Blog: Entries Tagged With 'movies'

For the second time in our lives, our new house is beginning to feel like our home.

It's been 1.5 months since we moved in, and we're taking our time getting settled so as to not feel overwhelmed. We're using the corner room for our sleeping quarters and for my office. Eventually, after we get a couple more home improvement things done in the master bedroom, we'll probably want to buy a bigger bed and start sleeping there.

So far we've spent a combined $17k on termite treatment and repairs, a water heater repair/repiping, sewer lateral replacement, and installation of roof vents. The outlets in three bedrooms need to be grounded and the master bedroom needs to be painted a color that doesn't burn the eyes. I also need to drywall over a couple outlets which were placed in a weird spot halfway up the wall in the gym room before we can have a full-length mirror put in there.

The first week in the house, we bought a washer and dryer and a dining table with 6 chairs. Next was a sectional sofa, 3 small bookcases, a large coffee table, and finally now a TV stand. I just finished building most of the TV stand and we finally set up our PlayStation 3 and watched a DVD that we had borrowed from the library - The Money Pit. My coworkers had mentioned it when I first mentioned buying a house. The movie was a little weird but had its moments. Our house is a bit of a money pit, but fortunately nothing like the house in the movie!

There are a lot of small things that need to be done for the house. I cut down one of the giant bird of paradise plants that was growing too tall next to the house, and I've been repairing various leaks which are present in half of the 13 irrigation zones. In a month, I'll have more time for these things. My company is not approving any new requests for people to be permanently remote, so I'm going to have to leave after September 28 when my 3-month transitional period comes to an end. I could refuse to leave and have them fire me, though if they fire me with cause then there would be no severance, but I'd rather leave on good terms and not make life difficult for my manager. I should be able to give 2 weeks notice on September 28 which would allow me to remain employed for the first two weeks of October. That way, my 90-day window for exercising stock options will extend into next year. I'd rather exercise them next year since we have too much income this year, though our stock has fallen $20 in the time that I could've exercised this year, so was that really the right call?

I've been working for 16 years, 11 of which have been at Pure, so I'm feeling overdue for a change. It's been good here overall, but lately I've been feeling like the work that I do doesn't really matter. I'm planning to take several months off before deciding whether to find a new job. I'm looking forward to having more time for the things that I want to do, and I'll also need to help Priscilla's parents understand their finances. We probably have enough to be financially independent, assuming the stock market doesn't crash, so I don't need a high-paying job anymore. If I do get another job, I'm hoping for it to be with a Christian non-profit where I feel like I'm making more of a difference in people's lives. But in whatever I ultimately decide to do, I hope that I can live with purpose.

Being down in SoCal has allowed us to see family more frequently. They came over the first week and helped us unload the pod, and Aaron came by one day to mount our TV and another day to bring my bike which I'd been storing at my parents' place. We visited Priscilla's parents during a weekend when we went to Arcadia to see Sharon who was visiting her daughter there. We got together with my parents and Aaron's family earlier this month to celebrate birthdays. And we'll be staying at Priscilla's parents' place again next week in order to keep her dad company while her mom is helping out at a church retreat during the week.

We've also visited a few churches, two of which are in Camarillo. But we feel the most comfortable at a church in Thousand Oaks due to the worship style being close to what we're used to and the people being similar to us demographically. Church community should not be constrained by demographics, but I can't say that they don't matter at all. We haven't committed definitively to the church yet, but we're hoping that it will be a place where we can grow, serve, and build deeper relationships.

There's no shortage of things to sink money, time, and effort into. Some of it is meaningful, some of it less so. We have a lot to figure out, but one step at a time. Do the next right thing.

It's hard to believe that Priscilla and I have been married for a whole month already, but the calendar doesn't lie. Married life has been great overall. Sure, it's not perfect, but what marriage is? Anybody who says they have a perfect marriage is either lying or hasn't been married more than two days.

Priscilla is adjusting to living in the Bay Area and is starting to drive around without needing her GPS. She's been busy changing her name with various agencies, cooking, catching up on all her favorite TV shows on Hulu, and applying to jobs. I've become slightly less of a light sleeper and have been getting better sleep overall, but a king size bed still would be really nice.

On Priscilla's birthday, I cooked for her for the first time since we got married. I made one of the things I make best- spaghetti! I made my own sauce of course, consisting of Trader Joe's marinara sauce, ground turkey, onions, garlic, tomatoes and mushrooms. Priscilla enjoyed it, even though I took a long time prepping all the ingredients and the sauce was a little healthier than she's accustomed to.

The following day I took her up to the scenic part of San Francisco, and we saw Fort Funston and Sutro Baths and ate at The Cliff House Bistro, which had these amazing fresh-baked popovers! Unfortunately it was a bit windy that day, which cut our trip short since Priscilla was cold. But I made it up to her by taking her to see The Avengers that night. The movie was awesome. But it's Joss Whedon, so I expected no less.

Priscilla and I decided sometime last month that she would be moving up to the Bay Area after we get married. Or more like, I made the decision because of the tech job opportunities up here and the fact that we'd be more financially stable in the short run if I were to keep my job. And she unreservedly agreed to leave her job, parents, thriving church, and the home she's known for 26 years to be with me. That's how selfless she is and how lucky I am to have her.

