tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-67016172009-06-11T14:56:27.366+08:00Links I like, reconstituted for my friends who never know where to look... Come back every couple of days and there should be a few items that can distract you from whatever it is that you're doing.Adriannoreply@blogger.comBlogger261125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6701617.post-28880968513859878172009-04-29T16:21:00.005+08:002009-04-29T17:06:32.051+08:00

I noticed today that a number of papers have published articles about the Mercer Quality of Living Survey. Depending on where each papers' city ended up, there was then a certain amount of crowing or eating crow in each article. I kind of get the idea of measuring a city based on infrastructure, or "quality of life", or maybe even some other intangible factors such as Art. But I do think all this

Adriannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6701617.post-11099267420334147872008-12-15T20:40:00.000+08:002008-12-15T20:39:47.819+08:00

It's been some time since I posted anything here - time flies when there's a bub in the house. Also since it seems our lives really only revolve around the bub it feels like there's not much to say anyway.However the world goes on, so here's an update from my corner of it. I was hoping the economic crisis would make an impact on the smog that rolls across the China border, but no such luck. The

Adriannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6701617.post-89630768797916320782008-10-22T10:21:00.004+08:002008-10-22T12:50:45.434+08:00

If Time Magazine features something on its front cover, you know that "something" has jumped the shark. I'll never forget the breathless article about the new generation of internet entrepreneurs - the cover featured a guy whose genius idea was an online dating concierge service for nerds, and had attracted huge amounts of venture capital. That was back in 2000 (I think) and looking at that cover

Adriannoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6701617.post-37726923341272204862008-10-02T15:28:00.005+08:002008-10-02T15:50:02.691+08:00

Living next door to a leviathan is disturbing in some ways - there is always a general 'background noise' of things happening in China, but every couple of months or so something happens that directly impacts our life in Hong Kong. So for the last couple of weeks it's been the Melamine in Milk Scandal. This is a truly horrible scandal - farmers and producers adulterating their milk with melamine,

Adriannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6701617.post-41968568850991536392008-09-03T13:24:00.003+08:002008-09-03T13:26:45.989+08:00

Sad news today - Melbourne's best sushi handroll shop is closing. I first ate their handrolls in 1996 - they were excellent and remained so for years. Never any dodgy fish, the rice was always just right - basically a guaranteed good lunch every time. All around the city other sushi places sprang up, and they were all shite. Dammit.

Adriannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6701617.post-49106138099904540032008-08-22T13:39:00.002+08:002008-08-22T13:43:25.238+08:00

Hello Typhoon Nuri - welcome to Hong Kong! At 1.40pm today Nuri is very close indeed and looks increasingly likely to hit us. The wind has picked up a lot here - the view of the harbour from our place is mostly obscured by rain and cloud, but the seas are the roughest I've seen. There were a few cruise ships moored nearby earlier today, but they've moved further into the harbour for shelter. All

Adriannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6701617.post-14990790622050008192008-08-21T13:30:00.002+08:002008-08-21T13:40:40.229+08:00

Since beginning a new job, I've spent a bit more time traveling through Hong Kong, which has reminded me of a couple of things that I really like about this city.The past couple of weeks, every time I went for a walk or a bus ride, I invariably encountered people crouched by the side of the street burning hell money and arranging offerings for the Hungry Ghost Festival. This fascinates me - why

Adriannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6701617.post-86257525615958478562008-08-04T20:38:00.002+08:002008-08-04T20:43:50.192+08:00

So recently my wife and I had a little boy - I don't really want to say too much about that here, except to say that being a father leads you to some surprising things. For example, this Japanese device which you can use to remove the snot from your infant's nasal passage. Hint: you have to suck it out with your mouth using a tube...This device was prescribed by our paediatrician!!!

Adriannoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6701617.post-74369726229436831202008-06-24T22:04:00.002+08:002008-06-24T22:09:56.423+08:00

Fengshen was supposed to miss us, but now it looks like it will get close enough for the Observatory to hoist signal number 8.

Adriannoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6701617.post-10194299761007891472008-06-17T16:13:00.002+08:002008-06-17T16:28:34.102+08:00

June 8th was Dragon Boat day in Hong Kong (and in many other places around Asia) - and for the first time I participated in the Dragon Boat races at Stanley. A friend asked me to be on the Bloomberg team and we started training a couple of months before the Festival. Training mostly consisted of getting into a boat, paddling around off Stanley Main Beach for about two hours and then hitting the

Adriannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6701617.post-88530663368491752912008-05-16T16:57:00.003+08:002008-05-16T17:00:13.188+08:00

It's not a working abattoir - but it's now being torn down and well, the noise is a little draining. To take my mind off it I wrote this ridiculous song and spliced together a video.

Adriannoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6701617.post-73816088951919202692008-05-08T17:37:00.003+08:002008-05-08T17:49:15.447+08:00

It's been a while, but I thought I'd better summarise a few things.1) In about 8 weeks (maybe one or two more) our son will arrive. We're attending antenatal classes at the moment, which are going very well except for the fact that I have to keep on leaving the room owing to an inherited condition known as "being a fainter". I actually inadvertently swore at the midwife conducting the sessions

Adriannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6701617.post-25853874216853960232008-04-21T16:24:00.002+08:002008-04-21T16:35:39.486+08:00

Sham Shui Po in general, and Ap Liu Street in particular is a place that I always enjoy visiting. Here are some of the reasons why (in no particular order):Very pedestrian-friendly, which means it's a bit quieter than other similar places, such as Mong Kok;The stalls selling lighting are so ridiculously bright that you can't look at them even in daylight!If you really need some, you can buy used

Adriannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6701617.post-926176247108452452008-04-15T10:54:00.003+08:002008-04-15T11:02:46.444+08:00

On the weekend the South China Morning Post revealed the secret of the missing vegemite (which I can't link to because the SCMP is still living in the Dark Ages).Apparently, Japanese foodies have discovered that the taste of Vegemite has the flavour profile of something like miso - it has the "fifth taste" - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umami">umami, which is kind of the taste of kelp. It's a lot

Adriannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6701617.post-83174134496649827262008-04-06T20:09:00.002+08:002008-04-06T20:20:40.551+08:00

Those of you who read the Age might have come across this story about the Great Hong Kong Vegemite Shortage of 2008. Fear not - I realised this was happening about 6 weeks ago when I saw that in my local supermarket the Vegemite wasn't being restocked. I immediately sprang into action and every time I passed a supermarket would go and in and assess the situation. Eventually I managed to snag the

Adriannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6701617.post-28218158167957376252008-03-12T11:33:00.002+08:002008-03-12T11:53:20.189+08:00

Due to crazy rent increases where we used to live, we've now moved to an apartment in Kennedy Town. Kennedy Town is on the north-western corner of Hong Kong island. It's bit further away from Central, but when the smog clears we'll have a nice view of Lantau, the Tsing Yi bridge, ferries making their way to Macua and the Outlying Islands, and the Old Abbatoir (actually not that nice to look at).

Adriannoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6701617.post-22867099075021076082008-02-12T17:45:00.001+08:002008-02-12T17:45:46.416+08:00

Sorry.

Adriannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6701617.post-89161371251322335192008-01-29T10:39:00.000+08:002008-01-29T11:28:13.541+08:00

We've been here just over 2 years, and so the lease on our apartment in Mid-Levels has expired. Which means of course the landlord took the opportunity to increase the rent (19%!). Initially he was thinking of going after the market rate, which would have been an increase of 57%. Insane. However, even at the lower increase this place has become too expensive, so we are now looking for another

Adriannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6701617.post-5735623596585384912008-01-09T09:45:00.000+08:002008-01-09T09:51:12.505+08:00

After three weeks of clear blue skies it's quite a shock to be back in Hong Kong - dull grey smog everywhere. Still, in some ways it's also good to be back to begin what will be quite a busy year, not least because we're now expecting a baby (sometime in July). We've been working on names but so far we've really only narrowed it down to Buscopan (for a boy obviously), and Cinnamon (for a girl).

Adriannoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6701617.post-76087692458735653622007-12-18T11:35:00.000+08:002007-12-18T12:07:17.682+08:00

Last Friday night, before our regular Bone Table gig, we had mini-gig as a Count of Three debut. We played three songs that we felt we had brought to some level of readiness. The funny thing for me was that I felt neither nervous nor excited about it.We set up the stage, put the sampler on a stool so I could reach it properly and away we went. There were a few rough edges, but that's the kind of

Adriannoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6701617.post-68497540209488869292007-12-10T10:20:00.000+08:002007-12-10T10:20:46.917+08:00

Interactive map of carbon emissions - look at the big cloud over China;Carmack (make of Doom, Quake) talks about mobile gaming;Ah - the dangers of machine translation.

Adriannoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6701617.post-70460692798564223382007-12-03T10:05:00.000+08:002007-12-03T10:32:12.878+08:00

We've been in Hong Kong for 21 months now, and despite the fact that a mere 40 minutes away is the Rest of China, I still haven't been there since we got here.The easiest part of China to get to from here is Shenzhen, which snuggles up to the Hong Kong border. So on Saturday we hopped on the train and sped off to Shenzhen. After the minor inconvenience of not having a visa, we were finally let

Adriannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6701617.post-23110160386537012412007-11-21T15:35:00.000+08:002007-11-21T15:41:35.351+08:00

Today we went down to the Australian Consulate and voted! The Federal Election is on Saturday, but if you are overseas you can vote ahead of time (a "pre-poll" vote). The consulate was pretty busy - even on a Wednesday morning there were a lot of people there all making their mark on the ballot papers. I was quite impressed, as if you live overseas you don't actually have to vote (voting is

Adriannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6701617.post-50354229937240883572007-11-19T18:02:00.000+08:002007-11-19T18:06:36.407+08:00

Today I booked some internal flights in Australia via Virgin Blue - I was interested to see that they have a carbon offset program. It's very easy - once you've booked and paid for your tickets you get sent to a page that shows how much you could pay (if you want) to offset the amount of your carbon emissions. In my case it was about $2.79 (plus GST). Huh. So I paid the amount - I hope it's a

Adriannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6701617.post-38281602790404808232007-10-17T18:13:00.000+08:002007-10-17T18:17:19.620+08:00

We had our first instrumental rehearsal yesterday - it really went well. We were a bit worried that it would be a train wreck. There was the potential to get severely out of time with the machine, or that there wouldn't be much development of the musical ideas. If anything we found that there were so many nice little musical ideas that we will have trouble remembering them all. I think this

Adriannoreply@blogger.com2