renata was planning on quietly slipping out of the house this morning were it not for the note i left her last night taped to the tv, letting her know i'd be waking up at 9am. i found her in the living room, curled up underneath a blanket, but snapped awake as soon as she heard me. she told me she had a dream where i read her more pages from my private written journal. she left for rhode island, where the annual new year's tradition of lentil soup was waiting for her at her parents' place.
with a gift canteloupe in my bag, i left for eliza's birthday brunch in boston. for some reason it wouldn't be at her new place in jamaica plain (which i still haven't seen) but rather at jerica's pad in mission hill. i took the E train all the way to the end to heath street and found the location without any problems (it doesn't hurt that i'd been there before). dave greeted me at the door and upstairs i found rob house (back from his european vacation), along with the usual cast of characters. i grabbed some food and ate in the sunny living room, watching rob and sarah go head-to-head in several spirited games of ultimate pick-up-sticks.
after everyone was engorged with brunch, after birthday cupcakes were dispersed to the guests, we played some games. besides pick-up-sticks, we also had operation. the light was working but the buzzer was broken, until dave managed to fix it. although i was the first doctor to successfully complete an operation ($300 for removing the wishbone), shauna ended up the big winner. next, this game that's similar to taboo where you try to guess a word but none of those taboo restrictions (it plays like hot potatoes). the last game involved picking celebrity names from a hat and trying to get your team members to guess who it is. everyone had to write names at the start of the game, and of course i managed to pick the most obscure characters like "tyler durgan" and "that little girl from small wonder." the team i was on seemed to be losing big, but after the final count our team was only a few celebrities shy of victory.
next, dave attempted to freak us out with several card tricks. i now think he's the devil. from the apartment window i could see the sunset, and what it was telling me was tonight's weather would be clear. instead of seeing a movie with these guys, i decided to go home and try my luck at astronomy. i bid them a fond farewell and walked back to the station where i caught the train to cambridge.
while i was preparing some quick dinner (reheating leftover chili) i was also digging out all my star charts and books and flashlights and planisphere in preparation for stargazing. i can't remember the last time i used the telescope but it used to be my new year's eve tradition (2001 and 2002, not 2003 though): instead of getting caught up in the disappointment of celebration, i go to someplace dark and cold and spend that night looking at the stars. seeing something a few hundred light years away puts things into perspective i think. i dressed warmly, and when my father came to pick me up, i left with all my equipment, including a pair of binoculars and the portable rechargeable car battery.
i've always just observed from my parents' backyard, but over the years the trees have gotten taller and now it's hard to get an unobstructed view. fortunately, they live next to a park, and with the portable battery i could take the telescope remotely for the very first time. so we packed the telescope into its original shipping box (lined with foam to perfectly fit the equipment) and put everything on a pushcart that we wheeled down the street into the park. it all seemed very suspicious and i was just counting the minutes before some concerned neighbor called the police. we found a good spot in the middle of the field, behind the tennis courts, right next to a baseball bleacher.
setting up the telescope would take 30 minutes. first of it, it was dark. i had a flashlight poking out of my mouth, but it had a red filter on it so the light wasn't bright enough to see clearly. second, it was cold, and my fingers were starting to freeze as i fumbled to assemble everything. first, the 30 lbs. telescope (an 8" schmidt-cassegrain, all metal and glass) had to be screwed onto the field tripod (20 lbs.). it took a while and i was starting to get fustrated because i couldn't get the screw to thread, but i was finally able to do it with my father's help. next, the telescope had to be aligned so it's completely horizontal to the ground. we raised and lowered the 3 legs of the tripod until the bubble in the leveler was dead-centered. with the hardware part over, it was time to set up the software. the software is used for tracking the stars once i have everything set up. i plugged everything in and turned on the telescope. first, i set the new location coordinates using my gps. second, i set the internal clock to the atomic time by calling the exact time number. finally, i align the scope by using two stars to fix it sky position. tonight it'd be sirius (in canis major) and regulus (in leo). viola! all set for observation!
i was already pretty tired from just setting up the telescope that there weren't too many things on my lists of things to see. we saw the comet machholz in the taurus constellation. in the scope it looks like a fuzzy greenish ball, no further details can be resolved. the comet actually looks better through a pair of binoculars, one of those rare times when you don't want something high-powered. next, the planet saturn, right below stars castor and pollux in the gemini constellation. tonight's seeing was especially clear for some reason, despite the cold and the strong winds. the cassini division was easily visible, align with faint traces of the other divisions. bandings can be detected on the planet surface. M42 the great orion nebula is a winter's favorite, and the four stars of the trapezium was framed perfectly in the greenish glow of the nebula. my father got all sentimental, said that the trapezium was a good analogy for the four members of our family. eventually the moon came up over the eastern horizon. through the telescope we could see the enormous circular plain of mare imbrium (777 miles across), with the crater plato (62 miles diameter) on the northwestern edge of its walls. the crater copernicus (58 mile) lies at the bottom, with rays that stretch out 373 miles across.
earlier renata had called me to let me know that she'd just gotten back from providence and was feeling too tired to come out. fortunately i didn't listen to her voicemail message before i called her, asking her to come out and see the stars. she was still on the fence about it and i told her i'd call her back later. after my father had seen his fill of stars, i called renata again around 11pm. i was afraid she wouldn't come out because i called her too late and she'd probably be asleep. sure enough, she was asleep, doze off while reading a book. to my surprise though, she was still game, and drove out to the park after my father went back home. i didn't realize it but it's actually nearly impossible to see anyone at night in the center of the park from the outside (although i can still see everything). i saw someone getting out of a car loudly whispering my name a few times, then started to leave. i ran out to flag renata down before she left. i told her to dress warmly and that she did, arriving in a large puffy jacket that i've never seen before, carrying with her a container of hot tea which i was thankful to have, along with some kleenex for my runny nose.
the telescope was pointing at the moon when renata arrived, and she took a peek. while trying to get the scope to go back to saturn, something happened to the electronics (too cold maybe?) and it wouldn't track anymore, no matter how much i fiddled with the plugs and the controller. so instead we looked at saturn manually, hands tweaking the fine adjustment knobs when the planet starts to move out of the eyepiece. for the finale, i turned the telescope to the orion nebula, which renata seemed to really like. having spent some time in texas and visited one of the large telescopes there, she's seen saturn before, but she's never seen a live nebula, and M42 is the best one out there.
by that time i'd already spent almost 3 hours standing outside in the cold. renata helped me pack up the equipment but nearly had a panic attack when she saw that the lining of the box was all foam, the one material she can't stand. i loaded everything onto the pushcart and renata followed me out of the park and down the street to my parents' place. most surprising thing of the night? the fact that the cops never came to investigate, i was sure i'd be mentioned in the police blotter for this week.
after carrying all the equipment back into the house, renata was kind enough to give me a ride back to my place. i was able to retrieve the candy that i'd accidently left in her car. i was feeling a little bit light-headed from being out in the cold for so long, and was happy to get back home to someplace warm. i watched a few episodes of the ongoing twilight zone marathon before going to bed.
i live just a short walk away from the harvard natural history museum. on sunday mornings the museum is free (before 12pm) and it's on this day that i decided to take julie since she's never been there. the place was packed with small children and their shrieking can be heard throughout the museum. fortunately they have short attention spans and it's easy to outwait them before they run away to another exhibit room. the last time i came to the museum was july 2003; the special dinosaur eggs exhibit is now gone, replaced with a biogeology exhibit about the origins of earthly life. the collection of victorian tapeworms collected from high society people is now gone as well, replaced with one of the museum's beetle collections. the coelacanth is missing too, removed to have some cosmetic work done to it. i hadn't been to the museum since my costa rica trip, so it was interesting revisiting some of the animals i saw in the jungle, like the tamandua, the manakins, and the quetzal (although i didn't actually see a quetzal).
kronosaur
beaver
sperm whale
dolphin fish
cock of the rock
quetzal
weevils
beetles
day of the dead
after we were done with the animal side (including the glass flowers), it was on to the rock collection. by this point julie was already all museumed out (she didn't realize how big it was), so we just took a quick survey of the place, including the adjoining peabody museum of archaeology and ethnology. we left to get some food in harvard square. julie was on the phone trying to get somebody to deliver a dryer to her apartment and was literally on the phone for 30 minutes while i waited for her to hang up so we could go eat, testing the very limits of my patience. we went to pho pasteur, i had the beef, she went with the chicken. we weren't shy with the hot sauce, trying to make things spicy to warm up on such a cold day.
after i got home i took a shower to wash off the museum stink (the smell of formaldehyde and children). i parked myself on the couch with a bag of terra vegetables chips and watched the postgame analysis of another new england patriots victory (the last game of the regular season). i fell asleep for a little bit before my father came to pick me up. i had a quick dinner with my family, before i got a return ride back to cambridge.
other than to feed dan's fish, i had nothing else going on today. i was relieved to see that none of the other fish had died during the past week. when i came back home, i gave my pizza rolls lunch the proper time to digest before changing into my shorts and turtleneck for a run on this 50 degrees day. i thought i'd be all out of shape since it's been weeks since my last run (041217) but i actually ran with a lot of energy today. i cramped up in the final mile though and walked the rest of the way back. after a hot shower i watched resident evil: armageddon on dvd. not as good as the first one (although two chicks for the price of one leaves nothing to complain about), with more zombie chopsuey than i really care for (everyone knows the best way to dispatch the undead is with brain-directed bullets, not to bust out the karate on their dead asses). checking my e-mail, i got a message from renata with a request from her friend to take a photo down. in the history of my weblog this has happened only one other time before, with a colorful housepainter who later asked for a copy of the photo to post on his own website. in any case, it left me in a foul mood for some reason, like some how i did something wrong and was chastised for it. my hurt feelings was short-lived however, when rob called to drop by and pick up his bicycle that he left in my basement before he went off on his european vacation. we chatted a little bit (making fun of the celebrity news, trying to score tsunami videos, the poop on france) before he returned to jamaica plain. julie came by soon afterwards with some laundry; since her dryer was busted, i let her do a wash at my place. we watched the rebroadcast of game 1 of the 1975 world series between the boston red sox and the cincinnati reds. luis tiant was the pitcher, with a supporting cast of the likes of carl yastrzemski, jim rice, dwight evans, and carlton fisk. don zimmer of the pedro-charging-fame was actually the red sox 3rd base coach (small world). the designated hitter rule didn't seem to apply as pitcher luis tiant managed to score the game winning run with some good base running in fenway park. it was just really interesting seeing the stars of yesteryear, many of whom still appear time-to-time on sports talk shows. the picture quality was something to be desired with the washed-out retrovideo, the intermittent score/inning overlays were vintage 1970's fabrications, and the camera work was still in its infancy with frequent missed plays and fustrating vantage points. compared to the sports broadcasts we have today, you can really appreciate how far we've come. i had some chinese dumplings for dinner and what i didn't finish i gave to julie. she brought some color "dot" candy which i had a hard time digesting because i can't stand eating the paper that gets stuck to each dot.
i went and saw the aviator with bruce today, the martin scorsese directed biopic about the life of howard hughes. like many end of the year films, it's been getting good reviews, although after having seen the movie, i'd give it 3 stars (out of 5), perhaps a little less. the movie entertains, but i get the feeling that at this point in his career, scorsese is just doing personal projects now without really worrying too much if these films will be met with box office success or failure. how this particular movie can find a spot on critics' best films lists leaves me scratching my head. howard hughes the man is an interesting one, a young millionaire who inherits his parents' fortunes, he spends his days chasing his dreams, with plenty of astonishing successes in his early years, only to be met with just as many incredible defeats later in life. the movie seems to say that if you're rich and good-looking, you can do anything: date pretty starlets one after the other, set the world's speed record, buy an airline, and design bras for jane russell. hughes is a renaissance man, with a workaholic drive fueled by his lofty dreams, a master of multi-tasking and an eye for every excruciating detail. he seems to have it all, were it not for that one infamous tragic flaw, his growing insanity as he becomes a germophobe. all that seems interesting, right? but the movie feels dry, and even though hughes was doing one cool thing after another, i kept on wondering to myself, "why should i care?" it's like watching the lives of celebrities, you know they lead interesting lifestyles, but they're so far away removed from the normal and everyday, that what they do in their mansions or private jets doesn't concern me.
later in the evening when julie came over for dinner i made glazed chicken with cashew nuts served over a rice pilaf and some cream puffs for dessert. there was hardly anything good on television, we surfed around a bit. at least there was tuesday night's SVU but it was pre-empted by a special amber frey (scott peterson's girlfriend) interview. i thought it'd be exploitative and maybe she's out to make a quick buck, but it was actually really interesting. amber frey was more intelligent than she seemed and scott peterson is definitely a sociopath deserving of the death penalty, that guy is just a creepy bastard.
last updated Sat January 8th, 2005 10:07AM | comments (3) | link
after 4 hours of sleep i woke up at 7am with the sky still dark and got myself ready to go over to renata's place to take her to the dentist. bag filled with books (who knows how long it'll take) and a single cantaloupe, i made my way to harvard square. instead of having renata drive all the way to the other side of cambridge to pick me up, i told her i'd be taking the bus. i stopped by the dunkin' donuts to get a croissant sandwich and a coffee and ate breakfast in the underground terminal, the heat from the food forming columns of smoke in the cold weather. the 78 bus actually arrived 4 minutes early (thank god i was there early, lessons learned from years of bus riding) and i hopped on with my 90¢ fare. once i got off the bus, renata called me to remind her to bring back the tooth for her brother marsian (who wanted to use it for an art installation); i think her real reason for calling was just to make sure i was actually coming (as if i would forget! i had two alarm clocks set to ring, in case one should fail). i found renata in her house, as cordial as ever, but below the surface she was a nervous wreck, worried, afraid, of going to the dentist. she looked like she was about to face an execution.
