Monthly Archives: November 2003

Pre-Hong Kong Chinese Food

I had the plea­sure of Pat’s com­pa­ny this morn­ing as we went for some Dim Sum. The meal was sort of meant to see me off on my trip, as well as cel­e­brate Pat’s new job, and adapt my sys­tem to the most­ly oil fried food of Hong Kong. The streets of Chinatown were qui­et and serene, a stark change from the con­stant sound of traf­fic I get from the Queensway out­side my win­dow. Sunday morn­ings should always be this beau­ti­ful and cold.

"Cause It Isn't Fair"

There are times when a com­mit­ment is made on good terms and the bond of such a com­mit­ment can be eas­i­ly hon­oured. However, there are cas­es when these terms become sub­ject to strains that may threat­en the rela­tion­ship on which the com­mit­ment is based. When these strains over­whelm, the bond is bro­ken.

The com­mit­ment, entan­gled with the rela­tion­ship, should be bro­ken as well.

However, this bond some­times does not end. In such cas­es, the com­mit­ment can­not be said to be hon­oured; rather, it exists out of pity. Such a motive is rarely some­thing to be desired. It is best to end such an engage­ment instead of false­ly keep­ing it alive, for com­mit­ments, much like rela­tion­ships, are par­tial­ly based on the self-inter­ests of those involved. When they are not, one per­son assumes the role of a liar.

And the oth­er is being lied to.

Voyeuristic

A lit­tle while ago I put up an up-to-the-minute script that would tell me how many peo­ple were view­ing this page, out of curios­i­ty. It’s always inter­est­ing to find out that some­one is vis­it­ing at the same time that I am. This week I noticed that I had 3 vis­i­tors online while I was updat­ing. I was pret­ty sur­prised, since most inter­net surfers spend much less than a minute at a page before leav­ing (most will leave the page if it does­n’t load with­in eight sec­onds, a use­ful fact to know for web design­ers).

I checked my stats and found out that I’m still get­ting more than 100 vis­its dai­ly, which is some­thing that I don’t under­stand. I haven’t done much to adver­tise my site aside from a few Canadian blog list­ings, and only a hand­ful of the peo­ple I per­son­al­ly know check on a reg­u­lar basis. I don’t think I talk about con­tro­ver­sial issues that real­ly gen­er­ate any dis­cus­sion, or any­thing that’s very inter­est­ing for that mat­ter. I don’t pan­der to poten­tial vis­i­tors, I don’t cen­sor myself, I don’t address an audi­ence, and half the time I’m just vent­ing about this or that. I first made this site over a year ago as an out­let for per­son­al expres­sion, and the pur­pose has­n’t changed one bit ever since. I won­der if peo­ple come here by mis­take or look­ing for some­thing spe­cif­ic. I per­son­al­ly have my dai­ly reads (most of them female authors, since there seems to be a short­age of male blog­gers) of peo­ple who have lives that are very dif­fer­ent from mine. Most are just plain inter­est­ing, and some give me a few alter­nate per­spec­tives.

I wish I knew what peo­ple came here for.

The Turn-On/Turn-Off List: Part 1

turn on: tight neck turtle­necks
turn off: loose neck turtle­necks

turn on: speak­ing more than one lan­guage, speech imped­i­ments
turn off: speak­ing English poor­ly

turn on: glass­es
turn off: eye shad­ow

turn on: brow, tongue, labret, cheek, hood pierc­ings
turn off: nip­ple, nail pierc­ings

turn on: hands
turn off: feet

turn on: swear­ing
turn off: burp­ing

turn on: Scottish accents
turn off: Chinese accents

turn on: nail pol­ish
turn off: lip­stick

turn on: retain­ers, braces
turn off: gum­my smiles

turn on: chok­ers
turn off: spiked col­lars

turn on: floor touch­ing skirts
turn off: capris