Email Hoax Overload

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So many email hoaxes going around; it’s hard to keep track of them all. FB4F is already suffering a massive urban legend backlog, and I have neither the time nor bandwidth to keep up. I have to post a debunk on the McDonald’s-Glorietta and cellphones-in-pockets legends, and also update the sago legend.

Hong Kong Travel Notes

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As I head home to the Philippines today, just a few quick travel notes:

  1. It’s not everyday you see an Indian karate student — still in his outfit — riding a Razor scooter down the busy streets of Causeway Bay.
  2. The standing urinals in men’s toilets here in HK do not have flush handles.
  3. Chinese restaurant disinfection S.O.P.: Order steaming hot tea. Pour steaming hot tea in bowl. Get all chopsticks, bowls, and teacups, and dip them thoroughly in steaming hot tea. Do not wipe with napkin. This will minimize the risk of bacteria being transferred from your plates to your dimsum.
  4. Most Chinese restaurants don’t provide napkins anyway. Cloth, paper, or otherwise.
  5. Sweet sauce turns bright pinkish-red when poured in congee. Don’t use too much.
  6. When in doubt, McDonald’s. But the double cheeseburgers are better in Manila.
  7. Hong Kong isn’t really about cheap prices anymore. It’s about availability of products. Still, this is great shopping.
  8. Excelsior Hotel does not provide complimentary slippers or sandals, and their Cable TV channels are limited. But they have an excellent continental breakfast buffet.
  9. When riding the MTR subway with a normal single journey ticket, do not go through the special turnstiles for prepaid-card passengers where they just pass the card over a sensor, You have to go through the regular turnstiles with card slots. Observe carefully so you don’t embarass yourself.
  10. The MTR is a lot noisier than Manila’s MRT. More people talking in Chinese.
  11. You will have to pay for the airport train to and from Hong Kong. 90 Hong Kong dollars, one way.

    That’s all I can scratch off the top of my head. See you in Manila.

Hello from Hong Kong!

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Hello from Hong Kong!!! I’m just stealing some time on the authoring terminal to blog a bit — wow, this is the fastest broadband connection I’ve ever used. All these Chinese characters on the keyboard are a bit confusing, though.

Hong Kong’s a beautiful city. It’s clean and organized, and definitely a refreshing change from the chaotic dirt and grime of Manila. And where did I eat lunch today? McDonald’s. Yup, you read right. And I think I like McDo in the Philippines more.

Well, back to work. No more recreational online activity on other people’s net connections. But now I can say that I blogged from Hong Kong. Wow! (Talk about cheap thrill…)

Going to Hong Kong tomorrow!

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Going to Hong Kong tomorrow! I’m childishly excited about it; not so much at the prospect of going to Hong Kong per se, but just at the fact that I’ll be travelling out of Manila and the Philippines for a while. I’m pretty sure if I had to go to Hong Kong on a regular basis for nothing but work every year, I would get sick of it too.

Ugh, CNN Chat with Onel de Guzman, the Filipino who created the love bug virus. His simplistic and self-centered views on virus-making and “hacking” are highly indicative of a deficient sense of responsibility, accountability, and social awareness.

Half-Life

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Half-Life plays remarkably well on a PIII-733 with 260MB RAM and a 32MB TNT2. I am edified. :)

Bryan Smith dies

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Bryan Smith, the guy whose van struck and crippled Stephen King, died at 43. Stephen King officially expressed his sympathy in a statement issued by his assistant. He went through a lot of pain and suffering because of that accident, both physically and professionally, and his writing was deeply affected. To be able to express regret rather than vindictiveness at Smith’s death takes real heart.

PEX upgrades

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PinoyExchange just revamped their system and interface. Looks nice, with more cool features. While they’re ironing out the kinks, though, it has slowed down somethin’ awful. Server problems.

Starting on LOTR

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After years and years of procrastination, I have finally gotten down to reading Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. And not a moment too soon: copies in local bookstores are disappearing from the shelves faster than they can be stocked, and the prices of the volumes are rising. I was fortunate enough to find copies of Fellowship of the Ring and Two Towers on sale in National-Greenbelt. Return of the King seemed to be in heavy demand, as it was nowhere to be found, but I eventually found a stash (albeit at full-price) in Powerbooks-Makati; most other stores — Goodwill and other National branches — were already out of stock. (Of everything, that is, except The Hobbit, of which I already have a copy.)

Some advice: don’t buy the trilogy from “A Different Bookstore” in the Rustan’s wing of Glorietta. They’ve overpriced it horrendously; almost 300 PhP per book, or the whole set of four (including The Hobbit) for over a thousand. Far cheaper to buy it from Powerbooks at about 200 PhP each. If there are any copies left.

Okay, I admit it. I only now set myself to reading it because of the upcoming film. I truly do not want to diminish my experience of such an epic fantasy by watching the film before I have ever read the novels. Not that I doubt the movie will be any good; but of course the real treasure is in the written text.

I’m enjoying every word of it. I started with Tolkien’s appendices to get a primer on the background, culture, and history of Middle-Earth, and now I’m at Frodo’s departure from Hobbiton.