Colin Charles Agenda

So, I’ve left Tokyo, and we had an amazing last dinner there at a sushi place, and I think both Kaj and my new favourite dish is crab bowels. Stewart, a friend of his, and I decided we needed to see some bits of Tokyo, so we went out for a few drinks. You haven’t been to a city till you’ve been propositioned, and I guess you can say, we’ve been to Tokyo. Half-price beers at a bar somewhere, were what we settled for. Quick, albeit short sleep, and I was up for my 7am departure from the hotel.

Arrived in Beijing, almost after a whole day of flying, because I had to make a stop over at Shanghai. Was amazed that China Eastern Airlines isn’t as bad as they’re touted to be (wait for my next update about the airline industry, which I typed up on my E61i, in offline mode). Upon landing, they had a banner looking for folk that came from Tokyo. There were like 9 folk, all of whom got a nice un-crowded bus. The rest were put into another bus that was packed full, and they hadn’t even arrived to collect their bags when I’d left the airport!

Beijing hasn’t changed, too much. Memories just started flowing back, the moment I hit the car park in the airport. Traffic is just as bad, drivers probably have gotten worse, there’s way more honking now, and crossing the road is always a death-wish. Arrived at my hotel, which was amazing - I can heartily recommend the JianGuo Hotel to anyone needing a hotel in Beijing. Fairly cheap, very fast Internet access, but of course, filtered. I just noticed that Flickr was disabled as well, which annoyed me. But uploads worked - 300-400KB/s!!!

On Thursday, I caught up with Ken and Michael, for a quick Peking Duck dinner, nearby to the hotel. Ken and I continued on the night with some drinks, at a place opposite my hotel, and we had lots of Chivas, and a late night :P Short sleep later, I was up, awake, and ready for presenting all day. Which I did with no problem, and to good crowds.

Party people, its Friday night. First up, dinner with Grace. Good food, and she even gave me a tiny gift with regards to the Beijing Olympics. Of course, this made me a little worried, and I felt weird, as I had no gift handy. So I promised to send her a print of herself, since I was walking around with my 30/1.4 and SLR then. George, is now officially my new go-to guy for being an excellent party animal. Short stay in the hotel later, and a quick shower, and I was out to Propaganda. This is apparently the new Vics (which has lost its popularity, after apparently the bouncers beating up some foreigners a little after I left Beijing the last time).

Propaganda is amazing. Probably also because I met someone amazing (pre-Propaganda). Haha. Its a watering hole upstairs, and downstairs, is a really crowded and packed dance floor. R&B music, along with some oldies (like Michael Jackson) is what the crowd basically dances to. It got too hot, too quickly, so I had to move back upstairs pretty quickly.

The Chinese don’t understand what a “Chivas and water” is, so I just enjoyed gin tonics. Weird drink, last I remember there were rumours that it made men impotent, but who cares. It was my “China drink”…

Left early, because I was to speak at SFD the next day, crashed at about 3.30am, up again not long after, as I had morning meetings at 9am. Grace came by again, and then with the company driver, we took a quick tour of the upcoming Olympic village, and then headed off to Tsinghua University. Hung out with the cool folk there, bringing me back memories of my BLUG attendance. Lalo was there, and I’ve now scored a small-ish SFD t-shirt, in pink. I’ll wear this soon, and promise to post a photo up I’m sure :)

Spoke, to a large-ish audience. Ensured that I got them to stand up and poke each other first, because while sitting down, I noticed some folk dozing off in the previous talk. I was the only one whom spoke in English, and there was a translator available, so I think they stayed awake, mostly. Plus I had the occasional joke thrown it (I find it amusing that when you mention the joke, some folk laugh first, because they get it, and then the vast majority laughs later, because of the translation :P).

Dinner was very nice, for all the SFD speakers, event organisers and so forth. 15 courses or something, I found it hard to read. Jade, someone we all just met, who works at Via, has offered to do some form of language exchange with me, which she assures me can be done via MSN, so I gladly obliged. Since she was so nice, I gave her a Moo card as well :)

Back to the hotel, and within 15 minutes, I’m out again with George. He’s already picked up Jia Jia, and a friend, and we head to a place near Suzie Wong’s, a sports bar. I play darts with her, something I’ve not done in years. Surprisingly, probably by some stroke of luck, I win several times. The night quickly turns into one of drinking games being played amongst all (Claude joins us too), and all I can say is we have a lot of fun. We then decide that supper is due, and for some reason things like ducks tongue, and random other recycled parts of animals are ordered. They’re all spicy as well. Fair enough, I just drink the egg & tomato soup…

Another late night, that ends at 4.30am or something, and I’m up again to have breakfast, pack quickly, and head off to the airport at 10am. Reminder to self: when leaving Beijing, you clear customs first, then only go and get your boarding pass. Long flight ahead to Munich, cramped up in coach on Lufthansa. I attempt to sleep, eat food, and get work done (consequently, bombarding people later with lots of email). Arrive in Munich and find my connecting to Frankfurt has been cancelled.

