If it’s July, it’s time for the New York Asian American International Film Festival, one of our favorites. The venues include the Asia Society and Quad Cinemas on E 13th St. Of course, it’s impossible to see everything, but we’ve made a few selections. We’re watching Train Man, Music Video Showcase, Colma – the Muslcal, the 72 Hour Shootout, and American Fusion.
Save the date for the New York area Asian Alumni Picnic, Saturday, August 5, again at Van Cortlandt Park!
Lots of people, when they ask me “How’s it going… how are you?” My reply has been “I’m tired” I am really, I just can’t fake it anymore. 6 weeks on the road since mid-May, I’ve travelled on Cathay, Singapore Air, China Airlines, to KL twice, Singapore twice, Jakarta, London, Hong Kong twice…. Loads of FF and hotel loyalty points, but I need a rest :o.
B- was already here when I came back on the 5th. She’d done a great job on the new apartment to make it very homey. It’s nice to come home now. New beginnings for the both of us in many ways, from the apt, being away, catching up, and also celebrating her b-day as well. So it’s been good. We did some apt shopping together, got a new convection oven, microwave oven as well as accessories for her new Canon A-530 digital camera. Apparently she only had 16Mb so automatically upgraded her to 1G so she’s got like almost 700 pictures and she’s excited about it :).
Brought back a lot of goodies from the States… I got my b-day gift in advance already and definitely some of the best gifts I’ve ever got :D. She picked out this awesome watch and a crochet scarf :). Is very handy already!
Hope everyone is doing well. Keeping cool here in the hot and humid Taipei summer.
2 movies this extended weekend (I did work Monday, but it was bogus): “Superman Returns” and “An Inconvenient Truth”.
Superman was 2 and a half hours of pure fun, designed for the detail-oriented fan – the same demographic of “Batman Returns”. OK, Lois wasn’t that exciting – but do you really expect someone jilted for 5 years to be any other way? Some paper (I don’t remember which) mentioned Perry White’s controversial clipped quote “Truth, Justice, and all that stuff” instead of the traditional “Truth, Justice, and the American Way”. Today of all days, we are idealists and we think that all three belong together. However, I don’t think that Superman is solely for Americans today, and “original intent” be damned, even though one of Superman’s creators was Canadian. Why we need Superman (or Superperson?) more than ever? — the same reason that we need a Santa Claus: we need hope.
“An Inconvenient Truth” shows what ought to be happening with American discourse. Back in the days of Lincoln, it was not unusual for a speaker to go on tour at meeting halls around the country, having an exposition that went on for one or two hours about a topic of the day. It is difficult to criss-cross the country holiding these speeches (although Al Gore estimates that he has given his road show over 1,000 times), but this is the next best thing. Complaints that it is too much like a college lecture belies the anti-intellectual attitude that Stephen Colbert paradies; that it is too partisan the view that people ought not to have views anymore. Good job.
We spent the day making a big pot of turkey chili, and then we made our way to the Brooklyn Promenade to see the Macy’s Fireworks. I thought it was a much better view than from the FDR Drive, and you don’t have to camp out like you do for a Manhattan vantage point. P’s brother was working security at the site, but we didn’t see him until afterwards.
Saw the documentary on Al Gore’s Power Point Presentation on Global Warming: “An Inconvenient Truth.” Quite a movie. After all the weird rains we’ve been having the last two weeks, what with the floods on the East coast – one wonders… and then there’s Al Gore and his global warming message.
The movie is more than about Gore, as the NY Times film critic A.O. Scott noted in the linked review (although the Gore in this film really, for me, was the man I recognized as the man I respected prior to the debacle of Election Day 2000). Indeed, the film struck quite a cord for me, watching Gore point out the before and after pictures of various glaciers and North and South Poles – the ice is melting, and we’re facing a damned future – if we don’t do something about this. This is obviously what Gore cares about, and what he feels we should too, as he put it a “moral imperative,” not just a political one. This is something. The movie does get a little didactic, but there were some humorous moments (including a Matt Groening clip from “Futurama” (? – I think; it was obviously not the “Simpsons”) and the message – again, quite a message. I highly recommend seeing the movie.
Speaking of national figures, apparently former US Senator from South Dakota, Tom Daschle (D) is mulling his (presidential-contending?) future. Hmm.
Kobayashi wins the Nathan’s hot dog eating contest, once again. Look, I like hot dogs like anyone else, but it’s a bit much to eat all that much of the stuff. Really.
I’d be very curious to see if the Emmy rules changes actually does change who gets nominated.
Because Italy won the World Cup game against Germany, my (more-or-less still Italian-American) neighborhood has had an interesting afternoon-early evening of Italian-American neighbors blasting their car horns. Umm, okay, folks. Good for you.
An analysis of Justice Kennedy by Dahlia Lithwick.
Bill Moyer’s “Faith and Reason” on PBS has been interesting, as he interviews authors and philosophers on faith and reason. Are they incompatible? Or maybe not? I wonder if he will interview scientists on their view of faith and reason.
