Vicky, Cristina, Barcelona

What a lovely movie this is.  I knew I would like but it did exceed my expectation. 

I love a movie that simple tells you a story.  A story that is dreamy yet realistic, full of human emotion and idealism.  I guess idealism cannot be quite be objective, but the presentation of human events can evoke different idealism for different individuals, so I think the objectivity of storytelling is really important.  I HATE when any media that shovels down ideas in my throat, unless it is a beautiful cock and that is beyond the point. 

The pace was fast yet at ease and it brought up a lot of concepts, ideas and emotions that we can sincerely relate to throughout the movie.  At times you tend to conclude what this movie was trying to emphasize in certain stage of the movie, but as the story went on, it steered the direction for the audiences.  Also the Spanish music in the background made it that much more dreamy and surreal.  Overall color scheme was this matured yellow and green with occasional passionate red and the stark contrast of black and white here and there.  

I was wondering what the movie was all about while watching it.  Is romance only sustained upon struggle and imbalance, or is love a dying cause when human being become structured.  Like what Julie in the movie said,  I love him but I am just not in love with him for a very long time.  How does that feel?  I wonder.  Is that the essence of love or the biggest tragedy in the world.  If it is love, or what love eventually evolves into, then is love essentially the lead up to commitment.  And is that essentially what human relationship comes down to, a stuck feeling?  In the movie, Vicky and Cristina constantly ponder this question and they are really the same.  Like what the narrator said in the beginning, when it comes to love, they are just the opposite.  Vicky knew what ideal love was for her and what she deemed the final destiny for her whole life so that is what she went for.  Cristina only knew what she didn't want.  They both found love, one was a committal love and one was just simply passionately in love.  The movie didn't criticize which one was better because no matter how sure or how unsure each of them was, they both took a detour.  One found a temporary chaos on her to permanent structure whereas the other found temporary unconventional structure in her chaotic eternal search of love. 

However, the movie at the end, pulled back to its objectivity of things.  No matter how people tried to steer the course of lives, they still came back or move forward on the main road in their lives.  No matter how dreamy how romantic how ideal Barcelona was, it wasn't for them.  They were simply tourist to Spain, or just tourist to the idealism of different kinds of love in life.  They experienced, learned, matured, and moved on.  Maybe that is what this movie is really about.  But the detour was too beautiful to ignore or forget no matter how powerful the force of nature that life and destiny hold against every body.

Get Smart

The movie is pretty awesome. It is stupid at times. You can feel that they are trying a bit too hard. But overall the movie has a good pace and Steve Carrell's style was nature in this movie. I laughed throughout the movie and there were parts that were extremely hilarious.

My friends and I watched the premier then headed to dinner and hookah. It is going to be in the theaters today, let's see how the box office will turn out. I hope it does well.

A bit perk

I guess that is a bit of consolation for my little pay. As employee, we get to advance screen our products a bit earlier than the public.

A couple days ago, I invited a friend of mine and we did the advanced screening of The December Boys. It is kinda sweet, sad, and happy. It is one of those movies in which you somehow find a bit comfort and happiness out of a miserable situation. Daniel aka Harry Porter kinda broke off his cash cow/career killer role -- Harry Porter. Especially the innocent sex scenes made you forget about the asexual Harry Porter right away. My friend, who cried over SpiderMan 3 inevitably cried again. It was an independent film that was partially invested by Village Roadshow (aussie company) so you get to see a lot of aussie in it.

Overall it is a pretty good movie and I think it is interesting to see how Daniel chooses his strategy to break off his Harry Porter image. It is kinda hard considering he has two more to go. I am not a Harry Porter fan. But I have to give credits to this franchise. Apparently the 5 Harry Porter movies already established a franchise that in revenue has surpassed 6 Star Wars movies, and 22 James Bond movies. It is truly amazing how much purchase power the babies and whimsical young adults possess. Or rather, how willing their parents are to spend that much money for them.

Coming up, advanced screening of Assassination of Jesse James. I want me some Brad Pitt!!!!!!!

