I'm a fairly positive lurker. I mean, I have a lot of blogs and articles and networks that I like to regularly browse and read. AND  I almost never leave a digital comment, (unless you're my friend and i'm reading your blog). It's cuz I'm lazy. I mean, lookie my blog... Not exactly regular. In fact, when Angelina first started posting her blog on AnD, I would read an entry and then wait for it to appear on AnD to make a comment, because I never wanted to set up an account to make the comment on her blogwhatnot site. A lot of the time, I can just share my comments with my cat, or forward the link (and personal commentary) immediately over IM to a couple friends, and ONCE IN A WHILE - when WOW dancing manna or other awesome material appears - I post about it on my site, and I'm good.
I think I've made a handful of 'that was a really good post' type comments over time on blogs/sites i read on a weekly or daily basis (again, that are not friends' personal ones). But that is it. To recap the whole point of this paragraph: I almost never bother to leave a digital comment on some stranger's digital entry, whether it causes me interweb ecstasy (good), tears (good or bad), or diarrhea (bad, always bad).

So imagine my annoyance level when I read a Slate movie review... and clicked on a separate link to go to the linked forum... read the two other dissenting comments... and found them insufficient enough that i ended up creating an account (complete with surrendering an email to their data-mineable lists) TO CONTRADICT the critic's movie review.
Wow, and still so annoyed that now I'm posting to you guys about it.

So really, I overall agreed with the critic's review (WARNING: contains scene spoilers). The movie is fun and great, but not a masterpiece blend of summer special effects blockbuster AND biting social commentary. There are IronMan storyline updates from Vietnam era issues to current turbulent political climes (the Afghanistan terrorist wrinkle). But IronMan really is almost all about Robert Downey Jr and his charmingly perfect portrayal (the rest of the cast is good too). But then the critic spends a whole paragraph taking issue with the moral 'liteness' of this avowed summer blockbuster, and then proceeds to back up their point by recounting a memorable movie scene incorrectly. COMPLETELY ASS BACKWARDS. As if s/he complained about a scene where Robert Downey Jr looked horrible in that blue cocktail dress and Gwyneth Paltrow looked horrible in the Red and Yellow Iron Man suit. See bottom for specifics, but there are scene spoilers:

This is not 'An Inconvenient Truth' deep. This is not 'Syriana' or 'Thin Red Line' or 'Apocalypse Now' or some other example of the culturally / politically / emotionally important movies of our time. This is not a movie that would cause Dax to wax poetic about its moral implications.
And no one in the audience would be surprised. This is a suspend-your-disbelief and hang-onto-your-popcorn summer flick that has some scenes take place in Afghanistan. Not the Morgan Spurlock film that took place in Afghanistan.

But all that aside. When the critic takes issue with the film, makes a moral debate about it, and complains about his/her 'bitter taste' in their mouth... I expect - at worst - an oversensitive and extremely PC moral argument NOT based on the critic's ASS BACKWARDS MEMORY of the scene. Don't critics pound these out on their laptops as the credits roll on their sneak preview screening and they slurp the last of their diet coke? I expect them to have a better memory of the movie than someone like me, who checked out the latest fun popcorn flick on an officially-work-sanctioned hooky afternoon at the local megaplex movie theater. (It's work-related because we made the video game:) Yes, my job rocks!)

And ya, ya, ya. I'm really just excited because this snarky movie critic who is paid to write these reviews and bring in bigger-picture world-events totally just messed up so I GET TO BE SNARKY.

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Exhibit A (SCENE SPOILER IN THIS SECTION):

Movie Critic With Alzheimer's: In one scene, the Iron Man confronts a group of Afghan villagers, unable to distinguish the civilians from the combatants. At once a Terminator-style readout appears on the inside of his mask, clearly labeling each civilian, and with surgical precision, he takes out all the bad guys, leaving the grateful good guys standing. It's a clever and viscerally satisfying gag that got a round of applause at the screening I attended—but it left me with a bitter aftertaste that lasted for the rest of the movie. How much collateral damage have we inflicted by trusting just such "smart" weapons to make moral decisions for their users?

