0708132030 Online in Hong Kong.

Online in Hong Kong.

Rachel Ruby was saying that she is looking forward to meeting friends at school and at church – all my friends are in computer games. I miss them terribly and I look forward to installing the guys from the police force in SWAT4 and my army buddies in Black Hawk Down.

I wanted to update my blog on my new computer. The search for a new computer took a few days because of the bewildering range of options and so many from which to choose. I found a nice package for about half the price I would pay in Australia and at about half of what I expected to pay in Hong Kong.

My personal policy for computers is to stay about two years behind – the hardware is cheaper and games are available in the bargain bins, and I wanted to use XP.

As I have found in other languages, recent inventions of the last 100 years or so have the same names – accept in Germany where they simply describe the thing. In Cantonese the Chinese have a similar philosophy to the Germans and as a result a computer is called an “electric brain”.

I was determined to learn as much of the local language that I needed to carry out the transaction of buying a new computer – I managed to get what I wanted and patiently waited for delivery. Everything in Hong Kong gets delivered. Two days later the computer arrived and I was like a kid at Christmas.
Unpacked, a quick glance at the instructions as a formality, all the wires connected, I hit the power switch and was welcomed by a whirr of fans and a glow of light emitting diodes. Current flowed into the Intel Core Duo and then powered one of two high definition video outputs on the massive nVidia card.

“Give my creation life!” I said as if I was Dr. Frankenstein.

Windows XP media centre started up according to plan except something didn’t look right – the start button said “开始” Apparently, the good people at the computer shop were so impressed with my Cantonese that they sold me a Chinese computer.


Things that are the same:
The water is the same but it takes more of it to make my hair squeaky clean.
All the roads are like driving up to O’Reiley’s Plateau.
Pauls UHT milk. It is made at South Brisbane.
Pizza.
Australian steak, but it does cost more.

Things that are different:
The electrical plugs are different but the power that comes out is the same.
There are no water restrictions – a construction worker was hosing the building site just to make it look better.
Hong Kong is over the SARS outbreak, but Brisbane is having a Flu epidemic.
The hardware stores are packed with stuff as if it is a blokes backyard shed.
Buses are double-decker.
The supermarket shelves are devoid of “Heinz All Day Breakfast”


References:
www.babelfish.com
www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/6643.php
http://h71036.www7.hp.com/hho/cache/309641-0-0-225-121.html