Can I offer you a tasty carcinogen?

Saw the following item on a menu today:

Roasted Carbon Pork Neck. Mmm, tasty. And fruit salad too... 'coz after the carbon pork, you really need to balance things out with a good serving of fruit and veggies.

(FYI for those who don't read Chinese, it's supposed to be charcoal grilled pork neck)

Yosh!

The Shogun Burger is back at McD's! You know, it's just a pork patty smothered in teriyaki sauce, but I can't get enough of it. I'm always the first in line when McDonald's announces its limited time release.

Oh Sit

Here's a video of my friend doing her famous Sit Down Maneuver. I love the way she's so nonchalent about it; a quick wave to say "Yeah, I've had enough" and then casually sitting down. So much more graceful then my usual crash and burn wipeout.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLBGr-j5mNo

Viral Infection

I really admire Starbucks. Not because I particularly like the place, but their marketing is amazingly effective. I've often likened Starbucks as a Metropolitan Virus. It only takes 1 Starbucks to infect an entire city. After the emergence of the first branch, it's only a matter of time before branches pop up at a geometric rate all over the city, often times as near as opposite sides of a street.

Case in point, a Starbucks just opened up in my housing complex. Business couldn't be busier. Amazing.

Anyways, to commemorate to opening, they've been giving away buy-one-get-one free deals on their new drink: The Red Bean Frapuccino. Gave one a try today. Mixing the popular HK drink of Red Bean Ice with iced coffee was a clever idea, but in practice the taste was a bit strange.


This drink is pretty thick though. It's able to hold up a straw at an angle even when there's less than a quarter left in the cup.


I remember reading somewhere that an iced cappuccino frappe has as many calories as a Big Mac. Seems like such a rip-off. I mean, all that fat a sugar for just a drink! If I had to take in 500 calories, I'd like it to mean something, you know? Eating a burger seems like accomplishing so much more than just drinking a frappe.

Critics who love to criticize

Don't you hate critics who are over critical just to make feed their own self-esteem?

Back in May, I wrote about my first visit to Family One in TST. Great experience, loved the food. It's been a while since my last visit and I recently read a restaurant review in a popular magazine that gave low marks to Family One. I found it hard to believe some of the comments so I decided to go back again to see how things are going.

Couldn't be happier to report that the food is still great. The problem with this critic is that he enjoys the criticism part of his job too much. 8 out of recent 10 reviews have been negative. Unfairly so, because he always supports his criticism by referencing fancy-pants restaurants for comparison. Pompous jerk.

Fantastic hand-beaten noodles. Chewy yet tender.


Careful when biting the dumplings and fried buns because they're bursting with soup inside.

Probably a bit strange looking to anyone who's never tried it, but the fried rice cakes with eel is really yummy. The color of the sauce may appear heavy but it's actually not as rich as it looks.

Bigger not better

Went wakeboarding again yesterday morning. Great weather with lots of sun (got a great tan), but spent most of the session in the water. We used a different boat yesterday with a way more powerful motor so the wakes were bigger than usual. Coupled with the fact that the water was pretty choppy, it made for a wipe-out friendly environment.




Because of the bigger wakes, I was able to get a lot more air than usual, but natuarally that meant a lot more crash and burn. My highlight of the day was when I made a spectaclar take-off, realized halfway into the air that my rope was slack, and then crash in a way that almost sterilized me.

But at least I managed to do a decent heelside jump. It doesn't look like much, but at my stage of development, it was pretty exciting.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EslGfW1xYGU

Anyhoo, there was an advanced guy playing next to us working on his jumps. This is where I hope to be soon:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyrOrHv5LKg

But I'll probably have to get through hours of this first:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KvOIqNJQck

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vY3HMxkH4e0

Ouch, dude.

Beginner's Luck.

This week marks the first time I'm on 24-hr standby duty for my new support team. So naturally I received a call tonight informing me that an almost-never-occuring rare disaster just occured. Brilliant.

I have a 2 hour window right now because I have to wait until the back-up jobs are done. I guess I'll go take a nap because it looks like I'll be up all night fixing this mess.

If only winning the Mark 6 were this easy...

Jump

Whoohoo! Both me and my wake-buddy pulled off our first wake jumps today!

It doesn't look like much, but to a rookie like me, this is big thing. Huge! My board was actually out of the water. Wah!!!

Here's the clip of this momentous occasion:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WicRhpoiMvw


I probably would've gotten more height if my knees weren't bent like that (they absorbed most of the energy) but it's so hard to fight your natural instincts to cushion the blow.

Another photo, this time with even more air beneath my board:

...and here's what happened right afterwards. Check out the 180 wipeout:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RoZGIznhC4Y

The following clip was taken during my final run for the day. My limbs were pretty tired from all the pulling and jumping (you see trying to loosen up my arms at the beginning). Right at the end, my legs gave way to the strain resulting in a spectacular face plant:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Y_yLD4ocwQ

Funny thing about wakeboarding is that if you don't crash and burn, you actually go down pretty slowly. In the clip below, I had let go of the rope to regain balance. Because I didn't wipe out, the result looks like I was slowly swallowed by the sea:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdJ5ZcsKTHo

Being the insane exercise freak that I am, I went swimming in the afternoon. Did about 10 laps less than usual and right now I can barely lift my arms higher than shoulder height.

I wonder if I'll be able to get out of bed tomorrow morning. Ah screw it; don't like my job anyways...

An Acquired Taste

I remember when I first came back to HK and visited Pizza Hut, how weird some of the toppings seemed. Like Thousand Island sauce with corn and Japanese crabsticks, or mango and chicken.

I guess being here for 10 years has changed some my view of things 'coz I find myself liking these weird choices more and more. I went to Pizza Hut last night to try their 2 newest offerings: Teriyaki Beef Mizza and Tender Shrimp Medley.

The Teriyaki Beef Mizza is a pizza made of rice. Sort of like the ricebugers made by Mos Burger. Pretty tasty.





And here's the main dish: shrimp, pineapple, almonds and mayonaise. A couple years back I would have been "That's so not going in my mouth." But today, I have to admit that it's a pretty good combination. Naturally, not as good as the pizzas at California Pizza Kitchen, but not bad nonetheless.

Meow

Went to a cat themed cafe today. There were several cats prowling around, but the one at our table was dead asleep. I love cats...it doesn't matter what position they're in or where they are; once they fall asleep they stay that way.


So why did he finally wake up?

Mmmmm....Cookies and Cream Cheese Cake.

WB 2007

Figures, summer's coming to an end and I finally get around to playing my first wakeboard session of the year.

Between studying, bad weather and shark scares, haven't had time to go wakeboarding until today. It's been nearly a year since my last session and I'd pretty much forgotten all about form and technique, but the concept of Trusting the Rope kicked in so I did OK.

As promised, I opened a YouTube account to store WB videos. Here's one that was taken at the end of the day. It was shot with a DC rather than a DV, so the image quality ain't pretty. Plus, it's pretty bumpy because the water had some chop to it, so you might want to skip this if you get seasick easily. Don't expect much 'coz I'm still in the pre-jump phase. In fact, right at the end you'll see what happens when I try to get a little air under my board:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjtAsheqBNw

You're selling what?

2 random pics I took recently. Funny what things are sold these days...

From the mall. That's definitely one way to get your attention.


At a street market. Sorry for the bad quality; had to take it surreptitiously with my crappy phone camera. Can you blame me? These are people who sell Grade Triple-A Piss. Not the type who joke around...


Triple-A Piss, when only the best will do.