Stress of Standby

At this calm and quiet corner of the airport, there's a humming from the distance, the buzz and excitement from other travelers, the regular activities from the rest of the airport - aisles teeming with noisy tour groups and school children in sports uniform and families with crying babies and businessmen in suits and black cases, softened by the therapeutic voice of the airport announcements (HKIA's voice is probably the most comforting voice in the world). Yet it does little to calm the nerves, the pressure of knowing that I might be getting on a plane, or I might be sent home and wake up ridiculously early the next morning and come back to this forgotten corner of the airport again. The wait and the uncertainty is stressful, but also somewhat thrilling at the same time. Occasionally the lady at the standby counter belts out in a loud voice, in the speaker phone, "STANDBY NUMBER XXX TO XXX PLEASE COME AND COLLECT YOUR BOARDING PASS" You check your small yellow slip of paper - even though by now you've memorized your number - and it's not your number. You keep waiting. Other standby-ers around you are slowly disappearing. You wait anxiously. Next announcement comes on, check your ticket, then you secretly jump for joy, say thank you to the loud lady at the counter, breathe a sigh of relief, then RUN because you have 20 minutes to get to the other side of the airport.

Rant - 3D

From a revenue generating perspective, I completely understand why filmmaking corporations are slapping on the 3D shell onto all movies that are being churned out of their factories, because with 3D you can charge more, higher yield, more profit, get more obscenely rich.

But I was born in the 80s. I grew up watching 2D cartoons, 2D movies, 2D classics. It was in colour, therefore it was good enough. It still is good enough. No I don't want to put on extra glasses. I don't want to see spiderman throw a giant slimy lizard towards me. I don't want to feel like I want to reach out and touch the imaginary snowflakes when there really isn't real snow. I don't want to waste precious story-telling time on scenes filmmakers added in solely for the effect of being 3D.

3D does nothing to enhance the viewers' experience...perhaps except for movie-goers in HK (where all movies have subtitles), the subtitles are the only thing that is "consistently 3D". Yeah, because that's what I really care about. Eye-popping 3D subtitles.

Rant - hold please

My morning commute to work consists of quite a lot transits - first I have to walk 15 minutes down the hill to the city centre, then I have to catch a 30 minute train out to Tung Chung, and then I have to take another 5 min bus to get to the office.

It's usually quite early when I walk down the hill, so it's nice and peaceful and pleasant (minus the waterfall of sweat drops during the vicious summer months). All is fine and well ("all" being my short-fused morning temper) until we get to the entrance of IFC mall (the mall above the train station).

By the time I get down to IFC, there's usually a considerable amount of people flowing in out of those glass doors. And about 57.8% of the time, the man or woman walking in front of me would have someone in front of them open the glass door, and the person in front of me wouldn't even extend his/her under-utilized arm to hold the door, nor would he/she look back to see if anyone is behind them, but (and this gets me boiling) slips through the remainder of the gap of the gradually-closing glass door.

Shouldn't it be BASIC social courtesy that you hold the door for the person behind, or take the door when the person in front has held it for you? Do I look like I care about the fact you're in a hurry, unless you are rushing to save your dying uncle inside the IFC parking lot who was just stabbed by aliens? Or do you really think I'll believe you when you say your arms are too sore from wrestling with mainlanders at LV over the weekend to hold the door open for the one person behind you?

Of course we weren't taught this in school, but did you need to be taught not to urinate/defecate in public, or not to shout at the top of your lungs inside public transport, or vandalize public property?

....Oh wait I guess my case doesn't really stand here