Too cold today to type and publish a Lamma-zine story! 8 degrees outside and a freezing 13 degrees Celsius indoors in my home office, a new personal record low for our unheated flat! 3 layers of clothing and 3 pairs of socks and still not comfy.... {*Shiver!*}

Well, just a few more days and our short winter will be over!

(from www.GlobalWarmingArt.com)

There have been persistent rumours of wild boars roaming free on Lamma Island in recent years. Many Lammaites dismissed them as just another Lamma Myth (of which there are many... too many.) We've only had occasional anecdotes and stories of very rare sightings so far, for example from anonymous:

"This thing was moving fast, charged across my path about 20 foot away from me. It was large, fat, dark brown, hairy and with a convex curve in its back. There was a real raw primal feel to it, so unexpected that I thought a portal had opened from the twilight zone, pretty awesome, actually!"

The closest to photographic evidence we've ever come were photos of footprints in a dug-up sweet potato patch of Lo So Shing's Paul the Butterfly Man (Repeated Wild Animal Raid On Sweet Potato Fields), over 1 year ago. No photos of any wild boar ever, this most elusive former Lamma Myth! Until now!

Sightings so far, as described on this website:
Wild boars/pigs while mountain climbing ???

So I decided to offer a huge, amazing, fantastic prize for actual photos of the That got the Lamma-zine surprisingly quick results. Within a day, our intrepid Anonymous Guy - the undisputed king of Lamma wildlife photography and the most admired contributor to our Flora & Fauna forum - stepped up to the task and delivered these stunning shots below! Congratulations! So, in which YSW restaurant you'd like to enjoy that free dinner, Anonymous-no-more Guy?

Tigger wrote: "Excellent pictures. And what a beauty that is!!

"So why don't we just leave this little piece of nature alone.

"We live with snakes, frogs, birds and the dreaded 'Lamma Centipede', as well as the odd feral cat, dog and the odd obnoxious human... and this little creature is not about to do any harm to anyone.

"As they don't seem to be dangerous - after all that I have read on the subject - it's nice to have some more 'wildlife' on this island."

I fully agree. Let's declare this young boar a semi-official Lamma Mascot!  ;-)

3 generations of my Chinese family - 3 step-children/3 grand-children/2 sons-in- law - visiting Ah-Gung and Ah-Por on their yearly family trip to exotic, rural, far- away, unfamiliar Lamma Island, all the way from their homes on urban HK Island.

I remember the guy on the right riding on my shoulders through Ocean Park over 20 years ago and spending the Millennium night in hospital awaiting the birth of my first step-grandson, now ten years old. HK is my home now.

To our astonishment, they all loved Mr Kebab's food, even though being unfamiliar with Turkish food. The bill for 10 people, $284, was less than our recent simple hot pot for 2 people in Lung Wah Restaurant.) Then we returned to the Lamma-Gung & -Por Residence decorated with some typical CNY flowers & plants, of course:

Then it was time for the highly anticipated exchange of CNY presents and fried cakes, plus the traditional handing out of Lai See packets to all the visitors, of course.

The first yoga lesson of my life was with Wendy in Sally's yoga studio near the Tofu Lady on the way to the beaches, 1 year ago. She's such a great and experienced teacher, inventing new, special yoga positions tailor-made for my creaky knees by "balancing the smileys on my knees" (see below).

She introduced me to the great health benefits of this ancient practice and I've continued yoga lessons with another teacher occasionally since then, becoming quite a bit less inflexible and unbalanced. Wendy lived on Lamma from 1987 to 1993 and now inhabits Glastonbury UK, "but the sound of waves against the Lamma rocks lives on."

Wendy's just returned to Lamma for a few weeks, giving a number of yoga workshops for her many old friends still living here, plus new "acolytes" like myself. While I understand nothing at all about my chakras and my "body's subtle regions of the energy realms", I look forward again to "embrace both our limitations and our unlimited potential for freedom." It really sounds like "serious fun!" Contact Sally at 2982 4301 for details & directions, or click below:

Tin Hau Temple, Yung Shue Wan, New Year's Eve. Photos by Dirk Claus:

Our free classified Buy & Sell, Rent & Let forum has become a major place for finding, renting and buying private Lamma properties, without any half-month agency fees. It's also the only place so far, as no property agent or major landlord is offering any property on the Internet or in any printed media yet, leading to frequent enquiries to Lamma.com.hk for flat-finding info. There are only a few, little-known web pages offering short- term, tiny "holiday resort" rooms, but no long-term, regular, residential flats are on offer online at all.

The local landlords and agents rely exclusively on word-of-mouth and little, text-only ads in their Main Street shop windows to attract new tenants and buyers. This is severely limiting their business opportunities to passersby only. "We've always done business this way, why change, why try something new that's not free?" That's the kind of typical feedback I get when talking with them. But the commission they receive from a single flat rental or sale would easily pay for an entire year of advertising on this website, the #1 Lamma website so many people are looking at before they move to Lamma or search for a new flat.

Finally, one forward-looking landlady has woken up to the new world of online marketing opportunities! She's placed an advert on this website to reach a much wider audience interested in renting her great flat and finding a good tenant much quicker this way. If you're looking for a fully furnished flat in a quiet, friendly neighborhood, check out this place! Let's see how very quickly this flat will be rented out after this home page promotion....

I've visited the flat myself recently, chatting with the Chinese landlady, Lili, and her current tenant, Elizabeth. They've become very good friends, even hanging out together frequently and giving presents to each other. All the photos and most of the text come from Elizabeth who's returning to her overseas home for now, but hopes to return for another extended stay soon.

The latest issue of Timeout HK magazine features a full page about Yung Shue Wan, including a few sample properties. This is a very rare case of seeing any Lamma properties listed in any media. Click to enlarge to read the entire page:

P.S. Well, it took just a little over a week to find and confirm a tenant, Lili's fully furnished flat is rented out now. No more phone calls, please!

So, who's next to advertise their flat on this page successfully?

Back on "normal, healthy" diet now and maintaining my body weight for the last 6 months, I've resumed exploring what Yung Shue Wan has to offer in (moderately priced) gastronomic options. I can basically eat anything I like again, without any digestive problems, but all in moderation as regular-size portions are much too large for my small stomach. Usually sharing a single set healthy dinner, Lamma-Por and I eat out locally almost every day. Here are some of our most recent Delicious & Delightful Discoveries and personal culinary favourites:

Fish Grill @ Mr Kebab

Portobello Burger @ Green Cottage 26

Mango Mousse Cake @ Shelly's Cake Express

Chicken Dijon @ The Waterfront  (Lamma-zine advertiser)

Veggie Pasta and Duck Breast @ B&B Seaview Rest. (Lamma-zine advertiser)

Valentine's Day menus: B&B Rest. and The Waterfront (click to enlarge)

While out shopping mid-afternoon today, a female (married) friend complimented me again on my new slimmer looks, after losing half my bodyweight in the last two years. With a friendly, charming smile, she advised me on not losing any more weight and that she likes the way I look right now, full of energy and with new clothes (not tailor-made anymore, but off-the-rack from Patagonia, sports shops, local boutiques or my Lamma T-shirt collection.)

I got similar comments from my female HK Electric contacts during the press briefing, from Lap Sap Ladies while hiking up Cable Route 1 ("Woaah! Laeng Tsai!") and even elderly Chinese ladies during Dim Sum, occasionally even from guys! To my astonishment and occasional embarrassment, the weight loss seems to have turned me into a (very minor, unimportant) local pseudo "celebrity".

This is still such a surreal, weird and novel experience for me, not having received any compliments like this in over 20 years. Well, I admit freely to kind of liking it and trying hard to "Stay Like This!"

Well, time for another afternoon fast hike over the top of Po Wah Yuen or to Lamma Winds (only 12 minutes from Back Street). It's a nice, little cardio workout (more fun than a treadmill!) before hitting the Island Gym once again a few times a week. I'm also looking around for a Personal Trainer and exercise classes again. Hey, Fred, are you reading this?

Keeping my weight very stable for already half a year now required more than just staying away from sweet and greasy temptations. Losing all the weight (175 pounds/80kgs) in 1.5 years wasn't actually all that hard, but preventing me from gaining it all back will be an on-going struggle, probably for the rest of my life!

Chow Yun-Fat, Fat Gor, Lamma's favourite, most famous and richest son is still going from strength to strength, after decades of appearing on HK TV - making Lamma-Por swoon as a girl - and many movies locally and worldwide. Born and raised on Lamma Island, he's been acting as a Bulletproof Monk, a Pirate of the Caribbean, King of Siam and Emperor of China. He's now progressed to star as Confucius, the most famous Chinese philosopher, more famous and influential through the centuries than any emperor.

In Mainland China, this movie recently has replaced "Avatar" when the authorities pulled the non-3D version from all theatres. The variety of movie posters above demonstrates the acting skills of Fat Gor very impressively. This cartoon below refers to all the double-barreled killers he's played in his HK cult movies, directed by John Woo, inspiring so many Hollywood copycats:

View from Family Trail between Hung Shing Yeh beach and Sok Kwu Wan

HK Electric announced yesterday their plans to build an offshore wind farm to the Southwest of Lamma Island: ready in 2015, around 100 megawatt (MW), enough power for 50,000 families in Hong Kong, 1-2% of HEC's annual electricity output, 28-35 wind turbines, each of 2.3-3.6 MW (3-4 times the capacity of Lamma Winds), 600-hectare site, 4km off Lamma, $2.5-3 billions. Details of the proposed wind farm together with its environmental impact assessment (EIA) study will be available for public inspection and feedback starting on Monday (8 February) at the EPD website.

For those of you who eager for even more details, click above to view the entire presentation (PDF file) with a wealth of facts, photos and charts.

Press release: EIA Study Affirms Southwest Lamma Offshore Wind Farm

I've also just started a new discussion topic in our forum. Give us your opinions and post questions and I'll forward them directly to HK Electric and report back here with the replies: Marine Wind Farm off Lamma

Being invited by HK Electric to today's press-only briefing in the Electric Centre above Admiralty was a most interesting experience. It was my first-ever visit to the head office of this website's main advertiser. A buffet kept the hacks happy, after listening to an informative Power- Point presentation about the planned wind farm (see tomorrow's Lamma-zine story) and collecting handouts, CD-Rs, me even getting a "Reporter" sticker. All the major TV networks and over two dozen media people attended and jostled for attention. A few of my photos of the proceedings:

Our forum remains an extremely lively place, even while approaching 8 years of feisty existence, despite Facebook, Twitter and other recent "upstarts" gaining popularity even on Lamma. We've recently just surpassed 8,000 individual discussion topics and it was quite typical that topic #8,000 was another one of our frequently highly effective free classified ads.

It's well-known how passionate Lammaites are about their pets. A good example of this passion is being demonstrated in another forum fight between dog owners, resulting in some very harsh words being posted. Soon, some of them started attacking the moderators of our forum. Well, as the forum's administrator I take it all in my stride, trying hard to remain reasonably fair, neutral and impartial in this feisty "freedom of speech" environment. But my moderate, conciliatory attitude can result in being attacked from both sides occasionally, as I'm in the middle trying to moderate, not fully supporting either side. You're not on my side, so you must be against me!

Check out for yourself how I and some moderators supposedly hand out "ingratitude as a reward", "prosecute modern literature", allow "kangaroo courts to charge and convict", "pull plugs prematurely", even commit "great injustice" - if you believe a few of our more opinionated members. Well, fine fictional writing still seems alive and doing fine on Lamma, judging from these comments! Nobody has been censored so far for strongly disagreeing with a moderator.

I've also posted my well-intentioned but probably futile attempts at defending and explaining our forum's ground rules, for the amusement of some members who'd love and enjoy to name and shame their enemies, call each other names and dish the dirt on their neighbours and sundry adversaries. We'll continue trying to keep the public forums a lively, but non-libelous community platform.

Well, there's always the private-members-only Fight Club forum which hasn't been too popular recently. There's no worldwide audience like in the public forums, so people seem to lose interest quickly; it's not much fun fighting with your drinking buddies or adversaries in a non-public forum? A member even thought that a "great injustice has been done" when another "personal attack" message had been routinely moved - uncensored, unaltered - into the Fight Club where they'd be welcome to continue their heated debate with other members of this private club.

Judge for yourself: Lamma Our Shire.

Inspiration for these daily Lamma-zine stories can originate from a multitude of sources, but my favourite inspiration are readers giving feedback.

Case in point, this story, another Flimsy Flight of Fancy of "computer art", inspired by feedback I received just today about this original story from Aug 20, 2006: Scanner Jam Art Jam. Grayson, an art student in New York, working with scanners as well, found my story and images and was interested in my "processes" & software.

As I hadn't looked at this story and images in years, I checked it out and got inspired to create more images, all from the original scanner error that resulted in this messed-up image on the right. See the story and images for details.

In the story I threatened the readers that "these computer art jams are just too much fun and there could be more in the future! Beware!"

Well, it took only 3.5 years for more to come into being, here they are. These images below were all created from this single scanning error above, after playing around with Photoshop CS4 and a veritable armada, a plethora and a cornucopia of plug-in filters and hundreds of trial-and-error image processing operations. All of this creates mostly totally unexpected and surprising results. They're usually pretty ugly results but careful selection and enhancement evolves them into "visually acceptable" results occasionally. Many thanks to Grayson, my muse! ;-)

All of these images and any other from my archives are available as signed prints of any size, at pretty modest prices. Click below to enlarge and then email me!