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| 28 may 2002 "oh, that's just CLASSIC!" good to be writing again. 3 days is too long of a hiatus for me. i was thinking about coming into the office yesterday, but i would have had to do it in the morning, and i woke up way too late. it was a good weekend, but a few things didn't go so well. sunday night, i was talking to carol, and i made this really crazy shallow offensive remark. it totally bothered me, and it still does. after hanging up and scowling at myself for a bit, i wrote to myself: made a shallow comment and got my foot stuck in my mouth to the point where the odors of my toejam filtered through my lungs into my bloodstream. it bothers me because i don't fuck up that often. i try hard not to have shallow biases. what's more, i filter my thoughts pretty well. and finally, i am decent at covering up mistakes. but in this case, i was just exposed, messed up, out there, blah. *scowl* and then, yesterday, jay and i went to ikea. it's quite an experience. i think i really like decorating. and while it was sort of an expensive trip (and i didn't even get my office chair or a kitchen table/chairs), i think it's good that i will only decorate once in a long long time. that'll save me money. but yeah, ikea has some cool shit. like generic style on a budget. that blue/yellow platform picture up there is one of my favorites. it was the first time when i got the sudden inspiration for a shot, ripped out my camera, framed it, and snapped it, all in the matter of 7 seconds or so. and i was pleased with the results, although the yellow was actually more saturated than the picture shows. anyways, my color scheme for the living room is wood and blue, with accents of silver all over the place. it's not totally consistent like that, but i think that i did an okay job. i mean, the coffee table's wood is too light, and i'm not infatuated with the futon color's shade of blue, but hey... i didn't have that much to work, with, right? just an ikea catalog. ah, the second bummer of the weekend... the furniture assembling was not a good experience. i am missing one nut on the tv stand. fuck. am i going to have to drive to OAKLAND for one fucking nut? and then, i need a screwdriver with a big head and thin shaft (sounds phallic, no?) to finish the bookshelf. AND. on top of that, i had this end table that's a circular piece of glass suspended in air by a silver frame. while i was working the futon cover, i leaned on the glass, and it fucking shattered. i mean, it BLEW UP. there was glass all over the place, and some pieces flew into my foot, causing a decent amount of blood to gush. and now it hurts to walk. motherfucker. that teaches me to never get glass again. *sigh* i mean, the panel had this sticker that said "satefyglass." what's so fucking safe about it? it broke into all these sharp jagged pieces. what was neat, though, was that the large panels continue to crack after the explosion, so while i was cleaning up, i heard these intermittent clicking and popping noises. that bottom left picture up there is one of the large fractured panels. it's actually rather beautiful, you think? ah, entropy. *sigh* i was pretty bummed out last night. i spent the entire night assembling furniture, and of everything i bought, only the lamp and the coffee table were finished. the others were either missing a part, missing a tool, or broken. shit. ----- friday night, i was the MAN. i was supposed to hang out and stuff, but i stayed at the office until i got my shit to work. well, to clarify, i got my block to bridge an ethernet packet. yup. i was elated. i helped jay move some of his stuff, and it's so surreal walking into his place, because it's the exact same layout as my place. like a weird twilight zone where i'm not his roommate, but margaret is. we had dinner with his friends teddy and carol at queen house, and when alan joined up for balls at tea era. there was a strange moment when alan talked about sports (which he never does), and i talked about cars (which i never do). it's like we swapped bodies for a moment. i decided that i will own a volvo someday. a nice forest green s80 or something. we rented _crazy/beautiful_ that night, and i was kind of disappointed. i wanted some serious tragedy, and the movie was setting itself up well for that, but in the end it just concluded all cheesy and lame. it's a decent date movie, though. ----- saturday was a hectic day that i wanted to end. not that i didn't have fun, but it was just hectic. basically, saturday was 4 guys wanting to do stuff together, but also wanting to get their own personal agendas accomplished too. i wanted to go to ikea. jay had to work and needed to continue moving. alan and peter went mountain biking. and after all that, we were supposed to see an early _star wars_ at the digital theater, have a bbq, AND go clubbing. as expected, things kind of didn't work out quite the way we wanted. everything concluded late, and i had to bail on ikea, and when we showed up at century 22 in san jose, the 6:15 showing we wanted was sold out. after leaving and coming back again (flip a bitch!), we got tickets for the 9:30, but that mean we had to bbq soon, but alan had to go shopping and i had to run some errands, and it was just all a big mess. in the end, i left dinner immediately after eating to go stand in line. blah blah blah. it all turned out well, but it was just a pain getting there. ----- so! star wars. for the third time. in a digital theater this time. first, the colors look really good. i used to work at TI, so i got the whole DLP spiel when they came out with it. blue, red, and purple are the colors that look really good. the first time i noticed it was on austin power's purple/red suit. and then, the columbia pictures girl had an amazingly blue sash. and during the picture, lips were really red. and r2d2's blue is really vibrant. but the thing is, i don't think we're used to such over-saturated colors. they got to the point where they looked kind of artificial. and for a movie like _minority report_, which has a faded look, the fact that certain colors pop out