Meanwhile, Slate has an analysis of Senator Barack Obama’s views on faith and reason. Interesting stuff.
Now that the US Supreme Court ruled on the Hamdan case, the Navy lawyer in the Hamdan case (who has represented defendant Hamdan, doing his duty and all that) has a fuzzy-looking future. Perhaps it means he’ll be a litigator in the civilian (private) sector, I’d suggest.
Linda Greenhouse’s interesting look at the Supreme Court’s year.
Ziggy has a birthday.
In Slate, Prof. Tim Wu raises some interesting points about whether China can create its own Hollywood unless it comes up with some changes in its IP law. Further questions arise for other industries in China, since piracy doesn’t help nurture business.
Sort of like the idea of six degrees of separation, there’s the very real possibility that everyone’s related to royalty.
Arrived at KL this afternoon… and almost predictably, my immigration experience at KLIA was a facsimile of rush hour traffic … loads of people queued up and inching slowly forward. A potpourri of Malaysian visitors from Republic of Yemen, India, US, Taiwan, Commonwealth countries, Japan etc. Luckily I got there because soon after me, there was another couple of plane loads that pretty much filled up the snaking lines. My time at the immigration officer takes up time now as they check out my passport and the stamps going along with it. A well-travelled passport is a bit of a warning I guess because they’ll look through all the pages and if they see something, they’ll look at it some more. Been getting that a lot in all my destinations – arrivals and departures. I still think it’s cool though… but my 6 months passport validity is coming up soon and will need to go to AIT Taipei to get a new one in case they reject me from entering Taiwan (or elsewhere). If I had more time, I’d do it in KL ’cause I know those folks better.
So back in my favorite KL hotel, Le Meridien. Unfortunately their new Prime steak house isn’t open yet (mid July) but can’t wait for my next trip. Even so, the past 5 weeks of non-stop travelling has gotten me fat. I wonder what my upcoming health checkup next Friday is going to say about me :s
I definitely need a lifestyle change I think but this travelling isn’t helping much. It’s really more mind over matter. I should just step away from the computer! At least having my Blackberry shut off hasn’t proved to be too devastating. It’s off because I didn’t pack my charger cables and in Asia, getting BB accessories is really hard to do and my model, 7730 is old so it’s particularly troublesome. Even asking the IT staff of the company is coming up zilch….
I’m going to decompress here in my hotel room this weekend and try to catch up on my personal emails and get back to my current project of establishing a new project management community, SdB+PM Forum. We started out as a Yahoo Group joined by the LinkedIn and common interest and experience in project management. A year ago, what started as a hobby with a dozen or so people has grown to over 300 people world-wide :)! We’ve adopted the SMF platform for expansion which I think is a good fit which allows for greater growth as a portal via Mambo if necessary. A little lean on the frills and development but solid and simple.
Anyways, time to watch some World Cup matches!
Picked up some sauces that are the exact opposite of what you would expect.
Tobasco Worchestershire Sauce
Picked up from a Publix Supermarket in Ft. Lauderdale.Tobasco is known for their aged red pepper sauce, which is incorporated in this sauce. Apparently it is only available in the South. It’s a little too smoked (there’s soy sauce in it) for my taste, but goes well with beef BBQ.
Lea & Perrins Hot Pepper Sauce
From a C!ty’Super supermarket in Harbour City, Kowloon, this is your straight up Carribean style red pepper sauce. Flavorful, complex, with a vinagar aftertaste. Not bad.
Peter Luger’s Steak Sauce
From the beef emporium from Brooklyn, true believers know that their steak sauce is really for the steak tomatoes, but are pretty good for dipping tender morsels of medium rare meat. Also doubles as a cocktail sauce.
Observation: when your family becomes a composite of every TVB Hong Kong soap opera, what can you do? Cops, check. Lawyers, check. Financial people, check. Cooks, check. Medical professionals, check.
YouTube is gathering a lot of depth in its collection of videos, even stuff I thought were not around anymore. My favorite TVB soap opera – The Greed of Man I watched it during my 1991 trip to HK. One of the most well known songs from the show was Red River Valley , a Cantonese version of the American folk song. P and I were looking for the DVD version of the series in Hong Kong, but apparently it was sold out because of the recent Vivian Chow concert.
I also found a video for one of my favorite Vivian songs, “Because of You”. I’m going to pitch that for the Cantonese wedding song. Big shout out to YC for that one, if he remembers it. P’s pitching Nora Jones’ “Come Away” as the English wedding choice. What do you think?
Much to celebrate – went to 2 graduations yesterday – P’s brother and my cousin graduated from the NYC Police Academy and my mom decided to go back for her GED and had a “certification” ceremony yesterday. The former was at Madison Square Garden, and was large, very formal and regimented; the latter was at City Tech and was small, unregimeted but joyous and full of song.
Koreatown buffet place Minato becomes a part of the Todai buffet empire. After the takeover, the food is actually a level better than before – it seemed there was a bit of a decline towards the end of Minato. This would now add to the visits to Honolulu and Hong Kong, and Las Vegas branches. Now I guess we’re going to have to try to hit all of the others.