This weekend she came up to do apartment hunting, and we found a place we liked. On Friday I sifted through entries on Craigslist and PadMapper and found three viable leads. Of those, one never contacted me back, one sounded pissed off on the phone, and my top lead returned my call and sounded polite and sincere. So I went and checked out the latter's place and liked what I saw and liked the neighborhood. It's in the middle of Sunnyvale 1.8 miles from work, a real convenience. I returned with Priscilla on Saturday and she liked it too, so we paid the deposit and now the place will be ours!

The apartment is on the first floor in the back of a fourplex. It was touted as 700 square feet but feels more like 500. Cozy is the word. The bedroom seems a little bigger than my current one, the closet takes up the length of a whole wall, the bathroom is roomy enough and has ample sink space, and the living/dining room should be just big enough for a couch, coffee table, dining table and computer table. The only major downside is the kitchen has very little counter space, no built-in microwave and no dishwasher. But Priscilla will be the primary user of the kitchen and she thinks we can make it work.

The landlord, Tony, is a 77-year old Korean man who seems intelligent and looks very healthy and young for his age. He and his wife will celebrate their 50th anniversary this year! They seem personable and reasonable and are letting me move in in mid-April.

We're getting all this for $1200, which is not the best price, but reasonable given current market conditions. This is the first time I've gone with the first apartment/house I've seen, but I felt like it was right.

On Saturday we also saw Hunger Games with some church friends. Priscilla has been dying to see that movie after reading the books. I thought it has an interesting story and good CG, and I'll probably read the books at some point.

Priscilla wants to attend a church with a choir she can sing in, so we've been considering going to a new church since RBF has no English choir. On Sunday we checked out North Valley Baptist Church in Santa Clara. I visited four years ago but didn't remember much except that they had a choir and the message was powerful. But Priscilla and I found the church to be a little more traditional than we're used to, especially since she would like a choir that does more of a blend of traditional and contemporary.

The rest of the weekend was spent making lots of food! We made tacos on Saturday using rotisserie chicken, and Priscilla boiled the leftovers on Sunday to make soup. I made turkey and mushroom burgers. Priscilla wants me to be her guinea pig for her cooking when we get married. I don't think I'll mind in the very least.

In honor of Indigenous People, or Columbus, or what have you, Priscilla had Monday off so she got plane tickets a few months ago to visit me from Saturday till Tuesday.

Saturday afternoon the weather was perfect, so we biked to Lake Shoreline and brought turkey sandwiches in my new rack-mounted bag (very convenient). While we were picnicking, a bunch of squirrels ambushed us for food, and one was really brave/friendly with Priscilla and took food out of her hand and ate it right next to her.



To compensate for doing healthy activities, we had buffet at Turmeric Saturday night, where the food was good except the second batch of achari chicken tikka, which had a really bad aftertaste and might've been tainted. We couldn't finish it, but fortunately we didn't get sick. The next day we had lunch at Bagel Street, Priscilla's first time there. She had a tuna salad which may have inspired her to eat more salad, since we had salad in every home-cooked meal afterwards.

That night Priscilla made me salad with avocado and some of the leftover sliced turkey, and curry chicken based on a recipe she learned earlier. We had a bit of curry leftover, which we used the next day to pour over Atlantic salmon that we cooked in the microwave, which turned out pretty tasty.

My company didn't give us Monday off but I took a vacation day, and we made the morning showing of Courageous, the fourth movie made by Sherwood Pictures, centering around godly fatherhood. I heard about the movie after researching the Casting Crowns song by the same name. The movie was really inspirational and was a reminder of how a godly man ought to live and be a model for his family. It made Priscilla cry. A lot.

After the movie, we went shopping at the adjacent mall for two whole hours and managed to finally use my Old Navy gift card to buy a t-shirt for me. I still have $16 on the card, which at this rate, will take several more years to spend. We ended the day singing 90's songs with Priscilla playing my rented guitar. I'd been secretly taking lessons for five weeks and surprised her on Saturday with a very newbie rendition of "Good Life" by One Republic where I changed the words in the chorus to "goose life." But I think she liked it. Since she's so good with guitar, I'm going to make her teach me guitar so much that she'll get sick of it!

Priscilla bought three Southwest round-trips a few months back when they were having a sale, and one of those trips was for this weekend. I picked her up from the airport early Saturday morning, and our first stop was Valley Fair where I wanted to go to Old Navy to use my giftcard that I've had for three years. Unfortunately we got there an hour before any of the stores opened, so we walked through adjacent Santana Row looking at all the buildings. And unfortunately, once Old Navy opened we weren't able to find anything we liked, again.

From there we went to the Palo Alto Festival of the Arts. There was a whole side street lined with artists doing Italian street paintings, with featured artist Chris Brake in the most prominent spot. We saw a ton (literally, a few tons) of metal sculptures that an artist welded out of all sorts of scrap metal, that had a Tim Burton style. There were countless booths selling paintings, photographs, jewelery, bright clothing, wood carvings and fused metal art pieces. There was a live band covering funk/R&B songs that was decent, but the female vocalist was noticeably off key sometimes. We got lunch at different booths- I got a teriyaki chicken plate and Priscilla got a falafel and a $3 cup of hibiscus tea that tasted like Snapple. That was the most expensive Snapple we've ever bought.

