NBA Finals review and future traditions of an Asian American boy to insure the make benefit of the glorious Los Angeles Lakers

I can't go on any internet sports sites because the Lakers lost Game 3 of the 2009 NBA finals, amidst the quiet shouts of a little Asian American boy yelling "foul! Foul! Bull! BUUULLL!!!!" during the fourth quarter of a game occurring thousands of miles away. This boy would stand up and yell to his girlfriend, dog, cat, and brother incredulously - "How many field goals did Orlando even make in this critical fourth quarter?" - which implies that Orlando doesn't deserve to win because they were bailed out by whistles (never mind that they might have deserved those fouls...) And so it goes, and so I can not go to espn.com, foxsports.com, si.com, latimes.com/sports/basketball/nba, nor prosportsdaily.com/nba/lakers, which would usually lead me to the orange county register and the always fun to read - because they've always been losing - Orlandosentinel.com, because to visit these sites would be heart wrenching. Oh, by the way, Mr. Bill Plaschke? Stop ragging on the Lakers on every loss and praising them on every win - it's so predictable, like your sentence structures:

• "he openly ground[his teeth] as he ground his way to 40 points.
• - paragraph for dramatic effect (pfda)-
• He visibly clenched them as he fought for {insert statistic}. He bared them as he bared his soul {or other quick metaphor}.
• -pfda-
• {Quote.}
• -pfda-
• If, indeed, there was any question about how deeply this quest burns inside the Lakers' best player, the answer surfaced in a {metaphor slightly related to verb used, ie "burns"} FLAMING GLARE that made it seem as if he wanted to not only beat the Magic, but {wait for it...} BITE THEM.
• -pfda-
• Championship choppers.
• -pfda-
• "we've seen that before..."
• -paragraph for dramatic effect -
• We've seen it before, but have we ever really seen it like this?"

Why do I keep reading this rubbish? Oh, that's right, because the Lakers kept winning!

But after a loss, my internet choices leave me with woot.com, which hasn't refreshed yet, and ludwigscongress.blogspot.com, an address so alien that my web browser does not even have it in its history.

A general foul malaise settles over this household. My will is gone. I know, in my heart of hearts, the Lake show deserved to lose that game. But they must not lose any more, and thus I will continue a time honored tradition of creating new superstitious habits, here and now, to insure in foresight our continued success, the effort required and quantity of these new superstitions somehow, I am convinced, positively correlated with the Laker's good fortunes for the next two weeks.

1. I am boycotting Bill Plaschke.

2. While I'm at it, I am boycotting Bill Simmons for the rest of the finals. Sumobean, I know you love B.Simmons, and he's a laugh riot I agree, but seriously, I want to punch him in the face for availing himself to the benefits and protections of Los Angeles (a California legal/civil procedure term) while still being a rat hater of our beloved team. What, you think you can do your cushy, witty, smug job in Boston, Bill Simmons? That's right. Can't. And stop ragging on the Clippers - you're a season ticket holder, and if you can't be thankful for that, give your ticket to someone who will be thankful to be at Staples Center, thankful for the spectacle, grateful for the opportunity to even be there, win or lose. Some inner city youth or a little brother.

P.S. I really like your articles, Bill Simmons. Especially the one about your dog.

2. I will wear the Gasol jersey my brother got me for my birthday every game day, unless Gasol is shooting less than 50% by halftime, in which case I will put on my Green lantern shirt.

3. I will shave my boy-beard before every game.

4. I must remember to call Phil before every game (Phil my friend, not Phil Jackson, aka Colonel Sanders, who isn't my friend). If Philip does not pick up the phone on the first call, the Lakers may certainly lose, unless I do five pushups at the beginning of every quarter, in which case, the game will come down to the wire, and Philip must call me before the final play and pray to the basketball Gods with me.

Okay. Whew. What commitment! The Lakers will now surely win. Because I can't deal with another summer the likes of 2004 or 2008. I just can't... It'd be the end of me, my Laker pride, and my all-together charming, rational thinking.

P.P.S. Congratulations, Orlando. You guys were clutch. I hate you.

EXTENDED EDITION!!!!!

