Weblog: All entries for 2000

2020-12-31 movies

the cup: seems too obviously made for a western audience.
hana-bi: the third beat takeshi film i've seen. i don't know, somehow i haven't especially liked any of them. i mean they're good, but never really grab me.
crouching tiger, hidden dragon: awesome the second time too
the cell: not so good the second time...

2020-12-24 movies

maboroshi no hikari (1995): incredible, beautiful film. this may make it to my favorites of all time list (another viewing will be necessary).

kikujiro no natsu (1999) - ?

underground (1995): second time i've seen it (after searching for a long time). it has been promoted to my favorites of all time (good film day today). as with all the great films, i'm simply not able to describe it without feeling that i leave almost everything important out, so why bother? i do know that i now must search out moor kusturica films. why is it that this film seems to be overlooked by so many? see it.

2020-12-22

For some reason, I have a $350 credit in my B.C. Hydro account. I don't know how it got there, but considering that my power bills average around $10 per month, this will last a while!

Somebody sent me a high quality MP3 of the Ae Radio Mix, something I've wanted for years!

I found a CD of Senor Coconut's Kraftwerk "remix" CD, which I gave to Alex.

A large mirror appeared outside my windowsill. I left it there, figuring that whoever had put it there might come back to collect it. That night, it was very Windy and around 11:30 I was woken by a crash. I knew what happened and didn't bother to look, but my neighbor and her friend were up. Through the door, I heard "What the hell was that?" They had a look outside the door, which is right next to mine, and just outside the window. "What is that?" "Oh my god, it looks like a broken mirror!" "Where did it come from?" "Wow, that's creepy".

Good week.

2020-12-22 movies

wu hu zang long (crouching tiger, hidden dragon): i loved the story, i loved the special effects and choreography. this is one i'll be seeing again, and again. i couldn't get used to some of the physics-defying wire-work stunts, though. are they supposed to have supernatural powers, or are we supposed to believe that ordinary humans can skip off water? also nobody mentions the real star of this film, ziyi zhang, who gets many of the best action scenes and plays the character that this films revolves around. she's incredibly beautiful, as well.
escape from new york: ?
the king of masks: ?
hideous kinky: ?

2020-12-17 movies

proof of life: very good suspense/action film. only real problem was that it was never really shown why the russel crowe character returned to help the meg ryan character - essentially the film tells us a couple of times that he's fallen in love with her and there's a brief kiss, but i wasn't convinced. very well shot. well, i guess i'll add ecuador to my list of places to visit, because it very, very beautiful.

also there were some interesting trailers:

a.i.: the film stanley kubrick wanted to make after eyes wide shut, which steven spielberg decided to make after kubrick's death. very simple, calm trailer, didn't tell you anything about the film, really, but definitely makes me interested. the only problem is that the "kid is an a.i." premise reminds me of cheezy films like the computer wore tennis shoes.
the gift: trailer made it look like a dumb film, but then i saw that sam raimy directed it, so it'll probably be quite good.

2020-12-14 movies

unbreakable (m. night shyamalan): sfavorite film of 2000 so far. looks great, well directed, slow moving (in the way i like) superhero fable.
gadjo dilo (tony gatlif): saw this a long time ago and loved it, but hadn't been able to find it since. happened to turn on showcase one night and there it was. beautiful film about a young frenchman who is travelling in romania in search of the woman whose voice is singing on a tape that his father listened to while dying. early in the film he meets a drunk old gypsy man at a cafe and ends up staying in his village. also has wonderful musical performances (as expected from a gatlif film). one of those films that makes me think about my life, think about just taking off to live in a village somewhere...
jamon jamon (bigas luna): i saw this film years ago on showcase, it was this ultra-sexy spanish film. forgot its title and all the details about it, but remembered it once in a while and wanted to see it again. recently, after seeing all about my mother and abre los ojos (open your eyes), i got interested in penelope cruz and kept hearing about this film she starred in when she was young called jamon jamon. kept an eye out for it at the video shops and happened to find it. as soon as i saw the opening shot i know i had found that film from long ago. can't say it's a great film (it is good though), but it's strange and if you want to see a lot of penelope cruz you definitely want to check this out. also see abre los ojos and all about my mother, two wonderful spanish films starring cruz.
requiem for a dream (darren aranofsky): latest film by the director of pi (one of my favorite films). not sure... it's well worth seeing, but it didn't have the impact that pi did and it didn't quite work for me. i'll have to try it again before i can come up with a more concrete opinion.
bounce: slightly better-than-average romance. i thought it was going to be more, but it wasn't.
charlie's angels: pointless fun. you have to get into the spirit of it, and it's great.
big trouble in little china (john carpenter): campy 80s film starring kurt russel, which has supplied office talk with many memorable quotes.

