From Comingsoon.net:
The Evening Post spoke to Peter Jackson about the highly-anticipated "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring" DVD. Debunking rumors that there would be a 4-hour long version of the film, the director says that a DVD will be released in August, with a Special Edition to follow in November.

"I don't really want to call it the director's cut," he said about the Special Edition which will include an extra 30 minutes of footage not seen in the three-hour big screen version.

The extra footage wouldn't mean more blood and gore as some "Lord of the Rings" fans had speculated. "It's all drama. There is this thing on the Net about all this gory stuff I was supposed to have shot, but I didn't," Jackson adds. "We were going for a (censor's rating) of PG13 and you can't waste time shooting stuff that you know is going to get cut. It will tee everybody up before the release of The Two Towers (in December)."

The special edition DVD is also likely to include the first part of a documentary by Wellington film maker Costa Botes on the making of the $650 million project.

Always a bummer, in my opinion, to make people who are willing to shell out for the special edition wait a longer period of time to receive their copy of the DVD. Basically, it's a ploy to try and get those folks to buy both DVDs, because in this case they have plenty of time to finish and release both DVDs at the same time.
posted by Eugene Wei at 9:37 AM | link

I've been reviewing lots of resumes recently. At times like that, I like to reflect on some of the more humorous things that people have written on their resumes.
posted by Eugene Wei at 9:02 AM | link

A web-based game in which you try and type in two words
in the Google search engine and return exactly one search result. Harder than you think. I type in "plasma goulash" and got 130 results, including a web page that included these lines: "... This feedback never arrived as the plasma storm disabled all communications from ... surface and in the corona. The goulash of forces interacting constantly in ..."

"Goulash of forces"?!?

It reminds of this game Jenny sent me an e-mail about, a derivation of the Kevin Bacon game in which you're given the name of two movie stars. You have to navigate from the page of a movie which stars one of the stars to the page of a movie including the other star by using only the "People who bought this also bought this" links.

The people who devise these games obviously have a bit too much free time. But it's also another way in which the web is a fun, ever-evolving resource.
posted by Eugene Wei at 9:00 AM | link

Yeah for Alan! He successfully defended his dissertation on Monday at Washington University in St. Louis. I like that terminology--defending your dissertation. He's been working on that for many years now. I know that I probably wouldn't have been able to pursue medicine for so many years. Medicine is a long haul.

There was an interesting article in the New Yorker last week about the need for practice to become a doctor, and the difficulty of providing the best health care for every patient while still providing residents with enough practice on medical procedures. Basically, the point was that health care is not equal for all patients, and that it has a lot to do with who you know. I'm glad half my classmates from school are doctors. Hopefully I won't have a resident checking me out when I break a hip when I'm 65.

I do mini defenses every day at the office. At least a few times a day, I have to defend my ideas. Sometimes I win, sometimes I lose.
posted by Eugene Wei at 8:00 PM | link

I watch a show like Real World or Project Greenlight and think that any event can be edited to look dramatic, riveting. Life is a series of conflicts, and good editors just remove all the other parts.

I had a dream that was like Bonfire of the Vanities. I'm driving along with someone, maybe one of my sisters, at night. A crazy homeless guy runs in the path of my car. He wants money? To rob us? I jump out of the car, tell him to move. He attacks me. I defend myself, start punching him, and soon I've beaten him senseless. Flash forward. I'm arrested. I'm in court, trying to defend myself. How could I break the jaw of a poor homeless bum? I wish I had written down more of the dream this morning, when I still remembered it.

Rich pointed this out to me: next time the Garth Brooks commercial for Dr. Pepper comes on, watch carefully. There's a crazy old man wearing a red jumpsuit in the musical band that Brooks plays with in the commercial. That guy is off to the right side of the TV screen. He looks like a cross between Albert Einstein and Colonel Sanders, and he's bopping around like a freakshow. What is up with that guy? Why is he in the commercial? Why is he holding a newspaper?
posted by Eugene Wei at 10:16 PM | link

In most educated countries, the birth rate has dropped below the replacement rate, meaning that the overall population is shrinking. This is interesting if you think of reproduction as replication of strings of information, in this case those strings being DNA strands.

It was Stewart Brand who coined the phrase "information wants to be free". It recognized that people like to share secrets, and information spreads like a virus--these days we use the term meme.

In a sense, Darwinism should work with information of all forms. But it just works slower with reproduction of species. Evolution is simply survival of the most effective information strings (DNA) which produce a physical form most adapted to survival on this planet.

