Wednesday, November 28, 2001

I was talking to Jenny on the phone last night and said something about my "college notes" and she corrected me saying that I went to a *university*, not a *college*. It's kinda scary how I'm getting more and more Americanized. I use American spelling a lot more often than Canadian spelling these days -- not that there's anything wrong with it.

Tuesday, November 27, 2001

King Tweak a.k.a. Frito strikes again -- this time, in the form of Philistine Liberation Organization. Check it out, y'all.

Monday, November 26, 2001

From the "stuff that makes me wonder what I've done with my life" department: I just found out that Jennifer Lim, a friend of mine from Jr. High, performed at the Carnegie Hall last month. She also has a CD out in Germany.

Sunday, November 25, 2001

Alex emailed me about my private blog and said he should have one too since his family reads his (public) weblog. I thought it was kinda funny 'cause my sister is the only one who reads my private blog at the moment. I normally tell her (pretty much) everything anyways, and I guess I sometimes find it easier to tell her certain things this way. (I leave it at her discretion what and what not to tell mom. ;) This got me thinking though. Should I feel blessed that I have such an extraordinarily close family, or should I be sad that I don't have a *single* person outside my family with whom I'd be comfortable sharing my private thoughts? I'm a little verklempt. Talk amongst yourselves. I'll give you a topic: a private blog is neither private nor public. Discuss.

Ok. There. I feel better.

Anyways, here is a quick recap of my Thanksgiving long weekend.

Wednesday:
Back in Canadia. Pigged out at Hon's. A little OJ to cap off the night. Ah, life is good.
- Happiness is: OJ. And lots of it.

Thursday:
Bought the latest Radiohead CD. I just feel like I *should* keep on buying their stuff although their music no longer excites me the way it used to. Yeah, it's rather silly. Maybe I should just burn all their b-sides and sell off my singles collection.
- Happiness is: buying a cool pair of snowboarding pants for mere $60 and then finding out later that they are still selling them for $120 at the Nike Store.

Friday:
Took out Hannah (birthday), Christian (new job) and Grace (birthday) for dinner at Haru. By far the best Japanese food I've had since Osaka '98!
- Happiness is: a piece of tuna sashimi melting in your mouth.

Saturday:
Went to see The Notorious C.H.O. which wasn't nearly as good as I'm the One That I Want. We laughed a lot, but still came out a little disappointed. I guess her last show was special 'cause it really did come from the heart.
- Happiness is: finding that perfect pair of shoes.
- Happiness is: a round-table talk à la That 70s Show.
- Happiness isn't: when that perfect A/X leather jacket finally goes on sale, but they don't have it in small.

Wednesday, November 21, 2001

I was contemplating shutting down my private blog because:

Maintaining 2 blogs + a movie diary is a lot of work.
Inevitably, all the "juicy" stuff ends up in the private blog, leaving my public blog (i.e. the one you're reading right now) kinda mundane and boring.
It's not as therapeutic as I thought it would be.
I made a fatal mistake of giving the URL to a certain someone, so it's no longer completely anonymous. Doh!

Tuesday, November 20, 2001

Why is everyone so fascinated with the McCaughey septuplets? Maybe I'm just a cynical bastard, but I don't find it at all remarkable that some woman took fertility drugs and ended up giving birth to 7 babies at once. Oh, Kenny: lose the moustache, dude. You look like a porn star from the 70s or something.

Another beef du jour: Ichiro won AL MVP over Jason Giambi. Well, it's not quite a travesty since Ichiro did have a fantastic year, but how can anyone with a brain overlook a 300+ point difference in OPS? As usual, Rob Neyer has an excellent analysis.

Sunday, November 18, 2001

Happy Birthday Hannah! You're the best sister in the world.

Saw 3 movies this weekend, which means I also got to see a couple of previews that looked rather promising:

A Beautiful Mind: Looks like a typical Ron Howard film (i.e. mushy/bland/no edge), but it does feature Russell Crowe and Jennifer Connelly -- possibly the best looking on-screen couple since Keanu and Charlize in Sweet November (which I refuse to see).
The Royal Tenenbaums: At first I thought it looked really silly, but then I found out this is written and directed by Wes Anderson. Let's hope it's more like Rushmore, and less like Bottle Rocket.

Thursday, November 15, 2001

Both of my favorite baseball players made the news today. Unfortunately, only one of them is good news...

Roger Clemens won his record 6th Cy Young Award. Yeah, he definitely doesn't deserve it this year, but I guess this kinda makes up for 1990 when he, despite a stellar 21-6 record and a miniscule 1.93 ERA, lost out to Bob Welch.
Ken Caminiti got arrested last night in Houston for possession of crack cocaine. I wonder if we'll ever see him play again...