Easily fixed, I get a new, albeit delayed flight, and arrive so quickly, they could hardly serve most passengers drinks. Attempt to get a train and actually succeed. There was a persistent beggar in the train station whom only spoke English. I felt bad for him, but at that stage, I could only offer him Yen or Kuai/RMB.

Reached Heidelberg, got a taxi, and the hotel was about to close up the reception. So this was a in the nick of time sort of thing. Apparently I wasn’t booked in till the next day, so I’m glad they just sold me the room outright anyways. Internet is 5 Euros/24hrs here. The room is typically European, something I’d have expected to get in Tokyo (but didn’t).

Looking for food at 11.30pm is hard, but I did find a bar, and hopped in for some local beer on tap. Bunch of Spanish students were watching the basketball match against Russia. Russia won, however, they still danced on the streets later, saying “banana” and “ok”. They got me to stand in the middle and do a dance with them too. I’ve got some form of crappy video from the N73, so I’ll YouTube it soon enough.

Theme of the trip: 4 in the morning by Gwen Stefani, and Cool as well. Oh, I bought headphones at the airport, because I wanted to watch Californication in the plane…

I’ve got boils on my toes, thanks to the heat/sweating in Japan/China. Voltaren cream, and band-aids to the rescue. More to come soon, as I’m about to have dinner (or at least look for some dinner).

See where in the world I am, via my Dopplr profile. Or Facebook’s Dopplr interface.

Technorati Tags: travel germany heidelberg munich frankfurt tokyo japan beijing china

Surprisingly, I caught nothing last month, I’ll probably have to cite being busy, etc. I did however, attend the Australian Malaysian Film Festival, at the ACMI.

Opening night was fancy, we had wine, with roti canai and chicken curry :) We rushed in for the movie, The Red Kebaya, and without knowing, we sat right in front of Ramli Hassan (the main actor in the movie). Malaysians are usually highly critical of anything “Made in Malaysia” and are usually never proud of local fare, but I can say that I enjoyed the storyline and the plot of The Red Kebaya, very much. Its finally a movie of international class and quality. Oh, did I mention that it was nearly all in English? More interestingly though is that they only took about 35 days to film the entire show! Check out the official Red Kebaya site, and if you find it on DVD, do give it a watch (I hope to buy it at some stage).

Ramli himself, is very down to earth. Kudos, no air around him as an actor. The next day, they showed us a movie titled Chermin. This one was fully in Malay (with English subtitles), and was supposed to be a horror flick, that had to do with a mirror. I found this to be as logical as say, the average Chinese movie with flying kung fu stunts or hopping ghosts.

After a quick dinner, it was time to see Puteri Gunung Ledang. This was pretty good, but I don’t think it bore any resemblance to the actual history surrounding Hang Tuah. It had a good cast, though I wonder how it relates to the old movie released in 1961? Note that this movie is very lengthy, something along the lines of 2.5 hours.

Of all the movies shown at the film festival, I’d vote The Red Kebaya as a strong winner, followed by Puteri Gunung Ledang. Give Chermin a miss.

Technorati Tags: movies redkebaya chermin puteri gunung ledang red kebaya australian malaysian film festival filmfestival melbourne acmi

Not having played a game since Prince of Persia (and we’re talking the original game, with block-like graphics, on some ancient hardware, back in 1990), I decided to try out Second Life today. Surprisingly, the getdeb folk have this for Ubuntu, even in its 64-bit variety. Installation was simple:

• sudo dpkg -i secondlife-install_1.18.1.2-1~getdeb1_amd64.deb
• Realise that I’m missing a dependency, so install lib32asound2
• Attempt to start secondlife

And fail, of course. I got a Window Creation Error. Not content with this, I started it up from a terminal, and looked at the error messages pass by. Finally found the rather telling line: WARNING: createContext: window creation failure. SDL: Couldn’t find matching GLX visual. It seems that its all got to do with the bit-depth of colour, so a quick replace of the DefaultDepth in xorg.conf was in lieu (it originally was DefaultDepth 16 but its now DefaultDepth 24).

