I know I still owe part 3 of the NYC taxi story.  And probably a lot of other posts as well.  I’ve been busy.  And I’ve been tired.  Crazy tired.  I don’t really know why but I suppose it’s long past time to get serious about dealing with my obstructive sleep apnea, especially given an article in the Times over the weekend about new links found between apnea and cancer.

Anywho, we were in Manila over the weekend.  It’s summer in The Philippines and it was hotter than fuck and I think the heat got to me on my last day there.  It certainly couldn’t have been that I got drunk on Sunday night – and it’s so rare for me to drink alcohol these days that it doesn’t really take much to get me drunk.  We were at Cafe Havana, one of my usual spots there.  They had a decent salsa band playing there.  Let’s see, drums, congas, keyboard, guitar, bass, trumpet, trombone, timbales and a female singer with the requisite large breasts.  (I was listening to some Fania All-Stars yesterday, the Live at the Cheetah album, it don’t get no better than that, and I was wondering why these bar bands have such a limited repertoire.  Well, gotta keep the customer satisfied.)  We bought drinks for a lot of other people. That’s easy to do in Manila, where the cost of a fancy concoction is about half the price of a beer in Lan Kwai Fong.  And apparently at some point my gf got me to dance, which is something I never do.  It ain’t a pretty sight, that’s for sure.

Anyway, we were there looking to get a place to live.  It started on our last trip, when we viewed a new Rockwell development.  This time a bunch of places from Ayala and Century (yes, we even looked at the joint that they got Paris Hilton to advertise).  Well, I know where I want to live.  It’s in the Fort, aka Bonifacio Global City.  Unfortunately, the place we saw and loved and can afford won’t be ready for occupancy until 2017 and while I don’t plan to leave Hong Kong in the near future, 5 years is too far off.

Oh, should mention, a place we ate at Saturday night, I think it’s called Seconds, or 2nds, it’s in the Fort, just off Bonifacio High Street, right next to Agave.  (The Agave in the Philippines is apparently not affiliated with the ones in Hong Kong.  One way to know that is that the ones in Manila feature “bottomless” margaritas for roughly HK$50, if memory serves.  I shit you not.)  Anywho, very nicely designed place, Filipino food made high end with a tiny bit of a fusion-y twist.  Comfortable place.  Dinner for 4, including a bottle of very nice Spanish wine, worked out to around HK$600.

I could probably write several blog posts about my apartment-hunting experiences there.  And perhaps I will, maybe better off once the whole thing is settled and done, should that ever happen.

I’ve noticed a linguistic change in the Philippines lately.  Not sure if this is new or if I’ve only just noticed it.  I did note that in the past few years, people went from addressing you as “sir” to “sir <your name>.” as in, “Hello, Sir Spike.”  I don’t recall people doing this years ago but it seems everyone does it now.  It makes me feel weird.  I’ve only just gotten used to being called “Sir” and now apparently I’ve been promoting to a Knight of the Round Table.  Spike, OBE.  Or I guess in this case, OPE, Order of the Philippine Empire?

And now, apparently a lot of people, instead of saying a simple “goodbye,” choose instead to say, “god bless.”  Not just one or two people. I’m hearing this everywhere.  It’s in almost every email I get from there.  The flight attendants said it on the plane as we were getting ready to “de-plane.” To which I said, out loud, “no thanks.”  Really, shouldn’t we get a “god bless” before the plane takes off?  By the time it lands, do we still need it?

We could have extended our trip by an extra night and gone to see Lady Gaga, who played there Monday night and I guess also tonight.  She was not an instant sell-out there.  I don’t think the shows sold out completely.  I saw ads from one of the phone companies offering buy one, get one free deals on tickets.  There are those protesting her concerts there.  Not to the extent that they did in Indonesia, where her permit was revoked and the concerts were cancelled.  But some bible-toting whack jobs eager for publicity spouting forth about how her “values are not their own.”  Because apparently if you don’t believe what they believe, you’ve lost your freedom of expression?  Or because if they think your beliefs are different from theirs and challenge theirs, then you don’t belong because they’re so insecure in their beliefs that you threaten them? Splendid.  Oh, they announced that police would attend the concert so that they can make sure there’s no nudity or anything lewd.  They probably just wanted some free tickets.

Louis C.K.’s got this famous stand-up bit about everyone being a crybaby about technology, how everyone complains and everything is wonderful.  He includes people complaining about airlines and flights.  You’re making a trip in hours that used to take years, a trip in which half the people used to die before the trip completed.  ”You’re sitting in a chair in the sky” or something like that.  Not sure if he really believes it or if it’s just comedy fodder.  It’s funny.

But, ya know, I almost always fly Cebu Pacific to and from the Philippines these days.  Okay, they’re a budget carrier.  You don’t get food or even water on the flight unless you pay for it.  You don’t get to check in luggage unless you pay for it. And always right after the flight takes off, just as you’re settling in for a good naps, the stewardesses (“the ladies on the plane” as George Carlin liked to call them) get on the P.A. and lead everyone in some mindless game for 10 minutes.  ”Who can show me … a pencil?”  ”Oh, you’ve got a pencil, you win a toy.”  Yeesh.

