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I work at alivenotdead.com - I am just a web-monkey. :-P

Born in DC, Lived in SF for 12 years, then Japan for 2 more. Been in HK since Summer 06. Take a look around, feel free to leave a comment!

我可以懂日文和中文。私の日本語下手じゃないけど、中国語のほうが上手よ！日本語分かったらコメントをくれて下さい！

Cosplay Sandwich + Yet More bling iPhone covers from Shenzhen

Wednesday, Oct 14, 2009 8:27PM / Standard Entry / China

I went back across to Shenzhen last weekend with a friend who will remain nameless. I did a good 90 minutes of biking and then met him at the train station to go across the border.

Once into the wild world of Shenzhen, we took the subway to Dong Men. I wanted to exchange a bad iPhone cable I had bought from a shop there last time. This was the same store I snuck those pictures of the bling bling bejeweled iPhone cases.

This time I was less shy about taking pics:
Yes, that's a Hello Kitty decoden iphone cover.

some of them are a little over the top with the giant fake gem stones... the amazing thing is that these are all like US$2-3 each...

On our way out of the mall, I spotted a good candidate for the China edition of Engrish.com:

hmm... I lived in the San Francisco area for 12 years, but I don't remember any LOGEND that DOES NOI CONE APON AL THE SINCE.....

We ended up going to my favorite place to eat in Shenzhen... the 'Cosplay Cafe'.
I'm not sure if you can read the English on the name of the bottom most sandwich.

Yes, its a 'Cosplay Sandwich'... some sort of club sandwich... not what a less-than-clean mind might have come up with if you mention that name... but I digress... :-P

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Speak Up October

Saturday, Oct 10, 2009 8:00PM / Standard Entry / Hong Kong

I went to the October Speak Up, it was quite fun, lots of interesting acts! Most of my pics are too dark, but here they are anyway:

Comedic stylings of Roger and Kate

I wasn't quite feeling Quatro Ritmo's "I Got a Feeling with a didgeridoo" but I liked the rest of the performance.

Bollywood Dancers

Alice Amu singing her song about MJ. I quite liked it!

Maggie Hou performing

Go Maggie!

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Sora Aoi in Hong Kong! (香港で蒼井そらを見た！我見到簧片明星蒼井空在香港!)

Friday, Oct 9, 2009 7:00PM / Standard Entry / Hong Kong

Wednesday Night I went to Yami Mak's 'Lucky8IGHT 2nd Anniversary' Event at Cliq. The party featured performances by the Katsuyaku Girls and special guest Sora Aoi (蒼井そら/蒼井空). If you don't know who she is, what ever you do, do NOT do a google image search for her name (especially if you disable 'safe search'!)

香港で蒼井そらを見た！
我見到簧片明星蒼井空在香港!

Anyway, the Katsuyaku girls were performing when we arrived:
But it was WAY too crowded so I had to settle for taking a pic on the TV from the back. ;-)

When Sora actually showed up it was pretty amazing... i look it more as a testament to the popularity of Japanese AV in Hong Kong more than anything else:

A sea of eager faces. :-P

I didn't even try to negotiate through that to see the stage portion of her appearance. Unfortunately Sora doesn't apparently speak much English, if any... much less Cantonese. As a japanese speaker it kind of pained me to see that they didn't really have a good translator lined up. I would have happily volunteered!

Actually the other reason I didn't try to fight my way up to the front was because I knew it'd be better in the long run to hang out in the VIP area in the back. After being on stage for a few minutes, Sora was ushered to this area and did some press photo ops. Suddenly I had a front row seat. :-P

She is pretty cute in person, but its hard to believe that is the same girl that you see in pics like this:
(downloaded from the internet, not taken by me!)

Unlike many HK celebs, not afraid to promote the sponsor, 42 Below Vodka excessively. :-P

very eager press contingent.

One other thing I forgot to mention, she is REALLY petite... like 5'1"... Anyone who has held a real 42 Vodka bottle in their hand knows they're not actually that big around. But I suppose for her line of work, the smaller you are, the bigger everything else looks. :-P

Anyway, I didn't get a chance to actually say hi, but I did talk to her manager in Japanese very briefly. After going back out on stage again they wisked her out the exit very quickly before the crowd control got out of hand.

In the meanwhile I finally met at least one of the Katsuyaki girls:
I can't say the photographer did a good job of properly framing this pic. :-P

And the rest of us had fun, AV stars or not. :-P

Congrats to Yami and Lucky8ight!

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US Movie Review: "Knocked Up"

Thursday, Oct 8, 2009 12:00PM / Standard Entry / US Movie Review

Entertaining but after recently watching "The Hangover" and finding out that this was the same director who also did "40 Year Old Virgin", I was somehow expecting more. Also I have a low tolerence for potheads and bums, so Seth Rogan's character didn't really appeal to me for 90% of the movie. I'll give it a 5/10. :-P

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US Movie Review: "Ghost of Girlfriends Past"

Wednesday, Oct 7, 2009 6:30PM / Standard Entry / US Movie Review

As you can guess from the title its like a Christmas Carol except w/ relationships.

A bit cliched, but entertaining for what its worth. Matthew McConaughey does a decent job carrying the film as the bad boy womanizer who is shown the error of his ways by the super natural. Jennifer Garner is very engaging too as the girl he should have ended up with.

Although not too nauseating for male viewers, in the end of the day its mostly just a chick flick w/ the requisite storybook ending. Michael Douglas's part as the Hugh Hefner-like uncle is the best part.

4/10 if you're a guy, maybe higher if your the girl who always tried to change the bad boy but were never able to. :-P

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