unlike most people who get their wisdom teeth taken out before they turn 25, renata still had all of hers. blessed with molars that grew straight rather than sideways crooked, there was never any need to get them removed. until today that is. a prior cavity on a wisdom tooth that wasn't properly filled in came back to haunt her, and now her dentist's advised an extraction rather than trying to repair the tooth again. however, little did i know, and renata just told me about this today, but back when we were adolescents, she had 4 perfectly good teeth removed in order to accommodate her braces, just like the urban legend of the model who gets ribs removed so she can fit into a particular dress size. her wisdom teeth are in fact not extraneous teeth but actually a part of the normal set of teeth. but now with one tooth missing, renata's down to just 27 teeth, and she told me that her dentist wants to remove the other 3 remaining wisdom teeth as well, leaving renata with just 24 teeth to work with.
it was snowing by the time we left. the weather reminded renata of the last time she got her teeth pulled, which was snowing as well; i think it set the perfect backdrop for the occasion. we found a parking spot as soon as we arrived in belmont center, and i escorted renata to the dentist office. soon after checking in, an assistant came out to ask renata to come in. "bye tony," she said with a nervous smile, as she was led away. in the back of my mind i could hear ominous music playing. i took the time to return some cvs purchases for her then came right back to the office. before i even had a chance to read a few pages of river town, renata came back out. it happened so quickly, i thought maybe they didn't even do it, but the dried blood on her cheek and the traumatic gaze in renata's eyes told me otherwise. with jaws clenched over a gauze pad, renata said we could go. the dentist wouldn't let her keep the tooth because it's a "blood-born pathogen." in her hands she held a gauze-filled paper bag with printed care instructions. we went to cvs again to get an ice pack (renata also got some ice cream) before i drove renata home.
i was ready to spend the day pampering renata for her post-extraction recovery, but there wasn't very much for me to do. she couldn't talk very much with the gauze still in her mouth to stop the bleeding, and eating was of course out of the question. she seemed to be in a daze, perhaps residual effects of the nitrous oxide, perhaps other factors. i looked at her with helpless concern. she went to take a nap and i stuck around, reading the latest issue of newsweek in the living room, on standby if renata should need anything. when she woke up a little bit later, we watched some television, then she fixed me lunch. wasn't i supposed to be the one doing the pampering? she made me an egg ham sandwich, while she herself had some homemade egg drop soup from a mug. we watched a little more tv (tv, my anti-drug, which in itself is already a drug - upright citizens brigade was what we saw) and i helped renata put in a new ink cartridge for her printer (tony yang, your friendly neighborhood IT guy). renata went to her bedroom to take another nap. at that point i felt a little useless, and maybe she was too nice to ask me to leave, and maybe i just didn't read the signs and overstayed my welcome, so i gathered up my things, said a quick good bye, and walked out into the snow, back to the bus stop that'd return me to harvard square. my senses heightened by the caffeine, with the landscape draped in snow, everything suddenly had a sharp crystal clarity.
i wasn't home very long before i went back out again. sara had sent me a pass to see million dollar baby in boston common and i asked julie to come along. dan dropped by my place before i left,
dan
julie
joel
to retrieve his keys after returning from brazil and to share a few vacation anecdotes. by shear coincidence julie and i just happened to be on the same train heading into boston. in her hand she held her ultra-insulative thermos. "is it weaponized?" i asked, almost certain that they wouldn't admit her into the theatre with a missile shaped device hiding in her bag. there was a long line when we got to the theatre, which turned out to be exactly the line we were supposed to be in even though we were there 40 minutes early. i saw sara walking around checking out the line situation and i waved to her. "oh, you don't have to wait in line," she said, then escorted us into the screening room, down the stretch of people waiting to get in. it felt weird but cool. there was nobody inside but joel, as we looked for seats in the empty theatre room. soon people started coming in. the event wasn't as capacity-filled as prior engagements (maybe this was a bigger room, maybe less came out due to the weather), which made for a less stressful screening.
million dollar baby could've been a well-made rocky style clone, the story about an underdog aging woman boxer (hilary swank) who compels a tentative boxing trainer (clint eastwood) through a show of determination and good work ethics to take her under his tutelage and mold her into a competitive boxer, with the chance of one day competing in a title fight to win the big money. throw in a wise old black man as the go-between foil (morgan freeman), sprinkle a few other interesting characters, and you have yourself a pretty decent movie; a decent movie that's been played out before time and time again. but get this: the final 20 minutes of the film takes an unexpected turn, and now suddenly you have something different, transforming the movie from a rockesque venture to something thought-provoking and genuine, something that stays with you long after the movie's over, something brave and sad and wonderful and gut-wrenching. those looking for formulaic should look elsewhere: million dollar baby is all about doing what you don't expect, and in so doing, it makes for a more realistic movie, because that's life for you, all twists and turns, where good guys occasionally lose and bad guys sometimes win. it wouldn't shock me to see all three of the main leads with some sort of oscar nomination come award season. despite the film being a drama, there's a surprising amount of humor as well. it's definitely one of those movies with some staying power, makes you laugh, makes you think, and makes you feel.
after the movie i took julie to the noodle alcove. "i don't like chinese food," is something i've heard her say more than once, so i sensed some reluctance when we went there. other than one other table the place was empty, which made me think maybe it was about to close but they served us anyway. i recommended one of the noodle soups (which is their speciality) but julie decided to get the double pan fried noodles. after a dash of hot sauce my beef noodle soup (actually tendon, they ran out of beef) became an intoxicatingly delicious blend of flavors. the heat of it all made me sweat like i'd just been through a hard workout, but that's the perfect food for cold winter days. a lot of restaurant friends and family members came into the shop, and everyone sat around us, chatting in taiwanese mandarin, which made for some awkward eating, like we were being watched, or maybe they were waiting for us to leave. i spoke with the owner, who said she thought i was korean when i first came in, that the shape of my head looked korean, along with the curls of my hair.
the train ride home was loud, so we had to shout in order to be heard. the lights in the cabin were broken, so we rode in partial darkness for most of the way. i got off at porter square and went home. lying on the couch, it didn't take me long before i passed out.
it kept on snowing today. when it looked it'd stopped, i went out to shovel the sidewalk. it was hailing instead, small ice pebbles, i just couldn't see them from inside the house. once again i helped my neighbor renee do her stretch of sidewalk as well. where is she? her car is parked right outside my house, but it hasn't been moved in days. i really think some of her tenants should pitch in and help out with the street maintenance after a snowstorm. other than shoveling, the only other constructive thing i did today was to call macmall and ask them when my multimedia player was coming; the woman told me they expect a shipment on the 8th. in the late afternoon bruce and i got together again and went to go see another movie down in harvard square (closer). the walk was treacherous as we circumvented around deep puddles of ice water. most of the time my feeling about the weather is pretty much neutral, but if you were to ask me today if i liked the snow i'd tell you i hate it. we went to cvs to buy some contrabands so we wouldn't have to pay the extortion amount of concession food before we got to the theatre.
i heard closer was a talking movie (a "drama"), and many people have described it as brutal and i heard from elsewhere that there were graphic sex talk and that natalie portman plays a stripper. based on these information i went and saw the movie. verdict? although i wouldn't say this movie is for everyone, those who do see it will be blown away. from the same guy who brought you angels in america and the graduate, so you know it's going to be a top-notch "feeling" movie. the sex talk didn't bother me because i'm so desensitized to it (thank you internet). it was the emotions that got me: infidelity, couples breaking up, couples trying to get back together. and you know when couples fight and they air out all their dirty laundry? there's stuff like that. a few times i almost got up to say "oh snap!" or "oh no you didn't!" most devastating scene: when jude law breaks up with natalie portman. she's all crying, begging him to stay, and she's completely destroyed, and the only person who can comfort her is the man who's breaking her heart. it's just sick. that's just love. the movie is also fun to watch so you can play the game, "who's the biggest asshole?" my vote: jude law, followed by julia roberts. clive owens character does some pretty crude things but he never betrays anyone. natalie portman is a relative innocent, although the ending sort of leaves it ambiguous. i wasn't sure, but now that i've had some time to think about it, i think i love this movie.
to finish out the night, i had some ramen for dinner.
i heated up some canned gumbo for lunch, ate it while watching the gilmore girls. i cut up all my pomegranates to make a giant bowl of seeds, eating them by the handful. i've come to realize that i like the way pomegranates look but i'm not particular fond of eating them: sometimes they can be a bit tart (kind of like cranberries) and they're also a bit seedy. i cleaned my miniature fish tank of green algae forming on the walls using a water paper towel. the bits of algae i scraped off were readily consumed by the fish. the tank is getting boring but they're a low maintenance pet: i just feed them a few flakes in the mornings, and i never change the water,
i just add more when the level seems to be going down. the fish have survived for a year: originally there were 5, but now there's only 3 left. i think they're all male cherry barbs because they're all red. maybe i can add some females to spice things up. or another aquatic plant. i went out running, second time this week. it was 38 degrees, there was still some snow and ice on the ground but things were melting. i bumped into bruce outside cleaning on the snow off of his car. if i wasn't gasping for air then i was swearing under my breath while i ran. i really want to do some biking around the charles, because it's something different, takes me farther, and allows me to bring my camera. sometimes when i run i wince when i see a perfect photo opportunity but i don't have my equipment.
the rest of the day i watched a bunch of dvd's: amores perros, 21 grams, and the day after tomorrow, all three movies i haven't seen before. i was flat on the couch so long my back is starting to hurt again. amores perros and 21 grams were both directed by alejandro gonzález iñárritu. the amores perros dvd (which i borrowed from dan) is cool because there's a special feature explaining how they simulated all the dogfights, which will allow me to sleep tonight since originally i thought they were real. i'm proud to say that 18 minutes into 21 grams i had already figured out the gist of the plot. the day after tomorrow features some nice cgi scenes of global destruction, although it's definitely a formula film. for dinner it was more ramen, korean kimchee flavor this time.
i woke up close to noontime only because i spent an obscene amount of time last night playing diablo (i'm back to that addiction again). the weather, all cold and rainy and icy, made it easier to just stay inside all day long. i went out when i had to, to get some groceries after looking over recipe books to find something i wanted to make. i made a beef and potato goulash, which seems like a fancy word for beef stew. it took a long time to make and it wasn't very good, too much tomato, too much green pepper. i also made some caramelized oranges, hard to eat because the melt sugar gets stuck in my teeth (plus, it tastes sort of bitter, i might've burnt the caramel). chasing liberty was the first movie of the day, mandy moore as the president's daughter gone AWOL in europe. a single netflix dvd came in the mail, entre las piernas (1999), a hitchcockian thriller about two spanish sexoholics, featuring victoria abril and javier bardem, was surprisingly good. that was followed by along came polly on HBO with ben stiller and the newly-singled jennifer aniston, and now having seen the movie i understand why it didn't do very well in the theatres. earlier in the evening i was outside shoveling the sidewalk again, a layer of heavy wet slush awaited me. my neighbor renee finally came back and shoveled her stretch of sidewalk, stopping just short of my property line. renee i helped you shovel twice! you owe me! random acts of kindness is not often rewarded, but it seems like i never learn because i shoveled the sidewalk for my other neighbor. i figured it's good exercise, and maybe they'd do the same for me. maybe.
i'm going to go take a hot bath, read an old issue of national geographic, then play some more diablo before going to bed.
sunday morning is the only time when you can sleep late and not feel guilty. so that's exactly what i did today, buried my head in the pillow and kept on sleeping. not even a full bladder could get me out of bed. you always read interviews with supermodels and they often list "sleep" as a hobby; how sad! nevertheless, i find great joy in sleeping. i rarely have any trouble falling asleep and when i am sleeping i snore. i'm not ashamed to admit that. snoring is just my body's way of letting the world know how much i like sleeping.
my day-old goulash tasted like crap, i'm throwing it all away. the lesson learned here is not to use ingredients that i don't like, even if the recipe calls for it. the rest of my sunday was spent idling until the evening when i went over to my parents' for dinner then back again to cambridge. watched the new 4th season of 24, i'm hooked again. a family of deadly sleeper agents? nice! but where's kim?
inman square isn't a very far walk from my house. i went there after some early morning code work to find the cambridge city hall annex, to renew my visitor's parking permit (it'd been on my todo list since the end of last year). some corrugated shack was where you used to do this, but now they've moved to a fancy renovated building. what i wasn't expecting was the long line (lunch time, i should've figured), but they had taller windows set up like at a bank, so the line went pretty fast. a beautiful middle eastern looking woman was paying for her overdue parking tickets while chatting on her cellphone. another woman behind me thought it was okay to wait in line with her shaggy dog. a girl was refused a permit because she didn't have the proper residential verifications
(e.g. an utility bill from within the past 30 days). a man was getting a parking permit without bothering to take out his ipod earbuds. a korean woman with broken english was trying to get a cambridge parking permit for a car that was registered in watertown. after i got my visitor's permit, i walked back to inman square to get some lunch. i went to sweet chili hoping to have some delicious tom yum noodle soup, but the only thing they had was a seafood noodle soup which wasn't what i wanted. so instead i had some japanese sushi in a thai restaurant, along with a glass of thai ice tea. i passed the time writing in my commuting journal, staring out the window.
after lunch i went to the nearby paint store to get some color swatches for the mirror frame i'm going to paint for my apple green living room. i went to the spice store to get some green cardamom seeds for my mother (who uses them when she cooks rice). walking back home, i decided to visit the foodmaster for the very first time. affectionately known as "the food bastard," i'd heard that the place had wall-to-wall carpetting, which i'm confirming to be true. i'd also heard it's the ghetto of food shopping, but it looked like any other supermarkets. prices weren't anything different either. i didn't want to leave empty-handed so i got a carton of chiquita brand guava pineapple juice. next time i want to visit a market basket, which i've never been to before either, but i heard it's the place to go for inexpensive groceries.
despite all that walking, i still didn't feel like i got my day's worth of exercise, so i went out for a run after i got home. the northern edge of the river was still icy and the pathway was a stretch of trampled slush, kind of like running on a sandy beach. the southern edge had better conditions with the sun melting most of the snow. coming back from the river, i found a black kangul hat by the side of the road which i brought home to add to my ever-expanding street-found wardrobe collection.
