you have to love the internet. without it, you'd never have been required to tell a computer the name of your dog and your baby before you could do a bank transaction. (security measures). talk about personalised service.

merry Christmas to me: best present so far: tix to Antony and the Johnsons, whose CD is my favourite evening-on-the-highway driving music and whose tour had somehow slipped my notice, so the tix were a total surprise. we're sitting right up the back in the last row, but I don't care. it's going to be fabulous. (Did I ever mention how much I used to like Boy George).

early stuff is cheaper

and an auction house that had a few a while back

early stuff is cheaper

more emily

gloria p

and here. thank God for blogs, as Microsoft's fine product keeps crashing. I only have 23 windows open!

a nice Emily

and another

some things I'd like to buy can be found here and here and here. I am still kicking myself I didn't get a leaf form by Holly Grace when I could; now it seems she's moved on to different colours etc. and I wanted these ones. sob.

oh lord. will the nabobs at the City of Yarra never get their act together?

In July, I made a booking for a room for a family Christmas do. there will be maybe 40 adults and 25 kids at this thing. last night I got an email requesting final payment, which I'd forgotten (the letter I received said it was "confirmed", so I actually thought I'd paid). no problem, I thought, I'll pay by credit card over the phone. this is, after all, a huge, multimillion dollar government in its own right.

no. no, I must go to a town hall, in heavy traffic a few days before Christmas, and pay IN PERSON. no phone payments are possible for "casual bookings". after long discussion with the man in charge about how STUPID this is, he's faxing me a form which I can drop off at a slightly less inconvenient location. but it's still a pain. I have no choice; they have my bond and I have aunties and cousins descending on said location in a week. I guess I should be grateful it's not earlier this year, when they still required payments in cold, hard, cash. what is it, a council or a drug dealer?

questions for today:

if a Christmas card addressed to Elizabeth, David, Lola and Boo, with no return address but warm gushing feelings from Marie on the inside, lands in your letterbox by mistake, (addressed to your street number, in a street with an unusual name, so you're sure it's just the number that's wrong) and there are maybe 80 house in your street; are you obliged to print up a little notice and drop it off to everyone in the street in an effort to find the intended recipients?


if you're trying to keep your two-year-old off lollies for his own good, and he receives a huge jelly snake from Santa at the childcare xmas party, and you give him a tiny bit and save the rest for "later", is it OK to eat said snake yourself, knowing he's only two and won't remember you have it?


and finally, are redundancy payouts like semi-boiled pots? if I stop checking my bank account, will that make the money land in the same way going to the bathroom makes call centres finally pick up my call after a 20-minute wait on hold?

my last day "at the office" is going something like this: feed baby. pay bills. write something. deal with messed up Coles Online delivery (15+minutes on the phone!). write some more. redirect to husband enquiry from tradesman who assumes that I, being female, am in charge of cleaning products (said tradesman was installing speakers for husband). write some more. check bank account for big payout, be disappointed. file something. talk to "outplacement" service and wonder if it will a) create a breakthrough in my career or b) be a big fat waste of time I don't have. ah well. at least I'll get to do a massive online personality/aptitude test with a proper assessment at the end of it. and I love doing tests.

wtf? I mean really, wtf? I don't know these people, these blond-haired shirtless men and snarling women. I also don't really know the Lebanese men, but I guess I don't expect to. Come to think of it, even though I'm a fourth generation-plus Australian-born citizen, I never did know those people; but last time I saw them they were just picking on the weak and the different amongst themselves, when I was a teenager. Now they're organised. few of the reports have focussed on the way they swarmed via text message. I find it frightening.

wearing: My "I (heart) NY" T-shirt. Because it's the 25th anniversary.
feeling: redundant. after 8 years I will shortly no longer be an employee of the mighty Age. what's next?

moral calculations: I can see how this Google Books thing could be a great timewaster...

we have a new TV. not just any TV, but a 43" plasma that makes our lounge room feel like an electronics showroom. It arrived yeseterday and as soon as the installers left, I turned it on and then caught myself getting interested in a daytime soap; the picture is that pretty. this morning it was the music videos, featuring the new INXS frontman, who might actually have a good voice, but will never be Michael Hutchence. it took all of my willpower to lift a remote control in each hand, like Circe or Trinity about to execute a wicked move, and push the "off" buttons. I miss it already. who needs a life when you've got a big TV?



