Month: January 2006

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.