the lemonade. She then goes from this to extrapolate that the problem with the US is that people expect a "free lunch" which is demonstrated by the kids giving away lemonade.

Yes, really. No, I'm not making this up - you can read the article for yourself if you don't believe me.

My issue with the article (but with a major caveat which I'll go into later) is how badly she savages basic economic theory. In this case, the cost vs benefit comparison. The basic mistake being made is that she did an income vs expense comparison instead of doing a cost vs benefit comparison. Cost vs benefit isn't just about money and also takes into account other factors.

What other factors are there? Good question - lets do a lazy brain dump and see what I can come up with off the top of my head.

Cost
The author says that the children don't have a spirit of giving as they aren't giving away their own things - they are giving away their parents things. The problem is that this only applies if the parents don't know what the kids are doing. As an example, if I give some food to Gerry and he decides to share it with other people, I don't consider this as him giving away my stuff.

Also, assuming the parents gave the kids the ingredients and cups, then the monetary cost to the kids is zero. The cost vs benefit analysis of this to the parents is beyond the scope of this article...
:)

Benefit
Clearly the benefit to the children isn't just the amount of money for which they are selling the lemonade for. The biggest benefit which the children may be getting is the feel good factor from giving away lemonade. Maybe the kids view it as a form of charity. Maybe they view it as them giving back to the community (now, there's a novel thought - wanting to give something back to the community in which you live!). Heck - maybe they just view it as a way of practicing their lemonade making skills!

The reality is that there are lots of reasons for people to do things for free. It has long been established that money is not always a particularly great motivator (anyone with a business degree should be able to tell you that money is not a motivator in itself but a hygiene factor). If nothing else, the growth of wiki's and open source software should tell you that. And, just to tie this into the original question at the beginning of this post, the whole act of giving to charity (either with a cash donation or with volunteer work) is done with no expectation of monetary reward.

Bear in mind that this incident occurred in an "upscale neighborhood". For children living in an upscale neighborhood, lack of money may not be a particularly huge issue for them so you have to consider that they are getting some other benefit out of this.

Caveat
I think by now, I've established why I think the author made a mistake in saying that the kids should charge money for the lemonade. So what is this caveat that I mentioned earlier then?

The thing is - the author is a finance columnist and a published author of best-seller finance books. With that in mind, I find it hard to believe that she would make what seems to be such a basic mistake. I find it more likely that she wanted to make a comment on people expecting free government handouts and used this story as a lead in without really thinking about what she was saying.

Either that or she put the story in just to get people talking about her and her column. Dayamn! I think I just been played!

PS I just love her tagline at the end - And that's the Savage Truth!

Would you know if the person next to you is drowning?

2010-07-05T21:03:00.001+08:00

Read this post to find out.

In essence, if you were expecting a Hollywood style mad splashing and screaming then you probably wouldn't recognise someone drowning. The reality is that people who are drowning aren't able to scream or splash (for reasons which are fully explained in the article) and may simply look like they are treading water if you aren't paying attention.

Which is really useful for me to know particularly now that Gerry is learning to swim.

Granted, at the moment, Gerry doesn't spend any time in water in which he can't stand up. However, sooner or later, he is going to graduate to swimming in deeper water and at this point, it will be important to know how to spot the danger signs (did you know that people who drown tend to be swimmers as non-swimmers, like me, will avoid deep water).

Some of the people posting in the comments are former lifeguards and they posted some really great tips as well. I particularly like the Reach, Throw, Row, Go mnemonic. To quote his post:

"That translates to the preference of trying to assist the person with a reach (either just by hand from poolside or with a rescue crook or other long pole) first, a throwable flotation device (preferably on a line) second, then assisting with a boat, and only swimming out to provide manual assistance as a last resort."

Of course, if you aren't a proper lifeguard, then I guess the first thing you should do is scream for help at the top of your voice!

Lost opportunity for Brazil

2010-07-03T12:09:00.002+08:00

And there goes Brazil - knocked out of the World Cup at the quarter final stage. Which is a shame as I really thought that they had a good chance of winning it this year.

The strengths of this years Brazil team, as I saw it, were:
1) Good (but not great) defence
2) Great technical ability
3) Great counter-attacking speed and ability

Those three qualities put together are a dangerous combination. If you play counter-attacking football against them, then Brazil would simply sit back and pass the ball around while patiently probing your defence for a weakness. And with the technical quality of the Brazil squad, they were comfortable in keeping the ball and you could almost guarantee that they would eventually score.

On the other hand, if you attacked, their defence was good enough that they weren't easy to score against. Add in their ability to turn defence into attack at the drop of a coin and there was a real risk that you would leave space for Brazil to score.

In short, despite the scorn leveled against Dunga's style by Brazilian media, I thought they had the right way of playing to win. And, in fact, if you look at the way the game against Holland was shaping up, this was exactly what happened initially. Brazil were controlling the game and Holland found it difficult to get hold of the ball.

Unfortunately, it appears that there were two critical weaknesses in the Brazil squad. Firstly, the mentality appears a weakness as the squad seemed to fall apart after Melo's own goal.

The other weakness appears to be squad depth. Late in the game, when Brazil were a goal down, you looked at the bench and realised that Dunga didn't have any options in terms of bringing someone on to change the game. As it was, with Holland continuing to attack, they almost fell victim to Brazil on the counter.

All in all, I think this goes down as a lost opportunity for Brazil to win their sixth World Cup. Still, all credit to Holland for fighting to the end and winning.

Don't tase my granny!

2010-06-29T21:15:00.001+08:00

In a scene reminiscent of the infamous "Don't tase me, bro" incident, certain members of American law enforcement have now been accused of excessive force in tasering an 86 year old granny.

In brief, some old bed-ridden granny wasn't taking her medication so her grandson called emergency services. However, instead of a medical technician, over a dozen cops showed up and, after a couple of exchanges with the "aggressive" grandmother, decided to step on her oxygen hose until she began to suffer oxygen deprivation before tasering her twice (hence the line "Don't tase my granny!").

Hmmm.

Generally, I'm hesitant to post about incidents of police brutality because it can be hard to determine what really happened from just reading news reports. Very often, things come down to a "he said, she said" kind of situation where the "victim" is painting a picture of police brutality while the cops version of events justifies their actions. The reality is that both are probably exaggerating events to support themselves and, without a video as evidence, its impossible to determine exactly what happened (particularly if all you have are news reports).

