My neighbours

It took a lot of time, but recently my neighbours aren't scared of me anymore :). These days we quite often play ball together.

Xbox 360 update

Well finally the day arrived that I would be able to go exchange my dead Xbox 360. (the callcentre employee had told me I would be able to excnage it from last Monday, but as I had to work the entire week I was only able to go today).

Before going just made sure it still had the same problem and luckily the now familiar 3 red lights popped up again. So packed my Xbox and went off to the service centre... When I arrived in the service centre they told me they are out of stock with replacement Xbox's!! They took my death Xbox and told me they would send the replacement one to my home as soon as they would have new stock. The new stock would arrive in about a month!! from now.

That means I nealy have to wait for 2 months to get it replaced. I asked if they would provide some compensation for that. E.g. free Xbox live or a free game or so; heard this is quite common in other countries. But no, the service they provide is that they won't charge for the shipping to my home; as if I ever expected that I would need to pay for that!!

So anyone reading this in doubt which console to get...don't go for the Xbox! It is a great machine with great games; when it works... And when it doesn't (so far statistics say about 30% will experience the 3 red lights) for way too many people, their service simply sucks...

Hiking in Sai Kung

On Sunday we went to Sai Kung for a hiking trip. Sai Kung is a beautiful area for hiking! 3rd time for me to walk this track, 10th! time for my girlfriend... And for Big Rice, Vicky and Matt it was their first time to be hiking in Sai Kung. Great view of the reservoir:

Hiking in Sai Kung part 2

We spend quite some time playing around on one of the beaches along the route. Think most of us ended up with some sunburn, at least I did...but it definately was fun.

Overlooking the remainder of the route going back...

Halloweenbash - Ocean Park

On Sunday we went to Ocean Park, they had a special Halloween theme and therefore would be open until midnight :). As you can see there were a lot of people:
Eventhough the main theme was Halloween, and therefore they had plenty of ghost houses, it still was a nice oppurtunity to see the panda's. Unfortunately there was only 1 panda on "display"; and it was a bit camera shy as well...
The park was really fun, it really was decorated nicely. Many ghosthouses to visit; although some of them were a bit short. (a bit disapointing if you had been queing up for a long time). And during the entire stay you had to be careful for the real monsters/ghosts wondering around in the park who came jumping at you at the moments you least expected it. And besides all the ghost houses they also had some regular entertainment which was quite enjoyable, also because it was a welcome break from all the walking and standing :).

The souvenir shop provided a good oppurtunity to make yourself look like a ghost/monster although I turned out to look more like a fool :).

The fear of every XBOX 360 owner....

Well here it is: the first picture made with my new camera..... Not a picture I liked to make though... For any Xbox 360 owners out there, the picture probably says it all. Me too can be added to the long list of Xbox 360 owners who experienced the 'red ring of lights' (meaning my Xbox has died). Hopefully I will be able to get a replacement very soon, do really like the machine, but the failure rates I keep reading about will make me hold back a bit on spending any more money on it...

For everyone still considering which next (current) gen console they should get, really keep in mind the 'red ring of lights' is a very serious issue, way too many consoles are affected by it sooner or later.
UPDATE: Just called the Xbox 360 support line, 2 weeks from now I will need to bring my Xbox to a service centre to get it replaced with a 'new' one. It sucks that that will be on a Monday, so probably will only be able to do the exchange the Saturday after that, meaning I will not be able to play any games for another 3 weeks...

New Digital Camera

Yesterday I bought a new digital camera: the Nikon Coolpix S500. Already have the Canon Digital EOS 350D, but got this one additional as it is a lot smaller. So very easy to just keep in your bag or pocket to carry around and take pictures (or movies) whenever there is something worth to shoot :). So hopefully will be updating with a lot of shots made by the S500 soon :).

BTW think the camera was quite a bargain, got 300HK$ of the display price; so paid only 1980HK$ and got some extra's for free, like an extra battery, 2GB SD card, carry case, screen protector. (also a mini tripod but the quality of that makes it something that it would be better not to mention it; although now it ends up having even more text spend on it ;) )

My stay in Holland

As I mentioned in a previous post I have been back to my home country -> Holland.
My company had asked me to visit their head office in Amsterdam for some days to attend several meetings, it was something I could easily agree to (as it would be a nice opportunity to see my family again :).) It had been almost a year since the previous time I was back in Holland so I was really looking forward to it :).

My sister and Myrthe already spot the plane in which I was arriving in:
And then I finally arrived after the long trip, (unfortunately direct flights were fully booked, so had a flight with a stopover in London Heathrow):
Myrthe has really grown very fast, such a change since the last time I has seen her in real life.... Here she was walking the dog of one of my sisters friends. (although the dog was walking Myrthe from time to time as well ;) )
Feeding the ducks with some bread is also something she enjoyed quite a lot:
She also enjoyed a ride in the new carrier cycle my sister had bought recently:

It was a very short stay, less then a week, but still was really worth it. Hope soon I will be able to visit again. And hopefully I will be as lucky as I was this time with the weather. Although it was still a big difference from the weather in Hong Kong it was still really enjoyable.

Going back to Holland!

Coming Friday I will be going back to Holland :). My company needs me to visit their headoffice in Amsterdam for 3 days but totally will be staying in Holland for a week. Really looking forward to be back for some time (previous time I went back was October '06 so it has been a while...).

Is it still possible to come up with a new interesting movie concept?

