US Open 2008

Jankovic is adding glitter to the US Open. Perhaps inspired by all the Olympics pint sized gymnasts, mostly Chinese if I remember correctly, Janvokic was seen with glittery hair during her first round win against 16-year old Vandeweghe in the opening night of the US Open.

Miscellaneous Whining: DVDs From Library

Let me interrupt our regular programming for a moment. Why the many DVDs from the library have to be scratched and unwatchable whether in part or in whole? From my handling of any DVD, you take it from its jacket you put it into the tray and you play. Why on earth it wound get scratched so bad is really beyond me.

Let's get back to our regular program ... which is, never mind.

Mini Movie Review

Captivity directed by Roland Joffe. I was looking for some good horror and good depraved characters. And this movie just failed miserably. And I thought Roland Joffe is some big name director, woo hoo, the movie sucks hard on every possible way. The movie just looks terrible. It's clumsy and boring. And the director doesn't even compensate with some good t&a like any bad I mean good budget horror movie does. So this is indeed very very very bad in a bad way. In this horror flick, the only victim is the paid audience who lost both time and money. I lost only my time as I borrowed from the library, woo hoo.

Panerai, Rambo's gear of choice.

Rambo. I am telling you. Stallone still has it. I really like it's no-holds-barred violence. It's not some PG-13 chicken shit stuff. It's depraved violence, the kind that shocks you and scares you. Right in the very beginning, it showed some raw war savaged footage which you definitely can't see on TV or in newspapers anymore even though the carnage still goes on in the real world. Unlike other movies that tend to beautify and purify the violence, Stallone doesn't go that route. He just goes all the way to shock and awe in a pretty honest gory way, Hollywood style of course. Hey if you like violence, this is your ticket, and there are blood and even children and women got killed en masse, just like in the real world. It makes you uncomfortable but that is the point. If you can't stand the blood and gore, stay away. The movie is fast moving and Rambo has finally come to terms with his true killing machine self. For children? not a chance unless you want them emotionally scarred for life.

(Yeah, this is a freaking movie review despite a lousy one, I don't cover my hiney by saying it isn't one)

Beijing Olympics

I am getting a bit of Michael Phelps fatigue. I bet if you are a girl you may feel very differently. A la I am a heterosexual guy. But don't get me wrong, I like the guy all right and frankly I don't understand why some people always try to put a bad spin on whatever the guy does. Anyho, he will be forgotten pretty soon and only be remembered every four years or so. But I guess that's pretty cool actually.

The Opening Ceremony was awesome and I think the Closing wasn't bad either, and if anything it wasn't as long but then it could be NBC's own version. Either way I think it was pretty good. I was horrified when I first saw how a bunch of kids, boys and girls got all tarted up with very old fashioned made-up, red lips and rogue and black eyeliner. It was so not Lin Miaoke. But it took me about 30 seconds to get used to or over it. Well maybe this brand of make-up is cutting edge again. The kids were just fine. As to the Chinese pop stars singing, I think I can only recognize three or four of them. Jackie Chan, Andy Lau and Wang Lee-Hom. I was a bit surprised to see Wang there I guess I have no idea how popular he is and how well respected he must be in the Chinese speaking show business circle. Seeing him onstange, I couldn't help but thought about Tang Wei. She is like banned from the Chinese media, for good. And I can't believe that. Then of course, I start to think about censorship, more bullshit censorship and all the Chinese goodies.

US Open 2008

Frenchman Jo-Wilfried Tsonga. Seeded 19.

Unless otherwise noted, all "US Open 2008" pictures posted here were shot by me.

US Open 2008

Jelena Jankovic of Serbia, seeded number two.

US Open 2008

Zheng Jie practicing tennis ... and whistle blowing. (Zheng is her family name. In traditional Chinese it's 鄭潔). The last one she was airborne hitting the ball.

Some Random Pictures

A little cross dressing. I LOVE the tiara ... very much.

The world's longest crayon ...

Alex is the photographer here. Best picture ever.

I know ghorse is going to say these are snapshots .... What's going on ghorse?

US Open 2008

The number 1 seeded Ana Ivanovic.

It's time for me to shoot some tennis action in my backyard. Pictures taken by me with my trusty rusty Nikon D70. The lens was my super duper Nikkor zoom 80~200 f2.8.

