I can stop anytime

It's an election year, and despite better efforts, I'm sure a political rant will crop up here every so often, starting with this one.

For most of last year, I wasn't paying much attention to the races. But then I hurt my foot and spent the days leading up to the IA caucuses stuck at home watching just enough CNN that, coupled with my NPR habit, pushed me from an ambivalent observer to a hopeless election news junkie. Over the past month, I've bookmarked political blogs, election '08 sections from the major news sources, and have been checking in on them far more often than I'd care to admit throughout the day. I'm watching CNN as much as your dad does. When Stewart lampoons network news clips, I've often seen the original broadcast. I turned down a night of drinking to watch the SC primary returns, candidate speeches, and analysis (okay, I was really tired too from a few 50+ hr work weeks).

Folks, if you're not paying attention, you really are missing something that at best will make history, and at the very least will be referenced heavily for years to come in discussions of politics and the nation. You could be experiencing all of it first hand, right now.

I can't conscientiously encourage the kind of habit I've developed, but research will surely show one day the benefits of recreational use!

Season's Triage

I've been a real frequent flyer at the ER this holiday season. On Xmas eve I finally got fed up with the cough I'd been dealing with for about two weeks and checked in, eventually picking up some fine Codeine syrup and antibiotics.

Then on New Year's even I went in for some odd foot pain that I originally woke up with on Friday. I had figured I maybe slept on it wrong or something and just needed to walk it off. By Monday it was excruciating so I was right back into the ER (couldn't find a Podiatrist open) and they figured it was some kind of ligament tear/partial tear in the foot. Raised a fuss and got some vicodin which even then only barely helped.

So I rung in the new year on my couch with my foot propped up and popping pain meds while watching the local news anchors cavort at various local festivities. Probably will have to take the rest of the week off from work too.

Quite a way to kick off '08. I'm really starting to wonder if, contrary to Chinese numerology, 8 is actually a bad number for me. I actually got laid off from my job back on 8/8/01 (though obviously I'm back now), dropped out of Cal in 1998, and probably my worst primary school year ever was 8th grade (but I hear that's the way it is for most people), which started in 1988.

Any way, happy new year, everybody! As for myself, I'm going to be busy watching my back!

Cal Band Great!!!

Well, the season didn't quite turn out the way we would've hoped, but I think 2007 will be forever remembered as the season the Band did THIS:



I was there, and I was just standing there in awe and forgot to take a single picture. You can take yer BCS rankings and shove 'em! None of you guys will top this!

I'M IN UR BASE

...KILLIN' UR IKEA COUCHEZ

Yup, picked up a cat from Milo. Besides the furry companionship, I got her in self-defense against the fleas that had begun to invade my house from all the goddamned strays the old lady downstairs keeps feeding. (Any pet owner will tell you -- furry companion + Frontline or Advantage = flea problem solved.)

Been great so far. Generally she just hangs out on a sunny window sill and then comes out to goof around with me for a bit and goes back to doing her own thing. Just need to get her to actually start clawing the 'iScratch' thing I got her instead of my !%$!@# couch! Other than that, she seems well house-trained and in good health.

Her original name's Tuna, not that it matters since she doesn't come when I call it. I'm thinking of calling her Decoy instead.

Open Letter

In quasi-socialist Bay Area, Radio listens to YOU!
... even if you never got around to writing in about it.

Sent to the listener feedback line:

I noticed after I got back from vacation a few weeks ago that Christopher Lydon's "Open Source" was taken off the air, and have been meaning to send in a note to heartily applaud the move! It seems he has a bit of a following, at least the last time I Googled the show, so I figure KQED's probably picked up some flak for taking it off the schedule.

But I think anybody who's been exposed to a show like KQED's own Forum or such NPR staples like Fresh Air and Talk of the Nation would have picked up within a minute what a total phony Lydon was. The man has no place conducting interviews or moderating discussions on anything more pressing than how to cook Thanksgiving Dinner. I've never heard a host press a guest to answer a question the guest himself insisted he was unqualified to answer, nor have I heard the phrase "Actually, that's not what I meant..." more often in a single show on 88.5. That "Talkin' with the Ghost of Thomas Jefferson" (or whatever the hell he called it) bit really sealed it.

I'm often listening weekdays in the wee hours, and I really appreciate the quirkier stuff that got programmed into the 11pm and later slot like Day to Day and especially News and Notes. But when 1 am rolled around I often found myself lunging for the off-switch! The only thing that show was good for was reminding me that I really should be getting to bed!

Anyway, rant over. Thanks for making the airwaves safe again, and please hold the line against anybody misguided enough to lobby for it to come back. I promise you there's a silent majority out here that feels just that much better now about how our pledge money is being spent. :)

EDIT:
Alas, a Google search later revealed that the show itself tanked due to lack of funds, so its absence isn't necessarily a brillliant, brave move by the local program director so much as it was a sensible, prudent move by the funders. Net effect is the same, though, so it's still a win.