Last weekend I went to cinema to see the movie "Secret" from Jay Chou. The movie itself was quite okay, it was supposed to have a surprising plot twist at the end; but it didn't really surprise me, I've seen similar plot twists before.

It made me think if it is still possible to come up with a concept that has never been done before or a plot twist that will still really surprise you? I've seen quite a lot of movies in my life and really like the movies that have a plot twist that you didn't see coming. But must admit the last movie that really surprised me has been quite some time ago...

I still enjoy seeing new movies but also must admit that I do have a sense that the more movies I still see the less interesting/enjoyable it will get at some point.

Feel the same or totally disagree? Feel free to leave me a message in the comments...

The Blood of Yingzhou District

Tonight I will be watching the oscar winning movie: The Blood of Yingzhou District. My expectation is it will be a really interesting and also sad movie to watch. Will update this post after I've seen the movie.

The Blood of Yingzhou District(39 minutes) China/USA

Director: Ruby Yang
Producer: Thomas Lennon

Description:No one knows how old Gao Jun is. Four? Older? Younger? Whatever his biological age, he has none of the verbal babble, or ready tears, of a child his age. The film tracks this orphan for a year as his closest surviving kin - his uncles - weigh what to do with him. The older uncle's dilemma: if he allows his children to play with Gao Jun, who is HIV-positive, they will be ostracized by terrified neighbors. The younger uncle's dilemma: so long as Gao Jun remains in the house, the young man may not be able to find a wife. Gao Jun is one of just a handful of children we come to know in this film: Nan Nan who after her parents' death, was shunned by relatives and left to live without adult care, with "Little Flower," her teen-age sister; and the Huang siblings who vividly describe their ostracism at school. The result of misinformation about the nature of the disease, the suffering of these orphans is all the more devastating for being largely unnecessary.

Update:

Yesterday evening I watched the above mentioned movie. But before seeing this they started out with 'Julia's story' another short movie of Ruby Wang.

'Julias' story' tells the story of "Julia" a university student in mainland China, she is the first person in China who openly talks about how she contracted HIV through sexual contact.
Her foreign boyfriend has left her and later she is informed by her university that he was infected with HIV. Directly she is asked to leave the university and is not allowed to stay at the uni dorm anymore. After testing in the hospital she is also diagnosed to be HIV positive. In the beginning she really struggles a lot, even tried to commit suicide. Later on in the movie she is in contact with some HIV/AIDS organisation in China who ask her if she wants to tell her story. After she opens up she starts to have a more positive look on life, going back to university (in another city), and fortunately her new friends accept her for what she is.

'The Blood of Yingzhou District' focuses on the children of partens who got infected by the blood transfusions in China. People who would sell their blood to hospitals would have their blood extracted, then the blood of a group of 50 people would be mixed, the essential cells extracted. After this procedure they would inject the blood back so the people would recover faster and therefore quicker available again to donate again. You can imagine how quickly a virus like HIV can spread by using the above mentioned procedures..... Therefore some villages in China have extremely high HIV infection rates.

In this movie you will follow the lives of several children who lost their parents to HIV/Aids, some of them are infected themselves as well. But as the movie shows even the ones who are not infected are all threated the same way. Due to the lack of knowledge about the desease other people in the village try to ignore them as much as possible; making their lives even more tragic. Other remaining family members are faced some tough choices as taking care of these children will also put them and their family members into the same situation of being discriminated and ignored. It is a really impressive and sad movie (although surprisingly it does have some funny moments as well), definately recommend anyone to see this movie!

In both movies it becomes quite obvious that there still are a lot of people who have very little knowledge about HIV/AIDS. Because there is a big fear of being infected by being in normal contact with these people, many people tend to stay away from anyone of who they know is possibly infected. Being looked down on and being avoided by so many people makes it so much harder for them to deal with the decease they have. It is a good thing to see that HIV/AIDS organisations are doing a great job in informing people about HIV/AIDS, so hopefully these movies can soon become history as we can all threat HIV/AIDS infected people as equals.
For some reason we always tend to think that we will not be affected, But fact is their story could just as easily be yours or mine.

K-1 World GP Hong Kong pictures/results

Just got back from seeing a K-1 World GP for the first time live. It was really amazing!!! Check out the pictures:

Opening fight 1:

Opening fight 3:
The introduction of the fighters:

Reserve fight Erhan Denis vs Dong Wook Kim:Erhan Denis vs Dong Wook Kim (Erhan Denis by KO)Musashi vs Yong Soo Park (tournament fight 1)Musashi vs Yong Soo Park

Fight was stopped due to Musashi being kicked in the nuts twice (continued later on)

K-1 World GP Hong Kong pictures/results 2

Wang Qiang vs Randy Kim Wang Qiang by KO
Yusuke Fujimoto vs Hong Jian

Yusuke Fujimoto by decision

K-1 World GP Hong Kong pictures/result 3

Taiei Kin vs SentoryuTaiei Kin by KO
Musashi vs Yong Soo Park (part 2)
Musashi by KO
and seems in his opinion a KO wasn't enough to revenge the 2 kicks in the nuts in the earlier meeting. Luckily his team mates could hold him back before any injuries or disqualifications...

K-1 World GP Hong Kong pictures/results 4

1st Superfight Peter Aerts vs Nicholas Pettas



Nicholas Pettas went down the first time

K-1 World GP Hong Kong pictures/results 5

and not long after took a major kick to the head from the "Lumberjack"
he got up on his feet again, but not for long 1 second later he fell down to the canvas
Semi final Taiei Kin vs Yusuke Fujimoto
Won by Taiei Kin