Cebu Pacific always plays music when you’re getting on board and off.  And for the past several months, the song they’ve played is what seems like an endless remix of Rihanna’s S&M.

‘Cause I may be bad, but I’m perfectly good at it

Sex in the air, I don’t care, I love the smell of it

Sticks and stones may break my bones

But chains and whips excite me

Oh, I love the feeling you bring to me, oh, you turn me on

It’s exactly what I’ve been yearning for, give it to me strong

And meet me in my boudoir, make my body say ah ah ah

I like it-like it

So this is okay for a “family crowd” of children and old people boarding an airplane but Lady Gaga performing her songs within a closed arena that you have to pay to get into is a threat?  I don’t get it.

I wonder if any Cebu Pacific flights ever leave on time.  Our flight to Manila was an hour late.  Our return flight was just under 2 hours late.  We sat there by the gate, listened to the announcements, delay this, delay that and then, of course, Gate Change!  200 people standing up and having to walk all the way down to the other side of the terminal.  Apparently that was easier than bringing the plane to us.

My arrival in Hong Kong was my first time to arrive at HK’s newer Terminal 2.  I was thinking to myself, “Okay, the flight was late and bumpy and noisy and I’m tired as fuck.  But landing at Terminal 2 is a plus because the car park is outside terminal 2 and this will save us shitloads of walking.”   (Yes, I drove to the airport.  Three days’ parking there costs HK$300.  Add in gas and tolls and it’s still cheaper than round trip taxis from where I live, which would cost HK$700.)

Except, apparently, they don’t have immigration counters or baggage claim at Terminal 2.  I know, I can’t quite figure that out either.  And you know how you get from Terminal 2 to Terminal 1?  Get off the plane, go in the terminal, walk awhile, go down an escalator, get on a freaking bus, stand on the bus forever while it waits on the tarmac for all the planes to taxi by.  Get off at Terminal 1, go up another escalator, walk a bit more, then wait on a long line because there are only two machines working at the immigration counter.

So, yeah, maybe my mood is a little off today.

By the way, in case you missed it, you do want to listen to Amanda Palmer’s latest album, “Several Attempts to Cover Songs by the Velvet Underground and Lou Reed for Neil Gaiman as His Birthday Approaches.”  Yes, Neil Gaiman is also on the album (speaking, not singing, probably for the better).  I loved the title and, surprise!, I love the album as well.

And I also wanna recommend the new Saint Etienne album, Words and Music By Saint Etienne, which is an absolutely joyous celebration of pop music and its importance in our lives.

And the new album from Soulsavers, The Light the Dead See.  This time around the featured vocalist is Dave Gahan and it gets emotional.

And a new double live album from the Tedeschi Trucks Band called Everybody’s Talkin’ (first song is a cover of the Fred Neil classic).  And speaking of Allmans, the new double live Warren Haynes is a big improvement over his recent studio album.

Oh, I didn’t get to this one yet but soon will.  Lisa Marie Presley has a new album out.  Yeah, Elvis’s daughter.  Michael Jackson’s ex-wife.  It’s called Storm & Grace.  It’s produced by T Bone Burnett.  Word is it’s actually quite good.

And Father John Misty, a pseudonym for the drummer from Fleet Foxes, who has left the band, and has this new album out, Fear Fun.

And Clock Opera, Ways to Forget.

Still haven’t worked up the strength to try Damon Albarn’s Dr. Dee yet but Graham Coxon’s A+E is quite worthwhile.

(I always find it a bit odd when someone who hasn’t blogged in awhile comes back with something trivial.  ”They haven’t blogged in days/weeks/months and this is what they decide to share after all that time?”  Mayhaps I’m guilty of that with this post.)

For those who don’t know, 3 is one of the major mobile telecommunications providers in Hong Kong.  It is owned by the richest man in Hong Kong, Li Ka-Shing.  (Incidentally, Li’s son Richard is the owner of PCCW, the major fixed line provider, internet provider and also a player in the mobile field.)

For reasons I won’t go into (but you can probably guess), I needed to pay my gf’s mobile bill.  Okay, fine, there’s a 3 shop that’s right near my office so I went there at lunch time today and told them I needed to pay the bill.

“You can’t do that here,” I was told.  ”But this is a 3 shop – not a reseller – an actual 3 shop, I can’t pay my bill here?”  ”No, you have to go pay it at Watson’s.”

Watson’s is one of the two large chains of pharmacies that sit atop the market in Hong Kong.  Watson’s is also owned by … Li Ka-Shing.

I don’t get it.  I mean, I suppose that Watson’s has more locations in HK than 3 so it’s convenient to be able to pay the bill there.  But why can’t a 3 shop do it?  Is it some nefarious scheme, someone thinking that if I have to go into Watson’s to do it, I might buy some shaving cream or Panadol as long as I’m there, and therefore not buy it from rival chain Mannings or supermarket Wellcome or supermarket Park ‘n Shop (also owned by Li Ka-Shing).

