Readers rejoice, as today is a momentous day for the plebeians of Hong Kong! As a feature in Google Maps, Street View has just gone live for us. So cancel your meetings, your conference calls and clear those schedules, as we must now spend the next few days locating the most inappropriate pictures taken by Google’s Priuses. Let’s see if we can also get our hands on shots of local celebs, girls flashing or the good ol’ car crash. Go forth dear readers and bring back to your humble Dark Side servants the fruits of your labor for all to see! Pics can be emailed to tips@thedarkside.hk.
Update: For the less tech savvy among us, drag the little yellow man on the map of Hong Kong to end up in “Street View” mode. Instructions here.
Update II: Ah, there we go: nice rack.
On oceaniclove.com, a website run by sea loving hippies from Hong Kong, we came across a little story about how our beloved city’super sells bluefin tuna. Now this particular species isn’t illegal to sell (yet), but it has secured a prominent spot on the IUCN red list as “critically endangered” and has also been nominated for an Appendix I CITES listing, which would put it in the same trade category as for example gorillas, tigers and rhinos. Booo!
Other supermarkets here don’t sell this yummy sashimi fish and considering citysuper’s corporate profile with the usual statements about “high quality, internationally sourced merchandise which is ethically and environmentally responsible,” we thank Oceanic Love for pointing this one out. Click “Continue Reading” below for supporting images of this grossly unethical behavior. Oh, and before you leave us again, don’t forget to answer our new poll in the sidebar on the right. (more…)
The next drama to watch in the coming months will be the LegCo’s by-election - or the de facto referendum (as the LSD- Civic Party alliance loves to call it). In an act to bring reform to HK Politics, five brave pan-dem warriors resigned from their LegCo seats in January. Until recently, everybody has been acting cool: no more banana-throwing in the council chambers, no major protests in the street, no nothing. It’s as if they never were elected in the first place.
Kudos, of course, go to Big Brother; our useless government; and our ass-kissing pro-establishment camp. They simply didn’t play the game the LSD-Civic Party alliance wanted them to play and virtually ignored the resignation as a protest – sticking to their guns saying the great Basic Law allows no referendum. Also odd is how it’s all quiet on the LSD-Civic Party front. They have done nothing noteworthy since their gathering outside of LegCo when they dramatically tendered their resignation in late January. Conspiracy theorists like this fella believe it’s all BS and our mavericks would soon return to their cozy LegCo seats having accomplished nothing. We agreed… but only until we heard this:
Our beloved singer/actress/chef, Maria “Fat Mama” Cordero is now considering running for the NT East LegCo seat! She said she would need to hold a family conference before making a final decision, but there’s a possibility for her to run against Leung Kwok-hung aka Long Hair. Hard choice for you denizens of NT East, right? She said she’s pretty pissed off by the uncivilized approach of the LSD, and thought that elections and constitutional reform is much like cooking and bringing up children: it takes time and has its own pace.
But that’s not all folks; we heard that Pamela Pak, the long time girl friend of Paul Tse, the Honorable LegCo member for the Tourism constituency, will be running as well. Let’s keep an eye out for their colorful costumes and their make-your eyes-bleed-photo-ops. One thing that I know for sure, if Fat Mama is elected, she will definitely do something about the price of food. As recently as a few weeks ago one catty of pea sprouts cost more than one share of HSBC. Help us Fat Mama!
Henry has a guest post on The Dark Side and is one of the founders of the Libertines Pub.
The acid thrower has struck again, which means all efforts up until now have not been working. Here are a few ideas which may increase the odds of succeeding:
1. New nickname - “The Acid Thrower” is actually a pretty cool nickname. If we all started calling him “Too-Weak-To-Hold-Acid-Bottles-And-Drops-Them-By-Accident-While-On-Roof-Boy” it will be a) non-flattering, deterring him from resuming his identity as TWTHACADTBAWORB and b) well, it’s just annoying to say.
2. Line the streets with cute, adorable animals. As soon as one of them gets hurt, PETA will unleash the wrath of a thousand suns.
3. Create umbrellas and canopies that look like giant eyes. Much like the moth that looks like a giant eye, this could scare the acid-boy away. (Hire JR!)
4. Make money at home. Either acid-boy will fall for it (and stop throwing acid) or everyone else will (and the streets will be empty) - nobody gets hurt.
5. Create giant clingfilm protectors on rooftops. Ever put clingfilm on the toilet seat and wait for the unsuspecting drunk victims?
6. Put different color glitter on the edge of all rooftops. CSI Hong Kong can figure out the rest.
7. Ask our doormen to get off their asses for a change and lock the rooftops they are responsible for. Genius, we know.
8. Sell acid only in limited edition Bathing Ape x Gucci x Angelababy bottles. People will be lining up for days and the collection value will be so high, that nobody is going to throw them away (the re-sell value on eBay is a different type of crime, but it’s still the lesser of two evils).
9. Free high-speed internet for all. This way we can all stay in, be safe and do what the internet was made for: watch porn on it.
10. Equip the jobless 4.9% of this city’s working population with BB guns and have them roam the rooftops in search of the culprit. Winner gets to be a cop and annoy gweilos by raiding Central’s clubs during weekends.
It’s probably hard to believe, but sometimes we interest ourselves for scientific stuff. And look what we came across: new shots by NASA which are the most true-colour images available till date of that little planet we call Earth. Isn’t it pretty? We owe it to NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, whose researchers created a Blue Marble series via images from the Terra satellite which is in orbit more than 700 km above the Earth’s surface. Resolution goes up to 21,600 pixels across. Check out cool animations here, showing seasonal changes in landcover and Arctic sea ice. TDS Science Report out.
The female boss laughed scornfully: There are no clients, we are the only ones in this house. Come, tonight I’m yours. I didn’t know how to respond, only dumbstruck and looking at her stupidly. The female boss saw that I wasn’t responding and continued to say: Xiao Zhao, if you’re with me, the company’s deputy chief position is yours, I will also give you a BMW.
From ChinaSMACK.
The Dark Side wishes all females a fantastic day. Especially those poor leftover ones who just can’t seem to find that tall Mr. Right with a master’s degree, well-paid job and gentle character. Have a good one!
Residents of HK have for years looked at the backs of scrawny boys and wondered “potentially fit girl or malnourished, scrawny dude?” only to discover a nasty little shock after following them around a couple of blocks. And now there is proof! A popular book in China titled Save the Boys by author Sun Yunxiao argues that boys in China grow up in a predominantly female environment and hence, emulate dudes like these. Luckily this development is counterbalanced by the Chingstah phenomenon. And if that doesn’t work, well, toys like these do wonders in reducing the self-perception of neighbors’ testicle sizes.
Which brings us to an interesting point, namely the fact that China’s enemy/ally India has started to gloat over China’s “sissy” situation, judging from this article on one of India’s news sites. Is India firing shots at China? Not too surprising, considering the two countries’ dispute over their border region and that annoying Dalai Lama. What should we do? Maybe airdrop large condoms but mark them as small? Hmmm… Regular ones would probably do the trick:
HA! Our average size is far from impressive, but yours is even tinier, making it the SMALLEST IN THE WORLD. So India, just follow the Brits, like in the old days. And let us get back to our own problems.