i was resigned to spend another night perfecting my ramen cuisine when gary called me up asking if i was free for some dinner action. he came to pick me up and along the way he told me how this past week he narrowly avoided being killed not once but twice: the first time was when he was buffing a car at the body shop and the machine slipped and tightened the power cord which he had looped around his neck. the second time was at his security job when the metal door of a fright elevator fell off its hinges and came crashing down narrowly crushing him. so tonight we decided to risk life once more with a visit to tin tin buffet, a place my mother has called, "the worst restaurant under heaven." weekday nights the buffets are $9/person. there's a big selection but it's definitely quantity over quality. they had crayfish, which i've never had before, which was pretty much exoskeleton with a little bit of meat.
i got a ride home after dinner, where i caught the final hour of the two part season premiere of 24. the mother poisoned the cute girlfriend! when was the last time you saw that on television, huh? and that head of CTU is a real bitch. the secretary of defense is totally going to get beheaded. finished out the evening with a viewing of win a date with tad hamilton, i'm such a sucker for romantic comedies, 5 stars!
to travel anywhere abroad is a logistical nightmare. to travel to a handful of countries is just insane. to do it all mostly in southeast asia, you're looking into a world of hurt my friend.
i consider today my first official day where i seriously started to figure out my travel plans. it all started when i was reading the CDC report regarding travel in southeast asia in light of the recent tsunami disaster. that part of the world already had some pretty nasty stuff but now new breeding grounds have started to form. besides a whole series of vaccinations (tetatnus/diphtheria, hepatitis, typhoid, japanese encephalitis) i need to get prior to leaving, there's also the question of which kind of malarial drug to take. the CDC recommends the newer doxycycline (versus atovaquone/proguanil or mefloquine) since the malarial parasites have already built up resistance to the older drugs.
i tried looking for a travel clinic in the boston area with some sort of walk-in service but they seemed to be all hidden behind the bureaucratic walls of hospitals. so that galvanized me into doing something about my health insurance, which i have none at the moment. blue cross has a cheap independent plan for $290/month, but the benefits don't kick in until after 160 days, although i could probably get that lengthy wait period revoked if i get proof that i was under another health insurance plan within the past 60 days. then i was talking with julie and she gets health insurance through NASE (the national association of self-employed), and they have a pretty good health insurance of just $240/month (not including prescription coverage). the selling point wasn't the cost but rather the fact that i could still continue using my current doctor. so i sent NASE my information so hopefully someone from their office will contact me this week. unfortunately the coverage i want doesn't include medicine, so i'll probably have to pay for my vaccinations out of pocket (even if i did have a prescription policy, i'm not sure if that sort of thing would be covered).
i started to pick my destinations. within the past few days i've realized that my around-the-world trip isn't going to happen. i'm still traveling, but just not around the world. most of my original hot spots were in asia anyway, so i figured i'd visit as many asian countries as possible. central asia, africa, europe, those places will have to wait. besides, i only have so much money, and this modified asia-centric travel plan seems to be a cheaper option. i have friends in japan and hong kong, relatives in taiwan, and i know a contact person in vietnam. my cousin eric is also a travel agent in taipei, so i hope i can get some cheap deals through him. i know for certain there are 5 places i'm going: japan, taiwan, hong kong, cambodia, and thailand. while i'm in southeast asia, it'd be cool to visit a few other countries in that area: vietnam, laos, and burma (myanmar). malaysia, further south, is worth seeing if i can get a cheap flight, as well as singapore. indonesia is interesting too, but the US state department has issued a travel advisory warning for that country for possible terrorist attacks on foreign nationals. after i had my countries, i looked up the visa situation. most places allow unrestricted travel with a few requiring visitor visas. of those that require special visas, half allowed you to apply for a visa at the airport, with only burma and vietnam being the exception. burmese visa is effective for 90 days and can be used for a 28 day stay, with the condition you exchange US$200 into burmese currency. vietnam is the only country with the strictest conditions, with fixed arrival and departure dates. for these two countries i'll either get my visa in taipei or in hong kong.
there's still a lot of things left to do. now that i have my countries picked out, i have to figure out my itinerary, places i want to see, where i'll be staying, how will i get around. a lot of planning goes into a vacation, so much so that it doesn't even seem like a vacation anymore.
feeling particularly unhealthy, i went out running again. just slightly above freezing, i had my gloves on the whole time otherwise they'd be like ice. i showered after i got home then received word from james about the new mini mac from apple. seductively priced at just $500 (the machine is 4x faster than my current desktop mac), i'd definitely consider getting it. it'd be great as a living room computer, attached to the television, controlled through a pair of bluetooth keyboard and mouse. no more surfing the web on a measly 12" ibook screen! if wonder if it could also act like a poor man's tivo? with the proper firewire attachment. the new shuffle ipod ($100) seems like a lame idea though; without an lcd screen nor the ability to pick which song you want to hear, it seems like an evolutionary dead end. apple is marketing it with the tagline, "random is the new order," trying to put a cool spin on something that's sort of a ripoff.
julie was going to make a chicken salad for tonight but then talked her way into buying a pizza from one of the many eating places behind tufts university. the pizza wasn't hot anymore by the time she arrived so she baked it in the oven, box and all. we kept a close eye on the heating, making sure nothing was combusting. we watched a pre-ice-t episode of SVU (circa 2000) followed by a new episode on NBC. it was the lacrosse captain who molested that little girl! not the football coach!
the sight of freezing rain outside this morning pretty much cancelled whatever plans i had for today. thinking about going out for a run? forget it, you'll get sick. how about going to the movies? what, in this weather? so instead i was trapped in the house all day, venturing out only to throw something into the mailbox and to buy some groceries. i learned how to make a video dvd using UDF burning. a representative from NASE called me to schedule a meeting at my place for friday to talk about possible health insurance coverage. i renewed a few domain names and started the procedure to transfer iamtonyang.com from homepageuniverse to godaddy (where it's cheaper). more out of boredom than a desire to work, i coded for an hour fixing bugs for clients SRM and X. i'm making plans to visit the aztec exhibit at the guggenheim museum in new york city before it leaves sometime in february. my intention of going to the beach tomorrow was dashed when the forecast for tomorrow calls for more freezing rain (earlier this week it seemed like it'd be 60 degrees and sunny). when evening came around joel came by to watch alias. i made some liguine with clam sauce for dinner, a little too spicy and there were some inedible onion skin. we both noticed that the infamous blue latex dress is not featured in the opening credits montage. and now weiss is a part of APO as well? like i was saying, if everyone is in the cool club then the cool club stops being cool! afterwards we watched some queer eye for the straight girl. that lesbian is actually kind of hot!
last updated Thu January 13th, 2005 7:36PM | comments (3) | link
the freezing rain never did come but rather a dense fog had rolled through the city for much of the day. i took the 20 minute walk to my parents' cafe to borrow their car so i could go to the library and see if they had any travel books on southeast asia. my first (and turned out to be the only) stop was the belmont public library. the drive was surreal: the fog was so thick, you could probably only see 20 feet in front of you. normally mundane landscapes were instantly transformed into moody gothic backdrops. i haven't been to the library in a while and totally forgot that my digital camera sets off the theft detection alarm on the door. i pretended it wasn't me and looked suspiciously at a pair of old ladies standing by the exit. i used to come to the library every week and could probably nagivate through the stacks with my eyes closed. i made a beeline to the travel aisle and found a lonely planet guide to southeast asia, exactly what i was looking for. when i went to go check out the book, the librarian told me i had $1.40 in overdue fines, for some book with the word "mambo" in it (back in june). i don't remember ever taking it out but i paid the money anyway.
driving back, i pulled a u-turn on concord avenue and parked next to the claypit pond (belmont) to take some photos of the fog. that's when i noticed my camera wasn't working right: one of the zoom buttons broke and i couldn't zoom out. it sounded like a similar problem i had a few months ago, all i have to do is to open up the camera and superglue back some part. returning to the cafe i noticed much of the fog was starting to disappear.
after i dropped off the car i walked to harvard square to look for more travel books. i found some that i wanted but will order them online since i'm not in a hurry (and will probably save me $20 in the process). since it was still early, i took the subway to kendall square to go watch guerilla: the taking of patty hearst. it was a really interesting documentary, a window into that time period during the 70's when idealistic youths took the spirit of revolution from the 60's and pumped it up with militant radicalism. a week before i was born, the symbionese liberation army kidnapped heiress patty hearst from her berkeley apartment (and just a few weeks shy of her own birthday). in truth, the SLA was just a small group of radical students with fairly affluent suburban backgrounds, who just wanted to rebel against the establishment with not just words but also action. coolest members: cinque ("sin-q"), the african-american leader they busted out of jail, and mizmoon, his bisexual girlfriend. they made crazy ransom demands, like provide free food for the poor people of the city. as the days wore on, patty hearst herself joined up in their cause with a widely circulated photo of her looking quite the guerilla girl with her beret, brandishing her machine gun, standing before the SLA symbol. that was followed by a bank heist caught on camera, which clearly showed hearst helping her former kidnappers. it's just so interesting to see how politically active young people were back then, even if it's for the wrong reasons. you hardly see that level of passion anymore in the kids today, bombarded with popular culture that turn them into mindless consumers as fast as possible.
when i came back home a netflix package was waiting for me: a touch of pink (2004), about a gay indian man living in london who's unsuspecting mother comes to visit him hoping for some possible wedding news but discover her son is actually living with his british boyfriend. okay, and kyle maclachlan plays an imaginary cary grant. hiliarity ensues! later in the evening i ate the rest of my leftover linguine: it wasn't very good but i'm happy it didn't go to waste (considering my track record regarding leftovers).
i managed to fix my camera. one of the plastic prong beneath the zoom toggle snapped off. it wasn't the one i fixed a few months ago (that one still works) but rather its twin neighbor. the broken plastic part is probably still inside the camera somewhere but no amount of shaking could get it out. so instead i fashioned a replacement prong carefully cut from a damaged dvd disc. it look a while to put back into place, like a reverse game of operation, plus there was the added element of superglue that wouldn't go where i wanted. after letting everything dry, i re-assembled the camera and now everything works again! the spirit of macgyver strikes once more!
last updated Fri January 14th, 2005 11:51AM | comments (2) | link
rina, the mega life and health agent (in conjunction with NASE), came over to my place in the afternoon and an hour later i had health insurance.
rina, who braved the foul weather to pay me a house visit, explained the state of health care in massachusetts (too many consumer protection laws, insurance companies hate it here), the difference between managed (HMO/PPO) and traditional care, and then let me choose the package i wanted. i went with the traditional (independent) care: for $235/month i get 4 doctor visits ($15 copayment), accident/injury emergency coverage ($50 deductible), free international medical evacuation, and a $1000 deductible for any hospital procedures (with the insurance paying for 80% of the bill). what it doesn't include are prescription drugs or ambulatory care like rehabilitation or major testings, but i do have the option of always switching or upgrading to a different plan every billing cycle (30 days) without any penalty fees. i told rina about my situation, that i needed health insurance ASAP so i could go ahead and start my immunization process for the trip. so she's going to expedite my paperwork and by next friday the insurance will officially kick in, even as early as wednesday. so now i can finally get the shots i wanted. is there any other time in my life that i'm looking forward to needles?
later in the evening julie and i planned on visiting an art gallery on beacon street in support of tsunami relief, featuring a rotation of live band music and a suggested donation of $10 for admission. i fell asleep before the start of the event (watching rachel ray make a 30-minute clam chowder), and quickly fixed myself some ramen for dinner before getting dressed. that's when julie contacted me about not feeling like going anymore; i suggested bowling instead and she was game. she came to pick me up and we went to lanes & games off of route 2 near alewife.
even before we got there we knew the place would be crowded on a friday night: the parking lot was near capacity. inside, the place was crowded with a mishmash of senior citizens, hipsters, college kids, teenagers, and parents with small children. the wait for 10 pin bowling was an hour and half, while the less popular candlepin had a 30 minute wait. although i wanted to try town line bowling in malden instead (where on weekends they have ATOMIC bowling), we ended up staying and getting numbers for both, waiting in the bar/restaurant until our number was called. julie nursed a petite plastic cup of beer, i had my container of coke no ice. we split an order of jalapeño poppers while julie ordered another baby-sized beer. we ended up returning our candlepin number because our number for 10 pin was just a few digits away. when it was called, we paid for 3 games while i rented some shoes: julie had her own personal pair which she carried in her ebay-purchased bowling bag.
little did i know but the lane that we got (42) is notorious for breaking down. for the first few frames the "sweeper" mechanism for clearing the pins would get stuck and we'd have to call the maintenance guy to come down and fix it for us. julie got a pair of 10 lbs. balls, but i found mine too unwieldy, so instead i traded down for an 8 lbs. ball, the lightest ball on the rack: as if it wasn't emasculating enough that i was using the sissy ball, it was colored a gaudy pink that could be seen from every lanes, which could've only been made worse if it had glitter and made noises and lights when i used it. nevertheless, it was the ball for me, that is until the girl in the next lane, not well versed in the proper bowling etiquette, adopted it as her own ball. when julie and i politely asked if she was using the ball (she had it cradled in her hands, awaiting her turn), she got all offended. it seemed like a lost cause, one that didn't require fighting over. i'd just waited my turn until she was done with the ball; unfortunately she's one of those slow rollers so i had to endure a lot of waiting.
game wise, i lost all 3 times. i took it as a personal victory if i was more than half of julie's final total score (who managed to break the 100 point barrier every time). it's easy for me to come up with an excuse (like the fact that julie bowls way more than i do, she's got her own shoes for chrissakes!), but i won't go there: truth is i just suck at bowling, much like many things i enjoy doing but not very well. if everyone was a winner then nobody would be a winner, you dig? being a loser marks me as a martyr for society. julie tried to help, tried to give me useful tips, like how to hold the ball, or how to throw, but that just put a kink into my natural flow and the result was several frames of complete gutter balls. i like to let my bowling instinct come out naturally in whatever bastardized mutated form it takes. at one point the ballhog girl turned to me and said, "we both use the same ball," which i don't know if it was a solidarity comment or a remark about how she was kicking my ass too with her slow roll technique.
