Triscribe

Month: February 2007

  • Weekend

    Saturday: watched “Letters from Iwo Jima.” What a movie – Clint Eastwood’s quite a director. The movie, if nothing else, does quite well in showing how War Is Bad – and how one’s culture affects how one conducts a war. Actor Ken Watanabe – he is the man – as he plays a general caught in circumstances you’d wish he wasn’t in, as a character who had enjoyed his time in America and learning from American counterparts – but sadly fighting against them and misses his family. Tsuyoshi Ihara is a cutie – but more importantly strongly played Baron Nishi, a guy who also enjoyed his visit in the States as an Olympic athlete but also facing reality. The other soldiers prove to be quite human, ranging from the baker who just wants to go home and the young man who thought he had it in him to police others on their patriotism. Even the glimpses of the Americans at Iwo Jima were fascinating – this was no pretty battle for anyone. Check out the NY Times’ review by A.O. Scott – expansive view of it.

    Speaking of how War Is Bad – the comic strip “Funky Winkerbean” kind of irritates me – a recent storyline took the comic strip back to Iraq, to follow up on Funky’s cousin, Wally (on his second tour in Iraq). Then, it looked like Wally was blown up by an IED and you’re left thinking: damn – you just knew something bad was going to happen, since Funky’s best friend’s wife survived breast cancer so someone else was going to have the bad luck. But, the next day, it turns out that Wally didn’t die/get injured – he was just playing a role-playing video game, and he “blew” up. Lousy – just lead on your readers why don’t you?!

    Watching the Oscars as I write this – curiously interesting funny bits so far – but they’re dragging it out again – can’t you let the winners say a few words by cutting back on the skits? Hmm…

  • Yearbook

    I was over at P-‘s parents’ house and was looking over her aunt’s yearbook from 1967. Yes, it was from 40 years ago, and it had plenty of pictures of nuns wearing the super-old fashioned whipples. However, it was extremely complete. The sign of a good yearbook is one where the pictures have captions, and that the captions give the names of the people in the photos. In this one, every photo was captioned and had names. You can see the types of things that were important at the time (including Vietnam) and be amazed at number of Chinese students that were there at the time. There was even a Chinese teacher that taught French.

    I was editor of my high school yearbook, and I know how hard it is to put together (we had exactly 1 computer, an IBM XT with WordPerfect 3.1 at the time). All of the layout was still done by hand even in my time.

  • Foiled by French

    In a total gag, I participated in a charity fund raising spelling bee, a la the Putnam County Spelling Bee on Broadway. There were about 40 people in on this. I survived the word “treatise” but got knocked out on the word “chauffeur” – needed to buy a vowel. I would have done much better if it were a vocabulary bee, and not a spelling bee – I think I knew the meanings of all of the words. Oh well – it went to a good cause.

  • Celebrating the Lunar New Year in… Las Vegas? Hmm.

    And, in Wednesday’s NY Times’ Food section: Mark Bittman, the Minimalist, does pudding. Check out the demonstration video that’s posted – he raises the good point that instant pudding is — well, ok, chemical-filled. But, my childhood was all about that artificial coloring! 😉 As Bittman notes at the end of the video, who wouldn’t miss the Yellow No. 5 (or whatever the number is; well, okay, Bittman meant it sarcastically). His vanilla pudding at the end there though – ooh, looks so good!

    Thanks to the three-day weekend, I caught up on “Ugly Betty.” Good stuff – Daniel’s trying to get a handle on having a brother-who’s-now-a-sister (umm, yeah; got to give Rebecca Romijn credit for trying the role – but her character really is that naive for not expecting how difficult the gender transition would be); Daniel retains Grace “the Chin” Chin to be his dad’s defense lawyer (played by Lucy Liu – playing yet another lawyer? Well, at least this one is slightly that much more believable than her “Ally McBeal” incarnation – her Ling Woo character irritating me); and Betty’s trying to figure out her feelings for accountant Henry – only to realize that it might be too late.

    At the very least: yay for the portrayal of fictitious Asian-American lawyers on tv.

  • Happy CNY from Malaysia 🙂

    37 years and I’ve finally been able to celebrate Chinese New Year with my relatives in Malaysia :).  It’s a nice feeling.  Got to see some lion dances and firecrackers.  Eat lots of good food and relax from work!

    Life is pretty good!

  • Lunar New Year’s Day

    Gung Hay Fat Choy! as we Cantonese might say (well, okay, conceding that my attempts to work on my Cantonese remain attempts). Best of luck…

    A new look at MSG – maybe it’s not so bad, presuming the chef actually knows what he/she is doing?

    I’ve been noticing this in the Romance section of the bookstores: somehow Harlequin and Nascar have joined forces to create books taking place in the world of Nascar. The linked article at least gave the backstory as to how this development came about. I haven’t ventured to read the books; I’m rather limited in time, although my paperback romance novel readings have been picking up again.

    Personally, I’m disappointed by how the publishers of Harlequin decided to discontinue the Silhouette Romance line and transfer the authors to the Harlequin Romance line. Granted, these aren’t high-quality literary stuff, but they passed the time and bordered on sweet old-fashioned romance (plus, if you lucked out on reading a book that bordered on mainstream writing – clearly by a writer on a breakthrough – boy, is it good stuff).