Uh, HELLO. First of all: Iron Man runs around kicking bad guy ass. At one point, he turns around and faces a number of civilians, each held at gun point by their own bff terrorist bad guy. Iron Man is ABLE to distinguish the civilians from the bad guys, but he has to sheathe his weaponry before the bad guys start shooting the civvies.
While he does that obvious placation maneuver, his super cool, sexy hawt Iron Man suit targets all bad guys carrying guns, then paints big red X's over their faces (the vulnerable spot), and launches a round of mini-rockets/bullets that take out each and every Bad Guy. This wasn't a case where the "smart" weapon picked out Bad-Guys-With-Guns out of a crowd also filled with Good-Guys-With-Guns.
Anyway, if you're going to be snarky and debate this, then make sure you were watching it, and not preoccupied with a handful of popcorn.

Pretty light day; had a few mtg's:
11-11:30: Go over B-Roll for current project
11:30-noon: Discuss a couple promotional ideas with my manager
noon - 1:30: Mktg all hands mtg. Discuss FY09
3:00 Watch Iron Man at special SEGA employee sneak preview at the Metreon

Which rocks, by the way. Robert Downey Jr does a great Tony Stark. I'm not familiar with the original comic book, so I'm not sure how true-to-the-comic the movie is; I'm quite sure the terrorists in Afghanistan wrinkle is new. But the origins story of Iron Man is cool; Robert Downey Jr's portrayal is great; and that IronMan suit is sexy hawt!

Totally recommend. Even if you can't spend a couple hours watching it 'for work.' Before the movie actually releases. =P
See the trailer below for the sexy hawt suit (1:24, 1:41)

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Hx6TEqrzHU

PS. How good was this shit? I'd go to the theater and pay (this time) to watch it again. And this isn't College-Days-Mabel talking, who'd cram 10 ppl in a minivan, drive to 1000 Van Ness, and line up for 2 hours on opening night... did i mention that back in the day, i almost got in a fight with a 6' tall, 200-something pound guy who cut in front of us? i totally could've taken him...
But ya, Calm Mature Mabel would totally recommend and watch Iron Man in the theater :)

Hey fellow AnD peeps,

I'd like you all to meet Geoff Quan, an awesome up-and-coming filmmaker I met during the 2008 SF Int'l Asian American Film Fest this year. He produced the fun short, Long Distance, which was directed by Nelson Kim, a fellow Columbia MFA. This slick little piece captures all the awkwardness and communication barriers and fun of meeting someone new. Geoff also had a short at Sundance this year, called The Second Line, which will be playing at the Tribeca Film Fest in a couple weeks.

Stay tuned for his next piece, The Other Way Round, which will be showing at the Columbia University Film Fest.

This boy can direct, produce, write, and did I mention he was a member of the awesomest college marching band around? CAL BAND GREAT!!!! Check out his page and give him a warm welcome (especially before he becomes uber famous =)

I swear to god, my parents are going to kill me. They're going to give me a heart attack and kill me.

This past Christmas, being the dutiful but video game nerd daughter I am, I decided to give my parents the ultimate Christmas toy: their very own Wii. It was the latest, hottest newfangled thing for Christmas, and every kid in America wanted one. It's the coolest piece of video game hardware in a long time. It was revolutionary, by focusing on gameplay mechanics and without resorting to the time-tested Bigger Faster Better Hardware for Even Better Graphics technological march that causes PC's to obsolesce in 3 days. It brought the Casual Gamer market into mass industry acceptance and focus; even Xbox, who introduced their original gaming machine as the ultimate gamer's console, complete with huge controllers for their intended 18+ male gamer audience, has started focusing on the Casual Games market, and mentioned it in their CES keynote.
All that aside, since all that means bullcrap to my parents, the Wii has become a great toy that senior citizens and little kids, and all sorts of non-gamers enjoy. I actually bought the Wii much earlier than that, but knowing my parents' technical prowess, I abstained from sending the Wii, and waited til I could personally hand-deliver, install, and write little instructions for my parents.