So I was at bestbuy this morning and what do I find but our favorite: TAKEN EXTENDED EDITION.

And it had the best phrase ever on the cover

"They took his daughter. He'll take their lives."

In the words of the other distinguished gentlemen ... and ladies or this congress

HOW BADASS IS THAT!

review of the mini sirloin burger commercial

I can't believe how happy i get when the Jack in the Box "Mini Sirloin Burger" commercial comes up. I don't know what special something it has that casts a spell over me. I should roll me eyes at it. I should say "it's wrong!" but yet, it's so right.

"Cows the size of schnausers, but they're cattle!"

I want to eat these burgers now. I don't think any fastfood commercial has affected me so much.

update: if you go the jackinthebox.com, you can get a $1 off coupon for the aforementioned burgers, as well as, hold-on-to-your-garter-belts, a RING TONE!!! OMFG!

update 2: okay, another shocking revelation - there's a spanish version of the commercial. BUT before you get your hopes up, the jingle is entirely different! It's like Superman and Bizarro Superman. They should have a showdown, because this confusion weakens the legitimacy of the advertising campaign.

Review of Shawshank Redemption

I try to blog about things that move me. These are often shitty movies.

Bucking that trend, I want to write a quick something something about 'The Shawshank Redemption', which I watched again a few days ago.

It is an awesome movie. So good that I can't think of anything halfway pretend-clever to write because I am still embarrassed at conveying my thoughts after having watched a movie that has itself conveyed so much in a manner done so well. What to say. Um, "There is no fat?" "It is a movie about hope?" It's a movie that doesn't wave that word, hope, around like sugar coated chocolate bomb pops, that's for sure. I think it earned it. It dealt with a term that has been used so often as to lack any mening above being a stimulus in lesser movies - much like soaring violins - to let you know when some scene is meant to be a moving moment.

And it uses voice-overs and gets away with it!

I don't know how else to say what I feel. I suppose one way is to ask myself, "if I were to construct this story, could I ever pull it off?" in terms of patience, and pacing, and rythm and sly character development. I dunno, it seems like this script was hammered and pressed and folded many times over until it is just so. I guess, I think, I want to say, that I can't imagine having liked movies before this movie ever came out. I guess...

Oh, but one thing that irked me and made me wonder if this movie would be as good as I remembered - the D.A. in the opening scene was totally out of line in his examination of DuFresne.

Well, that's it. I hope my co-bloggers have something more intelligent to say about this movie.

Review of a Scientist speaking in Lay Terms

from CNN: "Astronomers take virtual plunge into black hole", April 27, 2009.

She-Ra read this to me.

"Black holes are some of the simplest things in the universe..." says [Professor Andrew] Hamilton.

"I think of a black hole as rather like a waterfall, except it's not a fall of water but rather a fall of space," he said. "Even light itself, which is struggling to get out, pointed away from the black hole, will find itself dragged inward, like doing a Michael Jackson moonwalk."

...You feel this difference in gravity between your feet and your head as a tidal force, which pulls you apart vertically in a process called 'spaghettification,' " Hamilton writes...

It's fun to imagine what might happen in a black hole...

Anyone worried about Earth being swallowed by a black hole should also be relieved to know the closest one astronomers know about is 3,000 light years away, which McClintock called a "super, super, super safe" distance. He added that we wouldn't be sucked in even if the sun, which is only 8 light minutes away from Earth, were suddenly replaced by a black hole of the same mass.
"All the planets would keep going around just the same. ... Nothing would change except there wouldn't be any light and heat," [Another Scientist] said.

I wish I was a scientist. These guys simultaneously amused the general public while making us feel dumb. It works on so many levels!

Guest Review: Leo Tolstoy on Shakespeare

Slam of the Month, excerpted from a Project Guttenberg posting of LEO TOLSTOY ON SHAKESPEARE, by Leo Tolstory.

"I remember the astonishment I felt when I first read Shakespeare. I expected to receive a powerful esthetic pleasure, but having read, one after the other, works regarded as his best: "King Lear," "Romeo and Juliet," "Hamlet" and "Macbeth," not only did I feel no delight, but I felt an irresistible repulsion and tedium, and doubted as to whether I was senseless in feeling works regarded as the summit of perfection by the whole of the civilized world to be trivial and positively bad, or whether the significance which this civilized world attributes to the works of Shakespeare was itself senseless. My consternation was increased by the fact that I always keenly felt the beauties of poetry in every form; then why should artistic works recognized by the whole world as those of a genius,—the works of Shakespeare,—not only fail to please me, but be disagreeable to me? For a long time I could not believe in myself, and during fifty years, in order to test myself, I several times recommenced reading Shakespeare in every possible form, in Russian, in English, in German and in Schlegel's translation, as I was advised. Several times I read the dramas and the comedies and historical plays, and I invariably underwent the same feelings: repulsion, weariness, and bewilderment. At the present time, before writing this preface, being desirous once more to test myself, I have, as an old man of seventy-five, again read the whole of Shakespeare, including the historical plays, the "Henrys," "Troilus and Cressida," the "Tempest," "Cymbeline," and I have felt, with even greater force, the same feelings,—this time, however, not of bewilderment, but of firm, indubitable conviction that the unquestionable glory of a great genius which Shakespeare enjoys, and which compels writers of our time to imitate him and readers and spectators to discover in him non-existent merits,—thereby distorting their esthetic and ethical understanding,—is a great evil, as is every untruth.

Altho I know that the majority of people so firmly believe in the greatness of Shakespeare that in reading this judgment of mine they will not admit even the possibility of its justice, and will not give it the slightest attention, nevertheless I will endeavor, as well as I can, to show why I believe that Shakespeare can not be recognized either as a great genius, or even as an average author."

SLAM!!!!
For Smarty Smart Smarts who want to boil this excerpt down to a formula:
Shakespeare = (-)great genius
moreover
Shakespeare < (AVG)Auth

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/27726/27726-h/27726-h.htm

Howl's Moving Acid Trip

I try to write reviews about things that move me, for better or for worst. Miyazaki's films usually move me for the better. I love 'My Neighbor Totoro' and 'KiKi's Delivery Service' is one of my favorite films. Something about these films makes me insist on (inadequately) describing them to whoever will listen as "unlike anything you've seen before." I am envious of this sort of magic.

Totoro was about discovery, and the plot was nothing more than kids discovering new friends with the power of their imagination. The stakes were never really that high in Totoro, but Miyazaki slowed things down, explored them, and worked with them so that you felt that everything was at stake. Marvelous.

But as for actual plot - Totoro was pretty thin. The same was for KiKi's Delivery service - serviceable plot (young witch comes of age - no antagonists), but my visceral response to it was amazing. The attention was in the details, and the details gave me a whiff of something else that my mind had to fill in. What is behind that corner? What's going on in her mind? KiKi's was a clean film with delicious details.

Tonight, I watched Miyazaki's 2004 film, "Howl's Moving Castle" expecting more magic. What I got was an acid trip. This description is inadequate, for the worst.

Don't get me wrong - the first half of the film I was thinking to myself, "is this going to be one of my favorite films?" There were hints of war, a clever and cunning and different heroine, and characters that made me want to see how the events in this story world all came together like independent strings intersecting at a precise point to be exactly the sort of story I see before my eyes, and how there could be no other possible story but this one. There were hopes that this story was that well written. But by the end of the movie, I was pausing the DVD player to say "no way", and not in a good way, but in a pissed off - maybe I'll second guess Miyazaki's past brilliance - sort of way. Yes, there were details galore - melting old witches and blob men and flagella wings on aircrafts and secret passageways that lead to new lands and all of that. But somewhere in all these new, wonderful acid-ridden details that someone must have surely come up with in some sort of altered state, there was the hubris to think a film could get away with nonsenical fancies as a plot. Gone were the simple plots of Miyazaki films past, but unfortunately they were replaced by incoherence laced up with different iterations of "love is a heavy burden" repeated to me at 5 professions a minute, interlaced with a song that translates under the subtitles as "love is a heavy burden" or something to that effect...

