Of Fashion and Freedom

Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Abedin Taherkenareh/Europen Pressphoto Agency

The freed 15 Britons with parting goody bags are waiting for their flight back to London. Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad dresses his captives just like himself, gray suit sans tie.

Fashion victims of ill-fitting 3-button gray suits.

Children's Zoo

Checking out the prairie dogs.

Lunch

Lunch outside the Dancing Crane Cafe. The Cafe was full so we had to eat outside. Alex, the sloppy eater.

Bronx Zoo

All superheroes gather to have a picture taken.

Egg Hunt At Bronx Zoo

It's good to be a child. Finding an Easter Egg could be so much fun and all.

Bronx Zoo

Egg Hunt.

It was unbelievably cold.

At the Met

This is the only section that captures their attention. All the knights, swords, and armors.

At the Met Cafeteria

Eating, best activity of the day.

The food is good but seriously expensive. The children have kid's meal, i.e. hot dog, French fries and apple juice. Jin has some chicken wrap and I have an chicken entree with grilled potatoes and tomatoes and some asparagus on the side and a soda. And the bill comes to a whopping $40.

I was supposed to have free company pass. But man, the cashier told me my company just dropped the corporate sponsorship. Anyway, the admission is supposed to be a recommended fee. As a matter of principle, I never pay the recommended admission fee. I believe it's $20 per adult. I will let the upper west side or east side well-heeled folks and the tourists pay full price. Me, no, never.

At the Met

Checking out Van Gogh.

Alex found out Mr. Van Gogh only lived to 37 years old. Alex was a bit shocked because his semi-illiterate Dad once told him Van Gogh probably died in his early 40s. I wasn't sure. But I didn't sugar coat what happened to Van Gogh. He was an absolute failure when he was alive. He never sold one painting or drawing when he was alive (OKAY, maybe one or two but that's about it).

The average American lives to 77 years old, give or take a few years I guess. And the average man dies earlier than the average woman.

Met

Kids don't care about Monet.

Of Sex, Love, Money and Happiness

Vincent told me the below quote by James A. Baldwin

Money, it turned out, was exactly like sex, you thought of nothing else if you didn't have it and thought of other things if you did.

I think Iggy Pop once said sex is more objective. You always know if you have good sex or not, unlike love which is more subjective and may change over time. The same is also true between money and happiness. Money is more objective, you always know how much money you have. Happiness is more subjective and fleeting. If you can't have love and happiness, sex and money aren't all that bad a substitute.

Movie Review Double Feature

This also falls under old video review by yours truly.

Before there was Infernal Affairs, there was City on Fire.

City on Fire or Lung fu fong wan (1987) starring Chow Yun Fat as Ko Chow, and Danny Lee as Ah Fu and directed by Ringo Lam. I remember first seeing it in a movie house in Manhattan Chinatown in probably 1987 when human beings didn't exist and dinosaurs roamed the Earth...but that was another story.

I was immensely impressed by the movie. The direction, the story and the acting in general. I had to say, even by today's standard, Chow's on screen wardrobe was pretty impressive. The parka, the boots, and very narrow tie and even a bow, I mean it's over the top and if anybody, it would be Chow who could pull off that overall look.

City on Fire probably set the bar for all future undercover police stories, by and large.

******

Fast forward to 2003, we had this crap called Heroic Duo or Shuang xiong (2003), starring Leon Lai as Jack Lai, Ekin Cheng as Ken. Jack was a MIT educated hypnotist who of course didn't fail to put the audience to sleep with his wooden performance through out the entire movie. Jack was in jail for a murder. And now Inspector Ken has to enlist Jack's help to solve another case involving hypnotics. The scene where they tried to capture "mindhunter," Jack's alleged hypnotic master was a scene from Se7en, only minus the rain. The scene when Jack and Ken first met, the scene the cops are waiting for the elevator to come down remind me The Silence of the Lambs. The plot starts out mildly interesting but as it progresses it becomes more retarded and of course the final show down was just like 007 with tortured chamber and plenty of explosions.

To make matter worse, Ekin Cheng's Ken and his on screen love interest, Brenda, another cop, played by Kar Yan Lam, were like a three way competition to see who could give the most wooden performance through out. And I think, the first place is a tie between Leon Lai and Kar Yan Lam and the runner up is Ekin Cheng who has the advantage of a more action oriented role to spice up the role just a tad than the other two.

Overall the movie is silly but not funny.

Apple News

Apple iTunes offers DRM-free music downloads from EMI catalogs. Or so I heard. In the sea of piracy and places where there is no law, this is not very germane.