(btw, that Circe I've linked to above appears to be for sale. there's one in the NGV that I've always liked. if anyone's looking for a nice stocking filler for me this Christmas...)

I think I should give up blogging. there are so many good blogs out there now, as a random surf through blogger's next blog button shows, that no one could ever read them all.

(plus a few that are probably not good blogs but demonstrate that a random search turns up random posts, like an encounter with Erik Estrada and a fishing blog.

plus the obligatory NaNoWriMo participant

and an advertising blog. I could go on...

why French women don't get fat? I'll bloody well tell you why; they all live up five flights of quaint, steep stairs. they have no lift. they climb said stairs three times a day. my calves hurt. also, they drink much coffee and smoke several packs of cigarettes a day. they all die of lung cancer at 34, before they can get old and wrinkly and fat.

yesterday I saw a woman who made ugg boots look good. also two pre-teen lovers (in the sense that they were in love, that's all) who were all dewy and rosy-cheeked and golden haired and impeccably dressed, talking together in the Luxembourg gardens like an old married couple. must be paris in the autumn.

look, it isn't much of a job. I only work one day a week. and my little column summarising interesting snippets from around the world isn't Pulitzer prize stuff. but I like it. I don't want to lose it. so I'm not sure whether to be amused or impressed that I got 90 per cent of the way through my 100-word article about petrol direct before I got to the bit about 4x lead fuels and started to wonder: is this for real? I think the plutonium petrol gives it away...

OK, I'm laughing. I still have my job.

a white giraffe.

the text says its legs are brown; maybe they're just muddy?

rental site

sublet.com paris

luxembourg gardens

small montmarte

converted shop montmartre not emailed

17th floor 15th a.

stuart highway

yet another not emailed yet

chris's studio montmartre

canal st martin - not emailed yet

listening to: Aaron Neville, Louisiana 1927
tasting: the warmth and musk of Mt Gay Rum
remembering: the streets of New Orleans, the faded timber buildings, the hanging gardens, the glimpses of something secret behind the streetscape, the every-night-party craziness of Bourbon St, the concrete-floored expanses of the largest convention centre I've ever seen (now filled with desperate people), the Aladdin's cave of the secondhand shops, the finery of the lace shops where I bought the shawl I married in, the dark end of town where the Goths came out at night, the graveyards, the huge mansions that shouldn't really have existed in this modern day and age, an art gallery with a glass collection fitting for the setting of The Glass Menagerie.

and wondering when the tears will come for a city I loved.

phileas fogg site

This spacious (700 sq ft/70 m2), sunny apt is located in the trendy Canal St Martin area, in the 10th district

EUR500 / 1br - *** PARIS: Charming Apartment to rent -- fully furnished *** Montmartre

A large bright furnished full 1-bedroom apartment available in Montmartre.
Per Month, per week, or weekend. Per month 1200 Euros,

social science data

video game movies (mention clive's blog collision detection)

christopher walken for President? if this wasn't surely a joke, I'd have to consider obtaining US citizenship so I could vote for him.

heard this a while back and didn't think of it again until I saw a reference to it in Quarterly Essay, of all places.

the underwear goes inside the pants

London, subway train: "what was that noise?"
"probably just the Tuesday morning bomb"
"oh, cool, back to the sports pages then..."

after a short break due to administrivia, I'm doing a little work again; filling up lots of spare 15-minute-blocks with quick net searches, that kind of thing.

completely unrelated, am I the only one who gets annoyed when queues for banks and (at the market) donuts line up ACROSS instead of ALONG the footpath? my new hobby is standing at the back of the donut line in a horizontal instead of vertical formation, if you know what I mean, and gradually moving it to the kerb where it's out of the way.

a blog by a US staff sergeant in Iraq, complete with photo of six-fingered Iraqi kid, if it's real

a british bobby's blog. well at least it's something different.

stafflist

real estate lust #2

yar boo sucks to Hotmail, who have locked me out of my email address on the first attempt to get in. this is an account I've had for seven years, using my full name, no numbers or letters etc. I have no idea why it locked me out; but it's not allowing me to go for the secret question option, which I'm sure I had set up. so that's that. end of email address. end of all the mail that's in there. end of several URLs I had registered to that address (I can retrieve those, at great pain to the management).