EDIT:
The station's reply was fun.

New Digs

I'll try to get something together about the TW trip, but in a nutshell it wasn't terribly eventful, though I had a good time over in HK. I've been back for over a week now and have been mostly trying to make my new apartment semi-presentable. Thought I'd post up a few pics.


I was wrong when I told people it's four to five houses from Pac Wushu. It's actually TWO houses and a street. In the picture above, the foreground is, well, tenth street, but in the mid ground is the apartment, and in the background is Pac Wushu. I can't really say I'll be training there more often, though, since my schedule usually doesn't let me out in time to get to class on time. But I'm sure it'll be handy for various other reasons.


Here's the living room. In glorious high definition you can see the A's getting their asses handed to them by the M's. I still need to bring my fish tank over, no small task.


The bedroom. Furnished by Ikea, more or less.


The kitchen is pretty scrappy. I had to do a lot of work fixing the pipes on the sink -- it's absolutely amazing what passed for 'repairs' by the previous tenant. Basically, instead of buying a $2 slip nut that had broken, the guy layered on about 2 inches worth of caulk to try to 'glue' some pipes back together. Naturally, that didn't work.

I'm not much of a chef, so besides getting a microwave, I haven't felt too much pressure to improve much on the kitchen. I'm still tempted to get a new stove and fridge, though. What's there is old and not working terribly well.

Bathroom still needs some new paint, so no pics yet.

I wish I had taken pics of the place before I started. Across weekends and whatever spare time I could manage, I tore out the old, dirty, smelly carpet, stripped and re-finished the floors (though they probably should be replaced), and repainted all the walls (the Moms helped on some of that). There was all kinds of junk and furniture in there that was in no condition for me to use.

It is a rental, so it may sound odd that I've put so much work into it, but the thing is, the rent really is so absurdly cheap that I figured I'd eat the cost and 'sweat equity' to turn it into something I'd actually enjoy living in. Folks have been living in that place for over thirty years, and I could see myself spending quite some time here as I save up to get my own place.

Green Acres

Been there, done that

Islands can be quite big, I'm discovering. Formosa can seem quite the insignificant spec, but about two hours into the drive out from the airport, I had to accept that the entire island was not essentially a suburb of Taipei.

Spent the last few days in Taipei and am at this very moment sitting at Taipei Taoyuan International waiting for my flight to HK. This is all after a pretty arduous first several days on this trip in Taichung, which was not the sort of place I had in mind when I envisioned a vacation in the metropolitan centers of expatriate or formerly expatriate Chinese territories.

Given the relations many of us have to the folks here, let me warn the uninitiated that, at least for the next five-ten years, you will want to regard any warm-hearted and generous offer of lodging and visitation in Taichung with measured gratitude and great caution. When I heard 'rural' I pictured rural Marin relative to SF Bay, or even Narita to Tokyo. In fact it bore much closer resemblance to some of the provincial towns I visited in Rio recently or in China several years ago, though by many counts it still compares favorably.

But still, the streets are often unpaved, traffic is total chaos, the skeeters are numerous and very hungry, stray dogs and cats wander the streets, and the weather is a hot, sticky, muggy mess. Internet cafes were remarkably hard to find -- I finally had to take my laptop out and find WiFi hotspots at coffee shops.

Pretty rural street. Not pictured: mosquitos, strays

It all made for kind of an awkward situation when I really wanted to take off for Taipei. Uncle #2 was generous and hospitable to a fault, but the whole place got to be a terrific downer. Most days we'd spend sitting in the house watching TV as the rain came down in sheets. When we wanted to go out he or his daughters would insist on driving us, which became problematic as they tended to miss turns and get lost a lot, which only added to the list of things they were constantly bickering about. Meanwhile we'd be doing our best to stifle gasps and shrieks as we rode shotgun to the kind of driving that'd reinforce your worst stereotypes of Asian female and elder driving.

And obviously this is nobody's fault, but it got incredibly depressing because #2's wife had a stroke a year or so ago and was now wheelchair bound and vegetative (not in the clinical sense, but she couldn't talk or interact much). She'd sit there and kind of gaze around, looking at each of us and grin or chuckle occasionally. She'd still eat normally if spoon fed, but it was hard to figure out what was going on in there. I remember her from when she visited several years ago and was one of the few family members I had that enjoyed having my dog around.

Basically it was a good bunch of people that we wanted to see, but there really wasn't much to do in that town and they really seemed to want to monopolize our time here. My mom had been there over a week and only planned on spending a few days originally. I went to bed last Saturday night thinking we'd be on an HSR to Taipei by noon Sunday, but woke up to find that they didn't help reserve the tix they said they would and were suggesting we stay on for another 2-3 days. I put the proverbial kibosh on that and we were in Taipei by Sunday night.

