Stranger Than Fiction
Category: Movies, TV, Celebrities

So I keep meaning to post a blog about this or that, but I keep finding something I would rather be doing than put words on a (web)page.  And then I watch a movie that reminds me of the personal impact art can have.  Yes, it is a comedy (sort of) starring Will Ferrell.  No, it is not a Will Ferrell comedy.  Metacritic only compiles a 67 score for it, but I give it a 95.  Give or take.

It has Dustin Hoffman in it.  I hate Dustin Hoffman.  Ask any of my best friends.  I won't watch The Marathon Man because he's in it, although I really did like the book.  And, sure, Midnight Cowboy won Best Picture, but Ratso Rizzo really, really annoyed me.  But I liked Dustin Hoffman in Stranger Than Fiction.  That says a lot.

Maggie Gyllenhaal is in it.  She is a fucking babe.  There's something so unconventionally beautiful about her, so unlike your standard "Hollywood beautiful".  She plays a spunky (but not in that annoying rom-com "spunky" heroine way -- Sarah Michelle Gellar in Simply Irresistible I'm looking at you) Harvard law school dropout that runs a bakery.  Will Ferrell is an IRS agent that is auditing her.  She opens his heart with amazing cookies, as one does.  He charms her with flours -- that's right, the homophone for flowers, but with special meaning for that special someone who loves to bake.  Which she does.

It's a thoughtful, intelligent movie with a very quiet rhythm.  There is a certain magical realism vibe to it.  Emma Thompson plays an author who is writing Will Ferrell's life story.  He hears her narrating it in his head.  She is famous for killing off all her heroes.  Eventually, they meet.  Is the outcome predictable?  Sort of.  It was not unexpected, but because of the tone of the rest of the movie, it was uncertain until the end, at least for me.

There are a lot of other cute little touches.  Little iconographs pop up to show Will Farrell's thought processes, like how many times he's brushing his teeth.  I love the language of Emma Thompson's narration -- there's a wonderful rhythm to it.  Emma's character has writer's block.  She can't figure out how she's going to kill Will Ferrell in a way that ties the whole book together.  Her research into methods of dying and being killed are quite hilarious.

But what this brings back to the forefront of my mind is an article I read recently of the controversy surrounding the game, Manhunt 2, where you play a homicidal maniac.  People were up in arms about how it was a big murder simulator; how videogames are teaching kids to be amoral killers; blah, blah, blah.  Because, you see, videogames are interactive.  The author of the article was arguing how movies, because of their very verisimilitude and ability to build and sustain real emotional content, still have a much greater ability to influence someone than the younger media of video games.

I can't help but agree.  Stranger Than Fiction spoke to me very personally, for some reason.  The story, the rhythm of the interactions, the language, the plot -- they all came together to directly appeal to many of the things I love about movies and think about in my personal life.  My hope is that one day games will be able to reach that same level of storytelling -- that same level of emotional involvement.  And that I will be on the team that makes one of those games.

Currently watching : Stranger Than Fiction Release date: 27 February, 2007

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UK Supplemental
Current mood: excited
Category: Travel and Places

So I tried to watch Episode 3 of Heroes last night on NBC.com. Apparently, you cannot do that if you're coming in from a non-US IP address. Ditto "Watch Instantly" on Netflix. I can see now why people hate Americans.

For those of you who have played Civ IV, you'll be familiar with the Hollywood World Wonder, which gives the civilization that builds it five "Blockbuster Movies", a luxury good that grants one happy-face. You can trade these with other civilizations for resources that you are short on, or keep them all to yourself to deny them the extra happiness. Clearly, the UK has not successfully secured a trade deal with the US for "Blockbuster Movies". People say you learn nothing from games, but that's not true. I've learned a lot about world history and power dynamics from Civ. It just goes to show you how those geniuses at Firaxis are able to model pretty complex things with their relatively simple game.

Anyways, time to attend a wedding.

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An Update from the UK
Current mood: jet-lagged
Category: jet-lagged Travel and Places

I am writing this update from my hotel room in Bedford, England, where they have modern conveniences like free WiFi. It feels good to be in a different country again. I have come to enjoy Southern California, but I have this natural wanderlust that compels me to add more stamps to my passport.

England is not my favorite country I've been to, but it has its charms. Having been here multiple times, there's a certain friendly familiarity I felt the moment I set foot off the plane. I've never flown into Gatwick before, but for all intents and purposes, it is just like Heathrow, down to the HSBC "local point of view" ads in the jetway -- it's a theme they've been running with since I first came to the UK for sailing training four years ago: two pictures with captions, like "Trendy" and "Traditional", then the same two pictures a couple of feet later with the captions flipped.

