It came from Black Background: Matt Shobe's Blog

...and I didn't even have toast for breakfast.

If you trust this CBS: Today in History summary, February 10 is pretty much the cesspool of notable events. "Highlights" include:

• the 1981 fire at the Las Vegas Hilton that killed 198
• "Death of a Salesman" opened on Broadway in 1949
• the USSR exchanged captured U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers for a Soviet spy in 1962
• France gave up on Canada, ceding Quebec and points west to England in 1763

Is there a less distinguished day on the calendar? In the words of Glenn Reynolds, Read the whole thing. The best thing 2/10 has going for it is that I share the birthday with Mark Spitz. A fellow Aquarian with whom to truly drown my sorrows, 50 meters at a time. I haven't really warmed much to George Stephanopolous.

So, it's with some hope of starting the next 35 years with a fresh outlook that I planned a trip to Hong Kong, starting tomorrow. A good friend of mine from grad student days at the UW lives and works there now, and you never know how many chances you're going to get to take advantage of familiar hospitality in otherwise exotic locations. That and enough miles to upgrade to United business class both ways is enough to get Matt on a plane, apparently.

I plan to moblog aplenty from my perch at Flickr; regular Black Background feed subscribers will of course get my photos spliced in automatically by FoodBurner. It's pretty cool to blog your travels for an audience, but you also need to keep in mind you're also blogging for your own memories' safekeeping as well. I plan to write a little bit about my view of Hong Kong -- starting as I am without as much as two Cantonese catchphrases to rub together and working up from there.

See you soon from GMT +8!