Some of you will be surprised to know that my girlfriend reads this blog. It’s simple. I told her about it, because I wanted her to hear it from me and not from someone else. I wanted to post the story of how she and I met, but I hesitated at first. Then I told her I thought I should do it, and that I’d let her read it before I make it public. She said I should just go ahead and post it and that she was wondering why I hadn’t done it sooner. It’s almost a “meet cute” story – at least that’s how it seems to us – though probably some of you will read this and think it’s a “Spike is stupid” story but I think at least some of the people who read this blog would enjoy it.

I’ll preface this by saying that about two days before I met this person, I’d told my mother I’d decided to give up on dating. I just wasn’t meeting anyone whom I felt strongly enough about to put in the effort to maintain a relationship. There were so many problems with so many of the women I’d dated that I figured it would be easier to stop searching and just “let it be.”

It was just over three weeks ago, the same night I had dinner with a friend at Nadaman. After dinner, I ended up in Wanchai, as I often do. We’d had a lot of sake at dinner and I’d had a couple more drinks at Amazonia, so I was relatively high. I was also feeling restless, so got out of the bar and started walking around.

I passed Spicy Fingers and saw a friend of mine sitting at a table outside with a group of people I didn’t know. He invited me to join the group. Everyone was sitting on those high stools around a table. Me, semi-wasted, took the only available seat, which was a low chair. I just kind of sat there, gathering my thoughts. But it didn’t take long for me to notice that one member of the group was this really pretty woman, thin, great smile, long hair, Asian but speaking with a slight British accent, and she was commanding the attention of everyone else at the table. Like I said, she looked great, but she was also funny and confident.

I took a look at her, listened to her, and thought to myself, “That’s the kind of woman I should be dating, how come I can never meet someone like that?” Yes, I was “meeting” her, but I was also convinced that there was no way she could be single. And when one of the other guys at the table ran off to get some food, he brought some back for her as well and I thought, “okay, that must be her boyfriend.”

At one point, she did say something about how hard it was to find “Mr. Right,” and even though I had enough presence of mind to finally speak up, saying, “I could be Mr. Right,” in my befuddled state it never dawned on me that a woman saying she was looking for Mr. Right actually wasn’t with any of the other guys there. However, for some reason, my saying that caught her attention.

Later on, a couple of the guys at the table were handing her their business cards so I joined in, giving one of my own. Soon after that, she left. She was parked in the garage across from the bar, came down in her car, waved good night to everyone and drove off. Alone.

I should mention that I later found out that two of the guys at our table asked her out and that a guy at the next table went up to her and told her she was the hottest woman in the bar and started kissing her hand. In retrospect, had I been more awake and tried hitting on her that night, I’m sure I would have failed. The “gradual” approach that I accidentally took is what worked.

So anyway, she left and after I finished smacking myself in the head several times, I decided I was going home too. Still a little drunk, very tired and I knew I wasn’t likely to meet anyone else like her that night.

Back home, I received an SMS from her saying that she’d gotten home safely. I assumed that she’d sent this SMS to everyone at the table (I later found out I was right). But I thought, here’s my opportunity, so I sent a reply. (She later told me I was the only one who replied.)

The next morning, she sent me a “good morning” SMS so I jumped into action, mind and fingers working frantically, trying to be witty and interesting and keep the replies coming. On Sunday, we moved from SMS to MSN. And I finally started to feel confident enough to ask her out for dinner, and she accepted.

One problem, though, was that I figured that since I hadn’t spoken much at the bar, she probably couldn’t remember what I looked like. And also I was convinced that she was under 35 years old and might not be interested in me once she found out my age. The only question she asked me was how tall I was. So going into this date, I pretty much expected that it would last about half an hour, and that soon I’d be joining some friends in a bar. I even told someone to wait for my call, that I’d join him at a bar later.

So we went out on that first date on Tuesday night, four days after we’d first met. Yes, she didn’t remember what I looked like at all. Yes, it turns out her age is not that far off from mine (but she still looks just 35 to me). That first date lasted about 5 hours. We sat in the bar talking for four of those hours and then just walked around talking for another hour before I drove her home.

That night, I think I knew within 15 minutes, 30 minutes tops, how I felt about her. That she was the kind of person I was looking for, someone I could really be serious about. I think it took her a little bit longer than that, but maybe not that much.

Since that first night out, we’ve been together almost every night. We can talk all night long, night after night, with time going by too fast and without getting bored. I enjoy being with her and it doesn’t matter what we’re doing, I’m just happy when she’s next to me. I hesitate to use the phrase “soul mate’ but I can be completely honest and open with her and trust her completely. We like a lot of the same things have have similar priorities and ideas about the rest of our lives.

After about a week, I felt more certain than ever. I’ve even taken the step of changing my mobile phone number. I want a complete break from that aspect of my past.