property lust #1

property lust #2

final proof that the Internet is really just here so we can fart about: stuffonmycat.com

.
realistically by 2050 we would expect to be able to download your mind into a machine, so when you die it's not a major career problem

unless, of course, you're Paris Hilton.

how quickly they forget dept:

went into work today to meet an editor. she wasn't there when I arrived. I checked with a passing reporter, whom I'll call K, that I had the right office, mentioning that the editor was expecting me. K and I don't really know each other, but we have spoken and introduced ourselves long ago while at a press conference. after that she pretty much ignored me.

so I'm sitting there, checking out the books on the editor's table, wondering if she's forgotten my appointment, when through the door comes the sound of K whispering on the phone. she's calling security!. of course I couldn't hear every word, but the gist was that she wanted to know if the editor had allowed anyone in to see her (no, because I used my pass because I'm still on staff), and that there was someone in said editor's office, just sitting there.

K, as far as I can tell, doesn't share my sense of humour. so I couldn't lean over the divider and say "are you dobbing me in to security?". I pulled out my pass, put it on the table and waited to be nabbed. sadly, the editor turned up before I could enjoy the wonders of my workplace's security system. but really! why didn't K just ask me who I was? (of course I used to have long hair and now look like a slightly scary lesbian with my chemo regrowth. but is that any reason to call the dogs in? glad I don't look, like, Muslim or something...)

the most amazing apartment: part of a competition for the coolest, smallest apartment.

now I really want an apartment in New York...

"I'm makin' a list, I'm checkin' it twice..."

as you would, if you were about to have a midlife crisis. my best friend turns 40 next month. I turn 39 this week. so I've decided that the best plan is to work out what will really, really bug me when I turn 40, and do something about it now. kind of to soften the blow.

enjoying: a baby who sleeps for at least two hours a day.

blog angst: I have a number of blogs now. one I'm using for work. it's probably incomprehensible to outsiders, but it does nicely for storing links and allowing me to work from anywhere. another is related to the pub, which is getting the odd weekend tenant and a new fridge and stove. one or two are quite dead, having outlived their usefulness for studies and inquiries into internet life that I don't have time for right now. and maybe a coupla others I don't like to talk about here, as they're special spaces for special purposes. it's a pity in a way, as some of the names are cool and deserve use - I particularly like flaneur.blogspot.com

and there's this one here, which has faded in the face of all this specialised blogging, and my addiction to other outlets for expression, ie discussion groups, emails to actual friends. but I really am quite fond of it, and willing to give it another go. there might be a little cross-posting involved, but we'll see.

so in the great tradition of public diaries, I'll start with explaining what the hell has been going on with me lately.

Kylie and I now have two things in common: a birthdate and breast cancer. and like her, I'd like to say:

"I was so looking forward to bringing the Showgirl Jenny tour to Australian audiences, and am sorry to have to disappoint my fans. Nevertheless hopefully all will work out fine and Ill be back with you all again soon."

back from two weeks in Hong Kong and Thailand, and a week of jet lag and upset tummy (as you do after travelling in Asia). what do you say about a week on the beach in a gorgeous resort? boring to the outsider yet deeply satisfying to the participants.

in HK we went to Felix, where the duck ruined me for any future duck dishes I might eat anywhere else, not excluding Flower Drum's Peking Duck and the Peking duck I once ate in Seattle at Microsoft's expense. Felix reminded me of the restaurant - what was it called? Hades? in The Matrix. the most dramatic, and beautiful-person (aka Eurotrash)-filled eatery I've ever been to, as well.

back home in lovely autumnal Melbourne, a movie was being shot in our street, at possibly the only grungy student house left in North Fitzroy. I kept meaning to take my cute baby down there to chat up the makeup/catering types and find out if it was the Nic Cage movie, but I got too busy being ill and missed out my one chance at celebrity stalking.

a sniff of work has arisen, but may yet be snatched away. it's not often that fully home-based, internet-researchable, well-paid freelance gigs fall into the lap of the convalescent mother of a toddler. wish me luck with that.

