Liquid Mercury dream

This week I have been attacked by library lion, roaches, bubbles and now blue liquid mercury! I have no idea who I pissed off in dreamland where I got all different sort of nightmares every night.

I was rushed into a subway, I think it's the 6th Ave trains N or R. Most of the seat has been taken so I was forced to stand. I have to hold on to one of the pole and I made a disgustingly discovery that i got something sticky on my fingers as a result! It wasn't gum or anything regular disgusting thing but liquid mercury, kind of like Terminator 2 except it's not silver but shiny deep blue. It is "alive" and covering up a better part of my hand. At the same time I felt really sick because it is poisonous after all! I needed to sit down but there's no where to sit. I was in this awkward position where I was sliding down onto the floor. Finally one really nice Korean lady said, "you need to sit down!" She cleared up her bags and left me sit next to her.

I was desperately trying to get that thing off my hand by wiping it off with tissue, scraping it off and washing it off with bottle of water. Actually the water made it worst, now it's dripping! It dripped on my feet and now it's covering up my feet as well. It also gives off this chemical smell that make people sick. It made people's faces turn gray. The Korean lady next to me was the first who turned gray, but she still trying to help me. Two cops passes by and was trying to help too but nothing can stop those liquid mercury!

Eventually guess what get rid of it? This is gonna sound like a commercial - bounty paper towel! LOL, apparently it absorbs everything including mutated liquid mercury! I dunno why people would carry a roll of bounty on the subway, but someone did and I got a handful of them to get rid the liquid mercury. Once the paper towel touches the mercury, it looks as if the mercury was eating the paper towel because the paper towel immediately "melted" and got absorbed. But soon afterward the mercury was shrinking and solidify into gum and fell on the floor.

The Attack of the bubbles

Me and Scott was in some kind of a water park. We were in the locker room showering area when one stupid guy was playing with the baby shampoo. It was no regular shampoo cos it's super bubbley! Scott was chatting with the guy but soon after it turns ugly! That guy aimed the bottle at us and then squeezed! The shampoo once it leaves the bottle immediately become bubbles and it expanded to the size of the entire room! I grabbed Scott and run toward another part of the room where there's a door. We slammed the door right before the bubbles swallow us. But then we realize we were trapped in a small room with no way out, not to mention we know the bubbles didn't stop expanding at all. It started to squeezed in underneath the door, and worst it started to come in from the air vent! There's a tiny window so we used all our strength to get it open but it was too late! The bubbles already reached the roof and coming down from the walls outside as well. It's just a matter of time before it comes in from the window as well! It was pretty much hopeless and we were waiting in the middle of room for the bubbles to suffocate us. It would be great if someone tell us that we can just burst the bubbles and we would have been fine. But apparently that concept is lost in dreamland~~ :p

Opening Day

Rumor has it that the new Apple store in Meat-packing District on 14 street will be open on December 7th!!! I was all excited planning to attend my second Apple store opening until I realize that's the day of the mandatory holiday party for work! Ugh, that means immediately after work i'll be shipped off to a remote suburb location and i won't get back to Manhattan until 11 at least! What am I gonna do??? How can I miss the opportunity of a lifetime here with yet another opening of Apple store in the city?? Can't they open the store a week later? I mean last time when I was in the neighborhood the store was still a giant construction site, how the heck did they get ready so fast?

Bag tales

I have always been obsessed with bags! Of all the accessories a guy can have, I am not obsessed with hat, tie, gloves, scarfs, ring, or necklace, but only bags! Be it messenger bags, laptop bags, backpacks, they just drawn me in like no others. Maybe because I used to have hours of commute and the need of bags as necessity transform into obsession? I dunno what was the cause, all I know is that which ever brand name store I went into I can't help myself but to browse the bag section. Over the years I got many bags, but most of them are now back in my parents house in neglect. Currently I have 4 bags in my apartment: a regular go to work medium size black formal messenger from Fossil; a small gray going out messenger from Manhattan Portage; a vertical messenger style laptop bag from Crumpler; and a leather brown messenger my friend got me.

