… which has been my phrase of the day, but not in a mood to reveal context.

Found out that in order to see Speed Racer, I’d need to extend my visit by a day, which I’m not in the mood to do. Will have to see it when it hits theaters, which is just ten days away (not sure if day and date in HK though). I might spend part of tomorrow going to see U2 3D, which is playing on an Imax screen here, just a matter of if I feel like dealing with getting from Makati to Mall of Asia and back again, no inconsiderable feat when thinking about Manila traffic.

Lunch today was a return to the Serendra Mall at Fort Bonifacio, back to a restaurant called Abe (ah-bey), dedicated to a famous Filipino writer and featuring some classic Filipino dishes, including my current fave, crispy tadyang. Apparently there was some local female celeb eating there when we were there. I only got to see her from the rear (enticing) and as she left, the entire restaurant staff ran outside to have their picture taken with her.

Real estate tip: I’m told that a lot of Americans bought condos at Serendra when it first went on sale. And that now that the recession is taking hold of the US, many of those Americans are seeking to sell off their condos – and are taking losses of 30% or greater on the deal. It’s almost tempting.

And tonight, snagged passes to a special opening day screening for Iron Man – I guess friends of the distributor, radio contest winners, etc. Best I can say for the movie is that the weirdness comes from Jon Favreau directing Robert Downey Jr as if it was a CGI remake of Swingers. Downey is the one thing that lifts the movie from your basic comic book feature film. And it’s quite weird to see Jeff Bridges with a shaved head and big gray beard. A large portion of the film takes place in Afganistan, so it’s telling that at one point you can see the poster for Rambo: First Blood. And, as expected, the end theme music is Black Sabbath’s Iron Man. Well, good to see it on a huge screen in a THX certified theater.

If you do go see the film (and I suppose that many will), do sit through the extremely long end credits, because there is a two minute sequence after the credits to set up the next film in the franchise.

It’s definitely summer – trailers screened before the film included Speed Racer, Indiana Jones 4, Mamma Mia, Incredible Hulk, Kung Fu Panda, Narnia 2, that Angelina Jolie hit-woman thing and some nonsense about a huge crocodile nomming a bunch of unlucky people in boats.

(Gotta say Kung Fu Panda didn’t look half bad. Voices by Jack Black, Jackie Chan, Dustin Hoffman, Ian McShane. There’s an Imax version coming of this. But did they really have to use the Kill Bill music (at least in the trailer))?

So here I am in Manila. As I waited to board the plane, I saw the long lines and crossed my fingers that I’d get an upgrade. I handed my ticket to the lady at the gate and asked, “Upgrade? Upgrade?” She didn’t even look at me, let alone respond, but sure enough, as she put the ticket into the machine, it flashed red, spit the ticket back out and she handed me my business class boarding pass.

For my first night, after going to the Landmark Supermarket to stock up on Reeses Peanut Butter cups, I went to an old reliable spot, Cafe Havana. I like their take on spareribs. As I sat outside eating, a number of girls sitting at other tables tried to catch my eye. But I realized that I’m not in a mood to pay someone to pretend to like me. (Okay, I thought about what I just posted and am imagining the comments people will leave based on that. No need. Go back to where I posted the lyrics to Marquee Moon and think about it a bit.)

After dinner, walked over to check out the Manila branch of Spicy Fingers but the place was almost a ghost town. So walked back to the hotel. Along the way, at least six girls hit me with the “where you going?” line – one, after I rejected her, called after me, “I’m not a ladyboy!” “I know, but I’m still not interested!”

So up to the room, put on a movie, Street Kings – Keanu Reeves, Forest Whitaker, Hugh Laurie. James Ellroy gets the story credit and a co-writer’s credit and it’s directed by the guy who wrote Training Day. It got a 33% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and I think that was generous. Yeah, there’s some intense action scenes but it is such a jumble of cliche upon cliche, very little that you haven’t seen or heard before – you figure out the “gotcha” at least halfway through if not sooner and it’s hard to keep a straight face at some of the bits in there.

Then it occurred to me, I wonder if Harold and Kumar Escape From Guantanomo Bay is playing here yet? Guess I’ll have to check the newspapers tomorrow. Unless there’s a screening of Iron Man or Speed Racer that I could worm my way into.