London has a certain smell about it -- different from the dry, slightly smoggy perfume of LA. It's a bit mustier, damper -- but at the same time fresher. Let me try to describe what this fairy-tale land looks like to my native SoCal friends. There are these white things in the sky called clouds that block out the sun, so that it has a wan, weak light. These "clouds" also make the sky grey, instead of the constant piercing blue that you are used to. The trees here have leaves that turn yellow and orange, and then fall off onto the ground, making a crunchy crust of dead brown vegetation that needs to be raked or swept away. In Bedford, there is a river that runs through the middle of the town. A river is this flowing body of water deep enough to not be able to stand in that is not salt water. People row in it and ducks and geese swim in it. I know none of these things really exist in Orange County, but believe me, they are real, and not some made-up fabrication. When I come back from the trip, I'll post up the pictures so you will believe me. I promise no Photoshop post-processing occurred.

Being back in the UK reminds me of some of the quirks that I do not miss at all:
* Separate hot and cold water taps in the sinks. I know they have the technology to make it a single tap, because the showers all have a single hot/cold lever. So why do they torture me so?
* Toilet bowls so deep the bottom is in a different post code (that's what they call zip codes in England) from the seat. Pro-tip: lay down a layer of toilet paper before dropping the kids off at the pool to avoid the inevitable backsplash.

On the other hand, these minor things are far outweighed by the positives:
* One pound coins instead of paper money for singles. Why are Americans so resistant to the dollar coin?
* Trains take you everywhere. And once you get there, you can walk to everything interesting without having to drive.
* An unlocked GSM phone allows you to get a local pre-paid SIM card up and working in 5 minutes. For 20 pounds I am now as fully wired as I am in the U.S. Screw that one phone, one number BS they try to foist off on you in the States.

Amusingly enough, my phone is a Hong Kong/British version, so the charger plugs right in to the regular UK socket; I have an adapter that switches it to the the US version that I use when I'm at home, but over here, the charger works in its native state.

I have tons of great ideas for future blogs, because I've had nothing to do but think and reflect as I sat in an airplane or in a terminal for the last 15 hours or so. But that's for another day.

Currently watching : Rome - The Complete Second Season Release date: 07 August, 2007

9:42 AM - 4 Comments - 5 Kudos - Add Comment

Antarctica or bust!
Current mood: curious
Category: Travel and Places

I've finally settled into SoCal to the point where I can feel my wanderlust rising again.  I haven't been out of the country since something like September 2005.  And I know where I want to go next: Antarctica.

That's right: the world's southernmost continent.  I've just started doing research.  All the cruises take place from November through January, or so, because that's the summer in the Southern Hemisphere.  I remember sailing in the Southern Ocean in December; it was like 18 hours of daylight, 4 hours of dawn and dusk, and two hours of night.  Antarctica is probably going to be even more extreme.

There's two ways to Antarctica: a cruise from southern tip of Argentina, and a cruise from the southern tip of New Zealand.  The most cost effective one for those of us in the States would be Argentina.  It does mean having to cross the Drake Passage, which is the roughest bit of ocean in the world.  I've done it in a sailboat, which is madness, but a I think a nice sturdy motorized ship is going to be just fine.  I'll just need to make sure I've got good anti-seasickness drugs.

It's not supposed to be *that* cold down on the Antarctic peninsula that time of year.  Probably right at freezing, which is no worse than it is in NYC in the winter.  There's supposed to be a lot of marine life, like penguins, seals, and whales, and stuff.  It'd be cool to see a whale.  Believe it or not, I made it entirely around the world and never saw a whale.  The rest of the crew spotted them a couple of times, but by the time I got on deck, the whale would have gone.  I think they may have just been messing with me.  Whales don't really exist.

I'm looking for people who want to join me on this adventure.  I warn you, it ain't cheap.  If you have to ask, you can't afford it.  Denise said she'd be interested, but I don't know if Jathan is going to let his wife take a trip to the most inhospitable place in the world with a crazy Asian dude.  But, we'll see.  I got a year to work on him, because it's too late for an impromptu trip this Antarctic summer.  Come November/December 2008, though, and I'll be able to claim to have set foot on all 7 continents.  Boo yah!

Anyways, drop me a comment or a message if you're interested.  If I don't respond, then you'll know you're just a MySpace friend who I don't want to be in a confined cabin with while I puke my guts out in a 50 knot, 40 foot wave storm.  Nothing personal.

Currently playing : Sid Meiers Civilization IV Beyond the Sword Release date: 23 July, 2007

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The Greatest Ideas. Ever.
Current mood: silly
Category: Life

Some of my greatest ideas, ever:

I love bacon and eggs.  When I grow old I want to have pig and chicken farm so I can have fresh bacon and eggs every day.  But that's two animals with very different needs.  So what geneticists should be working on right now is a chicken-pig so we can get bacon and eggs from the same animal.