All right, it is what it is and I’m not gonna argue with the poor schlub sitting behind the counter who doesn’t make policy, he just carries it out.  So how about, can I get a copy of the latest bill on this account, because it seemed awfully high to me and I’d like to check it out?

Him – “We can’t do that here. You have to go to the internet to view it.”

Me – “But I have two registered phone numbers with 3 [long story] and every time I go to your web site, I can only see the records for one number, not the other.”

Him – “You forgot your password?”

Me – “No, but your web site is broken, I can’t view both accounts.”

Him – “You forgot your password?”

Me – “Okay, I forgot my password.  Can you help me?”

Him – “No, we can’t do that here.  You have to go online to the internet and reset your password.  Do you know how to do that?”

Me – “You mean go online to the login page and click where it says ‘reset password’?  Yeah, I can figure that out.”

Him – “Anything else I can help you with today?”

Considering you didn’t help me with anything at all, nope.

[I have been posting much more regularly at SpikesPhotos.com so please do feel free to check that site out.  I've had two occasions to go out and shoot the Hong Kong harbor at night with the amazing Nikon D800 and I think I've gotten some fabulous shots so scoot over there and take a look?  Aside from work and photography, I've just been extremely occupied with matters that are not really bloggable.  But I am, I assure you, still around.]

Incredibly busy week at work.  Plus on Wednesday I managed to get the Nikon D800.  Learning this camera has been taking up almost all of my free time as there is a bit of a learning curve, even coming from the D700 as I am.  However, I have been posting almost daily updates on Spike’s Photos about my progress with it.  So check it out if that’s the sort of thing that interests you or if you just want to see some nice pictures.

BTW, my Nikon D700 body is now for sale, including the MB-D10 battery grip and 5 batteries.  Drop me a line if interested.

Yes, I know, I haven’t posted anything at all in a long time.  Perhaps my blogging mojo is on holiday.  In the meantime, here’s part 2 of my NYC taxi driving memories.  Part 1 is here.

Every time I’d pick up a hooker and drive her home, it was a funny and a frustrating experience.  For the most part these women were not strung out junkies, many of them were quite attractive and
eager to talk during the ride.  Usually they’d be wearing as little as they could get away with and some of them looked quite nice as they stood in the street looking for a taxi.  But as soon as they’d get in, of course they got in the back seat and with the security divider between front and back, all I could see was their face.  Perhaps the security divider was there for their benefit as well as mine?  More than once I was thinking I should say, “Honey, why don’t you sit up here in front with me?” But I never did. As tempted as I was, I was married at the time and this was just something I wasn’t prepared to do. Not to mention the fact that they’d just come from being with how many guys in a night?  The circumstances were far from a turn on no matter how good they looked.  (Sorry to those of you who were expecting tales of wild taxi sex
parties.)

Every conversation started out the same. They’d settle in the back, tell me their destination, I’d drop the flag and pull out and right away they’d start in. “I don’t know why all these guys I go with want to tell me their life stories. I’m not a psychiatrist!” And then they would presume to tell me their life story, which always began, ”I didn’t plan on being a hooker. What happened to me was …” So in effect I became their psychiatrist.  Perhaps I should have charged more?  (Actually most of them were pretty generous tippers.)

I do recall one time picking up a working lady who was just completely crying her eyes out. She said that she’d just come from a victory party for a famous New York professional sports team (that I won’t name), that she’d given blow jobs to everyone on the team and then not one of them were willing to come down stairs and help her get a taxi home.  Yeah, I know.

Conventional wisdom had it that yellow cabs in New York would only give rides to people staying below 96th Street (unless someone wanted a ride to the airport). I don’t suppose many of you have seen the film “Where’s Poppa?” but there’s a scene in there where a taxi driver passes a black woman on the street and stops to pick up a gorilla (okay, a guy in a gorilla suit but you get the idea) and maybe that’s not far from the truth.  Some taxi drivers could be out and out prejudiced but most of the drivers I knew didn’t want to pick up “a person of color” because they assumed the person was going somewhere they didn’t want to go. But the law requires a taxi driver to take the passenger wherever they wanted to go and I was going to follow the law and treat everyone equally.

So I took people to Harlem, to Bed-Stuy, to the South Bronx, wherever they wanted.  I never got robbed and never felt even remotely in danger. (Maybe it would have been a different story if I was driving the night shift.)  I do recall one afternoon taking a woman and her kid somewhere up to the West 150′s. As I turned down her street, her kid (probably around 4 years old), who had been quiet for the entire ride, suddenly yelled out, “No whiteys allowed!” She started turning red from embarrassment, I just laughed it off and told her not to worry about it.