Yeah, 3rd post tonight, but can’t resist sharing another one from the letters page in the SCMP.

A Mr. Richard Feder from Fort Lee New Jersey Mr. James Tam from Mid Levels writes:

One simple fact has been overlooked, there are still debates and organised unrest in Tibet because of the relative success in preserving the Tibetan identity.

Exsqueeze me?

Oh, it gets better.

Had a solution – similar to that applied to native Americans in the US – been applied to Tibet whenever the Mongols or Han Chinese were in a position to do so, Tibetan unrest would now be no more exciting than a drunken commotion on a native American reservation.

Yeah, I know, at least he didn’t call them “Injuns.” Thank Buddha for small miracles. And thank China for not killing all of the Tibetans so that they can stage protests so the Chinese can kill them?

Actually, when you think about it, what China is doing there is pretty much exactly what the U.S. did in the 19th Century …. shipping in non-Tibetans by the bus and train load, giving them the best land, giving them the best jobs, not allowing the people who live there to have any say in how they’re governed. Bury my heart at Lhasa?

Or is the Chinese government going to allow native Tibetans to open casinos?

Indian unemployment rates of 30 percent and more are dropping to almost nothing with the emergence of Indian casinos.

Since the enactment of the IGRA, revenues from Indian gaming operations have grown exponentially. Nationwide, total revenues from Indian gaming are projected to top the $6 billion mark, with total profits exceeding $1 billion, in 1995

To continue with positive aspects, tribes use their profits for the betterment of the reservation and its people. They are building schools/colleges (there are currently 26 tribal colleges nationwide) and community centers, setting up education trust funds/scholarships, investing in alcohol and drug treatment programs, financing new business enterprises (entrepreneurships), and putting in water and sewer systems on the reservations.

Not saying that allowing Native Americans to operate casinos in the past 20 years absolves the U.S. from centuries of wrong doing but still, “drunken commotion on a native American reservation” my ass.

Billboard reports on Coachella.

Day 1:

reunited U.K. rock outfit the Verve commanded the main stage with such ’90s favorites as “Sonnet,” “Space and Time” and “Life’s an Ocean.” …. Also starring on day one were the Raconteurs, playing classic rock-inspired tracks from their most recent album, “Consolers of the Lonely”; beloved indie rock acts the National and Vampire Weekend, who drew huge crowds to the Outdoor Theatre; the recently reactivated Breeders, who delighted the Main Stage crowd with their ’90s hit “Cannonball”; and Goldfrapp, whose slinky electro-pop was an early evening highlight in the Mojave Tent. …. Bearded Les Savy Fav frontman Tim Harrington, who is known for his wild stage antics, entertained a bouncing crowd by dangerously climbing rafters, removing most of his clothing, moonwalking on speakers and planting a kiss on an unsuspecting male spectator who was watching from the side of the stage.

Day 2:

Playing well past midnight, Prince closed day two of Coachella with hits “1999,” “Little Red Corvette,” “Let’s Go Crazy” and “Purple Rain,” among others. After collaborations with Morris Day (“Jungle Love”) and Sheila E (“Glamorous Life”), Prince performed a handful of originals before venturing into covers of Radiohead’s “Creep” and the Beatles’ “Come Together.” … Portishead didn’t fail to set the mood its with eerie trip-hop. The reunited Britain act used Coachella as the launch pad for “Third,” its first studio album in more than a decade. …. Before closing its set with “Are You Ready for the Floor,” from its newest album “Made In the Dark,” Hot Chip delivered a danced-up version of New Order’s “Temptation.” … Other noteworthy performances on day two came from German electronic act Kraftwerk, which turned out “Autobahn” and “Computer Love” on the main stage; bass-heavy Brazilian electro rock act Bonde do Role, who brought the party to the Gobi tent with the catchy “Marina Gasolina”; indie rock act MGMT, playing spacey material from its debut album “Oracular Spectacular”; and U.K. producer-of-the-moment Mark Ronson, who recruited a number of artists (including Kaiser Chiefs vocalist Ricky Wilson) to help round out his set at the Outdoor Theatre.