If you really want to know how bad it is: My parents have 2 tv's. The one in the upstairs room, I don't think can take any inputs. Maybe it can be hooked up to a VCR. It has the little knob that you turn, to switch to different channels. The main one downstairs is very large, but very old. So old, it does not have cable in, cable out, or any sort of the usual audio/video inputs. It took me a moment to remember how to rig everything up (while I was staring at it). VCR connects to TV. Switch to channel 3 for the VCR.
VCR, which is semi-current technology (in the inputs dept), can accept connections from the DVD player, or the Wii. Not both. It only has one set. I stacked all the components very neatly, I connected the Wii to the VCR, i took twisty ties and tied together the analogous DVD input cables to the Wii cables, wrote instructions, and walked my parents through the process. Like 5 times.
If you want to use the Wii, it's connected. If you want to use the DVD player, take these Wii cables, pull them out of the VCR, and plug in the DVD cables (that are tied together with the Wii cables) instead. To use the Wii again, switch back. Switch this one thing. That's it.

Today my mom called me in an entitled rush. My aunt was visiting from Taiwan. She had to show off our Wii. NOW.
"How do I get it to work?"
What is displayed on the TV screen?
"Oh, ok, I will turn on the tv. Now what."
SIGH. Usually, it's my mom making these huge sighs. Usually following some answer of mine that signifies how I'm 1- not a doctor, lawyer, or engineer still, 2- not seriously dating or engaged or married to the perfect Chinese boy... or anyone for that matter, or 3- very very very far from having grandkids
This sigh was mine. I didn't even bother asking if the little instruction paper was still around.

Fastforward 10 minutes. I'm sitting in my living room perched precariously near the patio door Side note: I have no reception in my apt. That absurdity would deserve its own blog entry, except an entry where I say I have no cell phone reception in my apt. This sucks. AT&T sucks. over and over again, with nothing else constructive to add, would be pretty boring.
So I'm perched precariously in my living room, Speaker Phone ON, doing a pageant-wave-esque movement with my hand to stay at 2 bars, and suddenly I realize I'm yelling.
No, no, not the cable that goes to the outlet! There's another cable from the tv. Does it go to the VCR? Does it go to the DVD player? There should be a label above the cable. What does it say?
To which my mom responds, "Ok. Ok. It says, 'Welcome, DVD Player'."

If you re-read my questions and her answers, you'll see that none of her answers actually match up to my questions... And when I ask her to tell me what cable/input the tv has, she decides to tell me what the tv screen says. Why do you call me on the phone during dinner, to ask me how to do something technical, and then NOT ANSWER my questions that are necessary for me to figure out what's going on?!?!
This is not the first time we've had similar conversations. But usually I'm discussing the mysteries of the Interweb with my Dad, and he usually responds to my technical questions in a meaningful fashion.

She hasn't called me back tonight, so I'm envisioning my mom and her sister laughing and playing Wii tennis and boxing while my father watches. But next Christmas I'm getting them like. a painting.

Sorry I didn't really recap the film fest. I got hit by a nasty cold on Tuesday, so the last few days, I would haul myself up from bed, go to work, go to work at the film fest, then skip the afterparty and crash. I did make the closing night party though. And the closing night movie was really really good. I cried. A LOT. Joan Chen was amazing.

I'll go more into detail soon.

I called in sick today (had nothing to do with the Closing Night party, everything to do with my cold, and the fact that I have probably already contaminated my fellow officemates, so my work there is really done =P). I spent the day sleeping off and on, hanging out with my cat, and leaving mtv on my little room tv, because I didn't have the strength to search for my remote... I think the combination of Top Model and Gauntlet has shaved off a few iq points, although at one point I was dreaming of being in a really cool obstacle course race. I'm supposed to wake up in 4 hours and go skiing. I have a season pass, I've gone for like 5 weekends in a row, and I haven't been in a month, so I really want to go, if anything to hack a lung for 10 minues on the slushy melting powder, and then curl up in the lodge :)

Have you ever had a moment where you're sitting on your bed, talking to someone, and they make you laugh so hard that you fall off the bed? Oh ya, me neither... =P Although my cat was really puzzled for a little while, and was peering at me over the edge of the bed... wondering if i was ok or if i was having laughing seizures. She sniffed me a couple times, until she concluded I was still in good enough health to continue meting out kitty kibble on a daily basis.

Have you ever had a moment where you're being driven back to your car, and right when they park the car, there's a sudden 5 minute hailstorm? Holding hands, waiting... It was like a movie moment.

Don't worry, I'm sure I'll have some biting sarcastic comments another time. The phlegm is making me soft.