shmusings

Moons... teaspoons... that's all gibberish to me I'm afraid

2008-09-02T04:19:11Z

I head to Seoul on Thursday. Yay. But in the meantime, here's a quick run down of some recent watching and reading:

Wall-E - Finally saw this a few weeks ago with a few others (I really need to come up with some new nicknames). I quite liked it, though the pacing was a little off. It seemed to all wrap up very quickly.

The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra - Hilarious! It's a spoof of '50s scifi films. Very funny.

Wings - The first Best Picture winner, a silent epic from 1927 about WWI pilots. It was pretty good. The dogfight scenes were pretty impressive considering when they were filmed.

The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett - I believe this book was first recommended to me in like 1990. I kept putting it off since it's nearly 1,000 pages, but I finally read it. It was good. Some of the characters were a bit one-dimensional, but it kept my attention for the entire length.

The House on the Borderland by William Hope Hodgson - Very early (1908) weird horror novel. Apparently a big influence on H.P. Lovecraft. I liked it.

_shmoo @ 2008-08-29T09:29:00

2008-08-29T16:31:12Z

Whoa, McCain picked Tina Fey!

This is pretty exciting. We either get a black president, or a woman a heartbeat away.

hail ceasar

2008-08-26T17:05:03Z

I've been watching a lot of TV lately thanks to the Olympics. And now we have the DNC. At least the DNC airs live so I miss most of it while I'm still at work. I did see Michelle Obama's speech last night, which was okay. I heard Ted Kennedy won a gold medal though. Er, I mean, I heard he gave a good speech.

All this TV watching has meant I haven't been seeing many movies (though I do have some to update on) and I've also been reading a nearly 1,000 page book, so my rate of finishing books has dropped as well. Which means I don't know what to write about, since all I really write about is my reading.

I did go see Teatro Zinzanni over the weekend. It was okay. The best part was Les Petits Frères, a group of three acrobatic clowns (for lack of a better term). Of course, their name makes me think of The City of Lost Children.

a rose

2008-08-19T01:00:57Z

This morning, I received an email from a woman I do not know named Amy, with my same last name. It approximately said:

Dear shmoo,
It was great talking to you yesterday!
[insert various items]
Love,
Mom

I wrote back to tell her that she had the wrong shmoo:

Hi Amy,

I don't believe we are related. I'm guessing your son gave you the wrong email address...

Good luck!

Amy wrote back again:

Very cute, shmoo!!
I can't believe you are up so early!
Love,
Mom

So I reiterated:

Haha. No, really, I am not your son. I live in California, my mother's name is [REDACTED], and she lives in Maryland.

She didn't write back again too quickly after that, so I figured this poor woman was now mortified. However, after lunch I received:

A message from your fake mother-
[insert various items]
Love,
"Mom"

So now I'm beginning to think this woman is crazy and I am considering blocking her email address. That is, until I receive an email about an hour ago from her husband David:

Dear shmoo,
Apparently my wife confused your email address with that of our son. To compound the error, she took your initial response as being a humorous retort by our son.
Sorry about all the confusion.
Best regards and wishes-
The other shmoo's real dad.
David

Hilarious!

Nothing seems to please (I need contact)

2008-08-14T01:38:49Z

Hey, how's it going?

That's what I thought.

Not too much to report here lately either. I did go to see Hellboy II: The Golden Army last Friday. I was actually pretty disappointed. It was definitely a fun movie, but I guess I was expecting something much better than the first film, and this was just about on par. Nice makeup, costumes, and sets though.

I also finished John Updike's Rabbit, Run which I didn't like, despite its status as a modern classic.

But I booked my tickets for Seoul in September. So that's something!

'til I'm with you then I'm with you there

2008-08-05T04:07:09Z

It's been a really hectic week plus of work, including a 4am night and several in the 11pm-1am range. So, that kind of put a damper on blogging, or really anything. But, before this blow-up I did finish a book and see a film, and then this past Sunday I did the same, so here we go:

Out of the Past - Classic film noir. I find Robert Mitchum to not be a very convincing hero though, probably because his most famous roles that I've seen (see Cape Fear, Night of the Hunter) are creepy villains.

Sweeney Todd - This was pretty disappointing. Style over substance. I also realized, to my dismay, that whenever I see Alan Rickman I now think Severus Snape rather than Hans Gruber. Sure, Alan Rickman in 2007 is closer in age to Snape than Gruber, but still... it's Hans Gruber!

Blindness by José Saramago - A classmate recommended this a long time ago and I finally got around to it last month. About a country where everyone suddenly (but one at a time) goes blind. I really enjoyed it.

The Midwich Cuckoos by John Wyndham - '50s sci-fi story about some strange happenings in the English town of Midwich. Starts off promising and mysterious, but doesn't really get anywhere.

bell and candle

2008-07-23T02:59:06Z

A quick review of my recent reading:

A collection of short stories by Nikolai Gogol - Some good stuff here. Amusing and fantastic.

Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro - I really enjoyed this. Wasn't too sure how much I'd like a novel about a butler, but it was quite good.

The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Orczy - This was okay. I can see how it influenced later "masked avenger" works, but this wasn't really too exciting.

Spook Country by William Gibson - Read this based on a recommendation received a while back. Took a while for me to get into it as the beginning was a bit too cute and techy in a way that's going to seem really dated in 2020, but it ended up being pretty good.

biff! pow!

2008-07-20T19:00:32Z

A few things I forgot to mention yesterday, regarding The Dark Knight:

1) I was very disappointed, when Joker crashed the party, not to hear any Prince playing. Traditions, people!

2) Speaking of, Heath Ledger was quite good. Jack Nicholson took Cesar Romero's Joker and turned him into one of his psychopaths. Ledger took Nicholson's Joker and exorcised the remains of great Cesar's ghost, leaving only psychopath.

3) Yesterday I saw two different minor characters from Lost in new roles. Richard, the ageless "Other", is now also the mayor of Gotham City. On the other hand, Sun's bald lover from before the crash is now appearing in... a Pine-Sol commercial.

4) So what's next for this Batman franchise? I have a hard time seeing how most of the other classic villains would work. They either involve too much pseudoscience to be believable (Poison Ivy, Killer Croc, Mr. Freeze) or are just too plain ridiculous to fit with the grim mood (Mad Hatter, Riddler... see Batman Forever for an example). I suppose the Penguin could maybe work as some sort of mob leader, but would that carry a film? Maybe Halle Berry will reprise her role as Catwoman. Haha.

zowie

2008-07-20T06:46:29Z

Just got back from seeing The Dark Knight at the IMAX with diego montoya and his FMA. I spent most of the movie trying to identify buildings and streets in downtown Chicago, but what I did pay attention to, I liked. Definitely better than Batman Begins (see my old review here). I really like Bale's bat-voice. Some small criticisms: 1) While the idea of imitation vigilantes is a good one, it also made the first scene hard to follow, though in general the fight scenes weren't as incomprehensible as those in the last film; and 2) the ending (which I won't spoil here) was a bit contrived. But otherwise, a job well done.

Since I'm here, let's quickly run through other movies I've seen recently, and maybe I'll do books some time soon.

Planet of the Apes - This is one of those movies that has been part of my consciousness forever, but I'm not sure I ever watched the entire thing beginning to end. Since it was on AMC a few weeks ago, I finally did. Definitely some cheesy '60s scifi in there, but it's actually quite good.

The Dirty Dozen - Another movie in the same vein: seen parts of it so much, not sure I ever watched it all. It is, of course, great. Can't have a band of misfit heroes with Charles Bronson.

Malcolm X - The film that broke my DVD player. Spike Lee mostly does a great job, though parts of the tribute at the end were a bit much.

Incredible Hulk - I'd say it's about on par with the Ang Lee one, which I didn't hate as much as many did. I'm waiting to see if this new attempt at creating a larger Marvel movie universe works out or falls on its face.

Batman: Gotham Knight - New animated film of six interconnected shorts. It supposedly fills the gap between Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, but that's mostly just marketing. Kevin Conroy, who basically is Batman, returns to do the voice. I'd say four of the shorts are very good, and none are bad.

Wow, I've had some good movie luck lately.

back before we were brittle

2008-07-18T18:13:28Z

Went to the Independent last night, along with The Pit (new, really obvious, nickname!), for some bands.

First up was Alberta Cross, who I was not familiar with. I assumed going in that it was a solo woman, but it was actually a band made up of British men. They were okay.

Then it was Say Hi, formerly known as Say Hi To Your Mom. I really liked them. I've been aware of the band since about 2003, but there's something about their new album that I really like, even though there isn't any major change in sound.

Finally, speaking of bands that I've known about for years but very slowly won me over, the Long Winters played. That John Roderick, in all his gap-toothed glory, is good at the ol' stage banter. But they didn't play "Ultimatum", which is one of my favorite songs of the decade! Unbelievable.

