Cleaning up (one of) Bush's mess

Sometimes you there are things that simply make no sense. USD480,000,000 for a helicopter in this economy, and it takes a new President to put a stop to it.

Yes, money needed to be spent after 9/11, but this is beyond ridiculous. Radar jammer, OK. Shielding for electronic equipment (against an electromagnetic pulse), OK. Toilet and kitchen?! Uh... NO!

Americans living in excess brought them to where they are today. You'd like to imagine the government being smarter than that. Then you remember who ran the government in the past eight years and it all makes sense (or no sense).

The Death of Comedy

When was the last time you saw a quality comedy film come out from Hong Kong? The last funny film I saw from Hong Kong was Stephen Chow's Kung Fu. The Comedy is dead in Hong Kong.

Why you ask? There are little to no comedic actors left in the business. Film producers are not willing to take risks with new styles of comedy. Staying conservative, they stick with slapstick and mindless humor with actors who are actually singers by trade. The industry dictated this change, not the audience. I'll bet the Hong Kong audience is dying to see a serious, high quality comedy. Entertainment firms just aren't willing to take any risk. Instead, they come out with stuff that has worked in the past, shunning anything new or experimental.

Perhaps its the Hong Kong market that caused this situation. The market is too small, so in order for movies to make a profit, they have to be able to do well in China as well. Greedy firms may not see the value in producing a film only for Hong Kong, even if it does pay for itself. Touchy comedic material might be censored or unaccepted in China. Pirated DVDs are no help. Also, consumers (wrong as they are) will go for the pirated version, as they aren't willing to spend a lot of money on the current, rehashed, run of the mill comedies being produced today.

The vicious cycle continues, and thus brings forth the death of the comedy in Hong Kong cinema.

2 Legit 2 Quit!

I never thought I would blog about fashion, but this is too funny. MC Hammer's parachute pants are back! Fashion designers are shamelessly bringing back the old design and giving it a posh name: "Harem Pants".

I'm no fashion guru, and most pioneering fashionistas would call my style boring and conservative. All I'm saying is that I would have trouble dating a girl who wore harem pants, and I would try my best to not associate with people who wore these pants in public.

On the other hand they look pretty comfortable, so perhaps they'd make great pyjamas (or adult diaper concealers).

Funny Friday

Last Straw?

HSBC... again.

There are a lot more important things to blog about. Plenty going on in China (which I will get to), and certainly plenty of crap going on with our own HKSAR government (which is a bit too depressing to get to). But I'm going to blog about HSBC's credit card program.

Is HSBC's credit card offering horrendous? Not really. So far, they haven't done anything wrong per se. They have just sucked for the five plus years I've been in the program. The rewards sucked. It is mostly crap, and the quality has gotten worse over the years. They started off with Japanese brands, then they switched to Chinese brands. Now they're offering what's called "flexi-rewards", which in theory allows you to redeem a 50 inch HDMI television for 7 million + points. That might actually be plausible if the points didn't expire so quickly. Spend HKD7,000,000 and get a HKD20,000 television for free! Ha! You'd imagine they might give you something better than a 0.29% return for spending a cool mil (US dollars) with their card, but no.

The reason I thought of the good old money grubber, is that they've been pestering me recently (twice per month since August, by phone and by mail) to upgrade to their platinum card. For joining, I'll immediately get 10,000 crappy HSBC reward points, plus have the first year annual fee (about HKD1,000) waived (which would have happened regardless, with the amount I spend with the card). By spending another HKD15,000 (within three months) I can get 40,000 more crappy points given within the next five months.

I decided to give them a legitimate chance and checked what perks the card has to offer. The offers were quite disappointing. There are various discounts here and there, and a perk or two that look somewhat appealing. However, most come with a catch. For example:

15% off on food (not drinks) at H One. Seems like a decent deal, but then you see that it only applies if you spend HKD800 per person. It also does not apply to the set lunch menu from Monday to Friday.

$800 per person is quite a lot, and that doesn't include booze...

Some offers don't make much sense: 10% off the a la carte menu at Fook Lam Moon Restaurant. Not applicable to fruits, beverages, set menus, valet parking or service charge. Again, the restrictions. But what makes the least amount of sense is in the deal itself. People who dine at Fook Lam Moon would not give a rat's ass about a meager 10% discount.

Overall, these ho-hum 10-15% food only discounts make me want to just use another card and get airline miles instead. Which brings us to our next topic.

I thought of enrolling in HSBC's Asia Miles mileage reward program, only to discover that the reward ratio is HKD15 spending for one mile. That is pretty lame. HSBC also requires an additional enrollment annual fee of HKD150. Booooo...

So what might perhaps be the last straw? HSBC announced that in April 2009, bill payment with the classic and gold credit cards will not count towards reward points. Is it a big deal? It will be if you pay your bills with the card. The point is that they're slowly chipping away at the benefits that may have attracted customers to join in the first place. I am just annoyed at the consistent lame-ass marketing efforts they throw at me. I mean... I'll sign up for the platinum card. Just give me something more substantial, like a free phone or a couple bottles of wine.