Wilson Hsieh's Journal

Quicken 2012 sucks

2012-01-21T16:41:00.002-05:00

I haven't had much time to post, but this piece of software enrages me. It can't even do reconciliation of accounts properly: in particular, it seems to have buggy end-date checking. Waste of money.

Fables

2011-12-29T23:43:00.001-05:00

I read the newest volume of Fables, and I must say that the series has jumped the shark for me. The writing has turned to parodying comics rather than good storytelling, and it is getting quite boring. The resolution of the story with the Dark Man was highly unsatisfying: 10 issues or more to end with a quick resolution? Argh.

Tiassa

2011-12-10T22:07:00.001-05:00

I keep reading Stephen Brust's books like a habit: they come out every few years, I read them. I can remember the fun I had reading the first one: the most recent almost seemed like a chore, because I couldn't remember anything from the previous books, given the interminable wait between books. Oh well, this one a fun story, at least. I read it some weeks ago, but forgot to blog it.

Downton Abbey

2011-11-10T22:49:00.001-05:00

Netflix streaming is good, no matter what all of the people who dropped the service say. Downton Abbey was worth the price of admission: a fantastic series set around the start of World War I about the fortunes of an aristocratic family. Watch this show!

The Smartest Guys in the Room

2011-10-24T22:54:00.000-04:00

This movie is worth watching, just to see the excesses of the 1990's and the bubble that popped in the early part of the 21st century.

Shu Swamp

2011-10-22T14:30:00.000-04:00

At the Shu Swamp Nature Preserve, we were close enough to touch the swan! Almost.

Lost in Austen

2011-09-06T23:00:00.000-04:00

Haven't written anything in a while. Just remembered while taking a break at work that I should post about this cute little TV series before I forget. I liked it: a science-fiction-like take on Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. Surprisingly, Ming didn't like it: I think it spoiled the purity of the original novel for her.

Hurricane Irene leaves us in the dark

2011-08-29T21:36:00.000-04:00

Well, the lights went out around 3am Sunday morning, and hasn't come back yet. Pitch blackness except for the neighbors who have generators (and there seem to be a good number of them). We're fortunate that the weather post-hurricane has been quite good. No damage at all to our house: just a few major branches down (one in our yard, one in a neighbor's yard) that hit our fence. Phew! Although the lack of electricity is annoying, it is good that we have nice neighbors with power.

The King's Speech

2011-08-01T22:30:00.002-04:00

We watched this film on Blu-Ray. Excellent! Colin Firth did a great job, and the cinematography was interesting: everything was just slightly askew/off-center. Richly costumed, and well acted. Boy, my reviews are getting terse. Well, two thumbs up!

Captain America!

2011-07-24T23:30:00.002-04:00

We took a break from unpacking our house to see another Marvel-superhero blockbuster movie, Captain America. He was never one of my favorite characters, but the movie was really well done. Another Marvel movie with serious actors: Stanley Tucci and Tommy Lee Jones being the most obvious ones. Hugo Weaving is making a career out of comic/sci-fi/fantasy movies!

This movie and the prior well-done release of Thor bode well for next year's Avengers movie...

A Magic Flute

2011-07-17T22:39:00.000-04:00

We saw this performance of a minimalist version of Mozart's The Magic Flute. Titled "A Magic Flute", this version by Peter Brook was stunning: I really enjoyed watching it. It was adapted for piano and singers, with a minimal bamboo stage set: I could swear that the opening notes echoed the music from Lost (is it possible that it's vice versa?).

Priscilla, Queen of the Desert

2011-07-09T16:30:00.000-04:00

We saw this energetic, happy musical today! Act I was so-so at best, but Act II had some great numbers. I was a bit taken aback that most of the score consisted of non-original music (a lot of Madonna songs) in Act I: but it worked better in Act II. The cast was clearly into it, and Nick Adams (the character of Adam/Felicia) was a total blast!

Worcester Art Museum

2011-07-02T13:00:00.000-04:00

We stopped at the small (but nice) Worcester Art Museum over the long weekend. They have this gorgeous Roman mosaic, which is better than some we've seen in Italy. They have a couple of lovely Matisse paintings as well. I'm sure I'm not doing the museum justice: if you're ever in the area, it's worth stopping for a few hours.