My kosher smoothie joint business idea: Jews It Up.

My Star Wars themed bubble tea joint slash 24-hour gym: Boba Fit.

Those two establishments can be in the same strip mall as Morgan's soul food and Vietnamese noodle fusion restaurant: Pho Real.

Currently playing : Halo 3 Release date: 25 September, 2007

9:52 AM - 1 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

Meta-blog
Current mood: recovering
Category: recovering Blogging

What do you do when you want to write a blog, but everything you are currently feeling and thinking is stuff you'd rather keep private?  You write a blog about blogging, of course.

Blogging is a curious activity.  It's like having a journal, but putting it out on the interweb in a public space for the entire global village to see.  You want to write about personal things, because personal is specific and therefore interesting, especially to people who know you.  But you also want to write about something universal, because you want people to be able to key in with what you're talking about and empathize because they've experienced, felt, or thought the same things.  Moreover, you don't want to put up something you'll regret later; once it's out there, it's a only a matter of ctrl-C and ctrl-V and it's on someone's server forever, even if you later delete the blog.  I'm sure you've all heard about employers trolling the MySpace and Facebook pages of prospective employees to make sure they're not some flavor of crazy.

Back in the day, when you visited friends and relatives, they'd break out the photo albums or vacation slides, and you'd go through them together.  Now pictures are up instantaneously to be shared with everyone -- friends, family, and strangers -- as fast as you are able to upload them onto MySpace.  People used to put together "family bulletins" in WordPerfect, print them up on their dot-matrix printers, and send them out with the yearly batch of Christmas cards.  Now your every quirk, misadventure, or brilliant epiphany is blogged the second you can get to a fast internet connection.  That's what social networking sites are all about: doing faster and more frequently what we were already doing -- trying to share our lives with the people we care about.

The ease of it, though, allows this outflow information to reach people that you couldn't before.  Whereas it used to take a lot of effort to put together that photo album and then physically show it to people, pictures on MySpace can be shared with anyone and everyone instantaneously.  People who may only be peripherally in your life, like random high school acquaintainces, or even total strangers living in Korea or Uzbekistan, now have unparalleled access to your personal life.

If you grew up with things like MySpace and Facebook, it may seem natural to essentially live your life in public.  But to me, it's still a little weird.  I'm still wary about what I write, what I reveal, and what pictures I post.  Certainly social networking sites fulfil this fundamental need to share -- to garner attention for the minutiae of your life.  I enjoy writing; sometimes I feel I've crafted a really good turn of phrase, or I've elucidated clearly an idea that has universal applicability.  It does me no good if I keep it locked up.  And so that's why I blog: the pretentious belief that I have something meaningful and interesting to say and that you want to hear about it.

If you made it this far through all the metaphysics, you probably skipped down here.  Let me summarize: blah, blah, blah, blog, blah, blah, MySpace, blah.  No, I never talk about the things I'm feeling and thinking that I'd rather keep private.  Sorry.  Go back and read the whole thing because that's all you're getting this time around.  ;)

Currently watching : Heroes - Season One Release date: 28 August, 2007

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Seven Random Facts
Current mood: impatient
Category: impatient Life

In no particular order:

1. I attended a private Catholic school from kindergarten to fifth grade.
2. I was an altar server at my local Roman Catholic church until I left for university.
3. I did not learn to swim until I was twelve.
4. I lived at six unique addresses in the seven years I lived in Manhattan and the Greater New York Area.
5. I was recruited into my high school wrestling team by my coach because I "looked like I knew my moves" during the square dancing unit of Phys. Ed.
6. I have worn glasses since first grade.
7. I have, to date, never broken a bone or needed surgery.

Currently playing : Bioshock Release date: 21 August, 2007

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Nerd-vana
Current mood: giddy
Category: Jobs, Work, Careers

I was going to write a detailed, blow-by-blow commentary of my experiences at Gen Con showing off Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer.  Talk about the ridiculously bad flight luck I had going into and out of Indianapolis; the sea of nerds in attendance ("Hi pot, I'm kettle.  You're black."); and being there for the announcement of Dungeons and Dragons 4.0.  But really, the entire trip can be distilled into a single statement: "I.  Cannot.  Believe.  They.  Pay.  Me.  Money.  To.  Do.  This.  Job."

It's been a long, hard path to this point, toiling in the code-mines of fancy investment banks; selling my soul for phatty, phatty ducats.  Trading the certainty and security of the safe, cushy job for one in the entertainment industry three thousand miles from my home.  I knew before I came out that it was not in me to do something I did not like for a lot of money.  What I did not know was whether I was going to be happy doing this unknown thing that had always been my dream -- whether I was going to end up doing something I did not like for no money at all.

