Episode 1496: Stanley

Today, we headed to Stanley, in the Southern District, and had lunch at Saigon at Stanley, a Vietnamese restaurant. Had soft shell crab in this yellow curry, with bits of egg in it. Quite delightful. Stanley's also a really scenic area, so I managed to get some good pictures. Bought an interesting card game in a Stanley Plaza shop, Goods of Desire, which purports to teach players a bit of Cantonese, although it's only actually useful if you're ordering dimsum! Was slightly less impressed by Stanley Market, which didn't really seem all that different from other street markets that I've been to in other countries. On the other hand, I remain appreciative of how easy it is to find free WiFi in Hong Kong. I know Singapore's got Wireless@SG, but it's such a hassle logging onto that, whereas most of the free WiFi networks that I've accessed here have been one-touch login affairs. Still, even the inconvenience of Wireless@SG is superior to the comparative absence of free WiFi in the UK. What's up with that anyway? I'm pretty sure the free Virgin WiFi on the Tube is a relatively recent introduction, right? Have been making some progress with my books, by which I mean I'm reading a few pages of The Salt Book Of Younger Poets each day. It seems I was, as usual, wildly optimistic about doing my reviews.

Episode 1495: Macau

Turns out it was Yong Long I saw yesterday. Saw his pictures on Facebook Anyway, we spent today in Macau. It was a tour, so that saved the hassle of trying to work out how to get about the place. Honestly though, I'm not convinced there's all that much more to Macau than the gambling. Still, there's a certain vulgar beauty to the casinos' opulence, isn't there? Is this where Singapore is headed, now that we have our integrated resorts? Hopefully not! Added some new music to my iPod before I came over to Hong Kong, which is all I've been listening to for the past couple of days. One of the albums is Taylor Swift's Red, apparently her poppiest yet. I've never been a huge fan of hers, but I'd say that's about right as an album assessment. It's your standard radio-friendly stuff, with the occasional country inflection. More interesting are Aiden Grimshaw's Misty Eye and Jamie Woon's Mirrorwriting. Both are clearly pop music records, but musically they feel quite refreshing compared to the sounds that tend to dominate the airwaves these days. Purists of the genres they borrow from will probably disapprove though. I've also been listening to Lawson's Chapman Square, which is a solid radio-ready pop record like Swift's. Boybands definitely seem to be experiencing a resurgence this decade, but even though the four Lawson members are predictably ludicrously photogenic, musically they're actually slightly closer to the jangly guitar pop of Kris Allen, rather than One Direction, or even The Wanted.

Episode 1494: Lantau Island

Spent the day on Lantau Island, mostly at the Ngong Ping 360 tourist attraction. It's a cable car ride from Tung Chung MTR to the Ngong Ping Village, which is a pretty shamelessly touristic place. We were on a sort of package tour that also took us to the fishing village at Tai O, which has been called the Venice of Hong Kong. That was a more interesting place because it doesn't yet seem to have been completely colonised by tourism, although the signs are there. Not a lot to see though, unless you're really fascinated by fishing, I guess? Then it was back to Ngong Ping for a visit to the Po Lin Monastery, where I swear I saw Yong Long walk past me. (Think I saw him again later in Citygates Outlets, on the way back to the hotel.) Anyway, after being out nearly the whole day with my parents, I've realised that we have very different travel philosophies. I like travelling but hate tourism and how it implies that destinations can be packaged and consumed like goods, whereas my parents are quite happy to embrace their status as 'tourists', in the sense that they can be quite wide-eyed, especially when it comes to things like navigating public transport or the streets. It can get a bit trying at times, as you can imagine.

Episode 1493: Hong Kong!

Only had the time to watch one movie during the flight to Hong Kong, 38 Témoins. It was okay, but I thought what it had to say about human nature was fairly trite, and I didn't actually care about the central relationship of the film, so it didn't seem that big a deal when it abruptly ended. Anyway, it turns out that the hotel we're staying at is the same hotel we stayed at the last time we were in Hong Kong, about six years ago. Biggest change? There's a WiFi hotspot right outside the hotel now, so as long as I don't mind sitting outside and occasionally breathing in cigarette smoke, my digital life can still go on, more or less. Am trying my best to be patient while travelling alone with my parents, which I've never done before, except the couple of days when they came to the UK for my graduation last year. This time it's a whole week though. We're also not travelling on any fixed itinerary, which has pros and cons, I guess. Will be nice to go to places that I've never been to though, like the outlying islands. Also, it's just struck me how odd it is that Hong Kong-style eateries are actually not as casual affairs in Singapore as they clearly are here. Had dinner in one earlier, and it was like being in one of those roadside scenes that I watch on TVB shows now and then.

Episode 1492: Holiday Packing!

Am bringing some stuff with me to Hong Kong that I need to read for reviewing purposes, but I'm also bringing some leisure reading. Have been trying to decide between Jesse Ball and Alex Preston, but since my Facebook friends have been deliberately unhelpful and none of my Twitter followers replied, I told Shirley on WhatsApp to just pick a name. So Preston it is! Taking both This Bleeding City and The Revelations along, since I expect to get through them pretty quickly, assuming they're page-turning reads like all the blurbs say. Now I'm all packed for my trip to Hong Kong with my parents! Apparently, it should be relatively easy to find free WiFi hotspots in Hong Kong, and there's one company's network that I can supposedly get onto with a 60-day free trial, so I'm hoping that I won't be entirely disconnected from digital civilisation while I'm gone. Have managed to read the chapbook that I've been asked to provide a blurb for, so all I need is to come up with a sentence or two before going to bed. Then I just need to reply to one more submission for The Cadaverine, and I'll be good to go on holiday (except for that list of pending reviews).

