debts and regrets

Weather: Gray
State: Beat (Did you know that the Beat Generation was named for a generation being beat down? Who knew?)
Music: Foster The People, one of my faves this year (listening to it on Spotify, which launched in the US recently)
Last Movie: Insidious on amazon - Poltergeist ripoff
Reading: Juliet, Naked by Nick Hornby
Last Pleasure: Watching Billy Elliot at the Orpheum yesterday afternoon
Last Worry: Damn malware on my computer that I cannot get rid of
Last accomplishment: Finished uploading all my cds to iTunes (that's a pretty big deal since it took me probably over five years to do this) - I have about 120 gigs of mp3s, and yes, it's backed up to at least three hard drives now.
Looking Forward To: My one week off the second week of August
Not Really Looking Forward To: A life of regrets - yup, I am in that kind of mood
Gas Price: $4.05 per gallon premium
Clothes: Land's End Canvas dark indigo jaspe polo (love the feel of jaspe cotton!), straight fit jeans
Today's Headline: Congress Closing In On Debt Deal As Deadline Nears
Current iPad Wallpaper: Apple logo on woodgrain backdrop
Last Website Visited: cnet.com
Last Meal: Instant ramen with leftover chicken
Last Purchase: Braun shaver from amazon - dang it, my current Braun shaver is still good, but this is too good of a deal to pass up
Item Off My Wishlist: Adele's 21
Latest Evidence It's A Beautiful World: Charlize Theron, I missed you. Nice of you to show up at Comic Con to remind us that you are a tall beautiful drink of South African H2O.

grand central sketching

i changed my mind

Things I used to like but don't like no more:

- Johnny Depp - I know it's kinda blasphemous to dislike Johnny Depp. I used to be a huge fan of his brand of cool, but then the Pirates movies and his Jack Sparrow began to annoy me (loved the first and hated the rest). And there were Charlie & The Chocolate Factory, Alice In Wonderland, The Tourist, and then his crazy wardrobes (the zoot suits with the pocket chain are just plain lame).

- Food trucks - With a few exceptions, food from food trucks in San Francisco are overpriced and under-portioned, and way too fancy-schmanzy and not down home-yummy enough. I was once all excited when the food truck craze was catching on here, but now I am just underwhelmed. Worst in class I've tried: Little Green Cyclo - I paid $8 for a half-sized portion of luke-warm Vietnamese grilled pork over rice.

- Lady Gaga - Before she began parading around like she's the second coming of Madonna, I welcomed the return of dance pop to the radio. But then she had to go pretending she is an ARTIST and that she is original. Meat dress, giant egg vessel...she crossed the borderline.

- Glee - That pilot was truly gleeful and infectious. It was so good that the goodwill carried me over half of the first season. But it really was downhill from the start - the characters and the plots are non-sensical. Will Schuester turned into a total douchebag. Sue Sylvester never became anything other than a cartoon (giving her a sister with the disability is totally manipulative). Kurt is whiney. Rachel is annoying. And most of the other kids are bland and under-written. The music is still good sometimes, and yes, I am a fan of the Warblers for sure. I still Tivo this, but I stopped believin' a while back.

- Christmas - I used to get all excited for Christmas time. Being Chinese, Christmas wasn't big at our house. We never had big holiday parties or got oodles of gifts. But I still liked the spirit of it all. I liked the idea that this was the time of the year when people stop and come together and go home to their families and celebrate. I liked that people buy something special for their loved ones and send greetings to distant friends and relatives. I really liked twinkling lights on trees. And yeah, there was the whole Baby Jesus being born and renewed hope for peace and joy stuff - that was nice too. But now, now I am just a grouchy guy who complains about the commercialism, the crowds, the parking... Oi!!! I mean, for god's sake, it's the middle of July, and they are selling Christmas trees on QVC right now!!!

little people

Here they are, in all their little people glory!

From left to right: Jed Brophy as Nori, Dean O'Gorman as Fili, Mark Hadlow as Dori, James Nesbitt as Bofur, Peter Hambleton as Gloin, Graham McTavish as Dwalin, Richard Armitage as Thorin Oakenshield, Ken Stott as Balin, John Callen as Oin, Stephen Hunter as Bombur, William Kircher as Bifur, Adam Brown as Ori and Aidan Turner as Kili.

the boy who lived to watch movies

Randomness, movie edition:

