Plumbing here is not quite the plumbing most of you in the States are familiar with. It is odd. Puzzling. Segmented. Compartmentalized. Rationed. And not quite dependable if you live in an older building. This is what I have learned about HK plumbing, in four months here:

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Americans tend to think the rest of the world knows all about us, and thinks about us a lot. Pays close attention to our doings. How many times have you heard some idiot jock exclaim, “We shocked the world!”? And mean it. Because, sure, everyone in Africa and Asia and South American thought American Team […]

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I love the Super Bowl for one reason as much as any: It keeps Roman numerals alive. I had to sit and think for a minute, but I still know what 43 is. In fact, I can write any number up to 3,999 (that would be MMMCMXCIX, I do believe) in Roman numerals. (I don’t […]

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He is out there nearly every day, maybe 10-12 hours a day, at the top of the stairs leading down to the Johnston Road exit from the Wan Chai metro station. Sitting on a box only a few inches high, his two-string instrument in front of him, sawing away. He has to be 70 years […]

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Again, I reserve the right to come back and write about any one of these items at greater length. –They should consider a law here on “hands free” walking. At least once a day I almost crash into someone meandering/veering down the street while fiddling with their BlackBerry, or while texting someone, while playing a […]

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This is a good day. The Dodgers just got better by invoking the hoary “addition by subtraction” principle … By releasing Andruw Jones. Who is only … the biggest bust in Dodgers history. And this is a club, remember, that has made some whopper mistakes.

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I am not a fashion plate. And it gets worse. I not only don’t pay much attention to what I wear … I don’t pay much attention to what people around me wear, either. But Hong Kong is making it easy for me. Especially here in the winter.

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I have a watch I like. It’s not expensive, at all, just rubber and plastic, but it has multiple functions. It has a digital readout. It has a button I can push to light up the face, so I can tell the time in the dark. It can tell me the date, which is something […]

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I remember the first day I spent in this apartment. Must have been Oct. 9, one week after getting off the plane and spending seven nights in the hotel. In the tiny bedroom I saw a white device in a corner, next to the head of the bed. It looked like 10 or so long, […]

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I am in Hong Kong to edit stories. Correct errors, make sure “style” is being followed, write headlines and captions. Occasionally, I comb the wires for stories and do some layout — on those occasions when I have been scheduled to put out the sports pages. So, I didn’t come to write, and in Hong […]

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