That evening we watched Ip Man (awesome film) and made Moroccan chicken with garlic, onions, tomatoes, carrots, green and red peppers, potatoes and paprika. Priscilla thought it was really flavorful even though we didn't use too much salt! We ate it with naan, which is not really authentic Moroccan but hey, naan is good.

Sunday after church we ended up at Hon Sushi in Mountain View after trying to go to Sunny Bowl next door and finding it closed. The sushi at Hon was probably cheaper than at comparable places, especially with the 30% off all rolls they were doing. It was surprisingly good. I think I'm not adverse to sushi anymore after making it with Priscilla that one time.

Afterward we went to AST to work out and for me to do a bit of work. When we got home, Priscilla made baked chicken and potatoes with the rest of our ingredients from the other day. I'm so happy that she likes cooking for me!

I wasn't expecting to see Priscilla again so soon, but this weekend she came up with her parents because they had a funeral to attend in San Jose.

Friday evening, shortly after they arrived, Priscilla cooked pasta for us. It could've used more ingredients, but it was fine for what we had on hand. Afterward, the two of us went to Murphy Street in downtown Sunnyvale, got frozen yogurt at Tutti Frutti and sat outside a bar listening to a band covering some rock songs.

Saturday morning we biked 16 miles all the way to Moffet Field and back. Priscilla tried to keep up but I think my bike is a little uncomfortable for her (it definitely is for me). We had lunch buffet at Sweet Tomatoes and then drove up to Berkeley, where Minh gave us a tour of the campus. The buildings and scenery were so beautiful! I'm envious.

Afterward Minh's wife Christine joined us for Thai food at Thai Noodle. The food was pretty decent, 4 stars. I especially enjoyed this one salmon dish. Finally as the night waned, the last activity was watching Cowboys and Aliens at the Regal Theatre in downtown Berkeley. It was an ok movie, but I had really high expectations due to all the hype (I think I saw a trailer for it as early as a year ago).

On Sunday after church, Priscilla, her parents and I tried to go to Gombei Bento but it was closed, so we went to Shanghai Restaurant next door and got lunch specials. We were given way too much rice, but even the food that was not rice was very plentiful and we had leftovers. And delicious, fattening cheese wontons! I think Priscilla enjoyed them.

Kenny and I drove down to LA for Independence Day weekend on Friday. On both the drive down and the drive up, we hit heavy traffic around the Buttonwillow area due to the single lane closures caused by construction. Traffic was backed up for what appeared like miles due to two lanes merging down to one in each direction, but we took a detour on local roads and saved probably at least an hour of waiting in stop-and-go traffic.

On Saturday, Priscilla and I made lots of healthy food at her house: ceviche, crab cakes and spaghetti. For dinner her dad made curry chicken, which we had while watching Apollo 13 (since I've never seen it) on VHS (who uses those anymore?). We also worked on writing a letter to our 30-year old selves, lit sparklers to celebrate the holiday, and did some light weight and cardio exercise.

On Sunday we had lunch with a dozen CCAC people at King's Burger, where it was totally packed because a couple other large groups also had the same idea. Then a few people in our group came to my house to play Dominion, and Victor won both games. For dinner, Priscilla's parents joined my family for bbq at my house. My parents made salmon, ribs, drumsticks, beef and potato salad, and Priscilla's parents brought a chicken salad.

This morning Priscilla and I went hiking at 9, which I thought would be early enough to avoid the heat, but apparently not. We came home early and worked out there, then my dad made us lunch, and then it was time for me to go back to the Bay Area.

Finally tonight, Bao, Kenny and I went to see not fireworks, but Super 8 at the AMC Mercado theatre. It was a pretty intense and suspenseful movie, and I enjoyed most of it except the end, which felt a little too perfect and cheesy. The action and special effects were pretty good, and I wouldn't mind seeing it again for mainly that reason. I definitely felt it was worth my $11.

Until this year I hadn't ever taken the entire week between Christmas and New Year's off from work. But this year, since both holidays fell on a Saturday, my company gave us Monday, Tuesday and Friday off during the week following Christmas, so I ended up vacationing in LA from December 24 till January 3.

During the long break I hung out with two sets of high school friends, went to three holiday parties (four, if you count the one at my house that I caught the tail end of), saw two movies in the theatre (Narnia and Tron), worked out with a friend once (not nearly enough), helped my dad install shelves in the garage, did a lot of work on the website I'm making for church, played many games of Monopoly Deal with Aaron and other people, and found gift money that had apparently been sitting around for years.

I of course spent the majority of days with the girlfriend. We decorated her family's Christmas tree, cleaned her room, did our weekly study discussion while walking at Balboa Park, did puzzles, watched random Youtube videos, and had a lot of meals with different people.