It's interesting to consider all of these forces converging. You have the more affluent, educated societies of the world beginning to contract as couples decide not to have kids. Birth control allows couples to indulge the genetic reproductive urge while avoiding the responsibilities of parenthood. Such couples are thwarting the propogation of the genetic information they carry. Where am I going with this? I don't know.

But I'll forge on anyway. Why is it that we're attracted to "beautiful" people? If we view the selection of our mates as a means of maximizing the chance that our DNA will survive and pass on to the next generation, perhaps we are attracted to so called beautiful people because we recognized, throughout our youth, the advantages that accrue to the beautiful. Our kids will certainly have an easier childhood if they are not unattractive in any noticeable way. As we all know, kids are cruel.

Perhaps it also explains why we are attracted to talented, successful people. Maybe it's why rock stars get all the babes. Their success is evidence of some advantage in their genetic makeup which we'd like to merge with our own DNA to strengthen it.

Then why do some women settle for the couch potato with the beer gut?

I'll diverge again. I remember reading this article in Wired by John Perry Barlow, in which he talked about how outdated patent law is when applied to the digital economy, where ideas are encoded in bits of 1's and 0's. When we exchange ideas, we are trading information of value without actually swapping currency. We've just removed that step from the equation. In the past, those ideas might be encoded as a widget which we'd then pay for with currency. Today, much of the information of value can be exchanged directly as digital goods, without that step of translation into a physical good.

This is all a long-winded way of saying that I write my weblog and keep my website to pay for all the great information I receive from the web itself. Yes, I have just two dollars on my Amazon pay page (thx Todd and Mike!). But in a way, I should be paying back the web for being a hugely valuable asset to me in the past seven years.
posted by Eugene Wei at 11:08 AM | link

All a heezy with the sheezy

That's what it read on one of the whiteboards hanging
near the lift line at Crystal yesterday. Translated from
hip skiier speak it meant that it was an epic powder day.

For a ski day to be "epic," as Sang called it yesterday
on the drive up, a few factors must converge. First comes
the snow, lots of it. Second, it has to be cold enough that
the powder stays light, fluffy, instead of becoming wet
or sticky. Third, the sun has to appear up on high.
We were blessed with all three on Saturday.

I tried out my new snowboard, boots, and bindings for
the first time. I decided to go with strap-in bindings,
a soft boot system, for comfort and control. It all worked
out beautifully. The first few runs were a bit shaky as I
tried to adjust to the new equipment, which still needs to
be tuned for me a bit. But once I figured it out, it felt
great. This board is a 158, and I was riding a 163
before. The 163 was definitely too long.

Skiing and snowboarding are two sports where finding
the right equipment is absolutely critical to enjoying the
sport. I venture that half the people who give up either
sport or never learn to love the sports suffer from faulty
equipment fit or quality. I think yesterday was my most
enjoyable day of snowboarding yet, and the equipment
was key. No one should have to be cold, or miserable,
or in pain, when skiing or boarding. So, if you're out there
and had some unpleasant experiences with rental
equipment, try getting fitted at a specialty store with
clerks who know what they're doing.

I'm definitely a proponent of strap-in metal bindings.
Plastic bindings just aren't stiff enough, and the strap-in
system feels much more secure than step-ins. Like
clipless pedals in cycling versus clips.

Another reason to head out on epic days, besides the
sheer pleasure of being out in the sun on fresh pow, is
the fact that I think it's days like that when a beginner
can become an intermediate and an intermediate can
become an expert more easily than ever. I haven't had
a great powder day since two years ago, and I felt
like my skills in boarding were stalled at the intermediate
level. In fresh powder like yesterdays, even black diamond
slopes feel very manageable, and speed isn't nearly as
intimidating as it normally is.

For once, I felt like I could keep up with Toni, who was there
with me when I first picked up a snowboard two years ago.
She and Sang were fast enough to push me up and down
the runs. Now if I can just find a day when the slopes are clear
enough so that I can listen to my MP3 player on the way
down, I may just retire and become a slope slut.

All in all, an important day on the mountains. Now I'm
really hooked, and Whistler calls next weekend.
posted by Eugene Wei at 12:29 AM | link

Osama Tezuka

Yeah! Metropolis is out today.

Please go see it peeps.

Blue moon

I couldn't sleep until 1:30 in the morning yesterday because
I was feeling all congested and feverish. So I thought there was
no way I'd get up to lift this morning. I was dead tired.