    But, Nascar? Well, I guess it’s good that they got permission to use the real brand’s name. It’s not entirely original to use a sports context for romance novels: author Susan Elizabeth Phillips has a romance novel series revolving in the world of the NFL, using a fictitious NFL team. But, Nascar? My bewildered reaction remains.

    Having watched “The Queen” and seeing its portrayal of Britain’s Prime Minister Tony Blair back in more (for him anyway) hopeful times, it’s poignant to read about how things are for him these days. Talk about contrast.

    Dahlia Lithwick points out the problems in Justice Kennedy’s testimony to Congress about federal judges’ needs. Notably, three things to think about for the federal judges: (a) protection of judicial independence; (b) protection from harm (like, say, from nutcases who want to do real harm on judges doing their job); (c) and obtaining better salaries (’cause it is kind of unfair that clerks who finish their clerkship earns more money than the judges, just by working for Big Firms that pay money that could – say, feed poor people; still, judges do earn more money than others in society – and get pensions, and decent benefits, so… oh well – it depends on your basis of comparison – do you compare federal judges’ salaries to that of associates at Big Firms, or to the Average Joe Schmoe?).

    And, last but not least: at least someone’s warm – Yankees and Mets in spring training. Ex-Met Todd Pratt is trying out for the Yankees.

  • A Very Special Presidental New Year Weekend

    Anybody notice that more people are interested in the Lunar New Year this weekend? I don’t even see a whole lot of GW or Abe Lincoln anywhere, except for the new dollar coins being introduced this weekend. Metro, the newspaper, had a Lunar New Year front cover on Friday.

    Rented a Zipcar minivan and got down to JFK to pick up AS and his family. AS’s son has turned into a mild-mannered physical comedian. After a little harassment from the rent-a-cops, we got loaded up and drove back to Battery Park City. We went to the Lighthouse for drinks afterwards, followed by a late night stop-off at White Castle.

    The next day I had dinner with P’s family at Jing Fong on Elizabeth St. Wasn’t bad – see pictures on the flickr bar.

    More eating Sunday – Happy New Year!

  • Lunar New Year’s Eve

    The cold and the snowish mixture (it’s not quite snow; it’s more like icier slush) and the strange Presidents’ Day tv commercials haven’t really made me in the mood for the Year of the Pig.

    Argh – missed Thursday’s episode of “Grey’s Anatomy” and ABC opted NOT to re-run it on Friday night (instead, choosing to rerun the Super Bowl 2006 episode of Grey’s Anatomy – wherein Bomb Squad Guy kicked the bucket, among other things). Following up on the episode reviews on-line, it sounded like a major cool episode – at the least, the return of Bomb Squad Guy, and Denny the Sick Guy – since Meredith is – clinically, anyway – dead and paying a visit to the afterlife. Not sure what it may mean (I mean, how would it be “Grey’s Anatomy” if Grey isn’t on the show?) – but it just sounded cool. Bomb Squad Guy – played by the always watchable Kyle Chandler – ooh…

    Plus, there’s a scene Cristina, who had wavered in telling Meredith about her engagement, had to tell her fiance, Burke, that she is upset about having not gotten to tell Meredith about the engagement – because Meredith’s her “person.” Can’t believe I missed that, of all things – there may be fans out there who dislike Meredith’s wishy-washy-ness or Cristina’s bitchiness, but their bond as best friends has been something I’ve always liked. Meredith had been there for Cristina, volunteering to be Cristina’s “person” (in the episode where Cristina needed someone to be with her as she decided what to do for her surprise pregnancy) – so it’s only fair that Cristina be there for Meredith. Unclear if Burke gets that about Meredith and Cristina (does he have friends? He kind of tried to befriend McDreamy, but I don’t think they’ve made it to the level of friends yet).

    The passing of the Co-Inventor of the tv remote control. Considering how much I use the tv remote control, I’ll salute this guy.

  • Gong Xie Fat Tsai!

    Definitely wishing everyone a happy Chinese New Year.  A big deal here (Taiwan gets 9 days, including weekends).  I’m typing this from the Taoyuan International Cathay Pacific lounge.

    It’s mad on the highways due to the exodus of people back to their home towns from Taipei.  Boarding soon and I’ll be arriving in Ipoh just after midnight.  Tired, looking forward to it and being with family for recharging.

    Just ended one of the most grueling stretch of 6 weeks in my professional career :s.  I need the R&R.  Instead of the 20 degree weather, KL is more like the hot hot hot :o.

    You all be well.  Say hi to AS for me. I didn’t get a chance to meet up with him since Jan.

  • Ch-Ch-Ch Changes, Brrrrrrrr

    I’ve updated the software that runs triscribe to WordPress 2.1. This did zero to the public face of things, but made a few nice changes to the back end. This includes wysiwyg editing, auto save (no losing your typing if you hit the backspace key), and picture uploading on the same page as the edit. All cool stuff.

    Photos on the flickr strip right now are a trip to City Island for famed seafood restaurant Sammy’s Fish Box. Why go to Red Lobster, when for the same price you can get the finest seafood money can buy in New York. We all got various combo plates, which we could only eat half of. P and I took our leftovers and made seafood fra diabolo the next day – two meals out of one dish. Recommended.

    Chinese New Year this weekend, and our friend AS and family flies in tomorrow night. It’s going to be below 20 degrees F for the next couple of days. Brrrr!