In other news, Kenny G will be appearing in Hong Kong soon.

From the NY Times:

Thousands of young Chinese assembled to defend their country’s troubled Olympic torch relay pushed through police lines on Sunday, some of them hurling rocks, bottled water and plastic and steel pipes at protesters demanding better treatment for North Korean refugees in China.

When lone protesters demanded that China stop repatriating North Korean refugees, they were quickly surrounded by jeering Chinese. Near the park, Chinese students surrounded and beat a small group of protesters, news reports said.

In another scuffle, at the city center where the five-hour torch run ended, Chinese surrounded several Tibetans and South Korean supporters who unfurled pro-Tibet banners, and kicked and punched them, witnesses said.

The largest scuffle erupted shortly after the first torch-bearer left the Olympic Park, surrounded by dozens of police officers on foot or on bicycles and hundreds more in buses and trailed by a water cannon, ambulances and helicopters circling overhead.

Many of the Chinese gathered at the park surged toward about 150 protesters, mostly elderly South Koreans and North Korean defectors, who were shouting “No human rights, no Olympics” from across a boulevard.

If I was in the US, then this is what I would have been doing this weekend:

Somehow the available choices here just pale by comparison.

The SCMP today has a screaming headline, “Fury grows after police cleared in killing of black.” “In killing” wouldn’t have been enough, “black man” apparently would have been too much, what about just “man”?

Sleepy today. Back hurts. Manila tomorrow.

A possible new TV show? Just a thought.

In today’s episode (all pictures taken within the past week):

Denise Richards is 37 years old, has had two kids and is supposedly batshit crazy.

Vs. Heather Locklear, 46 years old, one kid, slept with Richie Sambora who slept with Cher who slept with Gregg Allman (not to mention Sonny Bono).

And the winner? Stay tuned.

(photos stolen from The Superficial)

So thrilled. Left the office today, not going back to office for ten days, left the book I was reading in the office. 250 pages in, 50 pages to go. Guess I am going into the office on Saturday.

The book in question is Private Dancer by Stephen Leather. You know, you go to any English language bookshop in Thailand and it’s filled with sexpat novels. I get the feeling that most of them are written by expat lawyers or bankers who come to Thailand, think they’ve discovered sex and want to share their discoveries with the rest of the world. John Burdett’s series isn’t bad. And I figured I’d give this one a try because Leather is ostensibly a “real writer,” having a dozen or so novels out and written for British television (plus he was a former staffer at the SCMP).

It turns out his UK publisher refused to publish Private Dancer, supposedly because it was so different from his other books. So for years he had it as a free download from his web site until he self-published it in Thailand, where it is a perennial best seller. (The cover photo was taken at Angelwitch in Nana, he mentions in an interview sitting in front of Nana Plaza for hours until he found the girl with just the look he wanted.)

The story is about a Brit travel book writer, hired by a Lonely Planet or Rough Guide type of publisher, who comes to Bangkok and immediately falls in love with a bar girl. You’re told in the very first chapter that he kills her. The next 300 pages flash back to tell the tale, in short sections in first person by the various participants and friends.

At first I didn’t much care for the book because Leather is more of a storyteller than a writer. Had I never been to the places he writes about, I’d have little idea of what they look like inside. But by alternating first person, between westerners and Thais, it builds into a pretty powerful read for anyone who has any experience in this particular area. The Thai girl plays the game, getting as much money from the guy as she can, telling him she loves him and he’s the only one, and then going home the next day, giving the money to her Thai boyfriend, who spends it on drugs and girls. It’s judgmental and not judgmental at the same time, people doing what they do because of cultural expectations and, in the case of the Brit protagonist, downright stupidity.

Early on, one of the characters notes that long term relationships between a westerner and a bar girl are doomed to failure because, roughly, every time he looks at her he’ll remember that when he met her, she was a hooker. And every time she looks at him she’ll remember that he was out looking for hookers. Common sense, no?

The book is based on Leather’s personal experiences plus those of his friends and it has a ring of truth to it.