and a memo to the drivers and pedestrians of Melbourne, who resemble the moped riders of Koh Samui (Thailands highest road fatality province) in their apparent death-wish: you are not immortal. it will not hurt you to walk 25 metres to the crossing and back. and the indicators on your brand-new Audi probably work, I imagine. you won't wear them out, I promise.

sorta like this, only darker and the windows are the wrong shape. I like the tin roof, though.

sorta like this, only darker and the windows are the wrong shape. I like the tin roof, though.

sorta like this, only darker and the windows are the wrong shape. I like the tin roof, though.

latest thing to dream about, just because I can't have it: the priest's apartment in the Fifth Element.

I want it. or something like it. a New York apartment with three high old windows for a south wall, a jumble of bookshelves, couches and beds covered with brocade throws. It should be somewhere in Chelsea or Greenwich Village, at the back of the building. just one room, but large, with a bathroom and kitchenette will be fine.

(off to check down the back of the couch for a spare $750,000 or so...)

and yes, I know I already own some charming old real estate.

everyone else is blogging about Terry Schiavo, so I will too.

the fact is, both sides are wrong. it's wrong to keep her alive in brain-dead condition with no hope of recovery. she has less consciousness than a mouse.

and it's really wrong to just stop feeding her and giving her water. no way would I want that to happen to me. if she was a mouse, or a horse, or a dog, there would be nice yummy floaty drugs to send her off. that's what should happen, if she didn't want to be kept in this state.

is it child abuse to supervise play and blog at the same time? is that DHS I can hear knocking?

ah well, so be it.

now, am I the only one who doesn't think Desperate Housewives is sheer genius? who is, in fact, a bit bored by it? I expect I AM the only one who is still watching it because her husband is. I dunno, it just all seems a bit easy. it sets out to subvert the dominant paradigm with all the originality of Bewitched, as far as I can tell. but I guess I'm alone?

otoh, this is funny.

there I was, innocently surfing Daypop for the first time in ages, when I clicked on a link labelled Hunter S. Thompson, expecting to see some new exploit of the wild man who invented gonzo.

he's dead. suicide. wow. I suppose it fits the profile, but he always seemed so full of life.

what is it with bike shops?

why, when you take your bike in with four days to do the work, do they ring you at 2pm the day before you were going to pick it up first thing in the morning, inform you of extra work needed, say that extra work is going to take longer and even suggest you'd be better off buying a new bike on some shonky payoff scheme they happen to have? like you'd be buying the bike from them. they don't even sell the type I like.

I know I'm spending too much on repairing an old bike. but I like it. it's set up for me, and comfortable. I've just spent (well, we've just spent) too much on a bike trailer to tow the baby in, and that extra couple of hundred for a new bike is a bit much.

in the end I had to say "this isn't working out, don't touch the bike, I'll come and get it in the morning" to get the workshop manager to suddenly come on the phone and say it'd be ready, with the extra work done.

the thing is, this happens at every bike shop I go to. I've lost count of the Saturday mornings I've stood staring at helmets while a repair is finished on a bike I left a week before. and I need my bike. I ride it whenever I can, and I'm hanging out to try out the new trailer.

was going to buy helmet for the baby, panniers, etc, etc at the new shop. now I'll just keep looking for one that understands customer service, I suppose.

more koh samui

a koh samui place

and nice but expensive

travel shopping ex hk: hyatt bali, assorted thai

monty python. because I'm not feeling very funny myself.

did I read right? did France really pledge $177,000 for the tsunami victims? surely there's a decimal point missing?

what is wrong with the world? and it was French India that was hit too. other nations have been similarly miserly, I'm just picking on the French. And yes, I have donated, since you ask. have you?

if you go to the end of the article, you'll see that the husband is 60, and had a vasectomy reversal so they could try for children.

as an infertility survivor, I have a view on this. for all her high-powered, Harvard-educated life, she wanted babies. and badly enough to squeeze two (fertile) lovers into her life. she'd deny it, of course. but motivation is a funny thing.

updates? you want updates?

how's this: we're not in Hong Kong any more. we're in Melbourne, where my life is currently filled with hospitals and doctors. although this is clearly a life-altering experience, I feel strangely disinclined to blog it.

instead, let me ask: How did she do it?