Peace~

Some quick bits

Life has been pretty peaceful lately. There is really no ups and downs. I am just chilling and taking the new found peace in my life piece by piece. Don't get me wrong, I am not 65 looking for wheelchair lifestyle, but it is just kinda nice to know certain things have been settled for good. The week passed by fairly fast because of work. I feel like that each day is composed of only three stale elements of one's life -- eat, sleep, work.

Anyways,

Job

Job has been ok. Team has been going through a big restructure so that I had nothing much to do the whole week. I think I printed out about 3000 pages of financial documents so far. Yes, isn't it exciting. It is as mind blowing for me as a nice wheel for a hamster. Despite the crunch work so far, I still find the position worthwhile. My boss seems to be nice at this moment and people are definitely professional. They don't do the fake friendly chit-chat. In addition, I can wear casual outfit and shorts and sandals on Fridays. So I guess that is a bit of a compensation for my pathetic pay. I am looking forward to this week because I really want to start doing something that is intellectually challenging and worth my freaking time.


Leisure

I went to a movie on Wednesday with a friend and we saw Rush Hour 3. It was the absolutely the worst movie I have seen in a long time. I have never been a fan of racial jokes and they didn't only fully exploited the beaten to death racial jokes but also invented bunch stupid racial/political jokes that seemed to be way too ignorant and preaching for its own good. The movie took itself way too seriously at times given the overall theme was ridiculous, implausible and unoriginal. In the beginning, I just felt it was such an unwise mistake that I decided to see this movie the first 20 mins. But then I just felt utterly stupid when the stupid people around me who appeared to be genuinely enjoying it. I could actually hear the gasp from the lady next to me "ah... oh... omg ganster". Where the fuck has she been? I don't know but she probably hasn't seen many movies lately. Who gasps "omg gangsters" when they see a movie...

Chris Tucker has the most annoying voice that I have ever heard and his physical comedy isn't funny at all. If I wanted to see stupid people who act like a turkey I would go see Jack Ass 2. Jackie Chan on the other hand is just too old. I mean he is like an old Chinchilla. He could barely kick anymore. One scene in the movie where he was supposed to descend a building to the streets then jump on multiple ledges to a freeway was so pathetically choreographed that Jackie Chan looked clumsy, frightened, and laughable. Clumsy because he did the sequence very slow and the scene clearly showed his stretched to the max physical ability when you can see the veins popping up on his head. Frightened because only god knows how many takes it took, he still looked at the next place to jump without ease. You could almost hear his inner self cussing like crazy for what he would do for money. Laughable because after you see Bourne Ultimatum you just feel so sorry for Jackie Chan and his character. It is like he is doing a Scary Movie style spoof of Bourne or something like that...

I can keep going on and on about their stupid accent, racial jokes, and anti war unsubtle messages. But I think you already got the idea.



Guys

This is the guy who I messaged first then returned me telling me that his body was mine for the taking and continued to flirt a bit. However, he flaked out later for no apparent reason. All my pictures are public so he saw me before his replied. I don't know what stopped his interest. Oh wellz, another flaky hookup, story of my life eh? I think I am gonna give myself another month before I venture out to WeHo again. I still need money haha and I need to get things done before I can enjoy myself fully. I think it is absolutely necessary for me now to just go out there and find what is mine. I don't want to deal with this flaky online hookup thing anymore and I think it is time to start a functional relationship.

Shopping

After chatting up with my mom last night, she decided to buy me a decent bday gift this time. So we went shopping today. She bought me a pair of New Balance running shoes and new pair of Prada sunglasses. I really love them. The shoes and glasses can be used right away and I really wanted them for a long time so it was so nice of her to buy them for me haha. I am thinking about buying her a LV or Gucci bag when her bday comes around. Ah parents, sometimes they really get on your nerve but you just can't stop loving them.

