The Mermaid (2016)

I am surprised and delighted that The Mermaid is played in theaters in New York City.  I have been a Chow's fan since I discovered his brand of comedy many years ago.  Back then as there was only video tape and I wasn't especially well off or well connected so I only saw his works haphazardly.  On the occasions I saw his movies or some snippets or episodes of his TV series, I thoroughly enjoyed them.  Chow always plays this beloved underdog who despite or because of his non sensical non sequitur acts and his utter disregard to the absurd and seemingly insurmountable reality, always overcomes.

 Then one day Chow appeared on the cover of the Sunday New York Times magazine.  If I remember correctly it was a fashion issue.  He was doing a mid air split or something next to a lamp post, a silly pose, I think.  That should be around the time of Shaolin Soccer or Kung Fu Hustle, two of my favorites that kind of established him somewhat in the consciousness of Hollywood.  More importantly and reassuringly, Chow proves that he can make great dramatic comedy with Hong Kong production in his rear view mirror with much of his comedic integrity intact though I can see that Chow is shedding most of his witty nonsensical Cantonese dialogues that define and catapult his career early on, in favor of more action and better production which translate better in cinema worldwide.

The Mermaid or Mei Ren Yu (2016) is a Chow's film without Chow in front of the camera.  Things certainly won't be the same without Chow being front and center on everything.  With Mei, Chow has crossed the line of being stupendously silly to being incoherently stupid.  It used to be that the audience does the laughing, may that be something Chow or his crew says or does while he and his crew appear totally oblivious to the plight and absurdity of their situation.  Mei is just the opposite, often times, the comedy is heavy-handed and the only persons laughing are the self-aware actors themselves, it feels so forced.   I can see Chow tries to add production value so as to appear Hollywood or something (there is indeed a 3D version) but both the production and special effects just fall flat.  Nobody goes to see a Chow's movie for its special effects or production value so what if they are sub-par compared to Hollywood's?  It wouldn't matter one iota if the comedy holds up.  Alas, this isn't the case.

Perhaps the opening scene in which a group of tourists visit a museum best encapsulates the entire movie as envisioned by the director and experienced by me--the tourists, surrogate for the audience, visit a so-called museum only to discover that the exhibits are mere props and scams so the unscrupulous curator can turn a dime on the gullible and the unsuspected.  Chow's tourists laugh and jeer at the exhibits with gusto as while me in the real audience find the material hardly amusing.

I heard the movie is doing well in China and in Asia in general.  So what do I know?

Bellman CX-25P

I haven't mastered this gadget, maybe I never will.  It's just a fun contraption to make some strong coffee.  I've seen video on YouTube somewhat detailing what's the correct way to brew coffee out of this thingy but so far I am not able to replicate the result.  Perhaps it's my desire to do it my own way or my pure death instinct or my disability to follow any instructions.  The end result is the same.  The coffee doesn't come out right, too dark too bitter, too much sputtering.  For everyday coffee consumption I still use the no frill IKEA espresso pot which turns out to be very quick, very reliable despite the fact that the lid kind of falling apart from day one.  The milk frothing wand on the Bellman is a newer design with two nozzles but I could never get the milk frothed right.  On the other hand, again my IKEA battery frothing wand works pretty well as long as you got yourself a straight one.  I have another one that's ever slightly bended and it simply doesn't work all that well at all.

Regarding after sales, this Bellman is manufactured in Taiwan, I guess based on some old Italian make some time ago.  It's distributed by some Ng company in America.  I once wrote to them about the little pressure gauge and they never bother to write me back.  So I say lousy or questionable after sales service.

Cleaning is a bit involved with the Bellman as there are simply more parts to dissemble.  And because of the gauge, the handle, the top, the frothing wand, all the protruding parts, it's a bit hard to put on any dish rack to let it hang or sit dry, plus even if you were to flip the body upside down you won't be able to drip the water down because the design of the top opening.  But this doesn't bother me too much as I never ever bother to thoroughly clean the contraption, I just rinse it and all its parts with warm water.  Sometimes I don't get why people tend to clean everything with detergent, I mean is it oily or greasy?  No.  Any oil is coffee oil so I wouldn't bother to scrub or clean it with detergent at all.

Time to revisit YouTube again.

Ruby on Rails

Problem installing Rails.  Well what else is new?  Right?

Thankfully, there is no new problem under the sun.  At least not the kind of problems I encounter, definitely not the cutting edge type.

This website saves me.

http://www.ericluwj.com/2015/10/29/installing-ruby-on-rails-on-osx.html

gem install nokogiri -- --with-xml2-include=/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Platforms/MacOSX.platform/Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.11.sdk/usr/include/libxml2 --use-system-libraries

The El Capitan section is what resolves my issue:- Rails is not installing because some libxml2 issues.  My problem solving skill is pretty much cook book recipe approach.  I don't know why it works but it works.