However, in this particular case, a couple of facts seem to justify the claims of police brutality. From the article, the officer stepping on the oxygen hose and the tasering of the granny are in the police report so the fact that these happened isn't in contention.

Which leads me to question what an 86 year old bed-ridden granny could do that would justify that kind of response? I don't see anything in the news report which indicates that she physically assaulted the police officers. All it says is that she adopted an "aggressive posture" which I guess means that she verbally assaulted the police while looking angry? Maybe?

And even if she did physically attack, unless she was armed with a weapon, I find it hard to believe that a group of trained police officers would fear for their safety. Also, do you really need a taser to subdue an 86 year-old granny who is suffering from oxygen deprivation? Bear in mind that the taser is effectively sending bolts of electricity through her system which doesn't sound like a good idea for an 86 year old granny. Granted, the taser is classified as a non-lethal weapon but there is enough controvery surrounding this that you would think the cops would be more careful about its use.

French farce

2010-06-24T21:05:00.002+08:00

France have crashed out of the World Cup in humiliating fashion.

First off, I have to say that I'm not surprised that France went out in the group stage. Bear in mind, this was a team who went out of Euro 2008 in the group stage (and iirc, after scoring only 1 goal) and only barely managed to qualify for WC2010. In addition, it was well known beforehand that the players didn't particularly like or respect Domenech. Now throw in the fact that it was public knowledge that Blanc would take up the France manager role after WC2010. All in all, not exactly a great recipe for success.

So, as I said, not exactly a surprise to see them go out at the group stage. However, it is the manner in which the France team imploded which has really impressed me.

In case you weren't aware, Anelka (who isn't exactly known for being well behaved) went postal on Domenech after being subbed at half-time in a game which France went on to lose 2-0. His comments were leaked to the press and after a storm of bad publicity, Anelka was sent home in disgrace. At this point, Evra also decided to go postal (he was very upset at the "traitor" in the team who leaked the comments to the press) and got into an argument with one of the coaches. The end result of all this was Evra leading the players onto the team bus and the entire team refusing to train for a day.

Thats right - in the middle of the World Cup, one of the Worlds most prestigious sporting events, this bunch of "professional" footballers decided that they weren't going to train for a day. Tossers!

Maybe its because I can't stand to work with people who don't have a professional attitude but this kind of thing just staggers me. Regardless of what else is going on, you tossers have a job to do and to simply decide not to attend training because you are unhappy is outrageous.

Evra has said that he will hold a press conference (or something) where he will explain what exactly went wrong. I can't wait for this to happen so I can see exactly what kind of pathetic loser he is. I know I shouldn't pre-judge but I really don't see what possible justification he would be able to offer which would excuse his actions.

The thing that surprises me the most though is that, despite most of the press (rightly) blaming the players for this fiasco, a lot of comments on forums seem to blame either Domenech or the French FA. The rationale for this seems to be that Domenech should have been able to control his players or the FFA should have removed Domenech from control after realising that he had lost the respect of the players.

Whichigawa?

I can understand putting blame on Domenech or the FFA if you were only complaining about the poor performance of France, for example, if France had been tactically naive or the players had been clearly unmotivated on the pitch. However, for the players to decide not to train for a day - this is solely on the players.

At the end of the day, regardless of how the players feel about Domenech or the FFA, they are supposed to be professionals with a job to do. If they didn't want to do that job, they should never have gone to South Africa in the first place.

Gerry goes to Day Camp again - part three

2010-06-08T22:12:00.004+08:00

At last, we enter the final furlong of pictures taken from Gerry's latest Day Camp.

Out of all the activities available to the kids, there was one activity which was most popular by far. It had the longest queue but despite this, the kids were all willing to wait in order to have a go.

Here you can see Gerry on his way to queue up. Can you guess what the activity is from his mask?

This picture was taken just before it was his turn. That hat he is wearing should be a dead giveaway as to the activity.

That's right - horse riding!

Obviously, kids shouldn't be let loose on horses willy-nilly so the handler is there to make sure the horse doesn't get spooked. This is really quite a cool activity though and Gerry really enjoyed himself.

Alas, we weren't able to capture the full size of his grin. Still, I quite like this picture. I also can't help but wonder what the horse makes of all these tiny little people riding on his back.

Gerry goes to Day Camp again - part two

2010-06-03T21:20:00.001+08:00

One of the good things about Tai Tong Lychee Valley is that it had a pretty big outdoor play area where they had constructed a pretty impressive obstacle course and climbing rig.

Here you can see Gerry and myself on the top level. As you can see, the whole thing is made out of thick rope and planks of wood. As you walk across on the top, you have to make sure that you stand on the central rope otherwise you would fall off (and into the safety rope).

There was a bridge area where they had planks of wood instead of a rope for you to walk on. Unfortunately, there was a huge gap in the middle which proved extremely difficult for Gerry as he is still so small.

This is a picture of us climbing down the inside wall of the rig. The gap from the wooden platform to the wall of the rig was too big for Gerry to climb so I had to hold onto him with one arm while slowly climbing down.

The rig itself is built really well and has multiple entry and exit points. After climbing down the inside wall, I thought that I would be able to get a rest. Unfortunately, Gerry saw this climbing wall and immediately climbed back up into the rig.

Not wanting to face that one armed climb again, this is a picture of us wandering around inside the rig while looking for an alternate exit. At this point, we are just below the area where you saw us in the initial picture at the top of this post.

Gerry goes to Day Camp again - part one

2010-05-31T20:48:00.001+08:00

After all the fun that we had the last time that Gerry went to a day camp, we decided to enroll for another one. This time, Disney World of English took us to Tai Tong Lychee Valley which is out in the middle of Yuen Long. The place is much bigger than the Lavender Garden that we went to last time and has a lot more activities that you can take part in.

To start off, we had some group games where all of the kids (and there were a lot of them!) got involved in a game of running around and picking things up. Not quite sure why but I guess that's not the point...

Here you can see Gerry just after he has started. In case its not obvious, he was in the red team. To be honest, the game wasn't that well organised and chaos soon reigned as kids started to run off and do their own thing. Funny to watch though. :)

After the games, we split up and were allowed to do our own thing for a while. Here you can see Gerry feeding a goat. Despite looking really happy, he didn't actually feed the goat properly. What you were supposed to do is put the carrot on the palm of your hand and then let the goat eat out of your hand. Alas, Gerry was afraid that the goat would eat his hand instead which resulted in a lot of carrots strewn around the ground.

Gerry also got a chance to feed some rabbits. Being the cute cuddly animal that it is, Gerry wasn't afraid and got in really close. Brave kid.