Friends

I am having this episode once again. I think I have too many female friends. I really think the gay part of me totally took the advantage of it and exploited it. Now I become the victim of my identity. Interestingly enough I made these friends before they knew I was gay so I guess they weren't my friends because they didn't feel threatened or anything. That is a good thing for me. But then as much as I appreciate and cherish any friendship that I managed to maintain - I am very picky in the friends department because I don't easily let people in on a personal level - I still feel that more dudes would be better. Yet I find it kinda hard to find mature guys who can really be comfortable with who I am. I read the post from Urban Insanity and I was so caught up in his fantastic stories that I neglected one of the most distinguishable and intriguing part for me -- his guys friends discuss guys with him. I realized this fact after I went back to his many other stories on different occasions. He could be just one of the guys who just happens to talk about guys. I mean I would never be that brave or comfortable even my friends who claim that they are cool with me being gay. I mean none of the guy friends I know know I am gay but even if they are cool with it I don't think they would be all that interested to talk about my guy problems or be able to understand and really engage in any meaningful conversation regarding this matter. On the contrary, the girls can so I guess subconsciously know that girls would be more accepting so I made more effort with them? On the other hand, I feel a bit out of place when it comes to new guy friends. Usually I can carry on a conversation regarding whatever, but when it comes to hardcore sports statistics I am like a mute. That seems to be what they all talk about anyway. It is unoffensive, bonding, and interesting for the dudes so why wouldn't they talk about it. Because of the neutral nature of sports talk, people prefer it over political social and economical topics which I am pretty interested in. But all those could be very offensive at times or people are just apathetic about them. So I kinda avoided just chilling with the guys unless we are doing something. Sitting there and just talking isn't my thing I guess. It is so complicated...

The reason I am going through this again is because my bday is coming up. I feel obligated to do something because my friends feel that I should do something. I don't know if that makes sense. I mean they are already thinking about it before you think about it and they are more interested than you are, doesn't that make you feel like a douche? I kinda do so I am pumping up my enthusiasm and planning something simple next weekend. Then I realized how out of proportion the genders of my friends are. I mean I can easily call up 8 girls at this moment and I can only think of about 4 guys that I feel really close to. That is kinda gay and I probably come out of the closet by default... Some other people are out of town so I don't know what I should do. Limit the female guests? Then what if they find out... Ah... I wish I were more of a guy's guy. I am really not that feminine on the outside but I guess there is a lot of my emotional traits that are very sensitive and feminine. This somehow kills me to even just think about it. It is even more painful to admit it. But truth is never pretty I guess.

Workout

I am back to my gym routine now. As a matter of fact, I have been pretty fucking dedicated. On Friday night, I was so tired from work that I had to pull over off the freeway to take a nap before I continued to drive. I was 2 miles away from my gym but I was too tired to even drive that little distance at that point. Despite this little unforeseen circumstance, I still managed to go to the gym and raped myself on the weights after I woke up 50 mins later in my car.

My trainer has been promoted to Tier3 now and his regular fee is 115 dollars/hour. My gym is 110 dollars/month. So if I train 2 times a week then that is gonna be almost 600/month on gym. I don't think I got that kinda money. Good news is that my trainer is also leaving the gym. I told him that I really like the client-trainer relationship and I am accustomed to his training routine, so how many more sessions I should order from him. He thought about it and told me to just get 12 sessions more. So 12 session receives 10% discount. I guess I can handle that. So hopefully he leaves the gym soon and I will cancel this god forsaken gym as well. Then I will just pay him about 60-70 for training each time and use the gym at work for 40/month. As we progress I will get less training as we go on. I don't know it sounds like a lot of money but I paid 1.8k for 4 months worth of training and it didn't feel such a financial hassle for me. So I guess I will continue that. I hope he won't jack up the price when he goes solo later and it'd nice if he can give me discount if I order 100 sessions at a time. lol... God I could buy a fucking BMW with that money. Talking about new cars, I am thinking about a BMW... I will see how my cash flow goes lol.

Yeah I am gonna go to bed now. It's late and I am doing summer alternative hours which means I will go early everyday and leave on my regular time so that I can have Friday half day off. Isn't that great! But too bad that this week is the last week of this program for the summer =/...

Anyways ciao~~

A new beginning or a new beginning?

