Yin and Yang Part 1 - Tango and Judo

Tango

So I've never thought in abelian years that I'd take a Tango class. And yet, I did. It was described to me as "walking" and I thought to myself, I'm pro at walking! I've been walking all my life. You may consider me a walking prodigy since I started walking well before the age of five. But yeah, I have like no rhythm, so I've always balked at the idea of taking any type of dance class.

The class was interesting I'd say. Apparently I jumped in a few classes late so it was a little intense for a noob like me. Intense for walking that is. Although the steps are fairly simple, there are a lot of nuances and subtleties to Tango that must be mastered for one to become a Tango machine. The guy is supposed to all the leading, but he always has to suggest it. Too much force and he'll knock the girl off axis, but too little force and the girl won't know where to go. On the flip side, the girl must be able to read the guy and respond properly to the guy's movements. The guy must invite the girl to step to the right or to rotate left for example. A small movement of the torso should be enough for the girl to know that the guy is inviting her to take a step to the right, as if he's asking her to "please step this way." It doesn't take a lot of room to Tango either. It requires just a small circle such that a guy can orbit around the girl's axis when he spins her. There are actually only a few steps to learn in Tango. Most of the difficulty is knowing how much to move and the little flourishes you can add to show off your pro status. Understanding the music and learning how to move with it is also difficult.

Since this was the first class I took, I bet all the ladies I danced with were like, WTH who is this noob with two left feet. Of course, then they find out that it was my first class and then were like, "Oh you're doing great!" Sure. But because both genders have completely different steps to learn and the class was for beginners, we weren't really able to help each other out, since we had no idea what the other person was supposed to do exactly.

So after two hours of this I was kind of tired of all this subtlety and having to patiently wait for my partner to except my invitation of smooth dancing. I was ready to pummel people onto the cold uninviting mats of my Judo dojo. So finally after two years, I suited up once again in my Judogi.

Judo

Every winter break there is a Judo camp at my local dojo where I've practiced at since I was ten. It's four straight days of practice from 8am to 4pm. It is incredibly exhausting. By the end your neck is crying from gi burns and you don't even care that Santa didn't get you the jet pack you've always wanted 'cause you're just too exhausted. This year I only showed up on the last day of camp. At lunch. Hehe. Okay fine, so I didn't really work out, but I did get a few throws in and took a few falls so that was nice. In the back of my mind I was actually wondering if I still remembered how to tie my belt. I can't get demoted for forgetting can I? A black belt who can't tie his own belt? Anyway it all came back to me. Muscle memory is pretty strong when you've done the same thing for like 10 years. My belt has my Chinese name sewn in gold on one end and my dojo's name sewn on the other end. It's pretty sweet.

It was nice being able to catch up with the people at Judo. It's always a shock to me at how much the kids have grown. Seeing kids that were in elementary school when I was there during high school and now seeing them in high school and going to college makes me realize how old I've gotten. And because I only visit the dojo every once in a while, I only recognized a handful of kids at the team tournament this year. At the end of every winter camp we hold a team tournament. The tournament consists of four teams of ten or so people, depending on how many kids show up for camp. The members on a team are ordered by strength and the corresponding members of each team face off one match at a time. Wouldn't it be ridiculous if everyone could run out and fight at the same time like in a brawl? Anyway, whichever team has the most wins win. The two winning teams fight each other and the two losing teams fight each other and the unbeaten team is declared the winner.

I've given all this info, but most of you probably don't even know what Judo is - or only have a basic understanding of it. I won't get into too much detail but I'll try to provide some help. Judo, translated from Japanese, means "gentle way." Let me tell you, it's not that gentle - it's not fun being thrown. It's gentle in the sense that there are no strikes in the form of punches or kicks - Judo primarily consists of throws. The "Judo chop" does not exist, which is what makes the idea of it funny. Judokas, people who practice judo, wear heavy gis and most of the techniques makes use of grips at the collar and the sleeves to push and pull their opponent. Taekwondo on the other hand has much lighter uniforms. Other than Taekwondo, Judo is the only martial art that is also an Olympic sport.

In competition, fighting begins in the standing position but can lead to groundwork on the mat. The standard way to win is to throw your opponent from a standing position. A throw usually consists of fighting for your grip, off balancing your opponent, and leveraging them over a hip, a leg, or a foot to get them to fall onto his back. Alternatively you can pin the opponent. Unlike wrestling, where you need to get both your opponent's shoulders down for it to count as a pin, in Judo you only need to get one shoulder down, but you must hold it for 25 seconds for it to be a full point and count as a win. Other groundwork techniques are submission techniques - chokes and armbars. For chokes you usually apply pressure on the artery on the neck and the opponent can give up by tapping out or, pass out. For armbars you apply pressure on his joints. You must be 13 to perform chokes and 17 to perform armbars in competition.

So with that, I will leave you with a video:

Mixed Martial Arts

I'm by no means a big fan or expert of MMA, but I've watched enough of it to have become mostly desensitized to the knee-pounding and blood-gushing moments of the UFC. On Saturday night, I watched for the first time on pay-per-view, a UFC event that was being broadcasted live. There were a lot of big matchups (so I was told) including two title fights, which made the event particularly exciting. However, I was disappointed that I didn't get to see any wins by submission. Most matches ended in a TKO (Technical Knock Out), in which the ref will end the fight if a contestant is no longer intelligently defending (brutal blows to the head). I find submission techniques to be more interesting because they are the closest application of Judo in MMA. Sometimes throws are used for take downs (it'd be awesome to see an Uchimata thrown in there), but chokes and armbars that force an opponent to submit or "tap out," are probably the most relevant weapons from a Judo practitioner's perspective. I'm not so good at following the boxing/kickboxing elements of MMA, but when they do groundwork I can usually understand what is going on.

Despite how vicious the fights look, MMA is still a sport, and it's pretty well controlled. To protect the players, there are many restrictions to the types of moves that can be done. For example, no blows to the back of the head, no kneeing the head of a grounded opponent, and of course no strikes on the family jewels. The refs have a huge responsibility to enforce these rules and also call a match if one player is no longer defending intelligently. There can be a lot of blood and cringe-inducing strikes, but considering what MMA is, it's relatively safe.

Aside from the fights, one of the most amusing things about these contests is when the contestants pimp their sponsors' wares. After the match is over, the trainers will make sure they get their guy to put on a t-shirt that is emblazoned with logos and have them take a swig of some energy drink. cha-ching! Oh, and on a side note, the octagon girls are hot.

After watching three straight hours of MMA, I did get pretty bored though. It's helped me learn a lot more about the wonders and pageantry of MMA, but I doubt I'll follow it any more closely.

*Links to gifs c/o of gif-master Andrew.

Clint Eastwood

I love watching movies. I can watch movies of almost any genre as long as they're good. And for me, "good" usually means above 80% on Rotten Tomatoes or by Roger Ebert's recommendation. I'm much more lax on the RT rating for Superhero movies and certain comedies, but rarely will I watch a movie under 60-70%. That said, each year there are a few movies that really get my attention. So far this year, I'd say I was pretty obsessed with Iron Man, Indiana Jones KotCS, and Quantum of Solace.

There's always a bit of "gearing up" before the release of each movie. I read a lot of Iron Man comics leading up to the movie. Prior to the fourth Indiana Jones movie, I rewatched the original trilogy, changed my ringtone to the Indy theme, and decided to get a fedora. For Quantum, I almost changed my ringtone to the Bond theme and heavily considered carving a Bond pumpkin (did Megaman instead), but ended up just rewatching Casino Royale.

