I'm still in HK. I'm still enjoying it here, still finding new things and places to do and see. Haven't been on a ferry for too long - must correct it this weekend, if the weather isn't appalling.

I'm still happily non-single. We're at almost 10 months now, which seems pretty good to me. No more to say on that subject here, really.

I bought a new EeePC 901 a couple of weeks ago, having sourced a little spare cash. The differences from the 701 are quite significant, and almost entirely positive, and it only cost me $3150 (£230, US$405 at today's prices) - it's a steal for that price. The screen is bigger, there's a lot more storage, faster networking (wired and wireless, at least in theory), built-in Bluetooth, a bigger touchpad, and much longer battery life. I've dumped the default Xandros completely and installed Ubuntu-Eee on it. I still choose to use Slackware on my own desktop/work machine, but I can't deny that Ubuntu has a nice out-of-the-box experience, and it fits the 'appliance' style of the Eee quite well.

It's a very silly meme and of course I'm late, but here's a photo taken immediately after I first read Jono's post:

Typhoons galore this year - we're under a typhoon warning now, officially, but it's looking like this one is going to miss us, for a change. Look for a longer post about typhoons at some point soon, whenever I finish up writing it.

$98ish seems to be the new sweet spot for mobile service in HK - voice, data and wifi. My existing provider (Peoples) has recently changed my package to unlimited GPRS, unlimited use of their (branded) wifi network, and 1000 minutes of voice, for $98. PCCW Mobile are also offering 60MB of 3G data, unlimited use of their (owned) wifi network, and 600-1000 minutes of voice per month for $98 with no contract, minimum 2 months, so I signed up to check it out - and to be honest, I switched back to my Peoples SIM after about a week. The 3G stuff really doesn't seem that significantly faster for web/mail type stuff, I'm not hugely happy about the 60MB limit, and 3G seems to run my phone battery down much faster. The one bright spot is their wifi network (warning, Flash), so I might just subscribe to that, stand-alone, for $98. Or not...

On phones... I'm living with the SE G900, but not loving it. I'll be happy if I can go to a next-gen PalmOS phone sometime next year - or possibly a second-gen Android one. We shall see how the market bends.

Still in 'processing' for my visa application. Not too much to tell, except for the fact that I gave them a relatively complete CV, and they asked for a reference for my first job out of University. Since that job was with SCO - not The SCO Group, a different company which bought the name, amongst other assets, from my previous employer - I had to reluctantly tell them I wouldn't be able to get them a reference. I really can't imagine they'll be too upset - that job was for less than 2 years, 8 years ago, and I'm only claiming 'credit' for 5 years work in my application.

The economy. Wow, that's a screw-up of monumental proportions, isn't it? I have a mortgage in the UK, and guess what - I didn't get it until I could afford it, until I found an appropriate property, and had a deposit. I am all in favour of home ownership, but any mortgage above about 85%/3.5xsalary is insane - you know what, I'd like a private jet, but nobody is going to lend me the money to buy one, because they would know I couldn't pay them back. It's relatively simple maths. Eh, hindsight and all that. And my flat in London is happily rented, paying off its own mortgage, and I have approximately 60% equity in it now.