@ mookie

Since you are such a C-cinema aficionado, I can understand (sorta) your objection to Takeshi as Zhuge Liang. But, for shallower me, Takeshi saved Red Cliff I (which I watched in a cinema and hence could not escape). I was bored catatonic, but perked up miraculously whenever Takeshi hit the screen (pweety, pweety...). I also thought Takeshi was perfectly cast as the reluctant superhero in K20, which was was a lark.

^ o no don't get me wrong, I just have strong opinions and a big mouth.

RC pained me on so many many many many levels. I wont pained u another of my ugly RC rants. I'm allowed to have expectations on it with the 10 yrs in production and that cast and crew. I actually thought Takeshi WAS a physically perfect Zhuge Liang.

But, you said what I wanna say: RC should be anything BUT 'bored catatonic' and Zhuge Liang should cause u to fangirl first and foremost with his braincells and so not the (pweety, pweety…) and I have to add homoerotically sizzling with Tony Leung with their faces plastered on screen in so inappropriate close proximity. It's like their faces have magnets and they just hadto gravitate to <1cm of each other's pweety. he's like some pretty mascot attending some period party whenever he's in a scene when they were, um, fighting a freakening bloody war for Christ's sake (so yup, no real time vet giving birth to a horsey for me ty...)

Takeshi is out of this world pretty, that's a universal fact, so his physical gift can get him perfectly cast in many work that requires less of him. I do like him in K20, in ChungKing Express, in many things, just dun mess with my historical brainiac idol that I've lived with most of my life.

Yes, even Pleb Me had a moment's pause in Red Cliff. Wait a minute, the most brilliant strategic mind of the day is this gorgeous matinee idol? Does not quite compute...

Totally agree with the waste of Red Cliff. So gratuitous. And I was so excited about it, I went BY MYSELF to a cinema to watch it, because I couldn't find a friend to go with me that first weekend. I haven't even bothered to catch up with Red Cliff II.

WOW! Did this guy have the best seats in the house or what?? I'm so jealous. This is fancam done RIGHT, y'all!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3kpoIwdubw

@ isabelh

" I mean, Seattle is really just kind of a small town that spread out, how hard can it be?"

Truer words never said but never said by me since "I want to live" is my motto. I fear the imaginary lynch mob coming from Pike's Market who dare to utter slander against their fair city.

I go to Seattle quite often because my BFF lives there but I always think of it as a small town stretched thinly like a smear of cream cheese on a bagel whenever I'm there. Portland, Oregon I think of as the early Seattle prototype. Its like a 10 block radius. The two times I was there on business after walking a few blocks and reaching the end I would say "this is it?"

While I'm gaining antis by the minute from every city across the US I might as well add one more from our neighbors from the great white north since I won't be winning a popularity contest anyway. I remember a few years ago I was in Whistler BC on a snowboarding trip and hubby and I were thinking of buying a condo there since we had some crazy idealized notion of living there part time while becoming expert riders and the local real estate agent driving us around says " I hate going to the big city since its so stressful due to the noise and all the traffic". My husband and I thought the entire time he was talking about NYC since NYers are pretty selfcentered that way and Big City=NYC in our self centered minds but we found out much later he was talking about Vancouver the whole time. Oy Vey ay.

@nycgrl -- you are showing you are so NOT Seattle; it is "Pike Place Market", and only out of towners would call it "Pike's Market". (I love the fact that the sign for the market can be seen from the elevator of Seattle Grace Hospital in Grey's Anatomy -- so, so impossible.) But, yeah, Seattle is really just a bunch of neighborhoods clumped together surrounded by water. Downtown is none too attractive, unlike Portland, IMHO. And to a suburban girl, it is too stressful and bad traffic-y; I only go into town to see friends who persist in living there. I like LA, but can't even imagine visiting NYC.

OMG Chuno 7! :( This drama is soooo good, now if I can magically download Korean language fluency into my brain, that would be fantastic.

@445 cingdoc

Were you making Chinese Steamed eggs(loaf)??
The way that my Mom taught me is : for every egg that I cracked, I add a eggshell-ful of water (including the salted duck eggs), and don’t forget to drizzle a little bit of oil before steaming the egg loaf….if you’re making something else, just ignore the above comments.