I saw Harry Potter today. See my review here...I was all excited to go see Harry Potter cuz I thought I would get to see the first glimpse of The Dark Knight Rises, but they didn't show the teaser trailer at my showing. WTF!...I really hope Madonna's W.E. does well. critically more so than commercially. I want her to prove people wrong. It's supposed to open in a limited run in December for the Oscars. That's a good sign...Horrible Bosses. I don't need a movie. I get to see it everyday, in 3D no less. Actually I do want to see it, just to compare notes...Please people stop watching Transformers. Which is more obnoxious - Michael Bay's directing, Shia LaBeouf, or the robots?...Crazy Stupid Love is a win, if for nothing but having Ryan Gosling and Marisa Tomei in the same film. Which means Ides Of March also wins...Aside from Horrible Bosses and Crazy Stupid Love, for the rest of summer I am still looking forward to Captain America and Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes. I mentioned this before, but I do have an aversion for talking apes. Fortunately as far as I can tell, the apes in Rise do not talk; they just destroy. Cool...2012 of course is really the year to wait for. Sure, we got a little thing called the apocalypse which would spell the end of the world as we know it, but we also got Dark Knight Rises, The Hobbit, The Avengers, Spider-Man reboot with Andrew Garfield, and Superman reboot with Henry Cavill. I mean, just the thought of getting to revisit Middle Earth in a year and a half is more excitment than this boy can bare. I am about to combust with anticipation. Please don't let it suck. Actually I need more than that - I need it to be freaking brilliant...But before we get to next year, we still have Oscar baits to look forward to this year. There is much buzz on Warhorse (Spielberg film based on play based on novel, about a boy and his horse and World War I), J. Edgar (Leonardo DiCaprio as Hoover), A Dangerous Method (Cronenberg film with Magneto Fassbender as Jung and Viggo Aragorn as Freud and Kiera Knightley as a crazy patient), We Bought A Zoo (return of Cameron Crowe), The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (English remake by David Fincher - not sure that it's really necessary), Drive (Ryan Gosling in action thriller that made big splash at Cannes this year), Extremely Loud And Incredibly Close (Tom Hanks and Sandra Bullock in film adaption of Jonathan Safran Foer post-9/11 novel), and the previously mentioned Ides Of March. Wonder which one of these will end up being The Social Network (the deserved winner for Best Pic) and which one will pull A King's Speech (upset winner for a better Oscar campaign)...Anyways, Harry Potter made a bucketload of money this weekend, surpassing The Dark Knight as the biggest opener ever...And one more thing - 2004 was the year that Before Sunset came out. Nine years from 2004 would be 2013. So I just want to put Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke and Richard Linklater on notice that they better get working on a script and freeing up their schedule next year. Just saying...

guggensketch

The second of what I hope to be a series about my travels.

have app, will draw

Ah memories.

rate anything

Check out my new blog in which I rate anything and everything. Don't worry - all whining and deep thinking and daydreaming will continue here.

like a mandala

Weather: Hot
State: Lazy and fat
Music: Book of Mormon
Last Movie: Green Lantern in 3D - the 3D gave me a headache in the beginning. The Fighter on DVD - it's alright. Gonna watch X-Men tonight.
Reading: Juliet, Naked by Nick Hornby
Last Pleasure: Watching a rerun of The Mary Tyler Moore Show, probably the best sitcom on tv ever
Last Worry: What to do about the driveway and the retaining wall?
Looking Forward To: The Hobbit in December 2012, unless the world ends first
Not Really Looking Forward To: Wednesday's meeting with Texas
Gas Price: $4.09 per gallon for the BMW
Clothes: Land's End Canvas slim fit jeans, Old Navy striped shirt
Today's Headline: Thaksin Party Wins Thai Election By A Landslide
Current iPad Wallpaper: Hong Kong cityscape
Last Website Visited: camelcamelcamel.com
Last Meal: Vietnamese sandwich from place in Irving and 23rd and drink from Teaway next door
Last Purchase: Apple wireless keyboard, iPad camera connection kit, Boxwave stylus, and Griffin Survivor iPad 2 case (the iPad is like a baby - you have to keep spending money on it)
Item Off My Wishlist: Jawbone Jam Box wireless speaker
Latest Evidence It's A Beautiful World: Speaking of sand art - how about the Tibetan art of sand mandala. It's more beautiful for the fact that the monks destroy the mandalas as soon as they are completed. Life is like a sand mandala - everything is transient.

enter sandwoman

Wow. This artist from the Ukraine - Kseniya Simonova - uses sand and a lightbox to tell the most moving stories:

as fast as you can

There are few artists I admire as much as I do Fiona Apple. I impatiently wait for her next cd, which was supposed to have come out this past Spring. Sigh. I swear comets come faster than a new Fiona Apple cd. Meanwhile I will have to just pick up the crumbs she tosses my way, including this new cover of Buddy Holly's Everyday:


Covering Cy Coleman's Why Try To Change Me Now?:


Performing Elvis Costello's I Want You:


With Johnny Cash doing Cat Stevens' Father and Son - seriously I can't even stand how heartbreaking this is: