New Year's Resolution

11:50PM. It's ten minutes before midnight. It's another midnight and it's not. It's going to be a spanking new year. Year 2009. Vincent is trying to set some goals for the new year, something he has never seriously done in his entire adult life. Maybe that explains his lack of focus in life. He feels like he is running out of time. In actuality, he ran out of time two years ago. He is on borrowed time. His mom used to remind him he doesn't prioritize, always does things he shouldn't be doing and let things he ought to be doing slide. He doesn't let his mom down. He knows he should be sleeping yet he is not. Every night. He needs a New Year's Resolution, an ultimate to-do list now. Before mid night. To right his life.

It's been cold outside, just cold, no wind, no snow, no drama. The silence of the night is almost deafening if not for the occassional bangings and hissings of the radiator. The whole heating system is old and it's good at making noises but not heat. The house is always under heated in the winter he could never wear shorts or short sleeves like people live in apartment buildings do.

Vincent takes out a piece of paper and a pencil and sits himself down at the kitchen table. He starts pondering a list. He starts to think about goals and objectives, something he learned from long time ago. What goals are, what objectives are, and how to be realistic so that they are attainable and measurable. The kitchen reeks of cooked food that he doesn't normally notice except during this time of the day. Winston* Vincent lights a cigarette as if to combat the stench. The nicotine kicks in and now his brain is oozing with ideas. He begins his list by writing:

New Year's Resolution 2009

His penmanship has never been good, it is bad, actually bad is an understatement. But he almost takes pride in his bad handwriting. He has this twisted theory that only ugly people have good penmanship and only snobs would dwell on and take pride of good penmanship. But for the resolution, he tries to write as neat as possible, as neat as his mom would write, as neat as only an illiterate knows how. The kitchen should be the warmest place in the house but it is not. Vincent thinks the cold is hindering his resolution. He moves one flight down to the basement of the house where the mother of all heat comes from, the boiler room.

It's been quite some time since he left his bedroom to start his New Year's Resolution. He thinks he needs to find out what time it is, he wants to see Times Square on New Year Eve, he wants to know what is going on. So he turns on the computer in the basement. The computer is a big beige box from the '90s but it simply works. Vincent always feels like he mistreats his old trusty machine by leaving it in the basement, out of sight, together with the aging heater, the sewage system, the entrails of the house, the necessary unpleasantries of modern living. Vincent lights another cigarette while the computer slowly comes to life. It's 1:25 AM 1/1/2009. Vincent just can't locate the paper anymore. Perhaps it's not the cold that made him go down to the basement. He just needs be distracted. But distracted from what? That's something he needs to figure out. Meanwhile he is checking on the news, his emails, and more news, just like every night.

******

More ...

*thanks to Haricot for catching that.

Still more.

Pictures

A Private Message

Happy Birthday!

H&M Comme des Garcons Still Available

Shocking. There are still pieces of Comme des Garcons hanging around in the H&M store at 5th and 42nd Street. Those I saw were women's items inconspicuously hung on the second floor. The store wasn't even a destined store for the collection so how they landed there I can only speculate, they are probably returned items from different stores? They are solid white, black and pink dress shirts, black and pink polka dot shirts, a couple of ruffled white shirts, a black cocktail dress, a few black wool sweaters. They are mostly small or large sizes. If you wear size xs or 10 or 8 you may find something that fits you. If you wear size 4 or 6 then I don't think so.

Previously.

Thank You Guys

This is a good time for the lamest bloggers like myself. The topic just presents itself during this time of the year.

I would like to thank all the ardent readers of this blog, past and present, old and new. Without you my blog won't be such a great success. And mostly I would like to thank myself, without me writing all these transformative and life-altering posts, there won't be this blog.

You wonder what's the greatest hit here. Without a doubt, it's the posts about Range Hood, the San Yang Pai and PacAir range hood posts are the all time favorites. On any given day, they attract hundreds of hits. Maybe I should really concentrate on kitchen range hoods instead of whatever reviews I tried to write in vain, there sure is an under served kitchen range hood market out there waiting to be filled like cavities or something.

Also, since I am at it, I also like to thank some of the bloggers out there, actually all of the bloggers out there who have been a positive influence on me. If I haven't yet benefited from some of them, it's probably I haven't read hard and long enough to see the beauty of their posts, the fault, as usual, lies in me. Sometimes as if polluting the blogosphere in my own blog is not enough, I actually go out of my way to comment on others' posts, out of sheer stupidity and admittedly egoism: the uncontrollable urge to seem clever. And along the way, I am sure I have made an ass out of myself and might have hurt some feelings which I committed out of ignorant mis-arrangement of words and certainly not a result of malice whatsoever. For those I have inadvertently offended, I apologize.

What am I trying to say? I really have this talent of writing a lot and yet saying so little, I am just not effective as a writer. Whatever.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
PS:
UPDATE with blink and exclamation mark on almost 12/24
Please bear with my childish blinking behavior and the use of an exclamation mark. I am aware of it.

End Of The Year

It's Christmas, it's end of the year. It's time to be reflective. It's just another time to give myself to buy some junk if I so choose. For some reason, this year, I am just too depressed to even get a tree for the household. Must be the economy. Must be the dismal weather. So what have happened this year. For one thing, I am still the loser just like last year or the year before, so there is really nothing to write home about except I sort of make it through the year without any major mishap. I consider that my major achievement that I am still breathing.

The economy has been bad and we are in a recession. So what does it mean to me? It means I am a bit scared by the big unknown by the big what if? But like an irresponsible man that I always am, have been and will always be, there is nothing I can do to make the economy better. When it's good, I don't exactly feel it as I never have the fortune to work on the Street. So I can only hope as the economy nose dives, I won't be feeling the pain right away.

Like any aging middle-ages men, my hope is on my kids. But also like most other middle-aged men, I don't take too much of an active role in rearing my kids except the occasional yelling and screaming.

OKAY, time for dinner.

Friday

Free at last.

What I Did During Lunch Break

I returned my book and picked up another one from the midtown library.

Then I headed to Bryant Park in the mid of a minor snowstorm trying to have my winter routine, that is, ice skating in midtown. Alas, because of the winter snow, the rink was carpeted with an inch of snow and they weren't even trying to clean up the place yet, I saw just one man with a shuffle kind of doing some clean up but with the snow keeps falling relentlessly, I don't think they are going to re-open any time soon. The weather report says very likely we are going going to get about six inches for the day.

On my way back, I stopped by a Japanese take out place and ordered a Chicken Katsu Don, $5.96 tax included, that was a pretty good price.

Cape No. 7 - 2

Obviously Aga's situation is not unique. Tomoko (Chie Tanaka), a Japanese ex-model fluent in Mandarin whose career as a dead-end publicist stranded in Taiwan fares no better than Aga's budding career as an irresponsible postal delivery man. Both persons are down on their luck and just as fate would have it, they cross path when Tomoko reluctantly becomes the liaison between a Japanese singer who is coming to perform for a resort there and the local impromptu warm-up band fronted by Aga. The band has been a constant struggle and a flash point among the band members and Tomoko; the keyboardist is too young, the bassist is too old and the second song is never ready. Just when Tomoko is about to throw in the towel and call it quit, a wedding banquet changes the course of events to the unexpected or rather expected: Aga and Tomoko are actually in love despite their constant bickering. The main story has a simple structure, the plot progresses in an orderly manner with the cumulation of a successful opening act where Aga demands and receives a confirmation of his love from Tomoko right there on stage. Also running parallel and in contrast with this main storyline is the sub-plot of a pair of star-crossed lovers from sixty years ago whose presence are felt mainly by voice-over reading of the seven unsent letters by one of the ill fated lovers, a Japanese high school teacher who got to be in Hengchun when Taiwan was a Japan colony between 1895 to 1945. The teacher fell in love with one of his Taiwanese students also called Tomoko but when Japan lost the War in 1945, he left behind Taiwan and deserted his girlfriend right when they were supposed to board the ocean liner to Japan together. In his letters to his jilted girlfriend who finally gets to read them some sixty years later, he bemoans the shame and guilt he has to endure as a Japan national when Japan, the aggressor was condemned and defeated in the War. And for whatever logic, twisted or not, like national pride or guilt or just being a plain coward, he just couldn't bring himself to be with his love anymore. In one of the letters, he writes he doesn't know if he is returning home or leaving home, his disorientation, probably not induced by seasick, is heartfelt and understandable. Their doomed love affair is as much personal as it is historical in the sense that it is really a product of their time. Only a few men made history, most others are just by products of an era.

"Cape No. 7" also tells many other stories. A precocious ten year old from a single mom, a geezer who plays some kind of Chinese guitar thinks he is a national treasure, an ex-SWAT turns traffic cop whose wife walked out on him. A motorbike mechanic who has a crush on his boss's wife and wouldn't mind her husband is still around and they have a triplet of young boys. Some characters may appear stereotypical and the plot line straight forward but perhaps it's this no nonsense film making approach that makes it enjoyable, just pure powerful story telling without all the convoluted techniques or plot twisting gimmickries. Cape No. 7 puts south Taiwan ethos on celluloid and it is beautifully done.

