Toothbrush backup number one

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My dear sonic brush Philips Sonicare broke recently. The tool suddenly didn’t seem to vibrate at the brush but at the shaft level, which felt as if the brush became a vibrator (wink). Luckily I kept all receipts with me so I phoned the hotline, figured out the repair shop location (actually one of their boutiques, so conveniently located at wanchai), brought it down before they closed it at 730pm, what an officer-friendly time. The cashier / receptionist asked me briefly for the problem before quickly wrote down “shaft broken”. Poor boy. It should be a common symptom that I wonder if Phillips would do anything to improve it. The receptionist said it would take 10 days for the cure. I didn’t take that seriously until I got home and started my daily business of brushing teeth. I was aware to use a manual brush, which I had plenty of, but didn’t realize it took so much effort to clean it to a level of acceptance that is close to what I achieved with electric brush!

In fact, I couldn’t do it. I feel that my teeth’s health is already deteriorating after 2 days of using my manual brush. No matter how I cleaned my teeth till my hand was tired, after few minutes I felt some of the areas weren’t clean enough, yet re-cleaning would be so stupid to do. Then on one day, checking my other bathroom stuff, I *discovered* my old sonic brush: the Omron brush that I once praised so much, sitting here waiting for my command. All it lacked was a strong AA battery to get it fight against my cavity and all those bad teeth feelings. I quickly ran down to supermarket to grab a pack of AA batteries and thank God it kept working. Though it wasn’t as powerful as the mighty Sonicare, which has lots of other weaknesses such as difficult to maintain its hygiene (ironically), I felt so glad to have a backup buddy here. It’s really difficult to move away from electronics nowadays.

Ramen crazy in HK

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I’m getting fed up by this Japanese ramen storm past 12 months.

For those who don’t live here, it appears that Hong Kong is equipped with 4-5 ramen Japanese premium ramen shops in every premium dining districts: central, tst, cwb, and even Tai Hang (which seems to have tons of diners migrated from cwb now). They were definitely not the early adopters of Japanese ramen shops in hk such as  Ajisen 味千, or many called it 味精, nor shops that taste close to ones we eat in Japan but never get close enough, such has Sanpachi 八八八拉麵. They are ones that carry some sort of special background that acts as a gimmick: 1) they have chefs coming from Japan 2) the restaurant itself is a chain / franchise from Japan 3) they have worked many hours / years to create their own recipes. The amazing numbers of shops are good as it improves quality over the time. But then there are some sets of shops that I find it strange, those that usually have huge lineups, taking more than 1 hr to get a seat. We HK people get used to lining up so many find it ok. Once awhile I do line up for food such as an udon shop in TST.

My biggest complaint however is its false thought of reasonable eatery under super cramped space, pushy environment. My recent trip to one of these shops: 拉麵來Ramen Kureha in Tai Hang is one good example. This premium ramen shop, similar to others, uses up most of its space as kitchen, then only puts up less than 20 seats, each facing the wall. That eliminates people as a group to have chats, which wastes time, and focuses on its food. Okay! The key of the efficiency lies in few more factors. Round stools are used so customers never feel comfortable to sit for long time, and they can move in / out easily. When served, noodles are never too hot so one can start eating immediately. Hot drinks are rarely served for the same reason. Servers’ effective cleaning of finished dishes, plus yelling when new customers come, constantly alerts customers that others are waiting outside. That gives diners a sense to not sitting in the restaurant for too long, i.e. asking them politely to leave the hell out of the place as soon as the ramen is finished. One might argue that it’s a tradition, oh that’s what they do in Tokyo as well, but I personally have never been to one that packs people like the way we pack people in HK Cha Chan Ting, while charging one 2 or 3 times than them.

Yet such wait-long-for-noodle-then-eat-them-ASAP models work so well. People feel that they enjoy noodles more, maybe because the effort they’ve paid in lineup? But how one justifies the short time in the shop? Do diners blame themselves for eating too quickly? I can understand that having a HKD100 bowl of ramen isn’t sky rocket expensive. I just don’t understand by what reasoning we are not deserved to sit better, dine slower, chat happier while paying that same amount for food in HK. Even in the city-famous fastest serving HK cha-chan-ting Australia Diary Comp I can zip a cup of hot milk tea after having a 30-bucks daily set, toast, scramble eggs, and macaroni in 1 minute. Why can’t I relax in a ramen shop?