Now, my current obsession is with Gran Torino. I've never been a big Clint Eastwood fan, but I have seen a few of the movies he's directed: Absolute Power, Mystic River, and Million Dollar Baby. I have trouble watching old movies, which means I have never seen his Spaghetti Westerns or Dirty Harry movies. However, after watching the Gran Torino trailer, I decided I wanted to witness the badassery that is Clint Eastwood. To prepare, last week I watched a couple Dirty Harry movies (Dirty Harry and The Enforcer), as well as Unforgiven (which won Oscars for Best Picture and Director).

Gran Torino stars Clint as a Korean War veteran whose wife has just passed. I'm still going to refer to Clint's character as Clint, since I don't know off the top of my head what the character's name is. So Clint lives alone in his house, when a Hmong family moves in to his displeasure. He's supposedly racist or something, so he's all like "grrrr." The son of the Hmong family gets in to some shenanigans and tries to steal Clint's Gran Torino (like the movie title! coincidence?), but gets caught. Clint is like "grrrr, oh no you di'nt." Apparently some Asian gang is trying to recruit this kid and stealing Clint's car is part of the initiation process or something, but Clint is like "grrrr, get off my lawn" and is prepared to teach those hoodlums a lesson, in pain. So I guess the movie is part after school special, part old man Dirty Harry, 'cause you know Clint is going to kick some Asian pigu, while he teaches his neighbor about life and stuff. And Clint will just be "grr" instead of "grrrr" by the end of the movie 'cause he'll grow to appreciate his new neighbors and their oddball culture.

In conclusion, you should all go out and watch it. The movie has a still limited but wider release starting today! Other movies I hope to watch this holiday season are The Wrestler and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Ok well, Merry whatever holiday you celebrate!

Journeyman

I don't know why I've chosen to blog about this now. Maybe it's 'cause I got one of my friends hooked on the show the other day and I feel that validates my high regard for the show. Maybe it's for an excuse to link a YouTube video of its theme song, which I love. Maybe it's 'cause it's getting late and my brain has stopped functioning so I just feel like blabbing about whatever.

The show had a short 13 episode run on NBC last year. It had the slot after Heroes, but Journeyman always had low ratings, prompting it to be canceled early. Journeyman was such a wonderful show that it deeply saddened me when it ended, and yet Heroes still lives! There is no justice in this world. But, we should consider ourselves lucky that the writer's strike occurred last season, as it probably enabled the final episodes of Journeyman to be aired since the networks were running out of others things to show.

So what is Journeyman about? I guess at the surface it's about a San Franciscan named Dan Vasser who inexplicably and uncontrollably begins to jump to the past. He has no control over when and where he jumps to, but each time he visits the past he's there to learn or do something that will change the present for the better. It's not always obvious to him or the viewers what he's supposed to accomplish, but there is always a purpose. Something must be pulling his strings.

Ok, now you're probably wondering to yourself, "Ugh, a show about time traveling? There are going to be so many plot holes, and paradoxes, and contradictions!" Well, normally I'd agree with you (ie Heroes), and to some extent do, but it's not the time traveling aspect of the show that makes it so compelling. It's how this burden and duty affects Dan and his family life (wife and son). We become emotionally invested in his struggle to keep his family together, while he tries to perform a seemingly noble duty. He has little warning when he jumps to the past, and when he returns back to the present, the amount of time that has since elapsed varies, so that he becomes unreliable as a husband and father. I'm not saying there aren't plot holes or time traveling oopsies, but the rest of the show is so good that the little mistakes aren't enough to detract from the show.

For example, one episode Dan and his young son are at a flea market and suddenly Dan vanishes into the past. His son is lost in a sea of people. Dan can no longer risk taking his son out alone, such as to a football game, lest he vanishes again. In one episode, something he does in the past changes the gender of his kid. Dan retains all of his memories, but his wife and daughter have new ones. Can you imagine the pain if you know in your heart and mind that your child is a boy, yet your wife has only ever known her child to be a girl? What would it mean for Dan to "fix" the present? This little girl would cease to exist. How much we care as viewers is a testament to the acting. Kevin McKidd is awesome.

I know I kinda brushed off time traveling earlier, with the exception of how it creates a burden on Dan's life. There's actually a really nice sci-fi mystery element to the show. Remember, Dan doesn't control his time traveling, so something or someone is sending him to locations and times with a purpose. Dan is also not the only time traveler. He's aided by his ex-fiance Livia, who has been time traveling long before him. Btw, the name of the actress who plays Livia is Moon Bloodgood. What an awesome name. As the series progresses, the mystery of his time traveling begins to unfold. Unfortunately, we won't ever get to complete this journey. I can only take solace in that the final episode ended on such a wonderful moment and great note that it will forever be awesome in my memories.

I'm sure I've convinced you that Journeyman is worth watching. And you're in luck! All 13 episodes are on Hulu.

Now, for the theme music:


The mix of Chinese and Western instruments is really a cool touch.

Deep Dish Pizza

People at Berkeley rave about Zachary's Pizza. I've had it a couple times, and although my tummy was quite pleased, I didn't think it was rave-worthy. Tonight I actually went to Zachary's for dinner. Previously I had it when someone had ordered it to go and brought it back. So tonight I thought, okay, now I will get the true experience. The pizza will have been freshly made and placed before me while still piping hot. So I ate and ate and well, it didn't really change my opinion. I really felt like all I was eating was tomato sauce. I don't think it matters what toppings you order; the sauce will just overpower everything. You're really just paying for the texture of the toppings, so if you're gonna pay for toppings you might as well pick healthy ones. I also found the tomato sauce to be a little too acidic for my taste.

Now, let me tell you about Pizza Chicago. Whenever someone tells me how great Zachary's is, I reply, "Yeah it's okay... but Pizza Chicago is waaaaaaaay better. What? You've never heard of Pizza Chicago? Pshh. You don't know anything then. You're just a big deep dish lovin' poser." Unlike Zachary's, the pizza from Pizza Chicago actually resembles pizza. You know, the cheese and toppings are on the outside. And when you order different pizzas, they actually taste different! I know right? Different toppings actually excite different taste buds!!! Holy cow! Okay okay, now you're asking, where can I find this Pizza Chicago? Well, there are only THREE locations in the ENTIRE WORLD. And if you're lucky enough you may live close enough to travel to one. They're located in Palo Alto, San Jose, and Santa Clara. Yeah yeah, Pizza Chicago is not actually located in Chicago. For all I know it's not even representative of Chicago styled pizza. But I don't care. It's hella good. My favorite is Black Hawk (named after Chicago's NHL team). Order it.

Some tips:
-You can get a pizza that's half one special and half another, so it's easy to satisfy multiple people and get variety.
-Every Monday night you get a 25% discount on your entire meal (at the Santa Clara location anyway).
-Sweetness is super delicious. It's a giant chocolate chip cookie with Haagen Daz ice cream on top. Yeah, if you're from Taiwan, you know you love your Haagen Daz. (The Sweetness is pretty much the same thing as a pazookie from BJ's.)

No discussion on Bay Area deep dish pizza would be complete without a mention of BJ's. I don't much care for their pizza. I find it rather salty.

Oh, I don't much like UNO's either. Although I base that on my memories as a kid, and who knows what young me was thinking.

RickRoll'd

I got rickrolled today. And I didn't mind it one bit. In fact, I looped the song a few more times.

...

NEVER GONNA GIVE YOU UP
NEVER GONNA LET YOU DOWN
NEVER GONNA RUN AROUND AND DESERT YOU
NEVER GONNA MAKE YOU CRY
NEVER GONNA SAY GOODBYE
NEVER GONNA TELL A LIE AND HURT YOU

ooooooooooo give you up
ooooooooooo give you up
oooooooooooo
never gonna give never gonna give
give you up
oooooooooooo
never gonna give never gonna give
give you up

The Honk

Yesterday, some dude cut into my lane in the middle of a left turn. It was a two-lane left turn and I was on the outer left lane, but while I was making my turn, the guy in the inner left lane cut right in front of me while in the intersection. Luckily, due to my catlike reflexes and NASCAR driving deftness, I was able to brake just enough for the fool to squeeze through.