She was over 40. Publishing a major newspaper. Newly married to the publisher of a major, glamorous, fashion magazine (who, I have to note, probably has a range of young totty, as they call it in the UK, to choose from). And she not only managed to have an affair with the British Home Secretary, but also with a columnist on her paper. As if that wasn't enough, she had a child at, what? 42? and kept going. Kept going, in fact, to the extent that she is pregnant again at 44 with no clarity on exactly who the father is this time. Meanwhile, the husband sticks to her like glue instead of running off with Claire Daines or someone.

I am humbled. I'm only 38 and I can barely cope with one child and a bit of a medical issue. I am not working, and not planning to until this is over. I'm not even attempting to be anything other than dressed and occasionally upright (a condition I referred to as "horizontal" this morning). whatever she's on, I want some of it.

channel 7 are annoying me by going onandonandon about Makybe Diva and Vinnie Roe doing the old one-two at the Cup.

whereas, even though I queued for 15 minutes to bet on the winner ($2 each way, woo hoo), I want to know about #3, Zazzman, on whom I put $5 to win and $1 to place, based on a comment from a bloke at the storage place over the phone. it was long odds, and I've never heard of it. and they won't mention it. poor thing. anyway, I'm sure its connections don't care. I'm sure they're happy enough with third.

...ps - and don't forget World Toilet Day on November 19!

I asked Google for "something new" and it gave me Improbable Research - your one-stop shop for research on cats in zero gravity (with video), nipple piercing and lactation, and the World Toilet Summit in Beijing.

good thing about being back in Melbourne: fresh air, a warm spring day, being able to chat to people in English.
bad thing: being able to understand inane radio chitchat and advertising (in the taxi). like garish neon signs, it all seems so much more aesthetically pleasing (and ignorable) in Chinese.

am I wrong, or is there something deeply twisted about even watching the videos of British hostages begging for their lives, knowing that the followup will probably be a snuff video of their deaths? and no, I'm not posting a link to the latest.

ps: hey Randall, what's with the photo at the top of your blog? You know the view from the Peak walking track only looks like that one day out of 20. the rest of the time, it's varying degrees of smog.

ps: hey Randall, what's with the photo at the top of your blog. You know the view from the Peak walking track only looks like that one day out of 20. the rest of the time, it's varying degrees of smog.

Blogging begets blogging, it seems.

If I could draw like Jorge Colombo, my HK experiences might come to life. Because one of the most striking things about this place is the way the people dress. There are plenty of jeans-and-T-shirt types, but just as many middleaged women in pink party frocks, Japanese tourists in head-to-toe Gucci, teenage girls in 1960s convent girl school uniforms (carrying mobile phones with up to 10 dingledangles hanging off them), Chinese punks in tartan and combat boots on 35 degree-plus days, young women combining 15 styles and accessories (think Madonna's early days, through a Vogue mixmaster), and, just sometimes, a big white guy (sorry, BWG) who towers above the subway crowds in his tailored suit, big nose leading him along.

the nice thing about the Internet is that you can find 18-month-old flame parties in someone else's comments when you're innocently surfing for an article you wrote once.

in this case, I'm accused of being lame and a few ethical misdemeanours. my employer is (wrongly) castigated for sending me to a blogging conference. I wish. paid for that one myself.

Bloggety Blog, however, has got increasingly lame as time has gone on. I have a couple of other, topic-specific blogs kicking about that do get updated when stuff happens - eg, the pub is benefiting from the best growing season for yonks.. but my life in general is very baby-focussed now and it doesn't always make the most scintillating reading (yesterday was a six-poopy day, does that push your buttons? thought not.) And I was always careful not to make this blog a work blog or anything other than a personal blathering place, so I could care less about criticisms of my style etc. It does nark me when people have a problem with me but don't let me know about it - and the person accusing me of that isn't the person I quoted, whom I interviewed and did fact checking with and appeared quite happy about things.

as for the Rebecca Blood stuff, I don't get it. she was in fact blogging before the term "blog" was commonly used. no one said she was the only one.

where is this going? nowhere, really. I don't feel ready to just close this blog down. nor am I in the mood to reinvigorate it with the effort it would take to say something interesting about Hong Kong, motherhood etc. I'm not actively studying blogs or writing about them right now (resounding cheer from the peanut gallery, I suppose). those few people who do drop by are either friends whom I'm too slack to email (Hi, M&M!) or poor dears who've followed a Google link. the flamethrowers in question won't read this, because I'm not feeling provocative enough to link to them in this post. and here my lame post peters out...

