californication

I've had to make a bit of sacrifice adjusting to life in HK. Sure, the cheap, good food anytime/anywhere in HK kicks the US's ass easily, not having to pay taxes when buying stuff and generally not having to worry about crimes is great.

But damn the things I do in the states that I must give up here stung then and still stings now. I had to give up HD TV, which is absolutely stunning in the US, to the current crappy resolution in HK. Yes there's HD here but it's not as useful when there ain't no sports to watch it on. HD to watch what, Eric Tsang give a TVB interview? No thanks.

I was an early adopter of HD too, got it in 2004 and watched Ron Artest beat the crap out of a random white guy in HD. Thing was on replay on ESPN 72 times in one night. Then the 06 playoff games blew my  mind--watched the entire epic 7 game Spurs Mavs series and Ginobili's foul on Dirk still haunts me--such vivid image, such a dumbass foul by Manu that cost the Spurs the 06 title.

Anyway, this entry isn't about TV though--I don't watch much TV nowadays anyways. But this year, for the first time this decade, I am not participating in any Fantasy Basketball leagues.

It had been a tradition with my friends and I back home. We'd play on Yahoo, put some money on the line, and talk smack for 8 months of the season, clowning each other when their star player gets hurt. I know fantasy sports is virtually nonexistent here outside of the small ABC/White kids community. And I'm not sure how big this is over in Europe, but in the states it's probably like one of the top "guy hobbies". I've read news that offices had to find ways to ban fantasy sports websites off the servers because employees were too busy making trades and setting lineups during office hours.

But yeah, even though I was in HK the last two years, I still managed to play with friends overseas and I'd participate in the live draft at odd hours to adjust to the US time. First year I did the fantasy basketball draft live at the Beats office with fellow coworker Cyrus Lo (I got him to join our US league. Poor guy.. a Hongkie against a bunch of Americans in sports-related games.... he never stood a chance) last year I had to do the draft at like, 3am.

This year though, my friends decided to do a live, in-person draft. If you've seen Knocked Up you may be familiar with what I'm talking about (Paul Rudd lies to his wife to sneak to a friend's house for the live draft). Basically it's a bunch of guys together in one room and they take turns picking their players building their teams. With technology these days, everything can be done online, but doing it in person still is tops because you can clown people, on the spot, in their face as they make bad picks. With me being an NBA snob, I do this every year when I see fools pick an established name over a young stud who'll blow up. Casual fans always fall for this. They'll pick like, Elton Brand over say, Anthony Randolph because Brand is the established name even though Randolph will outproduce Brand this year. I pride myself in picking sleepers. I picked Danny Granger with the #5 overall pick last year. Everyone else picked in the first round were perennial all stars/proven names and I went with the relatively unknown Danny Granger.

But man Granger wouldn't stay unknown for long. He'd earn the nickname BATMAN months later and make the all star team. Dropping like 22, 7, 3, with a block and 2 threes a game and leading my team to taking all my friends' money.

But it's not even about the money. Fantasy Sports is great because it lets a bunch of grownass men pretend to be general managers/team owners. When you draft players on your fantasy team, you develop a bond with that player, even more so than you normally would. When I had Gilbert Arenas on my team two years ago and he announced he was having season ending surgery, I was sad and angry for like two days, man. Fucking Arenas.

I remember as recently as last year, I joked with friends--all of us know each other since we were like 10, 12, 14, etc--that we'd be playing Fantasy NBA until we in our 70s. Only it was no joke. I meant it and they knew it was the truth. But this year, because I'm halfway across the world and because I can't make the live draft, I had to drop out. I knew for the first time in maybe my two and half years in HK, I'm starting to lose the "insider" status with them and become the outsider.

Not because we grown different. We done that years ago. Our group of high school friends, the drastic difference between them is night and day. Some own their own businesses, some still working part time job that we did as a teen. Some are married, some still haven't had their first girlfriend. None of that matters, we love basketball and we love to play-pretend.

I wish I was there for the live draft.

To come to HK, I've given up HD TV. I've given up regular league basketball games, I've given up regular poker nights, and now Fantasy sports.

Everyday I'm in HK, I become more and more attached to the city. I've made some genuine good friends the past year or two and I love my job. But when I realize I'm losing the same things back in LA, I go, "damn".

I'm gonna keep working until I get a job that either pays enough or actually requires me to travel back and forth between the US and HK. Only HK though, I wouldn't wanna go to communist China now. Oh and Japan.