Basically yes, but I wanted a smoother consistency--I ended up with eggs that were a bit spongy. Thanks so much for the tip! It's good to hear that your mother is better! Please take care and have a safe return! :)

Whoops, already past midnight!? Just getting myself acquainted with my new Mac. It is requiring a bit of brain tweaking on my part. It's supposed to be intuitive, right? And I'm left-handed and super intuitive like it's my business.
Is there no way of transferring playlist from my ITunes on PC to this one? Otherwise, it's impossible to sync my iphone with this iTunes. I have to recreated all the playlists first... And with all the downloads, it's not that easy to find locations of them, some are even in Korean... At least, I can talk on skype already, yey.

Anyway, JB, thank you for the recap of WISFC. I might watch the last episode only after reading tomorrow's recap to see if it has a happy ending or not.

@456 momosan

Oh, don't worry, you are not the only one. My nieces and nephews are all teenagers. They are all so cute and Ganbatteimasu.

Anyway, my bed is calling me.

No, far out, scintillating parables tonight, hjikomo? I was semi expecting it as a good night story...

HAPPY 100 DAYS JI HOONIE!!! :D

@ 454 langdon813, 456 momosan

You wouldn't be so jealous if you had to experience the embarrasment of being the oldest people in the crowd and had screaming teenagers blowing out your eardrums. ;)

@ 433 ockoala
"The Amazing Hulk – the vanilla teeange years."

LOL. I agree. :P

@ celestialorigin

ah...too tired last night...and I think I used up all my crazy creative juices the night before :(

-----

BTW...

SAVE CHOCO!!! :D

@ hjkomo

Happens all the time. I refuse to stop liking the music I like or to stop going to concerts because I'm older than most of the people in the crowd!

For instance, about 6 years ago I went to a great concert in Atlanta (2004 99X Mistletoe Jam) with five bands: The Music, Keane, Jimmy Eat World, Muse, and Velvet Revolver. All great bands, but I was really there for Muse and VR. Anyway...I had floor tickets, right in front of the stage, just like the guy (girl?) in that Epik High fancam (30+ years of floor tickets = one deaf langdon, but sacrifices must be made).

Everything was okay until Jimmy Eat World came out, and there was such a HUGE rush of kids to the floor area, and of course they started throwing each other around, it was quite violent. After I'd been kicked in the head twice, I went to security and asked them to help me and my friend get out of the mob. Good move, because he let us go right up on the side of the stage where there were only 4 seats, and all of the bands had to walk right past us as they came out or finished up. So we got to shake a lot of hot and sweaty rock star's hands as they walked past, and took some great pics. Wish I'd had video on my camera back then!

@isabelh
"I like LA, but can’t even imagine visiting NYC."

NYC is not for everyone but its part of my lifeblood like the river Liffey is for Dublin. I'm the type of person when driving through Vermont or PA thinks "What do people do out here for a living and for fun." If I stay for a long visit in the suburbs I start getting depressed.I'm sure there is a phobia for it because it seems to run in parts of my family.

I 'm not a fan of LA except for the food. I was walking around in ktown once in LA and this guy drives by and literally shouts "What are you doing lady. Why are you walking!" LOL If I had to choose the one city I can move to without feeling depressed it would be SF. I love the bay area but my one gripe is a lot of places close early.

#458 robotmatsuri

How about beating it more. I saw on alton brown's show about stirring so the egg proteins traps the water molecules for smoother consistentcy Also when I make the korean egg jim I put a little baking soda and milk to make it light and smooth.

@ 463 nycgrl

"...I was walking around in ktown once in LA and this guy drives by and literally shouts “What are you doing lady. Why are you walking!”

haha!!!! nobody walks in LA. unless it's to and from your car and your destination. i don't think i've ever strolled in downtown, much less ktown. because if you stroll, you just get further and further from your car, which you eventually have to get back to. that's the great thing about NY - you can walk around all you like and then catch a subway back to where you started without rewalking it all :)

what? no walking around LA?? umm.. how am small town me gonna get around? i don't like driving in busy traffic.. and our rush hour lasts 5 mins and i can't stand the wait!!! i'm never gonna survive out there :(

i just got accepted to school. i'm going back after 6 years!! YAY!!!

