It's a Blog

random memory #23947

2009-03-28T00:02:00.000-07:00

This one time when my family went down to San Diego, we stopped at this place that had virtual spaceship races. My dad and I both participated in it. It was fun because my dad never really played video games ever, but he did this one with me. I really enjoyed that. It's a good memory.

i like music

2009-03-27T13:39:00.001-07:00

Just because a band is popular doesn't mean they are shitty. It means that you let other people decide what you do and don't like as much as the little girls that listen to the Jonas Brothers. When you grow up, you'll realize that.

naysayers

2009-02-09T00:47:00.000-08:00

Everybody is trying to cover their fucking asses.

crazy people shouldn't have babies, part two

2009-02-06T18:34:00.000-08:00

Said crazy person is interviewed. Let's take a look:

"I'm providing myself to my children. I'm loving them unconditionally, accepting them unconditionally, everything I do. I'll stop my life for them and be present with them and hold them and be with them. And how many parents do that? I'm sure there are many that do, but many don't. And that's unfortunate. And that is selfish."

First of all, you are a crazy person. You can't feed, clothe and house your children with your unconditional love. How many parents unconditionally love their children? A FUCKING SHITLOAD. Parents are actually biologically programmed to love their children unconditionally. You're also right though, some don't take care of their children. And some people can't. You will be one of those people.

"I know I'll be able to afford them when I'm done with my schooling. If I were just sitting down, watching TV and not being as determined as I am to succeed and provide a better future for my children, I believe that would be considered to a certainly degree selfish."

You will take care of them with your determination, after your done with your schooling. How are you going to go to school if you have to take care of FOURTEEN children? She says she's going to get a degree in counseling. Can crazy people get those degrees?

"I feel as though I've been under the microscope because I've chosen this unconventional kind of life. I didn't intend on it being unconventional. It just turned out to be. All I wanted ... was to be a mom. That's all I ever wanted in my life."

Fourteen IVF children doesn't just happen to anyone. All you wanted was to be a mom? You were a mom when you had the FIRST one. Having more doesn't make you more of a mom.

I still can't believe a crazy woman has given birth to fourteen children that she has no means to support. Clearly there needs to be checks in the system to make sure stuff like this doesn't happen, but I have no idea how you balance liberty to fuck up your own life however you want with the eventual cost to the poor children and the rest of us, when someone like this woman can no longer take care of her children.

fake

2009-02-05T21:45:00.000-08:00

I seriously do not understand why people think certain videos are fake for the silliest reasons. When did we let stupid people be cynics?

obama: you ain't my bitch

2009-02-05T21:05:00.000-08:00

Finally, a president that talks just like me.

menus

2009-02-05T17:53:00.000-08:00

For Seattle, I want.

chinky eyes

2009-02-01T22:24:00.001-08:00

Is that an Asian kid in this movie? Represent.

Also, this movie looks like it'll be great.

crazy people shouldn't have babies

2009-01-30T01:59:00.000-08:00

The most important question, the one not answered in this report, is if this woman already had six kids, WHY DID SHE NEED FERTILITY TREATMENTS?

twitter log

2008-02-27T08:16:00.000-08:00

oh no, rain!

twitter log

2008-02-22T16:27:00.000-08:00

i love the sun on my closed eyes, the soothing, warm, bright, red feeling.

twitter log

2008-02-13T15:00:00.000-08:00

the sun feels so good against the skin. i missed this sensation.

twitter log

2008-02-09T11:37:00.000-08:00

a hot guy on the bus means it'll be a good day.

twitter log

2008-01-29T12:39:00.000-08:00

i'm trying to make an appointment and the bus driver is taking a fucking dump or something.

twitter log

2008-01-24T15:35:00.000-08:00

completely adorable guy at the bookstore. what is one to do?

twitter log

2008-01-23T23:44:00.000-08:00

raccoon!

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2008-01-21T02:19:00.000-08:00

the sky is beautiful tonight.

twitter log

2008-01-01T10:54:00.000-08:00

there's nothing quite like waking up in a strange place with no recollection of how you got there.

twitter log

2007-12-25T13:14:00.000-08:00

i get more well wishes on jesus's birthday than on my own. that's bullshit.

twitter log

2007-12-19T17:19:00.000-08:00

i quit, life. everyone please carry on like you have been.

twitter log

2007-12-14T10:02:00.000-08:00

i told myself i'd start eating less, but i just ate two chocolate croissants for breakfast.

twitter log

2007-12-06T16:14:00.000-08:00

my ipod ran out of batteries... how am i going to survive the rest of the day?

twitter log

2007-12-03T08:33:00.000-08:00

my basement is flooding. this sucks. a lot. 08:33 AM December 03, 2007 from txt

twitter log

2007-11-28T23:39:00.000-08:00

tomorrow i turn 50.

twitter log

2007-11-05T00:21:00.000-08:00

i just saw a shooting star.

twitter log

2007-10-22T17:33:00.000-07:00

i just got a wii! they ain't so hard to find.

twitter log

2007-10-13T01:02:00.000-07:00

oh no, i'm leaving new york! it's a mistake!

twitter log

2007-10-11T11:04:00.000-07:00

and now i'm on my way back to manhattan.

twitter log

2007-10-09T07:02:00.000-07:00

off to boston by bus.

kiwis and missed opportunities

2007-08-31T20:05:00.000-07:00

So a friend and I got on the bus downtown. As we're sitting and watching the other people get on as well, I noticed three guys get on the bus together, one of which was really, really hot. To my luck, he stood right in front of where I was sitting, and I thought to myself, "Oh how nice, I'll get to look at his ass all the way home." I text "hot" on my phone and show it to my friend to notify him of the guy, in case he hadn't seen him. He agreed. Unfortunately, at the next stop, the hot ass moved a little to the back because of more people getting on the bus, and it was no longer in my face. Oh well.

On the ride back I'm chatting with my friend about something, when we're approached by one of the guys who was not the hot one (this one was not bad, but the other one was really hot). He asked us with his New Zealand accent, "We're new in town. What sorts of bars or clubs are good around here?" I looked at my friend and gave him the eye that meant, "Do you think he's asking what I think he's asking?" Not quite sure I was getting the subtext right, I prompted the guy for clarification: "Well, it depends on what kinds of bars you're looking for." He then clarified it for me by replying, "Probably the kinds of bars that you go to." Ah! Yes, you are asking me where the gays go. You found the right person! I give him a short rundown of the places I go and the places that exist but that I don't frequent.

After this, I'm thinking in my head, "OMGZ, is the hot guy into guys too? He must be! Right? RIGHT?" And my friend and I converse with the one that approached us for the length of the bus ride, while the other guys say a few things here and there. They're from New Zealand, they're on a road trip, their car broke down so they'll be in Seattle for a few days... When we got to our stop, we had to cut the conversation short. "This is our stop. It was nice talking you," I said. "Have fun in Seattle." My friend and I got off the bus, and that was that.

Now, did you notice anything missing from that narrative? Yes, that's right. I let the opportunity pass without asking for digits or any sort of contact info so that I could perhaps "show them around." This is the problem with me. I have trouble, A, showing interest, and therefore B, asking people for their numbers. As a result, I'm sitting here writing this, instead of, at the very least, checking out the hot guy's ass again. I can't let this shit happen anymore! I need to think of this regretfully missed opportunity every time this sort of situation comes up, and remember how stupid I felt afterwards, in the hopes that it will spur me into not being such a chickenshit dumbass. No more fear, no more regrets! Or at least less of them... Baby steps...

By the way, Flight of the Conchords is hilarious, though I will acknowledge it isn't for everyone. Search them on YouTube and give them a try to find out if they are for you. Bret is definitely for me.

the crush

2007-08-19T20:42:00.000-07:00

So while we're talking about high school, I was eating dinner at a restaurant with my family when in walks someone who looked familiar. Oh my god! It was the guy I had a crush on through much of high school. I haven't seen him since we all graduated, seven fucking years ago, but he looks great. Still. My immediate reaction (the same that I have when I see anyone I know, friend or foe) is to run away to avoid the inevitable stop-and-chat. Except I'm eating and I can't. So I spend the whole meal wondering how I can avoid an awkward situation when we have to leave. Though what's really stupid and a little weird is that I can't help but fall back into the mindset I had when I was in high school. I have to say "hi" at least, right? How can I do it so I don't look like an idiot? Do I look good right now? I wonder if he'll remember me, it's been so long... I am sitting, eating dinner and I'm getting butterflies in my stomach, as if I was 16 again. This is fucking ridiculous! Anyways, when we left, I said "hi" really quick and left before any awkward conversation could be had, but afterwards I couldn't help but want to talk to him more to see what he was up to now. But I think it was better that I didn't, because at least this way I didn't trip up and make him hate me... Yeah, when it comes down to it, high school never left me. It's just hiding in my head waiting for the moment to reemerge and make me feel like a kid once more.

he even uses "quagmire"

2007-08-14T14:06:00.000-07:00

Let's give this guy a cookie, whoever he is! He's got more sense than anyone in this administration! Oh, wait...

zac alert

2007-08-08T21:47:00.000-07:00

Oh no! This is my current desktop.

serious help needed

2007-07-24T09:47:00.000-07:00

I'm a little saddened this morning.

Her behavior is going to end up killing her.

And His is going is end up destroying our Justice Department.

Someone needs to get them the help they need.

rhydian vaughan for man-q

2007-07-18T13:30:00.000-07:00

Embedded video alert! It's a MAN-Q commercial featuring Rhydian Vaughan.

You might remember Taiwanese hapa model Rhydian from a couple previous mentions. He's adorable in this ad. That's all I have to say.

missed connections: oops!

2007-07-04T11:45:00.000-07:00

This craigslist missed connection is so simple and hilarious, definitely worth framing and putting up on the wall. Happy Independence Day!

another story from the closet

2007-06-25T23:35:00.000-07:00

Previously on... Stories from the Closet.

Welcome to another installment of our favorite 12-year-long series of awkward, telling exchanges between a mother and her closeted gay son. This time my mother will be played by Suri Cruise (Adorable!), and I will be played by Evandro Soldati (Hot!). Let's set the scene for what may in fact be our series finale:

It is Pride weekend. Friday night, I left the house at 10pm, and didn't get back until 8am. Then, I was gone for most of Saturday (after a quick nap), and didn't get back until 6am. I slept for 3 hours, and then headed out at 10am on Sunday. After leaving a message on my phone telling me not to stay out too late a few hours earlier, I receive a phone call from my mother at 10pm that night:

Mom, angry: "Where have you been?"

Me, annoyed: "Out with friends."

Mom, still angry: "You're always out with friends. I don't even know who these friends are. You've been gone all weekend."

Me, still annoyed: "I don't understand why you have to know who all my friends are. It's not like you will remember any of them."

Mom, angry, but also a little distressed: "And I never know what you're doing anymore! You came home at 4 or 5 last night."

Me: "Why do you have to know that either?"

Mom: "Don't you know I worry about you?"

Me: "Why do you have to worry?"

Mom: "Because you're out all the time, and you never think about the future. I don't even know what you're going to do with your life. I hardly even know who you are anymore."

Me: "I am not out all the time. It's only been a couple days just this weekend. There's no point in worrying."

Mom: "How can I not worry? I'm your mother!"

Me: "I don't know what you want me to tell you."

There is a long pause. Neither of us says anything

Mom, her voice beginning to break up: "Do you know the nightmare I've been having all weekend? I keep having this nightmare that you're going to come home one day and tell me you're gay!"

My mom begins to sob, but I have nothing to say to this. What am I supposed to say? I can't say the one thing she wants to hear, though she can't honestly expect to hear it.

Mom, through tears: "I'm sorry."

Me: "For what?"

There are a few heaving breaths and then she hangs up.

siff hotties: melvil poupaud

2007-06-12T21:18:00.000-07:00

The ninth installment of SIFF Hotties! (Previously, Hommes de Paris, Juan José Ballesta, Lee Young-hoon, Boys of Cashback, Quim Gutiérrez, Dasepo Sonyeon, Joseph Chang, and Joe Odagiri.)

I don't know much about Melvil Poupaud, except that he started acting when he was still a kid. I saw him in last year's SIFF playing a young gay photographer in François Ozon's Time to Leave. His character finds out he has a terminal illness that will kill him in a matter of months and after coming to terms with it, sets about making things right in his life before he dies. It was a good movie. This year, he played a hot and very charming French man in Zoe Cassavetes's Broken English.

Beware, one of the movies below was so bad I walked out after half an hour! Guess which one.

Broken English. Rating: 5. I enjoyed this movie quite a bit. Parker Posey plays a single woman in her mid-30s who's stuck in her life. She doesn't really like her job, and she can't seem to find the right guy. Then one night, she meets a hot French guy, and all her problems are solved! No, not really, but you should just watch the movie to find out what happens with her. I felt like the movie was a good reflection on how life doesn't always go the way you want, without being heavy at all. I love Parker Posey and she did an exceptional job, and Melvil Poupaud made me want a French man to come into my life and sweep me off my feet. Zoe Cassavetes also did a really good job with writing and directing her debut feature. Oh, and the soundtrack by Scratch Massive was spectacular too.

A Parting Shot (Pas douce). Rating: 4. A nurse, angry at life, tries to shoot herself, but ends up shooting and injuring a teenage boy instead. The boy is then unwittingly put into her care. The film follows her as she is transformed by her guilt and her interactions with the boy (who is also angry at life) into a better person. There were no surprises in this movie (aside from the moment she shoots the boy), but I quite liked it, because the study of her character was done very convincingly. It was short (at just under an hour and a half) and to-the-point, and it gave me a good sense of satisfaction after watching it.

