Month: January 2006

Due to certain circumstances, I was in Montreal. Coincidentally, Canada had elections, and the results indicate that the Conservative Party is winning. What that really means remains to be seen, but the Liberal Party wasn’t exactly looking all clean and lovely, and, gosh, those political ads was such mudslinging (“Vote for a Better Canada” to suggest kicking out those left-wing lunatics; “Vote Conservative, and you’ll end a pro-choice and free Canada and make Canada a right wing country” to suggest avoiding a Bad Right Wing Future – ugly and blunt – without a slick American touch, I must say).

And, much ado about Google, as Prof. Tim Wu writes for Slate.

And, in the land of Mary Worth – the comic strip – the saga continues this week. Mary Worth’s neighbor, Wilbur, a bespectacled divorced middle-aged geek (father of the lovely college co-ed Dawn – who has had her own romantic debacles), is in trouble. He is the pseudonymic “Dear Wendy” (like Dear Abby) advice columnist, and he’s being sued by a disgruntled advisee. See, the lady asked “Wendy” what to do with her workaholic husband, who’s never home to the point that he even refuses to communicate or accept marriage counseling – and she’s a yuppie and he’s a yuppie – so, Wilbur, in his infinite wisdom, suggests that the workaholic’s wife consider the ultimate choice of divorce. So, the lady actually does it. When, months later, she sees her ex – after she heard he got promoted at the Big Corp. – she feels her heart go aflutter. She misses him, see, and hasn’t really gone on with her life. She asks her ex to reconsider their marriage, but learns he has already moved on and is engaged to another woman. Lady gets mad and sues “Wendy” and the newspaper syndicate for ruining her life. Emotional distress and other tort damages.

Wilbur feels guilty. He takes his work seriously, and now wonders if he should have considered the primary motto of do no harm. And, maybe his personal life clouded his advice. Who is to say for sure? His syndicate’s mad at him (like maybe his editor should shoulder a little blame?). But, seriously, the lady’s a moron for taking an advice columnist’s advice too seriously. Can she win her lawsuit? Will Wilbur look for a new job? This is a job for yet another one of Mary Worth’s wise platitudes. Or, maybe she can shake a little sense into the litigious lady! Stay tuned!

Much catching up with friends and routines this weekend. Saturday, started the gym again for the first time. I’m still sore today. We saw the Fra Angelico exhibit at the Met. This early Renassiance artist produced spectacular religious artwork, one of which demonstrated some of the first modern usages of perspective. Afterwards saw Syriana, which left P and I uncharacteristically ambivalent — as all of the characters were acting in their own self interests, none of the characters are at all likable or relatable. I didn’t get anything new out of the movie when I left.

Afterwards, we ate at Heidelberg, a legendary German restaurant next door to the German deli at 86th Street. The food was excellent – a touch better then Rolf’s and much better then the generic biergarden in Astoria.

Sunday meant the re-union of the schk dim sum club at Golden Unicorn, which has been meeting for the last 10 years or so. Everybody doing ok, just older and with more ideas. Talk about mini-storage, salon culture, domestic espionage and Google subpoenas dominated the afternoon. $75 of dimsum and a few bubble teas later, we adjourned after 3 hours. Afterwards, P and I visited P’s sister’s dogs.

At home, saw on DVD Jay Chau‘s racing movie Initial-D. Wasn’t bad – based on a Japanese manga comic book, it translated well to the screen. You can find lots of info on the Special Features disk. Turns out almost 100% of the driving scenes through the downhill hairpin turns were live action, not CGI. Half of the cast was previously in the “Infernal Affairs” series of movies, and the female lead was in “Snow Falls on Cedars”. Also finished “Lost” season One – that series’ extras disk pointed out that Yunjin Kim, the actress that plays Sun, had 1. originally auditioned to play Kate, and 2. is a superstar in Korea, playing the lead in the action blockbuster Shiri. The producers decided to create a role especially for her, and cast a husband for her.

Another Monday morning rapidly approaching….

The whale that managed to get up the River Thames has died. Sad.

A brief summary on the whale drama, in the NY Times.

Almost entirely caught up on watching ABC’s “Grey’s Anatomy” (my VCR working overtime, as usual). That Sandra Oh’s quite an actress – as much as her Christina Yang character’s such an annoying thing, you get caught up in Yang’s quirks. Is she serious about Dr. Burke? (Burke, while her boss, is at least not married, unlike what happened to Meredith Grey and Dr. Shepherd (the ever dreamy Patrick Dempsey)). Is Yang really in love or lust or what?

And, while Grey’s just about over over Shepherd (maybe!), he’s still in love (was in love?) with her. Personally, I think Grey needs a new man. Where are the twisty love triangles already? (no, I don’t think there should be one with Grey, Shepherd and Shepherd’s estranged wife, Dr. Addison Shepherd – Addison’s turning out to be a non-evil character). The executive producer behind “American Embassy” who’s also behind “Grey’s Anatomy” – well, he had a pretty weak love triangle there (weak, because it was so easy to root for the rather-well-defined cute CIA agent over the rather undefined British aristocrat-brothers who fell for the blonde American diplomat). Not that I’m suggesting Grey gets a CIA agent (well, why not?), but she needs time away from “McDreamy” Shepherd. A Grey-Shepherd (who really shouldn’t still be holding the torch for Grey anymore)- ? man – that’ll be curious to watch. Addison can roll her eyes over her husband’s stupidity (he can’t cry victim anymore if he’s the one straying this time, since Addison is no longer cheating on him).

