Just fed up with this weather. Enough is enough. I’m going to write a letter to the editors of the SCMP. I’m sure that will have a large impact.

This afternoon, wanted to go out for lunch, wanted to bring the dogs with me. Get to SK town, park the car, get out to the street and it starts coming down. It went from zero to buckets in a matter of seconds. Stood under an awning, waited 15 minutes and finally the rain stopped, made it to Cru, sat and had lunch.

Tonight. 6 PM is doggie dinner time. It’s raining, feed them, rain has stopped, get them outside again. Walking up to the road, water is pouring full speed through the drainage pipes, walk over a grate and notice it is filled with snakes, big ones, getting washed down the hill. Get about a kilometer down the road and it starts pouring down again. Run back to the house. All three of us – Spikey, Bogey, me – are soaked. Walk in the door, without thinking I grab one of the towels kept by the door for drying the dogs and use it to dry my own head. Now my head is dry – and covered in dog fur. Finish drying off the dogs and then jump into the shower.

Now it’s time to think about my dinner. Stay in SK or head over to HK? Either way, guess I won’t be driving with the top down tonight.

Note to self: don’t panic, pick the right towel!

Was trying to look up some Ry Cooder stuff on the Rolling Stone DVD-ROM (thanks e@l) and my computer wouldn’t read the disc. I thought, oh great, either another DVD-ROM drive down the drain or the disc has gone bad and I gotta see about getting a replacement. Then I noticed I had iTunes running. iTunes was so busy trying to figure out what disc was in the drive that it was just a few hertz shy of locking up the computer. Removed the disc, shut down iTunes, put the disc back in, worked just perfeckly.

Note to self: iTunes doesn’t play nice in the sandbox with others.

Last but not least, among all the options I’m considering, thinking that if it were to come to it, I’d downsize my life (or at least my lifestyle) in order to remain in HK. And then saw today’s Opus. (Click on it to see it full size.)

Note to self: Hide the sledge hammer.

Friday night I stood outside on my patio and looked at the sky. The storms had blown away all of the haze and pollution. There was a crescent moon hanging low and more stars than I’ve ever seen in all my years in HK. I was able to forget the things that have been weighing me down for the past couple of days and just admire a beautiful night.

Today the storms were back and this afternoon the thunder was almost deafening. I slept through the afternoon, had no appetite for dinner, watched an absolutely dreadful movie all the way through to the end, and during those times when I allowed myself to hear my thoughts, contemplated a series of unattractive options.

There may be some changes in my life soon. Changes which could result in my leaving Hong Kong and possibly even Asia. I really can’t go into any details about any of this, at least not at this point. Hopefully I have enough time to do something about it, but that’s not guaranteed.

The best laid plans of mice and Spike can often go awry.

Who wrote this?

I typed in movie. Nothing. I typed in movie maker. Nothing.

So I gave up and sent mail to Amir saying – where is this Moviemaker download? Does it exist?

So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated.

Answer: Bill Gates. Read his entire email here. If he has these problems with Windows and Microsoft web sites, what hope is there for the rest of us?

Who wrote this?

You could certainly say that George downright invented modern American stand-up comedy in many ways. Every comedian does a little George. I couldn’t even count the number of times I’ve been standing around with some comedians and someone talks about some idea for a joke and another comedian would say, “Carlin does it.” I’ve heard it my whole career: “Carlin does it,” “Carlin already did it,” “Carlin did it eight years ago.”

Answer: Jerry Seinfeld. Read his tribute to George Carlin in the NY Times here.

Well, it would be lucky, except I had two doctor appointments scheduled for this morning. I had to make each of them a week in advance and hoping that when I can reschedule I don’t need to wait another week.

Here are the current warnings over at Weather Underground – a truly excellent site and I always keep a tab in Firefox for the site, which auto-refreshes every ten minutes.

As you can see, warnings for this morning – there’s the Typhoon Signal 8, amber rainstorm, the third one is not getting attacked by flies, it’s actually thunderstorm warning, the fourth one is landslide warning and the last one is, um, er getting licked by a cow warning.

This is the garden area for the house next door to me. The ground floor, first floor and garden are occupied by one couple. The second floor and roof are occupied by a second couple.

On the right side of the photo, note the remnants of that darker, dead tree. They cut down all the branches and then just tossed everything right over the fence onto that public land in front of their house.

Here’s a closer view:

It’s just been sitting there, slowly settling down, for months now.

The couple on the ground and first floor have three dogs. Two golden retrievers and a smaller dog, perhaps a shih tzu. Here’s a picture of the two golden retrievers:

The lighter one is insane. Barks constantly. Runs up the stairs barking like mad any time any person or any dog goes by. The darker colored one seems more normal but always follows the lighter one and starts barking too. And this sets off my golden, who normally never barks. Their golden starts barking and all of a sudden mine goes all feral, hunched down, barking and snarling. It’s all I can do to control him when I have to take him past their gate for one of his walks (my dogs get walked four times a day).