Surveillance. Rating: 1. If I could give it a 0, I would. This was a terrible movie, probably the worst SIFF movie I've seen in all my years of SIFF participation. A teacher meets a tabloid photographer with a dangerous secret at a club and sleeps with him. When he leaves the photographer's flat, the teacher accidentally takes the photographer's phone with him (they have the same model phone). Pretty soon he finds he is being tailed by agents who may or may not be from the government, and they want that phone. I would tell you more, but I don't really have to. The plot was so familiar that the filmmakers needed to do something to it to make it interesting. Unfortunately, they failed. The basic premise the movie was built on was that there are hundreds of cameras everywhere, and at any point in time, you are being watched by at least a dozen of them. Thus, to illustrate this point, every scene is shot from several awkward angles, above, below, from here, from there, through different lenses, and then edited together to create a distracting mess. As if this wasn't bad enough, the narrative was cut up and arranged seemingly at random. I know what they were trying to go for, because the technique (rearranging the timeline) is used in lots of movies where you want to reveal information slowly, but the way they did it was completely unsuccessful, and by the third or fourth time I'd seen the same thing, I wanted to tear my eyes out and throw them at the editor. But all of this was so unnecessary because it was already obvious after 10 minutes what was going on that it seemed stupid that it still thought we were still in the dark and it was inching towards some great reveal. The writing was horrible, and the direction wasn't great either, so I don't know who to fault that the actors didn't do a terribly good job. Actually, it was probably a combination of all three, which is too bad because Tom Harper and Sean Brosnan (son of Pierce) are kinda hot. Of course, I suppose you shouldn't really take my word for it, since after 30 minutes, I could stand it no longer and walked out of the theater. Maybe the rest of it was great and I missed out, but I really doubt it. I really, really, really doubt it.

siff hotties: joe odagiri

2007-06-11T11:08:00.000-07:00

The eighth installment of SIFF Hotties! (Previously, Hommes de Paris, Juan José Ballesta, Lee Young-hoon, Boys of Cashback, Quim Gutiérrez, Dasepo Sonyeon, and Joseph Chang.)

Joe Odagiri has been a near-constant presence in my recent SIFF experience. In 2004, I saw him in Kitamura Ryuuhei's Azumi and Kurosawa Kiyoshi's Bright Future (with that other Japanese indie darling Asano Tadanobu). In 2006, I saw him in Shinobi, and though I opted to skip it, he was also in that year's Princess Raccoon. This year, he was in three of the movies from Japan: Otomo Katsuhiro's Mushishi, the aforementioned Kurosawa's Retribution, both of which I went to see, and Sway, which I decided not to. That's seven SIFF movies in four years. Not bad for someone who got their start in a TV series of the Power Rangers genre. Anyhow, he's 31, from the lovely city of Tsuyama, and one of the more versatile actors working today. He's hot, he's cool, he's talented. I can't wait to see what he'll be in for next year's festival.

Today's reviews, spotlight: Japan.

Sakuran. Rating: 4. While the basic story is unremarkable (it's been done and done and done and done), this movie pulls it off with such attitude and style that it's hard not to like it (perhaps a result of its being based on a manga series). A girl is sold to a brothel in Yoshiwara, the pleasure quarters of Edo. She grows up and becomes a top oiran, while learning along the way that the courtesan life is incompatible with true love. Not to spoil it for you or anything, but guess what she finds at the end of the movie? The visuals were lush, the camerawork was beautiful, and Anna Tsuchiya's lead performance was a ton of fun. Also, the soundtrack was made up mostly of modern music and added a lot to the character of the film. If you are looking for a good Japanese courtesan movie, skip the bloated and plodding Memoirs of a Geisha (though god knows I love Zhang Ziyi and Gong Li), and watch this one.

Mushishi. Rating: 3. I was expecting so much more out of Otomo Katsuhiro, the director of Akira and Steamboy. Also based on a manga series, this episodic movie follows the travels of a Mushishi (Bug Master), as he goes from place to place, solving problems caused by supernatural "Bugs." Besides the fact that the movie was really slow (a quality I don't usually associate with Otomo), I had a problem with the whole "bug" thing. Because it's a fantasy setting, everything worked on a set of rules that was unfamiliar. What bothered me was that I never really managed to get a handle on any of it, and thus none of the solutions were very satisfactory for me. Everything was done with a "well, that's just the way it is" feeling, and so nothing was very smart or clever. Anyone can solve made-up problems with made-up solutions. Why did she have to pull his eye out? Because. Why does pairing Ahs and Uns make the girl's horns fall off? Because. Why did she start glowing all of a sudden? Because. Perhaps this is all very much more interesting in manga format, but if that's the case, it didn't translate to live-action so well. And to top it off, the ending was abrupt and nonsensical. Why did it end that way? Because.

Retribution (Sakebi). Rating: 4. I'm still trying to process this movie in my head, and that's mostly because of one scene that just didn't seem to fit with the rest of the movie. Sort of like it was from another movie, but director Kurosawa Kiyoshi just decided to plop it into this one to throw his audience for a loop. Other than that though, I think those who liked Kurosawa's other works will like this one too. We witness a murder occurring in the very first scene: a woman is drowned in a puddle of saltwater. But we don't see the face of the murderer. When the police come to investigate the scene, one detective (played by the seemingly ubiquitous Yakusho Kouji) finds evidence that seems to lead right back to him. Did he do it? Or is he being framed? The movie starts off immediately with a psychological tension that holds for pretty much the rest of the movie. The film examines the nature of guilt and regret all the while providing effective atmospheric chills. Kurosawa's films are also a perennial participant in the festival (I saw both Bright Future and Doppelganger at SIFF 2004), and I'll be excited to see what he'll come up with next.

siff hotties: joseph chang

2007-06-08T01:14:00.000-07:00

The seventh installment of SIFF Hotties! (Previously, Hommes de Paris, Juan José Ballesta, Lee Young-hoon, Boys of Cashback, Quim Gutiérrez, and Dasepo Sonyeon.)

I wrote briefly about the Taiwanese gay indie Eternal Summer previously when I was fawning over the hotness of Bryant Chang just before the festival began, but Bryant wasn't the only hottie in that movie. As you can see above, Joseph Chang is also really hot. According to this website, he was born on the 28th day of December, 1983, has an older sister, and enjoys swimming, skateboarding, movies and drawing. He went to Fu Hsin Art School in Taipei, and began his career in entertainment as a print model. Fascinating! He's appeared previously in various Taiwanese TV dramas that I've never seen, including Crystal Boys, based on the seminal gay Taiwanese novel of the same name written by Pai Hsien-yung. Joseph can next be seen in the soon-to-be-released indie Keeping Watch. From what I can tell from the trailer, Joseph plays a weirdo stalker who sometimes thinks he is his (deceased?) best friend from middle school. Glasses on, he is Clark Kent; glasses off, Superman! Other than that I don't know what the story is about, and it actually doesn't look that interesting to me (I guess the guy who cut the trailer wasn't very good), but you can judge that for yourself.

Embedded video alert! The trailer for Keeping Watch.

Two Chinese-language films reviewed.

Eternal Summer (Shengxia Guangnian). Rating: 5. I loved this movie. It's about two guys who have been best friends since they were kids and the girl who complicates their relationship. It wasn't a perfect movie, and there was definitely room for improvement in places, but it captured so well the feelings of longing as a result of unrequited love, the fear and apprehension that comes when you realize that childhood is ending and things aren't going to stay the same, and the sorrow that naturally follows both of these. Something very similar to what happens in the movie happened to me, so it also hit close to home. I totally almost cried several times throughout the movie, especially at the end, because I identified so much with the character that Bryant Chang played (Jonathan). The direction was very very good, and I'm feeling totally inadequate because the director is my age. There were some overused clichés in the movie, like the done-to-death hit-by-a-car sequence (see usage in The Cloud and Doghead in this festival alone), but it didn't really take too much away from the experience since I still enjoyed the film immensely. If I actually ever bought DVDs anymore, this would be one that I would definitely get. Watch it!

The Banquet (Yeyan). Rating: 3. Yawn. This tenth-century Chinese take on Hamlet was really boring, which is weird considering it's a fucking martial arts movie choreographed by Yuen Woo-ping. Director Feng Xiaogang usually makes soulless, showy movies which are entertaining if nothing else. His attempt at injecting this movie with real meaning was misguided, because I don't think Feng really knows how to (it takes a little more than lingering shots and slower dialogue, my friend), and as a result, most of the movie was tiresome to watch. This is one of those films where it could easily have been 40 to 50 minutes shorter without losing anything of substance. But I suppose it wasn't a complete bust, which is why I didn't rate it lower. The story was decent, the sets and costumes were beautifully made, and the fighting was very well done (even if it was really bloody). If Feng had just stuck to what he was good at, then perhaps this movie would have been better. I hope he doesn't try to stretch too far in his next project. Oh yeah, Daniel Wu is in this movie.

siff hotties: dasepo sonyeon

2007-06-07T11:42:00.000-07:00

The sixth installment of SIFF Hotties! (Previously, Hommes de Paris, Juan José Ballesta, Lee Young-hoon, Boys of Cashback, and Quim Gutiérrez.) And now we're back in Korea.

Today's men are from the bizarro highschool comedy Dasepo Naughty Girls. The movie made no sense, but that's okay, because there was more than enough eye candy. On the left, Lee Yong-joo. He only had a small part in which he pretended to be a teenage girl to get dirty pics of another teenage girl over the internet only to find out that... Well, I don't want to give it away, but it's pretty obvious from the beginning. Yong-joo is 25 and that's all I know about him. In the center is Yoo Geon (sometimes spelled U Gun for fun), my favorite among the three. Yoo Geon is 24 and hails from the colorful city of hope, Daegu. In his teen years, presumably before he attended Konkuk University, he was a part of the late-90s boy band OPPA under the name Kuk Chul. In the movie, he was friends with the lead male character, who was played by the man on the right, Park Jin-woo. Jin-woo is 23, almost 24. And that's all that I know about Jin-woo too, except that his blood type is AB.

Just one review today.

Dasepo Naughty Girls (Dasepo Sonyeo). Rating: 3. Sure, it was funny in parts, but it was just so out of nowhere all the time that by the end I just about gave up on it making any sense. It was based on a web comic about the goings-on at a weird alternative high school, so I guess that's a little understandable, but still. It had nice visuals, and it was a lot of fun at times, but I just felt like it could have been better.

siff hotties: quim gutiérrez

2007-06-06T12:18:00.000-07:00

The fifth installment of SIFF Hotties! (Previously, Hommes de Paris, Juan José Ballesta, Lee Young-hoon, and Boys of Cashback.) Today, it's back to Spain.

This is surly hottie Quim Gutiérrez. He plays a surly young janitor in DarkBlueAlmostBlack. He is 26 and from Barcelona. That is all I know about him.

Another couple of great movies.

For the Bible Tells Me So. Rating: 5. It is important that you see this movie, and you get everyone you know to see it too. It's a documentary about homosexuality, religion, and how the bible has been used in relatively recent years to legitimize homophobia. It profiles several families that had to overcome their religiously-based intolerance to accept a member of the family that was gay, including New Hampshire bishop Gene Robinson, former Missouri Congressman Dick Gephardt's daughter Chrissy, and Soulforce's Jake Reitan. No matter who you are, you will recognize a lot of what's going on in this movie in yourself and in the people you know. This has got to be one of the best documentaries I've seen that deals with homosexuality since The Times of Harvey Milk, and all the issues covered are very now, and what we have to triumph over today. After seeing it, I wanted to get out there and tell everyone to see it. Director Daniel Karslake said to expect it to hit theaters later this year, probably sometime this fall, so look out for it.

DarkBlueAlmostBlack (AzulOscuroCasiNegro). Rating: 4. A young man gets a college degree while working as a janitor for the building in which he lives in order to support himself and his father, disabled by a stroke at the beginning of the movie. Meanwhile, his brother (Antonio de la Torre from Volver) is in prison and has fallen in love with a woman who wants to get pregnant so she'll get to live in the maternity area in the prison. There are a couple childhood friends thrown in too. I went into this film not expecting it to be the kind of movie it was. I thought it was going to be a meditative and plodding movie in which nothing much happens, which I like sometimes, which is why I decided to see this movie (oh yeah, and Quim Gutiérrez). But it turned out to be a slightly quirky and touching story about a guy finding himself stuck in a life he didn't choose, looking for a way out. This movie was put together very well, and I liked the ending.

siff hotties: boys of cashback

2007-06-04T13:35:00.000-07:00

The fourth installment of SIFF Hotties! (Previously, Hommes de Paris, Juan José Ballesta, and Lee Young-hoon.) Look at these headshots.

These three guys are from the British movie, Cashback, the feature-length version of the Oscar-nominated short of the same name by Sean Ellis. You might recognize the first, Sean Biggerstaff, from the first couple Harry Potter movies where he played Gryffindor quidditch captain Oliver Wood, and the second, Shaun Evans, was in Being Julia with Annette Bening. The third, Michael Dixon, I have personally seen nowhere else. Don't they have nice headshots?

I liked the following movies.

The Ten. Rating: 5. This comedy from the guys that made Wet Hot American Summer was just as funny as I thought it would be. Each of the ten vignettes take one of the Ten Commandments as their theme, and it goes from there. It was hilarious and sure to be referenced repeatedly. There's nothing quite like watching Winona Ryder making out with a ventriloquist dummy, or hot Justin Theroux playing a Mexican Jesus. I'll definitely go and see this again when it comes out in regular release (and not just for Paul Rudd, Adam Brody, Jason Sudeikis, and Bobby Cannavale).