Restart X, and I launched Second Life with success! Now signing up was a bit of a chore as I had to find a new name and so on. A lot of ideal names are taken up, so I settled with Colin Pichot. One of the things I quickly changed was how much bandwidth SL was allowed to use - quick reduction to 50kbps from its usual default (of like 700kbps+). I joined the Linux Australia group, I’ve not developed anything in SL, and I haven’t given them my credit card details (yet). It seems to create a group, you need to fork out $100 Linden Dollars.

I’ll play with this after midnight I guess, when we’ve got more “off-peak” quota to utilise, but initial impressions are its a pretty impressive environment in 800×600. I’ve not met anyone, I’ve added a friend (I think), can’t for the life of me figure out how to put a photo in my profile, and here’s hoping that eventually, I understand what all the fuss about SL is.

Technorati Tags: second life, secondlife, sl, ubuntu, window creation error, glx visual, colin pichot, alter ego

Surprisingly, managed to catch quite a bit this month.

• Knocked Up - funny, good comedy, not worth the cinema ticket price, but funny (really!)
• Harry Potter & The Order of the Phoenix - long, phenomenal, as I also had just read the book before-hand. Pity they chose to make Cho a “baddie’
• Oceans 13 - loved this series, and this one’s just as excellent. Where’d they chuck Julia Roberts though?
• Blow - feel sorry for those in the drug trade. Jailed repeatedly, but what else can you expect the pusher to do? I haven’t actually noticed many movie’s with Penelope Cruz in it either
• Pride & Prejudice - interrupted a lot, but an interesting show. The book, as always, is more interesting.
• Ferris Bueller’s Day Off - funny, can’t believe it took me this long to watch! A must see.
• Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon - if anyone ever tells me Indian movies are silly because people run around trees and sing songs, you’ve got to catch this, as not only do they do kung fu, they fly when they do it! Show was enjoyed though, on a projector against a wall (so it was a very cinema-like experience, minus the sticky floors, dirty chairs and smelly environment)
• Premonition - slept half-way through, it might have been good, but all that dejavu made me doze off in the plane
• Blades of Glory - funny, if not a little gay. One of the better comedies.

In book sense, I read quite a bit, but I probably don’t have anything to note about the Harry Potter series. I read book 5, 6 and 7, all in one weekend (Friday evening->Sunday). Yes, that means I read book 7 a little late, but who cares. I did take away some quick quotes: “Greatness inspires envy, envy engenders spite, spite spawns lies.” — Voldemort, in the Half-Blood Prince; “… but perhaps those who are best suited to ower are those who have never sought it. Those who have leadership thrust upon them, and take up the mantle because they must…” — Dumbledore.

Being away from the weblogs for a couple of weeks means that I’ve got a whole bunch of thoughts just waiting to be spewed. So a summary as best as I can remember.

Life

• Those that have seen me in person in the last five or so years, and looked down, would have noticed a pair of “spider-man” looking Timberland black & grey shoes. These have been successfully replaced by a leather pair of TImberlands and another sporty looking one made of Toray (which is some great moisture management fabric). Now that I have two pairs, maybe it’ll last for a decade?
• Lived through 07/07/2007, and there was even a gathering of old friends with single malt whiskey then. Roads were packed, and weddings were abound. The significance of this is that we’re apparently meaning machines; imagine what it will be like come 08/08/2008, 09/09/2009, 10/10/2010, 11/11/2011, and 12/12/2012. Looks like it gives me 5 years to get married and join the fads :-)
• Days were spent in loads of meetings with people, but some nights were for rest and relaxation - and I could generally be found at Thai Club. Even spent their 4th birthday party there (so no, they’ve not been around since 1975). Their live bands are pretty hit and miss (i.e. you can imagine wishing they’d stop singing), but the DJs are pretty tolerable. Many a bottle of scotch was had, their seafood BBQ and pizzas are pretty good, and much thanks to my partner-in-crime, Ruben.
• Singapore was an interesting experience. It really does seem like people there live in a very large mall. It has completely erupted to being night clubs, bars, restaurants, and so forth - how things have changed since I last regularly visited the place, circa 2000-2001. The Clarke Quay area has been remodelled, there were a couple of microbreweries (fruit beer, tasty!), and a rather odd nightclub called the Clinic, where you’d drink out of a drip or syringes! Kudos to Sunny for showing me around those areas.
• Photography has taken such a back seat in my life, and its not making me happy. I actually have just started uploading photos to Flickr, and am going to start taking time to make good photos. Living off the camera phones for the last couple of weeks, kinda sucked.
• Its been fabulous to watch the F1 with my dad, something I’ve been doing for years even before my departure to Australia. Two F1’s we had, with some great racing. Caught last night’s European F1 and must say it was an interesting race, thanks to the rain.

Tech-related

• The Internet in Australia is getting worry-some, with Optus now starting to charge for uploads as well. Keeping in mind we’re already ridiculously quota-ed, I don’t see how upload charging makes sense. Looks like the telcos like Telstra/Optus feel that VoIP is a significant threat, so the best way to hit the consumer is to charge for uploads. This also bodes negatively for Flickr, and YouTube, and other media rich applications. This is going backwards…
• My Nokia N73 is randomly shutting off. Usually after I take a call, or sometimes while I’m taking a call. This phone is not even a year old, so warranty will cover it, but I’m a bit shocked at the quality - I’ve not had phones fail on me within a year! Maybe a replacement is in lieu after it gets fixed, I’m personally liking a GPS-unit and maybe WiFi, but don’t think the N95 is at a justifiable price range.
• People are getting married, thanks to Twitter. Read all about it, via Ben Barren. Love, expressed in 140 characters or less, eh? Seems one party even made it to a Melbourne Twitter Meetup (that I missed, sadly).
• There seem to be more tech meetups in Melbourne - tequp, MODM (Melbourne Online Digital Media), MTUB (Melbourne Twitter Underground Brigade). Will probably be at more meetups, in the coming weeks, I’m sure…

• The Shaggy Dog - funny! A must see movie, quite clearly.
• Kebab Connection - this was a foreign language movie (German) that I truly enjoyed. Sort of different storyline with the same underlying themes (of love, young pregnancy, chasing dreams, success, overall happiness). I’m beginning to think that in due time, foreign language movies are what I’m going to end up watching (French ones are particularly interesting, because I have a grasp of the language… miss the times I watched a lot of Chinese movies. Maybe Indian movies next? ;-)) Oh and hello, who knew Nora Tschirner would be such a babe? (Tempted to find German MTV now…)
• Stealing Beauty - “It was my first time too.” The idea of living on a large farm, with big open plan spaces, and having the sort of dream-like artists colony is one that I’ll always keep at the back of my head. Tuscany, Italy, are forever going to be on my to-visit lists.
• Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End - seems to be at the tail end, but man was the cinema crowded and the movie, just simply excellent. A must see.
• Transformers - this was seen in Gold Class. In KL. RM40 at GSC MidValley, to beat the crowd. Cinema was nice (they serve beer now), and the movie was fabulous. Keeping in mind I never followed this in my younger years, I still found it quite impressive. And Megan Fox (unknown? well mostly…) was also right for the show.

Wherein the month I spent a bucket-load of cash at JB HiFi.

• Cruel Intentions 1, 2 and 3 - why they’d make a sequel, and another, I honestly wonder. It just started progressively getting worse but I continued watching. The first one’s a classic, guess I now have it on dvd for only $15.
• House Season 1 & 2 & 3 - also, more dvd galore. This is a seriously good, if not great, series. Add to that the Prison Break, The O.C., One Tree Hill and Desperate Housewives that I normally follow.
• Spiderman 3 - nice, can’t wait for the fourth movie…
• History Boys - weird, good appreciation of literature, interesting.
• Friends With Money - weird movie, and Jennifer Aniston didn’t save it.
• The Secret - Australian movie about success, which seemed like a sap on time, that refers repeatedly to the Law of Attraction. Focus on what you want, not what you don’t want, anytime your thoughts flow, you’re working the law of attraction. When you visualize, then you materialize. Don’t know if it was worth its running time…

I figured it was time to redesign, what was essentially 2004, on bytebot.net. Its 2007, so with the power of “badges”, I’ve made the site feel a lot more updated. I’m feeding photos from my Flickr account, last played music via last.fm (I’m not really big on their widget, but I’m trying hard to not have to parse rss myself), bookmarking via del.icio.us (with comments, so its also occasionally blog-like), and micro-blogging via Twitter.

The fact that I can still do all this entirely in HTML (with great help from JavaScript and some help from CSS), still amazes me - who needs PHP! For constantly static text, Apache does server side includes, something I’ll be using in due time, when I fix/template all the local content. I have to update the talks page (so many Impress files sitting all around).

Anyways, if you’ve got a Twitter account, I’m bytebot there. Who else is twittering?