Strip rather than single composite

Here is another composite image, but this time a strip composite, of Brian Lara playing a freaky hook. This is a short ball, flicked fine for six with a roll of the wrists. Its worth clicking on the strip if you've got reasonable connectivity (whole pic is 2 megs) to see just how agile and compact and head down this guy is - blisteringly talented. Hope you like it.

Cricket in Hong Kong

It's super unusual to be able to watch cricket in Hong Kong - and the only real chance is to go to the cricket sixes. Sixes are played by a team of six people (so the fielders are super spread out) and each innings consists of 30 balls - 5 players each have to bowl one over, the player being the wicket keeper does not bowl. So if you think 20-20 is a short hard hitting format you should try this one as an option. Eight teams played, so you saw each team many times. I went for the afternoons of both days, having done something with the boys in the morning on each - Aiden is a bit too small to enjoy sitting in the stands at the moment, so he didn't get to go. (Perhaps that's not entirely fair - more like I wouldn't enjoy having to watch him rather than the cricket).

And there were some superstars on show, great, because I've only ever seen people like Shane Warne and Brian Lara on TV, and now I got to see them play, even if it was in a trunkated form of the game. I took these for you - quite cool hey - a study of Warne bowling and Brian Lara hitting a cover drive - dispite his head being down as it is, for six out of the ground.

This week's car challenge

This week's car challenge has a bit of everything. To begin with, something special; it's from the cult car manufacturer, it's wicked in every respect, and from the front, looks a lot like its predecessor - so be careful not to get tripped up there. The back however is quite distinctive.


Then there is this, something that looks pretty straight forward - but is actually quite special too; I've "written" on the car so you can't simply read it. In this case it is a 2007 model, has a number of hi-tech upgrades including the engine going from 3.6 to 3.8 litres, ceramic disk brakes and the latest in six speed transmission from Porsche. The big clue I'll leave you with is that it has a special letter at the end.



Then to keep with the historic angle, there is this one, and in a way, it is the one that started it all. It's big claim is that it was the first mass produced car in history, and famously was available in any colour as long as it was black. What is it? The bonnet gives the imporant clue, but you have to find the model detail.

Improved quality layout?

I've been thinking about ways that I can tidy up the layout of your mag pages. The challenge is the post editor isn't 100% predictable. So what I'm going to try is to crop all images to 8x10 or 10x8 depending on their orientation - so if you did ever want to print one that would be the print size to ask for, its a standard size, and I'm going to try and group the photos as portrait or landscape to clean up some of the staggered look that is accidentally emerging in your mag. Hope it works - here are some test shots to give it a try, and rarely, one of me with Aiden.

Automotive milestone

The Frog has just passed one of those automotive milestones, what would that be? And to be sure, work is very hard for a car in Hong Kong - stop, start, traffic, huge up and down-hills, and absolutely no cruising. So I think its worth about double on a South African speedo.

This week's car challenge

OK - this week's car challenge is (rightly) another tough one - answers are going to have to be researched; I have never seen one of these in South Africa - South Africans are poorer for this.

It's a 1995 model, two seater sports car, hard top convertable (not an automatic roof) does 0-100 in 4.5 secs, which is super, super quick. It's top speed, however, is only 140! As the pic shows, it has two very distinct air vents behind the front wheel. Incredibly, as the other pic shows (it will be worth clicking on this one to enlarge it) it red lines at 8500, and revs on to 12000 - very unusual for a car to rev so high.

The white box on the windscreen is an autotoll sensor - so nothing to do with this car per se - but the white guage on the right is a boost guage - and that is a useful clue - the thing that gives rise to the boost guage is standard on the car.

The important clues are: its a Japanese "K-car" (you're going to have to look that up, I think); it's small capacity (660cc), and tastes good to Italians in the morning.

It is by a long long way the best car I have ever driven; it's handling is amazing - the engine sits on and behind the front axle, and the car is very tight and rigid. It's the only car I have ever driven that makes you feel like you feel when you're riding a fast bike. Its not the same car as in the previous picture, I only mention this because the colour is the same.

What could it be?

After-rugby glow

The boys got back from the rugby at about 8.30 in the morning. Evan a bit puzzled, Rich grinning, and Aiden being the ongoing commentator.

So how to deal with post rugby-glow? Hit the beach, in this case Mils beach. There are a couple of stages to this - the first part in a zapcat over the silty sand bottom of the bay into the deeper water - then on a junk, towing the zapcats - and then a zapcat again onto the beach. This is Jen's zapcat - if you click to get a big version you'll see Rob's in the background - with a big South African flag draped over his shoulders, and a mad dog called Woody swimming after it (Wooddy swam all the way to the junk in the middle of the bay).

When you get to the beach, you immediately see that Evan has been watching too much of Johnny Wilkinson. Not good, emulating the English star, I thought.

Then you meet some England supporters who drone on about how the disallowed try, was actually a try, and how the ref was crooked. But no worries on this front, because you've brought this screen shot along - see, toe of boot on line; player and ball still in air. Matter closed.