Cashback. Rating: 4. A guy is dumped by his girlfriend and develops insomnia, so he decides to use the time in which he would usually be sleeping by working at a grocery store on the night shift. His insomnia may or may not also give him the ability to stop time. This was another formula movie that I liked. Because it was a formula movie, the film was laid out in such a way that after 20 or 30 minutes, the rest of the movie fell right into your expectations for what was going to happen. But it was fun to watch. One thing I would change though, would be less female nudity and more male nudity. I don't think I've spent as much time in my entire life looking at naked women than in the hour and a half that I spent watching this movie. The camera slowly sweeps up, down, across, and lingers all over various women's bodies, and yes, it bored me a little. But the rest of the movie wasn't as boring.

Tell No One (Ne le dis à personne). Rating: 4. Based on a novel by Harlan Coben, this thriller is about a guy who gets a mysterious email from his supposedly murdered wife after eight years, plunging him into a dangerous world of low level thugs and high level cover-ups! Was that description exciting enough? This was a really well done movie, directed by studly Guillaume Canet (the hot Frenchman who swam to The Beach with Leonardo DiCaprio), with the right amount of tension, mystery, and a little bit of humor. The reveal at the end wasn't terribly surprising, but who says that it has to be?

Nanking. Rating: 4. This is an American-produced documentary about the Nanjing Massacre, where after taking the city of Nanjing during the Second World War, the soldiers in the Japanese army proceeded to pillage and raze the city, and rape and murder the civilian population, men, women, elderly and children alike, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Chinese over the course of several months. This is one of those war atrocities that a lot of people in the US seem not to know about for whatever reason, and I encourage everyone to go see this movie and learn something. And then pick up the book The Rape of Nanking by the late Iris Chang (she suffered a nervous breakdown and shot herself in 2004), and learn even more. It's extremely important that we acknowledge what happened (regardless what some Japanese nationalists might want us to believe), so that these sorts of things don't happen ever, ever again. The accounts by survivors were absolutely heartbreaking, as was the archival footage from hospitals of Chinese children mutilated and disfigured by Japanese soldiers. However, for the documentary, several actors were hired to read the writings of real-life figures who had experienced the Massacre as it was going on while they were in the city of Nanjing, and I have to say it was a little distracting, but it didn't lessen the impact of the movie. That was my only qualm. I hope to see this movie in the collections of school libraries in the coming years.

goodbye my takohachi

2007-06-03T23:40:00.000-07:00

Two evenings ago, I went to eat at one of my favorite Japanese restaurants in the International District (formerly known as Chinatown), the great Takohachi, for the last time ever. It closed yesterday as the owners decided it was time for them to retire. Takohachi was one of those small restaurants where you'd go periodically for the inexpensive, delicious food and the friendly atmosphere. I almost always got the same thing here, their o-bento box, which included a bowl of miso soup, a bowl of rice (steamed, fried, or curry), and edamame, lotus root, squash, carrot, sweet omelette, salmon, shrimp, and their famous chicken karaage (always cooked perfectly). It was exactly the right portion, for when I finished, I never felt too full or not full enough, and it provided me with a lot of comfort. It will take me a while before I get over this loss.

This was the second of such been-there-forever, hole-in-the-wall Japanese restaurants to close in so many years. Not too long ago, the best ramen (or saba, if you pleased) in Seattle was taken away from us when Koraku closed up shop after decades of dedicated ramenship. All I'm left with now is Maneki, and I don't know what I'll do with myself if Maneki were ever to go away...

siff hotties: lee young-hoon

2007-06-02T01:20:00.000-07:00

The third installment of SIFF Hotties! (Previously, Hommes de Paris and Juan José Ballesta.) Today we travel to Korea.

This is the adorable hottie Lee Young-hoon from the rent boy-rich boy love story, No Regret. I can't seem to find out much else about him except for the fact that he's 25. He did a wonderful job in the movie, and I hope to see more of him. A friend tells me he's going to be in Kong Su-chang's (the director of R-Point) next horror flick, GP 506. I hope he doesn't die too terribly in it...

Embedded video alert! It's the trailer for No Regret.

A couple of reviews.

The Cloud (Die Wolke). Rating: 2. I didn't like this movie, and my main problem with it was that none of the characters seemed to be very well-drawn. Their emotions were never very true to them and seemed to turn in whichever direction the plot required of them. You two, start kissing! You, you're now stubborn! You, run into the radioactive rain in despair! Why? Because then the plot can move along. What was the plot? Two teenagers who had only talked to each other once previously inexplicably fall in love just as a nearby nuclear power plant melts down. They must escape before the radioactive raincloud reaches them and changes their lives forever! While most of the emotions were counterfeit, the acting ability of the main characters was not. Both the leads Paula Kalenberg and Franz Dinda did a terrific job with what they were given, and it was probably their performances that allowed me to sit through the entire movie. Again, a car hitting something it shouldn't be hitting is used as a plot device in this movie. Surely, there is nothing more horrible than someone being hit by a car! (See previous usage in Doghead.)

No Regret (Huhoi haji Anha). Rating: 4. A rent boy (Lee Young-hoon, seen above) leaves his orphanage and tries to make it in big city Seoul. Finding it hard to make ends meet after he is laid off from a factory job, he turns to working as a rent boy in a host bar, one that the rich boy businessman son (Lee Han, a hottie in his own right) of a business executive happens to frequent. A slightly bizarre love story emerges from there. I liked Leesong Hee-il's movie, but I'm kind of wondering why I liked it as much as I did, because I had a big problem with the interactions between the two main characters. Their motivations felt authentic, but the way in which they talked to and acted with each other was so stilted and weird. And it's not that the director can't pull of interactions between people, because I liked everything that was going on between everyone else: between Su-min (the rent boy) and his fellow prostitutes and his pimp; between Jae-min (the rich boy) and his fiancée and his mother. But somehow whenever Su-min and Jae-min were dealing with each other, it just didn't feel realistic. Other than that point (which I guess is kind of major...), I quite liked the story and both the actors did a great job in their roles. It might be that I just need to watch it again, but we'll see.

siff hotties: juan josé ballesta

2007-05-31T23:50:00.000-07:00

The second installment of SIFF Hotties! The first featured Gaspard Ulliel, Elias McConnell, et un trio des garçons. Today...

...the spotlight hottie is none other than Juan José Ballesta from the uneven Spanish film, Doghead. I don't know much about him, except that he's 19, from Madrid, and really really hot. Oh, and I think I read somewhere he's gonna be a dad soon? Anyways, he did a decent job in the movie, even if his role consisted mostly of looking mopey and slightly confused. If you have anything to add about Señor Ballesta, please do.

On to the films!

My Best Friend (Mon meilleur ami). Rating: 4. So, at it's heart it was a formula movie. The build-up goes here, the climax goes there, etc. but it was really well done. A man is forced by his co-workers to come up with a "best friend," he realizes he has no friends, only business contacts, and so goes in search of a friend. It was funny and sad and gripping in all the right places, even if the conclusion was completely predictable. Best use of "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?" in any movie I've seen. Well-written, well-directed, well-acted, go see it.

Fido. Rating: 3. Okay, it was funny, but except for a few parts, it wasn't terribly intelligent humor. I guess I knew that going into it, but still expected a little bit more out of it. In an alternate universe 1950s Canada, after a victorious war against zombies, people now keep zombies as pets/servants. I felt like the premise could have offered such great satire, but a lot of it just fell flat. That isn't to say when Carrie Anne-Moss shot her kid's friends-turned-zombies in the head, I didn't laugh, but you know... there should have been... more. But overall it was a good time.

Doghead (Cabeza de Perro). Rating: 3. Like I said above, this uneven film was mediocre at best. A kid with some sort of mental condition in which he blacks out and does crazy things when under stress tries to break out of a sheltered life. A lot of the visual quirks didn't seem to work so well, or weren't employed in the best way. Most of them just felt misplaced in that they were in the wrong places in the movie, or they didn't belong in the movie at all. We sort of see that the main character makes progress within the movie, but I feel like I only see that because he was supposed to, and not because the filmmaker showed us in any meaningful way. The movie seemed like a bunch of free-floating interesting ideas that weren't tied together very well. But Juan José Ballesta was hot. I'd also like to note that a car accident served as a plot device in this film, a movie moment sure to reappear at the very least a few more times in this festival.

Exiled (Fangzhu). Rating: 4. This was a fun Johnny To movie. Well, as fun as a Hong Kong gangster movie with a high body count can be. A gangster exiled for trying to kill the boss makes his way back to Macau to try to live a normal life with his wife and child. Yeah, that never ends well. The action was well-choreographed and well-shot, and all the characters were slick and cool, especially the security escort played by Richie Ren. I liked how the movie seemed to start right after all the exposition that usually occurs in other movies. It saved us 30 minutes of boredom by dropping us right when the action begins, and it worked well. Now that I think about it, I guess a lot of Hong Kong movies do that. I can't think of much else to say about it, except that if you like Hong Kong action, and you like Johnny To movies, then you should probably go see this movie.

my good deed

2007-05-29T17:15:00.000-07:00

Today, I helped a man in one of those motorized wheelchairs up a hill to a bus stop. He was stranded at the bottom of the hill because his wheelchair had stopped responding to his controls. Let me tell you, those motherfuckers (motorized wheelchair + handicapped man) are really fucking heavy, and it took me way too long, while expending way too much energy (I'm a delicate flower), to accomplish the task. He may have had some kind of palsy, because I couldn't understand what he was saying beyond, "I need to get to the bus stop." I don't know if he really wanted to be pushed up the hill, or if the bus stop I left him at was the right one, or even if his wheelchair had really malfunctioned. All I know is that this is my one good deed of the year. I am now free of any obligation whatsoever to perform any other good deeds for the rest of 2007. So, friends and family, if you need help moving? Please look elsewhere.

siff hotties: des hommes de paris

2007-05-28T22:31:00.000-07:00

I almost never have time during the festival to review the movies I've watched (I always have at least one or two movies a day), and when the festival is over, I'm too lazy to go back and do it. Not this year! As an additional incentive for myself, I'll be reviewing not just the movies, but my favorite hotties from said movies, and we all know I like talking about hot guys.

From left to right, Gaspard Ulliel and Elias McConnell from Gus Van Sant's Paris je t'aime short Le Marais.

I don't know the name of the guy on the left (if you do, please let me know), but the one in the center is Thomas Dumerchez and on the right is Cyril Descours, from Gurinder Chadha's short Quais de Seine.

Gaspard was most recently in the title role of the shitty American movie, Hannibal Rising, but before that, I saw him in a good French film, Jean-Pierre Jeunet's A Very Long Engagement with Audrey Tautou (who was recently in a shitty American movie herself called The Da Vinci Code). Elias was last in Van Sant's Elephant, where he played a gay teen photographer who is shot in the face during a school shooting. I am less familiar with the French actors from the other short. I only recognize Thomas from a movie I thought about seeing two years ago at SIFF 2005 called, Three Dancing Slaves, but I didn't. I don't know Cyril from anything else. Hopefully, if I watch more French cinema, I will encounter them again.

Okay, now on to the reviews and honorable mention hotties. Everyone who goes to see a movie is given an opportunity to vote via ballot for that movie on a scale from 1 (bad) to 5 (great). All the ratings are tallied at the end of the festival, and the Golden Space Needle awards are given out to the winners (which are usually undeserving middle-of-the-road crap, but I still feel the need to participate). Anyhow, that's what the ratings that follow the title of the film are.

Paprika (Papurika). Rating: 5. Really, director Kon Satoshi can do no wrong. I have loved every movie he's done since I watched Perfect Blue my freshman year of college (and immediately downloaded the CHAM! single Ai no Tenshi). The story isn't particularly revolutionary (A device that lets you enter the dream world is stolen and abused. Who's doing it? Why!? It can only lead to a catastrophic merging of dreams and reality if our heroes don't save the day!), but it examines the topic of reality, dreams, and fiction in a really interesting way. The visuals are mind-blowing, and the music by Hirasawa Susumu is amazing. I had an impulse to watch the movie again right after walking out of the theater. Unfortunately, there were no hot guys in this movie, animated or otherwise.

After This Our Exile (Fu zi). Rating: 3. This is the story of a deadbeat dad and the son who stays frustratingly loyal to him despite all the horrible things his dad puts him through (the literal translation of the Chinese title is Father and Son). At almost three hours, this movie was too long. I'm not opposed to long movies, but the point had been made after an hour and a half, so the rest of the movie just felt like a little like sadism. This sometimes happens when someone writes, directs and edits their own movie. The director doesn't throw out any of the unnecessary stuff the writer put in, and the editor doesn't cut out any of the unnecessary scenes the director's shot, because it's all the same guy. I love Patrick Tam and everything, but dear god, man, have some self-control. Malaysia never looked better than it does in this film, and really that might be the only thing that kept my attention for the entire length of the movie. It was also too bad that hottie Aaron Kwok was such an asshole in this movie (but I guess that means he did some good acting).

Vanaja. Rating: 4. This movie was enjoyable, even if the pacing was a little off. It's about an Indian girl (named Vanaja, surprise!) who wants to learn to dance, but encounters hardships flung at her by the society and culture in which lives. The main character was excruciatingly likable and being able to watch her dance in this movie is worth the price of admission alone. It was extraordinary. There was a hottie in this movie, model Karan Singh (find him on the movie's cast page) who had a really great body, but he played a rapist, and that's not very hot.