For some reason, and this happens about twice a year, I woke
up wide awake at 6:00am and headed off to the gym. I have no
idea when or why this happens. Of course, as soon as I drove
about three blocks I suddenly felt like someone had set off a
napalm bomb in my brain.
posted by Eugene Wei at 8:26 AM | link

Tired, my brother

Brutal week at work. Weeks like this make me feel an
old 28. I can understand why folks might wish to walk
away. What keeps you in the game? The challenge of it
all, the thrill of the chase, the idea of tackling the big
problem. You see some folks who have a job that doesn't
ask too much of them, it's something they've got down
pat, something that puts food on the table, gets
one by with maybe 9 to 5 hours. It's a gig, but not
the thing.

Maybe you're married, have a wife you love, kids to
put through school. The gutter is clogged, or maybe
the car won't start. That's the thing. I can see how one
might end up a middle manager at the age of 50,
shooting for that pension, or retirement.

Me? I don't got all that to distract me. The job's the
thing. Man oh man, it eats me inside out some weeks.
Big ugly problems that you obsess over, and want
others to obsess over, because you know it's the
key to everything. You dream about it, think about
it when driving (I ran a red light the other day as
I was thinking about a staffing issue). Sometimes it
seems so large and complex I'm not even sure where
to start when I sit down in the morning.

The key? Well, I don't have all the answers. I know one
thing, you have to keep moving, bite off small chunks
every day, keep momentum. Some days, if you never
get started, you end up paralyzed the whole day,
moving from one meeting to the next, answering e-mail
in between, waiting for answers. Those are the worst.
You go home feeling like an idiot. I've learned, the only
way to avoid that is to just throw yourself into it, like
jumping into the pool or the ocean. If you don't, you just
stand at the water's edge, dipping your toes in, because
it's too cold. Once you're in, it's cold, it's unpleasant, but
stay in long enough and your body acclimatizes enough
so that you forget the chill and build some momentum.
At the end of the day, maybe you still feel lousy. String
enough of those together, though, and one day you
realize you're halfway home.

To be a good husband, good son, good brother, good
manager, good citizen, good at what you do, whatever
that is. That's a ton. I don't know how some people do
it. I have enough of a hard time being good at one thing.
When, if, that all comes around, it will be serious business.
I think I'll have to choose then.

Finished setting up my home network. Now I've got
my laptop and my desktop connected to the cable modem,
and since my laptop has a wireless card I can lie in bed
at night and tap away. Haven't been in much of a mood
to write recently. But I have yet to find too much worth
a damn that isn't a real pain to get to. There's an article
in this week's New Yorker, about surgeons, and how
it's a matter of practice, becoming a good surgeon.
How they studied great pianists, architects, doctors, and
found that everyone seems to dislike the practice
equally, but the great ones are able to force themselves
through the pain. But once their careers are over, they
drop the practice just like that.

I'm still able engaged, still willing to take the punches.
But I've learned, for me, there is nothing in between. It's
swim in the deep end with the sharks, or roasting on the
beach. You won't see me hang on too long, or end up
a lifer in any one career.

The other thing? The mistakes I make always stay with
me. Can't shake them. Maybe someday I'll stop worrying
about those things in the past, and on that day I'll be
content to lie in the shade of a palm tree sipping a
martini watching the waves crawling up the beach
for hours on end.

I've been sick all week. Yuck, all clogged up with mucus.
Feels like I've run through two boxes of Kleenex. I have
no idea what's up, because I don't feel sick, just tired.
Maybe it's gone to my brain.


posted by Eugene Wei at 12:04 AM | link

28

I've realized that the only way to keep my office warm is to
keep the door shut to lessen the draft from my porous
window. Probably something to do with pressure and
temperature differences. It feels like I'm working in a frozen
tundra.

Today marked the completion of my 28th year of inhabiting
this mortal coil. Coincidentally, I also completed my 500th
workunit for SETI@home, which equates to .59 years of
computer time I've devoted to the search for intelligent life
in this universe.

Birthdays in the mid-twenties all blur together. The most
remarkable thing about them is how many people actually
remember when it is. Some people remind other people,
but others, people who live hundreds of miles away,
or people in elevators, will wish you a happy birthday.

What else happened on my birthday? Well, the morning
after, Amazon.com announced its first quarter of pro forma
net profitability. Finally, people can stop cracking jokes
about Amazon being unprofitable, or worrying that we'll
go bankrupt. That got old a long time ago.

