It feels like just a few weeks ago we reached 500 artists. 

600 blew by in the blink of an eye. 

But today we hit 700 artists!  Can you believe it?  From 7 to 700 in just 15 months.  Not too shabby.

The lucky number 700 is Mr. Sami Ben Mahmoud, a member of the Swiss National Wushu Team, and a fellow nanquan specialist. He also trained with Yang Rong Kuan in Shanghai with Yang Yu Hong and Xie Fu Yan, so he, myself, Gogi Nebulana and Daniel Wu all have that in common. ;-)

Go say howdy and congrats to him!  1,000 here we come!

AC100 dropped by the office yesterday and told me I haven't blogged in a while, so here is a blog.  More of a rant, really, but you get what you paid for.

So, I was planning on getting the new iPhone 3G in Hong Kong today.  I had called 3 (i.e. the Cell Phone provider that is carrying the phone) a few weeks back and was told that I needed to register on the website and I would be put in the queue for a phone.  So I registered.

As of yesterday I hadn't heard anything.  I went to 3's website and aside from the registration and some various information about the phone's technical specifications and rate plans there wasn't any information on how you could pick one up, which 3 stores would have it or other valuable information that any normal consumer would want to know.

It seemed from the language on the website that they were only giving the phone to those who had registered on the website.  I knew that Raffi was interested in possibly getting one too so I sent him an e-mail last night to that affect, but he said that the stores probably had them in stock and the registration list was just a way to insure that some would be set-aside for those who had reserved them.

I wasn't really sure either way so I decided to get up a bit early and come to the 3 store at the airport (near my house) and see what the deal was.

Well, it turns out Raffi's assumptions (logical though they might be) were incorrect, and that 3 and Apple in HK are lame.

For the first day of the iPhone's release they are only selling 500 phones.  There is some ceremony in TST at 10:30 a.m. where they will bring in the first 500 people that pre-registered to come get their phone.  No stores will have the phone until at least the second day (July 12) and even then they will only hold the phones for the people who have registered through the website and have been notified that their phones are available at whatever store 3 has decided for them.

This is the sort of information you would expect to find on their website, right? 

Even when I called their customer service line set up specifically for the Apple iPhone 3G promotion they didn't tell me that this was the case.

I think that's called dropping the ball.

Essentially, if you want to walk in to a store and buy the phone, you're out of luck for at least the first month or two.  Even if you register on the website there is no telling where in the queue you are to get a phone.  I could be called tomorrow, or I might not get called for half a year -- they have no way of checking.  The employees don't even know when the phones will come to their store. 

They did say they will have a demonstration model tomorrow though, in case I wanted to come and watch someone else use the phone. 

Seriously?  A demonstration of a phone?  What is the point of that? 

Anyway, I was annoyed, but I managed to get some stuff done so it wasn't a total loss.  I paid my phone bill and added some IDD to my phone plan so I can finally call people outside of Hong Kong if needed (it was a pain in the butt not being able to call Shenzhen, considering it's less than an hour away).

So, that's the scoop.  You want an iPhone 3G in Hong Kong?  Get in line like the rest of us cattle.  And don't hold your breath -- you might die of asphyxiation.

Oh iPhone 3G .. Why must you foresake me?  ...

I think I might start looking at other phones to see what else is available...

I've been super busy here in the U.S., especially Seattle.  I'm helping plan and organize for my sister's wedding so it's a pretty much non-stop job.  Wake up ... busy busy busy .. go to bed. 

So, I can't really write much right now.  I'm just doing some work but it's way past my bedtime and I have to get up tomorrow and pick up my dad from the airport so I need to go.  I will write more when I have time -- probably after I've gone to L.A. or S.F.

EDIT:

You can see some of what I've been up to here:

Hao Zhi Hua's Blog
P-e-a-c-h-e-y's Blog
Bryant Fong's Blog #1
Bryant Fong's Blog #2

That's right.  We passed the 600 mark.  604 at the moment.  I was holding out for a certain person to be the 600th person, but they didn't get their blog finished in time and I had to finish up my work so the 600th is Jason Fung!  DJ Extraordinaire!

He's new and only has 2 fans so go make him feel welcome!

So, for those of you keeping track, that's 104 artists (105, really, but, meh . whatever) in 15 days.  Definitely a record of some sort.  In the last 3 days alone we converted 45 artists!

I finally made my way through the backlog, but that doesn't mean we don't have a constant influx of more artist requests coming in all the time.  But it feels good to have caught up before my trip to the U.S. tomorrow.

T-Minus 10 hours and counting!  Now I get to pull an all-nighter before getting to the airport at 5:30 a.m. for my 8:00 a.m. flight ..

I'm gonna sleep really good on that plane.

For those of you who might not know, there was a torrential downpour last night in Hong Kong.  It was labeled as a "black storm" and over 70mm of rain fell in just one hour.  Many parts of the city are flooded, but since I don't live in the city, I can't see any of that.  Here is a news article about it:

http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/story.html?id=0ca1a333-b68c-4612-b139-eba65816d184

When I woke up this morning, however, I had quite a view.  This is what I saw ...

You can see the full gallery here

And just for the search engines: 

Keywords: black storm hong kong lantau island tung chung flooding torrential downpour