@460 momosan

Thank you for your advice again. You are so appreciated. But, guess what happened last night after I had posted my comment? I finally had a time check on my files on this Mac for the first time after arriving home from Apple store. See, I was in a hurry to come home because I had a Skype session scheduled at 10pm with someone in Australia. When it was over it was already about midnight. So, I checked my e-mails, showed up here and thought OK, I should change my desktop background with my own art... Going into folders for the first time looking for it. !!!! OMG, The only thing I found in my doc. was itunes music files, they weren't even in itune file or anything, just random MP4 stuff floating around!. And 4 crappy font files! Nothing else, nowhere to be found... I'm guessing the guy who worked on file transfers didn't look far enough in my hard drive, they are sort of hidden . Do you think I'd drive 54miles one way, 2 round trips to drop them off and pick them up=over 200miles driving! more than 4 hours in a car to just get my music files!? What happen to my docs!? I'm teaching classes and doing workshops in Japan in just about 2 weeks and need all the materials readily available. Do I have time to do the same thing all over again? Oh, the appointments were full at Apple stores closer to my house like of Santa Barbara and Thousand Oaks. That's why I went further... I'm just going to the tutorials and see if I can do it by myself first. I was so upset last night that I just want to sleep. I even got up at normal wake up time(unlike my usual 10am0noon time frame, but I do usually stay up late) for normal people for a change just because I was so anxious. Oh, boy, why is this happening? Anyway, I'd better calm down, let go of the situation and trust in the best possible out come.

464 lovenyc52

That is sooo right. Nobody walks in LA! for sure. When my son was in High school, he got a ticket for Jay walking(is this how it spelled?). So, I had to accompany him for his court date!(only in LA as well, never in NYC, I'm sure). While talking to the judge, describing the situation, he was saying something like "But there are no lights or the lights don't change there" or something like that(it's been many many years ago and can't remember details). Then, I suddenly realized he was actually right that at the particular 3 -way intersection, there was nothing for pedestrians to do for crossing the street. Am I making sense? Anyhow, the judge decided to investigate the situation and his $50.00 fine was waved. How strange that was...

Last episode of WISFC. tonight!

Trailer for 14 Blades, which just had its premiere last night.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FoELYtn52g

All I can say is: Sammo, buddy, where have you been for the last decade? And Wu Zhun! Who cast you as Jack Sparrow in an epic martial arts political intrigue flick with Donnie Yen and Vicky Zhao. I'm confused. But looks good.

I'm slightly more excited for the upcoming True Legends directed by Yuen Wo-ping.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDrkh8iya5A

But Jay Chou looks like he wandered into the set from a cast-off of Stom Riders/Warriors.

And it appears that the TW-idol is now the token affirmative action case for any mainland epic movie - you must cast one TW-idol/model/singer in each movie, no matter how out-of-place that person looks.

Lastly, John Woo, my good man, hurry the heck up and finish Jianyu Jianghu Rain of Swords, I need a new dose of my "I lub you" soon!

@ twin

rush hour traffic is like... 4pm-630pm in OC/LA. i never leave for LA until 630pm earliest on a weeknight because otherwise i'd just sit on the freeway and crawl at 5-10mph if i'm lucky. But if you're already IN LA, you miss the bulk of the traffic and you can pretty much get around using the local streets. LA driving in general is kind of hectic though.

@ockoala,

twin, while cyberstalking loverboy, I came up with news of Jianyu Jianghu Rain of Swords, they r filming it in the studio right next to Clothes (so it's still in filming....read somewhere it's slated for a summer release). Your 'I lub you' can totally understand Chinese. Barbie is super nice and has perfect skin. ;)

http://tieba.baidu.com/f?kz=702815622
I didnt know Ethan Yuan plays a character in it as well. (the shallow me love Shawn Yue! )

and for loverboy/Shishi shipping:
http://tieba.baidu.com/f?kz=702692273
love the last pic! <3

@ twin

Sigh, I wish I hadn't read Janine little visit to the set of Jianyu Jianghu - it makes it even harder to dislike Barbie. She has always seemed a very gentle, kind soul, just a terrible actress that watching her makes me want to poke my eyes out. But hey, can't wait for the movie come Summer!

Ooh, you totally have me near gushing at my computer screen with those adorable shots of the runaway princess and her fallen general (hhhmm, shades of Chuno?).

I'm gonna pick an episode of ZJZ's Dragon Sabre and hope I can find Shishi's as the Yellow Robed Lady relatively quickly. Btw, any successful adapation of Dragon Sabre needs to nail two major scenes. (1) Zhang San-feng's 100th birthday party when all the lame-Os come to Wudang and accuse the parental units of a million and one sins and they off themselves. And even more importantly, (2) the Good vs. Evil showdown at Bright Peak. I watched both last night - sorry to report, complete letdown, esp. when you compare to Tony's version with no special effects, and it was even better.