The end went something like this: old lady turns young then old again, stars are falling, time travel to a kid eating a fire demon from the heavens that merges with his heart, then a shaggy dog goes insane, scarecrow loses his stick, but then turns into a prince that can end the depressing war lickity split ("I'm a prince from a far away land!"), and the previous villain agrees that the war ends too, because she sees all this through her magic ball and is somehow touched, and all is forgiven. The heroine ends up loving a narcissistic jerk who throws tantrums and melts all over the place. And this would all be cool if it didn't feel like the creators (Miyazaki and co.) of this film were puking half digested ideas out at me, and then setting it to wonderful music, played on loop. The movie started out so promising, but then it became a J. J. Abrams production: "Throw everything at the audience to immediately gratify my ego as a 'visionary', and then back out of it by quick band-aid slapped on explanations, and expect the audience to eat it up and think me wonderful for it because they so much enjoyed the beginning of the story that they can't possibly be wrong about the end of it being a pile of doo-doo." Cognitive Dissonance at its worst.

I've read somewhere that other cultures make stories that don't fall into what is expected of the "Western" story structure, meaning beginning, rise, resolution, or something similar to that. Post modernists will talk about how not everything need be explained. From what I know, the Japanese love post modernism (it's all about how you feel, man...) as evidenced by the promising but then too big and finally preachy "Neon Genesis Evangelion" as well as the very good, very haunting post-modern-done-right "Wind-Up Bird Chronicles". Things don't always tie up togethr, it's how you feel, things don't have to have cause and effect...just beauty. I get it, and I appreciate it, I do. But it still needs to work somehow, and just because it doesn't work, don't expect us to pretend it's our fault for not getting it (I'm talking to you, Studio Ghibli!). I made that mistake with Matrix 2 - pretending to think it was better than it was so that I could feel good about myself for "getting it." Buying into that crap is an awful feeling. Never again.

Borges - I don't get all his stories, but I can tell it makes sense, somehow, and I need only work at it to appreciate it. "Howl's Moving CrackHouse?" Well, if they ever figure out what they wanted to do with the last Act instead of painting with hallucinatory poo (poo in the form of both beautiful drawings and shitting writing), let me know. Otherwise, wake me up when I'm done purging the last half of this film from my memory.

Sumo Bean's Review of LA Burgers

Father's Office Burger:
I first went to Father's Office (the Santa Monica location) last year with John, Jon, and Linda, after hearing everyone rave over "the best burger in LA." So one lazy weekend, we decided to see what all the fuss was about. Unfortunately, Linda forgot her ID card (why would they think Linda isn't old enough is beyond me), so we had to get the burgers to go. Here's what you get for $12: dry aged sirloin beef cooked medium/medium-rare, carmelized onions, applewood bacon compote, gruyere and blue cheese, and arugula on a french roll. It's more of a sandwich than it is a burger, since in my opinion, if it doesn't come on a circular bun, it can't be a burger. This is the only way you can get the burger. No subsitutions, no customization, unless you want to anger the burger Nazi in the kitchen.

People RAVE about this burger. I'm not a man of words, or of descriptive smell or taste. My description of food usually invovles the uses of: delicious, awesome, good, fantastic, juicy, smokey, meaty, etc. When I read reviews on Yelp or watch food tasters on TV, it seems like the whole world dropped LSD and now experiences synesthesia or something, because some of the reviews you read of the Father's Office burger are along these lines: "first bite of the sandwich elicits a panoply of exotic and delicious flavors...A sweetness from the caramelized onions is balanced by the bacon compote, and while the effervescent arugula brightens the palate [1]." I've tasted the burger, yet I don't know what a "panaply of exotic" flavors or "effervescent arugula" is supposed to taste like. Is this a good burger? Yes. It is. Some of my friends who went on subsequent Father's Office visits thought it was "da shit...da bomb." But is it worth 12 bucks? Absolutely not. I thought, well maybe it was just because we got it to go, and by the time we got home, perhaps it diminished it's awesomeness. So last week, we went again, this time to the new Culver City location with Gabe. But once again, I thought it was good, but not good enough to cause me to "remember each and every bite of that burger [2]."