Apple offers its cheese grater with 8-core processors. Honestly, I don't know what it means anymore. The Mac Pro now has the power to run the entire world and probably beyond, that must be it.

Look like there are more good news and product roll outs as Winter turns to Spring. Ah Spring, the season of hope and rebirth.

Straight from the horse's mouth.

LIFE

Time Inc. has taken away the life support from LIFE. Like its other flagship magazine, Time, nobody is reading LIFE magazine anymore (unless you count Vincent, relics from the 60s).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_magazine

Source.

1966: David Eyre's Pancake

This is a recipe taken from The New York Times Magazine artcle entitled Recipe Redux by Amanda Hesser on March 25, 2007.
According to the author, this recipe is from David Eyre who supposedly got it from "St. Francis Hotel Cookbook" published in 1919.

1966: David Eyre's Pancake
This recipe appeared in a Times article by Craig Claiborne

INGREDIENTS:

• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup flour
• 1/2 cup milk
• 4 tablespoons button (or olive oil and less butter to cut down on cholesterol)
• 2 tablespoons confectioners' sugar

optional:
Juice of half a lemon
Pinch of ground nutmeg, salt and cinnamon
Blackberries (I added some to the batter) and Strawberries (added some when serving)
Fig or blackberry jam, pear butter of any kind of marmalade, for serving

PROCEDURE:

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees
2. Beat the eggs in a mixing bowl. Add flour, milk, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg and lightly beat until blended but still slightly lumpy. Don't over mix.
3. Melt butter in a 12-inch or 10.25-inch (pictured above) cast iron pan. Heat until hot but not burnt, pour in the batter. (I added some blackberries as well.) Transfer pan into oven, bake until pancake billow on the edges and golden brown, about 15 minutes.
4. Working quickly, remove the pan from the oven and using a fine-meshed sieve, sprinkle with the confectioners' sugar. Return to the oven for one to two minutes more. Sprinkle with lemon juice and serve with jam, pear butter or marmalade.

After reading it, I did this pancake twice, the first time during lunch hour and the second time (pictured above) during breakfast time. The children loved it.

Lunch at Branzini

The food is good but expensive

Drinks:-
Corona $6
Merlot x 2 $9=$18
Menebrea x 2 $7=$14

Appetizers:-
Sardines $10
Chicken/Sausage with Broccoli Rabe $14
Arugula Pear Salad $10
Calamari $10

Main Course:-
Hanger Steak $24
Salmon $23
24 Pasta Special $24
Cavatelli $19

The service was so so, it wasn't horrible but it wasn't good or friendly either. For this kind of price, I would expect very good professional service, sadly our waiter Daniel was barely interested in us. Anyway, the food was agreeably good, just don't expect any big portion though.

A total of $172 + tax $14.40 and service $30.96, a Grand total of $217.36

Read what others said.

Branzini is located at Madison and 41st St, on the first floor of The Library Hotel, a charmingly cozy little hotel in midtown.

No Impact Man

Photo credit, Nicole Bengiveno for The New York Times.

Today, the New York Times brought you the No Impact Family in lower Manhattan.

The No Impact Family is a new breed of post-Gore Environmentalists with a healthy disdain for global warming, consumerism and toilet paper. When I read that toilet paper bit, I know they are serious as their clean ass is on the line.

The No Impact Man, like most other men, has a blog, and unlike most other men, has a book deal and documentary to chronicle his No Impact living.

The Year Without Toilet Paper by Penelope Green

No Impact Man Blog.

YouTube Wednesday

If I were to write any better, perhaps I would at least be your average blogger who whines and bitches his life and occasionally comes up with some mildly interesting stuff, but I simply couldn't. So I present you with YouTube Wednesday....



Hillary Clinton 1984 Video From YouTube

It's Spring Time Now

It's officially Spring time now. Tomorrow the temperature is going to be in the 40s. So that's not too bad.

Fortran Developer Dies

John W. Backus, 82, Fortran Developer Dies.

But Fortran will live on, like it always does since 1954.

More Fortran from wikipedia.

Passive Voice

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is an advanced practitioner of the passive voice. He said, "Mistakes were made." He didn't say he or who made the mistakes, it's just mistakes were made.
Now the democrats controlled Congress is turning up the heat for his resignation. Bush finally stepped in and stood behind him to give support... You know you got to stand behind the man first before pushing him down the subway track (I think Jay Leno said that, or David Letterman.)

