Halloween 2006

Blogger's photo upload feature is stalling and hence no pictures. You are spared. Too bad, after 10 hours or so, blogger's photo uploading feature is working again.
From left to right: Power Ranger, Ultraman, Superman and Pumpkin.

Happy Halloween.

Seven Swords or Chat Gim

For a moment, I can't believe this was a movie directed by Tsui Hark. This was one awful picture. Except for the scenery and the cinematography, there was nothing to it. The story was bad, the acting was bad, the directing and the editing were bad. How on earth did Tsui make such a bad movie was beyond me. It was cinematic crap from beginning to end. Leon Lai gave his very consistent wooden performance and Charlie Yeung gave another mediocre performance in the midst of crap.

The Emperor of Math

picture by Erik Jacobs for The New York Times.

Dr. Yau Shing-Tung at home sans shoes with Tatung rice cooker, beloved brand of the Taiwanese.

Here is the Emperor of Math with his Tatung rice cooker featured in the background. I never quite figure out how to correctly use this famous Taiwan brand rice cooker but it always manage to render good enough rice.
More reading from the the New York Times The Emperor of Math by Dennis Overbye. Picture by Erik Jacobs for The New York Times.

The Departed

(picture belongs to its rightful owners)

"Are these high waist jeans that you're wearing?" Leo asked the rhetorical question before throwing the first punch to the sartorially challenged Matt.

The sartorial choice of the male leads definitely doesn't look as sleek as that of their Hong Kong counterparts, Andy Lau and Tony Leung. You know, Boston is not exactly Hong Kong.

Mid-Autumn Festival

I have fond memories of Mid-Autumn Festival when lanterns were made of paper and lighted with candles.

My mom used to join one of those "mooncake clubs," which of course was beyond my comprehension. I could only imagine that she did some monthly payments to some mooncake club or pastry shops and when Mid-Autumn Festival came, she would get her share of mooncakes. I remember we got different varieties of mooncakes, some even with meat in it, not my favorite, but I ate them nevertheless. Other than the dozen paper boxes of mooncakes, we also got the piggy pastry, it's really cute and it even came with the piggy cage in plastic.

When the night came, kids carrying lanterns would go out and had fun exploring the neignborhood in the dark and it most certainly led to playing with fire like purposely put one's own or others' lanterns on fire or boiled the candles down to wax, essentially stuff that wasn't meant to do but did it anyway. I don't think I was ever the wild one but I did enjoy playing the paper lanterns and walking in the evening autumn breeze.

The moon is full home.