Random notes

I never did get round to posting anything about my trip to Indonesia. For now, suffice to say that it is very hot in Jakarta, and that I now think I get why LA is described as being impossible to get around in without a car. I mean, intellectually I understood the concept before, but if LA's roads are much like Jakarta's - though I suspect they're in better repair - then it really is difficult to walk anywhere, and the buses don't seem a great plan either.

Jakarta's roads are packed with tuk-tuks, smallish motorbikes and, for the moneyed, 4x4s. Owning a big Nissan Landgrabber or whatever isn't quite as much of an anti-social move in Jakarta as it is in Hampstead. The roads' disrepair does make them rather necessary. Then, of course, the extra wear and tear caused by heavy 4x4s most likely makes the roads harder to maintain. I'd say it was a chicken-and-egg scenario but I suspect the roads weren't too hot even before the 4x4s turned up.

In more news about me me me, it looks like CK will be able to join our trip to the Macau GP after all. I just have to fork out for her plane ticket today. Unfortunately, that's more use of my credit card, a debt I've been trying to get shot of for about three years now.

A friend recently asked me "why don't you pay it all off, isn't the interest really high?" Well, yes it is high, but if I had the money to pay it all off in one go, I wouldn't have had to use a credit card in the first place. Adding insult to injury, I applied for a loan from HSBC in the UK to pay it off, so that at least I'd be on marginally smaller repayments. They turned me down. Bastards.
So they think I earn enough to pay off Amount X at a higher interest rate, but not a lower one. Interesting. I'm going to talk to HSBC Hong Kong, but I'm not entirely sure it's worth it -- HSBC's personal loan rates are more or less the same as their credit card rates anyway.

I hate money.

Vroom Vroom

Just schlepped all the way out to Cheung Sha Wan to pick up the tickets for the Macau Grand Prix! (Hey, "schlepped" is in the Firefox spellchecker dictionary. Interesting. And "Firefox" isn't.)

Woo yay! And I was only 45 minutes late back to work after lunch.
I did a quick search for the company in Gmail so I could write down their address--my first contact with them was waaay back in 2004, for the 51st GP. Well, third time lucky -- me and Rudi remembered the 53rd was on last year too late to get tickets, try as we might (I didn't even try to go to the 52nd).

Anyway, we're there for the two race days, slightly better seat (Grandstand A) on the Sunday. now we just need to make sure we book ferry tickets in advance, and try to book a hotel room at inflated prices.

Well, I'm back

I'm back in Hong Kong. This is not particularly a good thing. Oh well.
I'm thinking about possibly buying a tortoise.