This is us on a bull and cart just before we got underway. The bull itself is highly impressive. The driver of the cart speaks to the bull in cantonese (go left, go right, speed up, slow down etc) and the bull has been trained to respond. Wish I could get Gerry to do that...

We also got a chance to go fishing for goldfish which was fun as this was something I'd never done before. Although we managed to catch several goldfish, we threw them all back as we really didn't want to take them home with us. Gerry had lots of fun though which is the key thing anyway.

Gerry and the new bike

2010-05-25T21:42:00.006+08:00

You may recall that, way back in October 2007, we bought Gerry a new trike. Well, after 2 and a bit years, Gerry has now grown big enough for a real bike!

Or rather, a real bike but with training wheels aka trike.

It actually took him a while to get used to the fact that he could no longer backpedal to go in reverse.
:)

His new bike is too big to ride in the house so naturally, we took him downstairs to the clubhouse for him to ride around.

Look at that action shot! Just like those pictures of racing cars! If only I had gotten my fat lazy ass lower...

And now for something completely different.

Gordon! I've been neglecting him on this blog lately so here are a couple of pictures to tide you over.

Ever since Gordon has started walking, he has lost a lot of his baby fat. Of course, regular exercise also helps!

Gerry and the cookie monster

2010-05-21T20:24:00.005+08:00

Its been ages since I uploaded any pics of Gerry so I guess its time for another photo binge.

Back in April, when the weather in HK was still relatively cold, we decided that it would be fun to do a bit of home baking. Gerry loves to eat cookies (and often has to buy one if he passes by a Mrs. Fields!) so we thought it would be fun to bake some choc chip cookies at home. Particularly as cookies are the kind of thing which even kids can help make!

Here is a picture of Gerry mixing during the initial stages of making the cookie dough. At this point, we hadn't added the egg yet so the mixture was very stiff and Gerry had difficulty mixing.

After we added the egg though, things got a lot easier as you can see from this video.

Part of the reason that we chose to make cookies was because we found this little store in Tsuen Wan which sells lots of baking goods. While we were there browsing, we noticed that they had a really cute set of Disney themed cookie cutters.

Here you can see the results of the cookie cutters (but before we actually started baking).

And here you can see the finished product! Looks a little burnt round the edges but I'm sure it will taste okay...

Either way, Gerry seems pleased with his handiwork...

... as well as the taste!

Shutter Island

2010-05-17T22:03:00.001+08:00

Wow - two movie reviews in a row! Before you know it, I'll be a regular Ebert! Or not.

Anyway, this is spoiler free so even if you haven't seen it, you can feel free to read on.

Anyway, I was over in Singapore to visit family recently and on the way back, one of the movies on the plane was Shutter Island. Shutter Island is a psychological thriller by legendary director Martin Scorsese with an interesting twist at the end. Thinking back, the twist isn't really that surprising so if you are expecting a twist ending then you could probably guess what it is. Luckily, I didn't know anything about this film before I saw it so the twist caught me by surprise.

In brief, the plot of the movie involves a US Marshall (played really well by Leonardo Dicaprio - I have a new found respect for his acting talent after this movie) travelling to a mental institute housing criminally insane patients on an island in the middle of nowhere. The US Marshall is there because one of the inmates has mysteriously vanished from her cell. However, the US Marshall himself seems to suffer from flashbacks (to when he was a soldier in WWII) and delusions (constantly seeing images of dead people). Before long, events take a sinister turn and the US Marshall has to race to uncover the conspiracy on the Island before he gets locked away as an inmate.

Granted - not exactly an original plotline. However, what really makes this film stand out though is the brilliant way in which Scorsese slowly builds up the suspense and drama. The cinematography in this film is brilliant and even simple actions are done with panache and style. In particular, the switches of viewpoint from the real world to Dicaprio's delusional world are made with no warning and handled brilliantly. At times, you can tell immediately that Dicaprio is in his delusional world. At other times, Scorsese hides the switch so well that you just aren't sure what you are watching.

Watching films like this, you really understand why Scorsese is considered a legend in his field. If you haven't seen this movie, you really owe it to yourself to check it out.

Iron Man 2

2010-05-10T20:26:00.002+08:00

Round about this time two years ago, I went and saw Iron Man with the missus on a whim and really liked it. At the time, I said that I couldn't wait for the sequel. Given that, will you be surprised to learn that I watched Iron Man 2 over the weekend?

Having watched Iron Man 2, I have to say that although I enjoyed the movie, I felt that the first movie was better. In fact, both the missus and I preferred the first Iron Man enough that we went out and bought it on DVD so that we could immediately rewatch it for comparison!

One of the "issues" I had with the first film was that I felt there wasn't enough Iron Man time in the movie. This was a result of the first film being an origin movie so they clearly had to spend a fair amount of time showing how the Iron Man armor is built. Unfortunately, even with the second movie, there isn't a whole lot of time spent in the suit.

Or rather, there isn't a whole lot of time spent fighting in the suit. There are loads of scenes where Stark is wearing the suit with the helmet up (during which time he may or may not be boozing!). Which is a shame as I would have loved to have seen some more of the Iron Man armor in action. Having said that, I have to admit that Robert Downey Jr does a really good job as Tony Stark and his performance really saves the film from being a drag.

Overall, if you enjoyed the first movie, then I think you will enjoy this one as well.

The Sex Squad

2010-05-04T21:17:00.001+08:00

A quick post today as I'm too busy laughing at this entry in boingboing to formulate any coherent thoughts. Basically, there is a sex education game available on some government website. The game itself takes the form of a Q&A where you "lose" if you get the answers wrong.

First off, the usual caveats. I haven't actually gone into the site itself and my comments here are based only on the article in boingboing. Having said that, there was enough content in the article itself to put me into fits of laughter. Without going into how effective such a juvenile seeming approach is going to be in targeting teens, I can't believe the design for the members of the squad.

First off, you have Captain Condom. From the graphic, it looks like the Captain is wearing a condom on his head. I guess that makes him a ....

Sorry, I couldn't complete the joke. It was just too obvious and such a cheap shot - even for me.

The second member of the squad is a buxom blonde called Wonder Vag. Despite the name, Wonder Vag is a virgin while Power Pap is the girl who is sexually active.

One last thing before I breakdown completely. If you get the answers wrong, you get treated to bukkake as the Sperminator (the bad guy with penises for arms!) hits the player with sperm who then comments "Argh, right in the face".

