Saturday night, at Delaney’s in Wanchai with friends. Drinking coke (sigh). The bar is busy but not full. It’s around midnight and I’m hungry.

I call over a waitress and ask her if the kitchen is still open. She asks someone else and tells me no. I say, okay, in that case, can I go next door and get a slice of pizza and bring it back here? She asks someone else and tells me the kitchen is still open. Funny how that works.

She brings a menu, we order a couple of things from the snack menu, keep it simple and easy, right?

The football starts. Sorry, to me it’s just a bunch of men in shorts and knee socks being paid a lot of money to run around and kick a ball while 80,000 people watch, get drunk and beat the shit out of each other to relieve the tedium. Yes, even at the next table, the men there decided to randomly wrestle with each other, repeatedly knocking chairs into our table, forcing us to grab our beverages before they spilled on the floor. No, they never apologized.

The high point of the game for me was when the camera focused in on some fat bald guy in the crowd downing a plastic cup of lager. They held the shot while he drank the entire pint. It got cheers from the crowd in the bar so I suppose it was the high point for a lot of people. It’s probably on YouTube by now. Which is good because I think the amateur wrestlers at the next table missed it. One of the men boys managed to get his head under the other man’s boy’s t-shirt while their girlfriends looked on and laughed. Ah, memories are made of such as these!

The food still hasn’t come. I glance up at the game and see they’re at the 27 minute mark. I ask a friend if she recalls when I placed my order. “Before the match started,” she replies.

So I wave someone over, the manager judging by the way she was dressed. Excuse me, I say, I ordered food 30 minutes ago and I still haven’t received it.

“You have to wait. There’s only one person in the kitchen!” So much for the customer is always right, so much for “let me check on that for you sir.” I didn’t see anyone else eating in the bar at that point. Though to be fair, Delaney’s is spread over two floors and perhaps 30 people on the other floor had ordered a ricetaffel when I ordered my potato skins.

The food came about 5 minutes later. I think I would have been better off with the lousy pizza from Cul de Sac (the wrong dough and the wrong sauce but at least they sell it by the slice). The potato skins didn’t suck but the chili with melted cheese and sour cream served on top of slices of potato was interesting in concept and might have worked had it not been the worst chili I ever had in my life. Yes, I know, serves me freaking right for ordering chili in a faux Irish pub.

Oh, I saw a hot blond woman in the bar, she could have won a Scarlett Johansson look-alike contest. She was sitting at a table with two guys. Both were younger than me. And bigger than me. And at least one of them was presumably happier than me. And I saw a guy wearing a t-shirt that said, “If you like Johnny Depp you’ll probably like me.”

The game over, my friends departed. I went over to 7-11 to get an iced tea for the road. My crazy taxi driver friend (the bald one who’s always parked in front of Joe Banana’s) asked if I had my car, asked if I’d been drinking, looked at my eyes, gave me the okay to drive home. And so I did.

Do you get the feeling I’m in a lousy mood?

David Mamet is one of my all time favorites. Of course everyone knows Glengarry Glen Ross, but as a director his films have rarely risen beyond the arthouse circuit, even though he’s almost as macho in his approach as John Milius. He loves doing films about con games; they show up prominently in House of Games, Spanish Prisoner and Heist but also figure in some way in almost all of his other films, even his comedies which include Things Change and State & Main. I only just found out that he wrote the screenplay for Ronin (under an assumed name, don’t know why), a film that I seem to watch once every couple of months – amazing on every level (check this recent review on Pajiba).