I think the reason most drivers didn’t want to go out of central Manhattan was that more often than not, you’d come back empty.  When you’re driving 10-12 hours per day and fighting traffic to get back to midtown with an empty cab, that’s time you won’t get back, money you won’t ever earn.  Those were the days that I’d end up booking well under $100 on the meter.  I’d hand in my envelope at the end of the day with $75, the dispatcher would yell or curse at me, I’d shrug my shoulders and head to the subway.

The one question that I get asked most frequently about my taxi driving days was if I ever picked up any celebrities. In my one year, I gave rides to four celebrities.

The first was Roberta Flack and there wasn’t much conversation.

The second was Mariel Hemingway. I picked her up at a midtown hotel. I’d been waiting an hour on the taxi queue hoping for an airport ride and she was just going a few blocks. So it was a one hour wait for just a few bucks on the meter.  She was in town working on “Star 80″ and I have to say she looked freaking gorgeous.  She was friendly and chatty enough but she was also a lousy tipper.

The third was funny. Scorsese’s “Taxi Driver” had just come out on VHS and I stopped at a rental store to grab a copy. I got back in the cab, drove just a couple of blocks and who flags me down?  No, not De Niro, but Harvey Keitel! Okay, I went a little overboard – “Oh my god Harvey, you won’t believe this, look, I just stopped and rented Taxi Driver and now I pick you up!” He might have been shaking a little bit and thinking that he just got picked up by a lunatic. Other than that, he was quite nice, slightly impatient with my stupid questions about Scorsese and “Mean Streets” but he put up with me for the short ride.

The fourth celebrity was the best, a dream come true.

(to be concluded)

[It has been an incredibly busy week and not unstressful either, leaving me little time for blogging, let alone thinking about non-work related stuff. In the meantime, here's part 1 of a tale I've been working on in my spare moments.]

This year makes it 30 years since I was a New York City taxi driver. People are almost always amazed to discover that I once held this job. I guess that makes sense. After all, many of those who know me in real life know me as someone who has held executive positions at both global corporations and start-ups, someone with a depth of international business and travel experience. And yet, there was one year in my life when I was driving a taxi. It was not a great year in my life but it is a year I’ll never forget.

I’d held a pretty good job for four years, working as the business manager for a famous-in-the-industry director/cameraman, a winner of Clio Awards and a confidant of Stanley Kubrick (which is how I got to do a very tiny amount of work on Kubrick’s The Shining). I’d left that job to try to start my own thing – managing rock bands. Success in that field was slow in coming. The three bands I was guiding were gigging fairly regularly in clubs like CBGB’s but the consensus from the major labels was that all of them were a few years away from being “ready” and within a year, I was not just flat broke, I was deeply in debt and unable to find a job.

I’d always told myself that if I couldn’t find any other job, I always had a driver’s license.  My uncle (my father’s brother) had driven a taxi for probably around 30 years.  The economics were quite different when he did it – he was able to buy a house and put two kids through college.  Possibly because of him, I always had this in mind as an option should there be nothing else other than welfare and that’s where I seemed to be at this point.  So with that in mind, I took the short test to get a “chauffeur’s license” so that I could drive a taxi. The test was just 20 questions, very basic stuff like, “Where is Yankee Stadium?” – just answering “The Bronx” was considered correct enough – and a brief oral test to prove you could speak and understand basic English.

Back then, there were these huge taxi garages in Queens and Brooklyn. You’d sign up, show up and taxis were assigned for the day based on how early you’d arrived. Arrive late and you didn’t get a car. The only choice you had was whether to work the day or the night shift and I picked the day shift since the night shift was considered more dangerous. As a newbie, I also had to work Saturdays and Sundays. So, license in hand, shift assigned, I started working 5 days a week, 5 AM to 3 PM, weekends included.

I remember my first day on the job, I had a passenger who wanted me to take him from Manhattan to the JFK airport. I knew where the airport was well enough but I had never actually driven there. I actually managed to miss the exit on the highway and wound up well into Long Island before I’d realized I’d missed it and had to double back. I was hoping that the guy would show some pity on me – it was my first day doing this! – but no pity … and no tip.

Despite that mishap, I did pretty well on my first day. I recall that I “booked” about $125 on the meter. Anything over $100 was considered good so the dispatcher made some sarcastic jokes about me being a new star. It may sound like a lot of money but the fact was that the garage got the first $75 on the meter. The driver only got anything over that amount (plus tips, of course). So having a $100 on the meter meant you got to pocket $25 for 10 hours of work, plus an average of about $10 to $15 a day in tips. Even 30 years ago, that wasn’t a lot of money.

I soon discovered that while I’d had a stellar first day, booking $100 a day would turn out to be a challenge, especially on the weekends. Remember that my shift started at 5 AM. Who’s out there at 5 AM on a Sunday morning looking for a taxi? Well, hookers, amongst others, coming off their own shifts. So while on weekday mornings I might be cruising the upper east side looking for bankers heading down to Wall Street, Sunday mornings would find me along the western reaches of Hells Kitchen and Chelsea looking for some ladies of the night at sun-up wanting to get home.