But I didn't honk.

If my mom was in the passenger seat, she would've reached over to honk the horn of my car at such a transgression (she gets mad). My dad would probably not have even noticed being half asleep. But when it's just me driving, I rarely use the horn. I'm too busy making sure I don't crash to give in to the knee jerk reaction of honking. And by the time the douchebag passes, it seems pointless to honk. So I let it go, 'cause I'm so forgiving. There's a window when a honk makes sense, but once that window passes, it just seems petty. The guy does need to a lesson though, a lesson in pain. I should've followed him to his destination and do a flying windmill to his face. That would make him a better driver.

'Tis the Season

I thought I'd get a little into the festive spirit by buying a tree!

Haha, I thought the instructions were pretty funny:

Step One
Take your new loveable tree and its additional components out of the box.

...

Step Four
Add the red ornament to the longest branch using the ornament hook that is included. This will cause the tree limb to sag, which is okay, because the branch is just heavy from the weight of your love.

I'm gonna be able to fit so many presents to myself under this wonderful tree.

Holy Moly! Fables on ABC

WOW. Awesome news.

Except for the potential that this series may SUCK and make me cry tears of sadness.

Su Pa Foh Be

Haha, I saw some girl wearing a hoodie that said "su pa foh be" on the back at a Chinese restaurant. I laughed on the inside (LIL'd?) as to not to draw attention to myself, for I am a ninja who sneaks sneakily in the night.

Just Because...

I like this video so much and in honor of YouTube going widescreen:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlfKdbWwruY

Gangsta Babies

HAHAHHAHAHA. Awesome. I should get my sister one of these.

Smores

After Halloween, I bought a bag of candy on sale. The bag was comprised of a mix of Kit Kats, Almond Joys, Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, and Hershey's Milk Chocolate. The contents of the bag is slowly disappearing... into my belly. Now it's mostly just Hershey's Milk Chocolate bars left, which is a problem. I don't normally eat chocolate for the sake of eating chocolate, and I don't particularly care for plain Hershey's. It's too brittle and not very good. See's on the other hand is delicious. Mmm, the Toffee See's bars we sold in high school for speech and debate were full of yum. Anyway, so now I have a bunch of Hershey's Milk Chocolate that I didn't know what to do with, until genius struck me. I've bought graham crackers and marshmallows and I'm prepared to make smores every day in the comfort of my own home, where I can poop in a porcelain bowl rather than in the woods. I can use my gas stove to toast the marshmallows and I'll microwave the chocolate. I just have to make sure I don't burn the place down.

Life in the Fast Lane

So my uncle has been visiting the Bay Area from Taiwan for a few months. Anyone who's been to Taiwan, or most any Asian countries for that matter, knows that it requires a great amount of skill to drive and maneuver through the roads, where traffic signs are more suggestions than hard rules. Having sat in my uncle's car, I know my uncle is very good at this. However, while in California, he won't drive on the freeway. I thought that was interesting. Most Californians are used to driving at high speeds on the freeway, with our wide lanes and long commutes. I would say it's much much easier than navigating through narrow streets and avoiding hitting cyclists in Taiwan. But perhaps it is a little daunting to have others zipping by you at 80+ mph when you're used to driving in congested city streets. If the situations were reversed, I would be pretty terrified to drive in Taiwan, but I could probably rack up a lot of points GTA style. And that's pretty much all I have to say on the matter.

Be Professionally Good Looking

Today I just discovered that someone I knew from grad school is trying to become a male model. Isn't that crazy? An Ivy League alum, who at one point was a PhD candidate in computer science and is now working at a tech company is dropping all of that crap to live the good life as a male model. Seriously, that blew my mind. Hopefully he doesn't die in a freak gasoline fight accident. J-dawg, if you're reading this and make it big, introduce me to your model friends. Female models.

Flexible Displays

Consumer products need to integrate this now! Flexible displays that are thin, lightweight, and can be rolled up. Can you imagine how great the possibilities are? I can. And it's pretty great. I want a jacket with a flexible display on its sleeve by the end of the year, so I can watch TV wherever I want... and lots of it.

So bendy:

Eff You Jason Mraz

For having an afternoon concert thus making me park nine blocks away from my apartment.

Golden State Warriors

Oh, basketball, how I've missed you so. You fill a hole in my heart.

Megaman Pumpkin Carving

Another year, another Halloween. Aside from being able to purchase cheap candy at stores, pumpkin carving is my favorite part of Halloween... since last year anyway. This is only the second time I've carved a pumpkin. I guess traditionally you might carve a scary pumpking or something, but I like to opt for some random pop culture thing that has my attention recently. And since I played Megaman 9 not too long ago, I carved a Megaman pumpkin in all his 8-bit glory. I'm not obsessed with Megaman, honest!

Thanks to Annie for hosting the event.

In case you're wondering, I carved an Indiana Jones pumpkin last year:

Bit Art

I'm sooo gonna do this. It'll either be Mega Man or Link from Zelda. Hmm, where could I buy perfectly cut colored paper squares? Post-its are a possibility if they have the suitable colors.

Wendy's

I love Wendy's. It's possibly my favorite fast food chain. What amazes me is that they still have their 99 cent menu with their Jr. Bacon Cheeseburger and 5 Piece Chicken Nuggets. Like today, I got two Jr. Bacon Cheeseburgers and two orders of chicken nuggets, all for $4.31. I didn't have an easy time finding this Wendy's, and it was slightly out of the way, but it was worth it. I also think Wendy's has the best chicken sandwiches of the major fast food chains.

Back in high school, we had an open campus for lunch. It was pretty awesome, 'cause we had one of almost every fast food chain within a 10 minute drive radius. Wendy's was one of the places we would frequent during lunch. I even had this 10% off coupon that had unlimited uses and never expired, which was handed down to me from my sister, which in turn I handed down to my brother. I'm sure it was horrible for us to eat fast food all the time, but it sure beat eating cafeteria food :). In college, we would also make runs to Wendy's 'cause it was cheap and opened late at night. And of course, 'cause it was delicious. So Wendy's and I go way back. I like to think that after all these years we can call each other "friend."

Kevin

You are my friend.

Alvin

You are my friend.

To Draw Again

It's been a while since I've drawn anything other than random doodles along the margins of my notebook. I've missed how relaxing it can be. Anyway this was done at the request of Eric. I drew it in pencil and ink and touched it up in Photoshop.

Add Keyword

There's this cool feature in Firefox I never knew about until someone pointed it out at work. You can add a keyword for different search engines, so that you can type the keyword in the address bar as well as the search term and it will search the site. For example, I have "yt" set for YouTube. If I go to the address bar (Ctrl-L shortcut) and type "yt street fighter" it will search "street fighter" in YouTube! It's more efficient than using the search bar on the upper right of Firefox, since you can easily choose the search engine provided that you remember the keyword. To add the keyword, right-click the search bar in whatever site, and choose "Add a Keyword for this Search...." Easy peasy.

TV

I have a TV in my room now. It is wonderful.

I'm not sure how counterproductive it is. Usually I just sit in the living room to watch TV where I cannot effectively multitask. Now I can still sit at my desk with the TV on in the background, which I can easily choose to ignore, without the inconvenience of wandering between rooms.

Traffic Lights

On my way to work I hit 13 red lights of 22 traffic lights. It was so frustrating. Four of the green lights came at the end of the commute (where they are usually always green), so at one point I was at 13 of 18. I made it through a couple other green lights only because I coasted between lights such that the next light would turn green just before I completely had to stop. TWENTY-TWO traffic lights turns a four mile drive into a 20+ minute drive!

