Category: the daily column

but currently without internet at home (currently wifi hopping) so until then, normal service cannot be resumed. Apologies!

Gee, I wish I could say more about work, but I really don’t want to get fired for opinions expressed.

HK continues to be a very fun modern city, even if I’m only finishing work every day at 7:30. More to report later, probably when I have some net access outside of work.

Man, you must be really looking forward to going back.

You gonna to come back here? Are you going to miss the place?

We’ll miss you.

Dammit, just when I think I had it all sorted, I get that stab of last-minute repenting.

I am looking forward to going back, but if you ask me why, I can’t really name it. It’s nebulous – there’s no one thing that would make me say, “that, that is the reason I’m going home.”

Am I going to come back? Chances are, yeah. Given the nature of the work and the company, certainly. Within a sensible timescale? I don’t know. But then if I knew… And for sure, I’ll miss the place. London is the kind of town where your niche is catered for, in one way or another – one of the few cities around the world that would do that, I suspect, and some niches are more equal than others, but it is definitely the kind of place that grows on you. (Except…)

And I’ll miss these people most of all.

I’ve found the groove, the feeling you know where you fit, so many times now, I thought I was almost tired of doing that over and over, and yet here I am doing it over again, ripping myself out in exchange for… something.

The people here are warm and generous and open, welcoming me in and allowing me to quickly settle into a comfortable social life. As dismissive and uncomfortable as I am at times about the “fuzzy stuff”, I really know I’ll miss these people as much as I did the people in Melbourne, when I left for Sydney – only now, it’s not an hour flight and a hundred bucks to pop in to visit. The timezones are 9 hours apart at best, so communication is likely to be stuttered at best.

And just as I figure out how it all works and sticks together, just as I was getting comfortable, just as the winter was ending, I up sticks and move back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

Well, I’m not sure which one I took, and whether it has made all the difference. We shall see.

This would be about the point where I insert a meme and/or mention I can’t think of anything to write, which would immediately prompt me to write again. So instead, I’ll just insert a placeholder until I can work up something about leaving London behind.

I’ve been watching Daria, that’s what I’ve been doing.

Oh, let us not focus on this day in particular, arbitrary as it is! But for a question that came up earlier: why today? Why ‘Valentine’, purportedly a priest made Saint, for whom today is named for in the Roman Catholic Church’s feast calendar?

And so the internet provides: Wikipedia’s page on Valentine’s Day essentially states “for no good reason.”

And indeed, the tradition of sending Valentine’s cards, apparently propagated and popularised by none other than Esther Howland, stationer’s daughter, by whose name today is awarded the “Award for a Greeting Card Visionary.”

If that doesn’t send the cynicals up you, perhaps it is the profusion of Saints named Valentine, of whom, err, nothing much is known (Other than they are dead, and saints for it), would help to cement the impression.

(Secondary research is ever so easy.)

So, named after an unknown priest of ancient times, landing on the former ‘pagan’ Roman celebration of Lupercalia (when young men dressed in goat skins ran through the streets of Rome), mythologised by some unknown sources, ends up being Valentine’s Day, a celebration of love, lust, and all good things chocolatey and wrapped in pink.

Far be it for me to be cynical…

Ah well, a celebration of love, arbitrary as it may be, can only be welcomed by the romantics. Next year, mayhaps.

• Went to see Les Miserables. Not a bad performance all round, but found the amusing bits better than the emotionally-heavy parts.
• Also went to see Wicked, which retells the story of The Wizard of Oz fantastically. Wish I could understand the high-pitched singing though.
• Find musicals strange as ever. Why would people randomly start singing?! Resolve to go see more plays at some point.
• Went to Oxford last week. Not what I expected, though not in a bad way.
• Been ticking off some of the things-to-do-in-London I still hadn’t gotten around to.
• Witnessed the protest by Project Chanology yesterday in London. Quite amusing to see all those geeks protesting (c’mon, they had a banner saying ‘lol Xenu’, and ticked the stereotype boxes of pasty, skinny, acne-fied, long hair… some effort, guys!) A couple of photos to be uploaded soonish.
• Happy Chinese New Year! The festivities were in full force in London on Sunday (Thursday doesn’t do well for a day out for the family). Absolutely nuts, fireworks so loud I was deaf for a good couple of minutes.
• Work as usual.
• Going to HK for a week long business trip where I get to train users and listen to their complaints about how the system doesn’t do this or that or the other thing that the other, totally unrelated and far better resourced system does/has. Yaaaaaaaay.
• On the other hand, my new passport will get fancy new stamp on it! Need to start filling it up already :)
• Finished Arrested Development. While I wish it would have had more epsiodes, they worked really well within the confines and ended it in style. This is the kind of show I could re-watch over and over just to try to remember the quotes. Sufficient to say, Hermano, Come on!, I’ve made a huge mistake and Steve Holt’s double fist pump are now part of my phrasebook. In the AD style. Coz, you know, they say it differently.

Here’s a challenge for you: what will communication look like in 3 – 5 years?

Two of my housemates are currently studying Moving Image Design, and that is their design brief for a theorhetical ad for Orange (project is sponsored by Orange and winner takes home a small prize for their efforts). Last night around the dinner table we had a chat about it, and actually found it incredibly difficult to pick what would happen in 5 years.

If it was 50 years from now, there’d be no problem – you could dream up pretty much anything (within reason) and it’d sound plausible. But 3 – 5 years means it’s just beyond the technology horizon, and so requires a little bit of thought and a little bit of imagination, but within limits. 5 years ago, wireless networking was at its nascent beginnings. 3 years ago, phones were just beginning to hit their strides as multimedia devices, though it all looks pretty familiar really (remember, it was only 2005).

Before you say it, the iPhone – not that revolutionary; my dad had a touchscreen PDA 3 years ago. Sure, it wasn’t as slim or as fancy as the iPhone, but it still did (does) the whole mail, web, music, videos, and all that song-and-dance that the iPhone does (except the iPhone does it better, to be sure). Not that revolutionary.

Probably the most fun thing we came up with before we devolved into looking at funny ads on YouTube was an OLED shirt with constantly moving images, such as, for example, waves sloshing around whenever the wearer moves.

What do you reckon communication will be like in 5 years?

Returning from watching Les Miserables, I was in an oddly cheery mood, given the subject matter of the musical. I’d seen a visiting friend off home, and was now returning home when she got on.

She was with her friends, and they’d been sitting in front of me in Les Mis. It wouldn’t have mattered, because she was the kind I would have noticed across the theatre. Her hair was almost a cherry blonde, darker perhaps, artificial, a shining beacon that made her unmistakable. The vagaries of connections on the underground meant we made it to the same train, the same carriage, despite my earlier detour.

Perhaps she recognised me, as she sat opposite, for she flashed a small smile my way. Perhaps it was just a brief courtesy when eyes met, for I had my headphones on. I turned the music down a little, eavesdropping on the conversation with her friends, sitting to the side of me, held across the carriage.

From the accents of her and another, I imagined them to be tourists; her accent suggested Chinese, though her command of English was good – perhaps Hong Kong. Settled in the seat, she turned her attention to her shopping. The bags were unique, one suggesting a visit to the milliner, the other a Harrods bag design I’d not seen before, Harrods further enforcing the tourist image.

Continue reading “A few short minutes”

a) Don’t rush dinner. Really, take your time to prepare it.

b) Whole wheat pasta is healthier for you, but it also takes longer to cook completely. 4 minutes more, in fact, according to the instructions on the packet.

c) Al dente is intended to be a lot more al than dente.

d) Carbonara sauce is the wrong sauce to pick for a vegetable pasta.