game 1
game 2
game 3
after 3 games i could feel the pain already: in my right wrist and forearm, and on my left hamstring. although i didn't suffer any blisters, i had a hard time making a fist with my right hand. we went downstairs and paid for a single game of candlepin. candlepins is more like the appetizer to regular bowling, so it left us with an unsatisfied feeling. unlike traditional bowl where you get two tries, with candlepin it's 3 turns with uniform balls the size of a large orange. the pins you knock down don't clear until the end of your turn, so you can use them to topple the remaining pins. this is useful because it's very hard to get strikes in candlepin. my result? the losing streak continues! i bowl angry and fast, and with these little balls it felt like amusement park skee ball except i don't win any prizes.
when i came home it was just in time to catch the encore broadcast of the new battlestar galactica series on the scifi channel, two back-to-back episodes. that is some good stuff i tell you, we needed something to fill the scifi void left by star trek (enterprise is on a deathwatch, don't even deny it).
i woke up after a restless night's sleep (my body aching all over) for some breakfast of corn pops cereal before i received eliza's obligatory phone call letting me know she'd be late for our museum appointment. the reason: she locked herself out of the house and her sleeping roommate didn't bother to answer the door. when she did eventually show up, we walked to the fogg art museum, making a quick stop at the oxford spa so eliza could get a cup of hot tea. we took turns gleefully cracking ice puddles with our feet as we passed them along the way. who said freezing temperature can't be fun?
on saturday mornings before noon admission to the harvard art museums are free. i also signed a permission slip so i could get a photography permit: eliza was impressed with my knowledge of museum protocols. the last time i came to the fogg art museum was almost 2 years ago: they were renovating at the time and a whole wing of famous paintings was closed to the public. since that time everything's opened back up again. we started downstairs and worked our way to the 3rd then 2nd floor.
i always assumed that pomegranates were native to california, but they were actually known to the ancient world and grown throughout the mediterranean. i figured that out today when pomegranates kept appearing in various paintings. apparently the "bursting" pomegranate is a christian symbol for the resurrection. one of my favorite christian paintings is "man of sorrows" by roberto oderisi (italian): christ is shown with the events leading to and the objects used in his crucifixion, kind of like his final thoughts. i like to think of my own "man of sorrows" and the images of regret that'd be representative of my own life.
baby jesus holding pomegranate (detail)
"man of sorrows" by roberto oderisi (c.1354)
more pomegranates! (dutch)
up on the 3rd floor eliza had the bright idea of running to the other side of the building for a photo moment. when she came back, we critiqued the walls of children drawings from local elementary schools. inspired by jumanji, kids were given the assignment of making a photo collage depicting a house filled with wild animals, then they had to redraw the collage. anyone who enjoys children drawings should see the exhibit. our favorite one was that of a surprised chimpanzee stealing out of the house with an armful of bananas with a little girl watching in the background. the subsequent drawing depicted something that looked like a scary edward munch version of sasquatch.
the 2nd floor contained all the artwork that were missing from my last visit, including a whole series of ingres, one of favorite painters with his neoclassical near-photorealistic style. i saw the "odalisque" which was the one painting i came here to see, showing the life of a sultan's harem girl. the sargent portrait of a venetian woman in a scarlet shawl (1880) had a very modern look to it. we wandered into the nearby busch-reisinger museum, home of harvard's modern art collection, but only did a cursory tour before leaving.
ingres' nude study
ingres' "odalisque"
angel statue
celestial sphere
"gigia viani" by john singer sargent
"wounded amazon" by franz von stuck
we went to the sackler museum, which eliza had never been to before. we were on our final leg of museum touring and went through the 3 floors of asian art rather quickly, starting on the first floor with the special calligraphy exhibit. the 2nd floor had asian paintings, where i found an ancient japanese scroll depicting two girls rolling a gigantic snowball and a pair of mandarin ducks sitting nearby. i like it when i find little funny details in artworks.
we walked back to my place, where eliza went home to go kitten shopping with her roommate, and i went to the cafe for some lunch (rice noodles). once my mother got off from work we drove back to belmont to return some hand soaps at the arsenal mall. we ordered some pizza when we returned home (sausage and garlic), and i got a ride back to my place after dinner.
[update: it's 4am and i can't sleep. insomnia strikes again, too many things on my mind]
last updated Mon January 17th, 2005 2:03AM | comments (4) | link
if you were to tell me that there was a place in massachusetts where in the dead of winter you can go and see live butterflies, i would call you crazy. but there is such a place and i went there today. for a guy who loves insects and photography, this was a dream come true. i could've spent the whole day there without getting bored. i was so happy i could cry.
my sister approached me about the trip earlier in the week. she and her friend carmine were going to the butterfly conservatory this weekend and asked if i'd be interested (and if i knew anybody else who would be too). now normally the chance of my sister and i hanging out would be next to zero: peace in the middle east and the reunification of the two koreas would sooner happen that the yang siblings spending a day bonding. but the opportunity to see butterflies was too great to turn down so i agreed to go.
where is this magical place you speak of? it's out in western massachusetts, a place that just so happens to be called magic wings out in deerfield. my sister came to pick me up at 10am before we got her friend and drove the 2 hours trip to the conservatory. today was a cold day with temperature below freezing, but when we finally arrived, i left my jacket in the car, figuring the place would be heated somehow. from the outside it looked like several large greenhouses in a row (8000 square feet). through the foggy windows i could see butterflies fluttering inside. we bought our tickets ($8/adult, another $1 for a scorecard with color photos showing you the butterflies you can find) and got some lunch from the adjoining cafeteria (i had a chicken caeser wrap, but they sold novelty food like peanut butter & jelly sandwiches shaped like butterflies) before heading inside the actual conservatory.
with a name like magic wings, i was keeping my expectations low. i've been tricked before (salem witch trail museum, anyone?) and i wasn't going to psyche myself up only to come face-to-face with disappointment, although from what i've seen thus far, it looked promising. before you actually saw the butterflies you first had to go into an education room, where displays informed you about the differences between a moth and a butterfly, the parts of a butterfly, and how they survive. they had a display where live morpho caterpillars were feeding, and another display featuring twig insects from around the world. lengthwise twig insects must be the longest bugs in the world (i swear, there was one a foot long), and it was kind of gross watching them breathe, their abdomens slowly pulsating like balloons.
we then went into a short hallway with mirrored walls and warm air blowing towards the conservatory. all these were countermeasures to guard against any butterflies from escaping or hitchhiking on an unsuspecting visitor (as if they'd survive in the harsh new england winter!). once we stepped through the hallway, beyond the swinging doors, we immediately felt like being in a humid jungle. and almost like on cue, butterflies started fluttering about everywhere, so many in fact that i was afraid i'd accidently step on them.
i've been to a butterfly farm in costa rica but there wasn't the level of activity i was seeing today. back in costa rica, the butterflies were kept in a house made out of netting, and since it was cool and overcasted that day, the butterflies were all sleepy. not so at magic wings, where more out of necessity than anything else, butterflies are kept in a greenhouse in order to keep them warm during the winter, but the controlled environment means the butterflies can be kept active instead of falling into lethargy when the weather gets bad.
throughout the grounds helpful and knowledgeable staff members were available to answer any butterfly related questions. one of the girls, denise, told us about how she was currently raising some polyphemus moths in her house, her fridge full of dormant cocoons. she said the blue morphos are the most popular butterflies but they're hard to raise because their caterpillars have stinging hairs. blue morphos were definitely very common, although whenever they came to rest they'd close their characteristic iridescent blue wings to reveal several false eyespots. trays of rotting bananas were what they feed on. rice paper butterflies could often found congregated at the sugar water feeders. glasswings were also quite common as well; i remember the first time i saw a glasswing in costa rica it just blew my mind that there was a butterfly with transparent wings, but now, seeing them everywhere, they almost seemed ordinary.
blue morpho
blue morpho
blue morpho
blue morpho
owl butterfly
owl butterfly
scarlet swallowtail
scarlet swallowtail
rose swallowtail
common mormon (female)
tailed jay (dead)
citrus swallowtail
(swallowtail?)
(swallowtail?)
emerald swallowtail
golden birdwing
(birdwing?)
(birdwing?)
(birdwing?)
rice papers
zebra longwing
small postman
piano key
cyndo (closed)
doris
isabella tiger longwing
julia
lacewing (closed)
lacewing (open)
gray cracker
not just butterflies, but butterfly-friendly flowers too:
powder puff
lantana
hibiscus
lollipop flower
butterfly flower
bougainvillea
there were other animals too: chinese button quails ran around the ground, oblivious to the foot traffic of the visitors, pecking at bird feed from this feeding fish. there was a pond filled with colorful kois. a pair of endangered gouldian finches were kept in a nearby case, the female already starting to build a nest. a green hummingbird could be seen periodically visiting a hanging butterfly feeder. and although i didn't see any, there were also firebelly toads hiding about, keeping the greenhouse free of insect pests. i even saw a small caterpillar, not sure what butterfly it was, but it reared up on its back when i got close enough to take a photo.
before leaving, i found the butterfly nursery with its collection of chrysalis of all shapes and sizes:
since the yankee candles corporate headquarter was nearby, we decided to pay it a visit. although christmas had been over for almost a month, it wasn't the case in the yankee candles store, where the holiday was still being celebrated in full force, a crazy disneyesque display of yuletide spirit. besides the outdated christmas decorations, there were of course the candles. i'm not allowed to buy anymore because i already have enough as it is, but i did buy a few votives that were on sale (75% discount). driving back home, it'd started to flurry, and by the time we got to belmont, swirls of white powder could be seen covering the streets like mist. carmine showed me the origami butterflies that he'd made. my sister dropped me off at my parents' place, where we ordered some blue ribbon barbecue for a pickup. my father was printing out online boarding passes for their flight tomorrow morning to taipei. on television the patriots were on the verge of winning their game against the indianapolis colts. there was also live golden globes coverage, which i watched after we brought back dinner. i got a ride home and watched the rest of the award show. the snow continued to fall outside, although it was the dry powdery kind because it was so cold.
this past weekend i figured out the tentative itinerary for this 3-month trip i'll be taking come the end of february. for those who are interested, the following are my destinations (the above map was stolen from a lonely planet southeast asia guide by the way):
JAPAN
i'll be based in tokyo where i have at least two friends i can crash at. i've been to japan only one other time, 7 years ago during the summer, and only stayed for less than a week. i'm hoping to stay at least two weeks this time, and i'll buy a JR pass before i arrive so i can ride the trains for free. i like to revisit kyoto, take photos of the street kids in harajuku, buy the latest in kawai culture, and i hear there's a great aquarium in the city.
TAIPEI
the easiest part of my trip, i'd like to spend at least 2 weeks here living with relatives and eating out every night. i haven't been back in 7 years so it'll be like a brand new city. my grandfather still lives here so i'd like to see him. i want to explore yangminshan national park like i used to do, see the national palace museum, hang out in shingmending, ride the subway, and perhaps visit a few more national parks further out.
HONG KONG
i've never been to hong kong and it's time that i pay the place a visit. i'll be here only a few days, staying with family friends. part of my stay will be business: buying a ticket to vietnam, making sure i have the right visa.
VIETNAM
vietnam is probably the country i'm least interested in visiting, and for some reason i maybe be spending a lot of time there, only because i plan on traveling down the length of the country in order to get to get to cambodia. i plan on just doing a quick tour, from the nothern capital of hanoi down to the southern city of ho chi minh, following the coastline. this is probably the only time on my trip where i'm actually by the ocean - the rest of the journey will be inland. east of hanoi is halong bay, and i'd like to take a boat ride through the 3000 islands dotting the "place where the dragon descends into the sea," a unesco world heritage site. hué is the former imperial capital and there exists an imperial city modeled after the forbidden city in china that might be worth checking out.
CAMBODIA
the capital of phnom penh i'm visiting just because it's along the way, but the only reason i'm going to cambodia is to see angkor wat, where i plan on spending at least a week exploring the remnants of the ancient khmer civilization, via foot, via bike, via motorcycle. any naturing i do in cambodia will have to be tempered by the knowledge that there are still unexploded land mines dotting the less traveled area of the country.
THAILAND
from bangkok i travel north to sukhothai the ancient capital of thailand then to chiangmai to hang out with hill people. besides exploring authentic thai cuisine, i also hear there are places where i can go to eat insects, which has always been a dream of mine.
LAOS
all the literature i've read point to luang prabang as the place to go in laos. i'd like to spend a week there, then move to the capital of vientiane, to take a plane to mandalay in burma.
