河國榮, An Aussie in Hong Kong

I have a 200GB external hard disk which has developed serious media problems. A surface scan of the disk produced more than 900 bad blocks with 2 million blocks remaining to be scanned. After three days of scanning, I cancelled the scan. The Maxtor Diamond Plus is less than 2 years old but because it's an OEM, the warranty is only 1 year. Consider carefully before you purchase an expensive OEM external drive. It might be cheaper to buy a lower capacity drive and swap the bare drive for a full-warranty high capacity drive yourself.

Anyway, I had a quandary. The 200GB drive contains full resolution film scans of many of my photographs. The thing which many people tend to forget these days is that digital media can evaporate before your eyes and there's no way to get the material back, whether it be Word files, your favourite music (Apple iTunes music store) or your memories. A lot of people are backing up to CD or DVD believing the hype that the media will last for 10 to 20 years not realising that there are different grades of media, that CDs don't last as long as DVDs, that DVD+RWs don't last as long as DVD+Rs and that with temperature changes and exposure to light, NONE of these are certain to last over time.

There's a good article over at CNET News.com about Attention Deficiency Trait (ADT). I've seen similar symptoms in my own life. For example, I tend to work on multiple tasks at home; including home repairs; at the same time, moving from one task to the next until they're all finished. I have a hard time completely finishing one task before beginning with the next.

Many many years ago when I was still a young person growing up in Australia, a New Zealand evangelist by the name of Barry Smith used to make the rounds of the churches preaching about the future of the world. In very basic terms, his message was the usual "repent or die with everyone else". Many people did convert and become Christians at the time but the end of the world didn't come. However, Barry's message was much more than simply that the world was coming to an end. He included many specifics, his (divine?) interpretation of the prophecies found within the bible. A few of his specifics may have been wrong but many were correct although they occurred much later than he had predicted. You can't fault him on that. Throughout history, many evangelists and foretellers of doom were very enthusiastic to see the end of the world sooner rather than later. Even now, we really can't be sure how close the end is, and if it will in fact actually occur.

( Fiction; ie, it's imagined, made up, invented, sort of, and it's not about me! )

eight fifteen a.m. just enough time to say my prayers before going to the office, only if we cut across the lanes into the exit though. if we had to go all the way down to the bottom and back up the other side to get to the car park entrance, I'd be late for work. crossing the white lines may be illegal but I can afford the fines.

prayers are all done. time to get to the office. things have changed a lot recently. I thought I'd be retiring soon. had to get that big project all organised so that I'd have a decent salary to fall back on after retirement. if it wasn't for all those noisy buggers complaining about the way the project was set up for bidding, it would've been finished by now too. oh well, doesn't matter anymore that I've now got this big promotion coming up. I'd dreamed about it but just didn't think it'd actually happen, or come so soon. all that shoe polishing finally paid off.

The bombing in London has been very high profile news all around the world. It's not surprising. Bombs going off in the middle of London; and more than one bomb at the same time; is very disturbing for most of us. If it happened in the middle of Iraq, we wouldn't think much of it even though we should. After all, lives anywhere in the world are lives and as such are valuable no matter who or where they are. The important aspect about the bombing in London though is the information being provided by the governments and the media.

In acting class, one of the things we are told to remember is that nothing is as it seems. Stereotypes should be avoided. Not all fat people are slow runners. Not all black people have excellent singing voices or are amazing athletes. Not all caucasians eat bread every meal of the day, or even potatoes every meal of the day. And not all politicians are corrupt although it can be difficult to find one who is not.

The price of petrol has just gone up in Hong Kong; again. We're now paying HK$12.66 per litre for normal grade petrol and HK$13.66 for high grade petrol. It's very expensive here but the oil companies don't mind increasing the price every chance they get anyway.

The latest excuse for increasing the price was the world wide cost of oil which recently hit US$61 per barrel, possibly the most expensive it's ever been. It's good and it's bad.

I had already decided not to visit Hong Kong Disneyland for quite some time to come, pretty sure that there would be a rush to get in when it first opened and that there might be all kinds of problems as the park adjusted. But when my friends offered us Rehearsal Day tickets, my wife and I bit the bullet and agreed to go.

I've been to the Florida Disneyland park in the USA twice. My wife has been to both the Florida and Japan parks, so this visit was going to be a comparison trip even if we didn't plan it that way. We were sure that the Hong Kong park wouldn't be as big or as grand as the other parks but we were curious none-the-less.

I've been watching a lot of the amazing "CSI" American television series lately and something occurred to me while watching it. For the justice system to work, a certain assumption has to be made; that all police work can be trusted.

If a case against a criminal is built entirely on evidence collected by the police, then the courts have to assume that the police-provided testimonies and evidence, and everything about the evidence is true. If not, then no case would ever get prosecuted.

True story.

It was supposed to be a straight forward operation, a small one, a simple one. Cut a small hole above the bronchial airway, pull the large oxygen breathing tube out from the mouth and push the new smaller tube in through the hole.

My brother-in-law Joe had a stroke almost two weeks ago. A blood vessel in his brain had developed an aneurism and while walking the streets of Macau, it burst, streaming blood into his brain. He knew immediately that something was wrong and asked a nearby policeman for help. He was transported to a hospital and treated. He had lost consciousness well before getting to the hospital and his situation was serious.

In my home, we have a table, a chair, a bed, a sofa, a refrigerator, a television and many other household articles. If I hit them, they don't feel pain. If I drop them, they may break but they will not be aware of it. They are simply material objects.

In my home, there are five people. We eat. We live. We cry. We laugh. If someone hits us, we feel pain. If someone betrays us, we hurt. If we are injured in any way, we know. We are aware.

In my home, there are eleven dogs and one rabbit. They feel joy when we return home from a day's work. They feel hunger before a meal. They feel lonely when the people are not home. They feel apprehension when they have done something wrong and see me approaching. They envy those who sit close to us. They speak. They cry. They even shed tears.

It was Tuesday. My wife and I had things to do at Telford Gardens. My wife and her sister were hungry for something Chinese, and I wasn't, so they went off to their choice of restaurants while I began making my way to Starbucks for a coffee. On the way though, I was side-tracked by a young lady who recognised me from a veterinary clinic I had visited a few times with Rose our rabbit.

The lady was trying to rescue a kitten and asked for my help. The kitten was behind some building materials stacked up against the wall facing the outside carpark and crying out loudly. While the lady used a plank to force the kitten out of hiding, I waited on the other side and grabbed her when I had the chance. Little did I know how much of a wild cat she was in spite of her small size. She instantly spun around and clawed at me with everything she had. She even managed to bite me at least once, but I quickly grabbed her gently and securely, covering and holding her head with one hand and holding her body with the other. She stopped moving but growled angrily from time to time in protest.

The truth is that everyone wants to be happy. The reality is that apparently, most people are very confused about how to be happy.

For years, advertising agencies have been using images and movies of seemingly very beautiful and happy people to sell products, everything from beer to jewellery. The core of their message is that you'll be happy too if you consume or own whatever they're selling.

The reason that this advertising works is a deep-seeded psychological need for people to be part of a community, to be accepted, to be 'one of the gang'. Many organisations use this need to their advantage. Beer and cigarette commercials imply that if you're not drinking their beer or smoking their cigarettes, that you'll not be welcome by others in the community, or at least if you do drink their beer or smoke their cigarettes, you'll have 'better' friends and more of them. Many young people have come to believe these messages.