Vote of confidence

2010-04-29T20:27:00.002+08:00

Rafa Benitez is apparently complaining about the lack of public support from Liverpool leadership. Which I find highly amusing for a couple of reasons.

First, Rafa "guaranteed" that Liverpool would finish fourth. The reality is that Liverpool aren't going to get fourth and may even end up in seventh place. Frankly, for a club of Liverpool's stature, that is execrable. I'm not placing too much blame on Rafa for this as I know Liverpool don't have strength in depth and really suffered with injuries this year. However, he has to know that his head is on the block considering his earlier "guarantee".

Secondly, did he seriously just ask his boss for the dreaded vote of confidence?

HK school system

2010-04-23T22:51:00.002+08:00

The missus and I attended a talk today organised by the Kindergarten that Gerry goes to. The talk was an opportunity for parents to share their experience of the process that they went through in getting a place in a primary school for their kids and how they went about preparing their kids for the interview. In a brilliant example of effective knowledge sharing, I have to admit that I really learned a lot today.

If you know me, then you will know that in the past, I wasn't particularly fond of the school system in Hong Kong. In fact, I used to think that the person who devised the Hong Kong school system deserved to die. However, after attending today's talk, I no longer believe this.

Instead, now that I understand the requirements a bit better, I wish that he is slowly digested over a thousand years as he finds a new definition of pain and suffering.

Lifehacker plug

2010-04-19T20:41:00.004+08:00

One of the links on my blog (on the right hand side of the screen) is a link to Lifehacker. Lifehacker is a blog which focuses on tips, hacks and shortcuts for working and playing smarter and more efficiently.

As you can imagine with such a site, there are loads of tech tips and plenty of tips which I have taken on board and use. Granted, not every tip on the site is good as sometimes recommendations will be based on what is popular. However, there is enough good stuff there that I ensure that I read the titles of all tips just to see if anything useful comes up. Which makes me surprised to find that I haven't actually blogged about lifehacker till now.

Anyway, a post went up on lifehacker talking about ways to access blocked sites. Particularly relevant considering that just last week, I talked about how I don't watch much TV anymore. This is a great post which shows why I read lifehacker on a daily basis. It also illustrates perfectly why so many people are dumping TV.

In a nutshell, as broadband gets more and more pervasive, it will allow people to access content in a manner convenient to the user. The old business models adopted by the old media moguls will no longer work in the new world and it will be a case of adapt or die (or lobby to get a government granted monopoly). Power is shifting to the user and increasingly, it is companies that know how to do business in a world where information is abundant which will thrive.

And yes, I probably have been reading too much techdirt.

I'm a cord-cutter

2010-04-15T21:50:00.003+08:00

Apparently, along with about 800,000 households in the US, I'm a cord-cutter.

I haven't watched the TV in ages. I don't know exactly how long ago this was but at some point in the past, I decided that TV was not worth watching. Not because there were no shows worth watching (although I will admit that there is a lot of dross) but because trying to watch TV was an exercise in frustration. The main reason I stopped watching TV was that it was just too difficult to keep up.

The problem is that most shows these days tend to have a lot of continuity. If you start watching in the middle of a season, then you generally have no idea what is going on, what the relationships between the characters is or why you should care when someone dies. Unfortunately, with my work and life schedule, there was just no way that I could ensure that I would be able to keep up with the show and it was frustrating to know that I missed an episode.

By the way, I actually think the move towards more serialised shows is a good thing as it can mean a better and more coherent show if done properly. The problem is how to keep following the show when you can't be certain of catching the next episode. In the past, I didn't have a solution and simply ended up not watching any TV at all. It wasn't as if I had no other forms of entertainment.

However, with the rise of broadband and the interwebz, it has become much easier to watch TV shows online. Not only can I ensure that I don't miss an episode, but I can watch the show whenever I want! Now that I'm used to on-demand viewing, I just can't see myself going back.

If anything, I'm surprised that more households haven't cut the cord yet.

Lin Yu Chun

2010-04-08T21:10:00.004+08:00

As a rule, I don't watch any of the numerous talent shows on TV. Most of the time, its just a parade of talentless plebs debasing themselves for the amusement of others. I guess this also explains their popularity...

Anyway, I have to admit that, once in a while, someone with real talent will show up and blow away the audience and viewers at home. Of course, the cynic in me believes that anything half way decent looks great as its surrounded by a mountain of crap.
:D

The latest sensation to make its way around the interwebz is the Taiwanese kid Lin Yu Chun. You can hear him singing "I will always love you" in the video below and regardless of my comments before, you have to admit that he does have an impressive voice.

PS In the interest of full disclosure, I do have to admit that unlike most reality TV shows, talent shows do at least have some value. At the very least, they give people with talent a chance to show that talent to a worldwide audience that they otherwise would never have gotten. Lets face it, people like Paul Potts and Susan Boyle would never have gotten record deals if it hand't been for talent shows.

Hammers deserve to go down

2010-04-01T21:59:00.001+08:00

Several months ago, I posted about how McCarthy and Wolves got the short end of the stick when they were penalised for fielding a "weakened" team against Man Utd. As sure as night follows day, the inevitable consequences of that decision are now being seen.

West Ham United are preparing a complaint against Fulham for fielding a "weakened" team against Hull City. Both HC and WHU are in danger of being relegated from the premiership and WHU are pissed that HC got a relatively easy 3 points by beating a weakened Fulham.

Anyway, before I get into this - the usual caveat. I didn't watch the HC vs Fulham game and nor do I know anything about it. Quite frankly, it wasn't on my radar. The only thing I know about this situation is what is written in the article which I linked to above.

However, the complaint itself seems to stem from the fact that Fulham made 6 changes to the squad including the removal of 3 key players. Seriously? This is the basis for WHU lodging a complaint?

Bear in mind that Fulham have been playing 2 games a week (one at the weekend and one during mid-week) since the first weekend in March and that this looks set to continue for most of April. Is WHU seriously suggesting that the top 11 players at Fulham should be playing every one of those games? What is the fricking point in having a squad of players if you get penalised for using them (and lets face it, if you don't rotate your squad when you are playing 2 games a week for over a month, when are you going to rotate them!)?

To be fair to WHU, the financial consequences to WHU (or any club for that matter) going out of the premiership is pretty dire. Even so, this just reeks of desperation by a club that knows they are in trouble. It is also the inevitable consequence of Wolves getting penalised by the PLB (bunch of plonkers!) last time around. In short, yes - I am blaming the PLB for this whole sorry state of affairs.