A Day In The Park

FARGO, 2007

Picture of the Month, almost Henri Cartier-Bressonesque .... (just don't throw up now)

Buddies

St. Patrick's Day Celebration

$5 haircut

Harry: Just take a little bit off the top, yeah, that's it. Easy....
Ah Keung Goh: Kid, this is a $5 haircut, don't expect much. Look, at least I know how to use a pair of scissors, freaking so called "stylists" at Sean Louis David don't even know how to use them, they just use a clipper to give you a buzz cut, plus your Daddy is cheap ....
Harry: I got it already, will you just shut up now?

UNTITLED

Picture by Thomas Hoepker, JPEG from slate.com

Picture by Spencer Platt, JPEG from pdnoline.com

Time

JPEG from http://www.time.com

The beleaguered Time is going to launch its redesigned Cover this Friday. The Cover could have said "How The Time Went Wrong. Please give us a second chance ... buy me now" Now do they want to make it look more like The Economist, the weekly magazine that calls itself a newspaper? They even photoshopped the "tear," whatever happend to journalistic standard? Or because it's so obvious and acknowledged that it really doesn't matter? As a z-list blogger, I really don't have a clue.

Day in Review

Viacom, showing how serious it is, is suing Google for $1 billion on Youtube's "massive copyright infringement." Essentially using the same argument by Microsoft, i.e. Google is profiting from unlicensed contents which is clearly illegal....

Viacom alleged that there are 160,000 unauthorized Viacom video clips in Youtube.

http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=198000551


Dow nosedived more than 240 points to close at 12,075.96. The US housing and mortgage market is said to be the culprit.

The World is a 99-cent Store to China

Mark Chilvers for The New York Times.

Wang Hongbiao, the chairman of Nanjing Automobile in the United Kingdom, with a classic MG at a factory in Longbridge, England.

Above JPEG and caption from The New York Times.

China is swelling with liquidity and it's gobbling troubled name brands across the globe. Building its own brands would be too slow to sustain that annual double digit economic growth to keep any massive social unrest at bay.

The Classic British Sports Car From China by Craig S. Smith, March 13, 2007, New York Times.

CK IN2U

It's intended for the "technosexual." You couldn't make it up even if you want to.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/08/fashion/08CALVIN.html

Men in Shorts

Graphics copyright, The New York Times.

As if shrunken trousers is not enough, Thom Browne is going all the way to promote men shorts. With the help of global warming and mercury likely to hit 100F this summer, shorts may not be such a bad idea after all.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/11/style/tmagazine/11tshorts.html

Attention

Attention, attention, Hong Kong is now 12 hours ahead of New York City.

26 Seats

A cozy French Bistro located near Tompkins Square Park in the Alphabet City in lower Manhattan.

It's not Le Bernardin or Chanterelle but that's the point.

The decor is rustic garage sale chic with non matching chairs, mine's vinyl seat was torn in the middle, full of character eh? Once you got past the tiny narrow dining room and your too close for comfort fellow diners and your torn vinyl chair, you can most likely enjoy the food.

Since I can't really write in complete sentences, so here is the list of dishes we tried and enjoyed:-

• The Merlot (by the glass, I can't drink much these days), light and fruity.
• Italian sparkling water, well it's water, tastes kind of clean and refreshing.
• Lobster Bisque, I had a few spoonfuls, rich and tasty.
• Mussels in white wine and onion sauce, savory.
• Escargots in mushroom and garlic sauce served in a little copper pot with puff pastry on the side. Intense flavor, very French I suppose.
• Striped Bass 26 ($14.50), fish was fresh and cooked just right.
• Duck Confit ($18.50) with mashed potato and greens. The duck was good, very rich in flavor and soft. The mashed potato was not bad, I wish it could be a tad richer in garlic, butter and cream.
• Creme Bruelee, my wife loves creme bruelee, and it was decent. I had a cup of coffee which was really bland like tasteless.
  

All dishes are reasonably priced.

The dining experience from making the reservation to getting the check had been pleasant.

The official propaganda site right here, turn off your speaker first if audio is not work safe....
From CitySearch, MenuPages, and The New York Times.

Disclosure: my knowledge of French food is pretty limited to French fries. My specialty if any is really Chinese lunch fast food.

Aquarium Cafe

Located inside New York Aquarium, Coney Island, New York.

Nathan's Franks Hot Dog $3.50
Fruit Bowl $3.50
Chicken Caesar Salad $6.75
Personal Pizza $5.75

If you are a member you can get 10% off.

Walrus

DSC_7783

Hop Won

Hop Won the quintessential Chinese fast food lunch restaurant in midtown.

