Recent content by almon_IHB

i used to have this, but never could get channel 7 in HD. is it just me?

back on the east coast, tipping is always a percentage of pre-tax amount. here the bills always go off the post-tax amount. is this a cali thing or the restaurant just trying to screw ya?

the night before my business trip to asia, my wife, kids and i were sitting in a chinese restaurant and i opened my fortune cookie: "You will find romance overseas." true story...

i need to remind myself to be thankful...paraphrasing the lyrics of the submarines: "Here I am with all the pleasures of the first world Laid out before me who am I to breakdown? Everyday I wake up,I choose Love I choose Light And I try, it’s too easy just to fall apart..."

Dicks is so way overpriced to begin with, i would still avoid it.

just don't spend too much time at the casinos. macau has several cool places to visit. on hong kong island, there are 2 things i like - take the tram from causeway bay (shopping and eating) to kennedy town (an older part of hong kong), then back to central, hop off and walk toward mid-level...

take the hydrofoil from hong kong to macau, soak up some colonial flavor

that's a question i've been pondering for years, but on a boarder sense: how has america been able to keep its competitive edge against the hungrier countries that want to become us, and how come europe, try as it may, just can't catch us? we'll prooly need another thread for that question...

(doing this from memory, so please pardon if you spot any mistake...) during the 70s, hong kong had 2 universities and 2, ummm, for lack of better word, community colleges. and a population of about 4.5 million (some estimated with another .5 million of illegals from china). competition to...

i see...you just reminded me another thing -> my father worked for the board of ed, and my mother was a teacher. if the US had waited another 2 or 3 years before calling our names, they would have sent me to boarding school in england (using the govt employee discount else they could have never...

btw, i do not agree china is japan circa 1989. (1) different points on the export/consumption curve, (2) drastically different demographics trends. i believe japan f**ked up in the 90s, when it had several paths ahead and chose the status quo over and over; while china has only one good option...

lending in this way is proof that the chinese thinking and the obama thinking are alike -> spend your way out of a depression. don't economists often remind us that the great depression was washed away not by the new deal but by world war two (think of ww2 as massive govt spending via war bonds...

i try to think about the song "You, Me And The Bourgeoisie" by the Submarines every morning: "Here we are with all the pleasures of the first world Laid out for us who are we to breakdown? ..."

wow, thanks for answering...it's the type of situations that i would want my kids to be aware of (so they would appreciate what they have more), without actually seeing them in person. i was 12 when i left hong kong, so do not remember what neighborhoods surrounded the walled city. dumb...

I like the photo with Lion Mountain in the background...I grew up in North Point with the 8 of us in an 600 sq ft 3-bedroom (no typo) apartment in North Point Estate. My family always told me how lucky my sisters and I were, since the 7 of us (my little sister wasn't born yet) had moved from an...