Anyway, sorry for the lack of updates lately. Work has been busy and then my mom visited (we went up to Sonoma/Russian River last weekend, which was fun). I'll try to get back on track, really! I have a lot of books/films about which to write little blurbs.

the course of human events

2008-07-05T17:21:17Z

Various things:

The Geek Squad retrieved the DVD from my player and then I recycled it and bought a new one.
My car battery also died yesterday, so I got a new one of those too.
After getting my battery changed I went to one of those drive-through automatic car washes with the high pressure water sprays. Those are fun. Whee!
I have a box of prophylactics that expire in August. I'm trying to think of ways to use them up. Gooey water balloon fight?
Couldn't see the fireworks yesterday due to fog. Oh well. But we had a great view of Chinatown's amateur shows.
A remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still with... Keanu Reeves. Really?
I'm thinking about getting a new desktop computer to go with my new DVD player and car battery. Well, not really "go with", but anyway, anything I should think about? Like is the Pentium 32 (or whatever we're on now) coming out soon?

movie pairings

2008-07-02T04:36:40Z

I had this conversation again today. I've noticed over the years that every once in a while Hollywood will release two very similar movies within a few months of one another. For example:

Dante's Peak (February 7, 1997)
Volcano (April 25, 1997)

Deep Impact (May 8, 1998) - hey, that's my 21st birthday!
Armageddon (July 1, 1998)

Antz (October 2, 1998)
A Bug's Life (November 25, 1998)

Mission To Mars (March 10, 2000)
Red Planet (November 10, 2000)

Happy Feet (November 17, 2006)
Surf's Up (June 8, 2007)

Note: All release dates taken from IMDB.

Interestingly, I have not seen any of the above movies. But anyway, why does this happen? Isn't it weird?

watching him with those eyes

2008-06-30T23:36:08Z

Went to see an '80s cover band called Pop Rocks on Saturday night. It was for a friend's birthday. Terrifying. Letter B looked at me at one point and said (or so I thought) "you're such a crank!" I was like "I know." But then I later found out she actually said "you're such a critic." I wasn't offended either way though.

Meanwhile, Malcolm X is stuck inside my DVD player. It's kind of like having Prince Albert in a can.

no questions please

2008-06-22T22:04:34Z

Let's review my reading, shall we? Looks like the last time I did this was over a month ago, so there's quite a bit. Here we go...

Grimus by Salman Rushdie - Rushdie is one of my favorite authors, but this, his first novel, was not very good. Luckily, he got better.

The New York Trilogy by Paul Auster - Actually three books in one. Surreal detective stories. Kafkaesque at times. I really enjoyed it. Has anyone read any other Auster? Any recommendations?

The Man Who Was Thursday by G.K. Chesterton - A spy story, but not what I expected. I found it quite amusing despite figuring out part of the twist pretty early.

Choke by Chuck Palahniuk - Meh. Seems mostly full of gratuitous disgustingness.

Dragonflight by Anne McCaffrey - This is the first of her long-running Dragonriders of Pern series. I used to read a lot of fantasy and wanted to get back into it, so I decided to start with a classic. But I won't be reading more of this series. It was more about the ideas than the plot.

At the Mountains of Madness by H.P. Lovecraft - Speaking of valuing the ideas more than the plot. This was better than the McCaffrey book though. It did have a long section of exposition in the middle, though that's par for the course in a lot of exploration sci-fi.

No One Belongs Here More Than You by Miranda July - I had heard good things about this collection of short stories, but I wasn't a big fan.

voulez-vous the bus

2008-06-17T22:59:14Z

My office is closed today since we're moving locations. Around 12:30, I was walking to meet Letter B and her boyfriend for lunch, and a bus pulled up that was heading my way, so I got on to save some time. Big mistake. The bus suddenly swung over the other side of the street and got on the freeway heading south. I ended up in Portola. A bus going the opposite way came a few minutes later, but it wasn't an express like the one I had just taken, so the return took a lot longer. However, I was still only a half hour late to lunch. Nice little unexpected adventure.

Here's a quick film update. I'll do the books another time.

Twelve O'Clock High - WWII film featuring Gregory Peck about leadership. Pretty good.

Whisper of the Heart - Studio Ghibli film directed by Yoshifumi Kondo. Much more down to earth than a lot of other Ghibli films, though still quite magical feeling, if that makes any sense.

Do you remember the first time?

2008-06-08T18:27:51Z

Do you remember your first time answering the phone at your parents' house?

Yeah, I don't remember mine either.

things I love

2008-06-06T19:04:30Z

* Slicing my middle finger with the bagel knife. Really deeply. Ouch. Blood.

* The old men and women who elbow their way to being the first ones on the bus, and then stand right in the entry way forcing everyone else to squeeze around them.

Dress my friends up just for show, see them as they really are

2008-05-31T18:41:15Z

So my brother's wedding was pretty fun. Clearly a lot of money was spent on it, it was cheesy at times, good music... oh wait, that's Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

Seriously though, the wedding was good. Very beautiful. The band was really good. Their first dance was to the Hokey Pokey ("you put your ring in, you put your ring out"). My speech went pretty well. No mishaps. A good time.

shake it all about

2008-05-26T20:34:39Z

And speaking of U of C, my Corporate Finance professor was at my brother's wedding last night.

fortune and glory

2008-05-23T05:21:33Z

So Indiana Jones went to University of Chicago. Talk about distinguished alumni. No wonder the Oriental Institute had all that stuff!