Chicken with broccoli over rice, $5, tap water, free. How can you beat the price?

Other than the usual pre-made combination rice or noodle platters, they also do make to order dishes, like Chicken with Chinese Broccoli over rice $5.35, Chow Fun $5.35, Singapore noodles $5.35, or any Pork or Roast Duck noodle soups $5.

The quality of the food is always top-notched. And the portion is generous. You can easily stuff yourself and put on ten pounds if you eat there every day. You can pay more, but you can't find a better Chinese fast food in midtown than Hop Won.

If you have some motherfucking friend from out of town, whom you don't have to impress, then this is the restaurant you should bring him to. I know I did.

Lau Ka Fai

Now, we know who to blame/credit when we see a whole generation of sucky local Hong Kong IT students.

Lau Ka, you made us, the retarded technical school grads, proud. I applaud your candid off-the-cuff honest remarks on your ex-employer.

[As to me, I still get paycheck from my employer so I refuse to bite the hand that feeds me.]

Hip to be Square ... I guess

Fred Perry Polo Shirt $95.
Credit: Photo Chris Astley at men.style.com.

Zodiac

Zodiac, a study of 70s' menswear or aesthetics in general. All pictures belong to their rightful owners.

The Zodiac failed to butcher the Wild Hogs in the box office this past weekend.

Zodiac, based on true serial killings in the 70s was directed by film maker David Fincher of Se7en and Fight Club fame. The Zodiac is hailed as the first ever American feature film shot entirely on the Thomson Viper FilmStream Camera, in uncompressed digital video format. And for the Mac aficionados, it's edited in Final Cut Pro.

David Fincher, digital video, Final Cut Pro, throw in looker Jake Gyllenhaal and add serial killer lore ... still can't beat the Wild Hogs. Comedy still rules in the box office, bar none.

Dow Closes up 150 points

In Shanghai, a butterfly fluttered its wing and the rest of the world stumbled. After a week of lethargic performance, the Dow finally soars more than 150 points and closes at 12,207.35.

Nikon New Camera?

Is Nikon going to announce a new flagship DSLR tomorrow? Just for fun, I think it's going to be New D series professional camera with 1.13 crop factor.

We'll find out soon.

UPDATE:
dpreview.com has it. it's the Nikon D40x. Frankly I am a tad disappointed. Not that I am in the market for a pro camera, but I just like to see something great something ground shaking from the Nikon camp. It seems like they will announce the D3 model sometime later this year.

And for those who want a full frame Nikon, they have to get a film based SLR.

Joyce Ma shall remain nameless ...

You run a picture with the lady taking up half the frame and you can't or don't bother to id her? I don't get it.

Joyce Ma.

CREDIT:
Photo by Greg Kessler. Original JPEG from Style.com

Balenciaga Fall 2007 Ready to Wear

Preppy looking fitted jacket with white piping. Ethnic scarf. Low-riding fitted cargo pants. Lego-colored snowboard binding inspired high heels. Very street smart collection.

The clothes are so wearable on the street that NY Times Cathy Horyn declares that Nicolas Ghesquiere of Balenciaga has not done his job ...

We should always ask ourselves when looking at the new fashion of a first-rate designer if these are clothes we want to wear on the street. If the answer is an enthusiastic yes, then the designer has not done his job. All he has done is to meet the most meager of our expectations.

CREDITS:
Photo: Marcio Madeira, Model: Kim Noorda of VIVA. Detail heel shot by Don Ashby & Olivier Claisse. JPEGs from style.com

How to light a Runway Model

Viktor & Rolf spent all their money on fascinating fabrics, design, models, venue and what-not they simply couldn't afford professional lighting on their Fall 2007 Ready to Wear runway show. Models were made to carry their own lighting in addition to say like just walking around. See models can be pretty strong too.

Regarding the lighting arrangement, I don't know if it's done right at least from the still photography standpoint. I have been reading dpreview and the likes for quite some time (you know I am sort of a desktop photographer), and I haven't seen any self-respecting member who would light the head that way, so this is totally new to me. I mean four hot lights on the same plane just aiming at the head, you got to be kidding me, right? Isn't it supposed to be one 45 degree in the front, one from the back ...

I am perplexed.

More...
These folks are genius, bet Viktor & Rolf could learn a thing or two from them.
Lighting forum for the desktop photographer in you.

Picture by Marcio Madeira, Model Olga Sherer of NATAHLIE

Dow Closes down more than 400 points

Dow closes at 12,216.14, down more than 400 points. Can I call it Black Tuesday? Maybe not.