This vacation time has been good, but I'm ready to get back to "normal" life. For one, my body is in dire need of exercise after a plethora of holiday food combined with inactivity. I've also more or less repaid my entire sleep debt, so I'm looking to go back to work refreshed and to start off this year on the right foot!

As customary, I spent my Thanksgiving in LA, where I was treated by my parents to an overabundance of good food. For Thanksgiving they made the usual- turkey, yams, mashed potatoes, ham, biscuits, etc. On all the other days they made a lot more- including turkey pot pie, crab, chicken stew and seafood soup. They also gave me a week's worth of food to take back to the Bay Area. My parents are awesome.

During the holiday weekend, Priscilla and I also celebrated our four year anniversary by hiking on the Escondido Canyon Trails (where there's a famed waterfall, which unfortunately wasn't much more than a trickle at that time of year), making shepherd's pie (more like Priscilla making it and me eating it), and having hot pot for dinner with her parents. The next day we worked on a jigsaw puzzle (we're really into those now for some reason) and watched "Batman: Under the Red Hood." The next day we visited Chi at HRock, her home church away from home, had tacos with a bunch of her friends, and visited her grandmother who recently got out of the ICU.

All in all, it was a fun, relaxing holiday weekend. Too short though.

This has been quite an eventful three-day weekend. Priscilla and her parents came up on Friday and stayed until this afternoon. On Friday the four of us ate some of the food my mom had prepared and given to them to bring up. Then Priscilla and I did some work and rewarded ourselves afterward by watching Idiocracy (hilariously chilling movie whose premise I think is likely to happen).

Saturday her parents visited friends in Petaluma, so we had the whole day to ourselves. We spent some time having her try on dresses I bought for her, working out and having Indian food at Shah afterward, and meeting with my NVC counselor about relationship issues we've been having lately because of the long distance. The session was intended to be three hours long but stretched easily into six hours! But it was worth it- the session unraveled many layers of the complex issues and we now have a much deeper understanding of them and a greater appreciation for each other.

On Sunday the four of us went to Baylands Park in Sunnyvale to explore and take pictures. On the way there as I was driving up Lawrence Expressway, a car that was waiting in the left-turn lane next to my lane suddenly pulled out right in front of me, causing me to swerve to the right to avoid hitting him. Unfortunately, he was proceeding to cut across four lanes to get into the right-turn lane. I slammed on the brakes pretty hard (I had been going about 60) while I ended up cutting across three lanes trying to keep my car as parallel to his as possible, finally coming to rest just a few feet from his car. No cosmetic damages, but my tires and brakes took a beating, and I left a nice set of skid marks on the ground.

Fortunately I had kept a large buffer between me and the cars behind me, so there was nobody for me to plow into when I swerved across three lanes. The guy just drove off.

Other than that incident, that day and the rest of the holiday weekend were pleasant.

Priscilla's parents had a retreat in Monterey this weekend, so she decided to visit me during that time.

On Saturday I picked her up from San Jose Airport and we took a stroll around Valley Fair and Santana Row. Of course, since we're both very frugal we didn't buy anything. In the evening we went to Capitol Drive-In, the last remaining drive-in theatre in the Bay Area, and watched Eagle Eye. The movie was so-so, but it was more about the drive-in experience. The ticket entitled us to a double-feature, with Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull playing after Eagle Eye; we declined to stay.

After church on Sunday we hung out at the Sunnyvale Library, then went jogging at Lake Shoreline in Mountain View, then made fricasse of lamb according to a recipe I found. The food tasted pretty good, but I think we messed up the egg sauce at the end.

On Monday, while I was away at work, Priscilla made basa fillet, cheesy turkey pasta, and pear salad for me, and so-eagerly TP'ed my room. That afternoon, her parents came to pick her up, and her mom did a photoshoot of us for the cover of some Asian newsletter she helps with.

I think we had a pretty active weekend.

I visited LA two weeks ago during Labor Day weekend, where I spent most of that time with a certain someone. She thought I would be arriving sometime Friday night; however I actually took all of Friday off from work and drove down at 4am to surprise her. That was my uh, revenge, for her surprising me the same way on the Saturday I was moving! So around 11am I showed up at her workplace and gave her a (practical) gag gift: a box of tissues. Too bad she had a surprise for me that I ruined: since I led her to believe that I was arriving sometime in the evening, she was planning on TP'ing my room before then.

During the weekend we watched three movies (Away From Her, Phantom of the Opera, and 300), went to the bookstore, cooked, and were generally blissfully unproductive. That'll change when we get old, I'm certain.

Then, if seeing me four days in a row wasn't enough, Priscilla and her parents spontaneously decided to visit me up in the Bay Area this past weekend. Her parents didn't have their normal Sunday choir practice so they decided to take a vacation and check out the many sights along Pacific Coast Highway. I had a lot of fun with them, and they even forced me into letting them buy me a fan for my room, which I have yet to use since the weather just started getting cold again. I guess I'll have to store it until next summer. ;)

Last week I had the opportunity to meet with some of the guys from my fellowship for a time of sharing over dinner at Google. They meet every other Wednesday to share with each other how they're doing spiritually and whatnot. Drew works at Google so he gets us free dinner and we find a conference room. It was great fellowshipping with those guys and obviously there are some things better discussed when there aren't girls present. ;)

It was also my first time on the Google campus, and aside from getting questioned by a security guard on the way in, it was pretty cool getting to finally see the place.