What kinda new beginning would it be? I wonder. The future is the most uncertain and it is exciting yet scary. After this grueling recruiting for a month, I finally got an offer. It was good yet a bit disappointing. It is an entertainment behemoth so the name is great however they pay fairly low. I mean don't I wish that I got an I-banking job but that wasn't going to happen. So after thinking about it, I decided to take the offer regardless the pay. I mean I need to start somewhere, and hopefully I can build up a nice network and good reference in 3 years or less and jump to a better and even bigger place. I really want to do pure finance related work instead of accounting and I guess it is just not meant to be at this moment. Life never fulfills me perfectly and I guess this is the way going to be. So the first thing I have to do is to stop feeling disappointed when another friend of mine telling me that he is working in ibanking (just happened 5 mins ago and he is working in brazil atm. god damn ibanking everywhere, maybe i should go back to china and ibank!), second is to feel content and really work hard, third is to use my limited financial reward wisely.

Finally this chapter is over and a new one is going to start so you guys don't have to listen to my endless, monotoned, and boring rant over recruiting anymore. So i will replace that with same endless, monotoned, and boring rant over work hahaha. this one will probably last a long time! lol Just kidding! But I wonder if this is a new beginning for me to a billion dollar fortune, or this is a new beginning to a normal life that will eventually dies out in mediocracy. I am sure it is the 1st one! hahaha.

--

I went to a birthday thing yesterday. It was nice but kinda lame at the same time. Food was ok. The friend that I went with pretty stayed with me the whole time since I didn't know anyone except for the person who invited us and we didn't really feel like to meet anyone either... let's just say they weren't our crowd. They had a small pool. Despite its size, it looked mighty tempting under the sun. But instead of jumping in without a swimsuit and make myself a fool, we just played "watch the water balloon" game we invited. A couple exploded over my head and we got wet regardless.

Afterward we went to see Bourne Ultimatum. I loved it! The fighting sequences were well designed shot and definitely thrilling to watch. I think people are too tired of explosions and gun shots and are really into this hand to hand, melee style hard combat. Though you think Jason Bourne should have been dead plenty times through all that explosion, collision and shots and it is a bit cheesy that he seemed to be indestructible. But it is a great movie if you can overlook that little problem! I highly recommend it! Go see it boys!

A random and lazy week

Yeap this week has been pretty chill. No interviews whatsoever and as I mentioned before, only theme parks and beaches parts of my duty. I was like on the mission mode to relax and have fun. My extreme laziness, irregular sleeping hours, and bad diet were pretty addictive. hehe. human nature to be lazy eh?

My cousin's family is leaving on the 1st. I am kinda sad about it. I like her family. Her husband used to work in the same company as my mom did so I got to know them both when I was fairly young. My nephew is pretty cute. Loud, stupid, annoying at times but overall a very bright young guy. I hope they would decide to stay in America after their trip back to China. But there is a good chance that they won't since according to my cousin, her mother-in-law is very unreasonable and bossy and she wants her grandson back in China to be with her. Beh... crazy old lady.

Anyways, due to this uncertainty, I tried my best to hang out with them as much as I can. My friend just came back from Hong Kong and she really wanted to go clubbing or something. Well her words are "hang out" but she loves clubbing style nightlife, so I am sure it will be something along that line if we do hang out. But since I am really devoted to my family right now I didn't even call her back. She is leaving this friday too! I feel kinda bad. But oh well we will definitely go out at least once. Same to another friend of mine who just got back to the U.S. from a trip too. But I guess sometimes family comes first!

I dont know, lately I really do feel like going out again. I have been disconnected since I came back. First job hunting, then my family's visit. I kinda want to hit the nightlife scene again. But this time I am really not that interested in the straight clubs anymore. Hopefully, my job hunting, and social life can get back in order fast. After my cousin's family leaves, I would probably feel kinda empty for a bit. I mean all of sudden there are three less people living in your house and one of them is a loud 8 year old, it is kinda hard to adjust back in a way haha.

Oh by the way, despite the fact that I really do not like Harry Potter, I saw it today. OF course taking my little nephew. Our original plan was to see The Simpsons. But the line, I mean the line for people who already have tickets, are enormous. It went around the block! So we switched to Harry Potter. Since my nephew can only speak French fluently I am afraid that he didn't quite get the movie. It is ok though, I think for him, the best part of a movie is the popcorn. He has a keen interest in popcorns. His apetite for popcorn is also unbelievable. I am sure he will eat that shit till he pukes. I mean he already did that to Mc Donald -_-... Back to the movie, I guess I can see why the fans would love the movie. However, for a person who never read a single Harry Potter book, I just think it is whatever. It is not bad but it is not something that is absolutely memorable. Almost like a Pirates 3, but less expensive to make, and less sexual elements.