PS: Vince, what did you do man? Just because some idiot trader from NY asked you to change some Japanese trade commission, you didn't have to tank the market like this.

The Departed

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

WARNING: VERY BAD MOVIE REVIEW from yours truly

The Departed won the Best Picture, Scorsese won the Best Director and William Monahan won the Best Screenplay Based on material previously produced or published . And you are dying to read my opinion on this.

I didn't see any of the nominated films so I am totally not qualified to say anything. But then again, it's my blog I can say anything I want.

It's hard not to compare The Departed with the original Japanese Hong Kong version of the movie Mou Gaan Dou (2002) or Infernal Affairs. Personally I like the Hong Kong version better. The details, the tone, the pace, the little touches here and there. How the two male leads cross path in a Mongkok audio shop playing Tsai Chin for audio reference. The Morse code was a nice touch as well. It is the detail that counts, the freaking minute details that matter that transcend a good movie to a great movie. It all comes down to the color of the table cloth.

As to "The Departed," I think both the leads do a good job. Matt Damon's performance is understated and I for one has no problem with it. On the other hand, I think the Hong Kong leads very often overdo scenes, too cute to watch and too self conscious of their movie star quality; in a way, their on screen persona very much mirrors their off screen star status. If there is such a thing as "too cool" that must be it.

I don't know how William Monahan can win the Best Screenplay, but he does. To his credit, I think he did an excellent job in ditching Sammi Cheng's role, the novelist or something who plays the love interest of Andy Lau. In The Departed, there is only one supporting actress, the female clinical psychologist or shrink, played by relatively unknown (to me only) Vera Farmiga, who ends up sleeping with both male characters. The fact that this character is screwing both male leads who are adversary should have created some tension in plot development but surprise, it didn't.

I think the Hong Kong version really have some nice touches and some defining scenes which The Departed sorely lacks. It's probably not Scorsese's best but hey it's about time to give the guy an Oscar.

More Departed from me.

WSJ on Donald Tsang

WSJ Asia editorial page editor Ms. Mary Kissel had a sitdown with Hong Kong Chief Executive Sir Donald Tsang. And the result is a piece entitled "The Weekend Interview with Donald Tsang: Tsangfroid" on this past weekend's Journal.

The article states it as a matter of reality that the upcoming election is rigged and Beijing still picks the winner.Ms. Kissel goes on to ask Tsang on topics related to the economy (Open up), disavowing "positive noninterventionism" (You were wrong), universal suffrage (city already enjoys freedom of assumbly, freedom of religion, freedom of the press), opposition candidate Alan Leong (single issue man "universal suffrage") ....

As to the "I'll get the job done slogan," the article thinks it's apt, as Tsang has been a civil servant for almost 40 years, of which the first 30 under the British rule and the recent 10 under Beijing. Ms. Kissel finally concludes and implies that Tsang's ability to "get the job done" very much depends on the limits set by Beijing.

I guess there is really nothing new from that article.

Oscar, where is the fact checking

The Departed's William Monahan just won the best screenplay based on material previously produced or published. And the introduction goes "Mr. Monahan based his Boston mobster screenplay on the Japanese film Infernal Affairs." Please... This is the freaking Oscar, get the fact straight at least. Apparently Mr. Monahan was too overwhelmed to correct the mistake when giving his Oscar acceptance speech.

After all, Oscar can't tell the difference between Hong Kong and Japan.

New iPhone Spot on Oscar

Apple just released its iPhone TV spot during the first Oscar commercial break. It does say "Coming in June," so I think there won't be an April release as some rumor has it.

The commercial probably can be called "Hello." It's a collection of movie and TV scenes where famous characters say Hello to the phone.

UPDATE:
By my count, the TV spot got played twice, the first and the last commercial break. The message is like the iPhone is going to change the way people talk over the phone. Apple is perhaps emphasizing the phone aspect of the device, the angle, or at least in this stage or in this ad, is really just the phone. No pda, camera, text, audio or video iPod. It's a phone that's going to change Hello for good. It's a bit nostalgic and I don't think it's catered to the gadget freak type.

UPDATE:
Straight from the horse mouth. Actually I was a bit surprised I didn't see the ad on Apple's site right after the spot got played on TV. The iPhone belongs to John Appleseed.

Plus the name iPhone wasn't mentioned at all, I guess it's either aesthetic or simply the 30-second spot was developed and finalized before Apple settled with Cisco on the use of the name iPhone.