Then last Friday I saw Iron Man with some of the same guys. I'd never gotten into the Iron Man story so I didn't really know what to expect. Fortunately that movie really rocked what little expecations I went in with. The storyline, character development and acting were superb. Robert Downey Jr. is one of the most colorful actors I've seen on the screen!

Right now there are two summer movies I'm looking forward to seeing: Hancock and The Dark Knight.

As proof that I've been out of touch with TV and theatrical movies, I hadn't heard of Hancock until I stumbled upon a stolen whale clip from the trailer on YouTube, which led me to find a (still stolen) full trailer. I like most Will Smith movies, and this one looks like it'll be pretty funny.

As for The Dark Knight, I really enjoyed Batman Begins, and the 5-minute Joker teaser I saw when Priscilla and I went to watch I Am Legend was pretty cool. I have high expectations for The Dark Knight; I hope I'm not disappointed!

Finally saw Transformers with Priscilla, Justin, and Jacky. I agree with almost everybody I've heard from that it was really good. It's the first movie I've seen in a theatre in a very long time that I felt was worth my money.

The special effects were amazing and as one critic put, seamless with reality, and made me really get into what was going on. The Decepticons' guile also believably made them a force to be reckoned with and added weight to the story. Too bad Priscilla totally hated the film because she felt the character development was poor. I admit that that area could've been better, but it didn't detract too much from the film for me. Nor did the comic relief, unlike in director Michael Bay's other film Armageddon.

Friday: Most of the college group showed up bright and early at 8 a.m. for Priscilla's graduation. Her parents treated everybody (16 people) to brunch at China Olive Buffet, and she and I spent the rest of the day watching White Chicks and Ong Bak and helping my mom cook.

Saturday: Priscilla and I made pizza at her house. To make a long story short, low-carb dough mix is healthier, but it makes pretty crappy dough. Still, I ate a lot of the "pizza," though considering it's me, that's not saying much.

Sunday: I got tricked into going to an "infosession" for volunteering to help with junior church. I thought I was going to get more info, but by going I effectively signed up. Ah well, it probably won't be too bad, and quite a few of the college people are helping. I spent most of the rest of the day picking out components for the computer I'm building for Priscilla's parents. I never knew shopping for parts required so much... research.

I saw Pirates 3 with Priscilla, Justin, and Jacky tonight. It was.... ok. The special effects were more elaborate than the first two films, and the storyline was better than the second. Still, I had trouble following everything because there was too much going on. The first Pirates movie was great. They shouldn't have made any sequels!

Or lack thereof. Recently Bobbie Yook from CCAC announced that for three consecutive Saturdays, starting last week, volunteers were needed to teach English to ESL students at Napa Elementary School, which is a two minute drive from CCAC. She said that normally school volunteers need to have been tested for tuberculosis (why that and only that particular disease is beyond me), but since the program has a short duration, the school was waiving the requirement.

So Priscilla and I showed up at the school at 9am, expecting to tutoring kids until 12:30. We spoke with the principal, who kindly informed us that we had been misinformed, and that we could not help out because we have not been tested. But she did say that she could make some phone calls and pull some strings and hopefully let us come back next Saturday.

So instead of selflessly tutoring struggling kids for three and a half hours, Priscilla and I went back to her place and watched eight episodes of Meteor Garden. Gee whiz.

Kicking off the final days before the new school quarter, I met up with Sophonias at the Mann theatre to watch The Good Shepherd, a movie that has garnered generally favorable critical review. I gotta say- I haven't been so bored watching something since The Da Vinci Code.

The dialogue in The Good Shepherd was hard to follow (and there was way too much of it), and the plot was bland. I don't know how I made it through the two and a half hours without falling asleep. I suppose I would've understood the movie if I were more intellectually able, or had more appreciation of history. But alas.

On a completely unrelated but also morose note, I got an email from eBay announcing that seller fees will be going up at the end of the month. Way to start off the new year by sticking it to sellers. I've grown increasingly dissatisfied with eBay over the years, so I'm going to be looking into Yahoo! Auctions, which is completely free, for future trading.

Merry Christmas! I hope everybody is having as good a time with friends and loved ones as I am. Here's a recap of the past three days:

Saturday: Went caroling at two retirement homes with Crescentia and Priscilla and members of MBCLA. Watched Home Alone and The Ring Two with Priscilla afterwards. I think I can safely call The Ring Two one of the worst movies I've seen.

We also experimented with cooking dinner and fortunately didn't set the kitchen on fire. We made a stir-fry melange of chicken, eggs, carrots, instant noodles, and tomatoes (my weird idea) and some bok choy (Priscilla's idea). I think the bok choy would've been better combined with everything else in the stir-fry. Nonetheless, everything came out edible. :O

Sunday: Went to MBCLA with Priscilla because they had some special Christmas program. They are SO musically gifted there. One of the songs sung by the choir was "Carol of the Bells," and they had people accompanying with actual bells. Most of the bell players had two bells of different notes, but the guy at the end had seven!