Synecdoche, NY

Shattuck Cinemas held a sneak peek of Synecdoche, NY, along with a Q&A with writer/director Charlie Kaufman. In case you don't remember, Kaufman wrote the screenplays for Being John Malkovich, Adaptation, and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Btw, if you're like me and have no idea what synecdoche means, here's the wiki entry for it.

The movie is really interesting. I had certainly enjoyed it and it held my attention, but I'm still not sure to what degree I like the film. Like all of Kaufman's movies, this one is quite weird and has a lot of dreamlike elements permeating throughout. The movie is good in the sense that I'm still thinking about it and what all the pieces of the movie mean. However, it does meander a bit in the middle, which makes the approximately two hour running time seem really really long. I don't really know how to describe the movie or the plot. It's largely about death, but also everything else. The movie focuses on the life of Caden, a theater director, from ages 40-80 and his struggles with his personal life and the development of his magnum opus he's putting together.

Charlie Kaufman seems like a pretty shy guy, possibly a bit of a recluse. In any case, he seemed nervous when giving a brief introduction to the film, but the Q&A afterwards was good. Kaufman declined to answer questions about the significance behind certain scenes or elements, because he doesn't want his motivations to be the end of the discussion. His movies are in some sense a conversation with the audience. He writes what he is interested in and presents it in the hopes that we may, for at least that brief moment, be interested in it as well. Our side of the conversation is how we interpret what he puts on screen or if we find our own significance in the movie if any. I asked him how he came up with the title. It was just one of the title ideas he came up with while writing the screenplay that he liked.

I didn't really identify at all with the characters. I don't think I've reached that age yet, so I didn't speak in that way to me. I'm going to do a little bit of interpretation of the ending of the movie so if you'd like to bail out now then do so. If not, then keep reading, although I don't know if what I write will make any sense if you haven't watched it yet. But just in case....

*SPOILERS*
(highlight to read)

Inadvertently or not, Kaufman dropped the hint that the movie is also about aging and how the elderly are pushed aside and forgotten. For the most part, the film is really focused on Kaden and his medical and relationship troubles. It gets really weird by the end, and we find an 80 year old Kaden living inside a closet with some woman speaking to him through an ear piece telling him what to do. The movie is about Kaden and yet it isn't. He's been pushed to the periphery to be forgotten, hidden inside a closet. He is told what to do by some voice. Like the elderly, he is a slave to another person's words, until he is told to "die." Kind of depressing really. There are a lot of existentialist undertones to the movie and repeated comments as to how insignificant we all are. I don't remember the exact phrasing of the sentence, but the gist is something like this: we are all extras in other people's lives. We are all the primary subject of our own biopic, but we are also the faceless extras that pass through the lives of others, like extras on a set. I remember reading a bumper sticker that said something like that, but I don't recall the exact wording. Anyway, like it or not, the movie makes you think... partly because it's just so weird and head scratching inducing.

Dragonball

Not gonna lie... I want to watch this hahahaha. Call it morbid curiosity or nostalgia or whatever, but even though a live action Dragonball movie is a ridiculous idea, I'm intrigued by how it will turn out.

And Emma Rossum's a cutie, even with the bangs.

Burn Notice

Michael Westen is my hero.

I'm so addicted to Burn Notice. It is a great show. It's fairly light entertainment, but it's done well. The plot is as follows: Michael Westen is a CIA agent that was burned, meaning he was cut off by the CIA. All his assets have been frozen, his job history erased, and he is stuck in Miami. The overall story arc is Michael is trying to figure out who burned him and why. Each episode he uncovers tidbits about the mystery, but otherwise the episodes are fairly episodic. He uses his spy skillz to help people who need it - those who are in danger of being killed, kidnapped, or forced to commit crimes. He's like a modern day MacGuyver with a heart of gold, 'cause he often doesn't charge for his services. He tries to diffuse the situations without resorting to guns a-blazing by being resourceful. I don't recall him ever directly killing someone either. When he does have to use hand to hand combat, they're choreographed quite well, such that you actually believe that someone could disarm or win such a fight without being made of steel. Punches are rarely thrown as he usually uses joint locks and take downs to subdue attackers.

One of the best parts of the shows is he often provides voiceovers to explain what he's doing and why or how to handle oneself in certain situations. He explains what different weapons are good for, how to fabricate snooping devices and weapons, what to do in a fight or car chase, where good places are to hide valuables, and how to sell your character when conning someone. It's certainly not enough information to do it yourself, but you get the overall idea. I don't know how accurate the things he says are, but it's pretty interesting.

Beyond the case of the week, we get to see his interactions with friends and family, which adds a minor bit of drama to the story and humanizes the character. It's enough to add another depth to the show, but without ever becoming a distraction. Oh, and Bruce Campbell is on the show. And for some reason Michael really likes yogurt. It's probably an eccentricity to highlight the fact that he's not an invincible machine. But he always wins. Like me.

Mega Man 9

I just downloaded Mega Man 9 this weekend through WiiWare. It was easy enough to purchase some points online and then redeem them for the game (1000 points for $10). After you download it, the game shows up as a channel on the Wii. Mega Man 8 came out in 1996, so they've resumed the numbered Mega Man games over ten years later. Just to be clear, Mega Man 9 is a NEW game, except they went retro and did the game in the old school 8-bit style.
Although it was painless to buy the game, playing the game is not. It's a big exercise in frustration, but yet I cannot stop playing. It comes down to running through the level over and over again until you memorize everything and then fighting the boss over and over again until you memorize all of the boss's moves so that you can exploit his weaknesses.
The game is only available for download, but you can actual buy the fake box the game might've come in in some alternate universe! It's even done in the old NES style and comes with a fake NES cartridge. I think it's quite a neat idea.

Alohana Grill

One of my favorite places to eat in Berkeley is Alohana Grill. Ranks near the top. My criteria for favorite places to eat are reasonable prices for a reasonable amount of good food. If I can get something under eight bucks that tastes great and can give me food coma, then that is a great meal. It's not about having a good expensive meal at some fancy pants restaurant every once in a while. It's about whether I can go back there over and over again. When I'm hungry and wonder to myself, "Where can I get something great to eat for cheap," I'd be right to choose C) Alohana Grill.

I wish Alohana Grill was up in the North Ghetto so that I could eat it many times a week. Unfortunately it's all the way west on Shattuck so I only get it when I make my comic runs on Wednesdays. The rice bowls that they have are only five bucks. It's a ridiculously good deal. The BBQ Chicken and Curry Chicken Katsu are fantastic. The meat is so tender. Four hours later and I'm still full from the lunch I had there today. Man, I just looked at the Yelp reviews. Those whiners don't know what they're talking about.

Back

Phew! Been insanely busy the last couple weeks, but I should be back to form shortly. In case you're wondering, things have been going well - just glad to have a chance to relax now.

Quantum of Solace

Trailer:
http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1809961074/video/9655524

Looks fantastic.

People were complaining about the title when it was first announced, but I actually really like the title. It sounds poetic and it makes a lot of sense when you consider that this takes place directly after the events of Casino Royale. Also, the title allows you to do this again:

Quantum
   0f
   S0lace
      7

Ghostbusters 3

Suhweeeeeet!!!!  Awesooooooooome.  W00000t!!  Before they were making no headway in making a third movie, because Bill Murray wasn't interested (I think), but now it seems like he's opened up to being involved in some capacity!

Now, if you don't know already, Ghostbusters is one of my favorite movies, so I hope a third movie doesn't tarnish the original.  But since Ghostbusters 2 was already a terrible movie, I think we can only go up from there.