Episode 1491: A Tale Of Two Comedies

So Season 3 of Happy Endings has premiered and I'm so glad it's back. For me, it's the best comedy on air after Community, with the added plus that unlike NBC, ABC typically doesn't mess around when it comes to airing new episodes. Happy Endings started off as a bit of an underdog, a mid-season show that looked like it was being burnt off, two episodes at a time. Somehow, someone thought to give it another season, and it settled into its skin as a quirky relationship sitcom that was really more about a close-knit group of friends, the only one to actually survive from 2011's crop, I believe. Honestly though, I doubt the ratings will be spectacular this year, given how most shows have been performing across the board, but who knows? Maybe ABC will lower its expectations enough to renew this for yet another season, even though that still wouldn't give the show enough episodes to be sold into syndication. A syndication deal might not mean much though. Community, which has already been sold into syndication on Comedy Central, despite how it'll fall short of the conventional 88-episode threshold if NBC declines to pick up the back nine for this season, is still being treated like an unwanted stepchild. What I would like to know is whether Comedy Central could actually afford to rescue the show when NBC cancels it. (Let's be realistic, NBC is almost certainly going to kick the show to the kerb after this year, barring a ratings miracle on the scale of what Revolution has been blessed with so far.)

Episode 1490: Nikita (Or Proof That Americans Prefer Asinine Reality TV)

Nikita is the best show that it seems almost everyone with a Nielsen box has never heard of, as evidenced by its being the worst premiere for The CW this season, new or returning series. At 0.3, it was below even the Gossip Girl Season 6 premiere, but we might explain that as being due to Nikita airing on Fridays. Still, this is The CW, so they'll almost certainly still air the whole season. It's not like they have anything they can bring out to plug the gap if they yank it anyway, unless they've somehow been secretly working on a second season of The Secret Circle. (Oh, if only that were true!) The CW is a bit of an oddball compared to the Big Four networks, so who knows, they might actually even give the show another season for syndication purposes. Unlikely, but if any show on the network deserves it, it would have to be Nikita. In completely unrelated news, here's a first: I've been asked to provide a blurb for a chapbook. I've had snippets quoted from reviews that I've done in the past, but this is the first time I've been approached in my capacity as an editor. Please understand that this is disproportionately exciting for me at the moment, as not a lot else is going on in my life. You might already have gathered this from how every other post these days seems to be about the TV shows that I'm watching.

Episode 1489: Need To Get Stuff Done Before My Holiday!

Editing a pair of reprints for the site. Way too many semicolons in the sentences! Call me old-fashioned, but the semicolon shouldn't be used like a comma. Need to remember to upload a couple of accepted submissions for The Cadaverine before I go off to Hong Kong for a short holiday. Also sort of hoping to finish a review before the holiday, and maybe one during. At the very least, I want to read at least a couple of the books, to trim the stack down. I had a good run about a week and a half ago, but then the momentum kind of died, partly because I've been reading Issue 4 of Lucky Peach. Yeah, it finally arrived, though this is actually the replacement for my subscription copy that got lost in transit. The McSweeney's customer service people have been really helpful though, in this matter and that massive order of The Believer issues I made a while ago, so props to them! Don't think I'm going to renew my Lucky Peach subscription though, not if I can get the issues through The Book Depository. The additional cost of shipping my subscription to Singapore means I actually get a slightly better deal via The Book Depository.

Episode 1488: Yes, I Did!

Note to self: I won't save that much time by taking the Circle Line if I'm doing it just before midnight. Literally ended up on the last Kranji-bound train, and then on the last feeder bus back to my block, so what I'd intended to be a time-saving measure ended up with me reaching home half an hour later than I would have if I'd just stuck to my usual MRT route. Anyway, I've received official confirmation from the department, so yeah, I have got a Distinction for my MA. Sharing that news on Facebook led to what I think is probably my status with the most Likes ever, so thanks everyone. Congratulations to everyone else on their results as well! Wish I could go back to Warwick for graduation in January, but it doesn't look likely to happen. Now to send the dissertation to Edwin Thumboo, since now that I know at least two other academics don't think it's rubbish, I won't feel too embarrassed about having him read it. I wonder if we'll get the comments sheet back for our last essays/dissertations. I mean, they did end up being the best grades I got all year, so I'd quite like to know what the feedback on them was like. Might e-mail Cheryl again to ask. It's not terribly important, since NIE aside, I won't be returning to academia for half a decade or more. Just interesting for personal reference, I suppose.

Episode 1487: I Think I Got A Distinction?

I think I might've found my new favourite TV show and it's MTV's Underemployed. I freely admit that a huge part of why I can enjoy it carefree is that I am not facing post-graduation unemployment, for which I am immensely grateful. Yet beneath the veneer of reality (unpaid internships, wannabe models/writers trapped in dead-end jobs), Underemployed plays more like a caricature of graduate un(der)employment than the real thing. As it should though, since this is scripted drama (as opposed to the staged 'real' deal on the reality TV that MTV has made its post-music video name on), it can be as outlandish as it wants, and it'll still get a pass from me (and quite a few other people, I should imagine). It's more fun to watch than HBO's Girls, that's for sure! Anyway, I'm supposed to get my MA results at some point today/tomorrow, but I think I've worked out that I got a distinction overall. The marks I need to calculate my average are already up on my.warwick, and barring any drastic changes by the examination board to my first two modules, my average is above 70, which is, you know, nice.