I finally got to talk to Priscilla's parents (actually just her mom) about the relationship. Finally we went to their annual family reunion where everybody was pretty talkative (contrary to what I've been told, ahem). Their family is really huge. I got to meet pretty much everybody but I don't remember half their names now. Oh well, maybe next year. ;)

Monday: Watched Rocky Balboa with Raymond, David, Max, and Yakov. I've never seen a Rocky film but I really enjoyed this one. We had a good time of hanging out and making fun of everyone and everything. Finally, I spent Christmas dinner with my family. We didn't do anything fancy this year, which I'm somewhat glad for.

Finally, in the spirit of Christmas, I'd like to share an animation which I found amusing. It's about the least known reindeer of all, Fabian, who never had a nose. True story.

Just something I noticed. Matthew McConaughey, who stars/co-stars in Failure to Launch and How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, bears a strikingly similar composure on each movie's poster.

Notice the triangular shape formed by the two people, his placement on the right, and his hand in his pocket.

And interestingly, both movies were released by Paramount and share the theme of love developing under a guise of deception!

Recently I found a link for a free month trial to Blockbuster Online. I'm not a fan of Blockbuster, but I figured that getting more free movies can't hurt.

One thing I don't appreciate about Blockbuster is the looooong mail turnaround time compared to Netflix. With Netflix, I would send in all my movies one day, they'd be received and processed the next day, and I'd get a new batch in my mailbox the day following- for a nice turnaround of 2 days.

At the beginning, Blockbuster waited 3 days to acknowledge receiving one of my mailed-back movies. Yet two other movies found themselves at HQ in just 1 day. The funny thing was that I mailed all three together. And they've been getting slower ever since.

I've read about this practice, called throttling, where the company willfully delays processing for "heavy users" so that they can mail less per month and save that much/little money. I've read that Netflix does it too, but not nearly as much as Blockbuster.

I suppose finishing three movies in 2 days could be considered "heavy use." But why are they throttling me during my free trial? And at the beginning, at that? Isn't this period supposed to be when they try to make my experience most favorable? I'd hate to see what happens if I were to become a regular member.

I watched the documentary film Super Size Me today. Yes, I know it's (relatively) old! Well I didn't learn any new information, but it definitely was interesting and well-presented. Totally worth my two hours. If you're going to see one documentary, see this one.

WARNING! War of the Worlds spoiler ahead. Stop reading if you intend to see the movie. But in my opinion, you shouldn't. It was bad. Very bad.

A lot of alien movies are too similar. War of the Worlds was too much like the movie Signs. The plot of both was as follows: aliens attack, family goes into hiding for 80% of the movie, aliens find them, and in the last 10 minutes the people find some silly way to kill them. In Signs it was water (it would burn through the aliens). In War of the Worlds the aliens were not able to cope with the bacteria in our environment.

Unfortunately, you wouldn't be able to tell until the postlude where the narrator explains it. So the aliens just start dropping dead without you really knowing why, the family is reunited, and the world is saved. Then we fade out and the narrator says it was because bacteria killed them. Umm... ok.

Furthermore, the idea that the aliens would die to bacteria is incredulous. Since they had been planning the attack for a LONG time (a million years, the old guy in the movie said), one would think that they would have hammered out every detail with the thorough meticulousness they seemed to demonstrate. If not, I'd expect them to at least make sure that the environment was habitable before launching an all-out attack. Think of it this way: if we decided to colonize Mars and bring thousands of people to settle there, wouldn't we want to make sure they'll be able to survive the environment?

But I'm guessing that's how Orwell wrote the book. So it's either an oversight on his part, or Spielberg modified the book so much that its plot is incongruous with the ending. Whatever the reason, my conclusion is that War of the Worlds was a poorly executed movie, lacking in both substance and believability. The special effects were spectacular, but the plot was just riddled with gaps and didn't explain itself very well. Spielberg, what have you done?

I got to go to the Getty Center today with Priscilla. It was only my second time there, and last time I went there for a project for my Art History class and hence didn't get much free time to look around. We actually covered most, if not all, of the Getty today. We went through the North, East, South, and West Pavilions, the garden, and the Rembrandt exposition. I've never seen a Rembrandt work, let alone 16 of them.

Afterward we decided to rent the horror movie she'd been wanting to show me for a while: What Lies Beneath. It was already night, and we turned off the lights and turned up the volume to the max to heighten the effect. Sorry to say though, it wasn't that scary. I can't believe Priscilla was so frightened (and it being her second time watching it) that she had to close her eyes during some scenes. Then again, I'm afraid of heights, even when I believe fully that the high structures I'm on were designed by competent and sound-minded engineers. As I say, fear is always irrational. ;)

I got to go to Balboa Park with Priscilla this afternoon, and we brought our bikes in my parents' van. Since the weather was a tad hot, we first went on the peddle boats on the lake for an hour. Then we did bike riding around the perimeter of the park (it's pretty big- a few blocks on each side) for another hour. Finally after all that working out and burning calories, we picked up a fattening cheese pizza from Little Caesar's and went to her house to watch the movie Hollow Man. =)

Today I got a ride to a church called Lighthouse Community Church with some AACF'ers: David, Martin, and Dennis. The church is a little small, but they have a great pastor and great people. I think they have a lot of potential to grow and expand.

