I’m not too sure why on earth, but look at what you can buy in grocery stores in Hong Kong, at least according to B3ta.
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Finally, after years and years of teasing in the playground and classroom from fellow pupils and teachers (hello, Mr. Anwyl) alike, my surname is now so highly sought-after that two web services have just launched, using my name. Honestly.
mister-wong.com is a del.icio.us-esque social bookmarking service that is currently on a private beta in the English language, having apparently become the most successful website of its type in Germany, a country famed for good race relations. After I’ve registered, it tells me that I’ll be able to “start wonging” soon. It even has a catchy slogan: “Wong The Web”, sends out a weekly “wongletter”, and the “wong” blog has a “wongroll”.
Thankfully, the Chinese caricature that was all over the German website seems to have been reduced to an icon on the website, although it’s still loud and proud on the various widgets and toolbars, so I’ll still be firing off an email of complaint at some point. As will, I imagine, Asian American activists such as 8 Asians.
What amazes me is how this website managed to sneak up on everyone and apparently become the second most popular social networking site in Germany – a country not exactly short of Chinese people – without anyone complaining or noticing.
It’s not just the Germans. A UK start-up has launched a website to help you borrow money from them on a short-term basis. And it’s called Wonga. The website comes complete with a terribly low-quality Flash-based video introduction telling you that “you need Wonga. now.”
I don’t know whether to smile, cry or hide in my bedroom. But I’ll probably be sticking to Netvouz for all my online bookmarking needs.
Those wacky Germans…
Oct 24
Imagine you’re a German web development guru, who’s discovered this whole brand new phenomenon called Social Bookmarking. And you want to bring it to the German Hoff-loving masses. What would you call such a social bookmarking site? Would you ride on the Web 2.0 bandwagon?
Nope. Welcome to mister-wong.com. Complete with comic graphics of Chinese blokes looking like Einstein searching the web, just for you. Even better, when you dip into the German side of the site, the invitation to register says “Wong the web”. Now why didn’t I think of registering that?
Anyone got any ideas why this might be? I’d better reserve mr-patel.com just in case…
So this is Torchwood…
Oct 23
Just how many “cinematic” shots of Cardiff can one BBC Three drama sustain? Just how many night shoots? From the looks of Torchwood, a lot of them.
Some of the shots did manage to make Cardiff look glorious and cinematic, particularly the sweeping helicopter shot of Captain Jack – so good they kept using it over and over again. Apart from anything else, what on earth *would* he be doing on the roof?
The production team also managed the neat trick of making me look at certain less salubrious parts of Cardiff and go “oooh, that looks pretty” in a way I never thought when walking back at midnight. Must walk around Cardiff more often the next time I pop down there.
The plot itself was fairly formulaic and dull – as inevitably any first episoder would be – but the story actually went in a different way to the way I thought, and had me almost at the edge of my seat by the end.
But oh dear, oh dear, oh dear … spoilers ahead
Succumbing to Big Brother…
May 22
Ever since I had to spend the summer of 2000 avidly watching and writing about Big Brother 1 (the one with Anna the lesbian nun, Nick the evil Brit and Craig the dumb-but-handsome plumber) for work purposes (oh that glamorous summer), I’ve mostly avoided Big Brother. Especially since it stopped becoming a vaguely interesting look at a cross-section of the British population and became a freak show.
However, this year, interest seems to have really peaked all around me. People keep sneaking into the office with the big TV to watch Big Brother 2006 – because there are two Welsh-language-speaking contestants on it. Although the Welsh gossip network has already informed me that Glyn is actually a nice, quiet and shy boy in real life – then again, I’m not too sure flamboyance would do you much good in Blaenau Ffestiniog.
In a hugely controversial move (well, controversial if you’re in Wales – the rest of the UK couldn’t give a monkeys I’d imagine), Big Brother stopped the two of them from speaking in Welsh (their natural language) to each other.
So there was I, quietly shaking my head at people trooping in and out of the big TV-office just because there happened to be two Welsh-language-speakers on Big Brother. While secretly hating Lea – a former 22-stone woman who’s had multiple plastic surgery, apparently has the biggest boobs in the UK and says she hates fat people.
Then I get home for the weekend, where my sisters gleefully inform me that, of all things, a British-Chinese woman is a Big Brother contestant.
Bloody hell. Now this is progress. I’ve got no idea what she’s like – whether she’s a future Jane Goodey or a future Anna, but by Jove I’ll have to follow her progress, and probably vote for her to stay each time. If I ever find the time. 14 days till I have to move all my worldly belongings into a storage room and a front room!