Taipei 101 -- I've rarely been this happy in a mall

SITREP

Work's been mad these last few weeks. When I get home I only have the intellectual (ha!) capacity left to pop open a video game or tear open my netflix DVD. Items:

*Joyful sob!*

- The current project finishes end of the month. The latest trailer has been taking the fanboy community by storm today -- discuss amongst yourselves. People are getting pretty excited, but I continue to caution folks to keep expectations realistic. Whether that's true trepidation or the shrewd management of expecations is up to you. I may be in it -- I was in some extras shoots. I also got a chance to work on a shot, which I believe went really well.

- It's my general feeling that this is the year that over- and under- rated film franchises of the recent years will come into balance with their true quality. SM and Shrek have always been incredibly overrated in my mind (not bad, just overrated), and it seems that this is the year they will finally be viewed as such. On the other hand PotC has been a little underrated recently in my mind, especially P2, and I'm expecting critical consensus to jibe a little better with public perception for P3. SM3's BO has been dropping precipitously, and I expect Shrek to do the same.

- I've finally gone through with signing up for b2b, that annual event designed for drunk, naked people that like to run/wander aimlessly across a 12 km course through SF. I've actually been training semi-consistently for this, but I'm still not sure how serious I'll be when I run it. On the one hand it's my first time, so maybe I should just walk most of it and take it all in. On the other, I'm pretty curious what kind of time I could make, especially since they now give you these tracking chips.

- 300, which is what we've come to call my new apt based on the rent, is almost ready for move in. With a little help from blee I hope to have my HD tv set over there for HD cable installation on Saturday morning. I've learned an awful lot about plumbing and floor finishing these last few months, as well as just how inept people can be about these things. I hope to be in there by the end of the month or early June.

- I am positively burning out! I've scheduled a full 1 month vacation. I will be visiting relatives on the Mom's side in Taiwan for two weeks, and then spend another two wks futzing around in the US, maybe taking a road trip up to see some friends in the midwest. I may try to swing by HK while I'm in TW. That would be something I'd arrange while I'm over there if I find myself with the spare time.

Post Meridiem

... very post meridiem.

Well, at least they're in their PJs

True to form, cmat 2k7 kept its intrepid crew and young competitors up past their responsible bedtimes to finish sometime around 10:30 or 11 pm. It's somewhat lurid the sort of things I've learned about what this year's crew had to overcome to stage it. New leadership at the 'MAP has apparently been a little unkind to the event, upset over the absent (or perhaps VERY delinquent) tournament report from last year. Consequences of this included drastic cuts in the hospitality budget that discouraged attendance of at least a few would-be officials known to your correspondent.

This put a lesser official like me in the unique position to judge the Nandu events this year, mixed in haphazardly with far more qualified ex-professionals. A fascinating but ultimately excruciating duty as always, the Nandu system reminds me of something some Soviet-era bureaucrat might devise. I escaped many of its technicalities by going for the B-category, which in many ways seems a kind of throwback to traditional-style judging based on more nebulous terms like 'spirit' and 'intent'. By now subjectivity is something I revel in, so I got the hang of things pretty quickly. Subjective as it was, my B-category cohort and I were in pretty good agreement for the majority of routines.

One thing I've become pretty aggravated with is how so many routines today have large pauses that have no stylistic function beyond setting up some snazzy trick. I miss flow, kids. Flow is where the rhythm comes out, and rhythm, like in music, goes a long way towards defining the accents and flavor of a particular style. I can't help but wonder if the Nandu system's rigid requirements for certain difficulties is discouraging that kind of aesthetic. At the very least B category is there as a kind of hedge against such dogged technicality.

After party in the Free Republic of Berkeley was chaotic, uninterrupted by law enforcement, and as always, remarkably responsible. It's become such the cliche for me to consider not going to these events, but I ultimately end up having a terrific time and always come out impressed in some way.

Misnomers

I don't tend to get colds, but when I do, it's a doozy. Being cooped up at home the last few days hasn't been much help, so I'm hoping the semi-fresh air and semi-bright sunshine out here at Strada will do me some good, disease-vectoring be damned.

Belated topic: Oscars. My giddy, incoherent babble aside about the company's win, I had planned on writing a bit about the movies, but never got around to finishing anything. So here goes.

I don't think anybody's really 'into' the Oscars per se, but it seems everybody has an opinion. I finally put my actual money where my proverbial mouth was and took a dive into the office pool(1) this year. Looking down the ballot, I felt the same queasy cluelessness about some categories that I did about some offices and measures on a far more important ballot last November.

It made me wonder if the actual voters are similarly underinformed. While the vetting process is performed by the tradesmen, the final decision rests on the oxymoronic wisdom of the voting-eligible mobs. Much like me, I figure a good number of people don't manage to see many of the films on the list and go purely by hunches and buzz.