Telephone Pictionary

I played Telephone Pictionary for the first time yesterday. What a great and hilarious game. The rules are as follows: one person writes down a phrase or a sentence on a sheet of paper. This paper is passed to the next person who must draw a picture depicting the sentence. Then this is passed to a third person who must decipher the picture and try to guess the original phrase or sentence. This alternation continues until the stack of paper makes its way all the way back to the person who first wrote the sentence. The more people you have playing, the greater the chances that the original sentence will turn into something completely unrelated or absurd. The sentence may evolve many many times as well.

Since you don't want to wait forever for your turn, when you actually play, everyone starts with a stack of a paper. There should be the same number of sheets of paper as there are people playing in every stack. This way everyone can write down an initial sentence. Then you rotate the stacks by passing the stack to your left (or right). So when you receive the stack from your right you can read the sentence, place that sheet at the bottom of the stack and draw the clue. So after a complete rotation everyone should have their original stack completed and can see the progression and at what point the chain breaks down.

So for example, one person started with "bouncing balls," which for a few iterations were drawings of a ball taking a few bounces. At some point someone decided to be difficult and wrote "what goes up must come down." This eventually led to "erectile dysfunction" and slowly became even more perverted. One started off with "hottest vp, coolest state." The gist of the sentence survived quite a few iterations, until someone wrote "vpilf," which somehow turned into "romantic dinner" and then became about "falling in love." The best ones are the ones where the initial clue is simple but becomes completely absurd. One started with "tragic clown" and became "I hear you knocking, but I won't answer" halfway through. However, my initial sentence was "it's so damn hot, milk was a bad choice." This was too complicated and doomed to failure at the get go. It quickly became "a melting snowman reaches for the bottle, but a sheep stops him," and by the end became "dirt in a flower pot," which wasn't quite as amusing. We played with 17 people, so you can imagine how unlikely the original sentence was going to remain intact. But one did actually survive: "bungie jumping off the golden gate bridge." At least the bungie jumping part did.

I played this at Albatross which was interesting in it of itself. It's a pub where they have board games you can play while you drink, but ironically the best thing about Telephone Pictionary is that all you need is pen and paper. Albatross also has quite a few dart boards lined up like a shooting range, which I must master. And there is popcorn. It was certainly quite interesting and a bit difficult to draw while buzzed.

Music and Lyrics

I don't listen to lyrics.

I prefer it that way, because I don't like it when the lyrics pull me out of the sound of the music. More often than not, the lyrics to a song are dumb so if I start paying attention to what they're saying, it can ruin the song. I have to look up lyrics, 'cause remember, I don't pay attention to the lyrics while the song is playing. A byproduct of this is that I don't sing, well, because I don't know the lyrics. Instead I'll hum. One song I heard a few months back that I like is Shattered by O.A.R. I'm reading all these comments on YouTube about how they're sellouts and that they no longer sound the same as when they were more "indie." Whatever, I like the song. The line "I always turn the car around" bugs me though. It's a line I can pick up just by listening to it, but I have no idea what the context is.

I'm not snooty about music, and by not snooty I mean I don't listen to classical music, classic rock, anything prefixed with "classic," or hit the indie scene. I do enjoy instrumental music like stuff from movie and video game soundtracks, such as Gladiator, Crouching Tiger, LOTR, Mario Galaxy, Conan: The Barbarian (it's good, trust me), and Zelda. Some pull me back into the movie and some just sound nice. The songs I listen to are pretty mainstream: whatever's on the radio, or in a movie trailer, or someone's status/buddy info. I don't subscribe to any particular genre although there are some I like more than others. I can totally enjoy pop/"girly" music if it's catchy. Remember, I don't listen to the lyrics so I can still enjoy the fluff. I can enjoy the super hyper jpop found in anime as well as cpop and kpop. Again, I have absolutely no idea what they're singing about, same as American songs.

I can listen to a song over 10 times and still not know any of the lyrics. I can listen to a song 10 times in a row. Whatever catches my fancy I will loop the poop out of it. Some survive the looping and I can still enjoy such as Bleeding Love, which I still listen to now a year later. I used to love Collide by Howie Day but it's gotten stale from overlooping.

I always hate being asked, what kind of music do you listen to? If you've asked me this before, don't worry, I don't hate you, just the question, otherwise I would hate a lot of people. The reason is pretty much because I don't have an answer to this question. What kind of answer is even expected? Am i supposed to list genres? "I like pop, rock, instrumental." Or bands? "I like *******." What is the goal of the question? I suppose it's some sort of an icebreaker, like talking about the weather. Is there a hope that we can geek out about a particular band? Maybe. Or is it an opening to talk about all the indie bands you've heard of and I haven't. Maybe.

Even if you recommend a band, I will never seek it out to listen to it. You could be foaming at the mouth, raving that listening to it is like listening to voice of God, Zeus, Buddha, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, or whatever and I still won't look it up. Ok, maybe if you were foaming at the mouth I would, just to see what kind of crazy music has turned you all rabid. If you send me a YouTube link, then I will. This opinion is largely personal, since I don't follow the music scene. If you were to replace "music" with "comic book" then I'd be perfectly happy to answer your question. If you ask me about movies, I will certainly be more engaged. The question is still a difficult one. What movies do I watch? I dunno... EVERYTHING?? Good ones??? Anything above 70% on Rotten Tomatoes? Okay, next time I'll just counter the music question by saying, "recommend me a band." And if you're lucky, I might just listen to it.

And if you have forgotten by now, remember, I don't listen to song lyrics.

Heat

The weather has been pretty hot up here in Berkeley. Must be way worse in South Bay. I don't do well in the heat and I do even worse in humidity. At least in California it's mostly just hot. When it's cold you can always wear more, but when it's hot, well there's a limit to how much you can take off. One thing I hate most about the heat is that when it's really hot at night I have trouble sleeping. For instance, the other day I slept on the couch with the door to the balcony open because it was just too darn warm in my room. And by warm it was probably only like 80-85 degrees. When I'm home in the South Bay, it's always much warmer on the second floor even with the window open, so sometimes in the middle of the night, I'll trek downstairs and sleep on the couch. Thankfully it seems to be getting cool again. Sorry for the boring post. Next time I'll talk about ninjas and dinosaurs.

Never in Abelian Years...

Today was the first day of class. For my degree I need eight units in an outside minor, so the plan right now is to do it in the Math department. I know right? Never in a billion years did I think I would take a graduate level math course as a computer science major. But wouldn't you know it, being a computer graphicist requires a decent math background, especially in linear algebra, so I'm taking the advanced matrix computation course. Flying Spaghetti Monster help me. Actually it doesn't seem like it will be too bad... yet.

The course met this morning, but afterward I decided to sit in on differential manifolds. A 2-manifold is a two-dimensional surface that can be embedded in three (or I suppose higher) dimensions, such that the local region around any point on the surface resembles a disk. A 1-manifold is a curve. This is of possible relevance because we often represent an object with its surface boundary in computer graphics, rather than as a volumetric solid.

During the introductory lecture for differential manifolds the professor mentioned that he's had engineers take the course and one even found the course to be so enlightening about what math can be/is, that he switched to the math department. The professor also mentioned that this was an introductory level graduate course. So I thought to myself ok, maybe I can learn something here. Keep in mind I don't have a strong math background. But as soon as he started doing some algebras and defining some vocabulary, like what a "ring" is, I knew I was out of my element. He said that (R, +) is an abelian group. I heard this and I was like what... "a billion groups"? Then he said, if you don't know what abelian means yet, then this course is not for you. And so I proceeded to doodle.

Bummer

James Jean will no longer be doing Fables covers after issue 81. Sad.
http://www.processrecess.com/index.php?uid=B47FAF

Batman Cosbaby

So adorable... cannot... resist. But must... resist. Life... depends on it. Well, not really. In fact, not at all. But still... must... resist.

The Aliens vs Predator ones look cool too. They all look good. Iron Man. Actually the movie ones look better than the Batman ones.