With these disputes out of the way, you get down to some proper beach action: Aiden goes swimming in the lagoon behind the beach. Evan takes up residence in a beach hole, eats some sand, eats some food mixed with sand. Rob rounds the day off by doing some high-speed manouvres on his boat, and we head home.

YEEEEEEHAAAAA!

Amandla Bokke! Not much to say but cheer; and it's been a terrific tournament and the Bokke have been exemplary. Here is Ev after the game in the first of the morning sun.

Refining manners

Aiden caught me taking pics of him guzzling fruit stars in the lovely autumn morning light - and then of course had to put on a show; so this is just in case you don't know what fruit stars look like.

Hong Kong Disneyland

I'm not a big fan of theme parks at the best of times, and I've consequently managed to avoid Hong Kong Disneyland since it opened (I think a couple of years ago). But Tuesday afternoon was d-day, and off we went, Jordan accompanying to strategically add that extra bit of staying power. I have to admit that I wasn't entrirely impressed, but the whole place was slickly executed and finished. I thought this was a great fountain statue on the way in for example, Mickey riding a whale's spout. The face pulled by Jordan was at least as good though. Aiden thoroughly enjoyed the parade, waved at all the characters, and it was super-well coreographed. I thought Cinderella and Snow White where pretty hot - I think I get the 7 dwarves whole attitude a lot better now. Aiden's first ride was on the space mountain roller-coaster, which requires you to be 1.05m tall; Aiden is 1.07, according to their scale. Well, it wasn't really that appropriate - great ride, great use of light and darkness inside, but regrettably "Big Red Things" too - I think they were meant to be space-ghosts, with a sort of Auroras feel and scale to them. Frightened the proverbial out of Aiden, early on in the ride too. So no sooner had we got going than my fears ("should I really be taking a three year old on this ride?') materialised: I had a loud little wail coming from the seat next to me informing me that he wanted to get off. Well Aidie, you unfortunaltely can't get off - toooooooo late, as they say. It wasn't the best way to begin, and the rest of the rides we went on were carefully checked out for anything remotely threatening by our young friend, who, I couldn't help feeling, spent the rest of the afternoon and evening keeping an eye out for BRTs. I think Ocean Park near where I work has (far) better and differentiated rides, and a great aquarium, and dolphins, and pandas and a monster cable car - so that's where I'd prefer to be headed from this point on. Might turn out that BRTs are rather useful.

Fiddle fiddle fiddle

Having been asked/told not to fiddle with the amp knobs, its now bees to honey, especially when no one is supposedly looking; alas, bust on camera. The worrying thing is that Ev can't even be bothered to attempt a guilty look. Mmm, I suspect a naughty little boy in the making.

What is this?

The car mag hunt is on in earnest, perhaps it should be called "Looking for Zonda", because I would have to regard that as the ultimate, I certainly have never seen one. But there are going to be some super classics of a surprising sort on the way, and I thought a couple of clues might be a good thing - any idea what this is? Devastatingly cool car, but at 1973, I think a bit before your time, and probably before mine.

And then there is this one - clues are: 5 litre V12, six speed manual transmission, two years older than you; super-rare, and the mirror might give you an additional clue. The car it was derived from is one of the rarest and most sought after super-cars in history. What is it?

Shift Happens T-shirts

These are my latest T-shirt logos - I don't know how much you know about Shift Happens - check it out on Youtube, it's part educational part change movement - it's a nice play on the original saying, and much more positive. Jens is going to print these for me on T-shirt transfers and I'm going to make a series of them - should be groovy. Any ideas for social change? And on the subject of shift and change - what do you think of Al Gore winning the Nobel Peace prize? Now thats an example of shift happens.

Po Lam Park for a morning zoom

I took these this morning at Po Lam Park - it's a really groovy place - ultra urban in that it's surrounded by monster housing estates, but also a beautiful green belt amongst the concrete. Aiden and Ev love it because there are loads of different pieces of equipment (if this is the right word) tunnels, slides, jungle-jims, that sort of thing. Ev is regrettably totally fearless, and so is a bit of a handful - turn your back for a sec and he's high up on some or other thing. I like the one of the big blue slide with the two of them on it - it's a fave with both of them. I also like the pic of the Ev at speed - he's got a really funny little walk-run-speed-wobble-without-a-crash way of getting about.

More morning action

Here are some more pics from the past couple of mornings. It's usually pretty peaceful and friendly, but Aiden can be a real monster if he wants, and little skirmishes are frequently breaking out - hence the big rolling tears on Ev's cheeks. Tut tut. I havn't quite worked out the formatting on the wysiwyg - the editing tool for the blog - it stands for "what you see is what you get" - which is cute, but inaccurate. What you see has only a passing relationship with what you get. Further evidence of Evan growing up above too - he's learning how to take his own clothes off, which is handy, because if given a chance he prefers wearing as little as possible.

Nice photo of the boys

Still learning the studio lights, and I took this shot this morning with a light set up over our bed. I think I'm starting to get the hang of this.