2020-12-04

starting an online journal. who knows if i will keep this up? why would anyone want to read it? will it be boring? will i expose elements of my life that i normally don't, or will i stick to superficialitios (i realise i spelled that worng, but i'll leave it because it sounds interesting)? i guess we'll find out.

brings up the question of invasion of privacy. i can write about my private life and publish it, because it's mine to publish. but one's life is always affected by those around you... how do i write about my private life without writing about the parts that intersect with the private lives of others? but do i have that right? i don't think so. it could have the effect that others are cautious around me.

so which is better? a society where everyone lives relatively privately and anonymously and can generally only expose what they want of themselves, or a society where everything is out in the open and no privacy exists. we very much live in the former. we talk about invations of privacy, like security cameras and wire taps, but those only expose information to a few, who can use it to wield power over us. when i say no privacy, i mean that everything is available to everyone; that people don't hide anything. certainly would solve some problems, no doubt create some new ones. invations of publicity? of course it would take a rather fundamental shift in "human nature" (i hate that term) for that type of society to exist anyways, so there is little point talking about it.

so i tend to go through phases of being somewhat interesting and being extremely boring. at the moment i think i'm coming out of a boring period. during the boring periods i tend to have no social life. i spend most of my time at the office, even if i'm not working. i waste a lot of time, though i may be working on some kind of interesting programming project.

during the more interesting periods i actually go out and do stuff. i would say that the past summer was a one of my better times. i spent the weekends out in the woods with people, got involved in things, met lots of new interesting people and had all the social life i could want (which is still far less than many people have). towards the end of the summer things started to suck, but that's normal, that's the sign that i have to travel. so i did a three week trip to india, malaysia, and singapore. very nice, too short though (i've been to india before, last time for six months). got back in october and since then haven't really talked or been around anyone outside of work. i'm getting into the mood to make contact with those people of the summer again, but i feel kind of wierd considering i've ignored emails and voice mails. and it's getting close to christmas, so they're probably busy. excuses, excuses.

i'm trying to make my place (a little batchelor suite in chinatown) more livable. maybe i'll spend more time here. maybe i'll even invite people over. probably should wash the dishes that have been sitting in the sink for weeks and clean the bathroom. i hate the carpet in this place, so i've covered it in some drapery that i got for a very good price. i picked up a bunch of gabbeh (a type of persian rug, not like the usual persian carpets though) and they fit really nicely. the place is getting better, but i still have a bunch of stuff lying around. i want to curtain off my sleeping area (thus hopefully keeping my usual mess of clothes hidden away). i have the right material but i haven't gotten around to putting it up yet. i don't like furniture, but it's wierd how difficult it is to find a place that sells toss cushions (perfect for sitting on on the floor) without a couch attached.

i wanted a new set of speakers and amp because the one i've been using for ages (since my parents gave it to me more than 10 years ago when they got a new stereo) is starting to work badly. well, it hasn't worked very well for quite some time, but now seemed the right time to replace it. also the speakers don't sound very good to me anymore (though they used to). i picked up a set of klipsch computer speakers. your basic subwoofer and two satellite system, and i'm delighted by how good it sounds as a stand-alone system. $300 for something that sounds this good is amazing. it's almost tempting to get another for the office.

other purchases: a foldable bike. the intent is to take it travelling, because one of the things i always find frustrating is that i don't have any ground transport when i'm in a strange city. not that i don't love wandering around on foot, i do, in fact i spend days doing that, but it does limit one's range. this bike is relatively easy to take onto busses, trains, planes, etc. i keep meaning to do a little trip to seattle or portland with it (not on it, but take it with me on a bus) but haven't gotten around to it yet.

i'm starting to buy music again after a long period of not much. it all comes down to discovering the right music. that music in this case was adham shaikh, an amazingly talented montrealer, and a label that's released some of his music, interchill. so i'm starting to branch out from there, much like i did so many years ago when i discovered warp records. as always i find it difficult to describe the kind of music a listen to, so just check shaikh's music out, okay?

found some interesting little web sites after following a link on kuro5hin today. sam draws simple stick-figure drawings based on phrases that people send into him. there is something beautiful about his interpretations, and the amount of emotion that he expresses. explodingdog.com. he has also started a new site, 1000robots.com, which uses a similar but more textured style to tell a visual story. and also found from there is drew.corrupt.net, an odd little weblog/story site. it's not quite the right word, but there is something very innocent about these sites.

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Posted on Sun, 31 Dec 2020

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