This Thanksgiving being such a lonely uneventful long weekend with Black Friday getting all the rage. I somehow hatched a plan to replace at least two of my bags! My work bag from Fossil have been with me for 3 years since I started my current job. It's time for a change, not to mention I did realize my job doesn't require me a formal looking bag. I can get away with a casual one! My small gray going out bag has also been with me for 4+ years. I remembered everything of the day I bought it because the person that I was with when I bought the bag was that person we don't mention his name anymore. He picked it for me when we were in the store. As for my laptop bag from Crumpler - I love it! and I got it 2 years ago so it is still in great condition. The only problem I have with it is - well, I rather want to carry a laptop in a backpack instead of a messenger style bag because the weight hurt my shoulder if I carry it for long.

My plan is to replace the two bags, probably not the laptop one from Crumpler unless I found a really attractive backpack. I already got a replacement for my work bag! It was from Brooklyn Industries, a mid size messenger bag with grid pattern and lots of pockets. It's subtle but still a lot less formal than my Fossil bag. As for the replacement of my small gray bag, I have my eyes on this bag from Diesel! I was in Diesel today in Union Square. I saw this small size messenger bag that just captivated me. If you been to a Diesel store you know they don't really posted the price of their merchandise. I didn't ask for the price because I figure it's gonna be crazy expensive! And I really shouldn't spend more at least for now because I was pretty much bled out this Black Friday with all the shopping. In any case, I have my eyes on it, eventually I will save up enough money to get it home!

John Barrowman can sing!!

After searching for the mini-episode of Doctor Who in the recent Children in Need special, I come across another clip of the special - where Captain Jack Harkness sang Elton's Your Song! OMG I love Captain Jack!! He's not only handsome but he can sing too!!!!! John Barrowman's version is so much better than Ewan McGregor's version in Moulin Rouge! The producers of Doctor Who and Torchwood should find a way to make Captain Jack sing in the shows!! hehe~

Update: being a fan from across the pond and only watched the two TV shows he was in, I had no idea he's a singer!! I just found his albums on Amazon UK! Yeah I need to get my hands on those!

Beowulf

I remember reading Beowulf back in my school days, it wasn't a pleasant experience. I am sorry, but Old English is pretty boring to me! Not to mention the plot is the simplest as it can be. It is about a hero named Beowulf who kill a monster named Grendel, then he kill Grendel's mother as well. Fifty years later in somewhere else, he kill an unnamed dragon. When I heard it was gonna become a movie, my reaction was "Are you kidding me? It really isn't a movie material!" Then I found out that author Neil Gaiman scripted this adaptation, so it could turn out good. After watching the movie, and really give it some thought to remember what I read back in the school days, I can said the script does improve on the poem, but not by much considered how uneventful the original material is.

What the script writers changed and added was the relationships between all the main characters, which connected the plots all together and vastly improved on the "unrelated events" in the original poem. Grendel was the son of Hrothgar, and the dragon was the son of Beowulf. Beowulf did not killed Grendel's mother and she was the ultimate seductress that can seduce anyone. It was some good changes that make the story more coherent but still, it can't really make it a fun ride if the original material is that dull. The changes has its side-effect too, namely the repetitive plotline didn't bring the sense of irony as the writers intended but a sense of stupidity of the characters! How stupid are these characters when they all saw what happened with their predecessors and still falling for Grendel's mom? Another thing that they should have change is that Beowulf is such an arrogant unlikable character that goes around screaming "I am Beowulf! worship me!" all the time~ Can you blame us for not sympathizing at this shallow person?

Now onto the next area of criticism - the motion-capture CG animation in 3D, try saying it three times!! We have seen the previous attempts in Final Fantasy and the Polar Express, the animations were just not "believable" - plastic toy walking around pretending to be human! Not that motion-capture is not useful, it is extremely useful on non-human characters - just look at how believable Gollum was or even the fights of transformers~ But for human characters, well, they improved in terms of hair texture and some skin tone and some movements~ The result is that they graduated from plastic toys pretending to be human to re-animated corpse trying to be human! I am sorry, those dead fish like eyes and wax museum figure like skin just bugged me so much! It almost looks okay with some older characters with their wrinkles and bread and spots on the skin, but for most of the younger characters especially the young queen and the mistress, they just look so unreal! I believe the technology will get there, it's just it's still not there yet.