True Grit

2011-06-15T22:19:00.000-04:00

Jeff Bridges delivers another great performance as a crusty old guy. This time with a gun, and with Matt Damon too. The young actress who drives the plot forward was fantastic too!

Gnomeo and Juliet

2011-06-15T20:47:00.002-04:00

Fun movie! Lots of great British actors, including the new Charles Xavier, James McAvoy, and a hilarious script. Elton John score too!

X-Men

2011-06-05T17:27:00.001-04:00

A really good telling of the origin story: hard to beat with James McAvoy as the young, charismatic Charles Xavier. Kevin Bacon was quite entertaining too!

Midnight in Paris

2011-05-28T22:30:00.007-04:00

This film about Paris as a center for artistic expression is a lovely tribute to the city: I wonder what made Woody Allen fall in such love with Paris? All of his earlier movies are all about the beauty of Manhattan, but Paris now seems like his true love. Owen Wilson does surprisingly well as the lead actor, although he isn't required to do much except act befuddled and stunned by meeting such historical figures as Hemingway and Gertrude Stein. Overall, the film is worth watching, but there isn't a lot of substance in it.

Before the Devil Knows You're Dead

2011-05-20T22:30:00.000-04:00

Wow, what a great film: the last one by Sydney Lumet. Great cast, fantastic writing, compellingly disturbing plot. What's not to like?

Sherlock Holmes

2011-05-14T22:30:00.000-04:00

The original Irene Adler story, told well in this adaptation. Not much to say otherwise: Netflix is wonderful for making all of these old TV shows available!

Thor

2011-05-09T16:30:00.003-04:00

I took a day off work, and watched this movie as part of enjoying the beautiful weather; or, at least, to avoid my allergies.

The storyline felt forced (redemption through sacrifice, brotherly conflict, identity issues), but you really can't expect too much from a superhero movie in that respect. It was fun to see Hawkeye make an appearance, in preparation for the Avengers movie. Natalie Portman, Stellan Skarsgard, Kenneth Branagh (director), Patrick Doyle (music): quite the talent assembled for this movie!

Book of Mormon

2011-05-07T22:30:00.005-04:00

Wow. Hard to know exactly what to say about this sometimes profane, always irreverent, profoundly hilarious, and wonderfully written and performed musical. It had its South Park moments (especially in the Cartman-esque voiceovers that explain the life of Joseph Smith), of course. And the profanity was extreme enough that it startled me: maybe because when I grew up it would have been unimaginable for such profanity to have been on Broadway. Overall, though, a fantastic production with a great cast.

White House Correspondents' Dinner | C-SPAN

2011-05-01T22:32:00.002-04:00

Seth Meyers rags on Donald Trump. The Donald looked mighty pissed...

Easy A

2011-04-23T23:25:00.000-04:00

This modern-day "adaptation" (if it could really be called that) of Nathaniel Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter is predictable yet quite charming to watch. Lots of well-known actors in the supporting cast: Thomas Haden Church, Patricia Clarkson, Stanley Tucci, Fred Armisen, Malcolm McDowell. Emma Stone is fun as the protagonist: I give this movie an A!

Wanted

2011-04-10T21:20:00.004-04:00

Got around to seeing this, even though I knew it wouldn't be as good as the comic of the same name. And, of course, it wasn't. It had some of the same attitude, though (lots of swearing and killing), and they made the movie somewhat unpredictable, even though the comic already had some surprising plot twists.

Ponyu

2011-04-05T23:29:00.000-04:00

A cute little Japanese movie about a boy and his fish. Or maybe a fish and her boy. A little trite, but enjoyable in the spirit in which it was made. Hearing Tina Fey and Matt Damon voice the boy's parents was a bit disconcerting!

Red

2011-04-01T23:55:00.004-04:00

This movie (like Expendables, featuring a cast of older actors) is a lot of fun to watch. Bruce Willis, John Malkovich, Helen Mirren, Morgan Freeman,, and Brian Cox play a bunch of "retired" spies/assassins who are forced to unretire. Quite the fun film!