So of course I was eager to see his latest, Redbelt, even if the plot didn’t sound too promising. A martial arts instructor who has never been in a competition is forced to enter one. I knew in Mamet’s hands it wasn’t going to be a Jean Claude Van Damme cartoon, and it isn’t. But the set-up to get him there is far too complex and I don’t think some of the key points are sufficiently fleshed out. The cast is uniformly excellent, starring Chiwetel Ejiofor (from American Gangster) and Tim Allen in a rare straight role. Lots of Mamet’s regulars also appear – wife Rebecca Pidgeon, Ricky Jay, Joe Mantegna, David Paymer. The movie had me for its first two thirds but the final third drops the ball. Again, some of the key questions are explained too fast, the fight scene (I don’t want to spoil it but it is not the fight you are expecting to see) is neither well shot nor well edited and the ending too abrupt. I get the feeling I’m going to watch it again but for now I feel let down.

I approached Forgetting Sarah Marshall with exactly zero expectations. After all, how much would you expect from a movie that is written by and stars Jason Segel, the third male lead in sitcom How I Met Your Mother. Director Nicholas Stoller doesn’t have much of a track record – the screenplay to the unnecessary Fun With Dick & Jane remake and some sitcom scripts. I did know that it was produced by Judd Apatow but hadn’t noticed the 85% score at Rotten Tomatoes.

And I loved it. If there are only about a dozen plots in the world, this one goes down a road we’ve gone down hundreds of times before. Guy loses girl, guy moans about losing her, guy gets another girl. And plotwise, it goes exactly where you expect it to go. The joy is in getting there. And in this film, it gets there funny and it never has any of the cringe moments so prevalent in romcoms.

Here’s the set-up. Segel composes music for a CSI-like TV show that stars his girlfriend, Sarah Marshall, along with Billy Baldwin. When she dumps him, he heads to Hawaii to forget, only to end up in the same hotel as Sarah and her new boyfriend, an obnoxious British rock star.

All of the expected Apatow elements are there – the combination of raunch on the surface with unexpected sweetness and sincerity underneath. Yes, Jason Segel has two full frontal nude scenes. Kristen Bell is okay while Mila Kunis has never been hotter. Apatow regulars Bill Hader, Jonah Hill and Paul Rudd all show up but it’s possible that 30 Rock’s Jack McBrayer comes close to stealing the film as a very nervous, very Christian newlywed.

I’m gonna have to watch this one again because I know my girlfriend is gonna love it.

Sunday afternoon. I should be doing some work around the house but think I’ll put another movie on now.

View A: Sarah Palin is female, which will attract many of the Hillary supporters who are irrationally cheesed off with Obama for beating their woman in the primaries. She is a former beauty show contestant, so she is photogenic. She is anti-abortion and so attracts the far right Christian nutjobs. She is relatively young to balance against McCain’s extreme old age. She’ll look good on TV and will score highly with those who vote based on image and soundbites. And so she is a good choice for the Republicans.

View B: Sarah Palin has no foreign policy experience, no national experience. She has served half a term as governor of her state. Her major political experience comes from being mayor of a town of 9,000 people and 72 year old McCain wants to put her one heartbeat away from the presidency. She has used the power of her office to have her former brother-in-law, a state trooper, fired because he is divorced from her sister and in the midst of a nasty court battle over custody and visitation of their children. She is anti-abortion and pro-drilling for oil in protected areas of Alaska. And so she is a good choice for Democrats.

In other news,

The BBC reports:

A man who chose “Lloyds is pants” as his telephone banking password said he found it had been changed by a member of staff to “no it’s not”.

Steve Jetley, from Shrewsbury, said he chose the password after falling out with Lloyds TSB over insurance that came free with an account.

He said he was then banned from changing it back or to another password of “Barclays is better”.

I think it’s time to change my HSBC password.

Interesting article from The Independent (London) carried on Content Agenda about potential strategy shifts at iTunes:

Here’s the fundamental question: what is the point of the iTunes store if music is free?

Rumors are circulating that China Mobile will be the one selling the iPhone in China after all.

Protests in Thailand against the Prime Minister seem to be intensifying. Protesters are still occupying the PM’s compound and for awhile managed block airport entrances in Phuket, Krabi and Hat Yai, causing cancellations of some flights. Employees of the train system and Thai air are talking about going on strike.