The most fatal flaw of the movie lies with either the director or the studio ( i am not sure who has the final say in the direction of the movie) The movie itself looks like it's going for violence, blood and nudity, it's pushing the envelope and pushing American made animation out of the kiddies cutsy zone! But not so fast, maybe in the middle of the development, someone slipped a note to remind them that the rating has to be PG-13 to ensure maximum returns of revenue. So now what they do next is a total embarrassment! Remember the opening scene of Austin Powers where some objects just conveniently placed to cover up Austin's naked private parts? They are doing it over here too, except that this is not a comedy! So you have another case of a serious scene but everyone in the theater is laughing! Every time when an object or a person conveniently blocked the "view", the whole house was rolling! Let me make a suggestion: if you can't show Beowulf's thing, make him wear shorts instead of fighting in nude!!!! or just only show the upper torso! why torture people with painfully funny scenes that were not meant to be funny?? It's sad that we can actually see what they compromised for ratings on the screen!

Whoa, I wrote a four paragraphs essay trashing this movie! This gotta be a record!

Casting news

Have you heard that they are making a live action Dragon Ball Z movie??? I will be disturbed by whatever look that they will bring to the characters cos seriously I just can't imagine DBZ being live action! I mean how many bottles of hairspray will they need to create those giant spiky hair styles?? Then I found out about the two main cast.... and I can only express myself in the picture below:


Justin Chatwin playing our main beloved character Goku? that annoying son in War of the Worlds??? Do they realize he's not Asian?? and doesn't have giant anime eyes? James Marsters as the mysterious bad guy turn good guy Piccolo on the other hand? He actually is a good choice! I can see him as Piccolo, and I am saying that not because he's Spike in Buffy and you all know I am such a Buffy fans, but seriously he can really play that type of gray area character that you are not sure if he's here to help you or kill you. Not to mention since Piccolo is alien and has green skin, so James is used to being not human given that he was a vampire for so many years~ I wonder who else will be in the movie.......can't wait to find out the rest of the cast~~

Another casting news is the next Harry Potter movie!! it seems like the last one was not too long ago and they are already making a new one (actually the last movie was this past summer!) Too bad the rumor of Naomi Watts joining the cast isn't true. Narcissa Malfoy will be played by the prime minister's wife in The Queen! I can't imagine Helen McCrory look anything like Narcissa given that she's not a blonde, but movie magic will surely take care of that. I can't wait to see the 16 years old Voldermort, i hope he's as cute as the one from the second movie~ There's also two clips for the new movie, one focus on quidditch costume and the other the set of the orphanage, so go check it out!


Update: I just thought of this: Frodo has giant anime-like eyes! Can Elijah Wood play Goku??

WGA Strike: how many new episodes are left?

At first I didn't really cared about the WGA strike, I figure that it will be over before it will affect the TV shows I watch. Therefore the only thing that I was concerned with in the beginning was to see if I can spot Tina Fey from the line outside of Rockefeller Center. Now after a week or two, there's still no end in sight, many shows don't have enough shows in the can if the strike goes on longer. The Office is the first to run out of new episodes, it has one episode left. On average most shows has 4 or 5 episodes left. TV Guide has a whole list there, so I am just gonna list the ones that I watch:

30 Rock: Ten episodes will be produced. Five episodes have aired, so there are five left.

Brothers & Sisters: Twelve episodes will be produced. Seven episodes have aired, so there are five left.

Chuck: Thirteen episodes will be produced. Eight episodes have aired, so there are five left.

Gossip Girl: Thirteen episodes will be produced. Seven episodes have aired, so there are six left.

Heroes: Eleven episodes will be produced. Eight episodes have aired, so there are three left.

House: Twelve episodes will be produced. Six episodes have aired, so there are six left.

Lost: Eight episodes will be produced. None have aired yet, so there are eight episodes left.

The Office: Twelve half-hour episodes will be produced. Eleven half-hour episodes have aired, so there is one half-hour episode left.

Pushing Daisies: Nine episodes will be produced. Five episodes have aired, so there are four left.

Reaper: Ten to 12 episodes will be produced. Seven episodes have aired, so there are three to five left.