Now I'm not hating on the burger. This is purely personal preference. Mostly because I'm not really impressed by gourmet burgers because I feel that once you do that to a burger, you've betrayed the spirit of the burger. The burger is something that one emotionally links to memories of backyard barbeques. A burger is supposed to be dirty, built to your liking, huge, messy, and packed with all the things you love to eat. In my case, things like chili, cheese, egg, bacon, mustard, ketchup, onions, tomatoes, avacado, pastrami, more bacon, peppers, more fucking bacon, and whatever sauces you like...all on a bun. The burger is the all-american "street food." Much like when you go overseas, and you want to get street food, who's going to make a xiaolong bao better? Some grandma selling some xiaolong bao that has been part of her family recipe for generations? or some fancy smancy restaurant in the big city. I'm taking my chances with grandma's xiaolong bao. In that same sense, in America, I'm going to a mom and pop joint for either a burger or a carne asada. Who wants a gourmet carne asada, made of expensive hormone-free beef that is better served as a steak, wrapped with long grain white basmati rice, fair-trade organic black beans, and 10-year aged cheese, all in an organic, gluten-free tortilla? Perhaps you do, but not I. I want my carne asada to taste like burning and to give me heartburn. I want it to be dripping beautiful carne asade juices out of it's bursting folds. I want my carne asada to be DIRTY.


Royal Burger from B&R's Old Fashioned Burgers:
But I digress. This is a review of LA's burgers. And I like my burgers dirty. As such, the best burger I've had in LA (better than Fatburger...better than In n Out) is the Royal burger from B&R's Old Fashion Burgers in Hawthorne. I had the honor and privelege to tackle this beast with Gabe. 2 beef patties totalling 1lb, topped with a fried egg, chili, and pastrami, with tomato, grilled onions, pickles, mustard, and mayo, all for only $5.85, for a total weight of 2.5lbs. Now unlike Father's Office, this is one burger where I remember each and every bite, down to the last one that made me think I was going to explode. It was like an explosion of awesomeness in my mouth (that's what she said). The chili....the pastrami....the beef, the flavors all hit at different points, and each one pleasantly surprises you.

I went back to re-read my xanga entry on this burger, and this is what Gabe had to say about the Royal burger: "You know, this is what's lacking in Chinese cuisine. The grandiosity. Chinese people should make dumplings the size of God."



Footnotes:
1. http://aht.seriouseats.com/archives/2008/10/fathers-office-burger-sandwich-los-angeles-la-california.html
2. http://pleasurepalate.blogspot.com/2007/11/great-burger-quest-at-fathers-office.html

A Perfect Evening

When I came home from the gym today, I decided to make crab cake. About a month and a half ago, I had bought crab cake from a distributor for United States Beef; I had gotten a good deal on steak and seafood. The site says that there are 8 crab cakes in that package. I got 9.

Well, seafood doesn't really keep as long as steak, so having opened the box and bag to get to the crab cakes, I had to plan ahead to finish them quickly. So I figured, I'll have 5 tonight and 4 one day during the weekend.

While the crab cake was baking in the oven, I started watching Taken, coming in a little late because etimus and She-ra already started. I was entranced. When the crab cakes were done, I brought them out but kept watching, knowing I could not go up to my living area to eat: I had to watch the movie!

The movie is relentless. Liam Neeson's character is merciless. You expect him to pussy-foot around when the last bad guy is holding his daughter as a human hostage. The bad guy expects it. The bad guy, apparently thinking this is a James Bond movie, begins to talk. Before he even gets to what I assume is the verb (he didn't get out enough for me to figure out if he was speaking English or Albanian), there's a hole in his head. Cold. Fricking. Blooded.

And that's not even the most spectacular shot!

What made it even better was the crab cake. The crab cake came out with the perfect degree of crunchiness on the outside and savoriness on the inside. And five crab cakes were too much! I invited etimus and She-ra to try some. She-ra, like me, wished she were still hungry so she can have some more. Etimus, quite understandably, had to call Sumo Bean to rave about the movie. When he came back, and I asked him to try some crab cake, he was casual--after all, what could be better than what we just saw in low rez awesomeness?