The Expendables

2011-03-28T22:30:00.006-04:00

My first Blu-Ray movie from Netflix. The picture quality didn't make up for the poor storytelling. At first I thought it might be an action-oriented remake of The Seven Samurai/The Magnificent Seven. That would have made for a fine movie. Oh well, what can you do: bad movies will continue to be made.

Despicable Me

2011-03-22T23:00:00.005-04:00

A charming, if somewhat predictable, animated film. I thought this film was cuter (in terms of the kid-friendliness and charm) than Megamind, but the latter was the more entertaining story.

Conversations with Other Women

2011-03-19T22:31:00.005-04:00

Two of my favorite actors (Aaron Eckhart and Helena Bonham Carter), and some interesting writing (although disorienting cinematography). I enjoyed it!

Children and learning

2011-03-18T22:41:00.002-04:00

Preschool lessons: New research shows that teaching kids more and more, at ever-younger ages, may backfire. - By Alison Gopnik - Slate Magazine

Fascinating article.

Nuela

2011-03-12T18:20:00.006-05:00

Excellent South-American food. I know, rather generic classification of food over a large continent: but it's how they describe themselves. A heart-of-palm salad was great; the oxtail empanadas acceptable, but not so special. The ceviche was excellent: we had tuna with a mildly spicy coconut sauce. The salmon entree was good, but not as good as the ceviche. We finished with a passion-fruit curd topped with a coconut sauce. All in all, an excellent meal.

Megamind

2011-03-11T22:50:00.005-05:00

Megamind is hilarious! The spoof of the comic genre was well-done, and had lots of quick little inside jokes (like when Marlon Brando made his parental appearance). Quite fun to watch, although it's really an adult movie dressed up like a kids' movie.

The Social Network

2011-03-06T23:00:00.007-05:00

The "story of Facebook". Backstabbing, a dislikable protagonist, $, all the makings of a good story. I'm not convinced the story is very accurate, given what I've seen of what the media tends to say about things that I have been familiar with. But it was entertaining, nonetheless. And it reminds me of why I don't have a Facebook account too...

I'm not quite clear on why Jesse Eisenberg deserved an Oscar nomination for best actor. I liked him better in Zombieland and Adventureland. Facebook-land?

Rick Santorum's problem

2011-03-05T15:24:00.001-05:00

Boy, pissing off the wrong people will sure cause one problems these days...

Charlie Sheen Quotes As New Yorker Cartoons

2011-03-03T20:59:00.001-05:00

Hilarious!

Prime Suspect 5

2011-02-24T23:00:00.003-05:00

Another Helen Mirren-as-hard-boiled-detective-fighting-in-a-man's-world tale. These Prime Suspect episodes are always fun to watch!

The Checklist Manifesto

2011-02-03T15:00:00.000-05:00

I finally managed to finish a book! While Penelope was sleeping, of course, and I was on vacation. And on my Kindle. This book is well worth reading: it is all about how professions need to be systematized, because only well-run systems can cope with the complexity of modern life (be it engineering, flying airplanes, or practicing medicine). It reminded me what I dislike most about libertarianism: which is that it focuses much more on the individual than on the systems/groups of individuals that exhibit emergent behavior due to the interactions of the individuals. But that's a topic for another post. This book focuses on why the medical "system" fails in the particular subfield of surgery, which is that modern surgery is too complex to avoid errors, without systematizing how surgery is run (which Dr. Gawande argues implicitly is best done by a team, and not by one doctor). His recent New Yorker article on reducing health-care costs reinforces that latter point (and you should read that article if you haven't already).

Wolfsonian

2011-02-01T11:00:00.000-05:00

This fascinating little museum had an interesting exhibition on the concept of "speed" in the 20th century titled Speed Limits. Pretty interesting, including the bit about kitchen design and efficiency.

Snow in Syosset

2011-01-28T08:53:00.001-05:00

Here's a photo (taken from my iphone) of the big pile of snow in the Syosset LIRR parking lot. It's as high as some of the buildings in the area!

LIRR absurdity

2011-01-28T08:41:00.000-05:00

Talk about lousy customer service. Tickets are only good within 14 days of purchase. Fine, you say, if I changed my plans I'll just return the tickets. Well, there is a $10 return fee for tickets: so if you buy a round-trip ticket for $10, you effectively can't return it! No wonder everyone complains about the MTA.