Samantha Who?: Twelve episodes will be produced. Five episodes have aired, so there are seven left.

Scrubs: Eleven episodes will be produced. Three episodes have aired, so there are eight left.

Ugly Betty: Twelve or 13 episodes will be produced. Seven episodes have aired, so there are five or six left.

If the strike goes on longer, after these episodes run out, then that would be it for this TV season!! I am MOST worried about Scrubs because this will be their last season! They are suppose to have 18 episodes for this season, so if they only made 11, which mean there will be no ending for the series!!!! It better not come to that because I will be so pissed!!!!

A Wonderful Day

I wish everyday is like yesterday, good food, good entertainment, and of course, good company.

Yesterday I went to 'Ino Wine bar for their brunch. I was there for one reason only, to try their famous Truffled Egg Toast! The egg white is like the icing on a cake, except in this case is on a toast! The yolk is of course in the middle and so it formed this white square with yellow in the middle. From the side you can hardly even see the toast which make it even more fun because it give out the illusion that you have a thick square sunny-side up! The look of the entire dish is just extremely unique. It taste awesome too! 'Ino is tiny but adorable, a really nice place for brunch~

The entertainment after brunch was Bee Movie, which I think it's the best movie Dreamworks Animation has since the original Shrek! Jerry Seinfeld is hilarious and story itself is well thought out unlike many animation films other than the ones from Pixar. Animation is as gorgeous as it can get and the depiction of Central Park is extremely detailed that I can figure out some of the locations within Central Park! Aside from the laughs this movie really have some educational values for the kids by showing the importance of bees and it's contribution to the world. Of course it's not 100% accurate - it's not a documentary after all, but I think it's way better than many animations nowadays that serve no value what so ever~

After the movie was Wii time!!! Which game? Mario Party 8! I long to defeat my opponent after last time's last minute upset by a dumb computer opponent that let to his winning of the game. Unfortunately, this time around not only I can't defeat my opponent, but I suffered such a humiliating defeat that I could never speak of challenging him again! It was horrible!!! but definitely fun that i will play again and again!

Dinner is yet another restaurant that I was hoping to try out for a while: Yakitori Totto's sister store Yakitori Torys on the East Side! the place is double the size of Totto, but table-wise it's just a few more tables than Totto. But still, it's less crowded and I bet the wait is much shorter in any time. You got the almost identical menu (I did see Lamb Chop and a few weird items on the menu! was it on Totto's??), the same heavenly tasty food and even same decorations on the wall! Although we went a little late so most of the limited items are sold out, but still, it was an awesome meal!

A lovely day that is perfect in my book! It really makes me feel like the worst is over, and I have one person to thank for~ :)

Sell out?

I heard the rumor for a while, but it's official that New York Public Library is selling off some of its libraries. The Donnell Library on W53rd and Fifth across from MOMA is the first to go. Granted the plan is to build a hotel on its site and the hotel will give back three floors to the library, so essentially NYPL lost nothing, but still, it just doesn't feel right to me! I don't want it to start a dangerous trend where all cultural institutions start selling off their assets to gain a little cash. The article goes on about how Donnell is in serious need of repairs and how it's falling apart. They definitely painted a dire picture. To be honest the rest of the picture of NYPL isn't good in any case! From multiple sources I know the institution is in a horrible shape, drastic re-organization plan is going on and moral is low. Maybe the cash from selling Donnell will really help, who knows. Until I see some real benefits coming out of this deal, I remain skeptical.

tip cards for d-bag

Wow, I can't believe this! tip cards on how to work "I'm an architect!" into a conversation?? Is this a joke?? I hope it is, cos otherwise American Institute of Architects would become a creepy organization for issuing things like this! Granted architects are cool and sexy, I was guilty of falling for one even. But man they can be such a d-bag who rip your heart out and step all over it if you are not the person that they want. These cards just prove how shallow they could be even if they have the coolest job title!

disclaimer **one person can ruin my opinion for the entire group, so sorry for architects who read this, i didn't want to be mean, just there's a black sheep among you**

Front Row

There's just something about the new Front Row interface on my giant iMac screen that is mesmerizing to me. Is it the font or the giant album art sitting at an angle with reflection that make it so appealing to the eyes? or the lively animation in between screen? I dunno. All I know is that turn off all the lights, sitting in the dark comfortably on my bed, then use the Apple Remote to control Front Row to listen to some Cantonese power ballads just make them even more emotional rich. It's the perfect way to let myself go and cry out the frustration of a horribly bad week. I don't care if I am crying in my sleep, because I believe the tears will wash away everything that upset me and next morning will be a fresh start.