Which is probably why I did so well, all things considered. I tied for second in a pool of 17, correctly guessing 14 of the winners. My proudest picks were for the animated categories, which I felt most informed on and where I made resolute, independent choices that bucked the majority. It seems the animated short category is one in which looking too polished has become a bit of a handicap, explaining last year's "The Moon and the Son" and this year's "Danish Poet". I enjoyed the entries from the likes of Blue Sky and Pixar, but one can't help but feel like this isn't really a category for multi-million dollar animation studios.

I actually hadn't seen Happy Feet, but I know most people were disappointed in Cars, and that Happy Feet had exceeded a lot of people expectations as a film, so it was worth the risk.

In the other categories, I'm not sure how it compared to the previous, but there was a real problem I had this year motivating myself to even watch most of the Oscar-worthy films. I've rarely seen a collection of such outwardly depressing movies in a long time.

General Spoiler Warning: S/he dies in the end

A recap, in ascending order of mood (sorry about the length):

The 'tween
When a film opens with a 12-year-old collapsed, bleeding, and gasping for breath, you gotta figure your discomfort is the least of its concerns. Keep that in mind pretty much anytime the antagonist is on screen in Pan's. I wouldn't say I so much enjoyed this film as I appreciated it deeply, even if I had to forgive some bits of melodrama and "don't go in there" moments of the kind you're used to seeing in b-horror matinees. A bit of a shock it lost Best Foreign, but I didn't see the winner, so I can't say.

Children of Mobs
Never saw the original HK film, but I doubt I'd like it as much as I liked Departed. I can't imagine how I could've dealt with a version of this where, instead of the slicingly-vulgar rapid-fire barbs from Mr. Wahlberg, you got some lame toilet gag haltingly interjected into an exchange as HK films are so wont to do. On second-viewing, I felt the length more, but it was a sensible pick for Best D. Best P was a little dubious, I felt.

Man's Labyrinth
Maybe this was a bit over-hyped to me, but Children of Men strikes me as a film that gets most of its mileage from a really great premise. I liked it, but outside of the setup, you've got to admit it's kind of a conventional run-and-hide-and-getaway kind of film. Much of the hub-bub seems to come from some brilliant casting (in the narrative sense as much as performing) that's inspired all kinds of allegories for contemporary issues. Some people cried bloody murder, but I think it was rightfully panned in some categories.

The Imparted
The significance of Princess Di's untimely passing in '97 is one of those things I'll have to appreciate without feeling directly, a view which is actually sympathetic to the title character in Queen. With all the little bubbles people enclose themselves in (both public figures and increasingly, regular citizens), I found a lot to like about this story that attempted to explain actions seemingly inexplicable at the time. Mirren's gold tchotchke was well-earned in this one.

Stop that! Cultural Learnings of CO2 for Make Benefit Glorious Planet of Earth-istan
Yes, you in particular may not need to see Inconvenient Truth. The movement had you at 'Greenhouse Effect'. But if you just want to see a good movie, you should want to see it. Think of it this way: this is a film that managed to portray Gore, who probably gelled today's stereotype of the wooden Democratic presidential candidate, as a brilliant, witty, and passionate orator. If that's not deserving of an Oscar, then I don't know what is. The song was a surprise winner, but shouldn't have been -- the three songs for Dreamgirls undoubtedly split the vote, leaving the underdog the victor. Really kicked myself over that one, especially since I didn't see Dreamgirls and randomly picked one of its songs. (And for the umpteenth time, Gore didn't win the Oscar, it was the filmmaker Davis Guggenheim. It's staggering how many reputable outlets keep saying that, mostly as part of a lame joke or segue.)

Little-missed Funtime
Everybody's seen this. Everybody's talked about this. Everybody. I don't think there's much left to be said, but I guess I'm obligated to lamely say that it is indeed brilliant and had people literally rolling in the aisles at the theater when we saw it. If you didn't catch it, make the effort to find find Baron Cohen's acceptance speech (for actor in comedy or musical) at the Golden Globes. (Catch it before the lawyers do -- It's not on youtube anymore!). It would've been awesome to see what he would have pulled if it had taken screenplay, but I can't quite say it would've come on merit.

An Inconvenient Trip
I had the benefit of having this over-hyped and then over-trashed for me so I'd say I took Sunshine on a mostly even keel. I enjoyed it, but I can't say it was outstanding. Unique is what I sincerely hope are scripted contestants and antics at the the pageants, but other than that, it was seemed kind of a typical dysfunctional family comedy. It seemed to deserve some kind of award, but I can't say what in particular. The two that it did get all managed to surprise me.

1) There wasn't a company-wide pool or anything, just one a bunch of us put together.