Cape No. 7 - 1

"Cape No. 7" (海角七號) (2008) opens with a young man, Aga (Van Fan) in the wee hours of Taipei city. The young man's face is not shown on camera and for that reason the director seems to suggest he can really be any one of those many losers who can't make it in the big city. We find out later Aga has wasted fifteen years of his youth trying to crack a rock career in Taipei without success. Now dispirited and yet not losing his rock and roll modus operanti, he smashes his guitar and curses Taipei goodbye before embarking his home coming trip to Hengchun, a southern coastal resort town where the young yearns to leave and some geezer just won't die. Taipei 101 sure does not look too good in the rear view mirror but neither is what he is about to face: his stepfather, the town representative who has a penchant to carry a manbag and a bunch of other losers just like him.

Cape No. 7 - 0

"Cape No. 7" asks questions about human conditions: What do you do when confronted and confounded by failures? Do we carry burden of our nation? Are we mere products of our time? How do you love somebody? First-time feature director Wei Te-Sheng may not have all the answers to all the perennial questions he raises but he sure puts all these questions into his director blender and with the skill of a true master produces a rich multi-layered unostentatiously beautiful movie that at once entertains and enlightens and more than anything gives hopes to human conditions. This little big movie may very likely turn out to be a Zeitgeist of south Taiwan.

News From The Far Side: Celebrities Are Human Too . . .

Celebrities are human too and they are just as stupid as you and I.

Chow, as one can sure make the case, is actually stupider than your average pretty girl. This kind of tragedy unfortunately happens way too often or not often enough if you want to be a Ngai kind of a guy. Chow, an otherwise very pretty and intelligent girl got cheated, repeatedly may I add, by Ngai, his boyfriend and yet being totally blinded by what do you call it, love, still comes to his defense and alleges that it's the fault of the public and gutter media. Hey, I didn't ask Ngai to screw around and being unfaithful. As an average man, I am just infinitely fascinated by his seemingly endless debauchery with pretty women without shame or consequence, maybe except this time when caught on camera. And I see no reason Chow has to blame it on the the gutter media. The gutter press is not your PR firm, the gutter press is just the gutter press, you go and hire your flack to say how nice and good you are. And personally I don't see how their on again off again relationship is a "revolution, " as proclaimed by Chow. She simply picked the wrong guy who totally botched her intended revolution and freaking ruined her life. And if there ever is such a revolution I think one did it long time ago, and she is the one and only Momoe Yamaguchi, married and never again in show business since 1980.

Every man wants to be Chow's mistake if not her man but only Ngai succeeded, that son of a bitch.

The White Tiger

Can you keep a white tiger in a rooster coop? No. Not according to first time author Aravind Adiga, who won the 2008 Booker Prize award with his debut novel The White Tiger.

The story is about one man's revolution against his world, as told through a series of letters written within a week, addressed from Balram Halwai, the protagonist, the once poor honest country-mouse, the chauffeur, the social entrepreneur and ultimately the rich business entrepreneur, to the Chinese Premier, Wen Jiabao who is embarking on a business trip to visit India. Adiga, in searing indignation and raging dark humor, through the narrative of Balram, exploits and magnifies all the ills he finds in present day India. In the end, one is left without a choice but to sympathize and empathize with Balram even when he does the unthinkable; a revolution is not a dinner party as Mao once eloquently put it and somebody has to sacrifice, and when that sacrifice happens it's better him than me or so must Balram thinks.

Some have criticized his characters are caricatures of the Indian society and his lack of in-depth understanding of India renders his social commentary shallow and superficial. But in his defense, I don't think this is meant to be an account of true events and I actually appreciate the heightened reality of his characters and its feverish kaleidoscopic characterization of India, they go well with the author's pizazz and his wry sense of humor.

It is entertainment with some thought-provoking message. What more can you ask for?

Further readings from real reviews from both sides of the Atlantic.

Happy Holidays

Once Upon A Time in China

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Friday Night

Woo-hoo it's FRIDAY NIGHT.  It's the beginning of the end.  It's full of possibilities but mostly it's the inevitability, a ride on the train with some fellow passengers who are just as boring as you.

OKAY, here is the essential reading from the best of craigslist, the cross section of America at its very finest.  The banal life of being urban and online . . . here in all its wart and glory.

Please 18 or over.  Click.

Free At Last

Friday, free at last. woo-hoo.

Film

Photo: Robert Wright for The New York Times. On the print edition, I can make out it's Kodak 160VC.

Every now and then, the New York Times likes to remind me how great big film really is. My problem, I always have problems, is it's expensive to get the film developed let alone printed. I am sure it's fun to shoot, develop and print your own pictures. 4x5 large format is my next photography frontier, my uncharted territory, my holy grail of all things unnecessarily complicated photographic quest.

If I Can't Improve Blogging . . .

Maybe blogging can improve me.