(edit: I'm well pleased to find that my blog, and various other lame sites I have, are now on at least the third page of Google results for a search on my name. sinking merrily into obscurity, me!)

probably more amusing than the actual books: vidlit (broadband only)

enjoy mashing words with Babelfish but can't be bothered with all the busson pushing. someone has saved you the trouble (via William Gibson)

The days come and go like muffled and veiled figures sent from a distant friendly party, but they say nothing, and if we do not use the gifts they bring, they carry them as silently away.

Ralph Waldo Emerson


via scrapatorium

hehehe. John Howard in india rubber. via invisible shoebox

an idea for a blog: Improving Me - to get a slew of self-help books and actually do what they say - plaster my walls with affirmations, get up 1/2 an hour earlier to exercise, do visualisations, etc etc. of course I won't, but it's a blog I'd like to read.

hong kong weirdness: when they take apart the bamboo scaffolding on buildings, they just cut and drop the plastic ties on whomever is passing below.

and a newspaper report on a boy who'd been seriously injured by a bus also noted that his bicycle had been damaged. like, who cares? the child had head injuries and they're wasting space on the bike??

pollution is the issue du jour here - it's not just me, the place really is filthy, air-wise. I hide inside with the baby a lot of days, not going out for more than an hour unless it's to an airconditioned mall or apartment. it really is that bad. melbourne's smog is ambrosia compared to this lot.

baby=teething. poor little creature.

blogger has a new way to waste your time: at the top of their blog*spot blogs, instead of an ad, there is now a search and "next blog" function, for one-click, mindless, random blogsurfing.

naughty blogger! we're trying to get some sleep here!

what is expatness teaching me? perspective.

that Melbourne is a subtle place, that though I missed it, return is simple being here, not any brilliant moment or surge of joy.

that all the bits of the paper I hadn't missed are not worth reading, though some I greeted with recognition and pleasure. that I need to throw a lot of useless junk out. that I will probably always respond with warmth to Chinese faces from here on in. that my baby is still cute here, but not as cute as he is in Hong Kong.

and, when going to a cold climate from a warm shopping paradise, to BUY MORE WARM BABY CLOTHES AND TAKE THEM.

that said, it is a sunny spring day with a warm north wind and I am well pleased to be here, if only for 12 days. do not expect more blogging, I'll be too busy living.

although one of them did have an amusing link to supermodel personals

like a good broadsheet journalist, I've been reading the South China Morning Post. but to be honest, while it churns out the details of politics and city news, I get more excited when I get a new copy of HK magazine.

this week they had an article about HK blogging. no earthshattering revelations, and after working my way through the blogs referenced, I've concluded that bwg continues to be the most fun, batgung has his moments (which I already knew), and in general if the list in the paper is all HK has to offer in the way of blogs, it's a sad state of affairs.

not that I can talk, being so preoccupied with my darling baby that I can't really be bothered noting the small weirdnesses of HK, like the spiral-shelled snails and the funny outposts like Lamma, a 20 minute ferry ride from Central but with the soul of a Qld country town (and a great-looking beach, complete with trees.

maybe I'll go looking for some better HK blogs. they must exist.

napping is good. these places should be everywhere.

yesterday I thought I saw smoke coming from the high mountains across in China. but it could have been low cloud. today the city is covered in what I hope is smoke - if it's smog it's the worst I've ever seen, even flying into LA. and across the street, two people are flying a kite from the roof of a 20-storey building, using the north wind to send a red paper hawk bucking and kicking through the air.

why does google keep not noticing the wonderful silas carson coates?