Anyway, I seriously hope WHU get relegated from the premiership. If that happens, I'm going to buy a beer and have a real good laugh at their expense.

Wil Wheaton rocks PAX East 2010

2010-03-29T21:33:00.001+08:00

I've blogged in the past about how Wil Wheaton is a really funny writer. However, having now watched him deliver a very impressive keynote speech for PAX East 2010, I also have to admit that he is a great orator (and someone who really knows how to connect with a geek audience).

Probably a bit late to say this but if you aren't a gamer, don't click on the above links. :)

Anyway, PAX stands for Penny Arcade Expo and its an annual gaming convention in the US where people get together for a long weekend to celebrate videogames, RPGs, card games, board games and all things geek. It was started several years ago by the people behind Penny Arcade (hence the name) and has grown so big that they had to run an extra Expo on the East Coast.

Wil had done a really good keynote speech at PAX 2007 (which you can hear here - no video unfortunately) and he was invited to give the keynote speech at the inaugural PAX East 2010. And, just as with his keynote in 2007, he really knocks it out of the park.

What really resonated with me in his speech was when he talks about his earliest memories of playing video games with his friends. As a person, I really don't dwell on the past much and have a very poor memory of my childhood. All I can really remember are odd bits and pieces (contrast this with my wife who has an excellent memory and can remember large stretches of her childhood). You can also see this in play when reading my blog - I very rarely talk about my past.

However, in looking back at my posts where I do talk about my past, one thing becomes clear. Whenever I think of my childhood, the memory tends to include either a video game or a roleplaying game. Nice huh!

Morning person

2010-03-26T19:01:00.001+08:00

This is an interesting article.

It basically details the thoughts of someone who experimented for a month by waking up at 5:00am. Even though he went to bed early as well, he found that he was able to accomplish a lot more by having more time in the mornings. He offers several reasons why this is the case (such as less interruptions) but one thing really stood out for me.

He mentions that he rarely gets stuff done in the evenings because he is tired from working during the day. Thinking back to my own lifestyle, this is absolutely true for me as well. Regardless of what time I leave the office or how busy I actually was, there is a psychological element in my brain which makes me just want to vegetate after leaving the office. Ultimately, this makes it hard to focus and motivate myself to do productive stuff (like going to the gym or upskilling myself).

Of course, the real question is whether I can do the same and move to an early wake up time as well. Unfortunately, the answer in my case is no (but possibly not for the reasons you expect).

The biggest issue with "early to bed, early to rise" for me isn't the kids, or the missus or my social life or anything like that. All of that stuff can be controlled to an extent. The problem is that it will kill my X360 time.

At the moment, my X360 time starts after 10pm which is when Gordon generally goes to sleep in the evenings. At this point, I finally get the living room and can turn on the TV and X360 and get some gaming time in before going to bed. If I goto bed at 10pm, then I would obviously lose this time. So why not play in the mornings instead?

The issue is that Gordon tends to wake up around 5:00 or 6:00am (time seems to vary a bit). What this means is that even if I go to bed at 10pm and wake up at 5am, I'm not going to get any time on the X360 as Gordon will also be up and about. Currently, I just don't see any way around this as giving up my X360 time completely or relegating it to one evening a week is not an option.

Still, its an interesting idea and judging from the comments in the above blog post, it looks like a lot of other people have also tried, and had success, with this approach.

Gordon, Gerry and some delish grub

2010-03-22T20:50:00.005+08:00

At last, some more pictures of the family!

Alas, despite the above opener, this isn't actually a picture of Gerry. Rather, this is a picture by Gerry. The kid you see behind us is some random kid who was passing by at the time and decided to be naughty.

Actually, I think this is a really good picture considering that it was taken by a 4 year old. Both the missus and I are in the middle of the frame. You can also see the cat statue behind us and the camera is also focused properly as well. All in all, not bad!

A rare family photo. It's really hard to take family photo's with Gordon. In addition to this one, we have approx 20 gazillion other ones where either Gerry or Gordon (or both!) are looking in different directions.

A close-up of Gordon. If you are wondering what he is looking at, its probably the cheesecake. "What cheesecake?", I hear you ask.

This cheesecake!

Here you can see Gerry taking full advantage of his filial right to eat some of his mummy's portion. Still, at least he liked it!

Digital actors

2010-03-18T21:40:00.000+08:00

One of the things which impresses me immensely is the quality of digital actors in video games. The improvement in quality in just a short couple of years has been incredible and is particularly noticeable when you compare the digital actors in a game like Mass Effect with Mass Effect 2 which only came out a year or two later. However, good as they are, they are still nowhere near as good as a real actor.

The reason I'm talking about this is mainly due to Chuck and Mass Effect 2. Or to be more precise, one of the common links between the two - Yvonne Strahovski. Yvonne plays the role of Sarah Walker in Chuck and is also the face and voice of Miranda Lawson in the video game Mass Effect 2.

In the comments on the last post, I mentioned that I thought Yvonne had done a decent, but not great, job as a voice actress in ME2. However, after posting this, I thought about it a bit more to analyse what exactly I didn't like and I came to a realisation. The problem wasn't that Yvonne's voiceover wasn't good - it was that the digital actor wasn't as good as her own acting ability.

You see, I was actually watching the second season of Chuck at around the same time as I was playing ME2. As one of the main characters in Chuck, Yvonne gets a lot of screentime and I actually think that she is a really good actress. This shines through in Chuck in how she stands, little glances and facial expressions that she has. In my opinion, she has a great ability to show emotion and express herself and her feelings through her body language, facial expression etc.

However, the quality of digital acting (good as it is in ME2) is just not on the same level as a real actor. What this means is that the character of Miranda Lawson in ME2 doesn't come close to showing the same range of emotion and expression that Yvonne is able to pull off. And when you consider that Miranda looks and sounds like Yvonne, I found that I wasn't able to evaluate Miranda as a character without thinking of Sarah Walker.

Which is really unfair to Yvonne's voiceover.

Anyway, the upshot of all this is that I jumped onto YouTube and watched a stack of videos of Miranda Lawson cutscenes. After listening to her voiceover a bit more carefully (and closing my eyes so I wasn't distracted by Miranda's face or ass), I have to revise my original opinion.

Yvonne has done a really good job.

Chuck

2010-03-15T20:36:00.001+08:00

On a recommendation from my brother, I recently started to watch Chuck. I've currently seen the first 2 seasons and so far, I have to say that the recommendation was a good one.