[more to come]

“There’s never gonna be a year of my life that’s better than the one before. That’s never gonna happen.”  Louis C.K.

I know exactly what he’s talking about, having had a complete physical exam a couple of weeks back after skipping it for a year.  On the one hand, the results were not too different from two years ago.  On the other hand, the signs of a slow downward progression are definitely there.  I don’t have anything major league wrong with me, just a bunch of little things which taken in isolation don’t mean much but put them all together in one package and, well, maybe it’s just that I know what’s here is here to stay, pretty much.  My day now starts with a smorgasbord of pills but I’ve finally managed to wean myself off the constant coca cola (and lost about 1.5 kg in two weeks as a result).

Part of the problem may be that I’ve been sloppy about taking care of myself, perhaps because I never quite bought into the notion that anything “real” could be wrong with me.  When I had my check-up and told the doctor that I’d been lazy about taking my cholesterol medication she said, “What, you mean that some weeks you only take it two or three times” and I had to reply that it had been at least six months since I’d taken it.  Stuff like that.

My birthday’s still two months away but I’ve become quite fixated on it in a negative sense.  I’m finally going to be hitting an age that seems “old” to me.  It makes me think about the things I want to accomplish that I still haven’t done – whether lack of time or lack of money – and think about how I’m gonna get there, or if I even should get there.  It makes me dwell on all the mistakes I’ve made in my past rather than my successes, which is probably not a good thing.  My mojo, such as it is, isn’t gone, it just seems to have gone into storage and I need to dig it out and focus on the things that will make me happy.

Blah blah blah …..

I got stuck in traffic yesterday for 90 minutes.  There was a head-on collision between two mini-buses along Hiram’s Highway, just outside of Marina Cove.  22 people injured, fortunately no one killed.  Apparently one bus driver decided to cross the line to get around a car and for some reason didn’t bother to note that there was on-coming traffic.  I sat in my car on that hill leading down towards Nam Pin Wai, two lanes of traffic completely full.  Fire trucks and ambulances were trying to get through but of course the traffic wasn’t moving at all so how could they?  Finally they had the idea to block off the side of the road that leads up the hill so that the emergency vehicles could go down that – not the ones stuck around me because there’s a huge concrete barrier separating the sides of the roads, they pretty much remained in place.  I’ve always worried – if I get sick and need an ambulance, with all these single lane roads and so much traffic, how long would it take the ambulance to get to me?  A long time, I think.

Maybe my crappy mood is just a result of this weather.  Day after day of grey skies, fog, rain, cold.  I don’t recall it ever being 11 degrees in HK in March before.  Maybe this depressing mood is why I haven’t posted so much, why I’m not coming across anything that inspires me to write anything at all.  But also I’ve been busy, some side projects, things I can’t talk about, trying to get something moving.

Anyway, just thought I owed y’all a post so you know I’m still around and kicking.

So we’re in Manila for our annual physical and I had some other medical tests to take.  Once it was all done, I wanted to get away for awhile but didn’t feel like dealing with airports and airplanes and so I opted for Subic.  I’ve never been there but was curious about it for a variety of reasons, thinking that it might be somewhat like Clark but with the added attraction of being on the coast and having some beaches.  My gf had managed a restaurant up there many years ago and thought it might be fun to go back for a visit.  I didn’t do a whole lot of research on the place up front, just picked a hotel via the reviews on Trip Advisor, the #2 rated place was on Waterfront Road, which seemed like it would be a good place to be, and so we hopped in taxi for the three hour drive.

(Lesson learned – On the expressway between Clark and Subic, there’s this spot where you can see where the lava flowed down from Mount Pinatubo when it erupted roughly 20 years ago.  It was a sparkling clear day and one could see all the way over to the volcano very clearly … and I didn’t ask the driver to stop so I could take a picture.  Two days later, on the drive back to Manila, I did ask the driver to stop, but the view was nowhere near as clear or as special.  I am really kicking myself over this.)

Entering Subic and not quite sure of how to get to our chosen hotel, our taxi driver made the mistake of not making a left turn when he was in the left-hand lane, right where there was a group of cops standing next to signs that said “pull over area” or something like that and sure enough, we got pulled over and he got a ticket for lane-swerving on an almost empty road.

Then we found the hotel and it was like, why are we here?  Segara Suites is a gorgeous boutique hotel, the rooms were great, modern, flat screen TV & DVD, high thread count sheet, rainforest shower, nice pool, decent restaurant.  But the location?  Sure, Waterfront Road, all the way at the wrong end, where it was surrounded by warehouses and a commercial wharf.  No view, no beach.  (The staff later told us that thanks to its secluded location, it was a favorite rendezvous point for politicians.)