But one unrelated question …. if there are hundreds of these Thai sexpat books, how come I’ve never run across any similar tales from the Philippines? Which I just thought about because I’m heading to Manila on Monday. Couple of days work, couple of days to relax. I plan to spend more time at Handlebar, the roadhouse style place I discovered last visit. And the Sticky/Spicy Fingers folks have opened a branch at Greenbelt 2, so I’ll be checking that out. I’m not feeling at all inclined to visit the go go bars but also don’t feel like sitting in my hotel room every night. Think I might go down by the mall by Bonifacio, one restaurant there does a beef version of crispy pata that’s really nice ….

Right now there are a bunch of people downstairs staging a protest because CNN’s Jack Cafferty said the government of China are a bunch of “thugs and goons.” Actually I thought that was only inaccurate in terms of the restraint he showed; I could think of worse things to say.

I wonder if these same people protested when the Chinese government imprisoned and tortured people like Hu Jia merely for writing a few online articles and giving a couple of interviews?

Does anyone care about what people who believe that Tibet “always was and always will be a part of China” have to say? Apparently so, because there are more reporters covering the event than actual participants.

I went looking for cameras on Saturday.

First I played with the new, highly rate Canon Digital Rebel Xsi, in Hong Kong called the 450D (and in Japan it’s called, I believe, the Digital KissX2). I was extremely unimpressed. Gizmodo recently did a big comparison with four entry level DSLRs, and while this Canon came in first, of the Live View function they said, “Live View is limited, or you might even say crippled.” It was absolutely useless, except perhaps for tripod mounted still life shots, not the sort of thing I often do. And overall, the menus and operation seemed complex and fussy. I did not think it would represent any step up over what I previously had.

On the other hand, the Sony A350 was a joy. The A300 came in second in the Gizmodo shoout out and they wrote that it “might be the best value of all right now.” The NY Times also expressed a preference for the 10 megapixel A300 over the 14 megapixel A350, but I have yet to see the A300 in shops either in Tokyo or here. I know some of you may have seen an anti-Sony camera rant from a comment in an earlier post, but I don’t believe that came from a very informed person. The Sony DSLRs are built on the Minolta Maxxum (and I used to have a Maxxum SLR and loved it greatly). While David Pogue, writing in the NY Times, expressed reservations about the A300’s low light performance, he otherwise had this to say:

The button layout and software design are a delight, too. Little things like a satisfying, clicky Off-On switch, dedicated self-timer and ISO (light-sensitivity) buttons, and scene-mode dial (presets for Portrait, Close-up, Sports and so on) let you operate this thing with a minimum of hunting through the sullen little manual. For an S.L.R., it’s quite small, and it feels terrific in your hand.

The big question, of course, is, how do the photos look?

In good light, they look sensational.

… the A300 is a home run for its intended audience: first-time S.L.R. owners. It’s more camera for the money than its closest competitors from Canon or Nikon. It’s a pleasure to hold and to use; the pictures generally look superb; and the uncompromised Live View feature and tilting screen grant you shots you simply can’t get with other S.L.R.’s.

So I played with it in the shop for awhile. And the dual sensor implementation of Live View, along with the tilting LCD, is a joy. It works flawlessly. So I went for it, figuring out that the minor differences in quality between this, Nikon and Canon would likely not matter for the ways in which I would use it.

So I’ve now had just a couple of days to play around with it and I’m still just learning how to use it. It is of course relatively easy right out of the box in pure automatic mode but the menus and buttons are relatively simple to figure out. But of course I still need to take a bit more time with the manual. Overall, I am extremely pleased with the results.

These shots were taken from my village on Sunday. As it was the day after the typhoon, it was still quite hazy up here, which you’ll see in the photos, but overall I think they’re quite okay.

This is my neighbor’s garden. Mine will never look anything like this.

Stairway from heaven? From my village down to the main road.

Sai Kung town.

The Sai Kung harbor
Fishing pier.

The rest of these shots were taken tonight. Despite Pogue’s comments about low light performance, considering I was shooting handheld and without flash, I’m quite happy with the results.

Last but not least, for the hell of it, the first shot below was taken at 14 megapixel resolution while the second one, taken just a second later, was done at 7.7 megapixel.