Marathon

NYC Marathon - a day that half the New York wake up at the crack of dawn cheering for people that they don't know for running around all 5 boroughs. There are tons of people watching the race here in Greenpoint. I wasn't cheering as much but just quietly observing the weird clothes some of the participants were wearing - I saw penguin, British Police, Superman, banana, birthday cake, clown, and bear running!! I suppose they recycle their costumes from halloween~ haha

Japanese pasta

Yesterday I tried out this Japanese/Italian fusion restaurant called Pasta Wafu. It served as the name implied, Japanese style pasta! The place itself is hard to find because it's sharing the space with another restaurant called Ramen Setagaya. (which I have yet to try, but it looks totally packed and could be good~) They share the same entrance. Ramen Setagaya is in the front, while Pasta Wafu is in the back. It is quite confusing as a set up because during the meal we actually witness other customers who come sit down in Pasta Wafu and thinking they are in Ramen Setagaya. But other than that, I really like the place. The decor is cute but classy, the price is affordable and the food is just what I like - Japanese mix with Italian, my two favorite cusisine! It also serves sushi and regular Italian dish, but you can get those anywhere and not the main attraction as far as my concern.
We have a nice looking seared tuna appetizer that has a lemon based sauce, which created a really unique flavor. For entree I ordered Uni Pasta, you heard it right, sea urchin pasta!! How awesome is that? (I love the Uni soba at Sobaya, but that seems to be a little plain in comparsion!) My friend ordered a spicy fish roe pasta which look really nice as well. It's definitely a place that I will go back and try more special dishes!

Lego city

Yesterday I went to the exhibit in Storefront for Art and Architecture because I heard there's an exhibit made out of lego. I've never been to the place before so I was amazed at how tiny it is - it's a bout the size of 3 or 4 newstands together! However, the unique design of the place totally make up for the small size! The walls of the place is made moveable! Like those Japanese ninja house with walls flipping to the other side. Oh how I love it! The main event - the lego city is smaller than i imagined but it's still huge. It's a city with stores like Dean & Deluca, NYSC, pizzeria and even a Ferrari service shop. I even spotted a lego person with dragon ball like hairstyle! Anyway, lego is always fun, I just wish it's a bigger exhibit with more lego wonder for me to see.

Hello Kitty attacked again!

I guess Hello Kitty has sign on to appear on all the Calpico bottles! Look this time I found her on Peach flavor and doing yoga!!!! Scary? totally!! Am I keeping the bottle? hell yeah!! hahaha

Mystery solved

Mac people would probably be familiar with the icon of the basic text editor in OSX - TextEdit. The icon is pretty much a paper with a pen, but you can see there's writing on the paper, you just can't make out what they are. I always suspected that it was a letter judging from the format and the position of those tiny black words that no one can read. Anyway, the new coverflow view in Finder of OSX 10.5 finally solved the mystery. The lovely letter was actually taken from the Think Different ad campaign back in the days. I really like this letter on a personal level and it really show Apple's unique philosophy among the other tech companies.

That's not the Union Square I know!

Disaster movies loved to target New York City because it is full of iconic buildings and monuments. But over the years, they pretty much "destroyed" all the famous one on screen. There're not much recognizable ones left that can provide the same ciematic thrills anymore. Just look at the promotional posters of "I am Legand" a futuristic disaster/zombie movie coming in December. All they left to destroy/ruin/dirty up is Union Square. Seriously when the most exciting shot was the abandoned Whole Foods!! That is just sad! But in any case, I still like the post-apocalyptic look of an area that I spent a huge amount of time in. Reminds me of the book I still planning to read - The World Without Us - eventually I'll buy it from the book store.

Safari-like Union Square

Emergency vehicles piling up outside of Virgin Megastore

Ruin of Whole Foods