A. L. Nanik writes in a letter to the SCMP that “there are thousands of foreign domestic helpers who come here with bad intentions.” Mr. or Ms. Nanik offers no proof of that assertion. Why does the SCMP continually allow this kind of nonsense to dirty up its pages?

Other stuff that’s caught my eye so far today

Four international record companies quit industry trade group in HK – Content Agenda (scmp)

Angry fans threaten to boycott and pirate Fox because of Watchmen – Content Agenda (usa today)

Facebook now a major target for hackers – Content Agenda (iht)

Sugarsync for iPhone – “real over-the-air remote file access”

The reason for iPhone’s 3G reception problems uncovered – TechCrunch

Krispy Kreme cheddar bacon cheeseburgers – SlashFood

Waiter Rant’s book to be translated into Chinese and published in the Mainland. How will a non-tipping society take to this book?

Another meme. Very Good Eats (via Serious Eats) has a list of 100 foods everyone should taste at least once in their lifetime.

“The list includes fine food, strange food, everyday food and even some pretty bad food – but a good omnivore should really try it all.”

Again, an odd list and just one person’s opinion. What’s not here that you’d put on your list? The first thing that came to mind for me was laksa. Then sushi. Then I thought about beef rendang, satay, korean bbq, tonkatsu, xiao long bao, chocolate egg creams (and malteds and milk shakes), Reese’s peanut butter cups, very dark chocolate, California burritos, shepherd’s pie, chicken fried steak ….

(I’ve yet to find chicken fried steak in HK? With white gravy and lumpy mashed potatoes? Has anyone found it?)

1) Copy this list into your blog or journal, including these instructions.
2) Bold all the items you’ve eaten.
3) Cross out any items that you would never consider eating.
4) Optional extra: Post a comment here at www.verygoodtaste.co.uk linking to your results.

1. Venison
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros (I don’t eat eggs)
4. Steak tartare
5. Crocodile
6. Black pudding
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari
12. Pho
13. PB&J sandwich
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart (one summer in NYC I actually had this job)
16. Epoisses
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
19. Steamed pork buns
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Foie gras
24. Rice and beans
25. Brawn, or head cheese
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper
27. Dulce de leche
28. Oysters
29. Baklava
30. Bagna cauda
31. Wasabi peas
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl
33. Salted lassi (though I prefer mango lassi)
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac with a fat cigar
37. Clotted cream tea
38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail
41. Curried goat
42. Whole insects
43. Phaal
44. Goat’s milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more
46. Fugu
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. Sea urchin
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone
54. Paneer
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini
58. Beer above 8% ABV
59. Poutine
60. Carob chips
61. S’mores
62. Sweetbreads
63. Kaolin
64. Currywurst
65. Durian
66. Frogs’ legs
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake
68. Haggis
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost, or brunost
75. Roadkill
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie
78. Snail
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict (I don’t eat eggs)
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant.
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare
87. Goulash
88. Flowers
89. Horse
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee (I don’t like coffee)
100. Snake

Full transcript of Obama’s nomination acceptance speech here.

Just one of many bits that I liked:

The times are too serious, the stakes are too high for this same partisan playbook. So let us agree that patriotism has no party. I love this country, and so do you, and so does John McCain.

The men and women who serve in our battlefields may be Democrats and Republicans and independents, but they have fought together, and bled together, and some died together under the same proud flag. They have not served a red America or a blue America; they have served the United States of America.

So I’ve got news for you, John McCain: We all put our country first.

My company sponsors a “volunteer day” each year. Said day being on a Saturday because volunteering is important but not if it interferes with making money.

This year we are offered two choices.

The first choice is “lesson on moon cake & lantern making at XXXXX with mentally challenged youth.”

The second is more intriguing. “Enjoy a reminiscent market party at XXXXX with dementia elderly.”

I have no idea what a reminiscent market party might be. And if I want to enjoy time with “dementia elderly,” then I can just stay home with myself. Or go out with the person who wrote that email.