The creator of “Grey’s Anatomy” – being a woman who likes her cast diverse and occupied – well, I think she knows what she’s doing. The characters are all flawed but aren’t one-dimensional. And, while I can almost see the love triangle developing for Dr. Alex Karev (the jerk you got to love) and Dr. Izzie Stevens, well, you almost want Karev to move on (not necessarily to Grey; he and Grey seem more like buddies). And, poor Dr. George O’Malley – he’s so sweet, and has the biggest crush on Grey, who won’t really see him in that way… And, I really like Dr. Webber, their chief of surgery, who had a past romance/affair with Grey’s mom – the successful surgeon who now has early Alheimer’s. Can’t believe this is the same actor who played the creepy Kersh on X-Files. And, considering the drama of Webber and Grey’s mom, I wonder if Grey’s dad (Dr. Grey Sr.’s ex-husband) will show up. And, Dr. Bailey – ahh, they slowly let us get to know her – that under that tough surgeon exterior is a kind but tough woman.

The medical plots aren’t that interesting (ER had already done the hermaphrodite patient; the disaster plots and gruesome injuries), but the show’s really more about the characters – they’re really amusing to watch.

Got caught up on Alias – poor Sydney. Can’t imagine what they’ll do to get her and her baby out of the mess when they come back from mid-season hiatus/Jennifer Garner’s maternity leave.

And, while it’s great that Hugh Laurie won a Golden Globe for his work as Dr. House, thanks to American Idol, I’m really missing episodes of “House.” It really is turning into the one show I won’t miss and will watch in its actual time slot.

A whale in the River Thames in London.

And, looks like we’re on our way to Pluto.

Boy, has it been a busy week. To quickly summarize, YC is back in the New York area (acutally New Jersey), but he barely has cell phone coverage, not to mention Internet access. P and I had dinner at Kapadokya, a Turkish restaurant in Brooklyn Heights, with him and his wife on Monday.

Earlier that day, I was locked out on the roof for about an hour. Boy it was cold.

Two days before, we had dim sum at Golden Bridge, and then went shopping around for various CDs and DVDs.

Tuesday, went to P’s work Holiday Dinner which was postponed because of the transit strike. It was at the China Club. The food wasn’t bad, but everyone was fighting to get drinks.

The second half of the TV season is just kicking butt – a lot of good shows on:

24 – part 5, premiered for 4 hours this past weekend. They tried to cram a lot of issues in that time, including mental health, single parenting, and of course, loyality. Wasn’t bad — will follow it. But doesn’t Kiefer Southerland ever get tired of this?

Battlestar Galactica also kicks butt – Adama gets promoted to admiral, but a lot of people had to suffer to get there.

Lost: It’s interesting how each survivor can be identified by occupation. Mr. Eko turns out to have a priestly past in last week’s episode. This week’s episode uncovers the Others on the opposite side of the island, and MSNBC pointed out that the Frenchwoman’s son is mentioned as being among them.

I’m pooped and I stayed up to get some work done. We’ll try this again tomorrow. Check out the flickr bar above for pictures from the week.

Stuff:

Is Mayor Bloomberg starting to sound like a New Yorker?

Bensonhurst memories, back when it was still an Italian-American enclave.

Saturday – I saw “Match Point” – creepy movie. Woody Allen does London. And, I’m no movie aficionado, but it felt like he was trying to hail Hitchcock. Alfred Hitchcock. Can’t say if I liked the movie or not.

Sunday – I saw “Last Holiday,” the Queen Latifah movie directed by Wayne Wang. Queen Latifah and LL Cool J were fun. And, the movie portrays a Lousiana in either a Pre-Hurricane Katrina or a universe where Katrina didn’t happen. Either way, it was a nice movie. Oh, and I love movies where food is symbolic – just watching the cooking makes one feel good. Sort of how “Babette’s Feast” and “Eat Man Drink Woman” did it.

NFL football – too bad about the Indianapolis Colts not getting it. But, come on – you play lousy, you lose.

Wacky winter weather – fog for most of Friday; thunderstorms on Friday night; wet Saturday; frigid cold Sunday. Somewhat better on Monday. What, no snow/hail/locusts?

Joy for Three-Day Weekends! Plus, take a moment to reflect on Martin Luther King, and the dream that America’s race relations will work out someday.

