How well did you survive the Chinese New Year
holidays? Well-rested?
Your editor took a long 2-week break in a beautiful,
palm-studded, sandy-beached, balmy, cheap, subtropical Island
paradise: Lamma Island!
That's one of the many reasons for the delayed
publishing date of this e-zine. Due to a serious lack of
contributors recently and work engagements, the My Lamma e-zine
will be on a more irregular schedule from now on, about
bi-weekly, plus Special Topics Issues whenever warranted
(festivals, Funday, next DickStock, etc.).
Congrats to my neighbour, who gave birth recently
ON the emergency helicopter to the hospital! What a high-flying
start into life for her healthy baby girl!
Have you voted already in our Photo Contest!
A considerable number of great snapshots have been entered and are
online now in our Contest Photo Gallery, awaiting your votes!
Vote for your favourites and for your friends'
photos! Deadline is
next Monday, Feb 17!
The winners will be announced, praised and prizes
awarded in the next e-zine, before end of February.
New
Chinese Year, new Chinese Avatars!
I've sized, prepared & uploaded several series of
the 12 Chinese Zodiac animals for you to use as part of your
online identity. Select them in Avatar gallery in
your Profile!
We also have all Western Zodiac signs. Or have
Lamma-Gung create a unique Avatar for you on demand! As a
certified "Artsy Cybergeek" I love creating Avatars!
I'm presenting our usual 8 features in this
CNY e-zine; most of them are light & fluffy like sheep's wool (pun
intended), nothing too
heavy & serious allowed during the CNY
period, spoiling the festive mood!
Yes, I finally got around to doing the first
interview in my new, irregular series of "Laudable Lamma
Luminaries", featuring local celebrities.
Thanks and acknowledgements to our member Pha*Q
for the title!
I'm starting with one of the many Dans on the
island, Dan the Bastard (or Tycoon?)!
Cheers from Lamb-Ah-Gung
(sounds better than Sheep-Ah-Gung, yes?)
This
huge painting by C. Davies for the ABLE Charity high up on
the ferry pier notice wall is not new, but I just got around to
stitch it together from four photos. I also had to performing a big
clean-up job (Photoshop) on this already damaged painting. Click
to zoom in to admire all the details.
•
Topic:
Hottest topic:
Pull Moon Farty of the new Official Court Artist
(see feature 4 below).
There's an on-going cash collection to get the YSWankers to
perform at this "partival" in the Philippines!
FYI,
Anastasia’s take away will cease to operate very soon. I
would like to thank all the people who have come to the shop,
tried the food and come back time after time for more.
Until Chinese
New Year, we are having a 30% sale on all items (except
food) prior to closing.
I would also
like to thank the food seller on behalf of all of the
customers who contacted the Hawker Control Unit in order to
stop me from operating. Was my food really so much better
than yours. Once again, thank you.
•
Username:
ice-cream-lady:
Nice, sweet and evocative name, but too easy to figure out who it
could be! There's only one ice cream lady on Lamma!
We'll
hear more from her in the next e-zine, with her new charity
project of raising money for UNICEF, by letting you vote for
your favourite Lamma celebrities in her
shop!
•
Flames
Ronald McBobsy:
Good to see Keith Hassle is still a total
jerk off.
k@'s reply:
Good to see you haven't relocated.
My Hairy Ass:
Clearly, Lamma-Gung doesn't have enough
to do with his days or nights and should get a life
..............like this ass.
Lamma-Gung's
reply:
Well, I have to agree with the Hairy Ass
above, I'm just a sad & pathetic loser with no life...
Sob, sob, sob!
But posting 3 messages per day on average
(I joined this board half a year ago when it started) doesn't
take more than a few minutes of my working day.
Maybe I've got a "real life" already and a small part of it is
posting messages on My Lamma, contributing a little bit to the
Lamma community by answering questions, supporting local
businesses & good causes, giving advice to new arrivals on
Lamma and Lamma.com.hk, plus meeting new friends online!
New section! Please inform me well in
advance about your Lamma events, so I can promote them!
A
male stripper performed in a YSW restaurant's Ladies' Night
recently; and I didn't even know about it! But it was NOT the guy
on the right performing!
I would have loved...not to attend...but to promote this daring
event to all Lamma ladies over 18! According to the audience, it
was a rousing & hilarious success and some would love to
make it a regular event! Any hot-blooded, able-bodied males
want to perform? No pay, but LOTS of tips from the enthusiastic
audience!
Message #3,000 was one of the shortest messages ever, from
edmond: "thx e !"
Warning! Read ONLY if you're technically inclined & interested:
1-day statistics, Feb 9:
"A total of 1,090 pages were accessed
by 68 unique hosts. There were approximately 103 distinct
visitors; the typical visitor seems to have spent about 8
minutes visiting the site and to have viewed some 10.6 pages.
There were a total of 8,597 hits."
How did YOU
celebrate the CNY holidays? This is my favourite festival of ALL
Eastern & Western festivals observed in Hong Kong!
