Ballpark experience number one: Anaheim (most definitely not Los Angeles)

I recently went to the USA to do a bit of a food and baseball tour. I tried to combine the two for a little bit, but quickly realized that baseball stadium food is almost always overpriced and mediocre. I will write some posts about this trip!

So Anaheim is home to the Los Angeles Angels, who were formerly the California Angels and then the Anaheim Angels. I think they did some kind of naming deal with the city of Anaheim to get their stadium there, so for a while they were the bizarre "Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim". But whatever they are called, their ballpark is a concrete monstrosity very, very far away from downtown Los Angeles. This is what it looks like from the carpark:

So I needed to take the subway to get to Union station, so that I could take the train (a proper train, like an Amtrak train), so that I could walk for several hundred metres through carpark, so that I could finally arrive at my seat and sit down...only just over two hours later. 

I did grab a beef short rib grilled cheese sandwich on the way to my seat. A bit of google research showed that this was one of the best things on offer at Angels Stadium (which apparently is not one of the better MLB stadiums for food). Here is what it looked like:

You know what? It was actually not bad. It could have done with more beef, but the cheese was nice (proper cheese). I washed it down with a red coloured lemonade drink:

This was pretty refreshing.

The main problem I had was that I was sitting in an uncovered area in the outfield seating. I was not wearing sunscreen and the sun was pretty darn fierce. 

I did manage to (perhaps foolishly) gut it out for 4 innings. This doesn't sound like much, but Jered Weaver was pitching for the Angels and each inning was taking an interminably long time. I don't think there were many people staying out there to watch every pitch. I suspect Angels fans are on the whole, a lot less hardcore about baseball than the fans of some other teams (this is not necessarily a bad thing...I hate you Boston).

So my trip started off with me travelling two hours each way to watch an hour and a half of baseball while getting burnt to a crisp. I would say that the overall experience was slightly negative, but I am going to put that on me. It was a bit idiotic to buy a cheap bleacher seat and then sit out there without sun screen. Madness... I will probably never return, because Angels are the hated division rivals of my beloved Seattle Mariners...and because it is such a pain to get to.

Bintulu

On my trip, I had the chance to go to Bintulu and visit a factory with a Malaysian-Chinese man and a Japanese man. The factory is the product of a joint-venture between a Malaysian company and a Japanese one and exists to supply materials to a huge Japanese manufacturing plant. The giant Japanese corporation decided to locate this huge manufacturing plant in the industrial area near Bintulu, at least in part because of the availability of cheap electricity generated by one of the largest hydro-electric dams in the world. This dam was constructed at a huge cost to the Malaysian taxpayer and involved the displacement of groups of indigenous people who lived in areas that needed to be flooded.

The industrial area I visited is pretty new, with only a few major factories in operation. The surrounding area is still being cleared of jungle and the land leveled flat in preparation for construction. There is a contrast between the green of the uncleared areas and the red-orange clay colour of the cleared land. As we drove along the immaculate, long and straight roads, the two Asian businessmen discussed among themselves which pieces of land are better than others. I imagine they had visions of the factories that can be built in these locations...white-washed concrete buildings with steel roofs...flag poles flying flags with company logos...parking spaces with clear white lines on the black tar seal...

I guess nice new factories are impressive and they produce stuff which is useful...probably...but it is a shame that jungle has to be cleared to fit them in. I hope that the indigenous people who lost their homelands are going to be benefiting from this "progress and development" somehow.

Singapore part one

This is part one because I am spending a couple more days here next week before I fly home. We will see if I still feel like writing stuff by then...extended Malaysian family time is probably just as good as work, if not better, at sucking the will to live and desire to write out of me...

I arrived in Singapore after a fairly unpleasant 10 hour flight. I had kids sitting in both the rows in front and behind me. I have covered my feelings about kids on flights in a previous blog post. So I was tired and grumpy when we arrived at Changi. My feelings changed as soon as I stepped inside. God, I love Changi airport. Changi is like the charming, successful friend who you wish you could spend more time hanging out with, but who is busy living their awesome charmed life. You are just grateful for the catch up every other year and occasional email. Whenever you catch up, it's like you never spent time apart and they are genuinely interested in your life and open and sharing about their life. Maybe I am taking this metaphor too far...but you get the point. Immigration was fast, I got my bag without too much of a wait, bought some duty-free deodorant, went through customs and then got in a taxi. Very smooth experience, Changi... If I could, I would so write a glowing recommendation for you on LinkedIn...and it wouldn't even be one of those crappy fake ones that people who are looking for work write for each other.