Coming out from Ramen Kureha I realize I never have such an urgent lunch before, lasting only 15min from ordering to paying bill. It’s not a matter of taste that intrigues me, but a sense of dunno-what-to-do emptiness that bothers me, for I expect to complete a meal at least twice as long.

I suggest Ippudo, which generally charges cheaper yet authentic, with more comfortable seats, or Wakayama / Mist that charges slightly more, but gives comfortable environment.

1978 Lego 374

You are mine!! :D

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Never I realize he looks like Indiana Jones and chasers are like ghosts :( it seems to be available only for Xperia devices?

When space land was as easy to get as a facebook “like”

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I had a strange dream setup in future times last night. I knew it was future because we talked about space land already. In the dream I saw an organization trying to link up people who got little land in space so that they can co-develop those lands together. The organization setup kinda a website (in 3D wow) where you see the land location of each owner, thus being able to see who your neighbours are and contact them for say, a nuclear generator and share resources. To register, one simply needs to provide its email address and the system will be able to locate the land location of such owner.

I was really into investigating the whole system, at least during the dream. Why did these landlords get the land and not do something about it? Well there were some kinds of promotions in social media site like facebook, where land companies would give out a piece of land to someone if s/he clicks “like”, simply because they have too much space in space (yeah sounds paradoxical) and want to get more people into moving to space. But such brain-less action leads to lots of waste of resources. Then how did the website get landlord’s property details simply by entering email addresses? Will we be physically linked to an email address? I think we are, or we will, much like our physical mail address. And why I wanted to talk about land? I’m recently looking for property w/o much luck. Hope I’ll have a sequel of this dream heading to space to live where I have lots of space in space.

How to take your own crying photo?

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As android users start to touch the vast sources of more personal photos via Instagram (and searching for this topic I found many iPhone “elites” were whining of android immigrants, but that’s another topic), I start to see lot more feelings coming from people I know / don’t know. The cool thing about those filters is that it adds an expression into it, which is difficult when one simply takes a photo and posts it on facebook. So people naturally post photos of their expression there, including unhappy ones. That’s what I find a weird category of photos: crying. It doesn’t happen often, but I do see some ppl posting pics of NOT others crying, but themselves.
Imagine the scenario. A girl (and so far haven’t seen guys doing it) feels so blue or unhappy, gets her tears running down her face. At THAT very moment, not before the tears run dry, not before she wipes off the tears, she realizes, hey, maybe I should take a pic a post on Instagram. So she grabs her phone ( prob it’s tied in her hand already), takes a self portrait, checks to make sure tears are clearly visible otherwise retake is needed. When she finds it okay, she chooses a moody filter, applies the tag #cry along with an unhappy emoji icon, and posts it on Instagram. How can one be such rational when she is upset or depressed? Woman is amazing.

The pic is courtesy of an Instagram user buffy75.

Stolen dream

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I had a dream last night. It took place at a touristy spot: Paris. It was a cold day. I was wearing a thick down jacket. After a day of visiting many tourist spots Sith huge crowds, as usual as a Paris was supposed to be, I stopped at the spot where I could see the Eiffel tower on a bench. All of a sudden I felt that my wallet was much thinner than it was suppose to be. I quickly opened and checked. No surprise that all banknotes and credit cards were missing, except my HK ID card and a stamp card of a Japanese bento takeaway near my office. It was quite unbelievable because I was suppose to keep my wallet in the inner pocket of my thick jacket. Did the thief slip his / her hand right into my jacket and took the wallet out? Out of disappointment, I calmly jot down plans to avoid future loss: try to put less money into the wallet; don’t bring too many credit cards in hand, etc etc.

Unhappily I somehow realized I was in a dream. I woke myself up and confirmed I was just dreaming. I tried to return to Paris but failed…
Incidentally during New Year’s Eve I was at Jardins du Trocadero, a park just opposite of the Tower. Waiting for the excitement from countdown, there was NO countdown but mad loads of people screaming, pushing, shouting… And I did feel someone tried to search my jacket for wallet while packed like sardine, but w/o success. I guess that piece of unsafe feeling got to release.

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