Spielberg announced that he will produce Indiana Jones 4
starring Harrison Ford and Spielberg's wife Kate Capshaw.
posted by Eugene Wei at 2:44 PM | link

ABest--TheBest

Abest is engaged! He announced it from Germany today.
Can't wait until he's back in Seattle so I can catch up with
him and Roswitha

I know they must be ready for marriage because they've
traveled together. That's the ultimate test.

Sadly, they're both resigning from Amazon, and soon I think that
there will indeed be something like five people left from when I
joined. I'm beginning to feel like the student who can't seem
to graduate from school because he keeps pursuing another
degree, and all his classmates have moved on.
posted by Eugene Wei at 11:46 AM | link

Better than Crouching Tiger??

I've had Hero on my list of anticipated films for a while, and
James just sent me a big Time article which has raised my
expectations even further. For one thing, the film's title
has been solidified. Early reports indicated that it was titled
Heroes, but now it's just plain Hero.

Why the hype?

The director is Zhang Yimou, the man behind Raise the Red
Lantern, Ju Dou, To Live, and The Road Home, among other
classics. It's his first martial arts film, but that didn't stop
Ang Lee from achieving success. And Yimou is ambitious:
like Lee, he aims to reinvent the genre.

The cast reads like the Asian Ocean's Eleven cast:
Jet Li, Maggie Cheung, Tone Leung, Zhang Ziyi, Donnie
Yen.

The cinematographer is Christopher Doyle, who has done amazing
work with Wong Kar Wai, most recently on In the Mood for Love.
What's more, he gets the chance to film in 3 different thematic
colors, red, white, and blue, to represent the views of 3 different
characters.

Emi Wada, who won an Oscar for Ran, is providing costumes.

Tan Dun, Oscar winner for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, will
score the film.

For those who are not familiar with these vets of
Asian cinema, it's as if the entire group of celebrities who
did the Sept. 11 Tribute to America got together to make
a movie directed by Steven Spielberg.

The stable of talent in Asia at all levels of the film industry is
thinner, and perhaps that's the reason that we fans of the genre
are fortunate enough to see many collaborations b/t the stars
of that industry. It's much tougher in the United States to get
a whole bunch of big stars together on a film because of salary
and schedule constraints. And ego. In Asian films, we've seen
just about every combination possible. Well, Jet Li and Chow Yun
Fat haven't done anything together. Maybe we'll see that
someday too.
posted by Eugene Wei at 1:20 AM | link

Puccini, Stravinsky, Bernstein, Dvorak

Lots of music this week. After Pink Martini on Tuesday,
yesterday I went with Andy and Jenny to see Madam
Butterfly. My first Seattle Opera performance. Thanks
to Jenny for that drink of civilized culture. I've never seen
this opera before, and I was surprised at how straightforward
the plot was. It was a tasteful performance which interprets
the original story in a straightforward fashion.

It's your basic romantic tragedy, though I did think, "This
girl is supposed to be fifteen, and therein lies the seeds
of doom. It's often read as a cultural commentary about Americans
invading other countries, falling in love with the people
and the place, bewitching all with our carefree ways, then
running off, having plundered it of some essential element
of its cultural soul. It's often played that way, as in Miss
Saigon. But hey, any guy marries a fifteen year old and
gets her pregnant, and I guarantee there's an unhappy
ending in their future. At least Pinkerton returns for the
child, though of course it leads to her suicide, which she
chooses for her child's future and to avoid the indignity of
returning to the life of a geisha.

Tonight Christina took me to Andaluca for a birthday dinner,
and I returned the favor by taking her to see the Seattle
Symphony as a late, late birthday present. The guest
conductor was Ingo Metzmacher, and the guest soloist was
Joshua Bell. The pieces:
Stravinsky: Symphonies of Wind Instruments
Bernstein: Serenade
Dvorák: Symphony No. 9, From the New World

Joshua Bell was already famous when I was in grade school.
Back then he played this round violin, I think it was a Strad,
and he drove a Porsche, and I thought that maybe playing
the violin was a pretty sexy profession. Years later, I
have finally heard him play in person. He was very impressive
in playing the Bernstein which is a fantastic showpiece for
a violinist because of its varied textures. He doesn't play
the round violin anymore. Now he fiddles on the Gibson Strad.