On checking in, I was required to sign a sheet stating that I’d read the house rules – which included “no partying” and a corkage fee if I was to bring any alcoholic beverages back to my room.  Already I’m not liking this very much.  Strong sun, no shade, so we called a taxi to take us the 7 or 8 blocks down to where there were some restaurants.  The 3 minute ride was 100 pesos.  We went to Giligan’s, a Filipino chain, and we could sit out by the local beach.  The only other customers in the place weren’t actually customers – 4 old Filipino guys who came over to us as soon as we sat down to try to sell us some bullshit trinkets. The music in the place was all sappy sad old songs of unrequited love, music to commit suicide to.  I was low on cash so I went to the ATM next door which was “unable to dispense cash at this time.”

Some friends drove over from Clark and joined us for dinner that night.  We drove around and every place we looked was dead dead dead.  After dinner we went to a “hot spot” on the beach called Pier One.  Live band (4 musicians, 5 (!) singers) playing the usual crappy pop.  We walked back to our hotel from there, my gf walking a lot faster than me and soon there was enough distance between us that girls sitting in the park along the beach started calling out to me.

Get the feeling that I wasn’t having a good time?  Back at the hotel, I told my gf we should get out the next day – the hotel was prepaid and I’m sure we would not have gotten our money back but I was really feeling as if going there was a huge mistake.

However, the next morning, after having a decent breakfast poolside, we decided to call a taxi and go to the Kamayan Beach Resort.  It’s a hotel with a private beach.  If you’re not staying at the hotel, you can pay 300 pesos per person to use the facilities and we figured it was worth that to sit on a beach where we wouldn’t get hassled by vendors every three seconds.  It turned out to be quite nice – not really remarkable in any sense of the word but pleasant, peaceful, stretched out on the sand for several hours and a little bit of swimming.

After the beach, we went to the town that adjoins Subic – Olongapo.  This place at least seemed to have some life to it. The town seems to be “owned” to some extent or another by one family.  The current mayor is James “Bong” Gordon Jr. and there’s a long line of Gordons running the town.  ”Fighting for excellence!”  Signs all over the place with a quote from the first Gordon, “what this country needs is not a change of men but a change in men,” something like that, plus signs of how it was a “no firecracker zone.”  But at least it was lively.

Okay, maybe not so much on that particular street.

There was a small SM Mall there (with signs everywhere giving directions to a breast feeding clinic – hmmm).  And of course wonderful food.

(Her name, according to the poster, is Shamcey Supsup.)

That night, my gf said we should go up to Barrio Barreto, which is just north of Subic and is basically a mini-Angeles.  Lots of cheap beachfront hotels and a dozen or so girly bars.  We had dinner at a place she remembered, “The Coffee Shop – Home of the Jumbo Taco” (and it was a freaking huge taco, just 99 pesos, and not too bad).

After dinner, we hit one of the girly bars.  About 20 girls working inside, standing on stage, not even pretending to dance, just standing on stage.  It was pretty depressing.  My gf called down the one relatively cute girl from the pack and bought her a drink and started to ask her questions about how things worked there.  After the first round of drinks, she had this brilliant idea that we should barfine the girl and go off to the gay bar with dancing guys.  ”I took you to a bar where you could watch sexy girls, it’s only fair that you take me to a bar where I can watch some guys.”

And so we did.  Her, me and our new friend.  This place wasn’t exactly Chippendales.  There were about 5 or 10 guys there taking turns dancing on stage.  Each guy had essentially the same dance moves, each one wearing a tight wife-beater shirt, shorts, kneepads (!).  My gf was disappointed that none of the guys there were tall or especially well built.  But she found some guy to sit with her and give her the rundown on the joint.  I kept looking at my watch, kept trying to get her out of there, but she wasn’t budging.  I ended up asking the DJ how come they weren’t playing Frankie Goes to Hollywood “Relax” – I would have thought that would be the song they’d play every 15 minutes.  The guy put it on to get me to shut up.  Finally there was a low rent Priscillia Queen of the Desert two guys in wigs and dresses lip syncing to records show.  I think we ended up staying in this joint for close to 2 hours.  And no, it was not my idea of a good time.

Probably needless to say, but I was pretty happy to get out of Subic the next morning.  I don’t think I’ll be rushing back there anytime soon either.

So here’s the deal.  Lady Gaga is coming to Hong Kong, one of those very rare occasions when an artist at the peak of their popularity is doing a concert here.  The show is scheduled for May 2nd.  They did a “pre-sale” only for HK American Express card holders.

Now, AsiaWorld can hold up to 14,000 people in the main hall, depending on the size of the stage and some other factors.  Reportedly AmEx had either 5,000 or 6,000 tickets.  There are approximately 47,000 AmEx card holders in HK.  You were allowed to buy up to 8 tickets.  So let’s say that just 10% of the AmEx holders wanted to get tickets.  That means demand for 37,600 tickets, only 6,000 available, most of their card holders are going to be disappointed.  And that’s indeed what happened.