I can stand here now and tell you that the dream has come true.  That my belief that if you do what you love, you can't help but be good at it, and if you are good at it, someone will pay you -- quite possibly a lot -- for that work.  I had my annual review recently, and it was stellar; accompanied by a commensurate raise.  I'm usually pretty good at assessing my own performance at work -- my strengths and weaknesses.  What caught me by surprise was that the one trait I thought was my weakest, taking initiative, was rated to be my strongest.  Here's how you know when you're doing the right thing: you don't think you're working hard, but everyone else thinks you're doing something amazing.

When you're writing code and you've happened upon a particularly elegant solution, you know it, because it seems to take less and less code to make happen what you want to make happen.  Everything starts to work together, and unforeseen side benefits start to appear serendipitously.  But I've never had that happen in my career before.

Out of personal curiosity, I went to the Wizards of the Coast booth to see what was up with D&D 4.0.  I had no expectations, at all, but after disclosing that I was responsible for coding up the D&D rules for Obsidian, I was offered a chance to participate in the 4.0 play test -- basically a chance to see the state-of-the-art of pencil & paper game design, and possibly influence it to make my own job of translating it to the computer easier.  Somehow, I have gotten myself into the position where by naturally pursuing what I enjoy, career opportunities open up.  Where, finally, doing what I love is indistinguishable from what I am rewarded for in my career.

I know you probably don't want to read about all this mushy stuff where I get to actualize my inner self.  What you really want to see are pictures of nerds doing nerdy things at the biggest nerd convention in North America.  Or hear stories about nerds dancing to goth industrial at a nerd party hosted by White Wolf, the guys that do that Vampire role-playing game.  Well, if you wait a day or two and come back, I'll have my Gen Con pictures uploaded for your perusing pleasure.  Hopefully, that will make up for having to deal with one of those really annoying people that loves their job.

Currently playing : Bioshock Release date: 21 August, 2007

4:47 PM - 1 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Ignorance is (dance) bliss.
Current mood: guilty
Category: Life

I've been spending way too much time with people who know how to dance. It's terrible. I've become that which I hate the most: a dance snob. I was out at a bar in San Francisco with my bud, and there was a little dance floor in the back. The music was very hit and miss, but I have this quirk where if the music is loud enough I cannot help but move my body to the beat. A bunch of us ended up on the dance floor. I had forgotten that 90% of the general public do not know how to dance.

I'm no super bad-ass hip-hop dancer. Heck, I'm not even that great of a Lindy Hopper. But I'd like to think I know how to find the beat. Guess what? Most people can't. One of the things you learn how to do as a dancer is watch someone and then copy them. But as hard as I tried, I couldn't copy some of those people. It turns out I have a lot of trouble dancing off beat (despite what some of my teammates might say...). I just could not copy some of that random flailing on the dance floor. What song were those people listening to? Not the same one I was.

I know this sounds terrible. I don't want to be that guy that criticizes everyone's dancing. People are just out there to have fun, and shouldn't have to feel self conscious about it. There's nothing wrong with having three moves that you use over and over regardless of what the music is doing. Most of the time it's dark, it's crowded, and if a girl is just out there shakin' her moneymaker, you're not supposed to notice that she's not doing it on beat, you're supposed to enjoy it.

But all I can think about is why they can't at least use those three moves in time with the music. If the music is going boom ba-doom boom, boom ba-doom boom, how can they possibly still be dancing to boom-boom-boom-boom boom-boom-boom-boom? The music is so loud you can feel the friggin' bass through the floor with your body.

And that is why ignorance is bliss.

7:01 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Automatic Stop
Current mood: confused
Category: Music

So many fish there in the sea
I wanted you, you wanted me
That's just a phase it's got to pass
I was a train moving too fast

Didn't understand what to see
Yeah, then I got a different view
It's you... no.

Wait, I'm gonna give it a break.
I'm not your friend,
I never was.
I said wait, I'm gonna give it a break.
I'm not your friend,
I never was.

So many fish there in the sea
She wanted him, he wanted me
That's just a phase, it's got to pass
I was a train moving to fast

Yeah, I know you warned
But this is too important
Now I got a different view
It's you...

Why can't you wait?
I'm gonna give it a break
I'm not your friend,
I never was
I said wait, I'm gonna give it a break
I'm not your friend
I never was.

-- "Automatic Stop", The Strokes


You know when you've found a good band?  The more you listen to them the better they get.  Instead of getting tired of that one addictive hook, you start to discover and hear things that you didn't hear the first time around.  That's The Strokes for me, in a nutshell.  It also takes a while to decipher what the hell Casablancas is mumbling about.  But when I did, those lyrics hit home hard.  You think what you're feeling is unique.  But it's not.  Someone's already written a song about it.  And that someone, for me, is The Strokes.

Currently listening : Room on Fire By The Strokes Release date: 28 October, 2003

10:14 PM - 1 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment