Not for the blog, for me, moving from one village in Sai Kung to another.  Farewell million dollar view.  Hello saving some significant money on rent.   As of now things are about 75% packed and about 50% moved to the new place.  Everything else goes over on Friday.  PCCW is supposed to get me hooked up on Saturday but since this is PCCW, anything can happen.   So for the next couple of days I may or may not be able to approve comments and respond to emails.  Patience please.

In the meantime, the folks who brought you the Steve Jobs action figure have a new figure, “the man who invented poking.”  Yes, a Mark Zuckerberg action figure.

As of this writing, they have not been shut down by Facebook’s lawyers and there are 53 left in stock in their store.  Yeah, I ordered one.

If plastic dolls don’t do it for you, what about the real thing?  (Okay, a photo of the real thing.)

This is Zhao Ming, the production assistant turned movie star in China.  I previously wrote about her (and had a photo) here.  The above photo came from here, and there are several more from this session, the 2011 Pink Ribbon campaign for breast awareness.   Is it too obvious for me to write that the campaign must be working because I’m aware of her breasts?   On an only slightly more serious note, have you noticed how mainland actresses and models are far less shy than their Hong Kong counterparts?  This has been true of the models we’ve worked with at PASM Workshop and obviously true in this young lady’s case.

The Hangover Part II is currently filming in Bangkok.  Huffington Post reports Zach Galifianakis says, “I don’t really want to go back because I find that I might be bored when I go back to the United States. This is, like, the most un-boring place. I just love it.”

BTW, if you’re a fan of Galifianakis (and you should be, whether you can pronounce his surname or not), then check out Due Date, a buddy road movie where he co-stars with Robert Downey Jr.  Not a great film but more than enough laughs to keep you going and Galifianakis (jeez typing that out is tiring) owns the film.  He gives his sad sack stereotypical geek character dignity by very carefully underplaying the role.  He hits the right balance here; anything more and it really wouldn’t have worked.

For a bit more Galifianakis online, here’s the latest episode of his series, Between Two Ferns.

Yes, it’s Social Media Week in Hong Kong.  No, this post is not about that.

Craig’s List was famous for many things, one of which was its Adult Services section, which was basically filled with ads for prostitutes.  After a lot of pressure from different groups, Craig’s List shut down the Adult Services section last year.  They still have a Casual Encounters sub-section in their Personals section.  (These are all from current posts for Hong Kong.  ”I’m a bigger gal with special skills and a tongue ring.”  ”Fancy to get massage from an attractive office lady?” “We will be out in Wanchai, we are hot, sexy and fun ladies.” “I am used to my requests being met. Not for weak willed persons.  Best that you are submissive.”)

So what can a poor ho’ do?  Facebook!

Both CNet and TechDirt are reporting on a study by Columbia University Professor Sudhir Venkatesh published in Wired stating that Facebook has become the new preferred online home for prostitutes.  Dr. Venkatesh’s report, titled How Tech Tools Transformed New York’s Sex Trade, obviously focuses in on New York City and yet probably holds true for many other places.

I followed 290 women, 170 of whom made enough (at least $30,000) to separate them from streetwalkers. I spent at least 12 months earning their trust, trying not to ask a lot of prying questions.

All right, the guy says he followed 290 hookers for a year.  Nudge, nudge, wink, wink, a nod’s as good as a wink to a blind horse.  Get over it.  It’s a tough job but somebody’s gotta do it, right?

Of the women I talked to, 61 percent said they’ve used craigslist, mostly for advertising. But even before the crackdown on the site’s adult-services section, sex workers were turning to Facebook: 83 percent have a Facebook page, and I estimate that by the end of 2011, Facebook will be the leading on-line recruitment space.

His figures show Craig’s List as the source of 9 percent of their clients in 2003.  In 2010, Craig’s List was just 3% and Facebook (which didn’t exist in 2003) represents 25%.  As you can see, he expects that figure will continue to, ahem, grow.

Some other interesting bits of information in the study.

“You’ll make about 50 percent more with a good boob job,” one woman said. Other things that can increase a sex worker’s earning power:

1. Dying her hair blond.

2. Befriending hotel clerks to obtain free room upgrades to suites.

3. BlackBerrys. To clients, this symbol of professional life suggests the worker is drug- and disease-free.

70% of sex workers polled use a Blackberry; only 19% use an iPhone.  Perhaps Apple needs to rethink its App Store policies if it wants to gain a larger market share here.

Some of the stuff from around the web that I would have posted sooner (and separately) if I had more time, but still want to share:

The recipe for Elvis Presley’s peanut butter sandwich – peanut butter, butter, banana, bacon and honey.   Yikes.  Yet I am strangely tempted to try this out.

No, your eyes are not playing tricks on you, it’s a girl in a bikini being photographed by a chimpanzee wearing a kimono.  It makes me feel better just knowing such things exist.

This one’s more serious.  A Filipino politician is takes a picture of his family and the gunman who will kill him in the next second has stepped into the frame.  (You can’t see it in the thumbnail above, click for larger size or hit the link.)

David Bowie pissing into a toaster.  Probably Photoshopped.  Still wonderful.

The classiest and trashiest lesbian love scenes of all time?  I would have rated Mulholland Drive higher.

Carina Lau’s 2011 calendar, made as a gift for friends.  A tad egotistical?  When you’re 45 and look like that (okay, maybe with some digital help), you got a right to show off.

Nicki Minaj on the cover of King magazine.  In 2010, I couldn’t get enough of her.  2011?  Remains to be seen.

Lady Gaga likes the new Polaroid camera.

Actually, the new Polaroid camera seems like it might not suck.  12 megapixel digital camera with 3X4 printer all in one.

Speaking of new things being unveiled at the CES this week, if someone wanted to get me these Tron headphones from Monster, I wouldn’t complain.

No links, ask me no questions and I’ll tell you know lies, but for those who know how to get at this stuff, ’tis the season of Academy screeners – so far Black Swan, True Grit, The Fighter, Megamind are floating around on the web, more to come I’m sure.

These are all uncovered, so to speak, by the Dangerous Minds blog.  Not embedding the videos here, just links.  Obviously I think they’re worth checking out.

Captain Beefheart does a phone interview on American Bandstand in 1966 and then the kids all dance to Diddy Wah Diddy.

Lou Reed TV commercial for Honda Scooters. “Hey, don’t settle for walkin’.”

Miles Davis does a Japanese TV ad for TDK cassettes.

Buster Keaton stars in a 1965 silent film written by Samuel Beckett.

Jarvis Cocker live in concert, singing “Cunts Are Still Ruling the World.”

270 films released in 2010 in 6 minutes, the video mix guaranteed better than 258 of the films.

The brilliant Van Dyke Parks doing a radically re-arranged Heroes & Villains (a song he co-wrote) live in the studio for WNYC radio.

Just a way to avoid doing the things I ought to be doing … well, it’s Sunday morning, who wants to work?

Too good not to share, this is apparently a real letter and proof, if any was needed, that some people have no sense of humor.

Click on the image to see the letter larger size.  Found on Boing Boing.

Imagine boarding a flight from London to Australia, settling down in your business class seat, and finding that the guy sitting next to you is former Sex Pistols singer and reality TV star John Lydon aka Johnny Rotten.  Close to a thrill?  Not for singer Jay Kay of Jamiroquai.

“He is a f**king nuisance. I was seated next to him on a flight and the whole trip he just kept farting. It was totally foul. He kept saying, ‘Oh, that wasn’t me’ or ‘The meal smells a bit off, don’t you think?’ He drove me insane.”

Kay says that next time he’d prefer to sit in economy class rather than next to Lydon.  ”At least I’d be able to breathe a bit. They banned smoking in the air and they should ban farting.”

It may not have occurred to him that Lydon was making an editorial comment about Jamiroquai’s music.  (Via The Awl.)

R. Crumb, the brilliant artist and cartoonist, left the U.S. to live in France 19 years ago.  He recently visited the U.S. and and L.A. Times writer Deborah Vankin caught up with him.  (Found via the terrific Dangerous Minds blog.)   Here’s an excerpt from the interview:

Maybe I’m less angry. I don’t know. Actually, I’m not less angry. When I go back to America, after a few days I am once again filled with this kind of angry alienation and disgust with this thing there that America has got – you have no idea how pervasive it is there. The public relations and propaganda put out by the corporate mono-culture there is so pervasive. When I’m over here, I look at America and think,‘Why are people not more angry about what’s going on? Why are the people not more up in arms?’ I mean the banks and all that stuff? Good God. How can they stand it? The thing about the corporate approach is it’s smart and it knows how to distract people really well with entertainment. It doesn’t just take, it gives back in this smarmy way… they give you this seemingly McDonald’s version of the good life which is completely phony and fake, from top to bottom. It pacifies the people.

If he feels that way about the U.S., can you imagine his reaction if he ever came to Hong Kong?

From here, a place Tech Crunch calls a “how-to site for crazy people.”

Love this.

It’s from here – click the link, there are more images.