The only painful bit is that in a few days she’s going back home to visit her parents for two weeks. I scheduled my medical trip to Thailand at the same time. And, yes, the purpose of this trip is to deal with doctors and dentists, finish off a tattoo I started back in August, and then find some quiet place with no distractions where I can just settle in for a few days and chill out with a stack of books and my iPod.

At any rate, tonight I’m going to a New Yar’s Eve party with someone I love, someone who loves me, and, oh yes, I’m also going to know that regardless of who else may be at the party, I will be there with the hottest girl in the room.

So …. happy new year!

I’m really good at finding things to do OTHER than the things I should be doing.

This weekend, in preparation for my upcoming 2 weeks in Thailand, I went through the various “best albums of the year” lists on Q, Uncut, Mojo magazines and several other miscellaneous sources. I compiled a list of those albums, 195 in all. I then obtained as many of them as possible, 149 so far (okay, not that difficult, I already had 104 of them). Then loaded them all onto the iPod, with proper tags and artwork of course. Then I retagged the genre on each of them to “Best 2007″ so they’d all come up together. Then, since a couple of those magazines had identified what they thought were the key tracks from each album, I made those into playlists.

Ummm …. you don’t need to tell me I’m not normal. I already knew that.

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The Netscape Browser – 1994-2008. R.I.P. AOL has announced that they will officially stop new development on Netscape as of February 2008. Netscape was the first widely available browser for the world wide web. Like many, I’d been using the internet before that, mostly via command line interfaces for email and usenet, and Netscape was the key to the universe. At one time the most popular browser, its share has now fallen to about 1%. Feeling a touch nostalgic over this.

All may be happy in my life these days, but the future of Hong Kong is not looking so good. In case you’ve missed coverage elsewhere, the NY Times has an update. Excerpts:

Chinese officials announced Saturday that Hong Kong would have to wait at least another decade for democratic elections to select its leader, and for more than 12 years to have the right to directly elect the entire legislature.

The Chinese government’s timetable for democratic reform in Hong Kong follows a decision by the Standing Committee of China’s Parliament, the National People’s Congress, to reject universal suffrage on the island in 2012, a timetable that opinion polls suggested is favored by a majority of the people of Hong Kong.

The earliest voters would be entitled to elect the chief executive by popular vote is now 2017. They must wait until 2020 before possibly having the opportunity to vote for the entire 60-seat Legislative Council.

Chinese officials also announced on Saturday that if universal suffrage is introduced in 2017, only candidates nominated by a committee that would probably resemble the current electoral college would be allowed on the ballot.

But government officials in Hong Kong and Beijing said the decision finally gave Hong Kong the certainty of a timetable for achieving universal suffrage.

“The timetable for universal suffrage has been set,” Mr. Tsang said. “Hong Kong is entering a most important chapter in its constitutional history.

“We should try to apply fresh thinking to secure implementation of universal suffrage for the chief executive first in 2017, to be followed by that for the Legislative Council in 2020. We must treasure this hard-earned opportunity.”

The ruling of the Standing Committee only states that direct elections “may be implemented” beginning in 2017.

It requires the existing system to remain in place unless Hong Kong’s legislature can agree by a two-thirds majority on any changes.

New election laws would also have to be approved by the chief executive and the congress.

So, as others have noted, both in comments here and elsewhere, if anyone believes that Hong Kong will be a democracy within our lifetimes, either they are very young or perhaps they will buy this bridge in Brooklyn that I’m looking to sell.

They have completely stacked the odds against it by requiring approval from LegCo, a group made up of appointed people preoccupied with maintaining the status quo. There is no guarantee that votes for democracy that do not exist in LegCo today will exist 5 or 10 or 30 years in the future. And even if something resembling democracy arrives, the deck will be stacked because candidacy for office will not be open to anyone who wishes to run, merely those who profess their loyalty to Beijing.

So that’s it. It’s over. Stick a fork in it, it’s done. Democracy in Hong Kong – died before birth.

Here’s what it reminds me of. Several years ago, my company decided to embark upon a “business re-organization” project. They brought in an expensive consulting company. Internally, the project was run by, who else?, management. People who had a vested interested in keeping things as they were. A year later, millions of dollars spent, the re-org was announced. The same people kept the same jobs – they were merely given new titles.

Three cheers for stability!

Grabbed a few seconds ago from the NY Times home page.

The second headline seems rather unfortunate as well.

Clicking on that first “timely” story shows a huge mismatch between headline and story:

After doing those two web tests and posting the results, flipped over to the NY Times to find that Benazir Bhutto was assassinated today. Don’t know enough about her to know if she was good or bad so all I can say right now is HOLY SHIT.

And going into the other room to turn on CNN.

Via Far East Cynic …. I know this stuff is crap and yet the results feed my ego ….