This was written by the same person who sometimes sets up conference calls and then sends out notices that the “telephonic interview will commence at xxx.”

I almost forgot. Today marks the 7th anniversary of my return to Hong Kong. And that means I now qualify for permanent residence. I’ve sent the first series of papers off in the post today.

Sadly, no plans this evening to mark this momentous occasion. My gf is out of town right now and I’ve got a deadline tomorrow for a BC column that I haven’t started on yet, so unless I wanna get yelled at tomorrow, I’ll be home writing tonight.

One might say that I celebrated one night early. Last night was three hours of getting semi-trashed with friends in semi-trashy bars followed by one hour of getting straight before heading home.

This also marks 7 years (and 1 week) with my current company. That’s roughly double the length of time I’ve spent at any previous job. Why did I stick it out so long? Lots of people who know me might offer varying opinions, but many of us who actually work here say the same thing: I love this company, I just hate the people I work with. Which is not entirely true, because I like almost everyone working for the company in the branch offices out here – it’s just the folks back in the head office that I despise. But I don’t have to deal with them too frequently since Asia represents just 5% of my company’s gross revenue.

Of course, there’s this temptation to rehash everything that I’ve been through in the past 7 years. Well, why not succumb to it?

I was married to my second wife when I returned; now I’m not.

I’ve dated and/or slept with more women than you could shake a stick at (pun not intended)(well, maybe intended). I believe I’ve been in love with three of them (including the current one).

I’ve lived in 4 different places in the past 7 years – Sai Kung, Wanchai, Mid Levels and now Sai Kung again.

Still at the same job.

Owned five different cars in 7 years (counting one bought for my ex).

Gained a second dog.

Have taken approximately 120 business trips in the past 7 years, god knows how many personal ones. Finally got to Cambodia and Vietnam and Paris. Have circled the globe three times. Spent a month in Shanghai studying Mandarin, most of which I’ve now managed to forget.

And, well, I suppose you’re waiting for something more introspective, how I’ve changed internally, how many friends I’ve made, some life lesson I’ve learned? Nah, ain’t gonna go there.

Wolfgang’s Vault has settled the lawsuit by Santana and the Doors, still gotta deal with the Dead and Led Zepp and others. The owner of Wolfgang’s Vault paid $6 million for various stuff from Bill Graham’s estate and sells memorabilia online … and streams classic concerts from the 60s and 70s online free. (It’s called Wolfgang’s because that was Graham’s real first name.)

A study reports that very few classic films are available online for legal digital downloading. What’s the hold-up? Catalog sales account for more than 40% of major studios’ home video revenue. One exception – Casablanca – has remained within iTunes top 100 since its release.

iTunes is accessible in China again, though the page for the Songs for Tibet album is not accessible there. I bought the album just because.

China Unicom is going to spend 100 billion RMB in the next two years to roll out 3G services to the top 50 cities in China. (They’re also about to merge with China Netcom.) I’ll bet they get the iPhone contract for China.

The new BB King album, One Kind Favor, produced by T-Bone Burnett, live in the studio with Dr John, Jim Keltner, Nathan East, others, is fabulous. Why did he wait till he was 82 years old to start making records like this? Just imagining what the same record 20 years ago would have been like, when his voice was still relatively in its prime. Then again, hearing 82 years of life on these songs isn’t a bad thing either.

Criterion is going to start doing Blu-Ray soon, starting with some of the more popular titles in their catalog. Apparently you can upgrade by mailing them back the old discs (discs only, not packaging) and a check for US$25 and in return they’ll send you the blu-ray version. Seems expensive to me.

One of the things I like about Alejandro Escovedo, aside from his fabulous new album, is that when it was revealed that one of his songs was found on a playlist on George W Bush’s iPod, he stopped performing that song in concert.

Dave Freeman, co-writer of “100 Things to Do Before You Die,” died last week at age 47. I hope he got to cross most of those 100 things off his list first.

