Went to Dave and Buster’s

Went to Dave and Buster’s for the first time last Friday. next time I go there, I’m wearing sensible shoes. ill-fitting heels don’t work in a big place like that. =)

D&B is a pretty fun place as far as respites from suburban hell go. the basic idea is that people can go someplace to drink and play arcade and midway games. or pool. or shuffleboard. etc. the idea works! they have really nice pool tables too. =)

biggest movie disappoinment: PLANET OF

biggest movie disappoinment: PLANET OF THE APES
runner up: BATMAN RETURNS

I haven’t seen many Tim Burton films, but the ones I’ve seen I’ve liked immensely. Sleepy Hollow was terrific. Batman was absolutely awesome. Burton has this incredible flair for the visual: his films always look gorgeous in every element from sets to costumes — and while every element is in itself dazzling, each piece in each frame meshes together in a wonderfully stunning fashion. And the music… Burton’s work with composer Danny Elfman is consistently fantastic: the former Oingo Boingo lead singer’s work is a perfect fit for Burton’s sepia-gray fare.

But Burton’s perfect looking world could sometimes be shattered when the characters opened their mouths. the script for BR is kind of weak, but the script for POTA is TERRIBLE. So even though the movie looked awesome, and the score is awesome, parts of the film just made me cringe.

so I have this very

so I have this very nebulous sense of myself. hear me out for a minute here. I perceive myself to be one thing. whether I’m actually what I think I am is something else. something has to be done to either make that congruous, or I just need to deal, dammit~!!

all I’ve been doing since

all I’ve been doing since getting back is watching movies!!.. and generally putzing around. it’s definitely good to be at home, but at the same time, incredibly frustrating to find things to do with friends. there is nothing to do in podunk fremont! waaaaah!! it’s back in suburban hell!

getting friends together to hang out is pretty treacherous — harder than it is in LA, that’s for sure. part of it is because it’s hard to find things to do in the bay area (none of us know san jose well enough to be ok with wandering around drunk there.. or maybe that’s well enough, hmm). mostly it’s people related. the biggest problem so far has been this being 21 business. I have a bunch of friends who’ve recently turned 21 and want to abuse their newfound access as much as possible, some who have absolutely no interest, some who want to but can’t because they’re not 21 yet, and some who want to go but can’t because they’re working the next morning, etc. it sucks major butt. so.. I’ve gotten out, but it’s been rather challenging — in both finding people to hang out with, and also things to do. I’ve ended up watching lots of movies. so far, I’ve seen shrek (twice), kiss of the dragon, final fantasy, tomb raider.. so far, everything’s been very “eh,” but I guess here are some specific-ish remarks.

shrek: great animation, great script, lots of fun to watch. the first time I saw it, I couldn’t get the “look! it’s fat bastard!” thought out of my head. :) it was a lot better the second time around. there were some hilarious disney-skewing references in there. kinda gets me thinking about where disney’s place in modern society is. consider that when disneyland was built, the postwar generation had their kids grow up in “sanitized for your safety” type worlds. you had the self-esteem movement, all these lax parenting techniques. the baby boomers grew up in an idealized world, and have slowly been smacked back into “the way things have been.” so now it’s kind of come full circle.. have you seen those “parents. the anti-drug” commercials on tv? they feature teenagers saying stuff like, “I hate you. I lied, you caught me. you invaded my privacy. blah blah blah” and then, “thanks.” the baby boomers grew up thinking that they should raise their children to be “pals”… and now it almost feels like parents need permission to be parents and disciplinarians.
…. but back on the disne note. it feels like we’re finally disillusioned with the meticulously manicured plastic disney world.. and the backlash is now here. we have “reality television.” we have movies like american pie that are portray high school life in less idealized — albeit far raunchier — than we’ve been used to in the past. after spending years in a blue besparkled sleeping beauty dream, we’re now inundated with “reality.”
… shrek was a great movie. :) I really liked everything about it.