These two dogs never go in the house and never get walked. They live their entire lives in that backyard. And that includes just going to the, um, toilet wherever they please back there. The shih tzu mostly stays in the house but comes out occasionally.

I was talking to the woman who lives on the second floor and she told me that at one point, this couple had 16 dogs and that all of them were from dog rescue organizations and that this probably explains the one dog’s crazy behavior, that it was abused and rescued. “So that means they have good hearts then,” I said.

This morning I told that tale to my maid. And when I got to the part about saying how they had good hearts, she then told me that last week the shih tzu died and they just threw its body over the fence.

Speechless.

George Carlin died today, 71 years old, heart failure. One of the more original and influential stand-up comedians, best selling author and an okay actor. 7 Words You Can Never Say on Television remains a classic. This year he received the Mark Twain Award for American Humor. “Take a fucking chance! Put a little fun in your life! … most Americans are soft and frightened and unimaginative and they don’t realize there’s such a thing as dangerous fun, and they certainly don’t recognize a good show when they see one.”

I love all of Ry Cooder’s work, Buena Vista Social Club, his albums of duets with African and Indian musicians, his concept albums, his soundtracks, but I especially love his solo work from the 70s, albums like Into the Purple Valley or Paradise & Lunch, albums in which he delved into the roots of American music. It’s been years since he’s done what I would consider a relatively straightforward album of that nature, but now we have a new one. Okay, it has a concept, but a loose one, and the music is relatively straightforward for Ry. It’s called “I, Flathead” and subtitled “The Songs of Kash Buk and the Klowns.” Wikipedia says it’s the third in his California trilogy and unfortunately, I got a “regular” copy, not knowing there was a deluxe edition that includes an accompanying 100+ page novella written by Cooder. Which I want, so if someone wants to buy this “regular” edition from me, let me know.

I never met Mr. Cooder, and yet it seems that on this album he wrote a song for me. It’s called “Filipino Dance Hall Girl.”

When the evening shadows fall I’m dreaming
Of a certain smile a secret rendezvous
When the day is past and gone I’ll come creeping
Down the dark end of the street to you
In a dimly lit cafe as we go dancing
I try to smile and hide a love that’s true
Then they play a lovely tune as we’re romancing
And I can’t pretend no matter what I do

Dark and different so they tell me
It’s forbidden so they say
But I just tell them we’re so happy
She’s my Filipino dance hall girl

Good friends have all withdrawn their salutations
Good neighbors pause when I come down the street
Preacher has a look of scorn on Sunday morning
And there’s a frown on every face I see

Que sera sera the Bible tells me
Novus Ordo Seclorum so they say
I just tell them adios muchachos
She’s my Filipino dance hall girl

Then she whispers while we’re dancing
In a language soft and low
I just tell her darling I love you
She’s my Filipino dance hall girl

Also newly released is a 2 disc edition of Dennis Wilson’s one completed solo album, Pacific Ocean Blue, originally released in 1977. Bonus tracks include the sessions for the album Bambu, which was in progress when Wilson died. Wilson of course was one of the Beach Boys, the “odd” one, the one who hung out with Charles Manson, the only Beach Boy who actually surfed. Many critics think of this album as a neglected masterpiece of sorts. I’ve only listened to it once so far and I’m not quite ready to rate it that highly, but it’s clear that Dennis possessed ambitions every bit as lofty as that of brother Brian. Some of it is pretty quirky stuff. But it’s definitely worth hearing.

In case you haven’t read it elsewhere, they have now found water on Mars. Ice, but ice made from actual H2O, not from something weird and alieny. And maybe not the first time either. Click here to see some photos of it.

This then is one step closer to confirming my theory that human life actually originated on Mars and then migrated to Earth once the eco-system there went belly up. As far as why we don’t remember it or have anything in our history books about it or wreckage of Martian spaceships anywhere, um, I’m still working on that bit. Something to do with Zsa Zsa Gabor. Yeah, okay, that movie was set on Venus. So maybe it was Bill O’Reilly. Buddha knows he’s not of this earth.

In related news, just what the fuck is this? Does it bite or sting? Is it poisonous? Did it come from Mars to steal our women?

I got in my car this morning, started driving, then noticed this thing walking around on the hood. At first I thought it was a stick until it started moving. I drove for about 5 miles, got out of the car, it was still there. Ran some errands, came back to the car 15 minutes later, it was still there. It walked over to the door handle and then stopped and stared at me, as if daring me to do something about it. There was a rag on the ground near the car; I picked it up and flicked this monster off.