Your Score: The Cardinal

You scored 68% Cardinal, 25% Monk, 26% Lady, and 37% Knight!

You are the real power behind the throne. No one dares dispute or refuse you. Which is good because that’s how you get things done. You are also, however, completely corrupt and highly immoral. This doesn’t bother you in the least as you lounge around your rich comfortable surroundings, reveling in wealth and authority.

and this one, not a surprise at all!

Your Score: The Liberated Lover

63% partner focus, 85% aggressiveness, 80% adventurousness

Based on the results of this test, it is highly likely that:

You prefer your romance and love to wild and daring rather than typical or boring, you would rather pursue than be pursued and, when it comes to physical love, your satisfaction comes more from providing a wonderful time to your partner than simply seeking your own.

This places you in the Lover Style of: The Liberated Lover.

The Liberated Lover is a wonderful Lover Style, and forms the kind of free-thinking, sexually-exciting, self-confident lover that society once condemned but that a liberal-mind cherishes and exults. The Liberated Lover is a treasure to find, though it can sometimes be difficult to do so because they are often already engaged in relationships or are in high-demand if “in the market.”

In terms of physical love, the Liberated Lover is possibly the most thrilling and demanding of all, with the one potential drawback being that it is possible to feel ‘overmatched’ at times by their prowess and selfless giving. Given trust and understanding, and the right lover, the Liberated Lover can be a delight in bed.

Best Compatibility can probably be found with: The Exotic Lover (most of all) or the Carnal Lover, or the Suave Lover.

Congratulations!

If you enjoyed this test, I would love the feedback! Also, you might want to check out some of my other tests if you’re interested in the following:

Nerds, Geeks & Dorks

Professional Wrestling

Buffy the Vampire Slayer

America/Politics

Thanks Again! — THE LOVER STYLE PROFILE TEST

A bit of a cold coming on, so stayed home and took it easy. Watched two movies, chosen almost at random, and thinking about it this morning, how well they functioned one after the other.

The first was Two-Lane Blacktop, via the excellent new two disc release by Criterion. Perhaps best remembered for its stunt casting (James Taylor as the driver and the Beach Boys’ Dennis Wilson as the mechanic), perhaps it is better remembered as an artifact of an era when a major studio released a film so heavily influenced by the French new wave of the 60s. It’s a film about a cross country car race in which there is not so much racing, a film starring two music stars with almost no music to be heard. Taylor, Wilson and Warren Oates (driving the GTO) are outsiders, they have no connection to society. Oates seems to strive for that connection, picking up every hitch hiker along the way, seeking some sort of validation perhaps and tells a different story to each of them, trying to reach out and gain acceptance from strangers, while Taylor and Wilson sit mostly in silence, even with their cute female hitch hiker – whom Oates seems to want more than victory in the race. It’s directed by Monte Hellman, a graduate of the Roger Corman school of film-making, who did several other notable films in the 60s and 70s but has recently been relegated to things like Silent Night Deadly Night 3.

Two-Lane Blacktop mostly takes place along the back roads of the American South and Southwest. No Country for Old Men marks the Coen Brothers’s return to West Texas, a place they visited in their first film, Blood Simple. And while a lot of critics are comparing No Country to Fargo, this is really an anti-Fargo. It has far more in common with Blood Simple.

Assuming that most of you haven’t read the original novel by Cormac McCarthy (I hadn’t), it becomes almost impossible for me to talk about this film without spoiling the plot. So let me just say that the three leads – Tommy Lee Jones, Javier Bardem and Josh Brolin – are firing on all cylinders here. My attention was riveted to the screen for the entire time – the suspense in some scenes is practically unbearable.

I didn’t much care for the Coens’ Intolerable Cruelty or their remake of Ladykillers. This is an excellent return to form for them – much more in the vein of Blood Simple or Miller’s Crossing than Big Lebowski, though there is a good deal of subtle humor to be found amidst the horror here.

Anyway, the comparison between the two very different films comes because often in Two-Lane Blacktop, the people they encounter along the way don’t seem to be professional actors, they seem to be “real Americans” and through them we see very clearly into a segment of America at a particular time.

And I got the same feeling from much of the supporting cast in No Country For Old Men, the old man in the gas station, the hotel clerks, the taxi drivers. Other films tend to look down on these kinds of people, but here they’re simply presented to us as the way things are.

P.S. This is the time of year that I look forward to, not so much because of the holidays, but because it’s when studios send out DVD screeners to Oscar voters and many of them end up on the internet and probably in the shops in Shenzhen as well. Studios have tried digitally watermarking these screeners – in the case of No Country this means two blurry “bars” on screen throughout the film, masking the identifying marks or numbers.