like that kind of ruins the intended feel. another problem i noticed was the shortcomings of the resolution. static objects really suffered, like a still basketball net in the _like mike_ preview. and when the "star wars" logo fades into the background, there is pretty bad pixellation. and for objects in the distance (particularly the dark ships against the bright blue background in coruscant), pixellation is readily noticeable. because of the large dynamic range, dark scenes were much darker than on film. i noticed that when i watched the bar scene, and i totally didn't notice the hot girl in the red thong. i mean, something *had* to have happened if i fail to notice that. but yeah, it's kind of neat to see that green preview screen come up and realize that it's completely still. and yes, that was the third time i've seen _star wars_. i am done. 13 hours spent either waiting in line or watching the movie. now it's time to move on to something else. i still hold this belief that we had be 100% predictable. meaning that we are completely deterministic. i mean, you think your thoughts are random, and stuff, but after seeing this movie three times, i've noticed that during certain scenes, i think the exact same thing. notable ones are thinking natalie portman's teeth are shiny during a particular shot in the lame _sound of music_ passage, and thinking "gee, i can see hayden christensen's body through that beige linen shirt" in the post-nightmare scene. ----- after the movie, we met up with ting at club forum in sunnyvale. it was a cool club, and earlier, i was sort of skeptical about it. why? because it was "tahitian dreams" night. people wearing hawaiian shirts and bikinis got in for free. riiiiggghhht. but it turned out that only a few people were decked out in club-med island gear, so it all turned out ok. i think i'm slightly autistic or something. i'm fascinated by light. especially when i'm buzzing. after a jameson on the rocks and a double shot of absolut (which really was 3 shots), i was slightly buzzing, but enough so that i was just staring up at the ceiling at the lights. i must have looked like i was hypnotized or something. the bad thing, though, was that there cops all over the parking lot, and they were giving out random breathalyzer tests. i mean, i don't think i was impaired, but i do think i would have failed the test. and after my jury duty stint last month, i know how DUI's can really fuck up your life. *frustrated* i need to stop touching alcohol when i know i'm driving. it's not worth the risk, you know? and... 2am jack in the box runs are just sublime. ----- sunday, we woke up at noon. and headed to stacks. yum. alan wanted to drive crazily to the beach, but 92 was totally jammed, to we turned left at the summet and raced down skyline blvd. that was when i took the generic "picture of myself in a car mirror" shot on the upper right. we headed up to windy hill, which was amusing because all three of us got incredibly bad allergies. i had a face full of snot, peter's eyes were swollen, and on the drive back, all of us were constantly sneezing, sniffling, and farting (well, that was from the milk i had for brunch). we went to black pearl to have some balls, and i saw something that was really bittersweet. there was this really old couple there who must have been trying pearl milk tea for the first time. they were so cute, intently trying to dig out every single tapioca ball and finishing the drink to the last drop. and it's cool that they still wanted to try new things. but i got really sad when i realized that at their age, the number of things they had left to experience was not just finite (well, it's finite for all of us), but... you know... severely limited. old age makes me sad. i seriously doubt whether i will ever reach a point where i say, "you know, i think i should go now. i've lived enough." after everyone left, i had dinner with mike and his buddies at the beppo's in campbell. it was probably my best outing at the restaurant because the place is only good if you go in a large group. i kept on telling mike that he'd be astounded by the quantity of food they give, but this time, it wasn't so amazing. oh well. i went home, called up mallory and carol, and wound up watching 3 episodes of my new _sex and the city: season 3_ dvd set. i dunno. while i still think the show is one of the wittiest shows out there, there was something not quite right about it. i mean, it's still fabulously edgy and raunchy and full of neat douglas coupland-esque pop culture references. AND, it's about sex, and it's about relationships, and the women are remarkably trendy and well-dressed.. what's there not to like? maybe it's the fact that after 3 seasons (i know they develop a bit more in seasons 4 and 5), they haven't really evolved at all. they're static characters, and worse, they're shallow and incredibly superficial. carrie is the perpetual haute couture fashion victim who can't get over mr. big, miranda is stubbornly independent with a real bitchy streak, samantha only cares about sex, and charlotte is a close-minded aristocratic bigot in search of nothing more than a pedigree and the bank account. i think it's that last one that bothers me the most. i was talking to some friends about asian mothers who want their daughters to marry someone simply based on profession and income. it infuriates me that people can be so close minded. i mean, i understand that parents want the best for their children, and financial security is probably one of the biggest things on their checklist. *ARRGH* i don't know. i can see why it's important for them, but some parents have such a crazy tunnel vision with money that they go way overboard. it's like nothing else matters to them. ok. this is getting hella long. and i need to go play basketball. oh, by the way, that cow (top left picture) is the subject i've been using for my macro/depth of field tests with my camera. too bad you can't see its butt. when you squeeze it, a big brown bubble of a turd-nubbin comes out. it's gooey. it feels like a well-lubed engorged clitoris. and i'll leave you with that image. :) |