The audience, which skewed older as classical
audiences do today, had a mixed response to the Bernstein
and to Bell, perhaps because of his modern dress--no
tux, just a black shirt which wasn't tucked in--and the
qualities of the Bernstein piece--it is more modern and
less classically lyrical than the most popular violin
concertos. The audience gave a much stronger standing
ovation for the New World Symphony, and yet I found the
performance of that piece to be just decent, while I thought
Bell's performance was first-rate. Classical music may be
stuck in the past for many years if this continues to be
the case. I like to see orchestras branch out to explore
different works. The future for the recorded classical
music industry is dim indeed if all we see are new
recordings of the same old pieces year after year.
So the audience response disappointed me.

Bell is one of those people that must inspire equal parts
admiration and jealousy. People magazine named him
one of the "50 Most Beautiful People in the World" in 2000.
He was the Indiana State Junior Tennis Champion for the
nine and ten year-olds age group. In 1996, Josh won first
place in a world high-score contest for the computer pinball
simulation game "Crystal Caliburn". His winning score was
4.4 billion. If he was my brother, I'd probably shoot myself.
After learning all this about him, I still might.
posted by Eugene Wei at 12:20 AM | link

Bean took me to the Pink Martini concert at the Showbox for my birthday. We met up with Wazi and Matt. After suffering through Black Angel, an opening act that never really opened, Pink Martini came on and I spent the rest of the night smiling and singing and dancing. I decided that they're the first choice to play at my wedding. Pure sugar. Anyone who can't have fun at a concert like that is dead to this world.

The best part? Lead singer China Forbes sang a song named Eugene, about a guy she met at a party in New York City, a guy who asked for her number, made out with her, and never called her. A guy named Eugene, with a skinhead friend. I'm trying to remember the whole incident. Maybe I was in NYC with Scott after he lost that bet to Dan and had to shave his head? He looked like a skinhead back then.

The second best part? I thought they'd close the concert with Brazil. Turns out that I was right, though it was the last song of their encore. Wazi claims it was because she and Bean
kept shouting for the song (on my behalf). That sounds good to me.

They certainly played enough amazing material to come out with a second CD, but until they do, pick up your copy of Sympathique post haste. Your next cocktail party is guaranteed to be a hit.
posted by Eugene Wei at 12:53 AM | link

Balance

The Segway human transport device's most ballyhooed feature
is something which a human being accomplishes naturally,
and that is a sense of balance. The Segway does it through
mechanical gyroscopes. I'm not sure how the human body
does it, but I suspect we have programmed chemical triggers
that ensure that we don't starve, or sleep too little, or stress
too much. Our bodies come with some programmed settings
that it considers normal and healthy, and for the most part
our bodies uses all its powers to keep us within shooting
range of those settings.

But something that most endurance athletes know is that
to become truly good at something, you have to force yourself
outside those acceptable ranges, those comfort zones, for
long periods of time, until your body and mind recalibrate
and accept the new settings as normal.

Another things that's true is that it's also very difficult to
be very good at a lot of things. Geniuses tend to skew
off the charts on some dimensions of life while being
extremely deficient on others. Sometimes they choose
those areas of deficiency, and other times they seem to
have no choice. I admire the movie Pollock more
than A Beautiful Mind (though both movies failed, I thought,
to provide a deep insight into their main characters)
because the former admitted that Pollock was both
a great genius and a sometimes difficult husband,
while the latter steered clear of many of John Nash's
real-life shortcomings.

Generally, when I look back on my 2001, I see lots of
balance. I managed, for the most part, to steer clear of
any extreme, obsessive behavior. But maybe everything was
a bit too comfortable. Someday, looking back, I may not
remember anything from 2001. On the one hand, I cut
out lots of the silly extremes that one tends to embrace
in ones youth. On the other hand, the idea of being a
normal middle-aged adult bores me silly.

So in 2002, my one resolution is to embrace healthy
obsessive behavior. It could very well come from work.
My project list for the year is long, and in some ways
ludicrous. But in a good way.

Should be easier

I upgraded to the new RealNetworks RealOne player, and it
crashes over and over when I try and edit some of the information
about music tracks on my computer using the RealOne player
interface. I have no idea why. Maybe the upgrade wasn't
quality tested properly. Perhaps I've passed the acceptable
volume of MP3s on my hard drive that RealOne can handle
stably.

At first I thought this was one of those classic fables about
how market share is won and lost just so easily. Computer users
are lazy and just want something that works. Maybe this would be
one more competitor which would finally succumb to Microsoft's
endless patience and perseverance. So I switched over to using
the Windows Media Player to play my MP3s.

