I’m done here. I’m tired of messing around with WordPress plugins and themes, I’m tired of fighting off cyberattacks, and I can’t justify what it costs me to run the site here as anything more than a silly ego trip. My current hosting plan expires on August 7th. I’ll probably extend that by a month because I keep forgetting to spend some time figuring out how to properly download and archive everything here before I let this fade away into oblivion. Nothing is ever really gone on the internet and this stuff will still be up there on the WayBack Machine and maybe other similar sites. This doesn ..read more

Hey kids. I’ve been meaning to get off of WordPress for the longest time. Since I haven’t had time to properly promote or otherwise monetize this site, I can no longer justify the cost of running it here. It also costs me too much in terms of time – keeping the technical aspects of the site updated and  fending off constant cyberattacks. There’s not that much going on in my life these days that I think is worth writing about. And let’s face it, “Spike In Manila” isn’t the most intuitive domain name for what little I am posting online. So I’ve started a Substack page which I’m calling Spik ..read more

If I told this story before, it was a long time ago. This may or may not be the first of 2 or more parts. It came to mind tonight because I used to travel a lot, and it seems that I’m getting back into that mode again. At heart I’m either naive or ignorant or some combination of the two. Back when I was younger and watched a TV commercial that was set in some exotic locale, I figured that it was a special effect, that they would never spend the money to actually go to wherever it was. That was until the late 70’s when I worked for one of the top director/cameramen in the TV commercial industry ..read more

It’s 1 AM, I took a long nap earlier so I’m not sleepy now, wanted to do something to keep busy and here it is – quick reviews of the last 6 films I watched. Fast X, Blackberry, Daliland, Master Gardener, Beau Is Afraid, Linoleum. Spoiler alert: I loved 3 of these, liked 2, and barely tolerated 1. Read on ….. Fast X I seem to recall that one time I liked this series. As it graduated from nonsense about people who liked to race their souped up cars to these same people becoming global crime fighters who could stop super baddies as long as they could do it in their cars. Now this has collapsed ..read more

When I returned to the United States last year to take up a new job, I had the luxury of being able to choose to live wherever I wanted and I chose Austin. One reason was the food scene. Austin’s international food scene is not as well developed as other places I have lived. Despite being the tenth largest city in the U.S., many cuisines are represented by just a single restaurant or food truck, especially Asian. On the other hand, Mexican and Tex-Mex are everywhere and there are so many fabulous choices for every budget. And then there’s Texas barbecue, which is just amazing. Those of you who ..read more

I haven’t posted in two months and that’s because I don’t really know what to write about these days. It’s not like I’m busy doing anything fun – it’s mostly just sleep, work, eat, watch TV, repeat. My average weekend consists of me going out for a couple of meals, picking up a few things at the supermarket, maybe going to a movie, watching TV, listening to music, unwinding from the week. I suppose I could post about some of the meals I’ve eaten lately (I post those pretty regularly to Facebook and once in a blue moon to Instagram) but since I appear to have zero readers in the Austin area I’m ..read more

Just wanted to let people know that after literally years of procrastinating, I’ve killed off SpikesPhotos.com and the URL redirects to here. I put up some of the galleries here but they’re not getting a lot of page views so it will probably remain as is for the time being. The post SpikesPhotos.com Quick Note appeared first on Spike in Austin ..read more

I’m writing this because this kind of post often gets me responses sooner (and better) than I seem to get from Apple’s own support forum or Reddit. Maybe I can get lucky again this time. To start off, here’s what I have: MacBook Pro M1 Pro iPhone 13 Pro Max 2 HomePod Minis – set up as stereo pair 2 HomePod 2’s (the new ones) – set up as stereo pair Apple TV 4K (Everything is always updated to the latest OS versions.) HomePod Minis – When I would stream music from my iPhone, fine. Then I would switch to my MBP, fine. Then I would switch back to my iPhone. The right HPM says, “I’m having troub ..read more

In order to justify the borderline insanity of What I Did Last Night, let me first review the extent of my Bruce Springsteen fanaticism. The first time I saw Springsteen live was January 1974, at Joe’s Place in Cambridge, Mass. The month before, the NY Times ran a review of his first two albums. I bought them both on the basis of that review and really liked them. Then I saw him live in this small club – did it hold 100 people? 200? – and was converted from fan to fanatic. The second time I saw Springsteen live was at the Harvard Square Theater, May 9, 1974, opening for Bonnie Raitt, the late ..read more

A little bit of this and a little bit of that, I’ll try not to put you to sleep but no guarantees, eh? In retrospect, leaving Hong Kong in December was somewhat more emotional than when I left in July. The reason is simple. When I left in July, I mistakenly thought that my wife would be able to join be in Austin by the end of the year. When I left in December, I wasn’t sure how long it would be until we’d be together again. We’re both not happy about it. I like Austin. I love my apartment – but it’s bigger than needed for just one person. So many things about it are right. The large rooms. The ..read more