BURMA (MYANMAR)
mandalay was a former capital with not much to see other than a high buddhist monk population. the real reason for going to burma is further south at bagan, where over 3000 temples stretch out across a plain as far as the eye can see, waiting to be explored. i'll spend a week here, then head down to the new capital of yangon, where i'll take a flight back to taipei.
one final binge of street food (including smelly tofu) before i come back to boston, sometime in june.
last night i went to bed at 6am. i'm afraid to go to bed because i seriously have problems falling asleep now. i imagined my parents waking up and getting ready for their morning flight to taipei. my south eastasia trip is definitely on my mind, but there's other things as well. maybe i need to try a different position, or perhaps try sleeping in the spare bedroom, just to mix things up. the problem is i do too much thinking at nights. i'm starting to feel drowsy and suddenly i start thinking and it's like my mind won't shut up and i can't fall asleep. hopefully it'll work itself out of my system. today was thoroughly unproductive. i wanted to run some errands (get my international driving license, set up an appointment with a travel doctor) but most offices were closed because of the martin luther king holiday. i had the rest of my leftover barbecue for lunch then went out running. the temperature was in the upper teens, and it was so cold i wanted to cut my run short and return home. i had a hat but my ears stuck out, which after a while started to throb and hurt. it was my first time running after that night of bowling, and despite still feeling some residual aches, it didn't affect my run in any way, and in fact i had a lot of energy today. walking back home afterwards, my arms were literally numb, little tiny pinpricks of sensation when i bent my elbows. too cold to walk the rest of the way, i ran home instead. i quickly shoveled the sidewalk before coming inside: my generous neighbors did their own walks but left mine alone, and my upstairs neighbor was no help either. in the evening i made some ramen for dinner, unmotivated to do very much else.
last updated Tue January 18th, 2005 10:29PM | comments (7) | link
in the morning i walked down to harvard square (temperature was in the lower teens) to catch the 73 bus to belmont, where i borrowed my parents' car to go to the watertown mall to get my photos taken in one of those automated booths (for my international driver license) then i went to costco in everett to buy some supplies for the cafe while my parents are away. when i finally got home around 2pm, i heated up some breaded eggplants and drank a fruit elixir.
despite the ever decreasing temperature, julie braved the cold to come over during the evening to make some dinner. in 10 minutes she made some cheese ravioli in an italian bacon tomato paste vodka sauce. tonight's episode of SVU was particularly twisted, about twins, incest, sex change, gang members, tagging, slit throat, a broken rib, a deaf girl, parents with a dark secret, bit penis, and of course, child molestation. julie, seemingly coming down with a cold, left soon afterwards. the temperature now is 1 degree fahrenheit (-17 degrees celsius), so cold that white frost now coat the roads and on the news they recommend letting the faucets drip a little bit to prevent pipes from bursting. what else is new?
itinerary updates: from sukhothai (thailand) i will travel east via bus and train to the friendship pass that will take me to vientiane (laos). after spending a week north in luang prabang, a 2 day slow boat drift west ($15) brings me to the border towns of huay xia/chiang khong, where i'll once again be back in thailand. from there i go to chiang mai, and then from chiang mai i fly into burma via mandalay, traveling south until my final destination of yangon, then flying back to taipei. the routes i had before wouldn't have worked because there doesn't seem to be any direct flights from vientiane to mandalay.
last updated Fri January 21st, 2005 3:25PM | comments (9) | link
i braved the cold once more to pay a visit to the AAA office in boston's financial district to get my international driving permit. the excitement of being back in the city where i used to work kept me feeling warm while all around me business folks walked quickly to their destinations bundled tightly in their winter garb. a few women were walking around with their scarf muffled around their nose and mouth: how this kept them warm is a mystery to me, and they're missing the best part of cold weather which is the column of smoke that comes out of your mouth, like a fire-breathing pedestrian. i got the $10 permit without any problems, then walked to chinatown. i wanted to have lunch at the taiwan cafe but since i was just by myself, they didn't want to waste a table and asked if i wanted to share one with another customer. "maybe i'll just have something to go," i told the waiter. so i ordered a dish of smelly tofu and wandered chinatown a bit until my food was ready. it's ironic, but in a matter of weeks i will be in taipei, and i will be eating authentic smelly tofu every day (none of this overpriced facsimile), and it'll be so great i'll probably cry tears of happiness during each meal. my wanderings led me to the costume store, where i admired their creative window displays. after picking up my order, i came quickly home to eat lunch.
with bush's inauguration tomorrow, i celebrated by watching the documentary control room. that, coupled with condoleeza rice's testimony before the senate panel (where she stuck to the party line and wouldn't admit to any mistakes, just that there were some "not good decisions"), makes me vehemently angry about the current administration. i'm still bitter about the outcome of the presidential election, how a majority of america is so blind that it could vote for a war criminal and his rogue administration and subject the world to 4 more years of ineptitude and revisionist history making. as an american with didn't vote for the man who will be sworn in (again) tomorrow, the next 4 years will be a lot of self-loathing and passive aggressive anger management.
after a nap cocooned in my red fleece throw nestled on the couch in the living room (i woke up with a cold nose, much like a dog's nose when it gets sick), i got dressed and started to make my way over to eliza's new place in jamaica plain. i forgot it'd be snowing and had to clean the snow off the car before leaving. i made a quick stop at star market to buy a present (a cantaloupe and a box of cream puffs) then started to make my way south. the snow made for some slippery driving and i was extremely cautious since i had neither car insurance nor health insurance. i don't go down to jamaica plain very often so i get lost most of the time. combined with the snow, there was no way i'd make the 7:30pm appointment in time so i called eliza to let her know. over the BU bridge and down st.paul's street was the way i took to JP, then onto the jamaica deathway. once in JP, i got lost twice (found myself in roslindale at one point) before arriving at eliza's place, 30 minutes late, but safely in one piece.
eliza was making risotto from a recipe book she had opened on the kitchen counter. she had on red pants (ooh, red pants!) and her apron actually matched her outfit, whether intentionally or otherwise. while she cooked, i looked around her new place: hardwood floors throughout, a big kitchen, a medium-sized living room, and a ginormous master bedroom. her missing roommate had the spare bedroom, and it didn't look as spacious with just a twin mattress as a bed on the floor. occasionally her weight-challenged cat cuci would scamper about, the hair on his ass growing back after a successful surgery from a raccoon attack. every so often eliza would get a phone call, like some switchboard operator for a chat line, or the most popular girl in school.
the risotto turned out fine, although eliza had strong doubts about the cooked kale, which she said smelled weird, but i thought it just tasted like seaweed. in her ongoing scheme to corrupt my moral fiber, dinner was also served with some red wine (i only obliged because i didn't want eliza to drink alone, branding her an alkie). and wouldn't know you it? a phone call during dinner! for dessert, who opened up the cream puffs and had them with a melted dark chocolate dipping sauce. throughout the evening our conversation ranged from what superhero powers we'd like to have, turning 30 versus 31, why we both didn't like sideways, funny anecdotes from her days of being an art teacher (the story of "dooky"), arranged marriages, and the ending of life of pi.
as it was getting late, i left and slowly drove back to cambridge. it was still snowing (light powdery snow), but the traffic was light and conditions on most of the main roads were pretty good. a few times the car would swerve a little bit around turns or accelerating from a dead stop. i drove defensively, constantly looking in the rearview mirror to check and see that nobody was going to slide and hit me. i found a parking spot near my place (one that i didn't have to parallel park, which i can't do), and put out the trash when i got back. i also took the time to shovel my portion of the sidewalk. i can't wait to see the faces of my neighbors tomorrow when they wake up in the morning and see that i already cleaned my walk! preemptive strike!
i could've slept some more but i woke up "early" so i could watch the inauguration. listening to bush's speech, the biggest thing that bothered me is his idea of the ownership society. privatization is not the solution, it's actually the problem. eventually it'll get so bad that there won't be anything free in the world, not even the air we breathe. suddenly, towards the end of his speech, there were loud cheering from the crowd, which seemed a little strange, since they were so subdued for much of the presentation. turns out protesters were trying to crash the inauguration, and the bush-supporting crowd was just trying to cover up the angry shouting. that in essence is the administration's strategy for everything: don't like it, whitewash it, call it something else. those protesters are my heroes. later, during the motorcade, i heard people were pelting the limos with snowballs and other objects. mandate that.
much of today was spent in a period of nonactivity. i literally had nothing to do. i could stay at home and feel sorry for myself, or go out and use up one of my kendall cinema discount voucher tickets to see a movie. i saw the life aquatic, in a theatre with a handful of other middle-of-the-day moviegoers. i was tempted to strike up a conversation with some of them, but i didn't want to break rule number one which is weirdos don't interact with other weirdos. i didn't like the life aquatic, just a bit too quirky. wes anderson's best film was rushmore, and these films he's made since then have really missed the mark for me. he has an appealing visual style, but i feel he sacrifices a compelling story for the sake of offbeat characters. it's almost like the story is secondary, and you watch his movies to enjoy the characters and the world he creates. there's a child-like "wow" quality to the life aquatic, whether it's seeing exotic underwater creatures, fighting with pirates, or staging a daring rescue: i think the people who will enjoy this movie share that child-like quality. bill murray plays the smarmy cousteau-esque oceanographer steve zissou, and nobody does a better charming smarmy than murray. i thought the staff of unpaid interns were pretty funny, they're essentially servants working for school credit. the topless script girl anne-marie is a nice touch, nothing more warming on a cold day than see boobies on the big screen. the life aquatic would be a good rental, but save your theatre money for something else.
i came home and took a warm bath, reading the latest issue of wired in the bathtub. if there was no risk of me drowning or becoming a human prune i'd sleep in the bathtub, submerged in the ylang-ylang scented hot water. there's a few things in life that i enjoy at an almost primal level, and soaking in the bathtub is one of them. maybe on my asian trip i can find some hot springs, like japan or taiwan, where it's relatively colder.
i fell asleep in the living room again. that's the only time where i don't have problems sleeping. i woke up after 9pm to heat up some soup for dinner.
today was cold enough that skin start hurting just after a few seconds of outdoor exposure. so of course it was the perfect weather to leave the warm confines of my house and venture out into the bitter coldness to have lunch with james in chinatown, who was in boston starting on his new job. we went to the noodle alcove, where for around $5 you can have a hot bowl of hand-drawn beef noodle soup. i was there first and grabbed a table while waiting for james to arrive. the owner recognized me and we exchanged greetings. i had the beef noodles, james tried the seafood. we talked about james' new job, the patriots, and diablo. after lunch he went back to work while i went to downtown crossing to check out the two bookstores for a book of southeast asian maps. i went to the bath & body works to buy some translucent soaps, and when i came out i bumped into kristine, on her way to her second interview of the day after hitting the sale at H&M. what are the odds of meeting two former squid employees? when i couldn't find my book in downtown crossing, i came back to harvard square to search some more, but when that turned up nothing as well, i returned home.
since it was still early, i went out running despite the cold. even with 4 layers it was still painful. the whole time i kept on thinking how much a mistake it was to go out again and that i should return home. my legs were completely numb, which forced me to run faster to speed up the circulation. i saw a dead sparrow, frozen rigid, like a child's toy on the sidewalk. occasionally i do see some interesting wildlife around the charles (not the dead kind): there was a red-bellied woodpecker sitting in a tree trying to keep warm. once i got home i thought i had frostbite down there, it felt ice cold and there was no sensation. there was so much shrinkage i thought i had koro. only after 30 minutes of thawing was i able to take a shower. i'm probably going to swear off running when the wind chill is negative degrees.
a copy of the station agent had arrived from netflix. i watched it while eating a pair of hot dogs for dinner followed by several clementine oranges for dessert. it was almost exactly a year ago that i saw the movie in the theatre. it's a nice little movie with a conclusion that just ends, but that's just the way it's done in independent films.
bu, naq urer'f n terng fgbel, gryy zr vs lbh urneq guvf bar orsber: v unir guvf sevraq lbh frr, naq ur fbeg bs unf guvf pehfu ba guvf ernyyl terng tvey jub ur xabjf gbgnyyl unf ab vagrerfg va uvz, lrg ur cvarf njnl fgvyy, engure cngurgvpnyyl, hagvy bar qnl ur svanyyl frrf jung'f orra unccravat...
i'm starting to get that feeling that another night of insomnia is in store for me.
last updated Sat January 22nd, 2005 4:04PM | comments (6) | link
i had lunch today at o'sullivan's with my former roommate mike. although we've communicated (mostly to coordinate the delivery of his mail, which still sometimes show up at my place), i haven't seen him since the summer when he graduated from law school and moved out. the table we had was kind of a poor choice (on my part): close to the drafty door and against an non-insulated fake wood-paneling wall, so at times it felt like we were eating outside in the freezing cold. i ordered my usual, the black & blue burger with a rootbeer. we talked about traveling, he told me he went to phuket for a relaxing vacation last summer for a week. we also chatted about sports, specifically basketball. i confessed my disdain for the current incarnation of the boston celtics, and since mike had been following the NBA more than i have, he filled in me on which players are now on which new teams.
coming back from a quick visit at the supermarket, i ran into my upstairs neighbor steve. although we're very friendly, we rarely talk because our schedules or so different and we almost never run into each other. earlier he was jumpstarting his car with the help of another neighbor when his battery died. he asked if i was working. "no, not really," i told him. he tilted his head and smiled, like he was about to say something ironic. "well, i'm going to be losing my job in 2 months." turns out the london-based company he works for is closing their boston office due to poor profits. he found out the bad news last week while having dinner with the company execs in london. he didn't seem too worried although we both agreed there wouldn't be any exterior home renovation work this year. he also told me that the guy he'd been seeing is going to move in with him, although he might rent out his place this summer since he'll be at martha's vineyard. i told him about my southeast asia trip, and he seemed more excited that i was, and told me he might be able to find some maps from his workplace that he could give me.
i grabbed a few gallons of milk at the white hen pantry and delivered it to the cafe (where my aunt was manning the store), before heading back to belmont to return my parents' car. with the approaching snowstorm, i didn't want to have to deal with digging out the car tomorrow or worried that it might be hit by a snowplow on these narrow cambridge streets. the empty house felt weird. although i lived there most of my childhood (and a little bit beyond into my young adult life), there wasn't any trace of me left now. maybe some old clothes in the closet, maybe a few errant mails, but that was it. although i still consider belmont my home, who i am, and most importantly all my junk, is in cambridge. in order to get back, i walked to my old 73 bus stop, which was a trip down memory lane.
purely out of whim i wandered to the harvard book store. i used to hate that place and i think i still do, but there isn't a lot of bookstores left in harvard square. wordsworth used to be my favorite before they went out of business. now i get most of my books through amazon.com. i don't like the harvard book store because it's so cramped and there's that whole used books section in the basement which i find gross for some reason. not that i don't buy used books (i make a pilgrimage to the strand whenever i go down to NYC), but the vibe at this place doesn't appeal to me. after a suitable amount of browsing, i cut across the harvard campus, admiring the ice formations on the walkways, including the icy loop (i saw some last year too). i'd love to find an icy donut one of these days.
i "watched" whale rider, if you can call it that. i've seen the movie before so i knew it's a tearjerker, but for some reason tonight i just went nuts. you know in that scene where the little girl makes her special speech on stage? oh my god, before we even got to that scene, i was already crying. and then when we got there, uncontrollable sobbing. "this...is...so...sad..." i said to myself as i got off the couch to get some tissue. i think i have to stop the hormone treatment, it's making me moody like nobody's business. after it was all over though, i felt kind of cathartic.