Paris je t'aime. Rating: 5. I loved this. I know a lot of people don't like shorts or whatever, but I loved the little sketches we got from so many different directors. It made me feel so much in such a small period of time, and it was lovely to see all the different directorial styles up against one another. I think I liked Alexander Payne's (14e arrondissement, with Margo Martindale's perfectly accented American French) or Isabel Coixet's (Bastille, with my favorite use of Le Tourbillon since Jules et Jim) the best. Gurinder Chadha's (Quais de Seine) and Gus Van Sant's (Le Marais) were really cute. The Coen Brothers' (Tuileries, with Steve Buscemi) was funny. And... well, okay I liked most of the rest too. A lot of them were screaming to be made into a full-length. The one that was just too weird for me was Christopher Doyle's (Porte de Choisy). I'm sorry, guy, I love your cinematographic work, but your directorial stuff? Not so much.

A Battle of Wits (Mo gong). Rating: 2. What a bad movie! I only didn't give it a 1 because it wasn't a complete technical failure. A peace-loving Mohist in China's Warring States period attempts to save the state of Liang from being overtaken by the state of Zhao. This is ultimately a losing battle, because Qin eventually conquered all the states in 221 BCE and united China. But that's beside the point. The writing was really, really bad. The dialogue was made up mostly of those predictable brave-men-in-war clichés ("We must fight for honor and glory!" "I will do anything to save your live!") shouted at each other, and it was so god-awful that for the last 30 or 40 minutes, I couldn't help zoning out. Really, I stopped listening, but I know I didn't miss out on anything. The subtitles also read like they were written by a complete idiot. For one, they kept misspelling the name of the states. And then they referred to "Mohists" as "Mozis," which is wrong. Mozi is the philosopher; his followers are called "Mohists." It would be like referring to Marxists as "Marxes." There are not a bunch of Karl Marxes running around. There is one Karl Marx, and a group of Marxists. Similarly, one Mozi, many Mohists. The movie stretched believability pretty far, but to top off the what-the-fuck factor, there was a black guy in the movie. And he played a slave. I'm not sure there were any Africans in China during the Warring States period, let alone any mixed African-Caucasian guys (the dude's skin was pretty light). And then why was he a slave? I guess I just don't get it. But then again, this movie was so bad, I don't think I care. Okay, so the action sequences were not bad, but that's about all the good I can say about it. I almost forgot to mention hotties Andy Lau and Choi Si-won. And Nicky Wu if you're into that sort of thing.

siff 2007

2007-05-26T13:18:00.000-07:00

It's the end of May, so you know what's coming: the Seattle International Film Festival. I'm so excited!

This year, there are a lot of films from directors whose previous work I have liked: Kon Satoshi (Perfect Blue, Millennium Actress, Tokyo Godfathers), Patrick Tam (director of Final Victory and editor on Wong Kar-wai's Days of Being Wild and Ashes of Time), Johnny To (Turn Left, Turn Right, Breaking News, Election), David Wain (Wet Hot American Summer), Lee Jae-yong (Untold Scandal), Feng Xiaogang (A World without Thieves), Otomo Katsuhiro (Akira, Steamboy), Kurosawa Kiyoshi (Cure, Pulse, Bright Future, Doppelganger), Andrew Lau (Young and Dangerous, Storm Riders, Infernal Affairs, Initial D) and Shin Dong-il (Host & Guest). Yes, can you tell I'm a total Asian cinema junkie? I tend to avoid all but a few of the American films in the festival, because they're all going to be released in theaters later this year. Unless something has a lot of good buzz (like Half Nelson last year), I will probably skip it.

Three years ago, for SIFF 2004, I saw 18 movies. Two years ago, I saw 20 movies. Last year, I saw 22. How many am I seeing this year?

Breaking it down by location of origin, that's 6 Chinese films (3 from Hong Kong, 1 from Taiwan, and 2 from the Mainland), 2 French films, 1 Swiss film, 4 Japanese films, 1 Indian film, 2 Canadian films (1 Québécois, 1 not), 2 Spanish films, 1 German film, 3 British films, 3 Korean films, and 5 American films. A grand total of 30 movies. Let's hope I survive to the end!

bryant chang

2007-05-24T21:40:00.000-07:00

I'm going to get my hair cut tomorrow, so I was flipping through all my magazines looking for a good hairstyle. I found a lot of stuff I'd love to rock, except for the fact that I'm too lazy to make it look nice every single day. Plus, we'll see how this new stylist works out.

But while I was flipping away, I found that the cover model for April's Men's Uno Taiwan was none other than Bryant Chang, one of the guys in Eternal Summer, which is the gay Taiwanese movie I'm gonna go see in a couple weeks! I like how his hair looks, but I will never wear it. Hair in front of my eyes bothers me so much. Anyhow, he looks hot, as does the other guy in the movie, which makes me really excited to see it. Also, let it be known that Bryant won the Golden Horse award for Best New Performer. And another picture of Bryant, profile text translated below:

profile

Zhang Rui-jia / Bryant
Birthday / March 31st, 1985
Zodiac Sign / Aries
Height / 182 cm Weight / 68 kg
School Background / Taipei Physical Education College
Movies / Eternal Summer
TV Series / Tokyo Juliet, Express Boy, Love Contract, Seventh Grade

You know, I realize now you didn't really need a translation for that...

Embedded video alert! It's the trailer for Eternal Summer.

Do you remember? Our relationship started with a rule.
We can never return to that summer again.
No one should be alone.
Do you still believe that?

stories from the closet

2007-05-23T19:47:00.000-07:00

Previously on... Stories from the Closet.

The following is a short exchange I had with my mother today. My mother will be played by Victoria Beckham (I still love you, Posh, even if you're fucking my husband), and I will be played by Gisele Bundchen (I'm so hot):

Mom, inquisitively: "Why don't you have a girlfriend yet?"

Me, indifferently: "Like I said... They are too much trouble."

Mom, starting to get annoyed: "Well, are you ever going to have a girlfriend?"

Me, also starting to get annoyed: "I dunno. We'll see."

Mom, now annoyed: "Am I ever going to carry a grandchild in my arms?"

Me, also now annoyed: "What about my sister?"

Mom, being a total bitch: "Her child won't have our surname."

Me, tired of being asked these questions: "Then I guess you're shit out of luck."

A pregnant pause... wait for it...

Mom: "Are you even into girls?"

Needless to say, being the coward that I am, I ran away.

soft poached eggs

2007-05-21T15:41:00.000-07:00

There is truly no finer way to prepare an egg than to poach it... softly. I think soft poached eggs are my favorite way to eat eggs. Of course it's not appropriate everywhere, but I love runny yolk like I love my right arm, and in the soft poached egg, the yolk is perfectly runny. I like them on toast, on salads, in noodles, in soup... If there is a place I can put a poached egg, I will try my best to put a poached egg there.

One of the best poached eggs I've had at a restaurant was at Momofuku in Manhattan's East Village. The entire white of the egg is soft and gelatinous, while the yolk is suitably creamy. I imagine they use room temperature eggs and cook the egg at a consistently low heat for an extended amount of time, but I've not yet tried to achieve such a feat. It'll definitely be something to attempt.

moral quandary

2007-05-18T20:40:00.000-07:00

First of all, I am so sorry if you're looking at this at work because the above picture is so not safe for work, unless your work involves looking at porn, but you know, I have to retain my artistic integrity no matter where you're reading this. Hey, look, at least I blurred out the best part, right? Oh, and as a disclaimer, pretty much all the links in the following post are also NSFW.

Anyway, as you may have heard, some days ago they arrested two guys in connection to the murder of Bryan Phillips (né Bryan Kocis), the founder of gay twink porn studio, Cobra Video. As it may be aware to some, I love watching porn (really, what man doesn't?), so when I heard some months ago that Bryan Phillips had been murdered, I was shocked and a little saddened. Whence will come the kind of cute, damaged twinks that Cobra was famous for? I can't live on the memories of Brent Corrigan (né Sean Lockhart) forever!

While it didn't really answer my question, the news that they'd caught the killers was a relief. Yeah, Bryan Phillips was probably an exploitive, manipulative, underage-boy-loving asshole, but people shouldn't get away with murder (If it sounds like I have a double standard about enjoying porn created in such an environment by a man I prejudicially dislike, that's because I do have such a double standard. What do you want me to do about it?).

Of course, after I found out who the killers were, I was immediately struck with a moral quandary. I think one of them, Harlow Cuadra (the blowee pictured above), is hot. But wait, he's a murderer... and... I shouldn't think murders are hot... right? What is the emotional response deemed by our society as "correct" in such a situation? This is not something that I remember being taught in kindergarten. Is it okay to think he's hot, as long as I do so guiltily and feel bad about it? Am I allowed to think he's hot at all? The truth is there is no porn actor I would actually, really want to do (there's that double standard again), so is it okay in that context? I had similar feelings during the whole Scott and Laci Peterson thing, though only after Scott lost all that weight in guilt.

Also, sort of on a tangent... Do soldiers' spouses have the same sort of moral reservations when their beloved comes back from war? Do they think about how many people they killed while they were there? Or if all the people they killed really deserve to die?

I guess it doesn't really matter. My soul is black and my heart is dead and cold, but I suppose I was just wondering what one's supposed to think in such a situation.

oh so hot

2007-05-16T09:39:00.000-07:00

Not that further proof is required, as it is obvious to anyone who spends any amount of time outside when it's sunny, but here is further proof! When the sun comes out, so do the hot, hot, hot boys! How else can you explain the torrent of new missed connections? Twelve on Tuesday alone!

We had a record high of 84 degrees here in Seattle yesterday (not hottest ever, just for the recorded history of May 15th), and it was very nice. I suppose we've got to enjoy the climate change while it's still bearable, before the lakes dry up, the animals all die off, and we're forced to live in underground tunnels where everyone will be ugly. Guess how much faith I have in humanity to change the course of what we're all doing to our planet.

Also, let's give thanks to Diesel and Chad White.

praise be to the lord

2007-05-15T12:37:00.000-07:00

I woke up this morning to the news that Jerry Falwell, professional bigot and all around hateful lump of flesh, finally died. This is great news for the world. He spent his life making money by instilling fear and hatred into the hearts of the undereducated. That's right, people gave him money to hear him spew vitriol about how much he hated blacks, Jews, gays, and liberals. There is absolutely no need for that bullshit anywhere, at any time.

I'd like to say that God wrapped his hands around his heart and squeezed until it stopped beating, but there is no God, or if there was one, He left us long, long ago. Falwell lived to the age of 73 and amassed a fortune those of us who live honestly will likely never see. No god would have let that happen. So it's a disappointment that Falwell is not now being sent to the Gates of Hell for what he wrought on Earth.

What annoys me most is that I expect the mainstream media will, as they always do, look back on the life of the departed, and somehow only remember the good things that they did. Not everyone's a fucking saint, and Jerry Falwell was an especially horrible person. But of course, when it comes down to it, it doesn't matter. No matter what they say about him, he's still dead. And that is comforting.

night owl

2007-05-13T23:45:00.000-07:00

I am a night owl. Always have been. I'm trying to go to sleep earlier and wake up earlier, like normal working people do, but I just can't do it (it might have something to do with the fact that I am not a normal or working person). Even if I force myself to wake up early, and I am tired all throughout the day, after the sun goes down, I am full of energy to go do something. Unfortunately, practically nothing is open late (except for bars, but who wants to spend all their nights in a bar?) in the US; in Taipei, I could still go out to the night market and pick up some snacks or shop for CDs, DVDs, clothes, and other shit I don't need, and I wouldn't be the only one! But what usually ends up happening (if i don't go out to a bar...) is I try to get to sleep at a decent hour, but it doesn't work, so I read. I read until my eyes get blurry and I am actually tired, and then I go to sleep. Of course, when I do get to sleep, I don't end up sleeping as much as I think I ought to, and so I am tired again for the next day... until the night comes, and I am ready to go. The reason this bothers me a little, is I almost wish I was more of a morning person. Whenever I accomplish something in the morning, I really feel like I've used my time well. If I get what I want done by noon, then I have the entire rest of the day to do something else. Bah, I don't know. Perhaps, I will just have to go back to accepting my night-owl-hood, and get things done at night like I have been doing since I was little. (Did I mention that I think I think better at night too? Though you couldn't really tell by this rambling mess.)

easter eggs

2007-04-05T19:16:00.000-07:00

I started feeling a dull pain in my left testicle the evening before last. I was hoping I'd just accidentally bruised it, what with all the crazy S&M play I do to my genitals (not really), and that it would go away, but after a couple days and upon further examination, there may be a small lump, I'm not sure. I made an appointment to see a doctor tomorrow. Let's cross our fingers and hope it's nothing serious. Good Friday, indeed.

no means no

2007-03-14T22:28:00.000-07:00

Seattle voters rejected both options on the ballot for replacing the Alaskan Way Viaduct: no tunnel, no new elevated viaduct. I voted that way, so this is good news for me. Hopefully now our governor, mayor and speaker realizes that we need to look at other alternatives. We don't need a bigger viaduct. If we simply increase the capacity for cars, there will just be more cars on the road, wasting gas and polluting the air. We need to seriously look at improving our mass transit system, so that we can actually move the city forward.