In the afternoon I watched What Dreams May Come, starring Robin Williams and Annabella Sciorra. That movie was just... weird. Borrowing elements from Hinduism/Buddhism, Christianity, and Greek mythology, it interwove them with its own fabrications into a synthetic, Hollywood-packaged idea of the afterlife that barely held its ground. In other words, it wasn't that great.

Raymond and I hung out at Priscilla's house and watched 2 movies: Enemy at the Gates and this Hong Kong movie which loosely translated is called "Lost in Time." Then we watched Raymond kick computer butt in Virtual Fighter 4, only to lose to the last guy like 20 times. We finally made him give up because it was getting late. ;)

I also found out my grades for the quarter. I got a B in Electrical Engineering and Math, a B- in Art History, and a C+ in Computer Science. I know those aren't the best grades, but they're a lot better than the 4 C's I got last quarter. This upcoming quarter I'm going to start getting some A's again. Priscilla managed to talk some sense into me and get me motivated. Luv ya!

If there is a movie more senseless than Napoleon Dynamite, I have yet to see it. Nor would I want to.

My brother and I joined Raymond, Kenny, Minh, David, and Randall at the theatre to watch Flight of the Phoenix, a remake of a 1965 movie about a plane that crashes in a sandstorm in the Gobi Desert. The survivors get an idea to salvage parts from the wreckage to build a new airplane, but not without challenges from the treacherous desert, hostile raiders, and a paucity of food and water. It wasn't a great movie, but it wasn't bad. Of course you know what's going to happen in the end. But it had its moments. The movie reminds me a lot of the movie Castaway with Tom Hanks.

We had a great Thanksgiving yesterday. We had 14 guests over at our house! I don't know how my parents cooked so much! Well, the guests brought some food too, but man.. craziness.

I was adamently against seeing The Incredibles, since I don't like animated films very much. But Priscilla made a deal with me: she said that she'd go ice-skating (which she loathes with a passion) with me if I went to see The Incredible with her. Fair enough. Turns out The Incredibles was what everybody says it is- incredible. I loved it! I really did!

At Priscilla's house we watched the first 30 minutes of Memento. Then I had to go home, so she let me borrow the DVD. Then I watched the rest at home instead of studying. =( The movie was awesome but SO confusing. I'll have to watch it over. But not tonight, nooooo!! Ok Anson, stop looking at the DVD box.. open your book, you can do it.. that's it.... now STUDY!! You have ice-skating tomorrow!

Priscilla came to my house in the morning to learn some HTML stuff, and in the afternoon we met up with Sophonias at the theatre to watch Cellular. It wasn't a blockbuster, and the fact that it was playing in the room all the way at the back of the hall went hand-in-hand with the fact that I had never heard a thing about the movie until three days ago. Yeah... another one of those space-fillers that come and go and leave no imprint in the annals of time. But not like there are any really good movies showing now..

Surprisingly though, Cellular wasn't too bad. In fact, I kind of liked it. I think of it like a movie like Speed, only with more contemporary teen elements, and a weaker script. But it was good.

WARNING! MAJOR SPOILER IN THIS PARAGRAPH: Something I thought was interesting was that I recognized the actor playing the role of the old officer's friend. He also played the role of Truman's friend in The Truman Show. And in both movies, he ended up being a traitor!

On somewhat of a similar note, I'm finally getting my own cell phone. Now I won't have to bum my dad's phone, which is more or less a plastic stick with a few buttons on it (and no games!) and which has this pay-per-minute plan where each minute costs something like 50 cents or a dollar. Right now we're looking at this Cingular deal which looks awesome: 1000 nationwide anytime rollover minutes, and 2 phones (I guess that means two lines) for $40 a month. My brother can take one phone, so I guess that gives us each 500 minutes a month. That'll probably be enough. Oh, and the phones are LCD flip-phones.. really cool! I know that sounds pretty backwards, since everybody already has a phone with loads of features, but it's a major jump upward for a guy who's been using a plastic stick all this time. =)

Seems like every Friday I'm hanging out at somebody's house, or somebody's hanging out at mine. Last week Raymond came over and we did some programming, StarCraft, and miscellaneous computer stuff. Today I drove Raymond down to Priscilla's house and we (as usual) watched a movie. Today it was Pearl Harbor.

I thought it was ok (just ok) overall, especially the effects during the Japanese attack on the harbor. I thought the ending was a bit stupid though (16 planes going into enemy territory to bomb 3 or so factory buildings? ok..). The love theme wasn't that appealing.. but I guess if I watched Titanic for the first time now I'd say the same thing. Maybe I've just gotten desensitized to emotional stuff. Or more accurately, all stuff. Yeah, that's probably it.

Today I hung out with Debbi at The Grove in Downtown and we watched Hero. I thought the choreography was beautifully done. Also the movie didn't progress chronologically like most movies do; instead it went through different perspectives and aspects of the same events, each revealing more info - I thought that was really unique and well done.