the next event was the hot bath. the irony didn't escape me: it's freezing snowing outside and here i am taking a hot bath. literature: a copy of detail magazine. i stopped subscribing a few months ago but they kept on sending me issues, until one day i got a bill asking me to pay up. that's funny, because i never agreed to reup my subscription, i hate that magazine! i was only reading it because i already finished the latest issue of entertainment weekly which arrived yesterday. also: i practiced holding my breath underwater. i wonder if it's possible to drown in the bathtub? once i had that thought i stopped practicing.
after the bath, i made dinner, a pair of hot dogs again with a can of ginger ale along with half a cantaloupe. i was thinking about going outside later tonight to get some photos of the snowstorm, but baby, it's cold out there!
last updated Sun January 23rd, 2005 11:54PM | comments (4) | link
it's almost 3am and it's still snowing outside. i hear it's going to snow until 6pm tomorrow. there's already at least a foot of snow, with strong winds that cause snowdrifts. earlier i was outside getting a head start on shoveling the sidewalk. there's so much snow i don't know where to put it! it'll be interesting to see what happens tomorrow morning...
last updated Sun January 23rd, 2005 10:06PM | comments (2) | link
i wandered around a little bit in the snow. all my neighbors were out shoveling, i've never seen so many of them at the same time before. the only traffic were the occasional plow trucks that rumble by. at some places the snow was up to my waist from the snow drifts. not only was it snowy, but it's also windy and cold. i got as far as mass ave before i returned home.
i went to star market to pick up some snacks and drinks and headed over to dan's place in the afternoon to watch the two football championship games. things were kind of casual at the supermarket (management must've stayed home) and there were signs that the employees were eating some of the food. there was hardly any traffic on the road, and the few pedestrians that were out were walking in the streets since most of the sidewalks were buried in snow. i traveled cautiously, making sure no cars were behind me, or let them pass if there were: it's not that they want to hit you, but when the roads are covered in snow, sometimes it's hard to stop. when i got to dan's place (slightly out of breath from the trek), i found him and cymara dressed in complementary green eagles t-shirt and jersey. dan showed me the view from outside his backyard, a 2+ feet tall snowdrift right up to his door. dan gave me some presents he'd bought in brazil, a carved wooden plank depicting a beach scene, and a cuica (brazilian friction drum) made from a coconut. we're going to start a cuica samba band.
the first game was between the philadelphia eagles and the atlanta falcons. i wasn't emotionally invested in either teams but i rooted for the eagles since that was who dan was rooting for. dan promised he wouldn't get crazy berserk this year if the eagles lost like he did last year, but just to be sure i brought my horse tranquilizers. eagles led throughout, but almost every point was hard-fought. watching with his tivo, dan would rewind plays and rewatch them. the game ended with the eagles winning, and the players dousing the head coach with a bucket of urine (or maybe it was yellow gatorade, it was hard to tell). dan celebrated by sharing some champagne (which tasted like light vinegar).
cymara had made dinner and i was invited to stay. we had some brazilian-style fish, some eggplants with tomato sauce, and some couscous.
we finished dinner just in time for the second game between the new england patriots and the pittsburg steelers. i of course rooted for the patriots and so did dan, but he only wanted the patriots so he could enjoy living in enemy territory as an eagles fan for the next two weeks prior to the superbowl. patriots scored first on their first possession and never lost the lead. the steelers kept on coming back, but the patriots always had an answer, made it look easy, even though the game was suspenseful all the way into the 4th quarter. i didn't hold back in my cheering and at one point i got so worked up with my clapping and screaming that i felt light-headed. unlike in the previous game, head coach belichick didn't get drenched with urine.
so the patriots are going to the superbowl, to battle the eagles. dan kept on telling how this was his dream matchup and we can't be friends anymore. i was just happy i didn't have to sedate him.
i left soon afterwards, didn't even wait for the AFL championship award presentation. the snow had stopped, but everything, everywhere, was still covered in the powdery white stuff including all the roads. somerville, cambridge, ghost towns, silhouettes of people walking in the streets, the occasional headlights of approaching cars. i used the underground tunnel, the steps a slippery slide that i had to use the handrails to lower myself down and up. it's beautiful, the blizzard of 2005, but i wonder how long the snow will stay.
i'm already starting to get sick of it.
last updated Mon January 24th, 2005 2:58PM | comments (2) | link
i hate people who talk about their vacation plans incessantly. so if you're like me, you might want to skip this next entry, but read on if you're curious:
JAPAN
alex tells me sundays are when the harajuku girls and boys come out and play dress up. i'll keep that in mind. i also want to wake up before dawn and go see the tsukiji fish market, where fishermen haul frozen fish the size of logs and auction them off. i minored in japanese during college, but unfortunately i've forgotten most of it, so i have to brush up on my nihongo the next few weeks.
TAIWAN
i want to try betel nuts and hang out with the girls who sell them. although i'm afraid of heights, i want to go up the taipei 101, the new tallest building in the world (and the only "supertall" to be built on an active earthquake region).
HONG KONG
the man mo temple in sheung wan district, to see suspended incense coils.
VIETNAM
the islands of halong bay are similar to those in phuket (thailand) and guilin (china), but in the order of thousands. i might take the reunification train from hanoi to hué, about an 11 hour overnight journey, then take a bus or rent a motorcycle to danang and hoi an. the train trip from danang to ho chi minh city (saigon) takes 16 hours; if i have the money i just might take a plane (too much vietnam, i don't want to spend almost a whole day on a train). i want to try cha ca in saigon, i hear good things. the border crossing of moc bai takes me to cambodia.
CAMBODIA
a day (and maybe a night) in the capital of phnom penh before spending a week in siem reap visiting angkor. leaving via the poipet border crossing into thailand (a 5 hours bus ride to the crossing, another 5 hours bus ride to bangkok, if flights are cheap i'll take a plane).
THAILAND (1)
i'm actually visiting thailand twice, southern thailand into laos and back out to northern thailand. bangkok to ayuthaya to pak chon to spend a few days at the khao yai national park: this place feels like the southeast asian version of costa rica's corcovado, with such exotics as wild elephants and tigers in the forest. did i mention leeches? from there i head to sukhothai, then phitsanulok, which is close to phu kradung national park, rich in tropical pitcher plants. through khon kaen i go north to the border crossing of nong khai into laos.
LAOS
a brief stay at the capital of vientiane before traveling north via bus (10 hrs) to luang prabang. originally i wanted to take the slow boat to the border crossing of huay xai, but that takes 2 days on a crowded craft, and i think i'd probably go crazy. fortunately, there are flights from luang prabang to chiang mai so i think i just might splurge.
THAILAND (2)
chiang mai to see the hill tribes, particularly a stop at mae hong son to see the padauang women. when it's time to leave, a flight to mandalay in burma.
BURMA (MYANMAR)
mandalay to bagan to yangon then back to taipei.
must've been the three consecutive cans of pepsi i drank at dan's place, because i couldn't fall asleep last night. at 6:30am i was still awake in bed, thinking about maybe just skipping sleep altogether and waking up. eventually elusive sleep did come and i didn't wake up until noon. there was no hurry really, i figured most of boston would be closed anyway, it'd be a good day to just sleep in. besides, it was warm underneath the covers while cold throughout the rest of my house.
i didn't leave the house at all today. from my living room window, with my glass of milk, i watched as neighbors continue to dig their cars out of the snow, a real sense of cantabrigian community. the news reported a few deaths resulting from carbon monoxide poisoning, passengers unwittingly sitting in their cars with snow-blocked exhaust pipes, their vehicles suddenly becoming deadly wintery gas chambers.
james and i played a multiplayer session of diablo 2 expansion over the internet (from attleboro to cambridge). i thought my level 32 barbarian character was powerful, but his level 39 druid was mad crazy: summoning a pack of wolves, a bear, a murder of crows, a swirl of smashing freezing stones, tornados, firestorms, meteorites, tentacles popping out from the ground, it was the most visually intense spectacle of offensive power i've ever witnessed. he was definitely doing the bulk of the fighting while i ran around the various rooms picking up dropped treasures and weapons. we quickly dispatched a few bosses before calling it quits.
for dinner i had some chinese dumplings while watching the latest episode of 24. i was finally able to get in touch with renata, less than a week before she ships out for beijing. she told me not to go to myanmar because it's an "oppressive regime": my reasons for going 1) why hurt the common people who could really use the tourism money, 2) i don't think myanmar is anymore repressive, than say, china, and people go to the middle kingdom all the time (case in point), and 3) never one to follow the status quo, just knowing somebody doesn't want me to go there makes me want to go there even more! she also asked if i'd be writing my weblog during my trip and seemed disappointed when i said no: besides the lack of internet access in some of the more remote spots, just the fact that i won't be a slave to the weblog for 3 months is the real vacation for me.
last updated Wed January 26th, 2005 7:35AM | comments (7) | link
i have a disease, i can't stop buying books. this morning i was determined to find a book about chiang mai. originally i was going to order it online but there was a 2-4 weeks wait on amazon.com so i figured i'd just buy it from a bookstore, which was where i originally saw the book in the first place. problem was i didn't remember which bookstore, and i'd visited 5 within the past week. so i head out to harvard square first, revisiting the 3 bookstores there with no luck. i could've just gone home, but i knew not finding the book would haunt me so i got on the subway and went to downtown crossing. i finally found it at barnes & noble, bought it, then quickly came home.
my amazon.com book order was waiting on my doorstep, a southeast asian phrasebook and the rough guide to southeast asia. up to now i've been using the lonely planet guide to southeast asia as my reference. now that i have a chance to compare the two, the lonely planet guide is definitely a lot better. the rough guide, although dense, seems dry, and the layout seems confusing. the rough guide also seems preachy: there's no mention of burma at all (which is surprising for a guide about southeast asia), almost as if they don't want you to go there. unfortunately the lonely planet guide i have is a library book and i'll have to return it soon. i'm ordering a personal copy for myself but it's stuck at amazon.com because i'm bundling it with another item (map book) that currently on hold.
it's my turn to cook tonight and after struggling with a recipe i finally decided to do the 30 minute meal clam chowder, or in my case, clam corn chowder. this will be my second attempt, after a lackluster initial try. i went to the supermarket and got the ingredients. when i told julie what i'd be making tonight, she told me she doesn't do chowder. i don't think i've ever cooked for somebody as picky as she is! we decided to make tacos instead.
when evening came around she walked over to my place (so she wouldn't lose her valuable parking spot) so we could go to the coelacanth (living fossil!) lecture at the harvard museum. i figured the snow would produce a low turnout, but the usual amount of people showed up nevertheless. a harvard fish professor gave the talk, i didn't think it was very good, he brought up points that he didn't connect and his lecture sort of meandered. he had a good sense of humor though, ever so often interjecting the presentation with a funny anecdote. the talk was low on coelacanth facts (at least nothing that i didn't already know) and towards the end i noticed people were already leaving prematurely.
instead of tacos, julie hijacked my dinner plans once again and suggested pho in harvard square instead. i left my camera at home when i was rushing out of the house and couldn't take photos of my meal other than with my cameraphone (the quality is bad enough that i'm not even going to bother posting them). i had the vermicelli dish with pork and shrimp while julie went with some chicken pho. after dinner we walked back, i went home while julie returned to davis square.
last updated Wed January 26th, 2005 12:12PM | comments (4) | link
i was sitting in my living room in my underwear when renata arrived. earlier i'd been outside shoveling the fresh snow from the sidewalk (another small snowstorm passing through cambridge, 5" more of snow), and had just came inside, taking off my wet pants. who could that be walking up my steps? i thought. when the doorbell rang and i realized who it was, i scrambled to put my pants back on.
renata was running errands today, and i was an item on her long to-do list. she called me this morning (well, actually, close to noon, but i was still sleeping) asking if she could drop by, but i didn't expect her until 4pm. to be honest, i kind thought she'd cancel since it was snowing again and hard to drive and find parking spots (especially in cambridge). the first thing she asked for when she came inside the house was a sweater (i quickly turned up the heat), then she asked for some hot tea, then for me to make her a fruit elixir. all three wishes were granted. she stood on the heating vent on the kitchen floor and refused to leave from that spot. we exchanged travel stories, two people on the verge of long asian trips. she told me about her own thai experience from a few years back, when she visited bangkok, phuket, and chiangmai within the span of 2 weeks. she also reiterated her concern about my burma trip; her apprehension was cute but it only made me want to go that much more. old habits die hard as we did our usual song-and-dance routine where i take a photo of renata, she asks to see it then demands to have it erased, but i ignore her. she also warned me on several occasions not to write certain things she said (but if you e-mail me, i will gladly share all). she said i haven't been my usual chipper self on my weblog, i mumbled some vague answer, but wasn't quite daring enough to say what was really on my mind. i asked what she'd been doing within the past few weeks, getting ready for her trip, moving out of her apartment. i offered her an invitation to stay for dinner (clam corn chowder) but she had other errands to run, more people to visit. she was already saying her good byes, "if i don't see you before i leave" stuff, but i made her promise to visit me one last time before she goes to beijing.
i walked her to her car, which was parked on beacon street. i should've known, but there was a snow emergency so of course she got a ticket ($50, but at leasst she didn't get towed). i wanted to pay the fine but she took the ticket away. as she drove off i felt bad that a friendly visit in bad weather turned out to be so expensive.
as evening approached i made some clam corn chowder. i did a much better job compared to last time (for one thing, i peeled the potatoes), but canned clams made the chowder too clammy tasting, and it didn't seem thick enough (despite the heartiness, chock full of celery, onion, and bacon). the recipe definitely needs some more refinement before it can be presented before an audience. despite not eating anything the entire day, i might've had too much of a good thing when i poured myself a big bowl of chowder while watching the gilmore girls. i ate as much as i could before dumping the rest back into the pot, tomorrow's lunch and dinner.