I persisted. She-ra helped insist. Etimus tried the crab cake She-ra had started on. He loved it. When I pondered what to do with the fifth one, etimus pulled a Viggy, and I could not say no. He had just eaten. And yet he scarfed down the fifth crab cake.

"You're so lucky you're hungry," I said. "I wish I were still hungry so I could've had that last one."

"I'm not even hungry," said etimus, his mouth full of awesomeness.

Etimus then posted on this blog.

He is still thinking of the crab cake.

We're both thrilled there was one more crab cake than advertised.

An evening hardly gets more perfect than this!

Taken by Taken

Taken made up for the two hours of my life I wasted watching Wanted. It was in the same league as Rambo.

Taken, again

"I don't know who you are but if you don't let my daughter go I will find you I will kill you"

'Taken' (The People's Champ, IMDB 8/10)
Rotten Tomatoes: 57%
Rotten Tomatoes Top Critics: 40%

'Wanted' (The Suits' Champ, IMDB 6.9/10)
Rotten Tomatoes: 72%
Rotten Tomatoes Top Critics: 74%

There is a scene when Liam Neeson is on the phone when his daughter is about to be taken. He doesn't tell her how to fight her adversaries off. He tells her that she will be taken. And then, when the shit slowly hits the fan, the camera doesn't go all slow motion fast motion extreme. No, it stays on Liam Neeson's face, and we learn that he possesses a particular set of skills learned over a very long time...

The Loom of Doom (title courtesy of She-Ra)

I have friends who really like the move 'Wanted'. One friend swears that it revolutionizes action films as we know it. Others say it's pretty entertaining, and add as all people do when describing films like this, the move is "pretty entertaining for what it is....which is..." (uncomfortable coughing) "a summer action movie." And poof, all transgressions are forgiven.

This movie takes those built in liberties and hopeful attitudes we lend it and throws it in our faces, as a gorilla would fecal matter. "Bad gorilla, but what can you expect? It's just a summer movie..."

This is what I remember from the movie. The dude from 'Atonement' screams and complains about his slow motion-then-fast-motion worker bee life, gets picked up by Angelina Jolie through generous use of extreme(!!) and tilted close-ups, and then there is a training montage when he decides to take his place in a society of super assassins that was once held by his father. The society is good because it kills people who deserve to be killed, and this objectivity is given by a loom that threads out binary code. Seriously, that's it. I read the comic book - not even a comic book could make that up.

But wait, there's more! There's a plot twist, which might've been cool if the film worked for me, hinging completely on the "curved bullet" which had been established many times beforehand lest we forget about this really cool thing they're gonna put in the commercials to draw people in, which is a curved bullet, which is amazing, because bullets don't curve in their trajectories, so this would be different - wowzah - curved bullets! I don't want to ruin the twist, except Angelina Jolie kills all the bad guys - who happen to be standing in a circle - with one bullet: a curved bullet.

And there's a point in the film where the writers, who probably haven't finished the script midway through filming, decide that a bad-ass way to blow shit up would be to lace a truckload of mice with explosives, have them run around, and detonate in slow-motion-then-fast-motion extreme(!!!) and tilted close-ups. Because that would be cool, kinetic, and unreal extreme!!!

Also, there are some scenes about an untraceable bullet, General Zod, moral conundrums done away with by Angelina Jolie's pouty story about not following the wisdom of the loom, and throw away laughs, such as Jolie in her messed up corvette pulling up next to a bunch of teenagers at a stoplight after an epic car battle bonanza. The big-eyed teenagers can't believe how f-cked up the car is! Oh gosh, they're speechless! The shot lasts a second longer than necessary (although really, was it necessary in the first place?) just so the audience is cued to laugh. Tee hee! I get it! The convertible was once nice, but now messed up! And there are bullet holes! Angelina Jolie is so bad azz! Tee hee har!

This was no "Live Free or Die Hard". This wasn't Superman, when we could say - okay, I know this is way out there, but the film makers have given me an excuse to jump in and suspend my disbelief - no, this was a gorilla throwing us poo-pie. By supporting films like this, we are telling movie companies that we want more films like this. Films based on curved bullets and expected Pavlovian responses to "funny" moments.