Everyone else will joke about this so I don’t have to: Margaret Thatcher’s daughter, Carol, has revealed that her mother has suffered from dementia for “at least” 8 years.

Who made this joke back in 1998:

“Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly?
Because her father is Janet Reno.”

Yep, John McCain. What a sweetheart. Oh, wait, he was a prisoner of war, he’s entitled to make crude jokes in public. He was tortured for 5 and a half years, now he intends to torture us for eight years to make up for it.

Via Skippy-san,

From the friendly residents of the People’s Republic of Tung Chung, who live where I wish I was living-a mere 20 minutes by train from one of my two favorite spots on the planet-and very near the world’s best airport.

“The Big Read reckons that the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books they’ve printed.”

The problem is, this is an exceedingly weird list, and not merely because #14 is the complete works of William Shakespeare while #98 is Hamlet.

Great books: Da Vinci Code??? Five People You Meet in Heaven??? Bridget Jones???

No Hunter Thompson, no Philip Roth, no Philip K. Dick, no Norman Mailer, no Ethel the Aardvark Goes Quantity Surveying???

But I’ll play ….

• Look at the list and embolden those you have read.
• Italicise those you intend to read.
• Underline the books you LOVE.
• Reprint this list in your own blog.

1. Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
2. The Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien
3. Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte
4. Harry Potter series – JK Rowling
5. To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
6. The Bible (well some of it)
7. Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte
8. Nineteen Eighty Four – George Orwell
9. His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman
10. Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
11. Little Women – Louisa M Alcott
12. Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy
13. Catch 22 – Joseph Heller
14. Complete works of Shakespeare (well, some of it)
15. Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier
16. The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien
17. Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks
18. Catcher in the Rye – J.D. Salinger
19. The Time Traveller’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger
20. Middlemarch – George Eliot
21. Gone With the Wind – Margaret Mitchell
22. The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald
23. Bleak House – Charles Dickens
24. War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy
25. Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams
26. Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh
27. Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28. Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
29. Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll
30. Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame
31. Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy
32. David Copperfield – Charles Dickens
33. Chronicles of Narnia – CS Lewis
34. Emma – Jane Austen
35. Persuasion – Jane Austen
36. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – CS Lewis
37. The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini
38. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis De Bernieres
39. Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden (started it, got bored)
40. Winnie the Pooh – AA Milne
41. Animal Farm – George Orwell
42. The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown
43. One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44. A Prayer for Owen Meaney – John Irving
45. The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins
46. Anne of Green Gables – LM Montgomery
47. Far From The Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy
48. The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
49. Lord of the Flies – William Golding
50. Atonement – Ian McEwan
51. Life of Pi – Yann Martel
52. Dune – Frank Herbert
53. Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons
54. Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen
55. A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth
56. The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57. A Tale of Two Cities – Charles Dickens
58. Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time – Mark Haddon
60. Love in the Time of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61. Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck
62. Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov
63. The Secret History – Donna Tartt
64. The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold
65. Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas
66. On the Road – Jack Kerouac
67. Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy
68. Bridget Jones’ Diary – Helen Fielding
69. Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie
70. Moby Dick – Herman Melville
71. Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens
72. Dracula – Bram Stoker
73. The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett
74. Notes From A Small Island – Bill Bryson
75. Ulysses – James Joyce
76. The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath
77. Swallows and Amazons – Arthur Ransome
78. Germinal – Emile Zola
79. Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray
80. Possession – AS Byatt
81. Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens
82. Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell
83. The Color Purple – Alice Walker
84. The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro
85. Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert
86. A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry
87. Charlotte’s Web – EB White
88. Five People You Meet in Heaven – Mitch Albom
89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Arthur Conan Doyle
90. The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton
91. Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
92. The Little Prince – Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93. The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks
94. Watership Down – Richard Adams
95. A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole
96. A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute
97. The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas
98. Hamlet – William Shakespeare
99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl
100. Les Miserables – Victor Hugo