Finally got online at the internet cafe...some perverted old man refused to get offline(it's a honor system-when asked, your time online is for 15 min, otherwise it's as long as it's available). The idiot just kept watching kiddie porn (in public!!!) and decided to plug in his earbuds to igore me. OH NO YOU DIDN'T. I was going to give him an earful when my Sis held me back...LUCKY HIM. The two of us ended up sharing one of the PC ><
We were invited to InterContenental Hotel in the Kowloon side yesterday and had a delish buffet lunch. It's supposedly a fancy, schmancy place, but lil me just thought "whatever"...food is food. The company(my sister in law's family) was good, and that's more important to me. We finished the day with more shopping (my Mom sat at her friend's shop while my Sis and I ventured around-my Mother HATED that). I bought some Chinese New Year silk jackets for the girls as requested. Today's schedule will be MORE (yikes) shopping .
You know what, you guys, the whole time that I'm here, there's only one feeling that I felt- a fish out of water. I don't know why, but I dreaded the salmon-going-upstream dynamics of pedestrian flow, the busy traffic jam, the POOR air quality, and the I-can't-see-the-blue-sky because of the forest of high rises/poor air quality. I guess I won't enjoy NYC, too then.
My Mom asked me and Hubby to move back here when we retire (when ????), but the chance of that would equal to me meeting my Gong Yoo (lol). Besides, Hubby looooves his open spaces(that's why we live in LA suburb/horse country).I was a little surprised when my 3rd Sis told me that she's seriously thinking about moving back though. I guess it would be easier for her since she already has satellite offices here in HKG and China and has commuted to these offices a few times already.
It's too early (waaaay to early) to state, but I probably have to babysit grandkids for the 2 lil cingdoc's...you know, in the far, far, far future ( 15-20 yrs!!!!!), so living abroad would make that impossible.
Did I tell you guys (esp @mookie and @ockoala) about my 2 min of movie star encounter??? Apparently, some movie stars had their kid born at the same hospital where my Mom was staying. I usually walked around, doing errands for her, etc. During one of those countless elevator rides, one guy kept looking at me behind the hospital masks that we all have to wear. It's either that I looked frazzled, probably am, or the fact that I'm the only person in HKG wearing a sleeveless shirt (I'm sorry, but it's 22C , and I WAS running around)(it cracks me up how everyone else were wearing down jacket with scarves up to here...). Anyhoo, I learned after the fact that the guy's name is Lim Man Lung(wife is Kwok Hor Ying)....I told my sisters, and they went WHAT??? I reminded them that I haven't watched any HKG stuff in ages. Now, If I see LBH, Gong Yoo and IJH, I would pull the emergency button on the elevator and attack them ;)
Ok, gotta go, someone is giving me the stare...2 more days here in HKG....then LAX and OT 120

HAPPY 100 DAYS , JI HOONIE.....FROM YOUR AUNTIE CINGDOC

^ Happy 100 days to baby Ji Hoon, samsooki

@ cingdoc,

o gosh my mom was just doing her usual grandbaby talk and she emailed me a pic of Kwok (actually she's a family friend :) congrats to them) like 3 days AFTER giving birth and literally a stick figure walking out of the hospital.

HKG to me is a mix of many things and yes it's overwhelming.. it's a lot of gives and takes, .not unlike a mini NYC (and that's exactly y NYC felt so homey and I'm completely comfy walking in Brooklyn.) There's just sth very alive in braving the crowd (or not..and just go with the flow) My flat there is miserably tiny and no view but I eat out or at parents' 5 meals daily anyways when I'm there.. any buffet in HK is bleh but the locals LOVE their buffets and hotpots (ok, I just hate buffet in general) but like many cities, u really need to live there and soak it in... turn into any one of those darker alleys, those tiny holes in the wall , or some private amazingly hip kitchens in abandoned warehouses, serving the things that r my childhood and my parents' and my grannies'... a ferry ride away to one of those outlying islands u can have a 4 story house and backyard and the sea and decent air (and own a horse at the Jockey Club no joke) And if u have the citizenship, I think their medical system is far 'universal' than the States and with terrific options esp for geriatrics, at least when I compare the care and cost if my folks decide to live in US vs HK. It's actually my ideal place to retire (I still can't drive in LA calmly)...of coz my hubby shares your exact sentiments.

O GOSH, I've just got the time to sit down and enjoy Chuno with hubby. What a great show. I mean I can nitpick on the slowmos r a tad to fancy and minor details, but it's owning my household. (and I'm soooo soooo glad that my DH is finally bored with QSD! Thank you dramagods!!) Maybe I'm not a LDH fangirl, sth is not organic about her/her acting, it's like her eyes r stoic (I'm just 2 eps in though so I should shut up :X)

*sigh* @twin... Chuno?! WE wish.... loverboy in rag/nth/showering/chocoabs (he has nth...lol)....