My birthday is coming up

Hey, aviation fans. I know you have missed your fix of wing-related dorkery lately. My most recent scribbling, on China's efforts to improve its J-20 stealth fighter, is living here.

But there is something more pressing to discuss. And that's what I'd like for my birthday. Or Christmas. Really, the occasion isn't important. Here's where you can find it: eBay.

Strategic nuclear bombers don't come up for auction often.

That's right. A TU-95 Bear, with a starting bid of only $3 million. My favorite part is that the buyer is responsible for pickup or shipping. It's in Ukraine, which might make that a bit tricky at the moment, but sure--I'd be happy to fly it home.

The gift that keeps on giving*

Happy Holidays, dear readers. Shopping season is in its last violent throes; Hong Kong, for one, is overrun with people buying even more stuff than they usually do. I wouldn't go inside Sogo right now if you paid me.

But if you're looking for the perfect present that won't break the bank, have I got a great suggestion for you. It ticks off all the elements you could possibly want: Cheap (in this case, free), unusual, colorful, fun.

I am of course talking about a North Korean-made driving game in which you motor around a digitized Pyongyang.

Probably higher-resolution than the actual city.

Play it here, Comrades. And a Very Merry Dear Leadermas to you.

*until you violate the rules of the road and are thrown into a reeducation camp.

Crash, burn and... sell?

I have spent quite a few electrons here discussing China's foray into stealth aircraft technology. Although the Shenyang J-31 and Chengdu J-20 look pretty neat, they face a lot of "under-the-hood" technology issues, including basic stuff like engines, before they are ready for prime time... let alone poised to compete with the F-22s and F-35s of the world. (Even the 35-year-old F-117 design is more combat-ready.)

Well, in the last week, apparently the People's Liberation Army Air Force has reached a similar conclusion. The J-31, it has decided, is not worth buying. The China Aviation Industry Corporation, or AVIC, is marketing this shiny, new aircraft for export.

Stealth fighter for sale! Get your stealth fighter here!

This has several implications.

First, China doesn't have the same arms-export laws that the U.S. does, which limit what types of technology can be made available for sale. Of course, the government ultimately has to approve such sales, but there is nothing automatically keeping Shenyang or AVIC from selling the J-31 to a country like Iran. The Iranians, with a dismal track record of indigenous front-line aircraft production, would love to buy a squadron of these (if their economy weren't collapsing). For that matter, any number of Persian Gulf countries would love to get their hands on this type of technology... and Lockheed isn't going to sell them any F-35s.

Second, it implies a degree of go-get-'em that you don't usually see from Chinese arms makers. There is still a lot of old-school production inertia, by which I mean a Cold War Soviet-style process in which the government decides what it is looking for and orders its design bureaus to come up with it. Shenyang, by contrast, appears to have stone cold designed a plane without a PLAAF mandate. And now it needs to recoup the money it spent on research and development.

And third, of course, it underscores the limitations I outlined earlier in Chinese production of high-tech aircraft. And to be fair, AVIC seems to realize this:

“Operational effectiveness will be higher than current or upgraded fourth-generation fighters or almost equivalent to typical fifth-generation,” says Avic. The reference to fifth-generation aircraft presumably indicates the Lockheed Martin F-22 and F-35.

Not to keep flogging a deceased equine, but it's easy to build an airframe that looks nice. These days, it's even relatively easy to build and program computerized flight controllers (necessary to make the inherently unstable facets of a stealthy plane stable enough to fly). But making an effective warplane--that has the hardware to accelerate, climb, find targets and destroy them in a high-threat environment without being tracked--is much, much tougher.

So tough, in fact, that the J-31's foreign buyers might find themselves with little more than the equivalent of a winged white elephant with racing stripes... and a high-profile dud will have Shenyang crying all the way to the state-owned bank.