We had lunch at Wood Ranch, and I was completely stuffed after that. Debbi's mom wanted me to have dinner at their house, so we went back and watched an old movie, Roman Holiday, which was made in 1953. It was so hilarious... ahh classic comedy rocks, it's like I Love Lucy; "modern" movies and TV shows just can't compare.

Debbi's mom cooked this yummy Korean noodle dish and gave me a HUGE bowl. It was really good. I was able to eat most of it, but I was still stuffed from Wood Ranch.. I feel kinda bad =(

Raymond came to my house, and we picked up Crescentia and drove down to Priscilla's house to watch movies. First we watched Infernal Affairs, this Cantonese police movie (with English subtitles) that Priscilla said is Hong Kong's most popular drama movie or something. Then we watched A Perfect Murder, which I thought was very well written with all its plot twists and suspensefulness. We started to watch Van Helsing but Raymond and Crescentia had to go to church so we left. After I dropped them off at church, Crescentia said she left her sunglasses at Priscilla's house so I had to go back. Well Priscilla and I didn't find any sunglasses, but we got to watch another movie.. Matrix. =p

I drove myself down to Priscilla's house where we watched Troy. Of course it was a bootleg version, since it's not out on DVD yet. She got a lot of bootleg media on her trip to Hong Kong. =)

Troy to me had the effect of being a real documentary, that is, I didn't choose a side or a character to sympathize with. Maybe it's because everybody was fighting for power; there wasn't any moral cause for war. And in wars fought for power, neither side is right.

Priscilla also gave me Final Fantasy 8 for PC since she has one for Playstation, Animatrix, and this Disney movie Atlantis.

David and I were going to go skating at Skateland, but Priscilla didn't want to skate, so we had planned to go to her house and watch a movie after skating. But at the last minute we decided to ditch skating and head directly to her house and take her bowling. But when the three of us got to the bowling alley, we found that there was a tournament going on and all the lanes were closed. So finally we went to the Pacific Northridge theatre to check out what was playing. The movie showing closest to that time: The Prince & Me.

Oh... my. I must say that movie sucked. It finally got ok near the end, only to plunge back into suckiness at the very end. There was just no substance to the movie. Nothing grabbed my attention. Sigh... chick flicks. David and I were the only guys in there. =(

Looks like the movie got bad critics' ratings as well.

I was in the middle of making a song on my computer when it suddenly shut off on me again. The song-making program I use doesn't allow projects to be saved, so all I have is an incomplete MP3 rendering of my work. Grr.. I'm really gonna have to get this machine fixed.

Turns out I got a B+ grade in my Calculus class. Stupid midterm scores. But I guess my grade could have been worse, if I hadn't done so well on my final.

Priscilla's reply to my last blog entry was that she didn't think the movie emphasized enough of the spiritual torture Christ endured for us. Now that I think about it (I didn't think about it until now), I agree. Christ's spiritual torture far outweighed his physical.. after all he did utter the famous words "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" which weren't paid much significance in the movie.

Priscilla came over and we went to the theatre to watch The Passion of the Christ. I wanted my mom to come with us since she wanted to see it, but she had too much homework.

Yes, the movie was extremely violent as the media says, but that's the kind of stuff we see in movies anyway and nobody complains about that. Besides, I don't think that kind of treatment was far from what the historical Jesus went through. Maybe he had it even worse. The movie exemplifies Christ's love for us in the trials he was willing to endure (physically and spiritually) to save mankind, if only they would believe in Him.

I watched the movie Cast Away on channel 7. Tom Hanks, who played a FedEx executive marooned on an island in the Pacific, did an excellent job of actually being his character. The movie had some major flaws though, including a sudden and uncomfortable jump from him being stranded for a couple days to four years. In spite of the flaws and lack of relationship and thought development, Tom's brilliant acting carried the film beautifully.

It was also hilarious to watch him talking to a volleyball he aptly named "Wilson."

I saw Return of the King this afternoon with Priscilla. Roger and Crescentia decided they didn't want to go, and everybody else had already seen it. :( One of my favorite parts was when the bonfire signals were lit across the mountain peaks, expressing a feeling of hope and rescue from the encroaching peril... Anyway, the movie overall was very good, though I think the epilogue dragged on and ruined the heightened effect of the end.

Oh yeah, and Happy New Year everyone!!

The Matrix Revolutions was somewhat of a let-down. I didn't expect it to end that way. But, I guess it had to.

Like with the other two Matrix films, I'm going to have to watch this one a few hundred times to really understand it.

Sophonias and I watched The 6th Day on my laptop. What else can I say? It was good.

After church, my mom and I went to the 99 cent store and bought coathangers and a lot of bottled water. We picked up Sophonias at his house and drove back to UCLA. Hedrick Hall's dining facility opened up, so we had dinner there. That evening, Sophonias and I visited a friend from school, Lac, and went to see "The Matrix Reloaded" which was playing in Royce Hall across campus. This was the second time I've seen the movie, and I still have no idea what the people in it are talking about.