I’m looking at the coming soon list on Cityline’s web site and I don’t even see No Country for Old Men. I also don’t see There Will Be Blood. Coincidentally (or not?) both are co-productions from Miramax/Disney and Paramount.

Ridley Scott’s American Gangster – a major studio release with major international stars – first opens here in January, two months after the US release. Sweeney Todd doesn’t arrive here till Chinese New Year. But we get AVP2 and National Treasure 2 and Alvin & the Chipmunks day and date with the US. If it wasn’t for the internet, a movie fan could starve to death in Hong Kong.

P.P.S. As in the past, sorry, I will not respond to comments asking for information on my sources for obtaining these films.

Image stolen from Celeb-slam. When I saw the movie being promoted in this ad, simply could not resist.

Very nice Xmas dinner in Soho at Cafe Bizou. Then picked up some Krispy Kremes, up the escalator, and turned my gf on to Anthony Bourdain (put on the Shanghai episode and she was as into it as I am so loaned her the Kitchen Confidential book).

Following the news in Thailand closely since I’m going back there next week. Apparently Thaksin was in HK watching the election returns, in which those loyal to him did quite well. The SCMP says that HK will be his base as he “plots his return.” I’m not the world’s expert on Thai politics but it seems to me that the choice is between an allegedly corrupt billionaire former PM or a bunch of generals who seized power by force and seem to be right out of Woody Allen’s “Bananas.” The Thai people deserve better, don’t you think?

Anyway, it’s now about a week till I’ll be heading down there. I’m thinking that the topic of my next BC column will be something along the lines of “things to do in Bangkok at night when you’re alone but not looking to fool around.” Yes, I’ll look for some old friends in Gullivers. Yes, I’ll finish off the tattoo I started last trip. And I’ll have a stack of books, movies and music. Other suggestions gratefully appreciated.

And so this is Christmas, that one day of the year when goyim all around the world celebrate the birth of a Jewish boy who didn’t want to go into the family business. Good on ya goyim!

Recommended listening:

Kinks – Father Christmas
Springsteen – Santa Claus is Coming to Town and Merry Christmas Baby

Various Artists – A Christmas Gift to You from Phil Spector

And what is undoubtedly the best Christmas album of all time, Christmas Party with Eddie G, a friend back in my New York days and currently one of the exec producers of Two and a Half Men.

Got the car on Monday. One brake light not working and ipod hook-up not working, which means tomorrow back in the shop. But otherwise had the chance to tear up some of the back roads around and above Sai Kung before settling in for a Christmas-y sort of dinner. Not sure that my girlfriend qualifies as a shiksa (she doesn’t have blond hair) but she looked especially fabulous last night. I’m sure anyone who saw us at dinner was thinking, “Get a room, you two!”

So, feeling happy and content, nothing to complain about today, Happy Festivus for the Rest of Us!

In case you haven’t heard, Britney Spears’ 16 year old sister is pregnant. She’s the star of some kiddie TV series in the US. And apparently Britney only found out about it because she heard it in the media; apparently the kid was too afraid of her sister’s temper to tell her.

Most importantly, the Spears’ kids mom has decided to put her book on parenting on hold. This is not a joke, the mom had written a book on how to be a good parent. One kid takes drugs, is declared an unfit mother, has public meltdowns and runs around without underwear flashing the entire world. And apparently good parenting doesn’t include telling your kids about birth control or being able to figure out that if she dresses like a Wanchai hooker odds are she’s acting like one too.

This important news comes scant weeks after full frontal nude shots of some (as Fumier would say) barely legal first class totty, Vanessa Hudgens, surfaced on the internet. She’s also the star of some kids show. Apparently starring in kids TV in the US turns you into a slut.

I myself made two appearances on two kiddie shows when I was a kid. That may explain a lot.

Check this item at Gizmodo and then follow the link to see a related video. For some reason Flash ain’t working right in Firefox for me at the moment and I’m too lazy to reboot. Apparently the RIAA is trying to tell people that pirated music doesn’t sound as good as the real thing, because when you make a digital copy of digital material it “blah, blah, blah, purple monkey dishwasher.”

(That last bit comes from the actual New York Times review of the “film” National Treasure 2. Apparently the movie is so unremittingly stupid that the reviewer just sort of gave up. “To acquire the cleverly named Book of Secrets, Ben plots to kidnap the current president and blah, blah, blah purple monkey dishwasher.” Needless to say, it is the #1 film in the U.S. this past weekend.)

For something much smarter, check out online shopping site Unemployed Philosophers Guild. Yes, of course they sell Freudian Slippers. There’s a Nietzsche watch with the quote “the eternal return of the same.” A theory of relativity watch where the numbers are rotating. And most enjoyably (for me) a Salvador Dali watch – his mustache tells hours and minutes, a circling ant keeps track of seconds. Yes, they have Axis of Evil finger puppets.