One of the things I love about cities like New York or San Francisco or Taipei or almost any other major city I've been to with the exception of Los Angeles, is that I can get around on foot if I wanted to, conveniently. When I lived in the U District, it wasn't so bad, because everything was one bus ride away, and I could look up schedules for just one bus to reduce wait times. But now that I don't, it's a pain to go anywhere. I end up more often than not reconsidering plans to do anything, just because I don't feel like traveling an hour and a half each way, or waiting for an evening bus that only comes once an hour, and stops running at 1100pm. This shit needs to change, or I'd really be compelled to move to another city. Perhaps if we got rid of the viaduct and put the money they would have spent building a new monstrosity to beef up our public transportation, things would actually improve.

riding the metro

2007-03-13T21:34:00.000-07:00

Today, on every bus I took (the 75 to and from the U District and the 540 to and from Redmond), there was exactly 1 (one) hot boy in tight indie hipster jeans. Every bus. Surely this cannot be simply a coincidence. Surely, this must mean something! But what? What could it mean? The only thing I gleaned from it was that given four chances to talk to a hot guy sitting next to me, I took none of them. Something is obviously wrong with me.

be louder

2007-03-02T18:57:00.000-08:00

I don't particularly like or dislike Hillary Clinton, but it's not a good sign that she can't hire people for her campaign who don't understand the difference between Chinese and Chinese-American. The SF Chronicle reported on Tuesday that a Hillary Clinton staffer refused a couple journalists for ethnic newspapers at the door because they were "foreign press." How disrespectful is that? What kind of message does that send, that regardless of everything Asian-Americans have done for this country, they can still be considered foreign? This is exactly the attitude that leads to something like if we were to be in a war with an Asian nation, and then we rounded up all the people who happened to have the same ethnicity and you know, interned them in camps or something. Clinton's campaign apologized for the gaffe after the journalists involved made a fuss, but this really doesn't endear me to Hillary.

imperative

2007-01-28T00:19:00.000-08:00

i like reading missed connections/i saw yous, because sometimes you'll come across ones like this, and you just want the two to find each other again and live happily ever after. or, happily for the next 30 minutes to an hour, or whatever. i'm keeping my fingers crossed.

how much

2007-01-07T22:28:00.000-08:00

honestly, i don't kno why my parents don't just disown me. it would make it easier on everyone involved.

holiday shopping

2006-12-13T21:42:00.000-08:00

i'm out of fucking ideas for what to get my friends for christmas. it's such a dire situation that i'm considering just sifting thru my hotmail spam and matching friend with product. there's everything from lesbian schoolgirl porn and canadian viagra to travelocity gift certificates or hickory farms baskets. unfortunately for my friends, i don't have much money, so it looks like they're all getting sausage sticks and blocks of cheese, instead of a trip to new york.

i win

2006-11-08T23:31:00.000-08:00

i think for the first time in my entire voting career (this is my seventh year), everyone and everything i voted for to be elected, passed or rejected was respectively elected, passed or rejected. every initiative, proposition, referendum. every federal, state and city candidate. you kno what that means. i win! now i am going to go get a lapdance.

i'm in

2006-10-04T17:01:00.000-07:00

i always thot i'd use that title for an entry about getting into school or something, but apparently not. the alternate title for this post is "why are there so many crazy people in seattle?"

just today, when i was at scarecrow looking for something to watch other than what i went there for (it's 2 for 1 wednesday today), which i might add, is a horribly difficult thing to do while hungover and not feeling like watching anything at all, i noticed someone talking loudly to himself. automatically i assume that he was talking to someone on a bluetooth or something ridiculous like that, but when i looked over, he wasn't. okay, whatever, people talk to themselves sometimes. but as he's leaving, he starts shouting at the people working at the counter about something i could not make heads or tails of. something about how they were a plague on society and whatnot. crazy talk.

then i was walking on the ave, a tall and skinny shirtless man was pointing at things and shouting. unlike the other guy, i didn't think this guy was talking on his cell phone. i was walking behind a middle aged lady in pink, and he ended up behind us, and i hear this: "hey you, the lady in the pink, you're OUT! you're OUT! i'm sorry but you are out." she ignores him, and i do too, thinking to myself that i really should have taken another route. he tells the woman she is out a couple more times, and then he says, "hey you, the guy with the bag that is rite in front of me." this is me. "you're IN! that's rite, you're IN!" i ignore him, but secretly that is validation i've been looking for my entire life. i felt like i belonged to something! (not really.) i sped up so that i could not only cross the street before the lite turned, but also so that i wouldn't somehow be murdered or something. as i got to my car, i saw him walking down the street, still shouting at people. "you, the girl on the scooter, you're in."

what the fuck are these people on?

jewel in the palace was checked out tho

2006-09-29T18:07:00.000-07:00

surreal moment: i had a conversation with a nun about k-dramas at a video store. lesson learned: nuns are just like us. except they are married to god.

alcohol happens

2006-08-30T11:01:00.000-07:00

yesterday, i was pouring myself something to drink, orange juice. what was left in the carton wasn't enough to fill the glass i had, so to make up for it, i filled the rest with vodka.

sayounara

2006-08-20T16:59:00.000-07:00

so i took japanese over the summer, mostly cuz i didn't kno what else to do with myself, and despite how much work it was (hours upon hours every day...), i actually met some pretty cool people. well, i'm sure there are cool people in every class i've taken, but when you're forced to spend hours every day with the same people, you actually are forced to get to kno them. i also met some people i never want to see ever again, but i didn't let that ruin my experience.

anyhow, i just wanted to detail our last day together, because it was a lot of fun, and i'd like to keep that memory.

after our final (around 1100am) on friday, we thot it was a good idea to go to someone's place (she lived in a frat over the summer, which was a good thing, really) and do sake bombs. we got nice and drunk and loud, and every now and then, a hot, sometimes shirtless (hell, yeah) frat guy would pop his head in to see who was making so much noise so early in the morning. some got drunker than others, and when we went to get food afterwards (at best of bento on the ave), a few people fell out of their chairs, and a few heaved into the toilet. you kno who you are.

afterwards, i took someone home so that they could pass out and wake up for the planned dinner get-together for the class, and i went with some classmates to get some more liquor for the party get-together that would happen after dinner that nite.

then we chilled at another classmate's place and drank some beers that he had brewed himself until it was time to head to dinner.

the dinner was at bush garden (600pm), and while i'd seen the aging sign for its parking lot, i'd never actually been inside. the food was pretty standard (good, but not extraordinary), but the company was a lot of fun.

when we were done with dinner, some of us went to get yet more liquor and then we headed to the place where the party was to be at. the day begins to grow fuzzy around this time, but i'm quite sure i was having drunk conversations with my teachers, and i kno i found out that the hot sensei, who'd ta'd first-year, was gay. i'd thot so, but it was good to get some confirmation. had i been sure, i would have turned up the charm. *wink*

anyways, after we chilled at the house for a while, we headed off to karaoke. this is the part of the nite i almost don't remember. i don't kno where we went or hot i got there, but i do remember shouting a few songs into the microphone, and then flirting with the lesbian working at the front desk. one of my teachers drove me home, and i passed out.

it had been a while since i'd partied all day like that, so it really brot me back to my younger days in college. who knos when (and if) i'll be able to do something like that again.

no shit

2006-07-27T08:02:00.000-07:00

so, the news broke yesterday that people magazine's new cover story was that lance bass of *nsync (yeah) was a gay. to most of us, this came as no surprise, because honestly, i'd already figured he was gay back in 1998 (yeah), back when i had that crush on young justin timberlake (remember the 'tearin' up my heart' video? remember jt kneeing on the bed in the wifebeater, singing, "i am down on my knees; i can't take it anymore" and then "tearin' up my heart and soul, we're apart, i feel it too; and no matter what i do, i feel the pain with or without you"? mmm... yeah). but you kno what's really on everyone's minds? who is this amazing racer reichen, lance's "stable" boyfriend (i give them another half year at the most... yeah), that everyone is now jabbering about? the gays all kno reichen very very well, but it's clear that not everyone does. not that i pay much attention to stats and everything, but i did notice an 8-fold spike in the hits yesterday, most of which were people looking for pictures and info about reichen.

i have neither! i just wanted to comment on the fact that it sure took lance a while to make it official, that a lot of people are interested in reichen (this must be great for his "career"... yeah), and to reiterate that reichen is motherfucking hot. and i wanted to poke fun of sexy back (yeah).

first darren hayes, formerly of savage garden (we all saw that one coming too), and now lance. who's next? when's the gay backstreet boy going to do it? i guess if it took lance eight years, then we won't expect anything out of clay aiken for another ten.

hey, isn't that...

2006-07-21T22:17:00.000-07:00

i was at scarecrow video the other day, where i was going to meet a friend. well, he was stuck in traffic, so i had a lot of time to browse around. i went to virtually every section to look around, for things to rent another time. it never really occurs to me to go to the sexploitation (read: porn) section, because i don't really ever rent porn, but i was bored, so i went in to look (i hope that doesn't sound like some sort of excuse or justification, because i am not the least bit ashamed of my interest in watching hot naked boys fucking each other. those who kno me, kno that i love my porn).

i'll be honest, it wasn't a very good selection. mostly older stuff, mixed in with some newer stuff here and there, but i didn't see much released after 2003. i didn't think there was anything interesting there, until of course i saw a little row of videos generically titled, "seattle something something boyz" (i.e. "seattle college boyz," "seattle navy boyz," et cetera). hey! i thot. i wonder if anyone i kno's been in any of these. so, i looked at the backs of all of them, and to my surprise, i did see one. the surprise wasn't that i recognized at least one of them, but that it was a guy i had a crush on way back when who was one of the last people i would've thot would do porn (obviously, i did not kno him well enuf).

as you can see above, the movie was "seattle solo sessions" [link kinda nsfw] (volume 1, but i didn't see a volume 2 anywhere, so perhaps they were getting ahead of themselves), and his name was david. he was a couple years older than me and i think i knew him from freshman or sophomore year of college. nothing ever came of it, cuz he was mostly interested in tall white guys like himself, and i am not such a person, but he always seemed like a really nice guy.

so, naturally, i was dying of curiosity. i won't pretend it's anything other than the fact that i want to see his dick and watch him jack off, because i can honestly think of no other reason for the curiosity. i mean, seriously, i couldn't make it happen in reality, so why not indulge my freshman self's fantasy as best i can? well, i didn't rent it then. but you can be sure that someday, i will.

postscript: here's a stranger article by adrian ryan about the (now-defunct?) company, gae boy video. read it because it's so true.

kiss my ass, indeed

2006-07-11T16:41:00.000-07:00

liberal arts

2006-07-03T13:37:00.000-07:00

i was walking home from class today and there were two frat-looking guys walking in front of me. one of them wasn't wearing a shirt (but he was carrying a backpack), while the other one was fully clothed. after a few minutes, the one without a shirt took his pants off too, and he was not wearing any underwear. so now, i'm walking with a naked guy with a backpack on in front of me. it's times like this, i wish i had a cameraphone.

i can't fall asleep

2006-06-28T05:23:00.000-07:00

allergies suck.

the omen

2006-06-08T01:15:00.000-07:00

i shit you not, on tuesday, the day of my last final of my undergraduate career, i was walking to said final when the bloodied head of a crow fell out of a tree in front of me. it was the most horrible thing ever. how often does that happen? i mean, really. this is so not what i wanted to see anywhere, let alone on the way to a test. what did it mean, for surely something so unusual must have a meaning...? and besides that, what the fuck happened, that a bird's head would fall out of a tree? on my way back from the test, i noticed that ants and other crawlies had already began making short work of the head. oh, nature...

siffty siffs

2006-05-26T21:20:00.000-07:00

oh, yes. film festival season is upon us once more. last year, i saw a crazy 20 movies, mostly good, some not so much. but that's nothing! despite finding well over 40 movies i wanted to see this year, i've cut the number down to approximately 22, due to budgetary (and time) constraints. we'll see if that holds. i have yet to finalize it all, but i hope to see all of the following:

yes, that does seem like a lot, but i have so much fun year after year that i can't help myself. this is also the last year that i get to take advantage of the student discount, tho the woman at the box office didn't check my id or anything, so perhaps i can pull it off next year. i actually didn't think i'd see as many this year because there seemed to be a lot less east asian movies in this year's selection, but after going thru the entire list, i found that didn't really hinder me. notice the slight increase in pictures of naked boys and/or boys about to kiss? there were more queer movies this year, i think, or at least more gay movies that looked interesting (i.e. had screencaps of naked boys and/or boys about to kiss), so those easily filled the holes left open by a lack of asian cinema representation. i'd like to give short reviews on the movies after i see them, but i never had time to do that last year, so who knos. no promises. anyhow, i'll see y'all at the movies!

on the davinci code

2006-05-23T01:25:00.000-07:00

my roommate and i were at the grocery store in the jam section and...

roommate: my dad likes apple butter. i don't get it.

me: well, to each his own. for instance, i hate the davinci code.

random girl who had been browsing the aisle next to us: oh god, isn't it horrible?

me: yeah! what a shitty book.

girl: fuck that book, AND that movie.

having made her point, the girl walks away. the end.

postscript: she was wearing the same golden girls t-shirt that i had, and i had resolved to dispatch of her, but then she redeemed herself in the jam aisle.

amazing race, season 9

2006-05-16T23:05:00.000-07:00

this was actually attached to the end of the previous post, but it was getting long, so i sliced it off and am posting it today.

the amazing race is wrapping up! with this show, i think i wouldn't mind if any of the current teams won (i hated mojo, and they're gone). okay, mebbe i would mind a little bit. the dumb guys shouldn't win. one of them is pretty cute, but he's such a jackass, i can only imagine he'll use the money to get chicks, and that's not okay. i'd be okay with ray and yolanda getting the money cuz i like them, except that i don't expect their relationship to last. obviously, long distance it was okay cuz they didn't have to be with each other 24/7, but i think it's clear from the trip that they'll only get on each other's nerves if they lived in the same city. so i guess that leaves the hippies, two of the most resilient contestants on the amazing race in a while. the power of t'tow clearly favors them, and i can imagine the money going to some good causes were they to win it. like more funny hats.

fun-filled weekend

2006-05-15T22:01:00.000-07:00

this past weekend was a lot of fun.

on friday, i had a midterm in the morning (not fun), and a full day of classes (930-300), but after all that, i went to the concert at hec ed pavilion, which included rock: local band united states of electronica, the academy is..., and my boys phantom planet; and hip-hop: locals blue scholars and mos def. mix master mike spun as well, and carlos mencia showed up too.

united states of electronica were pretty good. they sounded like a fun band. i'd heard of them before, but never seen them perform. there were like 6 members or something, two of which were sharing the singing and dancing girl duties usually performed by one. the academy is... is one of those bands like fall out boy where their music isn't really anything new and all their songs sound the same, but is very easy to listen to. in fact, they are touring with fall out boy this month, i think. their lead singer is tall and really skinny, and looks like a girl with his long hair and super-tight shirt and pants, but i still thot he was kinda hot. he strut around the stage a lot, which kinda reminded me of mick jagger, but when he was younger. a lot younger. naturally, i went to this thing for the sole purpose of seeing phantom planet. as you may or may not kno, not only do i love their music (where's that new album, guys?), i have an 8-year-long-and-counting crush on the lead singer alex greenwald. it was great seeing all of them live again. i think the last time i saw them was with hoobastank, and god knos how long ago that was. they played a mix of old and older (since they haven't released much new material in a while), as well as one new song (i can't wait!), and one cover: phantom of the opera ("in sleep he sang to me/in dreams he came..."). i had a lot of fun watching them, and i found out that i still have the hots for alex. oh, alex... (thanks dan, for the pic)

carlos mencia really sucked. that isn't to say he bombed, unfortunately. it was sad to see so much of the audience laughing at his jokes, cuz they weren't inspired, clever or funny. his kind of comedy is the very ignorant kind that stupid people think, "oh that's so true," tho he wraps it up in "i'm trying to make you guys think," and tries to justify his homophobia and racism with his "i make fun of everyone" line. i understand that he needs to make money, but the whole act was painful for me. i couldn't change the channel like i usually can when he comes on after south park. i didn't hate him before, but i do now.

blue scholars was great. i'd heard about them, and seen pictures here and there, but this is the first time i'd actually heard them. plus, seeing them live made me come to the realization that i'd lived in the dorms with one of them and used to see him around all the time. actually, i think one of my friends had a thing for him. but that's beside the point. it's always fun listening to locals, cuz they reference things that only other locals would really get. mix master mike spun a great set, and mos def was awesome, but i think by that time i was way too tired and hungry to really appreciate them. my legs and feet hurt from standing for 5 hours, and i hadn't eaten for 9.

i was ready to pass out by the end, but i definitely think i got my $18 worth out of the event. especially since there were so many cute boys there! god damn, were there a lot. it was like everywhere i turned, a new one would pop out for me to peruse. had i been drunk, i'm sure i would have accosted some of them, but luckily for them, i was not.

and that was just friday. saturday morning, i woke up early to the blazing sun. okay, it wasn't blazing, but it was very bright and the sky was mostly clear. there are a few washington state activities my roommate wants to engage in before he moves down to socal for culinary school, and this day seemed like a good day to do one of them, so we decided in the blink of an eye to go over to woodinville and visit columbia winery, since he'd wanted to go wine tasting. when we got there, we were treated to various wines by one of the best wine stewards ever. her name was nan (i don't kno if i'm spelling that rite), and she kept on pouring. in addition, we got to see parts of the winery that she told us people usually didn't get to see on the tour. and then we got some vouchers for free reserve tasting. of course, it all worked great on me and i picked up a couple bottles of syrah for my parents. after that, we went across the street to chateau ste. michelle and after a tour and tasting there, i picked up a bottle of moscato for my sister (she loves her moscato). we realized that the red hook brewery was out here, so we decided to do a brewery day at some point in the future and hit mac and jacks in redmond, pyramid in seattle, and perhaps maritime pacific in ballard too.

and while that was all a lot of fun, the best part of visiting woodinville was dining at the purple cafe and wine bar. it was suggested by our friendly steward at columbia winery, and i enjoyed it quite a bit. i ordered the lobster baked mac and cheese ("campanelle noodles & lobster baked with gruyere, mozzarella, leeks & carrots") and it was delicious. the lobster was perfect with the cheeses and everything (gruyere is one of my favorite cheeses). if anyone stops by, i fully recommend this dish. okay, that couldn't possibly be the reason that this was the best part of the visit, rite? rite. our friendly waiter, bryan, was really fucking hot. at medium height, he had longer dark brown hair, a five o'clock shadow, a milky complexion and really well-formed features. whenever he came by, i couldn't help but get a good look. of course, looking at a waiter is usually body language for "excuse me, i need something," which is why he kept stopping mid-stride, unsure of whether or not i needed him for something. oh yes, i needed him for something, but i'm not sure it was part of his job to give it to me. i especially liked that he actually talked to us about our food beyond what i usually get from waiters (tho were he ugly, i probably would have been annoyed), and so that worked on me and i left a nice tip. there appears to be a location in kirkland, a little closer than woodinville, which is nice for when i want just the food, but i would definitely miss the service.

and that was just earlier in the day. i feel like this post is going on forever. oh well! for dinner, i met up with a friend from high school i hadn't seen in probably half a decade (that makes it sound like a long time, doesn't it?). it was a lot of fun catching up, and after sushi, we hit the theatre for stick it. while it wasn't quite bring it on (the dialogue was not as good, and dear god, it was lacking a lot of focus), it was still quite enjoyable and kept the "winning isn't everything" theme of the other movie. the main girl, missy peregrym, was so hot! i remember her vaguely from that failed abc show with kelly osbourne and sean faris, but i didn't remember her being really so hot. hopefully, she'll be in more stuff now, cuz i like her a lot.

and that was just saturday. just kidding, sunday wasn't full of fun like the other days were. i really should have been working on homework all weekend, but sometimes things just don't work out like that. so after i woke up, i did as much homework as i could, before i went home for mother's day and spent some time with my mom.

then i got back and watched the survivor finale. i'd been pulling for aras since the first episode, cuz i thot he was the hottest guy there, and i was pleasantly surprised when he won. honestly, i would have loved for cirie to have won, since she was my favorite, but after she was out of the running, i was behind aras 100%. and then after danielle won the last challenge, i was sure the million dollars was aras's. why was i so sure? because danielle likes to replace the vowels in people's names with the letter i. she spelled aras, "aris," and terry, "terri." that is the sole reason she didn't win. speaking of terry, i kno a lot of people liked him, but i didn't. i thot he was increasingly such a tool as the days went on. his ability to win a lot of the physical challenges didn't impress me, because everything that came out of his mouth was asshole talk. or mebbe i only feel that way cuz it was him vs. aras, and i liked aras. either way, i didn't like him, and am happy with the result of this survivor.

and that was pretty much my weekend. it was fun.

i should be studying now

2006-05-11T23:29:00.000-07:00

okay, so i was at a coffee shop today, studying with some friends, and in walks this reasonably cute guy, with his track jacket, jeans, and pumas. i catch some eye contact with him, but i dunno if it was just incidental (did we just happen to glance at each other at the same time?), cuz you kno, sometimes that happens. he sits down and he goes about his business. the person in the next table over that i'm facing has left, and so there's a free space there. in a little bit, the cute guy moves to this table and we are sitting basically face to face with two tables between us. at first, i think it's cuz there's more light at this table. for the next couple hours, i would get frequent, if intermittent eye contact with him, and i didn't kno what to think. of course, it finally occurs to me that we are being very loud sometimes (they were girls, forgive them), and that he's probably just trying to glare us into being quiet. but then, even when we weren't being loud, he kept looking over. so really, i didn't kno what to think. well, this is what i think. i think if he wanted us to be quiet, he should have come and asked us if we could do that. and i think that if that wasn't the case, he should have come and talked to me anyways, cuz he was cute. either way, i suppose i enjoyed exchanging brief stares. isn't this so totally missed connections tho? "coffee shop in the u district. you, cute. me, studying with friends (loudly). i noticed you looking over a lot. did you just want us to shut up or was there something more? wish i'd asked you in person. chai, sometime?"

it's rain

2006-05-08T21:52:00.000-07:00

look! rain made time magazine's time 100, their annual (is it annual?) list of people who influence our world. yes, rain is huge in asia, but... there are a lot of stars bigger than him, aren't there? well, whatever, i don't mind. _i_ love him, and that's all that matters. the article says he's getting ready for an english-language debut coming this fall. i'll support it, but i wouldn't get his hopes up. crossing over from asia to the us isn't something that happens easily, and even when it does happen, their american work usually isn't great compared to what they'd done in asia (yes, jet li, i'm talking about you). even when they don't successfully cross over, their attempt isn't that great. sorry, rain, but if utada (a real american!) can't make it, then what hope is there for you? well, gosh, why am i being such a fucking bugger? of course he'll make it. and then... and then, he'll have millions of screaming asian-american fans, and... when will he have time for me? oh, dear. (previously, rain)

relief

2006-05-02T07:39:00.000-07:00

yesterday, my history prof ended class early because she wasn't feeling well. i wonder if she had as bad a hangover as i did.

a work of art

2006-04-29T11:01:00.000-07:00

like it says above, this is paul robertson's pirate baby's cabana battle street fight 2006, and it is an amazing work of art. it's an animation done in the style of all those awesome fighting arcade games from back in the day that i wish they still made. watching this is a lot like watching someone play an awesome video game. the only regret is that after he's done, it's not my turn to play. i've never been happier to see monster babies burst out of their zombie mothers' wombs, and i reckon y'all feel the same way. watch it, or i'll send christopher walken after you.

maybe i don't want to get married

2006-04-20T12:03:00.000-07:00

(via the wow report)

i hate alarmists

2006-04-13T13:20:00.000-07:00

at the risk of sounding like a republican jackass or an annoyingly frequent complainer about the news media, i'm going to have to come down on ridiculous one-sided alarmist articles like this time magazine article from a week or so ago about global warming. i mean, just look at the fucking cover. the first words are telling you to "be worried. be _very_ worried." what the fuck? is global warming a problem? quite possibly. is our government not doing enough to curb pollution and protect the environment? yes, definitely. should we, as people who might want to sustain a planet capable of supporting the continuation of the human race, stop fucking everything up? well, probably to the best of our ability. i wouldn't trade in my suv for a bicycle tho*. there are important points being brot up for sure, but the way in which it is brot up just grates at my insides. the article makes it sound like tomorrow (or perhaps the day after tomorrow), the polar ice caps will all have melted and polar bear corpses will be floating down the street while we're on our commute. there is absolutely no need for this brand of false urgency (might it be an urgent situation? sure, but is it as urgent as this article makes it out to be? hell, no). it treats its audience as if we're all a bunch of bumfuck asshole idiots, and i thoroughly resent that implication. i might be an asshole, but i'm not an idiot, and i don't need some chicken with glasses and zach braff's voice to burst into my room with his hands (or wings) frantically waving, screaming at the top of his lungs about the sky falling. please also note that this is not the first alarmist global warming article that mr. jeffrey kluger has written for time (i wonder if it has anything to do with his winning a whitman bassow award for best reporting in any medium on international environmental issues for a "global warming" cover package). you might call him the official time magazine global warming mascot. going backwards from the one published a week or so ago, here's one from january 2006, another from september 2005, august 2005, and august 2002. so perhaps, he wasn't alarmist enuf in the previous articles, so he's stepping it up, hoping that people will listen. well, did they? did they listen? i'm thinking not so much. i sure didn't. all that was accomplished is that now i think jeff kluger thinks i'm an asshole idiot, which annoyed me a week or so ago (and i suppose still does a little bit, if i'm still talking about it). i just feel like this style of news reporting, the "oh no, we're all gonna die!" sort doesn't really have a place where we are in our day and age. it just stinks of old school propaganda and manipulation. talk to me like i'm a normal person and leave it up to me to decide whether or not i think i am going to die tomorrow because of what i'm doing today.

*i'm lying. i don't actually own a car.

i don't care about seals

2006-04-12T23:46:00.000-07:00

this is a stupid headline. it's not even news. thousands upon thousands of baby seals have been beaten to death yearly for years and years. for something to be news, i feel like it should be, above all, a relatively new occurrence, something whose status has changed recently. at the very least, that requirement should be satisfied if you're going to put it on the front page, where important stories are reported about. to me, this stupid headline is the same thing as a news report about the benefits of breathing air and drinking water. behold, the sun comes out during the day, and the moon comes out at nite! this isn't news! this baby seal shit sounds like someone at cnn.com is anti-seal-clubbing and has commandeered the front page for their own purposes. it's not as if i want to stifle the voice of the protesters either, because i really don't care about it. if you want to make mention about a recent protest against the seal-killing, then that's news. but the bare listing of seal-killing statistics is not. it's just a number that tries to evoke some sort of emotional reaction from an audience. lemme give some more examples. iran's recent uranium enriching activities, that's news. secretary rice making a statement about it, news. peter sarsgaard and maggie gyllenhaal expecting a baby and getting married, news. "Seal hunters expected to kill 234,000 Wednesday," NOT NEWS. i'm not saying that web news is the pinnacle of news reporting, but i would like that it stay above the brain-dissolving blandness of televised news. i'm just asking that they keep the non-news out of the news.

bank boys

2006-04-06T22:39:00.000-07:00

the wells fargo bank on the corner of 45th and the ave has always been relatively good to me in terms of the quality of boy. i've been going to that bank since it was a first interstate, tho i don't remember the boys there then. anyhow, early in my college career (i don't think he was there when i was in highschool), there was a boy who worked at the bank named nels, and he was fucking hot, in that tall, chiseled, abercrombie frat boy kind of way. i remember liking his silly ties. needless to say, i always went into the bank to do my business, and almost never conducted transactions via an atm. i especially enjoyed casual fridays, when he would dress down give us a different view of nels. he worked there for a few years and then stopped. i still miss having such a hot teller when i go to the bank.

of course, over the years there have been other cute boys, but i can't say any have matched up to him. altho recently, a new gay boy has started working there. he's dressed fabulously and i love his hair. i haven't had him help me yet, as the last time i was there, he was helping a woman who couldn't understand english (with a dumbass next to her repeated everything the cute boy said to her in ENGLISH), which took entirely too long. but if he's just started then he won't disappear so fast, so i'll have a little incentive to go to the bank now.

dangerous muse

2006-04-05T23:52:00.000-07:00

dangerous muse is making its way across the blogs, and for good reason. it's great 80s dance music that i just can't not dance to (always indicative of awesome dance music), and above all, the two boys pictured above are fucking hot. FUCKING HOT. you guys have my immediate support. check them and their music out on myspace. okay, i have to post this so i can close the window. that picture is getting me too hot, and i need to put this shit on my ipod immediately.

law building stop-and-chat

2006-04-04T18:09:00.000-07:00

i ran into a highschool classmate in front of the law building. a lot of my highschool classmates seem to be at the law program here at the u. i hadn't seen him since we graduated, i'm sure, which was almost six years ago. it was another one of those slighty awkward conversations (the dreaded stop-and-chat), but i didn't pay attention to much of what he was saying because i couldn't help but notice that his skin was really dry. the guy should invest in a bottle of lotion, if anything, for his own dermic health.

also, these people always ask me, "what are you up to?" and i kno they mean, "what do you have going on rite now in terms of the big picture?" but i always answer it as, "what are you currently on your way to do?" so instead of talking about being in school, i said, "oh, i'm on my way to the library to print out something." i'm sure he found that enlightening.

edison chen

2006-04-03T08:33:00.000-07:00

as many of you might already kno, this is edison chen, canadian-born hong kong pop star. i don't like the way he sings (or "raps"), and his acting is sub-par at best, but none of that matters. boy is hot! he's always seemed like an asshole to me, and from what i hear, that's not terribly far from the truth, but i still can't deny it. boy is hot! here's a pic of his balls (unfortunately, they are only tennis balls) from the same spread in february's taiwan men's uno. he's appeared in a bunch of movies since i first saw him in gen-y cops, and if you watch hk cinema at all, i'm sure you've seen him too. i'm not sure i'd go see a movie just cuz he was in it, but it doesn't hurt. not at all...

kingdom hearts 2

2006-04-02T10:55:00.000-07:00

i loved the first kingdom hearts a ton. i was initially weirded out by the whole concept. a melding of the disney universe and the square (now square-enix, or squenix) final fantasy universe? that sounds like putting milk and sugar in tea! preposterous! but then i read a bunch of really good reviews, and there's really no way i can avoid getting a widely-publicized square or enix game (i've been playing final fantasy and draqon quest since i was so small) with final fantasy characters in it, and of course, the prospect of seeing my beloved disney characters in 3d was just too enticing, so i ended up getting it. it was everything i expected out of it and so much more. talking to pooh bear and piglet, swimming thru the mermaid kingdom with ariel, and battling maleficent in dragon form like i'm in fucking sleeping beauty! this is the stuff of dreams.

so when kingdom hearts 2 finally came out (it seems forever since they announced it) this past week, i had to go get me some. i'm only a few hours into it, but already it's exceeded my expectations. the beginning was a little bit weird tho. it starts out with a long prologue in which i had very little idea what was going on (and i still don't even after the prologue was over). i spent a lot of the time thinking, hey, where's sora? but other than that, it's been a lot of fun. i can't wait to get into it more, but i'm afraid it'll be slow-going because i just have so much schoolwork this quarter. no worries. there's always room for kingdom hearts.

one of the things i love about the fact that disney has a stake in this project is that they get familiar actors to voice the characters. like, most of the voices for the disney characters (barring mickey and goofy and donald, et al) are voiced by the actors who did them in the original movies. so that means king triton, aladdin, mulan and beast sound like they should sound, and geoffrey rush actually voices captain barbossa, zach braff voices chicken little, and bruce boxleitner comes back for tron. and the voices for the squenix characters don't sound horrible as they often do in anime voice-overs for tv shows, because they get real actors to do them. in the second one, haley joel osment is back for sora, david boreanaz for squall, and david gallagher for riku, and then christopher lee, ron perlman, jesse mccartney and brittany snow voice new characters. these are actors i have actually heard of and whose movies (or tv shows) i've seen! amazing! anyhow, what i'm really saying is that i'm a sucker for characters voiced by jesse mccartney.

of course, then when people don't return for their roles, i wonder what's wrong with them. maybe robin williams (genie), eddie murphy (mushu), and danny devito (philoctetes) feel like video games are beneath them, but billy zane, mandy moore, and lance bass? what do you got that's so important you blew off disney? was it over money? seriously, billy, the last time i saw you in any movie was probably titanic, and lance, come on, man, the astronaut thing fell thru and it doesn't look like your boy band is getting back together any time soon, so what gives? well, whatever, you do what you want to do.

anyhow, i'm still at the beginning of the game, but i felt a need to let everyone kno how much i'm loving it. not that i'm going to convince anyone who wasn't already going to get it to get it, but i wanted to add another positive voice to those who enjoy disney and square-enix and whatever mixes come out of the two.

the bouncer

2006-04-01T20:06:00.000-08:00

last nite i hit the town, and it was a lot of fun. it'd been so long since i went out, but most things hadn't changed at all. after a certain point, events get hazy as often tends to happen, but i do remember talking with the bouncer at r place who months and months and months ago wouldn't let me in for being too drunk. i think it's wild that she remembers me, but perhaps that just means i was THAT drunk. at the time i was pissed off that she wouldn't let me in, but i really wasn't in any condition to be doing anything at all at that point, and i'm glad she didn't allow me to go anywhere (she kept me with her for a portion of the nite at the doors to r place, hoping i'd sober up some before i left to find my friends). last nite i got to thank her for helping me out. it's always reassuring that there are even strangers out there who care enuf to look out for you.

shadow of the giant

2006-03-31T15:50:00.000-08:00

i first read orson scott card's ender's game when i was in fifth grade, i think, and i can't avoid saying that it had an enormous impact on me. it's one of those books that made me think a lot about things, and i'd read it again and again as i grew up, because i really liked it. more than a decade later than i first read ender's game, and about two decades after it was first published, card continues the series, or rather spin-off series (yes, i'm using tv terminology), with shadow of the giant. this actually came out early last year, but i hadn't had a chance to read it. usually with these books, i buy the hardcover for my friend (also an osc fan) from whom i then borrow it, but i wasn't able to do it this time, so i waited for the paperback. i was browsing the bookstore earlier this month, saw it and picked it up.

it was a pretty good book; i enjoyed reading it and couldn't stop reading it when i started as i often do with books from this series. it was a huge improvement over the last book, shadow puppets (something about that book just wasn't rite, but i read it too long ago to elaborate), but i still felt like some of the political maneuverings were contrived and revealed a certain lack of understanding card has of the world in which we live. of course, it doesn't really matter. the book is science-fiction and has no responsibility to adhere to the rules of our reality. it's not our future, and card can do with the world what he likes.

the small problem is that it's very clear that much of the story is inspired by what's been going on in our world recently. card throws in a lot of his thoughts on islam, on the american system of government, and on the nature and ambitions of the chinese and indian people. he doesn't get everything rite, tho.

in the first chapter, he talks about how the chinese people still believe in the mandate of heaven, the son of heaven and the imperial system. that's pretty ridiculous. sure, there is the sense that a government should be legitimate (which is what the mandate of heaven is: legitimacy), but the people of china are not clamoring for a return to a hereditary monarchy. in all the scenes with the chinese involved, they talk in this flowery language that sounds like the exotic fantasies of a clueless man. "most respectfully, sir, will you come to the office of the one called snow tiger?" first of all, no one talks like that in any language. when i read it, it makes me want to add a fu manchu accent to it to complete the caricature. and then, what kind of name is snow tiger for a despot? and then a military officer is named white lotus. if you're not going to translate english names, then why translate chinese names? it just sounds so stupid.

i'm in a less able position to comment about the other aspects, such as the indian people's belief in virlomi as a goddess who walks among her people, or the muslim world's ability or inability to get behind a figurehead caliph as they try to conquer the world, but much of it smells mostly of a wild imagination based on a few truths. but again, i'll say it's a work of fiction and so anything can happen, but because of the fact that he's using countries in our reality as models, i can't help but compare the two.

well, okay, that sounds really negative, but those are just minor beefs, really. they don't really get in the way of the story, which i liked a lot, and card writes the personal relationships in his books really well. it might not be completely realistic, but it does make you go "awww..."

the book doesn't really end. it kinda ties into the end of ender's game, but plot threads are left unresolved, so i can only assume card is going to write another. and probably another. and another. why stop a profitable enterprise, rite? well, i'll be eagerly anticipating the next book.

cleaning hunk

2006-03-30T07:51:00.000-08:00

this has been floating around for a while now, but i always feel like i should salute excellence in advertising (it's so underappreciated as an art), so here's the cleaning hunk. i have seriously had a dream that was a lot like this, but it didn't end there, and there was a lot less cleaning. (via towleroad)

my last quarter

2006-03-29T16:50:00.000-08:00

this spring quarter will be my last as an undergraduate. some other graduating seniors have expressed some sort of emotional response due to that concept, but i can't say i'm feeling it yet. is it because i don't have plans for what i'll be doing afterward? or is it because i've been in school so long i'm not sure i fully understand what not being in school means?

in high school, i had senioritis for most of the year. after i knew i was admitted to college for sure, the academic aspects of high school ceased to matter much. all i had to do was graduate and i accomplished that while spending most of my time out in the grass of the quad tanning and flirting with boys when i was supposed to be in class. why do i work harder now? is it because i'm older and more responsible? or is it because i fucked up so much in my earlier college career i had to step it up these past couple years? i'm thinking it's mostly the latter, but i'm sure the former has something to do with it too. oh yeah, also, a lot of my college friends are now friends that live in another city or friends that work all the time. less friends to spend my free time with results in more free time being reallocated to time that i spend on schoolwork.

the minimum i have to do to graduate is to take two courses, a history course and a literature course and get a minimum of 0.7 (the passing grade) in each class (yes, i'm proud to say my gpa is strong enuf now to withstand two such grade points), and yet, instead of doing the minimum, i'm taking two additional classes purely through interest. a full load is usually considered 15 credits, and i'm taking 20. why am i doing this to myself? wouldn't i rather have a more relaxing spring quarter? well, who knos when i'll be in school again. i might as well take the opportunity while i'm still a full-time student to take some fun and unrequired courses (no matter how time-consuming they might turn out to be). it may sound weird, but i like learning and when it's about something i actually have an interest in, then school ceases to be a burden and it becomes rather fun.

but what i really wanted to say was that when the quarter started a couple days ago, i was pretty much overwhelmed with all the homework i saw in my future (the lit and history classes are reading-intensive) and really questioning whether or not i should just drop those two extraneous classes and focus on the two i had to take. i hadn't taken reading-intensive classes for over a year now, and i was out of the routine of taking the time to read what i had to read and what i could skim and get a fuller picture of from the lectures. one class i thot would be a breeze appeared to be a lot harder than i thot it was going to be. another class was pretty much a straight lecture with a big class size in which i nodded off a few times on monday (i'm not good with big lectures where all i do is listen to the prof and jot down notes).

but after today, i think i'm getting a better handle on how to manage my studying and my time. after my 6 hour day today (every monday, wednesday and friday), i thot to myself that i can definitely do this. it was reassuring. i'm getting back into the reading routines rather quickly, the class that was turning out harder than i thot was actually not as bad as i thot it was, and the big lecture today was much more interesting than the introductory one on monday (i'm proud to say i didn't fall asleep, tho it might have something to do with forcing myself to sit up front). spring quarter is usually at a point when i've been taking classes with some of the same people for the whole academic year, and so classes are more fun and comfortable, and that is definitely a positive thing. also, being older than most of the other people in the class and not caring too much about what some dumb freshman girl thinks about me, it's easier to express my opinions in class discussions, and i kno my friends kno that i like talking (just look at the length of this fucking post). plus, in the spring, the sun comes out, bringing the flowers (is this the last year i'll experience our cherry blossoms?) as well as the cute boys who are sometimes shirtless and sometimes throwing a football around.

i guess that brings me to talking about my classes. my first class is the last quarter of first-year japanese. i don't need to take this class, but i wanted to finish out the series and get a reasonable beginner's background in japanese should i ever choose to, y'kno, try to find work out there or study out there or something. i really liked my t.a. from last quarter, but there's no way i can fit her sections in my schedule, so i have another different t.a. initially, i had hoped that i would get the hot eastern european t.a. (who's either queer or maintains himself quite well as some straight european guys are apt to do), but instead, i got the other white guy. i was iffy before the first day, but after a couple of sections, i think it will be a fun class. he looks a little funny, cuz his head is just slightly too small for the rest of his body (just barely noticeable), but he's a nice guy who keeps the class atmosphere fairly lite. it's perfect for the spring. there aren't really any cute guys in my class (again... the blond drama boy that was in my lectures the past two quarters has finally eluded me), but there's a guy from south africa who dresses well, but i think he does himself up too much. you can tell he spends a lot of time in the morning getting ready, and a lot of money on various grooming ventures. he might be a fag, or else that just might be how they do things in south africa. i dunno, i've never been. well, there is another guy, i think he's a hapa. he was in both of the film classes i took last year, but he sits next to the is-he-gay-or-just-from-taiwan taiwanese guy with glasses and they jabber to each other thruout lecture and section. the rest are mostly pale anime fans. shudder. i don't think there's anyone in my lecture worth mentioning, but i was happy to discover that the girl i was class-friends (friends, but only within the bounds of the shared class) with last quarter in section is in my same lecture. i was changing sections, so i was a little worried about who would keep me sane in my japanese classes, but i shouldn't have been.

the next class is the literature class, and it's the third and last class in a year-long series. because the prof who usually teaches this class was trying out his new martial arts film class (which i took) last year, this lit class wasn't offered. thus, this year, the class is a combination of students whom i remember from last year and students with whom i've been taking classes this year. it's like a mush of the present and the past, and it makes for a strange feeling, since i haven't seen some of these people since exactly a year ago. this class should be pretty fun. i've taken a lot of classes with this same prof and his teaching methods are very compatible with how i learn. the subject is very much more interesting than the other classes, cuz it focuses on fictional or editorial prose, as opposed to the endless poetry and songs of the time periods preceding. this class is usually pretty dry when it comes to hot guys, but one guy i remember from last year, whom i nicknamed andy lau (uhm, because he looks like a younger, hotter korean andy lau) showed up for the first day of class. i was happy about that, but then he didn't show up yesterday or today, so that doesn't bode well. i mean, either he's decided not to take it, or he's gonna take it but never come to class. either way, he's not gonna be there. a lot of people from my classical class are also in this class, and we all sit on one the rite side of the classroom. in the middle-back is all the pale white guys with glasses, in the middle front is graduate students, and a major portion of the left side is all east asian girls (chinese, japanese, korean, we have them all). i didn't really have a point there; i just wanted to mention that cuz i thot it was interesting.

my third class of the day is the aforementioned classical class. there are 8 of us in this class (down 1 from last quarter, but i didn't really like her anyways) and we've all been taking this class for two quarters now. the work is sometimes time-consuming, but the topic is interesting and the class atmosphere is very easy-going (due to the fact that we've known each other for some months now and have nothing left to prove to each other). i don't think i have much to say about this class that i haven't already said before.

and my last class, the history class, the larger lecture, caps my day. well, before this class, i have a half-hour break, which i had initially disliked (i prefer all my classes all in a row so that when i'm done, i'm really done), but since my school days are so long now, it'll give me an opportunity to take a breather and get lunch. anyhow, like i said, i was uneasy about this class at first, despite having more than a passing interest in the subject matter, because of the large class size and my inability to stay awake in classes where interaction is minimal, but i think i'm okay with it. the prof lectures well and when we covered new material today, i didn't feel like sleeping at all. i also think she's a dyke. she strikes me as one. i'm not saying all middle-aged women have to be married by then, but it's the way she carries herself and dresses, and especially her glasses and her hair. for some reason they scream lesbian to me. not that it affects the class; just an observation. being a bigger class, there are more cute guys in this class. one looks like a freckled thinner version of ron livingston with lighter brown hair. he's the only one in the class who takes notes on his laptop, so he's laptop guy. then there's a guy who all year i've been seeing whenever i go thru smith hall, so i'm calling him smith guy. he's tall with buzz-cut blond hair and earnest brown eyes. he reminds me a lot of one of my high school crushes, not in the way he looks so much as in the kind of feeling i get from him. he's always with this asian girl tho. the last guy i've scoped out thus far is a tall asian guy who was wearing a red cut-off reminiscent of a basketball jersey, and so naturally, his nickname is yao ming. he's much cuter than his namesake tho. like i said, it's a large class, so i've more searching to do. there might be other hot boys in class to ogle (i can't be expected to be looking at my lesbian prof ALL the time...).

that's about all i had to say about school thus far. it's only been a few days, as it's still the first week, so things are bound to change. ever since i got to relax a bit on the beaches of hawaii, i've been so horribly optimistic about things (even my 5 hour plane ride back in the middle of the nite wasn't so bad), i think it would honestly sicken my pessimistic side, wherever he went. tho the springtime has usually always been fairly good to me.

advice to rice queens everywhere

2006-03-28T23:04:00.000-08:00

advice to stupid rice queens everywhere: don't tell people that you think their native languages sound "silly."

talking with this idiot was a bit painful, but it was raining really hard and i got a ride home out of it, so i guess i got something for my trouble.

honolulu international guy

2006-03-27T21:49:00.000-08:00

to the hot dude who was sitting near me in front of the bookstore (and the burger king) at the honolulu international airport.

i would like to thank you for helping me pass the time. a few minutes after i sat down with nothing much to do, you walked past me and sat a couple chairs down from me. you immediately caught my eye, your big brown eyes, your dark wavy hair hidden under your baseball cap, your simple gray long-sleeve, cargo shorts and flip-flop sandals outfit accented with that white band you wore somewhere between your wrist and your elbow. for two hours, we waited wordlessly for our respective flights, but while i was listening to music, you didn't look like you were doing anything. what were you thinking? where were you going? why didn't you wait at your gate instead of out here? me? i never wait at my gate. too many people. every now and then, i glanced over and took in the sight of you, and every now and then, were you glancing at me? i could see you thru the corner of my eye. we only exchanged eye contact briefly a few times, but i never wanted to linger. your big gay friend stopped by and gave you a bottle of rum. did you say you were going to maui? when a bunch of old ladies needed a block of seats, you moved over so they had them. how nice. when it was time for me to board, i got up and walked away with my bag. i turned back and saw you doing the same, but in the other direction. that was the end of it, but it was a lot of fun for two hours in which all i did was wait... i'm sure it would have been more fun if i'd said hi, but i just didn't have it in me. what did you expect? oh well, maybe next time.

oscars, quick picks

2006-03-05T15:46:00.000-08:00

okay, rill quick, since i was too lazy to do this before and i have to do them now, before the oscars start...

picture: brokeback.
please, do you even need to ask a reason? this movie was great. yes, crash was also a good movie, but when it comes down to it, i think crash was too laid out and heavy-handed. i felt like it could have been more subtle. yes, i'll say it. i didn't like it because it was too accessible.

director: ang lee.
ang lee is an amazing director, and he did an amazing job with brokeback. this is a category that fernando meirelles should have also been nominated in. i liked the direction in constant gardener more than i did the direction in capote, munich, and good night, and good luck. yes, i did just say that. but he still wouldn't have beaten ang. go, ang, go! represent!

actor: heath ledger.
yeah, it'll probably be philip seymour hoffman, but when i watched capote, i felt like it was "acting," you kno? and don't get me wrong, i love hoffman's work in a lot of stuff, but capote just wasn't "best" for me. heath ledger's performance on the other hand was so much more, by being so much left. i wasn't watching heath ledger; i was watching ennis del mar. that last shot when he's looking at the shirts and the photo of brokeback and he says, "jack, i swear..." oh god, talking about it now makes me want to bawl. i have to say tho that this is probably the category with the most great nominations. all of the actors in this category did a really spectacular job.

actress: reese witherspoon.
i thot she was great in walk the line. a lot of people are pulling for felicity huffman, and i might have as well, but i haven't had a chance to see that movie, so i can't saw whether i liked her performance or not. the buzz is that reese'll take it and i can't argue with that.

supporting actor: jake gyllenhaal.
am i just picking people from brokeback? maybe. but i really do think it was the best performance. it wasn't really a supporting performance, but i wouldn't want them to be up against each other... in this way, anyways. thinking about jake's performance, the hope that he conveyed thru his character thruout the movie up until he... it was so good. matt dillon is great, but i think if matt dillon won an oscar, the world would implode. just kidding, i loved him in my bodyguard.

supporting actress: michelle williams.
okay, yes, i am just picking people from brokeback. people are saying rachel weisz is going to take this one, but i'm unconvinced. i love constant gardener and she was one of the best parts of that movie, but was it better than alma del mar's silent (well, mostly silent... jack nasty!) suffering? girl's come a long way from being the girl i didn't like on dawson's creek. hey, how weird is it now that katie holmes is the girl i don't like! actually, this category is hard to pick, cuz i loooved amy adams in junebug too. but i think perhaps the difficulty level was higher for michelle.

visual effects: king kong.
are you kidding me? hands down king kong. the ape was spectacularly animated. war of the worlds and narnia don't even compare (okay, aslan turned out better than i expected, but still). for serious.

original screenplay: crash.
this is tough, because i wanted to watch match point and the squid and the whale before i made a pick, but i didn't have the time. but out of the three i did watch, crash was definitely the one i liked most.

adapted screenplay: brokeback.
i've already talked about this one.

makeup: star wars.
narnia had some nice stuff going on, the white witch was great, but i think the work in star wars was better.

art direction: memoirs of a geisha.
no doubt, this movie was beautiful. harry potter was really cool too, but there's something about the exotic mystical environment that is asia that fascinates me (j/k).

original score: brokeback.
i mean, why not? actually, to be honest, i've watched too many of those brokeback parodies and the song no longer has the resonance with me that it did when i first watched the movie. but, if i remember back to that time, i definitely liked it more than most of the others. people say john williams is going to get it for geisha, and i don't doubt them, but personally, i liked brokeback better.

original song: it's hard out here for a pimp.
i don't even remember the crash song, and i haven't seen transamerica yet. i guess three 6 mafia get my pick by default.

live action short: ausreisser.
i haven't seen any of these cuz i haven't had the time, so randomly picked a name.

animated short: the moon and the son.
same reason as live action short.

animated feature: wallace and gromit.
i already talked about this one.

sound editing: war of the worlds.
i think this is the special sound effects category, and i thot the ones in war of the worlds was better than those in king kong. they stand out in my mind more anyways. but i feel like king kong's going to take this one anyways.

sound mixing: walk the line.
it made me like listening to country, so i'll pick it over the others. honestly, i don't kno what sound mixing is.

editing: constant gardener.
i'll give it to constant gardener where i can, but i have to say the editing was great for most of the other movies too. crash was really fantastic as well.

cinematography: brokeback mountain.
i'm sorry, but those vistas of the mountains, and the vast expanses of sky, and the composition of all the shots, it was all just so so beautiful. but then geisha was pretty too. i'm sure it was great in new world too, but i didn't watch that one. i'll just default on brokeback.

foreign language: paradise now.
i haven't seen any of these. i kno, i'm so bad. but paradise now is the one i most want to see. people are saying tsotsi is gonna win, but the movie just looks very unappealing to me.

documentary feature: march of the penguins.
i've only seen enron and penguins, and penguins was much better (tho enron was a very informative movie). i hear nothing but great things about murderball, and i'm very excited to go see darwin's nightmare, but i don't think anything will be able to beat the wonder that penguins was. did you see the hot french guys behind that movie? oo la la, indeed.

documentary short: god sleeps in rwanda.
i haven't seen any of these, but rwanda has the most powerful and striking name.

kimono design: geisha.
i didn't see any kimono in the other movies, so i don't think the others can beat geisha. actually, i loved the costumes in charlie too, but come on, the kimono in geisha was 80% of how beautiful that movie was.

okay, everyone have a good oscar day. i'll prob be back tomorrow to rant about how brokeback didn't win nearly as many as it should have, but hopefully, i won't. go go brokeback!

hard gay at yahoo, wooo...

2006-02-21T17:51:00.000-08:00

here's a segment from a japanese variety show featuring comedian hard gay's visit to yahoo! japan. yes, i kno, how many more gay caricatures do we need in the world, rite? but i couldn't help but crack up watching hard gay at work (or at someone else's work). i feel like his comedy isn't so much about how "gay" he seems, but the reactions of the people around him to his loud, flamboyant, and friendly nature. for me, anyways. plus, how can you deny that there is something deeply powerful about hard gay? watch that manly man shake his leatherbound package at people and marvel. (via jeff)

out and in

2006-02-20T23:10:00.000-08:00

i just finished reading out by kirino natsuo, about a group of women who work at the night shift at a boxed lunch factory in the outskirts of tokyo and what happens when one of them kills her husband. it's funny i even considered giving this book to my mom to read. it was sadistically violent and gory, with every gruesome action described in careful detail. kinda. the story was definitely involving and it propels rather quickly after the murder happens up until the end of the book. i'm not completely satisfied with the conclusion, but i guess it did sorta make sense within the logistical bounds of the book. what was really interesting was that the narrative perspective switched up regularly, so that you would see how things unfolded from the point of view of several of the characters. i think the number of people must have reached at least ten. unfortunately, not all the characters were drawn very well or completely, which i probably wouldn't have noticed as much had kirino not bothered to focus on them, in particular the hot brazilian guy (i dunno if he was that hot in the book, but i cast this guy (thanks made in brazil) in the movie i made in my head). speaking of the movie i was making in my head, i could see a really cool japanese-style indie movie made out of this book. something in a style between kurosawa kiyoshi and tsukamoto shinya. anyways, it was entertaining, tho some of the really gross stuff was a bit over-the-top, and it was also a pretty quick read for me for it being a 400-page book (i read slow).

so wait, what's that other cover? i'd read murakami ryuu's in the miso soup sometime last year (or was it the year before? i don't remember...), and i have to say out reminded me a lot of that book. both are about the seedy underbelly of japanese urban society, tho they definitely take different paths to describe what might be going on just under the surface. however, i liked out a lot more than i did in the miso soup. in the miso soup was almost pointless and the end was too obscure to the point that i didn't feel like the story ended at all. kirino actually mentions murakami in her book, so she's just begging for the comparison. i wonder why so? i figured people would have compared them anyway... at any rate, if you need something to occupy your time on a plane, out would definitely be a good pick, tho if you were on a flight to japan, you might want to pick another book.

rhydian vaughan, part two

2006-02-19T21:24:00.000-08:00

hey look, it's rhydian! in case you've forgotten, rhydian vaughan is one of my very favorite taiwanese models. this spread is from the february issue of taiwan men's uno (don't bother clicking on that, it says it's in the middle of "system maintenance," whatever the fuck that means. actually, why did i even link it...?). i don't have much more to say about him, so here are more pictures: pondering the wine, and cutting the cheese.