Because of blogging, I got to meet some bloggers and learned a thing or two from them. And since I am easily influenced by somebody I like and admire, I have been reading books more often than I used to be thanks to those bloggers who shall remain nameless for not to be associated with a low life like me (OKAY, it's readandeat and snowdrops). Certain books I wouldn't have read if not because of them.

"Pull over and ask for direction"--this is my lame translation of a Chinese three-part novel 停車暫借問 by then 18-year old literati prodigy Zhong. I have not been reading any Chinese books for a long time so it took me some time to warm up to her brand of writing which is not exactly easy for a semi-illiterate like me. I am quite at awe to know that the three-part novel, with the book's title taken from the second part, was written by a 18-year old, especially the story has a strong historical background and spans a few decades. This just shows there are really early bloomers who really can make the never bloomers like myself want to kill themselves. The book is full of imagery and beautifully written. The only thing I don't quite understand is the first part of the story seems separate from the rest of the book and doesn't relate except for the lead female character. It seems like a totally different story. On the whole, it was a sappy story about unrequited love with a few male loser characters bobbing in between. And you always wonder why and how a beautiful girl would fall for some losers but hey it happens and it happens every day. As a man, you always hope you are one of their mistakes.

"Falling Leaves: The Memoir of an Unwanted Chinese Daughter"--An auto-biography written by Tianjin born Chinese American Adeline Yen-Mah who is a physician turned writer. I guess she writes because she can of course but also because she understands the power of writing--how Mah witnesses the power of writing early on when her childhood classmate cries over being made a villain in her early literary creation. More importantly, this book is perhaps a therapeutic way of getting back at or getting over her own unloving family. The story of Mah begins in the late 30's in Tianjin, China and spans across continents and decades until the late 90's, chronicling how she overcomes adversities imposed upon her by her own unloving family mainly orchestrated by her beautifully devilish cruel and unusual French-Chinese stepmother, Niang and other inevitabilities like wars and her own race and gender. It is a story well told and along the way I also got a glimpse of modern Chinese history as an added bonus in addition to the sometimes sappy but always inspiring storyline. The moral of the story, if you were born to an absolutely unloving family, make sure it's at least rich enough to send you to England to get a medical degree.

News From The Far Side III

李嘉欣一邊與亨亨手拖手，一邊手蹺覑媽媽，笑容滿臉離開福臨門。（攝影﹕黃梓烜 劉一立 劉永銳）
photo and Chinese caption from mingpaonews.com

My delusions of grandeur are working in full throttle. I feel like I am the most influential blogger around. Finally it's "手拖手," a much more palatable description. I can hold my food down in the stomach without throwing up, my keyboard is finally safe. But in balance or while dropping the cringe-inducing "ten fingers entwined tight," the caption writer decided to reduce and belittle, in my mind, the guy to a "亨亨." Maybe it's a new way to be affectionate to the rich and famous, but I am old school I think in most cases it's more of a put down, treating him like a baby or an imbecile buffoon as if he can't comprehend any adult speak. Maybe that just suits him well.

Part I, and II.

Your Mother Is A Woman

The National Bureau of Economic Research tells us what we already knew long time ago, we are in a recession. Again it's like telling your mother is a woman. But of course, we need to have these highly trained and qualified economists working in a national bureau to make the call, you don't think you can make the call, do you? And they say the down fall of Western civilization began last December.

The Dow crapped out yesterday and shed almost 8000 points (errr 679.95 to be exact but who cares really). So today can be the rebound day as crazy people are most likely to hunt for bargains like they would kill you if you get in the way that kind of craze. The economy is bad, but to buy less or not to consume anything at all is just absurd. Hopefully the consumers can lead the way out of this god awful recession sooner than later.

Nikon Did The Inevitable

Nikon introduces its D3x, a 24MP monster of a camera that has a price tag of $8,000 minus 5 cents. With D3, D700 and now a D3x, Nikon finally completes its full frame trinity.

Once again, Mr. Rockwell, in his usual hyperbole self, proclaims that D3x is poo. I concur. For $8,000 it's expensive but still poo nonetheless. But I must add if for any reason anybody is willing to give me this poo of a camera for free or at quarter of price, I will take it and thank you very much.

I am still rocking a D70 . . . I don't really think I should use rocking and D70 in the same sentence but anyway, should my D70 die on me, I probably would get a point and shoot, don't buy a replacement in protest of the high price, or get a D90 and be done with it.

UPDATE:

Wow, everybody, I mean everybody who is somebody or nobody is bashing the Nikon D3x.  The high price, the lack of added features, the whole launch itself.  This seems like the biggest mishap so far for Nikon, just after back to back highly acclaimed launches of its D3 and D700 and to a certain extent the D90.  At no time did I ever that see much negativity towards a flagship Nikon.  This is just unprecedented.