Month: April 2004

One more entry for the day – I was away for awhile, so might as well make up for lost time, right? (and, FC, where are more California stories? Post them, if not a picture or something!)

– Men’s final four on Saturday – Georgia Tech v. Oklahoma State. As of this hour, Georgia Tech has won – not a team I picked at all. Duke v. U Conn is about to begin….

Need some on-line or news reading? Some suggestions…
(a) Political reading?
– Slate.com’s William Saletan has an interesting analysis on the George W. Bush camp’s criticism of the George W. Bush’s opponents and critics. If everybody who started out as supporting GWB initiatives/policies then didn’t like the execution of the initiatives/policies (or lack thereof), are such “flip-floppers” really so wrong, as the GWB camp would say they are? Well, I don’t think they’re traitors – maybe they legitimately changed their minds. Maybe they’re not just being “political” averse to GWB. Hmm.

– NY Times notes the Conservative Republicans’ attempt to oust moderate/old-time Republicans who aren’t as conservative, as seen in the example of a bunch of the conservatives out to take down Senator Arlen Spector (R-Pennsylvania). There is something not smart about what the hard-core conservatives are doing – they’re not being any better than George W. Bush camp’s “either you’re with us or you’re against us” line of thought. Why attack an incumbent senator, when your real target should be the opposition party, i.e., the possible Demoractic candidate? Have they not learned anything from the Democrats – intraparty problems won’t help in the long run? On the other hand, the Bush camp will likely make everyone in the GOP unite in time for the convention in NYC (heavens knows that some of these hard-core conservatives are scared out of their minds to be coming to my hometown because, you know, the hometown is Sin City to them, especially when there are a bunch of liberals around here) – but, seriously, I miss the true moderate Republican, and the conservatives’ blatant opposition to the moderates of their own party is unappetizing stuff.

(b) NY Times’ early posting of the travel articles – nice article on Macao. I’ve never been there, so I wonder if this article does it any justice. On the other hand, I thought it was fascinating anyway – never realized that the Portugeuse influence was so strong in Macao.

The latest American Express commercial with the golf course and the gopher from the “Caddyshack” movie – it’s funny – the gopher’s cute, in a psycho way (as he was in the movie – disclaimer: I have yet to watch all “Caddyshack” from start to finish, but have watched the commercials and parts of it often enough when WPIX Channel 11 used to show it every year). Anyway, Tiger Woods as the Bill Murray role (the guy out to get the gopher and couldn’t) – funny and very expressive (has Tiger been improving on the acting thing?). I almost didn’t realize that it was Tiger – he had the whole slacker-Murray look down well.

Plot: Tiger almost destroys the golf course because of his Ahab chase of Gopher. His clever move to get Gopher – using his American Express card to hire a terminator who knows the best way to get Gopher – using that darn song from “Caddyshack” will apparently “always works” to get Gopher out of the hole and do his little dance and create an ample opportunity to dump Gopher into a bag. Tiger is happy. Golf course back to normal. Does it make me want to use my American Express more? Umm, no. But, it does make me want to watch “Caddyshack.” And, again, Gopher’s so cute and furry, even if, well, destructive. B+ commercial.

So it goes. Enjoy the rest of the weekend. Sleep to keep some shred of the lost hour…

Oh, jeez, I think I’m going to have to quit eating or something. Three days worth of alma maters events, and I’m just stuffed. These things are so good about good food – especially since my undergraduate alma mater was going above and beyond its usual cheese-and-wine (well, they always did have good cheese, so I won’t complain about that)…

Thursday night was a nice dinner at my undergraduate alma mater, honoring achieving alumnae (theme: honoring them for their achievements in academia, as professors/scholars in areas of history, sociology, and other humanities areas); so nice that we did this dinner instead of the usual cheese-and-wine offering. The food: grilled vegetables-with-cheese as appetizer; slightly overdone, yet flavorful chicken atop of a mango-like salsa, with pasta and some vegetable sides; and dessert – ooh-la-la, mousse between meringue/biscuit slices. Mmm. Worth the nominal donation to enjoy.

And, of course, Friday night was the law school alma mater alumni dinner – you know, that seminal event that brings in all the Asian foods that you can eat, for free (always good). And, dessert – ooh, the association has outdone themselves this year – spongy cakes with creamy goodness; cheesecake-y goodness; cookies; mmm…

And, Saturday – I went back up to undergrad alma mater for the Dean’s day stuff, wherein the very women we honored made lectures in their areas, along with other alma mater profs. I had a great time – the overview lecture on African-Americans of NYC of 1626-1865 was so good; the lecture on the colonial origins of the Old South made me re-think issues of race and slavery in this country; and the lecture on 18th and 19th Centuries Siberia’s attempts of using (exploiting) the domesticity cult to make undesirable convicts settle down in Siberia (yeah, like a good Christian marriage will really make a vagrant/theif/political dissenter love Siberia; no wonder the Russian government never convinced people to stop seeing Siberia as a convict colony) – why, the lectures all reminded me why I loved being a history major (especially the ones about American history) and made me so proud that alma mater has produced some really amazing alumnae (yes, co-education was really great for alma mater, even if it meant that the gender demographics are really skewed on campus, since the all-women’s school is across the street – but I think it’s worked out fine, really). Oh, and the dean – I love him, but it’s pretty obvious that I’ve attended enough events that I almost know what he’s going to say before he says it. And, in the middle of all of this, I signed up for the luncheon at the last minute – grilled salmon, some kind of vegetable roll, and salad side. Dessert: chocolate covered nugget of chocolate and vanilla mousse-y goodness… mmm. (I’m like Homer Simpson, drooling…)

What this means: I ought to work out to burn the calories. Perhaps it will only happen in my dreams. Do we even burn any calorie when we dream? And, when will the warm weather/sunshine come? Pretty please?

Watch out – one hour forward; lose one hour’s sleep. Aargh….

– Some interesting remarks about “American Idol” on Slate.com – personally, I still can’t believe that the red-headed young man from upstate NYS is still on “American Idol” after yesterday’s weak performance.

– Tonight, other than “American Idol,” I’ve also watched the full hour of “The O.C.” on FOX. Interesting show. I’m impressed that they managed to do a little Passover in their episode today. Nicely acted and tightly written (or certainly feels like it is well-written). But, if this is California, where are the people of color? (there seems to be some indication of Latinos, I suppose). Where are the Asians? (well, they weren’t on “Dawson’s Creek” and had limited appearances on “Friends”)…

– Alistair Cooke recently passed away. He was host of “Masterpiece Theatre”; it was before I started watching it (I’ve been watching more of it since Russell Baker became host), but I grew up appreciating and enjoying Alistair Cookie of Monsterpiece Theatre of Sesame Street, as Muppet-inspired as it was. Cooke has an impact, I can say that much and I liked all the articles on Cooke’s style and work. Slate.com has an interesting article, reflecting how the British saw him as the Americanized chap who could report on Americans while the Americans saw him as an English gentleman – when he was an American citizen who still reported for BBC all these years.

– NY Times’ Dining Section profiles this guy who takes digital pictures of his food, to keep a food diary. Kind of scary to think about – do you really want to keep that good a track of what you eat, visually anyway?

– And, in Asian-American news:
Asia Society appoints an Asian-American female art historian to be its president. Vishakha N. Desai, a scholar of classical Indian art, will be in charge in July 2004. Yay for Asian American women!

Beware the April Fool’s Day thing.