Nope. For some reason it skips every few seconds when I'm
playing music.

You'd think it would be easy to write software to play MP3s. All
I need is the ability to list all my MP3s, sort them and edit their
titles, and play them. All that other stuff, like skins and
visualizations, is just unnecessary gravy.

So you have these two behemoths, Microsoft and RealNetworks,
both on something like their 8th or 9th versions of their digital
music apps, and the most reliable and useful program I've found
thus far? Nullsoft's Winamp.

Fine, don't take my word for it

It's funny when some celebrity makes a very unremarkable
observation and gets quoted just because they're a celebrity:

Cruise's Advice For Snowboarders

Tom Cruise urges wannabe snowboarders to commit to three full days on
the slopes before deciding whether or not to take up the winter sport.
Cruise, himself a keen boarder, says too many people expect to get used
to the dangerous sport immediately - and get put off when they crash too
many times. He says, "I've got some friends that are surfers and they
say snowboarding is easier but you have to commit to three days. I've
had some crashes but I wear a helmet. You've got to. I've been skiing
for 20 years and I got a little bored with it."

Yeah, what he said. I took Michelle and some of her HBS classmates
up to Whistler this weekend. There's a moment, when you're cruising
down the mountain on your snowboard, the whole world spread
before you like infinite possibility, all of which you can see but choose
to leave alone, and Manu Chao is piping Me Gustas Tu into
your ear through your iPod, when you understand why it is that
people have vacation homes. The geographical separation of the
skihaus in Whistler allows me to leave behind work and all the
other worries which have spatially become associated with the
city of Seattle through simple daily reinforcement and proximity.
posted by Eugene Wei at 11:36 PM | link

Sorry

Weblog archive links are all fixed now. I screwed up the
javascript. Proof that I am not a nerd, despite all pretenses
to the contrary.
posted by Eugene Wei at 12:28 AM | link

Shadow

I put the plastic screen over my TV, so now I have to watch
TV with all the light outs, otherwise the reflections in the
screen distract me. With the screen on, and in the dark,
the picture just looks better.

So tonight I lit a few candles I received for Xmas while
watching The West Wing, and during a commercial I
looked up and saw the shadow of a figure with his
arms raised overhead stretched all the way across
the ceiling. It was the shadow cast by a statue of a man
with arms raised high, in triumph, I think. I bought it
in Africa. In the shadow, though, it looks as if the guy
is jumping me. Or perhaps he has his arms raised
in surrender, as if I've drawn a gun on him. I can't
tell.

Josh Lyman gets the girl in tonight's episode. I was
following him carefully all episode. He makes up an
excuse to go see Amy (played by Mary Louise Parker),
she sees right through it, he starts to stammer through
a speech about how he never learned what to do next
after he started to like someone, so on and so forth,
and then she kisses him. What? Is anyone that lucky?
And what did Mary Louise Parker do to her hair?
She turned into a babe. I am very depressed I never
saw her in the New York performance of Proof. Yet
another reason I should move to New York City.

David Chase needs to get his act together. No more
Sopranos until Sept? Sheesh. Aaron Sorkin is coked
up half the time and he's managing to crank out
episodes every week. Now I just have 24 and The
West Wing to watch on TV each week.

The Michael Jackson special is on in the background.
That guy can flat out sing and dance. His duet with
Britney makes her sound like a backup singer. Why'd
he have to go and cut up his face? Before I die, I hope
I get to see Michael Jackson and Madonna in concert.
I think the only music acts I can remember that were
hot when I was in grade school and now are Michael
Jackson, Madonna, and U2. Well, R.E.M. is still
around, but I have no idea what they're up to.

Michelle is in town from HBS this weekend, interviewing
with Amazon. We're going to head up to the house at
Whistler with some of her classmates. My lack of a big
car with four wheel drive finally catches up with me. I
really should swap with Bill and give him the babemobile
this weekend. Oh wait, he doesn't need it anymore.

I haven't seen Michelle for I'm not sure how long. It's
strange, though. A few e-mails back and forth and it's
like we're at Stanford again, prowling the dorm halls
in our bathrobes and slippers, working on problem
sets.

Mark and Howie have new flames at Andersen. I'm
convinced it's all about volume and density, supply
and demand.

I'm babbling on about nothing. I just enjoy typing on
my Mac laptop. I always feel like I'm one of those movie
hackers when I type on laptops. Cuz you know, in the
movies, to break into some secure computer system,
you just have to type really really fast on a laptop.
Another thing I love about the movies? When someone
writes something ingenious, it only takes another
character a quick skim through the pages to determine
that yes, it's ingenious. Like in A Beautiful Mind, when
John Nash brings his work on game theory to the
math chair at Princeton. He flips through about 140 pages
in about 15 seconds and pronounces, "You realize this
flies in the face of 150 years of thinking." Or something
like that.

And class is always so short in the movies. Classroom
scenes in movies always go one of a few ways:
1. The scene starts near the end of class. The teacher is
talking and mid-sentence the bell rings and students start
piling out. Meanwhile, the teacher is trying to shout out the
homework assignment.
2. The scene starts at the beginning of class but the entire
class ends about 5 minutes later. It's the 5 minute class
period.

I haven't given up on my novel. I spent an hour tapping away
tonight. I'll finish that damn thing this year.

Billy Jean, that's my lover...Billy Jean, that's my lover...she's
just a girl...she says I am the one...


posted by Eugene Wei at 10:45 PM | link

Episode II

That fine line between fanaticism and loserdom? These guys
crossed it.

I may wait out a day for the movie. It's part of the fun, investing
in the experience. But with the news that George Lucas is putting
a few N Sync members in the movie because his daughter's a
fan, I am resigned to the fact that George Lucas is, for the most
part, a lousy director, and he's in control now. The best film of
the series was The Empire Strikes Back, and I firmly believe it's
because Irvin Kershner, and not George Lucas, directed. Lucas
can't tell a tight, gripping story, but he can craft strong action
scenes.
posted by Eugene Wei at 12:32 AM | link

Not the long shot

Anytime you see a long shot in the movies of
someone approaching a car and then getting in,
you know the car is going to blow up.
posted by Eugene Wei at 11:00 PM | link

AFI Film Awards

Watched AFI's Film Awards show, the first ever, while cleaning
my room tonight. It managed to finish on schedule, mostly because
most of the winners weren't there to receive their awards (or weren't
allowed to give a speech). For the most part, everyone played it
straight--there was no host to fill time with jokes.

AFI's film of the year
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

AFI's actor of the year
Denzel Washington, Training Day

AFI's actress of the year
Sissy Spacek, In the Bedroom

AFI's director of the year
Robert Altman, Gosford Park

On a related note, one of the AFI voting committee members,
Roger Ebert, released his top ten films of 2001:
1. Monster's Ball
2. Black Hawk Down
3. In the Bedroom
4. Ghost World
5. Mulholland Drive
6. Waking Life
7. Innocence
8. Wit
9. A Beautiful Mind
10. Gosford Park

I haven't seen all of those films yet. I did see Ghost World,
Mulholland Drive, and Waking Life, all of which were great.
I saw Gosford Park but the showing was so late I fell asleep
in parts. A few of these movies only got released in L.A. and
NYC at year end to gain Oscar eligibility. I hate when they
do that. It means someone gets to see the movie before me.

Old Letters

I spent most of the day rearranging my room, moving things,
tossing out old magazines and pictures. I made the difficult decision
to throw out all the old Christmas and birthday cards and letters and
postcards I'd saved up over the years. Some came from friends
I had. Some from friends I still have. Some from former girlfriends.
Family members. Business associates. Institutions. Newspaper
clippings from my mother.

Of course, I had to read each one before tossing it out. Amazing
how we all used to compose long, hand-written letters to each other.
E-mail has rendered it a dying art. That would be okay if we still
continued to send each other long, thought-out letters. But instead,
we have a series of short, episodic e-mails, many composed
as events occur. Thus they often lack the longer-term perspective
which the semi-annual letter contains. Contained.

Reading through all of those, I felt a wave of sappiness wash over
me. And the end of Cast Away was playing on HBO, and I felt
sad watching Tom Hanks talk about finding his wife again, and
losing her again. He's an amazing actor, because everything he
does feels honest.

So I began feeling lovelorn, so I listened to Sting's rendition of
"Someone to Watch Over Me".

I miss seeing people's handwriting, which conveys a person's
craft, personality. In e-mail, lack of punctuation and capitalization
passes for personal style. Emoticons, excessive use of
abbreviations like IMHO or LOL. At least with hand-written notes,
one could examine the handwriting even if the sentences were
banal.

Yes, it's true, I didn't end up throwing out all of those old letters
and notes. Some of them. I remembered why I kept them.