The sale was conducted via the always-count-on-them-to-be-inept HK Ticketing.  Tickets went on sale Thursday morning at 10 AM.  Depending on who you believe, these tickets were sold out in 30 minutes, 1 hour or 3 hours.  Either way, it was impossible to get through on HK Ticketing’s web site or phone lines because they don’t bother to scale up their infrastructure when the expected demand might scale up.  Meanwhile some people waited on line outside Tom Lee Music Stores (where HK Ticketing has “live” sales).  People waited online 3 hours or more and most came away disappointed.  HK Ticketing doesn’t care.  They don’t have to.  The tickets sold out, they collected their fees.

The balance of the tickets go on sale this Monday morning at 10 AM.  It ain’t gonna be pretty.

Meanwhile, Lady Gaga has added a second show, May 3rd.

Now for me, I think it would be interesting to see her live.  I can imagine a very elaborate stage show that ought to be entertaining.  And even if it’s not, the costumes that many of her fans, aka “little monsters,” would wear should certainly be worth seeing.  But I could live without seeing her live.  May 3rd also happens to be my birthday and I can imagine a lot of ways I’d rather spend that evening.

On the other hand, my gf is, well, gaga for Gaga.  She is desperate to go.

Here’s the fly in the ointment.  This Monday, we’re both in Manila.  And at 10 AM, we will both be in the hospital.  It’s doubtful that we will be able to access the internet or even have time to keep reloading HK Ticketing’s crappy web site.

So, if any kind soul out there who plans to buy tickets on Monday and actually manages to get through to make a purchase could pick up 2 tickets for me – any seats, either night – I’d be extremely grateful.

Two small things, maybe someone will get a chuckle, maybe not, but what the hell.

#1 – I hate my work laptop and I never bring it home with me.  I just dump files back and forth using Dropbox.  At home, for some reason, I never bothered to get MS Office for my desktop PC but I did buy it for my MacBook Air.  I spent a good part of Sunday working on a report for work.  I saved the file into the Dropbox folder, made certain it was there, and then closed the cover on the MBA.  Yeah, you can probably guess what happened.  I got into work on Monday morning, went to open the file and found that it was the version from Saturday, when I’d hardly done any work on it at all.  I hadn’t waited for Dropbox to sync before shutting down the MBA.  Oh no!  Would I have to travel all the way home and back to get the proper file?  Would I have to redo from memory all the work I’d done on Sunday?  Nope.  I called my helper.  Told her to lift the lid on the MBA and make sure the screen came on.  One minute later, Dropbox synced and I had the file.  Just a cautionary tale for anyone who might need it.

#2 – After work today I was going to meet a friend at his office.  I hopped into a taxi and in my miserably toneless Cantonese told the driver Wanzai Bok.  Of course, me being white, he thought I said “Wanchai Bar.”  When I looked up from my Crackberry, instead of seeing Harbour Road I saw he was headed down Queensway past Pacific Place and asking if he should make a left turn down Arsenal Street.  ”No, Wanzai Bok!”  ”Yes, Wanchai Bar!  Lo Hart Do!  Happy Hour!  Girls!”  ”Not Bar.  Bok. Wanchai North.  Bok.”  ”Oh.  So sorry.  So sorry.  Sorry monkey.”  Yes, I could swear he said “sorry monkey.”  However I’m not sure if by “monkey” he was referring to himself or to me.  I suspect it was me.

(Many of you will no doubt find the following post pointless.  But many people seem to like when I post this sort of stuff.  Feel free to skip it if it ain’t your cup o’ joe.)

It’s been a week of ups and downs for me, probably more downs than ups.

It was, for starters, the week that we lost two giants of music – Etta James and Johnny Otis.  It was also the week that the feds shut down file sharing site Megaupload.  It’s estimated that this site earned US$175 million in revenue over the past six years and the reported lifestyle of its founder, Kim Dotcom, certainly would seem to support that.  (What’s funny is that the SCMP insists on calling Dotcom a “Hong Kong man” despite the fact that he was born in Germany and essentially bought his New Zealand citizenship (which is where he was arrested) because he did live in Hong Kong for awhile, apparently in a suite at the Grand Hyatt.  How odd that the media is so strenuously trying to claim this guy as one of our own.)  New Zealand police, cooperating with the US, apparently not only raided his house but had to break their way into the armored safe room somewhere in the house where he was hiding.

I haven’t been feeling very well for quite some time but was just letting it go by.  I don’t want to be labeled a hypochondriac and as a result I tend to not go to doctors unless I’ve been shot or lost a limb.  Then we watched this movie, 50/50.  It’s writer Will Reiser’s semi-auto-biographical work about a 27 year old guy who comes down with cancer and how his best friend supports him through it and how he reconciles with his mother, blah blah blah.  Actually, it’s not great but it’s quite okay.  It stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt as the cancer victim, Seth Rogen as his best friend, Anjelica Huston as his mom, Anna Kendrick as his shrink, Philip Baker Hall and Matt Frewer as a couple of other cancer patients.