Carnegie

The Return of the Bomber Jacket

Sometimes, things just happen.  Like the "return" of the bomber jacket.  I think this can count as the most ubiquitous item of this season.  (The jacket has never ever left us, it's just that it has become a fad by the fashionistas since I don't know when).

You can't go out without seeing a bomber jacket these days.  People tend to wear it oversized instead of fitted.

This is more of a bomber parka than a jacket.

I discovered the bomber jacket when I was in college.  I remember seeing plenty of them in Canal Jeans in downtown Manhattan.  The jacket is always reasonably priced in the mid $40s.  Not many people can afford the fur lined Gucci slippers to be on trend but a $45 jacket, you bet.

NYFW F/W 2016

When it's freezing cold, it's New York Fashion Week.

Macports, ImageMagick, GIMP

None of them is working.  So I am screwed.  The problem or my problem is I don't know half of what I am doing so it's extremely hard to fix any problems should they arise and arise they always do.  I have a feeling that because of the Xcodes update, something is broken.  It's going to be tough to fix them, at least for me.

In case there are some wizards out there, please let me know.

UPDATE:
I first discovered this problem when I tried to use Imagemagick to run watermark on my pictures.  Alas, it didn't work, so I thought it was the PATH variable.  And I guess it was.  Then I found out GIMP wasn't working.  Then I thought maybe it's the macports that wasn't working.

Finally, it was the macports.  And once I fixed the macports, everything works again, so far.  I don't know why but it's true the PATH was screwed up.

Anyway, once I put back the PATH both ImageMagick and GIMP start working again.

export PATH=/opt/local/bin:/opt/local/sbin:$PATH

UPDATE:
I probably changed the ~/.bash_profile inadvertently.  So I need to add and save this line back to the file so it sticks.

back to business.

Big Camera

I should have written it last year.  Or maybe I have already?  Last year was actually worse with stronger wind and all.

When I am shooting in the cold, finger numbing, frost biting cold, close to 0 F cold.  I want to have a big freaking camera with big freaking controls.

Last year I thought I was going to lose my fingers when I was out shooting in the cold for hours.

Today I put on two layers of gloves.  And I wish my D700 was bigger.  I can barely feel my shutter release button.

Today I had a change of shooting MO, instead of going for my 80-200 or 70-200, I opted for the 16-35, went wide and wild.  It definitely is different.  I want to travel light so I brought the SB-600 instead of the relatively massive Sunpak 120J and power pack.  Of course everything is a trade-off.  With the powerpack, the Sunpak can shoot fast without any major lag in recycle time especially all I need is 1/8 of the power.  Not so with the SB-600.  The battery powered SB-600 can't quite keep up with the continuous shooting.  To be fair I don't think the Sunpak can either if it's powered by AA batteries.  I am glad I brought my Nikkor 16-35 f/4 instead of the 20-35 f/2.8 as the aperture blades of the latter would most likely to stick given the Antarctica like temperature.

Highlight of the Day

I got off work a bit later than usual.

When I got on the subway platform, I think I saw Alexa Chung in her golden slip-ons walking in my direction.  I don't know how I think I know it's her.  But I am pretty sure it was her.  I don't get to see fancy slip-ons like that every day.  The loafers practically light up the whole dreary subway platform and the subway car.  It was a week or so after the blizzard and the streets are pretty slushy but her shoes look practically new unmolested by the black snow, urban gravy or the likes.

I was too much of a chicken or got too much misplaced pride or too much self control to say Hello.

Then the other day I bumped into the quite possibly the most prodigious rock climber ever, Ashima Shirashi.  She was very petite and quite easily disappeared in the car.  I tried to look at her fingers and feet to see if they are extraordinary in any way.  I guess they aren't or they are.  I am no expert.  She was accompanied by her dad.  I read her profile on the New York Times quite some time ago and then now "all of a sudden" she is every where.  The New Yorker did a profile on her just a month or so ago.

Airdrop and random thoughts

This is really a random update.

After some incremental updates on both the MBP OS X and iPhone iOS.  I think I am on their latest.  I find the once iffy Airdrop works remarkably well now.  It simply drops and receives.  And I am happy to report that.

My iPhone5s is always out of space.  I hate to do housekeeping like that.  I think my next iPhone will have the biggest capacity available, currently at 64GB.  I will probably use it as for phoneography to realize my childhood dream of shooting moving images.  Probably want to get a beast grip and the moondog anamorphic adapter.  The Optex anamorphic adapter is too dreamy (read fuzzy and soft and out of focus) for some application.  Maybe comes March or early April.  I don't need another DSLR, do I?