NBA on NBC

One of the best parts of watching USA basketball at the 2008 Beijing Olympics was being able to hear this on TV:


DOO DOO DOOOO DOO DOOO DOOOOOOO DOO DOOOOOOOOO DOO DOO DOOO DOOOOOO DOO DOOO DOOO DOOO DOODOO!!!
DOODOO DOOO DOOO DOO DOOOO DOODOODOO DOOODOOOO DOOODODODODOOODOO DOOOOOOOO!!

Day Man and Night Man

Day Man,
OOOAAAAAAAAUHHHHHHH
Fighter of the Night Man!
OOOAAAAAAAAUHHHHHHH
Champion of the sun
OOOAAAAAAAAAUHHHHHH
You're a master of karate
and friendship for everyone!


This show is awesome.

Night Man

Barf

The weather was quite nice today so I made the trek down to south side for some lunch. A homeless? dude was lying on the bench next to my table outside within the Asian ghetto. As I was eating I kept hearing this splashing sound. Turns out the guy was barfing. Five times. So I left. Yay Berkeley.

Synesthesia

Have you ever asked yourself, what does the color "e" look like, or what does the word "blue" taste like? Me neither. But apparently for some people, that is a sensible question to ask due to synesthesia. Synesthesia is when the stimulation of one sensory perception triggers an involuntary reaction of another sense. This is also known as cross-sensory perception.

The most common (or maybe the most well-studied) form of this is Grapheme, which is the association of color with letters or numbers. Imagine reading text and it's like reading alphabet color magnets. The effect is typically triggered when the letters are recognized. If there is just words in their periphery, then they'll still perceive it as black and white letters, but as soon as they recognize individual letters, they'll perceive color. An upside-down "t" will look normal, but as soon as it's flipped right-side-up or it is recognized as an upside-down "t," then they'll perceive the associated color. Another grad student was telling me about a person who would omit letters or choose odd wording in her writing. This was due to not wanting to use certain letters because she perceived them as ugly colors. I guess that would suck if you perceived the letter "e" as puke green or something.

I wonder what the effect would be if someone with Grapheme could read Chinese. Do different Chinese characters have different colors, or do the components, or maybe there's no effect at all? Other forms of synesthesia include assiocating sounds or syllables with color, and words with taste. The brain is crazy. Let me know if you're a synesthete so I can put you under a microscope and study you.

Mini Reviews (French) - The City of Lost Children, The Dinner Game, Tell No One

The City of Lost Children
This was recommended to me as someone's favorite movie ever. Now, I don't know if this unrealistically raised my expectations, but I didn't like it that much. Visually it was quite rich and interesting, much like a Del Toro movie, and perhaps even more fanciful. The problem I had with the movie was I didn't really empathize with any of the characters and there wasn't really a strong story to anchor around. The basic plot is there's a mad scientist who cannot dream, so he kidnaps children to steal their dreams. Unfortunately, the kids are all terrified and have only nightmares, which the mad scientist cannot use. One of the children who gets kidnapped is the adopted little brother of a circus freak named "One," who is played by Ron Perlman, who played Hellboy in Del Toro's movies. And One, with the help of this adorable pick-pocketing street urchin, aim to save the kid. There are a lot of weird characters, a lot of supposed deaths, but I didn't find the story to be that compelling. I was pretty bored. Another thing I found sorely lacking was the music - literally the lack of music.


The Dinner Game
A coworker of mine recommended this as a real great comedy. It was certainly funny at times, but overall it felt kind of sitcomish with a dash of Ben Stiller painful humor (think all the crap and misfortune he goes through in Meet the Parents). The premise is every week a group of guys have this dinner game of idiots. Each person is supposed to bring an idiot to the party and they get them to talk about themselves and just be nice to them. Afterwards, they pick the one they find most idiotic and invite him back to spend a night to ridicule him. That's somewhat of a setup - we never actually get to see a dinner game. The main character invites this guy who builds models out of matchsticks thinking he's the king of idiots. Unfortunately the main character injures his back and cannot make the dinner, all the while his wife threatens to run out on him. He's stick with the "idiot" who he enlists to help save his marriage. Well, hilarity ensues, if you enjoy watching the guy fall into misfortune after misfortune, because the idiot really is an idiot. I laughed out loud a few times, but mostly I just kept groaning at the stupidity of the characters. It had somewhat of a sitcom feel, partly due to the entire movie almost takes place in just the apartment. I could imagine the laugh track going off at each setback for the main character. Even the ending felt like the end of an episode of an old sitcom, where the last frame would freeze while the cheery theme music would play.


Tell No One
I'll leave off on a good note. I enjoyed this one a lot. It's a very good French thriller, with a protagonist named Alex who looks a lot like a younger Dustin Hoffman. The setup is that Alex and his wife Margot go skinny dipping in a lake. As Margot leaves the dock after a quarrel, she lets out a scream. Alex tries to swim to shore, but before he can make it out of the water, he gets knocked unconscious. Sadly, Margot has been killed. Or has she? Fast forward eight years and Alex receives a mysterious video in which Margot is seemingly still alive. Now, Alex must uncover the truth, well he doesn't have to, but he really really wants to. DUN DUN DUN. It was a good ride, where a lot of seemingly loose ends make its way back to fit nicely in the puzzle. I didn't quite feel the adrenaline rush as I did when I watched, say, Cellular, but the movie certainly kept me engaged. Beyond that I'm not going to say more about the plot because as with all good thrillers, it's better to not know anything more than you need to ahead of time. All you need to know is that I recommend it.

Pearl Milk Tea - Part II

At Berkeley, there are a lot of PMT choices, but most of them are crap. TapEx, Quickly, and Sweetheart all suck. I normally get it from Lotus House, but even theirs is not that great. It tastes a bit powdery. I did recently try the PMT from Mandarin House, located in the Asian Ghetto. The tea was probably the best of the ones I've had in Berkeley. It kinda reminded me of the homemade one I had all those years ago. The pearls unfortunately were largely flavorless, but I will have to try it again. I seldom go to 99 Ranch in El Cerrito, but when I do I always get one from the Ten Ren there. You would think with all the Asian kids around, someone would open a quality pearl tea shop and charge the normal price of $2.50, but no, they get Quickly's 'cause it's cheap, as in cheap and full of suck! (EDIT: Tried Mandarin House again, and it wasn't that great. Maybe I'll try it again when it's less busy. I recently discovered the EmeryBay Public Market and the pearl tea there tasted a bit like Verde's. Not bad.)

The PMT situation in Princeton is even worse. It's been a couple years, so maybe they've improved. I ate at Tiger Noodles quite often, and the PMT there was only good enough to ward off withdrawal. I was so desperate for some good PMT that I once bought a mix from an Asian supermarket. Needless to say it disappointed. It was really bad. For some reason it tasted like peach. Yeah, it tasted fruity! The pearls were surprisingly ok though, so I ended up just adding the leftover pearls to Coke and that worked out pretty well.

So what makes a good pearl milk tea? I'll give you a second to pull out a pad and pencil. You might want to take some notes. Ok, ready? The most important thing is you have to be able to taste the tea. TapEx and Quickly taste more like chocolate milk than anything else. The tea should be sweet of course, but it can't be so sweet you get sick of it or that it overpowers the tea. The pearls should be sweet both on the outside and on the inside. They should be a bit chewy, but not overly so that it becomes abrasive, like Sweetheart's. Well, there you have it, the secret to amazing pearl milk tea - must taste like tea, be kinda sweet, and have sweet, somewhat chewy pearls! Groundbreaking, I know. Haha, sorry, I can't really describe taste so that's the best I can do.

Oh and JK, I don't lay awake at night thinking about pearl milk tea. At night I go to sleep because it's late and I'm tired.

