a funny sequel based on the best sequel formula, which is, give people the original movie but add something more to it. it's nice to see john lone (the last emperor himself!) on the silver screen again. zhang ziyi is totally underutilized as a hot baddy. wouldn't see have made a better bad girl who becomes a good girl in the end? roselyn sanchez as agent isabella is pretty hot. in traditional jackie chan fashion, he gets the girl (isabella), but nothing more ever happens other than some antiseptic kissing. it's kind of ironic to see chris tucker's always-horny detective james carter not get any girls in the end. maybe in rush hour 3? the plethora of race jokes (black, asian) turned me off a little bit. i was hoping to be the lone asian barometer inside the theatre, and the crowd would determine whether they should laugh at an asian joke or or not based on my reactions. unfortunately, even the really awful borderline-racist jokes i was laughing at as well, i just got caught up in the moment! that jackie chan, that chris tucker, they're so funny!

so yes, highly recommended if you like your action movies with a lot of humor. the scene where chris tucker sings "don't stop till you get enough" by michael jackson is worth the price of admission alone!

macgyver bus driver
on my way to harvard square on this rainy day riding the 73 (which btw i rode with our exchange student, who happened to be heading into town as well), a traffic accident jammed the road directly in front of us and the belmont police had to divert traffic away from the scene of the car crash. unfortunately, i'm riding one of those old school electric buses that run on charged guidewires suspended from the air, and the bus can't just drive to the other lane and go by the traffic block like a regular diesel bus -- it has to follow the guidewire tracks. we were stuck. but thank god we had a modern day macgyver for our bus driver. what he did was he drove to the next lane, snapping off of the guidewires. he quickly ran out to reattach the bus to the guidewire of the oncoming traffic lane, drove past the accident, then drove back in the normal lane, snapping off the guidewires once more, running back outside, reattaching the bus, and off we went to harvard square! if you didn't quite get what i was just describing, suffice to know that i have never in all my days seen such a daring act of ingenuity and electrical know-how. he is the hero of the day!

dim sum with laurie
i went to harvard square to meet laurie for dim sum. when i got there i bumped into yvette, who was also there waiting for a friend. she told me that she didn't work at srm anymore, that she got a job at a nonprofit company. well good for her! but it's always sad to see any of the freelancers go. how come we didn't have a big party for her?

anyway, at the designated time, laurie showed up in her volkswagon at the designated place and off we went to the designated destination of chinatown. surprisingly, it wasn't very crowded and we were able to get a table in a matter of minutes (shared of course). today i didn't go with chicken feet (i had an unbearably slow time finishing it the last time i came) and only one dish of tripe (although i could've probably had another serving, i'm crazy about the stuff!). together, we only ate about $20 worth of food, which i thought was pretty cheap. i can remember on occasions when i come with other friends, and we eat to $40 worth of dim sum. laurie paid the cashier and she punched my dim sum card so that i now only have to eat 4 more dim sums before i can get a discount on the 5th dim sum! darling, it's the little things in life that makes it so sweet!

i went to go use the men's room prior to leaving the restaurant. the man next to me using the urinal let out this sigh that came out more like a moaning sound. i hesitate to guess what he was doing.

china pearl hall of mirrors

laurie with dim sum number

dim sum dishes

intermission
now afterwards we headed back to laurie's place to wait for her friend mervin to be done with his weekend childcare duty and come join us for the movie. in the meantime, she demonstrated her newly learned bluegrass music. i enjoy sharing in the hobbies of others. i may not understand it -- and i don't understand much about guitars -- but it's fascinating to see someone be somewhat passionate about something that's interesting.

revere cinema for some rush hour 2 action
the place was packed. despite the fact that we got into the theatre to see rush hour 2 with just 5 minutes to spare, we managed to get some really nice seats. prior to entering the theatre however, i was once again up to my usual antics using the men's bathroom. this time no overflowing toilets or men sighing while they pee. no, i have a different problem: when i zipped up, i caught my zipper on my boxers and i couldn't get the zipper loose. after a few seconds of struggle (i didn't want to cause a scene in the bathoom), i decided to just conceal the fact that my zipper was up only halfway by covering it up with my shirt. (it wasn't until i got home before i was able to extricate myself from the zipper). i guess i should be thankful it was just my boxer that got caught and nothing more.

klea's house party
i rode the motorcycle to klea's house in somerville (but actually just across the street from prestigious cambridge), the first time ever i've been to her house. not wanting to come empty handed, i came with a bag of wasabi peas, which i was happy to see go into active snack duty right away. even though it started to rain a little bit midway through the barbecue, the host and hostess had a contingency plan and the whole deck was covered by a tarp in two shakes of a lamb's tail. i had some squid, steak tips, a section of a corn cob, some chicken, and a sausage. it was kind of awkward because i didn't really know anyone there other than klea and neil, and it would've been really boring were it not for the presence of one mr. eric hess who was also invited as well. i haven't seen eric since the day i got released, so we had a lot of catching up to do. i told him how it was weird that when i first got laid off, there were so few of us that we didn't really have anybody to talk to, but now the laid off people are the majority while those who are still working for our old company have become the new minority, it's easy to find people to talk to, and it seems like whenever two laid off people meet, the topic naturally gravitates towards discussions about the old company and whatnot.

the evening would've been mild at best were it not for klea's cat getting sprayed in the face by a skunk. several people rubbed homemade tomato sauce into the cat's face while several others were looking through phonebooks to find the number to call for info about skunk spray and the danger it might pose to poor kitty. i took a cat getting skunk sprayed as my cue to leave, which i did, after saying good bye to klea and eric. i rode back home on dry roads (the rain had stopped for a few hours) sitting on a wet motorcycle seat.

one final note: there's just something about having a cat at a party that makes people want to tell pussy jokes. shaving my girlfriend's pussy or that's a smelly pussy. imagine the exchange:

host: we're having a party! guest: that's great! host: there's going to be a cat! guest: i'll make sure i bring the pussy jokes!