After checking into my hotel, I rest up, check some emails...do all the things an important business traveller does...well no, but when I stay in nice hotels, I like to pretend in my mind that I am a big cheese. I eventually ventured out of my hotel room (after checking all my fantasy baseball teams) with hopes of consuming ribs at Tony Roma's for dinner. This was shattered when I saw the whole building was under renovation...no ribs for me. Tony Roma's is/was located next to a dodgy/semi-redlight mall called Orchard Towers. It got me thinking about if/when I will end up like the middle-aged men who frequent these places. I am not particularly opposed to the concept of prostitution or sex industry in general (obviously I am against exploitation and slavery), so I think there is an economic threshold that I could end up sleeping with prostitutes at. Fortunately (perhaps unfortunately?) I am nowhere near this threshold yet. Let's say it would cost $100 to make use of such services (I'm not sure of the exact price)...that is a lot of money to me. That is 3 plates of ribs at Tony Roma's... I'd much rather have a plate of ribs and then the prospect of two more in the future...and maybe have a wank if I need to. In future, maybe after I get married, have kids, go through a bitter divorce and have a lot of money (well, as much money as you can have after a divorce...maybe I married up)...maybe maybe it might make sense. This post is going to get some people disappointed and disgusted in me. Maybe it will always be too difficult to remove the crime and exploitation out of the sex industry so maybe I won't...I do eat chocolate without regard for its origins.

I ended up having a bowl of pho from the food court in Takashimaya. This morning I was unusually moderate and did not pig out at the very good hotel buffet breakfast. I think I am learning and becoming wiser as I get older...

More content coming soon...probably

It's been ages since I last wrote anything substantial for this blog. I guess it is unsurprising since this blog doesn't really have a purpose or theme. It's just a dumping ground for when I feel like writing...and I haven't felt like writing. It makes me feel bad that I haven't felt like writing because it means I don't have any spark or inspiration. I blame work for sucking the life and excess writing capacity out of me. But, I am on holiday now and if there is any time I should be inspired to write, it is now. So I will get over myself and accept that my writing tends towards self-indulgent, trite and rambling... and just write some stuff.

Nom nom nom

I just had a delicious dinner. My brother made two different kinds of sliders, one beef with tomato and cucumber, the other one was a spicy ginger and garlic pork slider with coleslaw. We also got corn on the side. I love eating corn on the cob, it makes me feel like a little kid. It don't matter how crappy your day has been, when you get a good meal at the end of it, it makes facing the next day a lot easier.

Australia

I spent some time there last week. Brisbane, Adelaide and Melbourne were the cities that I visited. I want to post my thoughts, but I am too lazy to write a proper post. I shall continue in bullet-point form.

Brisbane:

- Brisbane is very humid.

- Simon and Kate make a great raspberry, white chocolate and marshmallow ice-cream; and a fantastic lamb mince, haloumi, pine nut and cranberry pizza.

- I am not very flexible and attempting to drop to one knee while shooting a basketball is not a good idea for me.

- The Asia-Pacific headquarters of the company I work for is located in close proximity to a brothel. 

- Brisbane is not the dump that Mikey made it out to be.

Adelaide:

- Iranian's participate in surf lifesaving. No seriously.

- Parmis are delicious.

- Vegan banana on toast is delicious.

- A shocking amount of bovril is required to make bovril mee taste authentic. Sloe gin is probably not a good alternative to cognac for this dish.

- Jasper Fforde is one badass motherfucker. I never thought I would contemplate reading "Jane Eyre" or bemoan my lack of English literature knowledge. I'm sure there were many English nerd jokes I didn't get.

- Rundle Street is like a deluxe version of old Cashel Mall. *sigh*

- The Ocelot is very good at choosing people. I am very willing to leech off her for interesting people to hang out with.

- It is difficult to grab Piro's belly, for he is Biteymus Prime!

- Med school students can be as annoying and douchey as business school students.

- Stethoscopes make decent earplugs.

- I cannot spell stethoscope without the help of spellcheck.