One day I will open the In-N-Out of pearl tea. It will contain a single menu item - "Pearl Milk Tea." But if you're in the know, you can order special items such as a "4x4," which will be four pearl milk teas stacked on top of each other with a single giant straw that will go through all four containers. Or, if you'd like, you can order the pearl milk tea with "fish eggs" if you want the smaller pearls. "Animal style" will also be available, but I don't know why you'd want grilled onions in your tea. And lastly, if you order "bubble tea," the worker will blow soap bubbles in your face, and while you're distracted, punch you in the head.

Pearl Milk Tea - Part I

If you recall, pearl milk tea was on my top five beverages list.

Also goes by the name of boba and bubble tea. I personally prefer the usage of pearl milk tea, or PMT for short. Boba's fine too, when I want to save a syllable. You'll also hear me say "pearl tea," you know, 'cause I'm somewhat lactose intolerant. Bubble tea, however, does not fly with me. Who even coined this term? I hear this the most on the east coast. If someone can enlighten me as to why people call it bubble tea, I'd like to hear your explanation. (Just looked it up. According to Wikipedia, "The word bubble refers to "bubbling," the process by which certain types of bubble tea are made, and not the actual tapioca balls." LAME, the entry for "Pearl milk tea" is redirected to "Bubble tea.") Pearl milk tea is at least the literal translation of its Chinese name, and boba is a phonetic translation of a variation of the name. What is "buoba" anyway? Is that Taiwanese or is it just another Chinese name for it. (EDIT: Haha, apparently it's slang for "big breasts" in Taiwanese.) Oddly enough, the PMT I've had in Taiwan wasn't even that great even though it originated there.

Whenever I order PMT, I always get the regular, plain one. That is how I judge the quality of the entire shop. I don't care how good your green milk tea is. If your PMT sucks, you suck. So where do I like to get my fix? Well, when I'm in South Bay, more often than not I go to Fantasia. They're always speedy and they maintain a strong level of quality. After that I go to Q-Cup and Ten Ren for variety. Yes, I can get tired of Fantasia.

Fantasia is very good, but to nitpick, it tends to be a little too milky and a bit bitter like coffee. I don't drink coffee so I'm only extrapolating the smell of coffee to the taste of it. I prefer my beverages to be thin. I find them more refreshing that way. For example, when I (used to) drink milk, I always drink skim milk - 2% and beyond is kinda gross. I always get pulp free orange juice because bits of pulp is not refreshing, and I am not a fan of smoothies. I've probably alienated all five of my readers in this last paragraph, but let's move on.

My favorite PMT was back when the Ten Ren in Cupertino Village was run by this middle-aged Chinese lady who would make every drink to order. She would even taste the mixture (with a clean spoon!) before deeming it worthy of my taste buds. Sure, it would take a while, but it was worth it. Sometimes when I lay awake at night, I can still taste the tea. At one of my parents' friend's house, the grandma made homemade PMT that was amazing. She could open her own store and blow Fantasia out of the water.

Next: Bad pearl milk tea and the secret to making amazing pearl milk tea.

Runner Ups

The format was different than past years. Previously when registering you would pick out the day you wanted to watch the Electronic Theatre, and I *think* every showing was the same. This year there were like 80 shorts, and you could attend any of the screenings of the competition. Each one would show about 30 shorts, so I wasn't able to watch all of them, but afterwards you could vote for your favorite one. It's odd though, as the 80 shorts didn't seem to be uniformly distributed through the screenings. Anyway, these are some of the other ones I liked:

Oktapodi

I wouldn't be surprised if this one won.

Now Look What You Did - Cigarette


Mauvais Role


Chump and Clump
Official site here with trailer. I can't find a video the whole thing :(.

Our Wonderful Nature

Ok, quick post. Just got back from Siggraph '08 in LA. They have a computer animation competition each year and this was one of my favorite entries (if not THE favorite). There were some other good ones that I'll post as I find them.

Mini Reviews - Ponyo, The Visitor, Heima

Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea
To put it lightly, not Miyazaki's best. I couldn't decide if Ponyo was cute or creepy. I mean, she's a fish with a humanoid head and dude, that's creepy. There wasn't much of a story and what little there was just didn't make a whole lot of sense. Nothing is explained. What I did like though, was the animation. I miss traditional animation sometimes, so this was great. I wasn't always a fan of Miyazaki's character designs, but underlying the seemingly childish drawings is an impressive depiction of realistic movement. Pay attention to how much is captured when the mother is cooking or how there are tons of cars moving about in a parking lot in an otherwise banal scene.

There were a lot of little moments in the movie I loved, including all the scenes where Ponyo is discovering little bits about the human world or when Sosuke is communicating with his father in Morse Code. The movie does move a little slowly, but it's the slow and patient scenes that were wonderful. The overall movie, however, was kinda blah.


The Visitor
Liked this one a lot. It's largely a character piece about an elderly man given the inspiration to jump start his life again. I actually don't want to say too much, because I think it's better if you don't know too much about it and are able to watch the movie slowly unfold. It's not that there's a complicated story or anything. In fact, it's really quite simple, but having no prior knowledge about what to expect from the characters makes it a more engaging experience. Anyway, you'll have to accept on blind faith (and the 92% on RT), when I say it's good.


Heima
Not sure if I should even review this, as I didn't stay to watch the whole thing. It's a documentary on Sigur Ros when they went back to Iceland and gave free concerts all over the country for their fans. Mostly it comprised of their performances with mini interviews of the band members. I really like their one song, Hoppipolla, which was used in the Planet Earth trailer, but overall their songs are a little too mellow for me, which is why I didn't sit through to the end. I guess this wasn't much of a review, so it all works out.

Awkward Turtle!

I recently discovered the Awkward Turtle. Luckily it wasn't because of an awkward situation... I think. 'Cause I'm... never awkward. But at least I'll know what to do now when awkward situation arises! AWKWARD TURTLE!!!

Look at it, it's so awkward with its two flappy legs



But it doesn't stop there. No sir. Apparently, according to some other interns, there are many more awkward animals! Like, the Awkward Turkey.

Here are two awkward animals in their natural habitat, having a grand ol' time.



The Awkward Turkey looks so much like a Turkey it's uncanny. Try it, it's like Thanksgiving whenever you want.

Or, how 'bout the Awk Hawk.

AWK HAWK!!!

It's so silly it's brilliant.

I Remember it Differently

Don't worry about it-
A MAAAAAN'S GOTTA DOOO WHAT A MAAAAN'S GOTTA DOO

Curse you, Dennis. I've been listening to it all day. It's stuck IN MY HEAD.



EDIT: Go to http://www.whedontube.com/ for all three episodes.

The Middleman

"The girls come in, they come out. They talk in groups of varying size. There's no pattern, I don't like it."
"That's because they're sorority girls not Soviet spies."



Caught an episode of The Middleman on ABC Family early this week. I was quite tickled by this episode and all of its pop culture references. It certainly worked in their favor that several of those references were from Ghostbusters. The show looks quite cheap, but it didn't hinder my enjoyment. It'll inevitably get canceled, so I'll have to enjoy it while it lasts. Hopefully I'll be proven wrong (the cancellation that is, not my enjoyment of it).

ADD - Reading in Doe Part 2

There's a wall in the magazine room with the latest issues of the more read magazines prominently displayed. One in particular caught my eye. On the cover it read, "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" Okay, that was a sensationalist title, but it did get my attention. The piece is actually a general commentary on the Internet. The author is not saying that easy access to a wealth of information is making us stupid, but rather he is speculating that it's altering the way we think.