kiss of the dragon: it’s jet li kicking ass to a rap music soundtrack! black people have been good to jet li. =P KOD is similar to romeo must die, but far more violent and bloody. Jet Li is such a bad-ass. =) thankfully, they don’t try to pretend there’s too much of a blooming love affair between the jet and the lead actress. that’s kind of what pissed me off about RMD. in movies like that, the lead actors inevitably kiss. why didn’t aaliyah and jet li kiss? is interracial dating still as taboo as ever? or is it because it’s a black woman and a chinese guy? are chinese guys not allowed to be sexual creatures? are black people possessive of their women? (for the record, I say all of this with my tongue firmly placed in my cheek. -grins-)
… ok, but back to the movie. :) KOD was pretty cool. I kind of got tired of the fight scenes after a while.. I think it’s just cuz I wasn’t in the mood for a big action movie. but if you are, this movie’s great. =)

final fantasy: visually stunning movie. i think it’s easier for people who’ve played the game to be impressed with the story, the way it looked, etc. it doesn’t have the “summer blockbuster” epic movie feel yet… I think that’s still difficult to accomplish technically at this point. there are just too many details to worry about. in final fantasy, only one person really has hair. there are still limitations for how real the CGI will look… it still takes sooo much work to produce scenes and motion. FF is an accomplishment. I enjoyed it. =)

tomb raider: fun movie. there was a LOT of focus on angelina jolie’s boobs. I personally found that more distracting than arousing. I also thought the guy she was interested in was so not hot.

deep thought of the day:

deep thought of the day:
people have an inherent need for self-expression and a desire to be understood. 0_o

I’ve always had a pretty strange relationship with my dad.. actually, with both of my parents really. relations between me and the rest of my family has always been halfway decent, except for a period in high school when we simply couldn’t see eye to eye. part of it was me being a teenager, pure and simple. the other part had to do with my parents also behaving like teenagers.

ok, so that’s exaggerated a little bit. but as jaded as I might pretend to be sometimes, I still have very idealistic notions of family, stemming from the way both of my parents think. my father grew up as a son of a taiwanese general, the youngest of four brothers — the first of the family to be born in the new republic of china. my mother grew up as the youngest of three children of a low-ranking military official, and had none of the sparkly life my father’s family grew up with.

oops, mother calling me down for dinner. I’ll add to this story.

getting a cable modem at

getting a cable modem at home wasn’t as much fun as I’d expected/hoped!

first off, the cable modem guy showed up at 9:30am, which isn’t too early… but it was pretty darned early considering I hadn’t slept until 6am the night before. that was a rather painful awakening.

second of all, I didn’t even know he was coming. I’d signed up for @home on their website, and on the last screen, instead of getting a confirmation, it said my order did not go through. -throws arms up in the air- I don’t understand!

third of all, I don’t think we really really needed the cable connection at home. I’m already used to not having the perks of speed at home. and my family was happy enough…

but I think they like it. =) no complaints so far. yay!

so, I guess since it’ll be easier to get online at home, I’ll be blogging a lot more. so stay tuned. :)

ok… since brian inquired when

ok… since brian inquired when I would update my page, I will proceed to do it now.

goodness, I guess it’s been almost a month since I’ve updated this blog. sorry, I’ve been ridiculously busy in the past couple of weeks. I’ve been enjoying being at HOME~!!

wow, a lot’s happened, so I’ll summarize it for now and explain in greater detail later on. so check back here. =)

spent the 3rd week of june hanging out with friends and packing. my old friend alice visited, which made me very happy because I rarely see her, as she goes to school across the country (University of Pennsylvania.. not Penn State!). she’s in taiwan now. =( I don’t know when I’m going to see her again…

spent the last week of june moving out of my apartment (thanks steven, jason, jack, and john~!!). harrowing ordeal that took three days. our apartment manager was nice in letting me stay a little past the last day of our lease (whew!) to give me a little extra time to move out.

spent the next two days after moving out at steven’s place. played diablo 2 expansion pack with everyone else in the apartment. (oh good grief, it was d2 world. u just get sucked in!)

finally drove back july 3rd. got into a car accident outside coalinga.. flipped my car…pretty crazy. dad drove down and picked me up the next day. spent the next few days mad calling insurance companies, doctors, etc.

and the past few weeks? dealing with insurance companies, spending mucho time with family, trying to hang out with the few friends who are back, and just generally trying to get my head screwed on straight again.

so… my month at home isn’t really what it was cut out to be, but it hasn’t been bad. :) Home food is the best. I’ve also had a great chance to eat out with my parents… went to this awesome korean bbq place a couple weeks ago where they use special charcoal to grill the food… oh my gosh, it was so good! went to momotaro’s (this terrific sushi place in town) tonight, and had this chef’s special dinner.

I’ll fill this in later.. I have newer stuff to talk about. =)