Disasters, with added perspective

I got back home shortly after my girlfriend, which was lucky, because while we'd been out today the cat had been dragging its cat-poo-smeared backside around the kitchen floor, in a futile attempt to wipe it off. Lucky for me, that is, because I arrived just as my girlfriend finished cleaning it up.

But let's put this in perspective: Hong Kong is about to be struck by a terrible disaster, a brutal force of nature that cannot be reasoned with. On Saturday, a supertyphoon is going to arrive here, after battering the Philippines earlier this week.

That's right. On a Saturday. Could things be any worse? Not only are we not getting a day off work via some T8 shenanigans, we're going to lose half the weekend because it will be raining and gusting wind. It's enough to make you lose your faith in God.

Or at least refuse to visit the giant plastic Noah's Ark in the New Territories, until the good Lord above schedules some decent weather: T8 on Wednesdays so we can avoid the hump day, and sunshine all Saturday and Sunday, all the better for us to go to the mall.

Er, church! Sorry, I meant church! Now just get that super typhoon to hurry up and give us a long weekend, not just a wet one...

Rather than focus on the way that we view weather patterns that killed at least 17 people in the Philippines before coming our way (and not giving us our rightful day-off-at-the-cinema), or suggest there might be some other way that the worldview of everyone in the Special Administrative Region seems to be a bit nuts, I'm going to focus on the good things in life.

Like the DVD of D War I have in my bag, a Korean film where giant lizards with LASER CANNONS fight men in tanks and helicopters. Truly, this seems a wonderfully high-concept film, and because it comes with subtitles that means it counts as an art-house title, right? I bought this today on the strength of a half minute of footage I saw on a 72-inch television in Pacific Place at the weekend. I guess the joke will be on me if it turns out that all the incredible dragon-dinosaur-helicopter-exploding-building action I saw is only present for the first half minute of the film, and the rest is a bunch of wooden acting and plastic sets.

But there's no T8, so I can't stay home tomorrow to find out, and it's really too late to stay up tonight and test for this. Oh, damnable weather!

And back we are with the weather again.

Nothing eventful occurred today apart from a hour-long phone call with a Dalek - or maybe it was just a terrible conference call set up and a dodgy handset at this end. Or maybe it was just an evil cybernetic organism that kept shouting EXTERMINATE over and over again. After about three quarters of an hour shaking and shivering (yes, the air conditioning in the office is still jammed on at full summer strength - polar conditions would be balmy in comparison) I began to lose my mind, but I think I didn't spew any brainfarts like last time.

All that's left is to record that one of my friends thinks I have a funny address. No funnier that the last one I had: the contradictory Flat 3D. And at least I have a proper name, instead of a homophone for a Seventies motorcycle champion. But more of that another time.