What market forces sound like

Hong Kong, like many large Asian cities, is up to its neck in electronics and gizmos. Cell phones, for instance, are beyond ubiquitous--you can buy any model of any manufacturer in stores ranging from alleyway carts to big-box department stores. Computers, too, are sold anywhere you can tack up a piece of neon. When you ride the train, nine out of every 10 passengers are using one or the other during their commute. Even taxi dashboards are festooned with gadgets, from front-facing cameras to dueling GPS systems to DVD players... plus, of course, cell phones of assorted shapes and sizes.

It was against this backdrop that Mrs. Blog and I optimistically set out to find a new stereo system for our new Hong Kong apartment. The goal was three-fold: eliminate much-hated wiring, streamline the appearance of our A/V setup (we are currently rocking a Panasonic Dolby 5.1 system with the rear speakers and subwoofer--and their several hundred feet of wires--disconnected), and subject our surroundings to stunning sound.

A component system was out of the question; Hong Kong being Hong Kong, we needed to keep it small and simple. Shelf systems were too tall; any 5.1 system involved more thousands of feet of wires. And then we found this:

Cue the angelic choir (in simulated surround sound)

A soundbar. With a wireless subwoofer. Its multiple HDMI ports meant I could run all of our A/V stuff into the reciever, leaving just one cord running to the TV. The wireless sub meant we could hide it behind a chair. And its minimalist styling meant all the previous clutter would melt away to nothing.

Great! Solution found. For one reason or another, we put off actually getting it, though. We were out of town... we had guests... needed to do more research... and so on. And you know what the punchline here is, right? When we finally went to go buy it, there were none to be found.

Hong Kong, it seems, has a very short built-in shelf life for electronics. In Abu Dhabi, you were likely to find last year's products advertised as though they were brand new. Here, last year's products (the Sony soundbar above was released in the second quarter of 2011) are treated like rotten fruit. Why keep 'em around? No one wants to eat a mushy banana.

All the newer models from other manufacturers at the moment in Hong Kong are no good for our purposes: maybe the subwoofer is wired, maybe they use an optical port instead of HDMI for some reason, maybe the design is ugly, maybe it just sounds bad. And there is little sign of new soundbar releases on the horizon for Hong Kong; customers in the Special Administrative Region clearly prefer component or shelf systems, of which there are dozens of options in every single electronics store.

So, what do market forces here sound like? For now, they sound like an old stereo or a saleseman saying "Sorry, not in stock." But one hopes that maybe by the time the holiday shopping season rolls around, stores in these parts will be singing a happier tune.

Made in the UAE--or not

Happy National Day, world. Today is the 38th anniversary of the formation of the United Arab Emirates, and an occasion for great celebration and car-decorating.

The eyes of the sheikhs will guide the driver.

It's kind of remarkable. Consider what it would be like to take part in the Philadelphia festivities in 1816. There are plenty of people out there waving flags who lived on this island when it was just Abu Dhabi, not really a nation, not really a state, just a place with no roads and lots of oil.

The country has come a long way in a short amount of time. A lot of things have been done right--a focus on education, a liberalization of views toward women, building infrastructure, health care, social programs of all stripes. Some things have gone badly--I'm looking at you, Abu Dhabi street planners.

But one interesting facet of life here has become evident in my recent travels. Here in the UAE, we consume. People elsewhere, they manufacture. That, I suppose, is why the announcement of a massive airplane parts plant in Al Ain a few weeks ago was such a big deal.

This dichotomy has been made sharply evident lately. In Oman, there was a lot of stuff for sale that was Omani. Made in Oman. Used by Omanis. And so on. While doing some shopping for Christmas presents (have you been good this year, Friends of the Blog?) in Abu Dhabi, everything was made elsewhere. Even the shibriya, or traditional Arabic daggers, carried by the Bedouin for centuries, are made in Syria. Yes, even the antique ones.

But Damascus is good at steel, you say. OK, fair point. How does that explain all the Lebanese hookahs, then? The incense burners made in India?