3 more years for Mike

Disclosure is playing on HBO tonight. Funny, because Dennis
Miller's character says to Michael Douglas, "Ten years from
now, you'll need a forklift to get a hard on." That film played
in 1994. Catherine Zeta Jones has 3 years of fun left.
posted by Eugene Wei at 11:16 PM | link

Holiday Break 2001

Higlights from this vacation:

• No egg nog or fruit cake. But Christmas Day turkey.


• Lots of Krispy Kreme donuts.


• Lots of eating in general. I got fat.


• Lots of sleeping. Helped the fat to settle in.


• I gave James the Zoolander screener for Xmas. We watched it too many times over break. I'm already guilty of constantly quoting movies (an easy fallback when I can't conjure up original material), but this holiday break was excessive, abusive. Zoolander, like Austin Powers, improves each time you watch it. Will Farrell, Ben Stiller, and Owen Wilson are just invite imitation.


• Managed to avoid trite comedic clams "Don't go there" or "That's a little too much detail" or " Nazi" like "soup nazi." One New Year's resolution is to try and never resort to such trite comic sayings.


• My stepbrother James is currently the funniest guy I know. Our family's favorite is his scream of delight. Example. After opening our presents, my dad suddenly announced, with some gravity, "Now it's time to eat jello." James raised his arms up high and screamed, "Whoooooooooooooooooooo! I didn't think it could get any better."


• My little sister Karen has more guys chasing after her than any girl I know. Of course, my only evidence is the five million phone calls she receives everyday from random guys, since she won't tell me anything. Claims I'm overprotective. Hmm, I guess I am. She's so nonchalant about it all, too.


• A healthy (unhealthy?) dose of Grand Theft Auto 3. "Mike, beat that guy up! Use the bat! Wait, beat up the pimp! Pick up that whore!"


• Played drinking games with sisters. Karen was the King elephant. I was the fish. What's more disturbing? Knowing your sisters know drinking games like this, or knowing they can beat you at them?


• Sisters tried Pepcid AC to prevent Asian alcohol blush. It failed.


• Learned some of Karen's 2XS dance troop moves.


• The ostrich appetizer at Cafe Absinthe is pure butter, i.e. melts in your mouth.


• Listened to jazz at the Green Mill. I miss the Chicago jazz and blues scene.


• Visited my cousins back out in Naperville. They're well. My aunt gave me a huge bottle of Neutrogena Norwegian Formula lotion, currently my favorite. The advantage of
  having a cousin who works for Johnson and Johnson. I get lots of free Neutrogena products. I still need a loofa, though. I always forget to pick one up when I'm out at the store. Yeah, I'm going to start using a loofa, you have a problem with that? It's a result of watching American Psycho with James and practicing my Patrick Bateman voice in the shower. "


• "Do you like Phil Collins? I've been a big Genesis fan ever since the release of their 1980 album, Duke. Before that, I really didn't understand any of their work. Too artsy, too intellectual. It was on Duke where, uh, Phil Collins' presence became more apparent. I think Invisible Touch was the group's undisputed masterpiece. It's an epic
  meditation on intangibility. At the same time, it deepens and enriches the meaning of the preceding three albums. Christy, take off your robe. Listen to the brilliant ensemble playing of Banks, Collins and Rutherford. You can practically hear every nuance of every instrument. Sabrina, remove your dress. In terms of lyrical craftsmanship, the sheer songwriting, this album hits a new peak of professionalism. Sabrina, why don't you, uh, dance a little. Take the lyrics to Land of Confusion. In this song, Phil Collins addresses the problems of abusive political authority. In Too Deep is the most moving pop song of the 1980s, about monogamy and commitment. The song is extremely uplifting. Their lyrics are as positive and affirmative as, uh, anything I've heard in rock. Christy, get down on your knees so Sabrina can see your ass. Phil Collins' solo career seems to be more commercial and therefore more satisfying, in a narrower way. Especially songs like In the Air Tonight and, uh, Against All Odds. Sabrina, don't just stare at it, eat it. But I also think Phil Collins works best within the confines of the group, than as a solo artist, and I stress the word artist. This is Sussudio, a great, great song, a personal favorite."

Yes, this is all fluff. I don't get daily or even weekly phone updates from everyone in my family, so holiday breaks are for gathering as many data points as possible on just one point in time and trying hard to get a sense for whether the trendline are up, down, or flat. All things being equal, I think everyone's looking good. Nothing's guaranteed, but we've all got a fighting chance to have a great 2002.
posted by Eugene Wei at 11:16 PM | link