The show itself is about a geek who somehow ends up with all of the CIA and NSA secrets downloaded into his brain. More importantly, the government computer which initially housed those secrets has been destroyed so the only recourse for the government is to recruit Chuck (the aforementioned geek) as a secret agent. Episodes generally revolve around Chuck undertaking various missions with his two handlers and ultimately saving the day, despite initially bungling things due to lack of experience and training.

If the setup seems fantastical, then don't worry about it as the show is an action-comedy as opposed to a straight up drama.

Which in itself is an interesting approach. Unlike other American comedy shows, Chuck doesn't have a lot of LOL moments (although they are there). The humour in Chuck tends to be a lot more subtle and in the form of parody or nods to other popular culture. To be fair, I don't have a lot of exposure to American comedy but the impression I have is that American comedy tends to be much more "in your face".

I guess the premise for the show is one which really fits my interest profile. The basic idea of geek gone good is one which really works (although I tend to think of myself as more of a nerd than a geek - not really cool enough to be a geek) and instantly adds easy relatability to the show. Then there's the fact that I've always loved Bond movies and Chuck certainly takes a few parody pot shots at Bond as well as other spy cliches.

Anyway, if you watch the show, its worth sticking with it past the first season which, in my opinion, was a bit slow as there wasn't much of an overarching plot or storyline. However, things pick up in the second season when a bit more continuity is added without sacrificing the shows mission of the week approach. Personally, I prefer serialised TV shows which have that ongoing story arc (I also loved Battlestar Galactica) as the story is ultimately richer for it.

Oh, one last thing - Yvonne Strahovski as the eye candy? Nice!!

Darth Vader rides into battle

2010-03-05T20:51:00.001+08:00

Anything I can say would just diminish from the awesomeness of this photo so all I will say is - check out this picture of Darth Vader riding into battle.

Why isn't this attempted murder?

2010-03-02T21:34:00.001+08:00

It's been a while since I posted something in the Not Cool category so I guess its time to correct that. I read this article today in The Standard (a free english language newspaper in HK which is very good as it contains a lot of local news).

The short version is that the grandson of a tycoon stole money from his grandmother by conning her out of her insurance payments (he told her he made the insurance payments on her behalf and then got her to pay that money to him instead of to the insurance company). When the grandmother wanted to terminate one of her policies and get the money out, he drove her to a carpark and then beat her with an iron bar and tried to strangle her. Luckily, the grandmother managed to break free and was effectively saved by a couple of people passing by.

The article says that the grandson admitted one count of wounding and six counts of theft. The case is currently adjourned for sentencing so I have no idea what the punishment will be. However, from the article, it sounds like the grandson is only considered as guilty of wounding and theft and I guess that any punishment will be on that basis.

What I don't understand is why this wasn't considered an attempted murder case. From the article, it doesn't appear as if any of the facts are in question. If that's the case, then it sounds as if the grandson deliberately, and with premeditation, tried to kill the grandmother (I mean, he hit her with a 30 centimeter iron bar and tried to strangle her!). Granted - the premeditation may only have occured at the time the grandmother told him that she wanted to terminate one of her policies (which happened in 2007) but considering that the attack occurred in August 2008, it seems like he had plenty of time to plan the attack.

Lets just recap the key facts as I see them as based on that article (with some additional comment in brackets). He found out in 2007 that the grandmother wanted to terminate one of the policies. In August 2008 (at least a time period of 7 months afterwards), he drove her to a carpark (fewer witnesses?). He took an iron bar from the trunk (and really, how many people have iron bars in the trunk of their car on a normal basis?) and beat her with it. He also tried to strangle her (and may have succeeded if it weren't for some people passing by).

What do you think - does that sound like a premeditated murder attempt?

Toyota in the doghouse

2010-02-25T21:13:00.001+08:00

Looking back at my blog, I'm actually surprised that I haven't talked before about the problems which Toyota have recently been facing. When the initial incident with Lexus exploded in the news after the 911 recording came to light, things looked bad for Toyota. But to be honest, at the time, I thought that it was likely a one off incident given Toyota's track record for quality (when I say one off incident, I mean that I thought it was only limited to the Lexus).

And then the issues around the brakes on the Prius started to surface. At this point, I have to admit that I was really glad that I had bought a Honda. With so many safety incidents involving different Toyota models, I can't help but think that, for either poor engineering or poor design or any other reason, the problem seems to be with Toyota itself rather than with a particular model of car. And if this is the case, then its likely that a lot of their other cars are going to have problems crop up sooner or later (if I was really cynical, I might even think that those problems have already cropped up but have been ignored by Toyota as they haven't gotten much media attention yet).

As you probably already know, Congress in the USA appear to be casting their eye over the recent troubles with Toyota. While doing my daily trawl of news, I came across this video on The Consumerist of an owner describing her near brush with death in a Lexus way back in 2006. Her account of her experience is really scary - not just with how close she came to death but also with how casually Toyota seem to have treated the problem.

At this stage, I should give the usual caveats. I have no idea if she is telling the truth and I have no idea if the incident really occured the way she described (for example, she may have panicked and not really have an idea of what she did or didn't do). All I have to go on is the news and what you see in that video.

However, looking at her in that video, it seems to me like her story has the ring of truth to it. Bear in mind, this isn't an isolated incident. There appear to have been many complaints about this issue from many people and a lot of the complaints seem to run in a similar vein. Also, although I'm sure she would have been terrified, I don't think she completely panicked as she had enough sense of mind to call her husband (this is based on my guess that if I panicked in a situation like that, I wouldn't be able to do anything other than wrestle with the car).

All in all, a real black eye for Toyota. The big 3 US auto companies must be laughing their asses off by now.

Lounging around in Phuket - part 2

2010-02-22T21:39:00.005+08:00

Some more pictures of our recent trip to Thailand.

We actually let Gerry attend two of the cookie making classes. This is Gerry from the following day eating his second batch of cookies. Considering how much he enjoyed making the cookies, maybe I should buy some cookie cutters myself!

After eating his cookies, he finally comes to me for a photo op. For some reason, he tends to avoid me when he has cookies that he doesn't want to share. Can't think why...

One of the better activities which the kids club ran was a kids mocktail class. This was really fun for Gerry as he was allowed to put a mix of orange juice, apple juice, lime juice, syrup, green colouring and ice into the cocktail mixer before giving it a good shake.

Here you can see him with his finished drink. No idea what its called though!

Somehow, at some point while he was in Phuket, Gerry managed to get hold of his own personal laptop. Not sure but I think he may be surfing the web here!