So, on this Dec. 2, big ups to Sheikh Zayed for cobbling together a country from nothing. Tall glass buildings do not the soul of a nation make, however. Preserve the traditions. Sell them to tourists if you have to. But don't import Arabia when you ARE Arabia.

Candlestick maker optional

Following through on my threats to make pulled beef sandwiches, I set out to buy a casserole dish (for braising) and some beef (also for braising).

Casserole dish was a success. The local grocery store, the big one, not only sells all the foodstuffs a guy might want within a two-block radius of his home, but a whole galaxy of random other stuff. Rope. Flatware. Watches. T-shirts.

So that was fun. Then I headed to the butcher.

Look at the happy animals.

It was packed. There were people waiting for meat, butchers chopping the meat people were waiting for, and me, looking through the window for an easily identifiable brisket. Sadly, I was running low on time, so I sighed the deep sigh of a barbecue-deprived Kansas Citian and headed back to the grocery store... where I procured two pounds of frozen buffalo meat.

Worry not: the preparation of pulled buffalo sandwiches will be well-documented.

And finally, just so the post title makes sense, between my front door and the office is the bakery:

So modern it's hidden behind a wall of cars.

The great thing about all this, besides the imminent buffalo barbecue debacle, is that it establishes firmly that I live in a walkable neighborhood. Meat, bread, T-shirts: it's all there. Except, evidently, candles.

It is done.

The new stove is purchased. Some call it a cooker. I call it "now I can braise some beef."

Five burners of fury. Italian flag decal optional.

Guess when it will arrive? I'll give you one guess.

Some assembly required

It's a credo that applies not just to building furniture using funny little locking nuts and wooden pegs, but also a new life in a new country.

My bedroom has gone from being a room with a bed and a wardrobe to being a room with a bed and a wardrobe in different positions, to including--as it does now--a bedside table, a desk and two lamps. (and of course a power strip) There is more to come, too. Cooking implements, for instance, as I have promised my Australian roommate that I will introduce him to the joys of brisket and Gates.

1,899 dirhams of pure Italian cooking muscle.

I am narrowing down the field. The above is one option: it has five burners, which we don't need, but is only 200 dirhams more expensive than the 60-centimeter-wide four-burner model. And 60 centimeters, as I judged by trying out a few pots and pans on the cooking surface, is about the minimum amount of space an ambitious cook (or me) would need to do more than one thing at once.

The grocery store, by the way, is an amazing place. You can literally buy anything there, and not in a crappy Wal-Mart quality kind of way. Even shisha.

A fella could have a pretty fun night in Dallas with all this stuff.

Soon after taking that photo, though, a staffer swept by and told me photos were not allowed. Which is his right--it's their store and I was just a dude carrying a camera, a bottle of mouthwash and a fitted sheet that I hadn't yet paid for.

But shopping is big here. Huge. So is staying up late. So what you see is people out buying the hell out of stuff at, say, 11 p.m. That's when the shot below was taken, on a Sunday night. Note that there are so many people out that some men are just sitting on the grass, hanging out.

Not pictured: the hour and a half it took me to find an empty taxi.

Perhaps my favorite aspect of all the commerce is how cheap everything is. That's largely because the economy has to adjust to the low salaries of the bulk of the population--a taxi driver might clear Dh3,700 a month, which is $1,000. But that money goes a long way with everything but housing. And that is defrayed by rooming with six other people. "Bed space" is what the housing ads tout.

Anyway, the low prices are exemplified by this store, "Al Dirhams," which translates to "the dirhams." Unless it's someone's last name, in which case he is "Mr. Dirham."

Suck on that, Dollar Store.

And so I begin a new week with a somewhat furnished apartment, an easygoing roommate and steadily rising temperatures.

X-treme shopping!

Another day, another errand. I scored a bedside table and lamp today--as well as a many-times-over memoir called "Rags to Riches--A History of Abu Dhabi"--and spent a good amount of time wandering the grocery store.*

I have already been smacked down for taking pictures in the grocery store, and yeah, I know, there is only so much entertainment value in funny signs, but come on. Where I come from, this label would belong on a bottle of Mountain Dew:

In my culture, "z" signifies badassery and snowboarding exploits.