"Over the past few years I’ve had an uncomfortable sense that someone, or something, has been tinkering with my brain, remapping the neural circuitry, reprogramming the memory. My mind isn’t going—so far as I can tell—but it’s changing. I’m not thinking the way I used to think. I can feel it most strongly when I’m reading. Immersing myself in a book or a lengthy article used to be easy. My mind would get caught up in the narrative or the turns of the argument, and I’d spend hours strolling through long stretches of prose. That’s rarely the case anymore. Now my concentration often starts to drift after two or three pages. I get fidgety, lose the thread, begin looking for something else to do. I feel as if I’m always dragging my wayward brain back to the text. The deep reading that used to come naturally has become a struggle.

I think I know what’s going on. For more than a decade now, I’ve been spending a lot of time online, searching and surfing and sometimes adding to the great databases of the Internet. The Web has been a godsend to me as a writer. Research that once required days in the stacks or periodical rooms of libraries can now be done in minutes. A few Google searches, some quick clicks on hyperlinks, and I’ve got the telltale fact or pithy quote I was after. Even when I’m not working, I’m as likely as not to be foraging in the Web’s info-thickets—reading and writing e-mails, scanning headlines and blog posts, watching videos and listening to podcasts, or just tripping from link to link to link."

He's using mostly anecdotal evidence, but what he says largely describes my own experience. He says, "Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski." I do that too; I tend to constantly skim and scan a large variety of things, always ready to move on to the next item. My attention constantly shifts and I'm easily distracted when I'm online.

Anyway the article is pretty long and he goes on to talk about how the brain can remap itself and the all encompassing-ness of the Internet. He eventually gets to the evolution of information, like how Socrates was hating on the development of the written language, but it all worked out in the end or something. I don't really know as I only skimmed it. He should know better than to write such a long article.

Chinglish - Reading in Doe Part 1

So the other day I was in Doe Library on the Berkeley campus. There's a magazine room on the second floor, so I thought it would be nice to sit in a big comfy chair reading magazine articles on real life printed pages. One article in Wired I found particularly interesting was about "Chinglish." I'm sure you know what Chinglish is - it's the butchering of the English language by native Chinese speakers.

The article is a month old now, so maybe you've come across it already. The main point of the article is about how English has become so successful (might as well be the universal language), that naturally there are now more nonnative English speakers trying to adopt the language than there are native English speakers, which can lead to a form of English being developed in China that is a completely different dialect than what we speak. Is the world still isolated enough that these different dialects can still pop up? Given Singaporean English aka Singlish, it seems entirely possible. By dialect I don't just mean a different accent. It's already pretty impossible to even get rid of the fob accent, and who cares? There are many many different accents in America alone. What's more interesting is grammatical structure. As the article points out, Chinese and English have very very different forms of grammar. It makes sense that a Chinese speaker would try to formulate sentences in their native structure, much like I will sometimes speak Chinese using an English sentence structure to the bemusement of my parents. And in isolation, the transference of grammatical structure seems possible.

Some of the evidence that they give is horribly translated English, what we traditionally think of as Chinglish. But I don't think Chinese speakers will start to call handicapped bathrooms, "deformed man lavatories." Ok ok fine, I'm sure this was just a funny example to get me to read the article. And it worked.

But I am somewhat skeptical if this type of Chinglish will develop into the same kind of a standard that Singlish is. The goal of learning how to speak English is to communicate with other English speakers or someone who speaks a different language than you do, so there must be some accordance in grammar otherwise there can be a lot of confusion. Then again, English is a needlessly complex language, so maybe some simplification isn't a terrible idea. Let's just do away with verb tenses. I'm not a historian nor a linguist, so who knows what kind of English will develop. I'm certainly not arguing against the possibility as presented in the article. In any case, this got me into thinking about Joss Whedon's Firefly, and how sometimes the characters would spout really horribly pronounced Chinese (usually curses). This was due to Whedon thinking that in the future, with the large amount of Chinese speakers, eventually some of it will become integrated into our every day language, much like French and Latin phrases are and so on.

I will say this though. Using online translators can lead to some awesome translations. Try translating something in English to another language and back. There's a good chance you might receive something vaguely poetic. If I could go back in time I would love to have tried to pass something off like that as poetry in my middle school/high school classes. Or, this might happen:
Bye. I mean, zai jian.

Top Five Beverages

Ok, first real post, and it's a top five list that is in no particular order. Here goes:

1. IBC Root Beer
2. Orange Juice
3. Coca-Cola
4. Pearl Milk Tea
5. Apple Sidra

As you can see, I like soda. I crave its cool, bubbly, refreshing goodness. On a hot, sweltering day, nothing beats a cool can of the good stuff, not even ice cream.

To add some substance to this post, I will talk a little bit about root beer. But don't worry, eventually I will touch on each of the other beverages in future posts. See, like any good writer, I'm already planting the seeds for future topics.

Ok, root beer. I love root beer. I still remember back when I lived in New York and I had my first taste of root beer at a daycare, I thought it was the best thing ever. As it stands now, IBC Root Beer is my favorite. It has always been, dating back to middle school, but it was much more difficult (and expensive) for me to get, so it was actually rare for me to drink it. You might be thinking, it's probably just the glass bottle. Everything tastes better in a glass bottle. Ok yeah, the glass bottle is nice, keeps it cooler I think, than an aluminum can. But no that is not the reason alone.

Let me also mention some other root beers I like. I also like Barq's and A&W. I absolutely hate Mug. It's terrible. Really really terrible. I've largely drank Barq's and A&W all my life. I used to really like Barq's over A&W, because of its carbonation. It certainly seems more carbonated anyway. Eventually though, I grew to prefer A&W, because well, Barq's was just TOO carbonated and coke-like. And I really started to like the sweetness of A&W and how well it went with vanilla ice cream. Now, I'm an old fogey and everything tastes a little bit sweeter. Not the - I love life so everything is sweet kind of sweet. But more the - man, how much sugar is in this, it's TOO SWEET, I'm gonna get diabetes! kind of sweet.

IBC fits nicely between these two. It's nicely carbonated, but not TOO carbonated. It's sweet, but not TOO sweet. It's juuuuust right. It also comes in a glass bottle. And it sure is delicious when combined with ice cream. Now that I have something that resembles an income, I can afford to buy it at Target. So yeah, I always have some IBC in the fridge for when the craving hits.

(I don't claim to be a connoisseur of root beer as I don't go around trying homebrewed stuff. The realm of root beer I live in largely consists of the commercial products.)

Sidenote on root beer floats: Good root beer and cheap ice cream go the best together. The creamier the ice cream, the worse it is. I'm equating classy ice cream to creamy ice cream, and I'm actually not sure if that's a fair comparison. Anyway, point is: you don't need good ice cream to make a good float.

The Beginning

Hello. I'd thought I'd start by giving a little introduction to the birth of this blog on this Sunday evening, August 3rd, 2008. This will be my first foray into the blogosphere. I've never had a Xanga, MySpace page, or whatever it was people used back in the day. Ok, that's not entirely true. I had something that resembled a blog during my second year of undergrad, but that was rather unrefined so I'm not gonna count it. But this one will count, even if this is the only post I ever write. That was largely the barrier for me, whether I could consistently post. By consistent I mean a post of at least once a week, don't want to set the bar TOO high. Blogs tend to start out fairly strong, but then they just sorta taper off, until people I guess simply run out of things to say or just lose interest. So yeah I certainly have things to say now, and I'd imagine things will go fairly well for a month or so, but there are no guarantees, meaning you should savor every delicious word I write.

So what do I have to write about? What can you expect from me? In the short term, I'll probably just talk about random things I like, dislike, maybe give some top five lists, just general things that are not time dependent. In the long term (if there is a long term), this blog will probably degenerate into my thoughts on comic books, television, movies, technology, and current events (ha!). I'm hoping this blog might even be educational at times, but I'll probably be very hand wavy in my explanations so that's a disclaimer right there. Oh, and henceforth, I'll try not to start off my posts with a lie.