the rest of the evening was spent playing diablo (my barbarian got a new wardrobe! winged headgear and a new blue suit of armor), watching alias (feel like that 1989 movie the experts starring john travolta as an american unknowingly living in a soviet training camp disguised as small town americana), and receiving a phone call from my parents (finally) in taipei asking about the snow (they're coming back next week and want me to pick them up from the airport but didn't tell me when). tim also contacted me about not being able to take my spare bedroom for next month. it didn't take us long before the football trash talking started (tim is an eagles fan). tim, when my patriots beat your eagles, i will call you and LOL in your EAR!
even when you're not doing anything it's something. days slip through the cracks easily when you're unemployed, but even then, after fishing it back out from the gutters, every day is still interesting.
i had more of that chowder for lunch, as advertised, as promised. i don't know how much more of it i can eat. i'm sure it's not that bad, but through my slightly neurotic eyes (with my inability to consume leftovers of whatever shapes and sizes), that chowder seems like the kind of prison slop you see in exploitation films, that tasteless gruel, that unimaginative porridge. i also discovered that i'm probably slightly lactose intolerant. i never used to be, but i think as i grow older and a daily serving of milk is no longer part of my normal diet, my body has lost it's ability to break down lactose (in this case, a pint of heavy cream).
the power adapter for my circa 2001 ibook finally died today. i knew it was just a matter of time, my legs get tangled in the wires so often, the plug gets violently yanked from the machine like a patient losing life support. this month i noticed the end of the plug would occasionally shoot sparks from the exposed wire fibers inside, and then finally today it stopped charging the laptop altogether. so of course i was in a panic. i immediately called the apple store in the cambridgeside galleria mall, the guy there told me they don't carry the adapter so i'd have to order it online. i wasn't even thinking, so blinded with crisis, i just went ahead and ordered it, all $80 of a replacement adapter that wouldn't arrive until next week. next week! i won't be able to use my ibook at all until next week. the ibook that i use when i watch television in the living room, the ibook that i use to write this weblog with. so with the remaining trickle of electric juice left in the battery i quickly firewired all my files onto my desktop machine, which is how i'm writing now. the good thing is i write much better prose when i'm not in a prostate position, the words flow easier when i'm sitting upright. anyway, want to hear more? you have no choice. it then suddenly dawned on me that i didn't really need an official apple power adapter (as cool as it may be), that i could just get a 3rd party alternative, which would work just as great and cheaper too. i figured i could walk down to microcenter, and called apple.com to cancel my order. too late. already processed, already shipping. i've got no choice now but to wait for my plug which won't arrive until early next week (at least it's shipping from pennsylvania, not california).
last night i was thinking about awkward silences. i think there's truth in awkward silence. if somehow you could read people's minds at the exact moment of the awkward silence, you'd be able to find out what they're really thinking but too afraid to say. i don't think we should be so afraid of them. when it happens, we should sit back and enjoy it for what it's worth. yet you can't just live your life through awkward silences. for the sake of progress, they represent blockage, a lull in the usual smooth programming of life music. did i just contradict myself? anyway, just a thought!
i wrote my parents an e-mail in taipei, sent it to one of my cousins. i was just going to do it in english and hope that he'd be able to read it or find someone to translate, but i figured it'd give me a good opportunity to practice my chinese writing skills (hopefully my parents will get this message):
it got so cold in the house today that i'm wearing socks. this represents a dramatic domestic policy shift since i never wear socks inside the house, i like being barefoot. but this year i'm all about conserving energy and saving money, and since i'm living alone, i'm willing to suffer a little more, like leaving the heat only at 60 degrees. i used to wear shorts and a t-shirt inside the house during the wintertime, but not this year. as soon as i get out of bed, i put on long pants and a long-sleeved shirt, and even then my hands still feel cold and my nose is icy. it goes without saying that my feet are always cold, but that never really bothered me until today. pretty soon i'll be wearing a jacket inside the house and heating myself up by candle fire.
nothing much is going to happen tonight, so this will be the earliest weblog entry ever. eat some more of that chowder (gross), watch a little television, fold my laundry, call it a night.
last updated Thu January 27th, 2005 8:15PM | comments (2) | link
i grabbed the bus once more to get the car from my parents' place, so i could drive down to providence and catch the puppet show curated by marsian, who asked me weeks ago if i could come and take photos. with only my sister living at the house until my parents' come back, i figured the whole place would be buried i snow, but i was surprised to see that she had neatly shoveled all of the sidewalk. the car, unused since the blizzard from last weekend, was partially covered in snow which i easily cleaned off. after filling the tank with gas, i was on my way.
traffic along 95 around greater boston was a bit congested, but once i cleared that perimeter things moved at a quicker pace. as is the custom with anytime i take a road trip, i made a mix cd. the one that i had was filled with really sad songs but i seemed impervious to their effects until yeah yeah yeah's "maps" came around for the second time, i got a little choked up. the exit marsian told me to get off at wasn't the exit i'm familiar with, so i got a little bit lost before i regained my bearing and found his apartment eventually. marsian was having a crisis between moving the new furniture he inherited from his sister and getting ready for the show after running late, and greeted me at the door in his bathrobe with shaving cream on his face. i thought he was joking when he told me it'd take another hour before he was ready but he was quite serious, as i sat in the living room watching television. i discovered VH1 classic with it's wall-to-wall broadcast of 80's videos: morrissey's "girlfriend in a coma," simple mind's "sanctify yourself," and tracy ullman's "they've never heard of love." when marsian was finally ready, he came out in drag sporting furry black platform boots. we grabbed his stuff and left for vanessa's place.
vanessa is marsian's partner in crime at the "blood from a turnip" show, and we arrived at her place nearly 2 hours late for dinner (the only thing i had to eat today was some scrambled eggs in the morning). i brought a small watermelon as a present but it went unnoticed on the kitchen island. there were other people there, people who'd be performing at the show. it felt very "backstage access" and most of what they were talking about i was pretty much clueless and smiled politely, answering questions when asked. i was introduced as "the guy who's going to be taking photos of the show." dinner came in the form of some soup (sweet potato?), some bread, an apple crisp (i think that's what they're called), and some seltzer water to wash it all down. everyone then crammed into a car and left for the perishable theatre.
while everyone got ready for the show, i picked the best seat in the house to get the best photos (dead center front). there was a frantic rush of people setting up until 10:30 when the doors were opened and the audience filed into the theatre. i had a fantasy that renata would come and rescue me but she never showed up. marsian and vanessa started the show, introducing themselves through the use of cardboard puppets that fell apart (i was with marsian when he tried to fix one of the puppets back at his place). sitting next to me was a woman with a digital camera, indiscreetly taking flash photos that seemed to bother some of the performers. the first number was an interpretive piece exploring adolescent rite-of-passage (i didn't quite understand it myself), followed by a musical interlude from a lip-syncing opera singer. next came the first puppet act of the evening, a marionette named giovanni waking up from a hangover. 2 RISD girls did the following act, a marionette puppet talent show (which i thought was the best piece of the show) featuring a bellydancer, a troupadour, a showgirl, a girl singer, and a puppeteer. the last performance was cokie the clown, "about a [gay leather] birthday clown addicted to cocaine suffering in a co-dependent relationship."
after the show, i got a ride back to my car with marsian's neighbor kevin. purely through navigational instinct, i made it back to the highway without once stopping to check the map, through a frosty windshield that provided zero visibility (it'd clear up eventually). the drive back was effortless with little traffic on the road. the temperature gauge kept on dropping, until it eventually read 0 degrees fahrenheit. i decided to return via 93, which turned out to be a mistake as the entire big dig underground tunnel was closed for some reason (probably to patch up more leaks). i took a forced detour that lead me to chinatown, then made my way to cambridge. once i got back, it took me 30 minutes and circling the neighbor 4 times before i found a parking spot. wedged in between two snow banks, i was afraid in my attempt to squeeze into the space, the car exhaust would be blocked and i'd slowly succumb to the silent killer of carbon monoxide (not to be confused with that other silent killer, hypertension, which i'm slowly dying from).
tired, cold, hungry, i went to bed immediately.
last updated Sun January 30th, 2005 2:03PM | comments (2) | link
oh burma, you and your restrictive control over who can come into your country! i can't get in without an entry visa (which takes several days to process), and i'm not sure i can get one in chiang mai, so i have to leave for burma from bangkok (besides, i think the chiang mai to mandalay flight leaves only once a week). there's some backtracking but it'll be on a plane so it won't matter (i won't be penalized for mileage). i'm also going to be doing more flying overall (versus slower land travel), just to save time. i don't think it'll reduce the authenticity of the experience if i don't travel completely via land routes. red dotted lines mean mandatory flights, yellow dotted lines mean optional flights. in vietnam, i can take the night train from danang into ho chi minh city, or i can just fly in. from luang prabang in laos i could take a boat into thailand that would take 2-3 days to get to chiang mai, or i can take a plane and be there in a few hours. since i'm now flying from siem reap (cambodia) into vientiane (laos), the only land border crossing will be between vietnam and cambodia.
last updated Sat January 29th, 2005 5:14PM | comments (1) | link
i rented several movies through netflix that are related to southeast asia, as part of my ongoing travel research. the only one i watched completely was the vietnam war documentary hearts & minds, and that was after watching another documentary about hiroshima on the history channel, so most of my day was spent realizing how much american foreign policy has destroyed parts of asia.
renata and her parents were coming into boston from providence to stay overnight at a hotel so they could get to logan airport bright and early tomorrow morning. i wanted to meet renata once more before she left so i called to see what was up. she told me they'd be coming into boston in the evening and she'd give me a call at that time. at 7:30 she called me saying they were leaving. at 8:30 she called me again to say they were leaving. "where are you guys, like in a restaurant?" i assumed they were already in town and were returning to their hotel room. "no, we're still in rhode island," renata told me. after about an hour i got dressed and headed into boston. it was 10:00 by the time i arrived in the sheraton hotel. i called them and renata's mother told me to meet them at the legal seafood restaurant inside the prudential mall. when i got there i found everyone, but unfortunately the restaurant was closed (like, either forever, or for renovations). it was revealed to me that the whole reason why they picked the sheraton was so they could get some legal seafood chowder. luckily there's another legal seafood in the adjoining copley square mall.
i was surprised to see that the malls were still opened despite the fact that most of the businesses were already closed. after a long walk, we finally made it to the alternate legal seafood. i had just a cup of clam chowder and renata shared her seafood salad with me. "you don't like seafood, do you?" renata whispered. "no no, i like seafood," i replied, even though sometimes i don't. we also ordered a crab meat dip served with crispy fried chips that was really good. "did you guys already have dinner before you left providence?" i asked them. "no, we haven't eaten yet," they responded. when her father heard that i was going to the guggenheim next week to see the aztec exhibit, he let me borrow his membership card. he returned to the hotel room early because he felt tired. her mother was going to leave too when she realized she hadn't paid yet.
the three of us walked back to the hotel. i went upstairs with them; while her mother returned to their room, renata and i spent some time talking outside sitting on the carpeted hallway. i felt sad in a way that i couldn't verbalize, wishing that somehow time could stop so we could hang out some more. as it was getting late and they had an early morning the next day, i said good bye and told renata i'd see her at the airport tomorrow.
back in porter square, i stopped by the cvs to get some toothpaste. i bought the crest multi-flavored 4-pak sampler because i couldn't decide on a flavor and i wanted to try them all. i couldn't wait to go home and brush my teeth. i brushed with orange and immediately had second thoughts. when toothpaste tastes too much like real food it gets weird, you don't know whether to spit or swallow.
i didn't even get enough ground speed to fall asleep. by the time i started to get drowsy, it was 5:30 in the morning already, time to wake up.
i quickly got dressed and stumbled into the early darkness. the streets were mostly empty. i saw the boston globe van stopping to deliver the newspaper. i phoned renata's mother with their morning wake-up call. when i got to the station there was nobody at the token booth, so i just walked right in without paying and down the escalator. the platform was empty except for a man sleeping on one of the benches. i caught the red line to park street, then rode the green one stop north to government center to take the blue line to logan airport. a lot of people there seemed like they were going to the airport as well (why else would they be up this early on a sunday?). there was something wrong with the blue line because even though i could hear ghost trains coming into the station, i waited 25 minutes before an actual train showed up. once we got to the airport stop, it was another 5 minute shuttle bus ride to terminal C, and then i had to find the united ticket counter.
i got there late (7:10) but everyone was still getting ready. there was renata with her parents, the other teacher traveling with her, and her american foreign exchange students along with their parents. before yesterday i figured all of renata's friends would be at the airport to send her off, so i was surprised when she said that wasn't the case: besides myself, her friend peter was there as well. of the departing group, renata was the only one who'd been to china before. renata said good bye to us and led the kids away to check-in their baggage. her parents were reminiscing on how perhaps renata caught the china bug as a child because they used to rent a lot of art house chinese films ("everything with gong li in it," her father told us). renata's dad was also admiring how in-charge she looked with her armful of documents. before the group went inside the gated terminal there was one final round of good byes as well as photo taking. i couldn't stop smiling, seeing these parents with their kids, it brought back a lot of fond memories. and it's really interesting to see the things these kids were bringing: one boy brought his skateboard and his electric guitar (the guitar had to stay behind, cost too much to ship it as additional luggage). we waited until they were through the security checkpoint before leaving the airport.
i got a ride home with peter who drove to the airport. we took the shuttle bus to terminal E (where he parked), went around the airport twice before we figured out where to get off. we also had a hard time figuring out where the manned exits were (versus the automated prepaid exits). we went into the ted williams tunnel and then the mass turnpike back to cambridge. i found out peter had done some traveling in thailand and vietnam, and we stopped briefly at his place so he could grab some vietnam travel info for me before i got a ride home.
i took a shower and then an hour long nap before my next adventure.
i went to kendall square to met up with eliza and jerica for the sunday matinee of born into brothels (exclusive one week only engagement), about camera-wielding children documenting their lives inside the red light district of calcutta, india. i went in first to get seats (it seemed like the movie du jour) before eliza and jerica showed up. eliza wore a distractingly pleasant honeysuckle-scented perfume which i could smell during the movie. from my bag i retrieved a can of contraband soda. after several trailers, the movie started.