HK is officially bilingual, but Cantonese rules. still, it's often not necessary to hear the English version. When the Tannoy makes an announcement 15 minutes before the pool closes, it's saying "the pool is closing". When the sign in the shower is in black with highlighted sections in red and blue, it's saying "turn on the cold water before the hot". When a bloke in the market knocks a vendor with his goods trolley, she says "look where you're going" and he says "your bum is sticking out too far" and everyone laughs. when the girl at the fish stall talks to the baby, she's saying "you're cute" and when he then cries, the blokes on the stall are saying "ha! even the baby's scared of you"

I haven't picked up any spoken words, but I can now read "warning", "fire", "person" (a generic two-stroke figure that is paired with other symbols to make man, woman, many people etc), "lift", "exit", and "just" as in only.

so we're settling in - at the same time I'm plotting a trip home, whether or not Qantas will give me a seat on points. I miss Melbourne, friends, the dog, the space, the baby's friends, the Vic market, the cold...

Okay, I take it all back. About the shopping, I mean.

this afternoon I walked into a store and walked out with, among many other things, a perfect pair of black linen casual trousers. the right length. in Australia, this just doesn't happen. everything is made for five foot ten women and the rest of us are supposed to "just take it up", which of course is annoying and usually would ruin the cut.

but here in the land of smaller people, the length is right. I just fit into their "large" sizes but hey, no complaining.

also, courtesy the summer sales, I have a bag full of bizarre and interesting designer (Mossino, Armani Junior) clothes for all my friends' kids. cheap, yes. the credit card took quite a hit, all up. my tendency when stuff is good and cheap is to buy heaps. if it's expensive, I just buy one. either way, I spend about the same, just that today I got more bang for my buck.

I'm seeing HK through a fog of sleep-deprived exhaustion. so forgive me for the lack of scintillating posts. as a resident rather than a tourist you tend to notice minutae instead of the impressive features of a place.

like: the way there is a United Nations of Coke in the supermarket. for a premium, you can get Japanese Coke, Korean Coke and so on. it all tastes the same - kind of like Australian Coke really.

like the bizarre swimming pool protocols. the rules are the same - stay left, swim in the correct lane for your speed etc - but in practice, everyone cruises along doing breaststroke in whatever land and whatever side of the lane they feel like. in Melbourne, I'm a slow swimmer. here, I'm Ian Thorpe. no wonder they had to give their female swimmers hormones to get them medals.

predictably, the Olympics are everywhere. with the next games after this years' in Beijing, Olympic themes are appearing on murals, in advertising and on (Chinese) Coke cans.

last night we saw Spiderman 2 across the road. we learned that you need to book early to get 2 seats together. and I learned the Cantonese symbols for "person(s)", "thank you" and "just" (as on only, merely). also that as far as English movies go, Melbourne is about ten times better than "international" HK. the only movies are big blockbusters, and even the sole arthouse shows Robert Altman - interesting, but not exactly out there. and baby sessions? nonexistent. sigh.

hong kong is a shopping paradise and hell. lots of cheap no-name and name brand stuff. almost none of it fits. and I'm not huge, just a size larger than last time I was here. gorgeous silk Max Mara top for $120au? wow. doesn't fit. and so on. and why, in a city that is like a sauna, is half the stuff nylon and polyester?

the Post (sorry, no links until I learn to zip around cyberspace on the Mac better) has a daily horoscope for western stars, Chinese years and an entry from the Tong Shing, an advice almanac. today's colour is pink, and I happen to be wearing a pink top. maybe I'll subscribe to the paper and check the advice before getting dressed each day. as long as there's no yellow. I don't look good in yellow...

the Times Square plaza plays Abba. All the time. I am so over "Dancing Queen" already!

we have our new apartment, where the first shop across the road is Gucci. seriously. fortunately, Times Square also has a regular supermarket and there's a "wet market" nearby. I'm learning the uses of the "do not disturb" sign in a serviced apartment full of housekeepers and management staff.

as I was told he'd be, the baby is a star attraction here. I counted five shopgirls at once yesterday, all crowded around the pusher cooing at him. this isn't "oh, nice baby" casualness like at home. this is full on "cuuuute!!!" touchy-feely adoration. he's so fair and blue-eyed - it must be what it's like for people with identical triplets, you can't walk a step without a fan club forming. not sure if it will be good for his baby ego or spoil him. but I have to agree with them all of course.

weather: stinking hot. this is like setting up house all over again, and my immediate future is not the Gucci store, but sourcing organic baby food and cooking oil.