The thing is that JGL discovers he has cancer because he has this persistent back ache, so he goes to the doctor, gets an MRI, discovers he has this rare form of cancer on his spine.  I watched it and thought to myself, “Hmmm, I would never go to a doctor for that!”  And then I thought about the way I’d been feeling lately (and the fact that despite the best of intentions I remain a heavy smoker) and went to the doctor.  Maybe this does make me a hypochondriac after all.  I then had a few days of extreme nervousness and lack of sleep waiting for the results.  In the end, it was nowhere near as bad as I was dreading.  No cancer but something that I used to have has returned.  Actually, back when I had it, there was no Wikipedia so I couldn’t read up on it, now I can and I see it’s something that once you have, you pretty much have it for the rest of your life (and no, it’s not an STD).   At least now I know and I know how to deal with it and I expect certain things to improve relative to the good ol’ “quality of life” thing.  So I have that.  But I now also have a lot more tests to undergo and weekly doctor visits for the foreseeable future.

Without going into a hell of a lot of details, I’ve been seriously considering buying something in the Philippines – a flat or a house or something.  I’m not sure what and I’m not sure where.  Do I want to stay in the big city, which means Manila, which probably means Fort Bonfacio since that’s my favorite part of Manila?  Do I want to look a couple or a few hours away from Manila?  (I didn’t much care for Clark/Angeles, haven’t been to Subic.)  On an island like Boracay – a place I really like but a pain in the balls to get to and from since you have to take a boat to get to the nearest airport?  Some other island or beach that I’ve never been to?  I’m planning a trip there in March, in part to take a bit of a look around.

Of course, it’s now Chinese New Year.  Last night we went over to the malls at Hang Hau for dinner.  Around 9 PM, much as expected, most of the shopping mall was empty.  However Taste, a vaguely upscale supermarket owned by Park & Shop, was packed.  People were going pretty crazy buying the sorts of things that Hong Kong people buy in anticipation of CNY – presents to give when visiting family & friends, food & drink for when friends & family come to visit them.  There were huge stacks everywhere of deluxe gift boxes of chocolate, cookies, cakes (yeah, I know, how did I manage to go out without a camera? just my mood relative to my health I guess).  What struck me as odd about this is that most of the stuff being bought seems to have been boxes of western sweets – things that most HKer’s don’t really go for.  (Krispy Kreme lasted just a year in Hong Kong because local people found it way too sweet.)  Gift boxes that contained Cadbury Chocolates and Pepperidge Farm Cookies?  And some of these people were buying like 10, 20, 30 boxes of this stuff.  Gift cases that contained XO sauce and other Asian sauces seemed to make more sense to me.  The wine section was packed with people – probably in no small part thanks to a sale, buy 6 bottles and get an extra 15% off.  Yes, I was planning on buying 1 or 2 bottles and I bought 6.  Anyway, 10 PM Saturday night, every register open, lines 10 deep at each register, each person with a shopping cart stacked up to the ceiling.

Also traditional for Chinese New Year in Hong Kong – shit weather.  The skies are grey, the clouds are low, the temperature has dropped.  It’s 11 degrees in Sai Kung and that’s probably where it’s going to stay for the next 3 or 4 days.  Thanks to the visit to Taste and a delivery from The Porterhouse, there’s plenty of food in the house.  Then I had this idea – that I could speed up the performance of iTunes on my PC if I moved the drives (two drives, RAID 1) from an external USB box to the inside of my PC.  So I figured, okay, move those two 2 Terabyte drives and then buy some new ones to shove into the soon-to-be-empty external RAID box.

So I put the two drives into the computer, booted up, checked the BIOS, made sure they were set up as RAID1, all good.  And put two new drives into the RAID box, booted up, brought up disk manager, formatted the drives, or so I thought.

Because what actually happened is that when I put the drives into my computer, some resource conflict blew out my USB 3.0 ports.  And what I thought was the new disks was actually old disks sitting in another external box that I had inadvertently left powered up and for some reason the computer decided these were new disks.  So I reformatted hard disks that contained close to 2 Terabytes worth of MP3 files.  And not just any MP3 files.  This was the A-J section of my collection.  Just losing the B’s alone would be a disaster – every noise the Beatles ever made down to belches and farts; every wheeze that came out of Bob Dylan’s nose, every Bruce Springsteen concert and outtake from the 1970s.  Because this stuff was stored RAID1, I didn’t bother backing it up to Backblaze.  Because this was RAID1, when I reformatted one disk, I reformatted both disks.

The only thing that saved me was the fact that after mistakenly reformatting these disks, I hadn’t done anything else to them.  Which means they’re recoverable.  I tried out a few different bits of software, finally went with one that was recommended to me via Twitter, GetDataBack. As promised, it is able to not just recover the files, it can recover the long names and the directory structures as well.  It allowed me to run the discovery process against the drive (which took ten hours) before deciding whether or not to buy it, so that I could evaluate how successful it was going to be first.  It looks as if 100% can be recovered and it’s now in the process of copying the files from the accidentally reformatted drive to a new drive.  One file at a time.  I think it’s going to take a couple of days to complete this.  I’m spot checking and the files are there and they can be played but it looks as if all the tags have disappeared.