because these young photographers are born into brothels, they have access to places normally off limits. the film shows the resiliency of children, how even under the harshest conditions, they manage to survive and find beauty in their world through the eye of the camera lens. despite that resiliency however, they're caught up in the gravity of their surroundings, and few if any manage to escape. with a family who don't care for them (the typical story is mom's a prostitute while dad is a drugged-out pimp) and a society that looks down on them, they seem fated to end up like their parents. for some, prostitution is the family business: grandmothers, mothers, and daughters all participate in this service industry. the girls have it worse, as they mature, it's only a matter of time before they're put "to the line" and some unfortunate ones don't even make it that far before they lose their innocence. along comes a woman who arrives in calcutta to document the brothels, but end up being a crusader for these kids, arming them with automatic cameras so they can "defend" themselves by shooting their lives, and using the photos to garner international attention to their plight and to raise money to take them out of the slums and into boarding schools where they'll be safe. each child has his/her personality with their own shooting style. my personal favorite is avijit, a little boy ("he doesn't like to be called fat") who seems to be a burgeoning diva in the making. the ending of the film is sobering, a mixture of happy and sad. if you want to take an intimate peek into a world few outsiders have ever seen, viewed through the eyes of children, try to catch this documentary before it leaves the theatre.
the three of us went to the starbucks (formerly seattle's best) in kendall square after the movie to get something warm to drink. i went with my usual poison, venti chai latte. eliza disclaimed that she and jerica were out late partying last night so they didn't have their best face on. jerica showed me the homemade lip balm she'd made. we spent the time further talking about the documentary we just saw before heading to the T in our separate directions. observation: when i see fuzzy pink boots on the subway, i have no choice but to take a photo.
back at home i took another shower before i moisturized the hell out of my body: my skin's been so dry and itchy that it was starting to hurt (because i scratched at it, natch). it wasn't until 5pm that i realized i hadn't eaten the entire day (and a long day it was, 12 hours since i've been awake). i heated up some chinese dumplings for dinner. afterwards, lounging on the couch watching inside the actor's studio with clint eastwood, i fell asleep, only to wake up hours later. i turned up the heat and retreated to my bedroom to work on the weblog.
i got the car inspected at the nearby shell gas station (-$29), went to belmont to water the habanero pepper plant and to set up the vcr to record tonight's episode of 24 (my sister was home), went to the library to pay for some overdue books (-80¢) and to renew that southeast asia guide, and helped renata's friend anne (who lives in north cambridge and came to pick me up) with some problems regarding her iphotos. our session lasted 3 hours and she insisted on paying me (+$45), even though i was reluctant to take any money for something as trivial as sorting out her collection of photos. renata had batch-sent an e-mail from china to let all her friends back home know that she was fine and i read the message at anne's place (i was happy to find a personalized e-mail when i got home). earlier in the day i thought about going out for a run but felt that there was still too much snow on the ground (at this point, the snow will still be here by march). still no word on my health insurance, although my NASE membership officially kicked in and i got some copies of the documents i signed. bank america also sent me a new debit card to replace my old fleet card, and after activating it, i went online and changed my credit card number for all the places where i have automated billing. i made myself an anchovy pizza for dinner (groceries -$14) while watching (and recording) the rebroadcast of game 1 of the 2004 ALCS series between the red sox and the yankees. and throughout the day, i avoided being impaled by falling icicles. and finally my ibook power adapter arrived (-$80), i can surf the web and write my weblog in the living room again! although the battery will need replacing: it only gets about 30 minutes worth of power now when fully charged. maybe i can use my mac help service dinero to pay for a spare battery!
last updated Thu February 3rd, 2005 9:25AM | comments (9) | link
i thought i'd be all out of shape since it's been weeks since my last run (
when rob called to drop by and pick up his bicycle that he left in my basement before he went off on his european vacation. we chatted a little bit (making fun of the celebrity news, trying to score tsunami videos, the poop on france) before he returned to jamaica plain. julie came by soon afterwards with some laundry; since her dryer was busted, i let her do a wash at my place. we watched the rebroadcast of game 1 of the 1975 world series between the boston red sox and the cincinnati reds. luis tiant was the pitcher, 
with a supporting cast of the likes of carl yastrzemski, jim rice, dwight evans, and carlton fisk. don zimmer of the pedro-charging-fame was actually the red sox 3rd base coach (small world). the designated hitter rule didn't seem to apply as pitcher luis tiant managed to score the game winning run with some good base running in fenway park. it was just really interesting seeing the stars of yesteryear, 
many of whom still appear time-to-time on sports talk shows. the picture quality was something to be desired with the washed-out retrovideo, the intermittent score/inning overlays were vintage 1970's fabrications, and the camera work was still in its infancy with frequent missed plays and fustrating vantage points. compared to the sports broadcasts we have today, you can really appreciate how far we've come. i had some chinese dumplings for dinner and what i didn't finish i gave to julie. she brought some color "dot" candy which i had a hard time digesting because i can't stand eating the paper that gets stuck to each dot.
how this particular movie can find a spot on critics' best films lists leaves me scratching my head. howard hughes the man is an interesting one, a young millionaire who inherits his parents' fortunes, he spends his days chasing his dreams, with plenty of astonishing successes in his early years, only to be met with just as many incredible defeats later in life. the movie seems to say that if you're rich and good-looking, you can do anything: date pretty starlets one after the other, set the world's speed record, buy an airline, and design bras for jane russell. hughes is a renaissance man, with a workaholic drive fueled by his lofty dreams, a master of multi-tasking and an eye for every excruciating detail. he seems to have it all, were it not for that one infamous tragic flaw, his growing insanity as he becomes a germophobe. all that seems interesting, right? but the movie feels dry, and even though hughes was doing one cool thing after another, i kept on wondering to myself, "why should i care?" it's like watching the lives of celebrities, you know they lead interesting lifestyles, but they're so far away removed from the normal and everyday, that what they do in their mansions or private jets doesn't concern me.
throw in a wise old black man as the go-between foil (morgan freeman), sprinkle a few other interesting characters, and you have yourself a pretty decent movie; a decent movie that's been played out before time and time again. but get this: the final 20 minutes of the film takes an unexpected turn, and now suddenly you have something different, transforming the movie from a rockesque venture to something thought-provoking and genuine, something that stays with you long after the movie's over, something brave and sad and wonderful and gut-wrenching. those looking for formulaic should look elsewhere: million dollar baby is all about doing what you don't expect, and in so doing, it makes for a more realistic movie, because that's life for you, all twists and turns, where good guys occasionally lose and bad guys sometimes win. it wouldn't shock me to see all three of the main leads with some sort of oscar nomination come award season. despite the film being a drama, there's a surprising amount of humor as well. it's definitely one of those movies with some staying power, makes you laugh, makes you think, and makes you feel.
it's going to be a top-notch "feeling" movie. the sex talk didn't bother me because i'm so desensitized to it (thank you internet). it was the emotions that got me: infidelity, couples breaking up, couples trying to get back together. and you know when couples fight and they air out all their dirty laundry? there's stuff like that. a few times i almost got up to say "oh snap!" or "oh no you didn't!" most devastating scene: when jude law breaks up with natalie portman. she's all crying, begging him to stay, and she's completely destroyed, and the only person who can comfort her is the man who's breaking her heart. it's just sick. that's just love. the movie is also fun to watch so you can play the game, "who's the biggest asshole?" my vote: jude law, followed by julia roberts. clive owens character does some pretty crude things but he never betrays anyone. natalie portman is a relative innocent, although the ending sort of leaves it ambiguous. i wasn't sure, but now that i've had some time to think about it, i think i love this movie.
inman square isn't a very far walk from my house. i went there after some early morning code work to find the cambridge city hall annex, to renew my visitor's parking permit (it'd been on my todo list since the end of last year). some corrugated shack was where you used to do this, but now they've moved to a fancy renovated building. what i wasn't expecting was the long line (lunch time, i should've figured), but they had taller windows set up like at a bank, so the line went pretty fast. a beautiful middle eastern looking woman was paying for her overdue parking tickets while chatting on her cellphone. another woman behind me thought it was okay to wait in line with her shaggy dog. a girl was refused a permit because she didn't have the proper residential verifications 
i decided to visit the foodmaster for the very first time. affectionately known as "the food bastard," i'd heard that the place had wall-to-wall carpetting, which i'm confirming to be true. i'd also heard it's the ghetto of food shopping, but it looked like any other supermarkets. prices weren't anything different either. i didn't want to leave empty-handed so i got a carton of chiquita brand guava pineapple juice. next time i want to visit a market basket, which i've never been to before either, but i heard it's the place to go for inexpensive groceries.
a week before i was born, the 
when i came back home a netflix package was waiting for me: a touch of pink (2004), about a gay indian man living in london who's unsuspecting mother comes to visit him hoping for some possible wedding news but discover her son is actually living with his british boyfriend. okay, and kyle maclachlan plays an imaginary cary grant. hiliarity ensues! later in the evening i ate the rest of my leftover linguine: it wasn't very good but i'm happy it didn't go to waste (considering my track record regarding leftovers).
last night i went to bed at 6am. i'm afraid to go to bed because i seriously have problems falling asleep now. i imagined my parents waking up and getting ready for their morning flight to taipei. my south eastasia trip is definitely on my mind, but there's other things as well. maybe i need to try a different position, or perhaps try sleeping in the spare bedroom, just to mix things up. the problem is i do too much thinking at nights. i'm starting to feel drowsy and suddenly i start thinking and it's like my mind won't shut up and i can't fall asleep. hopefully it'll work itself out of my system. today was thoroughly unproductive. i wanted to run some errands (get my international driving license, set up an appointment with a travel doctor) but most offices were closed because of the martin luther king holiday. i had the rest of my leftover barbecue for lunch then went out running. the temperature was in the upper teens, and it was so cold i wanted to cut my run short and return home. i had a hat but my ears stuck out, which after a while started to throb and hurt. it was my first time running after that night of bowling, and despite still feeling some residual aches, it didn't affect my run in any way, and in fact i had a lot of energy today. walking back home afterwards, my arms were literally numb, little tiny pinpricks of sensation when i bent my elbows. too cold to walk the rest of the way, i ran home instead. i quickly shoveled the sidewalk before coming inside: my generous neighbors did their own walks but left mine alone, and my upstairs neighbor was no help either. in the evening i made some ramen for dinner, unmotivated to do very much else.
i saw the life aquatic, in a theatre with a handful of other middle-of-the-day moviegoers. i was tempted to strike up a conversation with some of them, but i didn't want to break rule number one which is weirdos don't interact with other weirdos. i didn't like the life aquatic, just a bit too quirky. wes anderson's best film was rushmore, and these films he's made since then have really missed the mark for me. he has an appealing visual style, but i feel he sacrifices a compelling story for the sake of offbeat characters. it's almost like the story is secondary, and you watch his movies to enjoy the characters and the world he creates. there's a child-like "wow" quality to the life aquatic, whether it's seeing exotic underwater creatures, fighting with pirates, or staging a daring rescue: i think the people who will enjoy this movie share that child-like quality. bill murray plays the smarmy cousteau-esque oceanographer steve zissou, and nobody does a better charming smarmy than murray. i thought the staff of unpaid interns were pretty funny, they're essentially servants working for school credit. the topless script girl anne-marie is a nice touch, nothing more warming on a cold day than see boobies on the big screen. the life aquatic would be a good rental, but save your theatre money for something else.
a copy of the station agent had arrived from netflix. i watched it while eating a pair of hot dogs for dinner followed by several clementine oranges for dessert. 
i "watched" whale rider, if you can call it that. 
i of course rooted for the patriots and so did dan, but he only wanted the patriots so he could enjoy living in enemy territory as an eagles fan for the next two weeks prior to the superbowl. patriots scored first on their first possession and never lost the lead. the steelers kept on coming back, but the patriots always had an answer, made it look easy, even though the game was suspenseful all the way into the 4th quarter. i didn't hold back in my cheering and at one point i got so worked up with my clapping and screaming that i felt light-headed. unlike in the previous game, head coach belichick didn't get drenched with urine.
james and i played a multiplayer session of diablo 2 expansion over the internet (from attleboro to cambridge). i thought my level 32 barbarian character was powerful, but his level 39 druid was mad crazy: 
summoning a pack of wolves, a bear, a murder of crows, a swirl of smashing freezing stones, tornados, firestorms, meteorites, tentacles popping out from the ground, it was the most visually intense spectacle of offensive power i've ever witnessed. he was definitely doing the bulk of the fighting while i ran around the various rooms picking up dropped treasures and weapons. we quickly dispatched a few bosses before calling it quits.
as an american unknowingly living in a soviet training camp disguised as small town americana), and receiving a phone call from my parents (finally) in taipei asking about the snow (they're coming back next week and want me to pick them up from the airport but didn't tell me when). tim also contacted me about not being able to take my spare bedroom for next month. it didn't take us long before the football trash talking started (tim is an eagles fan). tim, when my patriots beat your eagles, i will call you and LOL in your EAR!
(the typical story is mom's a prostitute while dad is a drugged-out pimp) and a society that looks down on them, they seem fated to end up like their parents. for some, prostitution is the family business: grandmothers, mothers, and daughters all participate in this service industry. the girls have it worse, as they mature, it's only a matter of time before they're put "to the line" and some unfortunate ones don't even make it that far before they lose their innocence. along comes a woman who arrives in calcutta to document the brothels, but end up being a crusader for these kids, arming them with automatic cameras so they can "defend" themselves by shooting their lives, and using the photos to garner international attention to their plight and to raise money to take them out of the slums and into boarding schools where they'll be safe. each child has his/her personality with their own shooting style. my personal favorite is avijit, a little boy ("he doesn't like to be called fat") who seems to be a burgeoning diva in the making. the ending of the film is sobering, a mixture of happy and sad. if you want to take an intimate peek into a world few outsiders have ever seen, viewed through the eyes of children, try to catch this documentary before it leaves the theatre.