The result of which is that I’ve had the worst freaking luck all day. And why I thought it was a good idea to stay home tonight.

Entertainment Weekly has hit its 1,000th issue and it’s loaded with lists, including their choice of 100 best albums of the past 25 years. Stereogum has the list here. Here are the top ten:

10 Radiohead – In Rainbows (2007)
09 Amy Winehouse – Back to Black (2007)
08 Paul Simon – Graceland (1986)
07 Jay-Z – The Blueprint (2001)
06 Green Day – American Idiot (2004)
05 Madonna – Madonna (1983)
04 Kanye West – The College Dropout (2004)
03 U2 – Achtung Baby (1991)
02 Lauryn Hill – The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill (1998)
01 Prince and the Revolution – Purple Rain (1984)

Yes, I have all ten of the above. As a matter of fact, I have 91 of the 100. But the entire list seems just completely weird to me. Purple Rain as #1? Achtung Baby over Joshua Tree? In Rainbows over OK Computer?

Look at the whole list. The most bizarre selection I’ve ever seen.

I was so tired last night and today. My muscles were aching like crazy. I eventually realized it was due to my tour yesterday. What I forgot to write about was the details about the 3rd Infiltration Tunnel. For those who have never done the tour, the deal is they give you a hard hat, you walk down a 350 meter ramp (at a steep angle) and then you’re in the tunnel. You walk 400 meters down the tunnel to a wall that the South Koreans built – there are two more behind it, and a lot of barbed wire. The tunnel itself is about 6 feet high but not even, so I kept banging my head on the ceiling (thanks for the hard hat!) and that meant I had to walk the 400 meters stooped over.

So you walk all this distance and it’s just a plain, rough tunnel that ends at a wall with barbed wire. I’ve seen tunnels before. I’ve seen barbed wire before. It was no big whoop – the existence of the tunnel, of course, is a big whoop. They claim that the North Koreans could have moved 30,000 troops per hour through this tunnel into the South. And at the time it was discovered, the southern end of the tunnel was just 52 km from Seoul. Can’t imagine what it would have been like to be living there when this was discovered. But touring the tunnel itself – not so much. You’re not allowed to take photos down there and, well, there’s really not too much to take photos of.

And then, you walk all the way back. And that includes walking up that 350 meter steep ramp. Aside from being a heavy smoker, I’m a real slacker when it comes to exercise. (I know, I know, comments not necessary.) That walk back up, even with stops every 50 meters to catch my breath, left me exhausted and soaked with sweat. I asked the guide about the train thing that I saw down at the bottom. She told me it was just for senior citizens and handicapped. I said, but I’m senior! And she laughed and said that I made it and I was fine. And I suppose that’s true.

(Aside: our tour guide was female and very cute. And she made a point during the bus ride back to the city of asking me if I was single and of course I assured her that I was. I was contemplating asking her out for dinner. Note: when you want to impress your female tour guide and the tour includes a stop by some shop selling garbage that you have no interest in but the guide probably makes some commission on sales, it’s probably not a good idea to just stand outside the shop and smoke and not even go inside to take a look around. Her attitude towards me was a lot less friendly after that.)

But today my legs are killing me! Walking through the Incheon airport, sitting in economy for 3 and a half hours, everything hurts now. Tomorrow is definitely a day for massage. Or maybe even tonight.

I’m definitely feeling old and forgetful. Last night I did my next column for BC and even though it ran about 300 words longer than it should have, I realized today that I left out about a dozen things I wanted to include. Oh well, too late.

Didn’t take many photos this trip aside from the DMZ tour but did just want to share these with you:

This is the COEX complex, as seen from my hotel room. It includes a convention center, four hotels, a Hyundai department store, the city air terminal and a huge underground shopping mall that includes a multiplex cinema, an aquarium, dozens of places to eat and even a book store with an almost decent selection of English language books.

The mall includes this open square (plastered with ads for Canon DSLRs) that features western food heaven (or hell depending on your perspective) including a Bennigans, a Baskin Robbins cafe, a Paris Baguette cafe, Dunkin Donuts, and a lot more. And among other things, it’s a great place to grab a seat and watch the beautiful Korean women walking by.

One other thing to note. This corner is by the Samseung Metro station in the Gangnam district. I am told it is the most expensive real estate in Seoul, which makes it some of the most expensive in the world. The main street that you see in the photo is called Teheran-no. And look at all the trees and green stuff. That’s not just on this corner, this greenery runs along all these streets all the way. That’s how to plan a city.

And now … I get to stay home for two weeks before my next trip (Taipei). Though a small chance that I might need to do a last minute run to the Sydney office.