I walked away from the store with a decidedly non-EXTREME! haul of food, a tape measure and two outlet adapters. And there are more and better photos to come. But cut me some slack--I fought the Ikea fastener collection today and emerged victorious. Tonight I celebrate. Tomorrow I post.

*I made a Thai soup called tom kha. It was delicious, despite a lack of straw mushrooms.

The sound of frustration--now in stereo!

I'm not an audiophile by any standard, but I do enjoy listening to my music and hearing all the notes. The high ones, the medium ones, the ones that make your clothes vibrate. And when I listen to a movie, I do enjoy me some surround sound.

And so it was that yesterday I set out to procure a low-cost receiver and surround speaker system*. I thought I had it nailed: the thing played DVDs and CDs, had a (totally extraneous) USB port where you could plug in a thumb drive full of music and had a line-in RCA jack set in the back. This, combined with the low cost and recognizable brand name, Pioneer, led me to think I had done good.

I had not.

The offender. Convicted of crimes against my expectations.

Turns out that the line-in jacks don't produce surround sound. That means that the satellite TV box, no matter how much I swore at it and the reciever and the CEO of Pioneer, would only produce stereo noise. Left, right, period. So I packed it all back in the box, including all the tissue paper and plastic wrap, and took it back today.

Simple process, right? I had a reciept, I had the goods, I had purchased them almost exactly 24 hours earlier, case closed. But no. The following is a transcript of the return process.

ME
Hello, I'd like to return this for a refund. (handing receipt to Customer Service Lady)

Customer Service Lady sighs and hands receipt to co-worker. He sighs even more deeply and makes a phone call. A store employee arrives a few minutes later, eager to help... until he sees the boxes and the reciept.

STORE EMPLOYEE
Does not work?

ME
Well, it's not broken, but it doesn't do what I need it to.

SE
...

ME
The aux in jacks?

SE nods.

ME
... they don't allow surround sound. I plug in the TV, but it is stereo only.

SE
No, sir. We can help you make it surround.

(author's note: this is absolutely not true. The manual actually states as much, in really tiny print)

ME
No, surround sound doesn't work with auxilary jacks. The line-in RCA ports. Surround sound only with DVDs and CDs.

SE
No, sir, you use remote. Come, we will show you.

ME
The remote doesn't change anything. You can't do surround sound with the RCA ports.

SE
Employee will show you.

ME
No! Look (dig manual out of box), it says so right here.

SE reads the manual. Looks at box. Then says,

SE
Box is open. You cannot return.

ME
I have a reciept. Everything is inside. Please, check.

SE
But packing material is thrown away.

ME
No, it's in there too.

Now, the mental version of this conversation had me yelling. Maybe throwing heavy objects. But Real Gerry kept his cool, smiled, asked nicely, and eventually had gathered a crowd of several managers.

SE (to manager)
Box is open.

MANAGER (to me)
The box is open, sir.

ME
Everything is inside. Everything. Paper, plastic, everything.

MANAGER 2
It is broken?

ME
No. No. Please. Look, I just....

MANAGER
You wish to buy something else?

ME
Yes! I wish to buy something else. A different stereo.

And that's when the light bulbs came on. I imagine them being accompanied by the sound of a cash register. And five minutes later, I had store credit.

There were a few more shenanigans--I had to do some thorough in-store testing to make sure I didn't fall into the same pit of uselessness I did the first time, and then it took them 45 minutes to box up the stereo I did buy--but eventually I arrived back at the apartment with a big box and another receipt.

Tonight: The new stereo and I do battle. I'll let you know how it goes.

Oh, and the stove? I am totally going to NOT buy it at Lulu Hypermarket.

*replaces chunky $1,500 setup currently entertaining the Fiance, Puggle and Cat of the Blog in Chicago.