Movie Mini-Review: Death Proof

Why it's a mini-review? Because I can't write, that's why.

I finally caught up with Quentin Tarantino's Death Proof. It was one of the double feature when the movie Grindhouse was first released in 2007. The other was Robert Rodriguez's Planet Terror which I haven't seen, i.e. I plan to see it. Given the nature of this movie, I saw it in the basement so the kids and the women can't see it.

I saw the DVD version which was labeled as extended and uncut, whatever that means. I bought that when I was shopping for Yu-Gi-Oh cards with my kids. I have a weakness for DVDs, especially when they are marked down, which they always are now, unlike five or six years ago. I think Tarantino was at his effortless best. Great dialogues, great characters, great humor, great actions, great soundtracks and minus a "complicated" storyline. The story is told straight forward, no story told backward or mutliple plot lines interwining a la Pulp Fiction. The soundtrack is great and there is really nothing to complain. I think it's very enjoyable especially if you are into fringe or even depraved characters, I know I am.

Miscellaneous Whining

The most overused, tired expression in Chinese gossip page: 十指緊扣, I got dizzy and feel like to throw up every time I see it. Please stop.

Example from mingpaonews. "Maggie與Ole於8月8日，十指緊扣睇完奧運開幕，日前他 ......"

Project Runway

I don't understand the greasy hair guy can still be around, OKAY, he is called Daniel. He is always a kill joy, always in some kind of crisis, in distress, always defensive. He's just not fun to watch.

He should just be out. This time the challenge was to do a costume for the drag queens. And his creation was totally lack of drama when it called for it. The judges were right to call that on him. And of course, he got defensive.

I was right, Daniel just got sent off by Klum.

Olympics Updates: Urkel Grew Up To Be Robles

Urkel from Wikipedia

Dayron Robles (L) otherwise known fondly as Urkel. Picture from bbc via Google images. All rights belong to their rightful owner(s). Liu Xiang on the right.

Now that Liu Xiang was gone, I will put my focus on Urkel on the 110m hurdles. Urkel used to be the star in Family Matters and now he is all grown up and moved on to Track and Field and called himself Dayron Robles professionally. He wears the same overall, just tighter and sexier, same oversized eyeglasses and added a lot of gold chains just to show off to the world that even heavy blink can't slow him down. That's just bold.

Cooking While Camping

I brought some fruity extra virgin olive oil for salad as well as for sauteing. In retrospect, it wasn't exactly a good choice fro the latter. I believe it has a lower "boiling point" and it gets all smokey pretty fast. It's good for salad but not so good if you want to sauteed. Just plain olive oil is better for cooking.

Cooking utensils. I love my 8 inch cast iron skillet. I adore it. It's heavy, it's tough and it's practically free if you compare other similar skillets say from All-clad. And above all, it gets the job done. I brought mine to camping. Sometimes, I see other campers who bring those girly silly non-stick skillets with plastic handle. I say trash them. They are really good for nothing. The plastic handle is going to melt, the non-stick coating is going to wear out. Plus food got burnt much easier on those flimsy skillets. I can't imagine putting one of those plastic handle skillet on a camp fire to cook anything. Sure, over a gas stove it would work, somewhat.

Camping, Again

My avid readers would have noticed that I have gone camping twice in less than a month, mind you I am not even a park ranger. The first one was a bit of a warm-up, we stayed in a neighborhood park for one night just so we are ready for this BIG one Summer Camp 2008.

You my dear readers must have thought that, hey, you must be an outdoor type because you like camping so much. Wrong, the reason is one word. Economy. Or rather the bad economy. Instead of staying in some 5-star hotel, I stayed in a $50 a night camp ground. Or even cheaper.