Lounging around in Phuket - part 1

2010-02-18T21:37:00.004+08:00

Sawasdee and Gong Xi Fa Cai!

Back from a week long holiday in Phuket, Thailand with the missus and Gerry. Got back just in time to share in the chilly Chinese New Year weather in Hong Kong. The weather in Phuket was lovely with brilliant blue skies and not a rain cloud or cold weather front in sight. Boy do I wish I was still there.

Ah well, que sera sera.

We stayed in one of the serviced apartments in the Marriott resort hotel and as such, spend most of our time there. Every day was pretty much spent swimming, watching DVDs (which we borrowed from the Kids Club) or hanging around in the Kids Club watching Gerry play. All in all, a great holiday!

One of the activities in the kids club was a Kids Yoga class. This was actually quite interesting to watch as Gerry would try and contort his body to follow the instructor. Towards the end though, he just gave up and stood there watching.

Some downtime for me. :)

Some downtime for the missus (watching TV in the Kids Club with Gerry). That beanbag doesn't look big enough to be super comfy though.

Another cookie making class! This wasn't as much fun as the one by Disney that Gerry went to while back. Also, we weren't able to get all the cookies that Gerry made as the cooking was all done in the main hotel kitchen without any labels to identify which cookie belonged to which kid. Still, it was free so I guess I can't really complain.

A simple meal of pasta in chicken soup with some pan grilled sausages (with some cooked fresh veggies just out of shot). One of the simple home cooked meals that we made for Gerry while we were there. The advantage of staying in the serviced apartments is that we could prepare some simple home cooked food for Gerry which was quite a big consideration for us in deciding where to go.

Scott McCarron

2010-02-08T21:26:00.002+08:00

For those who follow PGA Tour golfing, you would know that, last week, Scott McCarron kicked off a storm of controversy by accusing Phil Mickelson of cheating (although he has now apologised for doing so). In essence, wedges with square grooves are no longer allowed in PGA Tour golf. However, due to a loophole arising from a court case, a 20 year old Ping wedge with square grooves is allowed. Phil Mickelson took advantage of this loophole and used the old Ping wedge.

In an interview, Scott was asked what he thought of players like Phil using the old Ping wedges. Scott basically replied "It's cheating and I am appalled Phil has put it in play." This caused a shitstorm of controversy in the golf world and a couple of days later, after "careful contemplation", Scott McCarron came out with a new statement basically saying that he stands by his previous comments but that he never called Phil a cheater.

Yeah.

A couple of points before I get into this. I don't follow golf so I don't know much about this issue or the people involved. I only noticed it as the headline of the article in the paper was "I won't be silenced, says McCarron" which is a good headline in that it made me think it was related to civil rights. As this was in the sports section of the newspaper, which isn't the normal place for articles regarding civil rights, it piqued my interest which resulted in me reading the article which also goes to prove how important a good headline is.

Anyway, considering that the loophole allows the use of the old Ping wedges, how does that count as cheating? Let me put that in a different way - NO RULES ARE BEING BROKEN. Sure, you could try to argue that its slimy and that it isn't in the "spirit" of the game, but that's completely different from cheating. And if Scott had left it there, I would probably have nothing to talk about. His initial response was in an interview and in a situation like that, he could well have used words that he didn't really intend as a result of his passion about the issue.

However, what I found hilarious is that after "two days of contemplation", he actually had the gall to come out and say that he stands by his previous comments and that he didn't actually accuse Phil Mickelson of cheating. Really?

Lets revisit what he said.

When asked what he thought of Phil and other players using the old Ping wedges, Scott's response was "It's cheating [emphasis added] and I am appalled Phil has put it in play". Now, to be fair, reporters can sometimes be evil/lazy (yeah - I went there!) and you can't always trust what they write. Also, to be fair, I'm not an expert in the English language. But unless Scott is being misquoted, that really sounds like he just labelled Phil and a bunch of other players as cheats.

Considering he is making this statement a couple of days after the interview, he no longer has the excuse of being put on the spot in an interview situation. In fact, his statement just makes him sound like a moron (or does he think we're morons?). As far as I can tell, he very clearly labelled anyone using the old Ping wedges as cheaters and I would love to hear any kind of argument otherwise.

Anyway, as I mentioned above, Scott McCarron has now apologised for his comments so I guess that's the end of this particular controversy.

Also, I'm a little surprised that a professional golf player and 16 year Tour veteran would be a scrub.

My movie "review" methodology

2010-02-04T21:29:00.001+08:00

So, in my last post, I gave a link to a 70 minute video review of The Phantom Menace. Part of the reason for that was because I saw Avatar (in 4D no less!).

First off, I should mention that I really enjoyed watching Avatar. I thought it was a good movie with some great visuals although it was a bit heavy handed with the "commercialism is bad" message. Also, judging from the headache that I got as I came out of the movie theatre, I can guarantee that I won't be watching a lot of 3D movies.

And that is pretty much the extent of any "review" that I generally do for movies. You see, I don't do movie reviews because I don't like to analyse movies and movie plots. In many ways, I'm the perfect hollywood target as, when I go to watch a "summer blockbuster" movie, it only needs to get three things right:

1) Characters that are reasonable enough that I can suspend disbelief
2) Plot that is reasonable enough that I can suspend disbelief
3) Some great action/special effects set pieces that go well with popcorn

You can see from the above that I am already doing my best to help the movie by willingly trying to suspend disbelief. The movie doesn't need great character or a great plot - as long as there is enough there that I can suspend disbelief, then I will probably enjoy the movie. I should add that I do enjoy good characters and plot - I just don't need them in order to enjoy a movie.

In the case of Phantom Menace, I hated some of the characters, which is a real problem when those characters are major plot characters, and felt the plot was ridiculous. This is why, despite a tick against point 3, I was disappointed with Phantom Menace overall. However, in Avatar, it gets just enough right that it ticks off all 3 above although it goes without saying that your mileage will vary depending on what you consider reasonable character and plot.

Review of Phantom Menace (not by me)

2010-02-02T21:00:00.001+08:00

As you all know, I'm a huge Star Wars fan. I loved the original trilogy and, even now, can probably retell the story of the original trilogy at a moments notice. It goes without saying that I have the original trilogy on DVD and used to have them on VHS as well.