Anyways, I guess this is a post dedicated to my family haha. We will see what happens next week. Sigh... they are leaving!!!

Interesting

I even voted for it of course! haha. I can't believe that time has passed so fast. The result is already out. The new seven wonders of the world are:

Also, I saw Transformer!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It was SOO GOOD. It was absolutely action packed AND funny. I love it! Compared to the incompetent Pirate of Carribeans 3, which gave us too much foreplay and no cum shot, transformers was mindblowing from the beginning to the end! Did I mention that I freaking love Transformers!!! I hope they make another one... ah, so cool. I think the kid who played Sam, Shia, is going to be so famous this year. Ah.. the girl is actually smoking hot too lol.

Go get your tickets and see Tranformers!

24th Day

He is such a hottie; looks so dreamy all the time. But aside from being dreamy and sweet, Scott is a very good actor. My first impression of him is still from the teen drama Felicity. He mastered dreaminess in that film. I actually kinda followed it for a season.

Anyway, today I watched this independent film "The 24th Day" by Tony Piccirillo. The film digs into the AIDS epidemic on a personal scale. By introducing the unsettling encounter of Dan (James Marsden) and Tom (Scott Speedman), the film gradually unfolds Tom's devasted life affected by AIDS. The whole story revealed itself piece by piece as Dan and Tom's conversation went on in Tom's home. There were also flashbacks that filled in the blanks and gradually explained what happened prior to their encounter. Dan was a good looking guy who slept around quite frequently, whereas Tom was a troubled closet married gay man who had an one night stand five years before they met again. Tom just found out that he and his wife were infected by AIDS and it was his wife who tested first because of swallon glands. She was completely devasted and had a fatal car accident subsequent to her diagnosis. Tom came from a very small town and had constrained lifestyle when he was growing up. His marriage and his career were genuine but at the same time they were also forced to him in a way. His homosexuality was suppressed. When his wife was killed in the accident, he felt completely responsible for the whole situation, so he followed Dan for couple days and eventually met him in a bar and took Dan back to his home. Dan of course was pretty quite on the business and using his charms to get into his pants. Dan appeared to be confident and very sure of himself. But Tom on the other hand, kept asking him about truth and his past. Dan's answer to that was always a sure respond. For example, when Tom asked him if he was safe, he always said " safe, very safe." The same applied to all other questions such as how many guys he had been with and whether or not he had AIDS. Dan was playing along in the beginning and didn't become aware of the situation till he realized that Tom has locked the door. After a bit of struggle, Tom tied Dan up on his chair and started a two day ordeal. Tom thought that Dan needed to pay for what he had done to him and his life, so he took a blood sample from Dan and sent it to a lab. Tom promised Dan freedom if the test is negative, however, if it came out positive, Tom then would "slit his throat". The story then unfolds as they engaged in conversations.

The film really focused on character development and each piece of infomation served that sole purpose. There was no wasteful moments thoroughout the film, and character's emotional development was natural and the acting made them seem very realistic. For example, Dan had never given up on escapes and Tom's reaction to that, though essentially the same, were different. In the beginning Tom was enraged for the fact that Dan felt nothing to other people, and continued to sleep around without protection because for Dan, it was other people's choice. But when things settled down, Tom felt miserable, sad and lonely. Most of all though, Tom felt guity. The tremendous guilty that he knew he couldn't enforce it on anyone else drove him crazy. the emotional struggle and devastation of killing his own wife were well portrayed. At one point, he got very drunk and became so emotional that he started crying on Dan's shoulder. at the same time, as Dan tried to comfort Tom, he still tried to steal the keys that laid on the table.

At the end, there is a bit twist to it that made the film beleiveable. It showed a lot of compassion and sarrow in the whole situation and made me think just how many more of Dan and Tom out there.

It is a very good film, but it is not listed in Sccott's official filmbiography. I guess it is b ecause of its subject matter. Although today's world is filled with homos, the world still is not embracing them as a human condition. the irony.