My favourite part was the after-midnight
fireworks spectacular enjoyed together with most of our
neighbours. Only minor injuries! Also, we've been eating the
traditional CNY fried cakes for days now!
We won't run out of boxes of cookie/candy/snack
(presents from relatives & friends) anytime soon...
But instead
of more words, let's look at CNY traditions in the
Lamma-Gung/Lamma-Por household:
And the Y2K bar is looking for a
buyer as well, it has been rumoured.
What's happening here? So many closings and no new openings!
Are YSW restaurants facing
extinction?
Business seems to have crashed so much in the last
3 months; "the worst ever!", according to a restaurant owner, the
outlook looks grim. Eat out more!
Fortunately,
Holiday Mood and Offtime Café have already found
buyers, it has been rumoured, for around $220K and $60K,
respectively, plus $16K monthly rent for Holiday Mood!
No news yet about when they'll re-open and which
type of food they'll be serving. Suggestions from locals might be
welcome...
One part of the problems seems to be that some
local restaurants have "licensing problems", so they are
very vulnerable. If somebody lodges an official complaint they'll
be forced to close down if they can't afford
to fulfill all the
conditions
of a license. It can cost up to $300,000 to convert a residential
flat into an approved restaurant
with kitchen; less for a snack food place or bar.
Anastasia's will remain closed and is looking for
somebody to rent the shop. Contact
Dan!
I loved Anastasia's food and Dan's informative,
fun & friendly banter. It's very sad to see him close down. There
were lots of (sympathetic and critical) discussions on My Lamma
about his special case:
"Sorry that Dan had to close"
Dan has to support his growing family (2
daughters), becoming a wage slave again. He was lucky to find a
permanent job quickly and started work already after CNY. Suit &
tie, joining the morning ferry rush of the many lucky,
still-employed ones...
Here's
the first installment in our new series of interviews with
"Laudable Lamma Luminaries":
Dan the Bastard!
I've nicknamed him Mr.
DanKwaiFong.com, the "mastermind" (and Tycoon?) behind the
steadily expanding "DanKwaiFong" empire of Lamma
Gourmet, billiard hall, Aroy Thai bar, restaurant,
coffee shop, plus a future, upcoming-soon website!
Someday he might take over Bookworm Café, turning it into a
steakhouse, you never know!
He's
been called "King Pubster, Prince of
Punk and Champion of the Neckless Ones" and "our very
eminent cheese supplier and advancer of male leg fashion"
(see above and right) by his friends.
His punk rock band "The
Bastards" has been playing for 12.5 years now, probably
the oldest still active band on Lamma, starring at almost all
DickStocks so far! His pub (nicknamed "Dan's") is THE
most popular bar on Lamma, according to our long-running
voting!
A really worthy long-time "Laudable Lamma
Luminary", wouldn't you agree?
I've collected so many photos, posters, quotes,
music & anecdotes from his many friends!
I'm currently working
on a big Dan supplement to this e-zine:
All of this makes him more than worthy of this
greatest of all honours! He has graciously (see the "crown" in
his Avatar above?) and voluntarily (almost no arm-twisting)
accepted to become the Official Court Artist/Court Jester
of My Lamma!
His
official duties will include caricatures of Laudable Lamma
Luminaries, more Lamma photos & various "artistic
contributions", plus he'll be entitled to take the Mickey out
of ANYONE!
Meet him in person and get a signed copy of
his new artbook by scheduling an Official Audience during the
upcoming Lamma visit of this famous Lamma-exile! I've already
reserved and will be blessed with a Stick Insect Hunting Photo
Safari into the Lamma wilderness! Hooray!
But beware! You'll be "blessed" with the resulting
photos! More bug snapshots! Eeeek!
Our
first Site Admin webdog has finally returned from a long
trip. He's back with a vengeance, posting messages all over! As a
true gentleman, he's
offering to help Brasileira to find a Salsa partner (NOT a
date!), but she has to be VERY specific in her preferences:
webdog:
"Let me see if I can arrange you a guy, what's your
preference:so/r/a/l/h/w/cs?
so
sexual orientation
(straight, bent, gay, bi...)
r
race
(chinese, indians, caucasion, or the lesser monkeys,
kangaroos, rabbits...)
a
age
(I have a bunch of 50+ desperately waiting)
l
location
(yours or mine)
h
height
(size doesn't matter, does it?)
w
weight
(again, ditto)
cs
chest size
(this is important, I know, it should be broad and hairy!)
Depends on your choice, I will offer the
most competitive flat/hourly rate."
A note of my admiration &
praise for the Mass Wallpapering Operation of LAP (MWO-LAP):
Lamma-Gung:
"LAP are true professionals in the
outdoor-advertising game! Their troops sneak out under the cover
of night with stacks of huge, color-photocopied,
desktop-published, waterproof posters, big paint brushes and
heavy-duty glue pots. They're well-equipped and eager to
wallpaper every available surface on a weekly basis, leaving
little wall space in YSW undecorated!
A great cause like theirs is a
powerful motivator! Amateurs like myself cannot even hope to
compete with these professionals! My few, infrequent, small,
inkjet-printed flyers promoting Lamma.com.hk or our Photo Contest
become invisible and ignored in this sea of very cute puppies
and urgent adoption appeals...
That's why I would hope to team up
with them, adding my own ads to their professional MWO-LAP
organisation. If you can't beat them, join them! They should
make this into a nice little money-earner for LAP, putting up
posters for anybody for a contribution!"
Responding to this message, an Official Spokeswoman for LAP
informed me:
"about MWO-LAP: actually the
posters are not waterproof, we just put glue over the posters and
the glue will form a protective layer. dr john taught me this."
They are true professionals indeed! And they're
doing a great job in Animal Protection, too!!!
BTW, the photo above is a truly extremely rare
snapshot: A "notice wall" WITHOUT a single LAP poster!
Can you guess which "Laudable
Lamma Luminary" wrote the following single sentence?
"Fa-a-ark,
fo-wock,…fa-a-ark. Fo-wock…the first sounds of this story are
clear in my ears; it's the slap-dash susurration of the surf-suds
on the sea and the side of the boat; it's the suck-inhale of
scores of suppressed smokers in sensurround; it's the memories in
future-tense of music yet to come; it's a fungal polyphony, a
sporal soundscape from The Shroom; it's the sound of my blood, my
heart, my eyes, it's…fa-a-ark, fo-wock,…fa-a-ark, fo-wock…"
No, it's not Dan, but our part-time
DJ, mover and bookman Nick. This is an excerpt from his Second
Wanchfest review, just added to his website at www.Lamma.com.hk/nick.
There's also a new "Nick's Friends" Photo Gallery, incl.
some really ancient shots of Nick with John Cleese and other
"celebrities".
By the
way, who knows the name of this cute pet
(not Nick's!) Pot-bellied Pig? "Sumo"! So appropriate!
Guess which other "Laudable Lamma Luminary"
answered the innocent question of "Where are you from?" with "I
am a Child of the Universe"!
Another little, local, but cosmic story:
Recently, I've answered an innocent little ad, which was looking
for Internet-savvy freelancers:
"I just saw your ad on the walls on
Lamma and I'm interested in learning more. I work freelance from
my SOHO office and have some spare capacity for more work,
especially if it's related to Internet/online. Please advise."
Quoting verbatim from their e-mail reply (highlights are
mine):
"Wishing you a wonderful New year
filled with Joy, Wisdom, Peace, Health, Abundance worldwide.
I am available to answer any
questions or concerns you have regarding the online opportunity
which I e-mailed to you recently. Please let me know what you
think about it.
Returning
the "Letter of Intent" (included below) will provide you with all
the marketing materials which you will need to get started
immediately, with a 30-day 100% no-obligation trial period
(I believe you will see that this is actually the case by reading
the information below).
As soon as I receive your Document
Request Form (DRF), then confirmation of Lotus Starship
Lift-Off Documents Request Form will be emailed to you
promptly, along with the powerful Lotus Starship Space Port -
Preparation for Lift-Off instructional materials you need to
get going.
I, (***YOUR FULL NAME HERE***) hereby
apply to join the COSMIC COMMUNION."
Despite
of what some of you might believe, this wall ad was definitely
NOT posted by the
Bookworm Café!
But if you'll see a real Lotus Starship hover over YSW
soon, then you'll know that I've accepted this Lift-Off offer
and will be joining the COSMIC COMMUNION!
But I promise to continue publishing this e-zine, assuming that
the Lotus Starship (above) will have cosmic
super-Broadband Internet access from anywhere in our galaxy!
But if you don't see this Starship soon and don't hear
from me in a while, then maybe one of our cute mini-ambulances
(see right) has come for me, transporting me to the loony bin...
I hope they have Broadband in there!?
Kung
Hei Fat Choy
New
Chinese Year, new Chinese Avatars!
•
Flames
A
male stripper performed in a YSW restaurant's Ladies' Night
recently; and I didn't even know about it! But it was NOT the guy
on the right performing! 
Here's
the first installment in our new series of interviews with
"Laudable Lamma Luminaries":
He's
been called "King Pubster, Prince of
Punk and Champion of the Neckless Ones" and "our very
eminent cheese supplier and advancer of male leg fashion"
(see above and right) by his friends.
Lamma-Gung:
"Fa-a-ark,
fo-wock,…fa-a-ark. Fo-wock…the first sounds of this story are
clear in my ears; it's the slap-dash susurration of the surf-suds
on the sea and the side of the boat; it's the suck-inhale of
scores of suppressed smokers in sensurround; it's the memories in
future-tense of music yet to come; it's a fungal polyphony, a
sporal soundscape from The Shroom; it's the sound of my blood, my
heart, my eyes, it's…fa-a-ark, fo-wock,…fa-a-ark, fo-wock…"
Returning
the "Letter of Intent" (included below) will provide you with all
the marketing materials which you will need to get started
immediately, with a 30-day 100% no-obligation trial period
(I believe you will see that this is actually the case by reading
the information below).
Despite
of what some of you might believe, this wall ad was definitely
NOT posted by the