Unfortunately, as with many Star Wars fans, I wasn't particularly impressed with The Phantom Menace or the new trilogy in general, although I will admit that I kinda liked the third movie. The biggest indicator of my lack of interest is that I have no compulsion to buy the new trilogy - at all. For me, the only thing that makes Phantom Menace worth rewatching is the special effects and lightsaber combat scenes and that just ain't worth spending money on (although maybe I should buy them anyway so I have a copy of the movies before George Lucas makes them even worse by re-editing them).

Anyway, back to the point. For myself, I just didn't like the characters (absolutedly hated Jar Jar and "Ani") and felt the storyline, and the ending in particular, was just ridiculous. However, beyond that, I've never been able to really articulate why the movie didn't resonate with me.

Now I can.

I can't believe that I've only just come across this but this is by far the best review of Phantom Menace that I've seen so far. The review itself lasts 70 minutes so its really detailed and it does wander off into ... strange ... territory occasionally. However, I couldn't help but find myself constantly nodding my head in agreement as I was watching it.

The iPad

2010-01-28T21:12:00.002+08:00

With all the hullaballoo surrounding the announcement of the new iPad, I thought I would add to all the noise by putting my own thoughts out there. By the way, if you haven't heard about the iPad yet, then just think of it as the next piece of fancy technology that everyone will be surprised that I don't have...

That's right - just to make my position clear up front - I have no intention of getting the iPad. Frankly, at this moment in time, it looks like a giant iPod Touch (which I had no interest in either). Don't get me wrong - I think it looks like a really nice piece of kit and, judging from comments by techgeek friends that they couldn't wait to buy one despite not actually knowing what they would use it for, I'm guessing that it will probably be a commercial success.

The problem for me is nicely outlined in this article (which I found via Techdirt - luv that site!). In brief, like some of Apple's other products, the iPad is a closed system - which for me is a major deal killer. Bear in mind, I didn't like that the iPhone used a closed system either but that was just a smartphone. It seems like the iPad is being pitched as a possible alternative to PCs, in particular netbooks, and there is no way in hell that I am going to accept a closed platform for something like that. If nothing else, the whole issue with Google Voice on the iPhone convinces me that using a closed system is just not consumer friendly.

And when you factor in that the initial iPad won't be able to multi-task? Seriously? Considering that the basic price point is US$499 (and that only gives you a wifi enabled iPad), I might as well just get a netbook.

One last point. I found this article to be really entertaining. The guy seems to believe that the iPad will end up killing off the PC. Yeah. Lets just say that I suspect the PC will still be around in 5 years whereas the iPad will be dead in its second (killed off by the second generation iPad to be released next year!!!).

All joking aside, the author in that article is trying to say that the tablet computer as an idea means the death of PCs and the iPad is worth singling out due to the popularity surrounding it (and for which other tablets haven't managed to gain). In my opinion, if you want to use this argument, you may as well say that the Star Trek franchise killed off the PC when it introduced the PADD and got people thinking about tablet PCs in the first place.

Here's a prediction for you.

Tablet PCs (and stuff like the iPad if you don't want to think of it as a Tablet) won't ever kill off the PC - it will just change the way we interact with it. The problem is that by trading in the small form factor of the Tablet, you give up the major processing power which the desk based PC gives you. Even as technology improves and we miniaturize more powerful chips, this only means that the desk based PC will either be even more powerful still or, if it has the same power, more budget friendly (due to it not needing such advanced manufacturing techniques). The only way that I can see you getting around this is if processing power eventually gets to the stage where we no longer need more of it (although I will be the first to admit that I'm no expert on this and am probably way off base).

In my opinion, what is more likely is that we will eventually get to a stage where bandwidth won't be an issue and everyone is permanently online via some kind of wireless system. By then, Tablets will just become dumb terminals which are used to wirelessly access your PC regardless of where it is physically stored (that or some form of cloud processing). This gives you the small form factor of a Tablet while still having major processing power.

And that is something I would love to see!

Update: Scott Adams nailed it in terms of my reaction to the iPad.

Gerry and Gordon - around the home

2010-01-25T22:29:00.003+08:00

Just some random pictures of Gerry and Gordon around the home.

Gordon doesn't smile as much as he used to when he was a baby but when he does - boy does he know how to smile!

Another lucky picture that we managed to get in the millisecond that he is smiling.

And just in case Gerry feels excluded, here is a picture of him ROFLMAO. Not sure what was so funny though...

Awwwww - ain't that just the sweetest thing you ever did see?

There was a period where Gordon was crawling around all over the place. For some reason, Gerry loved to crawl around with him and pretend he was a baby. This was invariably followed by him demanding that his mummy pick him up and give him a cuddle. Considering how heavy he is now, he normally only got the cuddle.
:)

Blame it on the Pop

2010-01-18T21:01:00.001+08:00

Not that long ago, I mentioned that I liked songs with a nice beat. As further proof of this, the latest song that I've been listening to (and the latest video to light up the interwebz) is Blame it on the Pop.

What is great about this song is that its actually a mashup by DJ Earworm. What he's done is created a new song by mashing up the top 25 hits according to the US Billboard and its incredible how well he has managed to incorporate the lyrics and music together into one cohesive whole.

I'm guessing this video has really put him on the board as well. With this video going viral (over 7 million views at the time of writing - not only impressive in its own right but particularly considering that it was only 6 million just a day or two ago), I noticed that a lot of his other videos are getting loads of hits as well just in the couple of days since I first noticed him.

Gerry goes to Day Camp - part two

2010-01-14T22:42:00.001+08:00

And here, for your viewing pleasure, some more pictures from Gerry's day trip to Lavender Garden.

One of the more fun activities that Lavender Garden had was the candle making activity. Its a really good fit for kids and allowed Gerry to pour different coloured stones into a small glass with layers of candle wax between them (or should that be the other way round?).

You can see the half completed product here With each layer, Gerry chose a different color so that by the end, we had a multi-coloured monstrosity of a candle. He even chose two different colors for the top which came out quite nice in the finished product which you can see below.

The little bits that you can see around the candlewick are little seashells that we used to decorate the top of the candle.

Quite a few of the activities organised by Disney World of English centred around teaching the kids about wildlife and different parts of animals. One of the games even involved making a toy fish out of strips of rubber.

In case you are wondering, those things stuck on the fish are meant to be scales.

And obviously, for a place called Lavender Garden, they had fields of lavender as well. The kids really enjoyed playing hide and seek in the fields and this is one of the few pictures with a decent focus that we managed to get of Gerry running around.

There was even a "graduation" ceremony at the end of the day to prove that Gerry had been to the camp. The guys in green sweatshirts are the people from Disney World of English who were basically acting as tour guides throughout the day.