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Me and Alex. I like to wear my white 501 jeans. I like to wear them for a week, so they look all dirty then I wear them to camping, with all the grass stain and whatnot. I like my white jeans dirty, super dirty.
Like so many respectable New Yorkers, Alex has a propensity to wear black, already. (I totally made it up, he couldn't care less.)
Smokey Joe. Featured here was my black Smokey Joe, loaded with food. To control the temperature, you need to control the vents. There are four holes at the bottom of the kettle, and by turning the valve, you control the openings and the air intake to the kettle and hence the fire. The fire from the charcoal can indeed goes pretty fierce by simply controlling the vent. If you want to put the doom shaped cover on and want to keep the fire going strong, you should really open up the vents both at the bottom and on the lid. The draft would fan the fire big time. One of the big mistakes for beginners, other than forgetting to bring the charcoal, is they close the vent at the bottom and the vent on the lid. Without air or oxygen intake, I don't care how much lighter fluid you put on the charcoal or worse on your food, there wouldn't be any fire.
I have great success with my grilled chicken with balsamic vinegar and rosemary. I just read the title of the recipe and I made up everything. Hey, it's just cooking not rocket science. I got the boneless chicken thighs a day at Trader Joe's before the trip and marinated them overnight. It was full of flavor. Too busy grilling and eating, no pictures.

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In my book, this is the only right way to start a charcoal fire. No lighter fluid needed, and the food would taste even better. I am usually not into accessories, but I found a chimney indispensable when it comes to starting the fire. There is a perforated metal partition inside the chimney and underneath you can stick two sheets of crumpled newspaper, preferably the New York Times, front page and business section will do. Then pour charcoal briquettes into the chimney. It only takes three or five minutes to get the charcoal in total fire, wait till there is no more smoke, then pour charcoal into the grill and you are ready to barbecue. I found it very efficient.

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Camp ground with power and water hook-up. Very convenient. Harry is charging his hand-held so he can check out the Olympics and gives occasional orders to the office drones.

Phelps Makes History

Only Olympian in history ever wins eight Gold medals.

Breaking: Phelps Got It Done

Phelps ties Spitz, got 7 Golds, broke a dozen records and along the way broke some man down. His latest victim was Milorad Cavic who was leading in the 100 meter butterfly until the last 1,000,000th of a second. For some reason, Phelps just touched the wall before him. Cavic's coach lodged a complaint but a review of the high speed film of the race did show Phelps touched the wall before Cavic. Phelps keeps the Gold. Spitz describes Phelps performance epic.

The Olympics Whistle Blower

Who is the whistle blower? When I first read the piece about chubby face and crooked teeth (words Chen didn't utter in the radio interview, but were used by the press to describe Yang Peiyi, via ESWN), the name Chen Qigang sounded familiar, I knew I must have read it somewhere before.... Chen Qigang is a Chinese-Frenchman who lives in France since 1984 and naturalized in 1992. I can only guess why he said what he said during the radio interview. Maybe he thinks it's no big deal, or maybe in his conscience, he thinks he owes the world the truth or he thinks he should give credit to Yang Peiyi, it seems the right thing to do. Who knows? Maybe five or ten years later in his autobiography he will tell his Beijing Olympics story to the world. .... Note, I just watched the video one more time, Chen is all grim faced when recounting the whole scenario behind the performance. It pains him to do what he did, seems that way to me.

Olympics Update

Finally I found a channel that's not Michael Phelps and Michael Phelps all the time (or Beach Volleyball). No matter how many medals Phelps got, nobody really cares, not the Chinese not the big wigs on Madison Avenue. The Chinese channel on 581 finally provides some alternative or relief.

I got to watch the more nerdy sports like table tennis, badminton or the not so nerdy like Judo. I am waiting for Yo-Yo to be an Olympics sport. I would be so happy.

Now it's volleyball, it's number 10 Tyra Bank serving for the USA. Go Tyra go. Tyra Bank is also known as Kimberly Glass professionally. OKAY, Tyra beat the Chinese. Thanks to Jenny.

Olympics Update

China baby girls beat American women gymnasts by 0.0001 points.

Michael Phelps continues to dominate at the Water Cube and NBC's live broadcast, shattering world records along the way.

News from the future: The whole opening ceremony is now revealed to be one big computer generated special effect, it's the biggest hoax since US moon landing in 1969. And Li Ning was NOT, I repeat, NOT actually walking on air when he lighted up the Summer Olympics BBQ.

UPDATE (as if anybody cares...) Nobody in his right mind would expect Li Ning actually walk on air to light up the Summer Olympics BBQ fire because that would be humanly impossible. But everyone in his right mind would expect the voice he hears is from the girl that is moving her mouth. There is no if or but, it's just wrong, period, end of discussion.

UPDATE:

Yang Peiyi
Personally I think she is cute enough
(picture from foolsmountain via eswn)