Friday, November 9, 2001

Tori Amos concert in exactly 3 hours! Can't wait! I'll tell you all about it when I get back.

--

Ok, the concert was awesome -- probably the 3rd best concert I've ever been to (just behind Radiohead '96, Radiohead '01, and slightly ahead of Radiohead '98). Tori definitely has a bigger (better?) stage presence than Thom Yorke.

The venue (the Paramount) was absolutely gorgeous inside (I should see more shows there), and was completely packed. At exactly 8pm, Rufus Wainwright took the stage and kicked off his short 30-minute set with Cigarettes And Chocolate Milk. He was a much better pianist than I thought.

After a lengthy break, the lights went off around 9:15pm, and the crowd went absolutely berserk. There was a giant drape with lots of holes in it covering the stage, and the show was on the way with 97' Bonnie & Clyde accompanied by a crazy light show. Tori was still nowhere to be seen -- we could just hear her. Then the curtain dropped to the floor on the last note of the song; Tori walked onto the stage; the crowd went even wilder; Tori kicked it off for real with Little Amsterdam. The set was very minimalistic (just Tori and 3 pianos) and surprisingly she only played a couple of songs off her new album. Most of the songs were from Little Earthquakes and To Venus and Back. I think she played 2 songs off Under the Pink, and one off From the Choirgirl Hotel.

Some random notes about the concert:

They had 2 separate lines going into the theatre: one for men, the other for women. The line for women was like 20 times longer. Go figure.
Favorite moment #1: Tori covering Elton John's Daniel during the first encore.
Favorite moment #2: Tori, sitting between 2 pianos with her legs spread apart (playing the grand with her left hand; playing the upright with her right), and going "oops, I forgot my vibrator."
Favorite moment #3: Tori screwing up Pretty Good Year during the 2nd encore.
Least favorite moment #1: someone's cell phone (!) going off during Me and a Gun.
Least favorite moment #2: the couple sitting in front of me giving each other foot massages during the concert. Like, get a room or something.

Wednesday, November 7, 2001

Starting tonight, I'll be teaching math to a 7th-grade girl named Adrianna at the Pilgrim Tutoring Center every Wednesday night. Wish me luck -- considering my track-record with kids, I'll need it. :)

Tuesday, November 6, 2001

Today's my one-year anniversary here at Amazon! Yay!

Sunday, November 4, 2001

Well, it was inevitable. The magic simply ran out. Who would've thought that Mariano would blow the lead in the 9th? Ah well, at least we now know that it wasn't fixed after all. In all honesty, the Diamondbacks deserve to win -- after all, they scored more runs in one game (15 in game 6) than the Yankees did the entire series (14). The Yankees had no business playing in this World Series in the first place.

A few random thoughts as I brace myself for long 6 months without baseball...

Can you say deja vu? As Mo took the mound in the 9th, all I could think of was Jose Mesa blowing the save in the game 7 of the 1997 World Series.
Bob Brenly should be thanking his lucky stars. The DBacks would've won in 5 if it weren't for his many terrible moves. Instead, they were *this* close from losing to a team that hit a record low .183 and was outscored 14-37.
Clemens proved once and for all that he *can* pitch the big ones. He was brilliant in game 3 and 7 -- the only two games where Yanks had a legitimate chance of winning. Had the Yanks held on to the lead, he should've been the series MVP. No question about it.
Did you see Schilling sitting in the dugout with a big wad of chewing tobacco in his mouth? Like, gross! They still do that in the bigs? I can swear I read an SI article a while back about how he quit dipping after his father died of cancer or something.
If anything, I'm happy for my fellow countryman Byung-Hyun Kim. Now he'll be remembered as the guy who made the series *very* interesting, not the guy who cost Arizona the World Championship.

Friday, November 2, 2001

Mom's going back to Japan today... :(

Thursday, November 1, 2001

Wow. Amazing. I'm speechless. Am I dreaming? Can somebody pinch me? The Yankees are simply incredible. Too mind-boggling for words. Let's recap, shall we?

Game 3: Clemens, sore hamstring and all, only allows one run, and Shane Spencer makes a game-saving (and possibly series-saving) sliding catch. Yanks win 2-1, thanks to a fluky, broken-bat single by Brosius.
Game 4: Tino hits a 2-out, game-tying homerun in the bottom of the 9th, off arguably one of the most unhittable closers in the NL. Jeter hits the game-winning homerun in the 10th. I read that this is the first time since 1929 something like this has happened.
Game 5: Miguel Batista of all people outduels Mussina! Down 0-2, bottom of the 9th, two outs, runner on 2nd -- Yanks do it again, this time with a homerun by Brosius! Soriano makes an amazing diving catch in the 11th, then comes through with a game-winning hit in the 12th. I still think I'm dreaming.