TV viewing: Thursday night – I watched WB’s hilarious “Beauty and the Geek 2” last night – season premiere. Premise: the social experimentation of pairing academically brainless beauties with socially inept geeks in a competition. Each would then learn to overcome their personal weaknesses and get over stereotypical ideas. This season, there’s more ethnic and racial diversity – an African-American beauty; an East Asian Rubic’s Cube geek; a South Asian MIT grad; some Jewish geeks; and the (stereo)typical blonde bimbos. The geeks are geekier. But, I think the commentary on MSNBC captures the appeal of the show – on the one hand, one wonders if the cast is exagerrating their eccentricities for the camera (this is the reality tv age, after all), but there’s enough good humor and a touch of sensitivity to make it a little authentic (and more watchable than “The Bachelor” or a lot of other crappy reality shows). of course, what this really means is that the quality of my tv viewing has really gone down.

Nice analysis on MSNBC of Thursday night’s “Dancing with the Stars.” I just hope that enough people will harp on the lousy music such that ABC will be forced to do something about it. Oh, and too bad to Tatum O’Neal – she got booted out of the competition on Friday, since she didn’t get enough votes.

Slate’s Sara Dickerman comments on the NY Times’ Macaroni and Cheese recipe (which I agree with her – it is strange to see that it has been the most e-mailed article according to NY Times’ statistics). Dickerman’s of the view that one needs the liquid ingredient to make good macaroni and cheese, as opposed to Moskin’s rather dry but easy bake recipe. It’s not like I tried the recipes either (I don’t cook), but I liked the writing of NY Times’ Julia Moskins, so I liked the accompanying article. And, it’s good that someone like Dickerman tried the recipes and can report how they really turned out.

Figure skating on tv this weekend – and the question on what to do with Michelle Kwan. I feel bad for the competitors who are just trying to chase their own dreams and just not sure whether Kwan will figure in or not. And, as usual, the men’s figure skating get no respect (not that they deserve too much, since they aren’t as up to snuff). Oh well…

Oh, and football too. I make no predictions, but well, let’s see what the Colts can do.

I ought to get a life – I’m actually watching “Dancing with the Stars” as we speak. Well, Tia Carrere is on. She ain’t so bad; she pushes herself to do the dancing, when she’s a brand new mom and dealing with (you know) life stuff. (More importantly, Asian-Pacific American representation!). However, be advised – I still don’t know how they call this “with the Stars” when they’re drawing people out of the C or D list of celebrities (no offense meant to the Stars on the show). But, the real weakness of this pretty entertaining show is this: the music they use for the show is NOT ballroom dancing music! Using old pop music isn’t appropriate; it’s even worse when you make the decent pop music sound bland.

Slate’s William Saletan posts a referral and fleshing out on the story of the Arizona judge who held that fetuses don’t count in figuring out whether one’s car is compliant with carpool rules. I especially thought it was amusing how AP article notes:

Municipal Judge Dennis Freeman rejected [Candace] Dickinson’s argument [that her fetus counted, since Arizona law counted a fetus as a victim in violent crimes against pregnant women] Tuesday, applying a “common sense” definition in which an individual is someone who occupies a “separate and distinct” space in a vehicle.

“The law is meant to fill empty space in a vehicle,” the judge said.

Sgt. Dave Norton stopped Dickinson’s car Nov. 8. When asked how many people were in the car, Dickinson said two, pointing to “her obvious pregnancy,” the officer said.

Norton said Dickinson’s theory “would require officers to carry guns, radios and pregnancy testers, and I don’t think we want to go there.”

Well, there are a lot of subjects we don’t want to go to, but some people have no sense about it. Like, do we have to wait until there’s an “obvious” pregnancy? Imagine the fat lady who isn’t pregnant – she’d be mighty pissed at being perceived pregnant (or maybe just relieved at avoiding a ticket?).

Interesting article in the New York Observer, “Office Builders Balking At Downtown Brooklyn”. Apparently, developers are having second thoughts about bulking up on office space, and are instead are going for residential and hotel development.

Mr. Markman is representing another major property developer, Joshua Muss, president of Muss Development, a Queens-based developer who built the Brooklyn Marriott nearby and is adding another 280 rooms to the hotel now. Mr. Muss reportedly has entered into a joint venture with the city’s Economic Development Corporation to construct an 850,000-square-foot building at Red Hook Lane and Boerum Place.

Mr. Markman would not give details of the project, as it has not been announced nor finalized. But real-estate sources said that most of that building would be devoted to apartments, with about 100,000 square feet set aside for an educational institution….

Well, the 850,000 sq. ft. is directly underneath my apartment. In one sense, it is kind of surreal to have an article literally hit home. I can’t beat the rent. On the other hand, the building is old and decrepit, and a deal in the new apartment building would be nice.

In other news, 800,000 pounds of cocoa beans were sunk off of Pier 7 off of Columbia Street, just south of the Promenade. Some confusion when I bought a Wendy’s hamburger combo – tomatoes are by request only because of hurricane damage to the tomato crop, but others claim no problem. And I was good in going for the Chili instead of the fries, and a Diet Coke rather than a regular soda, but my weight is still considerably over the 5′ 9″ expected weight of 154 lbs. for high risk diabetes. For the standard height-weight chart, well, I’m going to need to turn the corner on going to the gym.