- I don't particularly like mulberries.

- Personal time will never have the same meaning to me again.

- I would really like a Hikaru Otada music memory post from someone. Please?

- I can spend nearly a week staying 10 minutes walk from the beach and not once set foot in the ocean.

- Jie's room felt like home, as it did in Auckland as well. I felt comfortable enough to be my slobby self... but not to make personal time.

Melbourne:

- Duck with prawn sauce is actually pretty tasty.

- The MCG is fucking huge.

- Vietnamese sandwich rolls are delicious.

- I suck at golf when I sense that people are watching and I get nervous.

- I leech off Mikey for people to hang out with too.

General observations:

- All of the outdoor basketball courts I saw had nets. That is seriously impressive. New Zealand, you just have to do better.

- Moderate-to-mild Australian accents can actually be pleasant and not at all fun to imitate.

- I am not used to seeing tall buildings and being in the presence of them turns me into a slack-jaw yokel.

All in all it was a very good trip. Really, it was the people that made the trip (and some of them were even Australian). The food was also really good. Australia, I will be back. 

Piro's belly....I will be back.....

Rant

I was going to write a post on being annoyed at mispronunciation (I guess I still am). Then I tried to write the title and found that "pronounciation" is incorrect. So I went and checked it up, and sure enough pronunciation is the correct spelling. Then I read through a couple of forums and see that people have posted that hearing people say "pronounciation" makes them wince and grit their teeth. Which made me a little pissed off, because I say pronounciation.....spelling-wise, it just looks better having that o in there....and from a consistency point of view, it makes sense to have it in there.

I guess where I differentiate between the arseholes that......fuck, you going to underline "arsehole" too? Where do I change it off American English? Anyway, there are obviously different acceptable spellings for words in different parts of the English speaking world....and different ways of pronouncing them as well.....Ahah! "Pronouncing" wasn't underlined....it just makes no damn sense to have "pronunciation".  

What really annoys me is when people regularly mispronounce words that come from other languages. I mean words that they say everyday and have heard everyday and should know how to pronounce. For example, why do some English news presenters still refer to the current president of the US as "Barrack Obama (with bama pronounced like it is in Alabama)". I mean, we've only heard his name 50 zillion times before. If you can say "shark", you can say Barack correctly....and if you insist on pronouncing it "barrack", then you have no business being on television presenting the news.

Another thing that had me seething... Kanban, is a Japanese word (and is pronounced "Kahn bahn") that has been appropriated by these business process improvement types. You want to do kanban to help business reduce waste and become more efficient, fine. But pronounce it properly. I went through 45 minutes of hell a couple of months ago, listening to an Australian "kanban" expert explain how he'd helped businesses implement "can ban" (pronounced like you would say "I can ban you from abusing the Japanese language like that"). If you really are such a fucking expert, why not take 5 seconds to learn how to pronounce it correctly?

People who want to seem like they know something about China will drop the word "guanxi" on you. That's fine, whatever....but if you talk to a Chinese person in English about it, they will most likely use the word "relationship"....because they are talking in English. Why not use the word "relationship" as well? The way most English speakers pronounce it, it is harder for native Chinese speakers to understand what you are talking about when you say "Gu-Anne-Shee" than it is when you say "relationship". If you were speaking in Mandarin, then "guanxi" is fine....mostly because the words before it and after it would be in Mandarin as well....and hopefully with reasonable pronounciation.

Beijing rhymes with paging....not pronounced Beige-ing.

I could continue this rant by moving onto Wade-Giles romanization.....and  I will. Chinese is hard enough for people to learn without adding in apostrophes in weird places and having double consonants that are the wrong way around. I get that it was invented years ago....but why use it or other variants of it now? Thank you is 谢谢, which is "xie xie" in pinyin, and something like "hsieh hsieh" in Wade-Giles. Which looks more daunting? Some people like the Wade-Giles because it brings back a sense of nostalgia... but apart from pleasing sinophiles longing to return to 1920's Shanghai, it is just a more confusing and less useful way of learning Mandarin. I drive my car to work and not a horse-drawn carriage because it's a lot easier and more convenient. Glad that Taiwan has finally moved away from it. Now to move everyone on to using simplified characters as well. I get hand cramps just looking at how many strokes are in some of the characters in traditional Chinese.