You'll be coming back before too long

2008-05-20T14:56:57Z

My radio alarm woke me up this morning (before I go to the airport to fly home) with "(Don't Go Back To) Rockville". Uh oh.

I look at you and see the passion eyes of May

2008-05-20T01:07:35Z

I fly to DC tomorrow to prepare for my brother's wedding, which is Sunday. Exciting times.

Last weekend I hosted a BBQ at my place and got sunburned. But I also got delicious delicious food, so maybe it was worth it.

I got a comment on my last entry to describe the books, so I shall (and I'll keep my little thoughts too). Here goes:

War Trash by Ha Jin - Historical fiction about a Chinese Communist soldier in a POW camp during the Korean War. Interesting, but not all that well written (thought that's not too surprisingly considering that English is not the author's first language). I should also note that the author is a Brandeis alumnus.

Collected Stories by Gabriel Garcia Marquez - Magical realism set in decaying South America. Generally very good. A lot of the ideas here also appear (often as background details) in his novels.

Amsterdam by Ian McEwan - Two old friends mourn a recently deceased former friend and lover (to each, at times) and each make a morally questionable decision with disastrous consequences for both. Really contrived ending. Ruined it.

The Keep by Jennifer Egan - A young man reunites with his estranged cousin to renovate an old castle in Eastern Europe and turn it into a hotel. Meanwhile, a convict writes a story about a young man that reunites with his estranged cousin to renovate an old castle in Eastern Europe and turn it into a hotel. Speaking of endings that ruin the rest of the book... yeah, you can't suddenly turn a minor character into the focus for the last 30 pages and expect the reader to care.

The Castle by Franz Kafka - A man arrives in town to try to work as a surveyor, but the local bureaucracy makes doing pretty much anything impossible. I would describe it as... Kafkaesque. ;-) Luckily, this one didn't have an ending, since he never finished it. Similar to The Trial, though I liked this one less.

I also watched Miller's Crossing last night, which was a pretty good gangster movie. I would've liked to see more Steve Buscemi on screen though.

I'm also just about done with J.G. Ballard's Empire of the Sun, a novel about a the quest for survival of a British boy who lived in pre-WWII Shanghai, but gets separated from his parents and stranded when the war begins. I saw the Spielberg film based on it years ago, and remember it being heart-wrenching, but I'm not finding the book as emotional.

So you're scared and you're thinking that maybe we ain't that young anymore

2008-05-12T05:43:21Z

Long, drunken weekend over. Time for a quick reading and watching update.

The General - My first exposure to Buster Keaton. A lot of fun. Never a dull moment.

High Plains Drifter - Clearly owes a lot to the Sergio Leone films, and is inferior to those, but still better than most action films.

The Straight Story - Decent. The scene reminiscing about WWII was great though.

War Trash by Ha Jin - Interesting, but not all that well written (thought that's not too surprisingly considering that English is not his first language).

Collected Stories by Gabriel Garcia Marquez - Generally very good. A lot of the ideas here also appear (often as background details) in his novels.

Amsterdam by Ian McEwan - Really contrived ending. Ruined it.

The Keep by Jennifer Egan - Speaking of endings that ruin the rest of the book... yeah, you can't suddenly turn a minor character into the focus for the last 30 pages and expect the reader to care.

The Castle by Franz Kafka - Luckily, this one didn't have an ending, since he never finished it. Similar to The Trial, though I liked this one less.

Josie's on a vacation far away

2008-05-09T18:02:22Z

Pub Quiz with coworkers last night. We came in 6th (losing a tiebreaker for 5th) out of like a million teams. It was pretty fun though. Otherwise, I don't remember what I've been up to. All fun stuff I'm sure. Oh, I saw Iron Man. It was pretty good, I thought. I have other films and books to update on, but not right now.

give me some skin to call my own

2008-04-28T05:10:19Z

I had a really active weekend. Friday after work we had happy hour. Then I rushed off to meet friends for Thai food at Ratcha Thai.

Saturday morning my building had brunch for the residents. Then that night my friend had a birthday thingy. Lots of GSBers in attendance, including one who lives in Boston so I hadn't seen her since graduation. But the birthday boy got completely trashed. Since he lives a block from me, I took it upon myself (along with another) to make sure he got home and ended up hanging out waiting for him to become semi-sober for a while. Then today I had to go into the office.

This weekend has also been full of naked people.

My friend who I took home just moved to the city (from Mountain View) on Friday, and apparently his new roommate is a photographer. And she has a prominently displayed nude photo of herself in the living room. Very odd.
While at work today, my parents called. While talking to them I was looking out the window at all the sailboats in the bay. Then I noticed that in the residential building across from my office, a naked man was walking around on a balcony and then he started washing windows! Still nude!