Snow!

2011-01-27T09:32:00.000-05:00

Record snow this January, and it's not yet over! I'll try and post a picture if I can get a good one. 90 minutes of shoveling this morning to get our 2 cars cleared.

Salt

2011-01-24T22:30:00.004-05:00

Wow. What a bad movie. Before watching it, I thought it wouldn't be a brilliant work of art, but at least I had hoped it would be entertaining. But the movie was disjointed and broken into about 3 different parts, with little interesting action. And it became obvious who the real villain was just by the pacing of the movie.

Liev Schreiber was so much better on Broadway when I saw him there...

Jets

2011-01-23T22:53:00.000-05:00

Oh well, they had a nice run this year. I didn't think they would make it to the Super Bowl: they have played too inconsistently to get by the better teams on a regular basis, and they just ran out of luck (by making too many mistakes) against the Steelers. They did an admirable job of coming back in the 2nd half to make the game interesting, though!

Blogger mobile templates

2011-01-19T08:48:00.000-05:00

Hey, I enabled mobile templates on my blog (and Penelope's blog). The blog looks great on my iPhone now!

Lower Costs and Better Care for Neediest Patients : The New Yorker

2011-01-19T08:36:00.001-05:00

Lower Costs and Better Care for Neediest Patients : The New Yorker

Atul Gawande's writing is always thought-provoking. I read this article on my commute this morning, and thought it was worth a blog post. Revolutionary thinking about redefining a doctor's job!

Cincinnati Contemporary Arts Center

2011-01-16T10:00:00.003-05:00

This nice little museum was worth a visit: it had some interesting international art that we liked. Their web site is kind of sparse, though, so I don't have any good pointers.

Cincinnati Art Museum

2011-01-15T19:30:00.000-05:00

We attended a beautiful wedding in this cute little art museum. We did not get to see much of the museum, but the building itself was gorgeous.

Cincinnati starchitecture

2011-01-15T16:00:00.001-05:00

This building is by Daniel Libeskind (the architect in charge of the Freedom Tower). It is in Cincinnati, and looks kind of empty at night.

A Single Man

2011-01-06T22:30:00.012-05:00

We watched this beautiful film on DVD (from Netflix, of course; all other sources of DVDs seem to have gone out of business). Colin Firth was wonderful, even though I always think of him as Mr. Darcy. I found the film gorgeously filmed, written, and acted, and yet somehow less compelling than I would have liked. Maybe this film was just too focused on the main character's interior lives for my taste. In any case, I did enjoy watching it.

The Lost Room

2010-12-25T23:15:00.000-05:00

This 6-episode series (sadly, no more were made, although a comic is apparently in the works) is a fun bit of television that appeared on the Sci-Fi Channel (the former name of Syfy). Based on the premise of a mysterious set of objects that have "super" powers ranging from the mundane to the incredible, this is a well-done series with a bunch of character actors that I've seen before in various other series/movies: Chris Bauer (The Wire), Julianna Margulies (The Good Wife), Dennis Christopher (Deadwood), April Grace (Magnolia), Margaret Cho (yes, the comedian) to name the obvious ones. I enjoyed it for the unpredictability and the eerie sense of drama.

Eat Pray Love

2010-12-24T23:15:00.000-05:00

An ultimately boring movie about finding oneself (and love) by traveling to exotic places and hanging out with beautiful people. The movie had some nice moments, but overall it was painfully predictable. I hope the book that the movie was based on is not as dully self-congratulatory as the movie.

La Cage aux Folles

2010-12-15T17:30:00.011-05:00

This revival with Kelsey Grammar is entertaining, but doesn't blow you away. (Although I think I'm getting maudlin' in my old/middle age: some of the songs did move me.) Kelsey Grammar does a passable job, although he is so well-known as Frazier Crane that it felt like Frazier was playing the part. The understudy for the Albin role, Chris Hoch, was great, modulo some microphone trouble during his solo at the end of Act One. Overall, it's good entertainment, but there is probably better stuff on Broadway if you're a connoisseur.

Tao

2010-12-15T13:00:00.003-05:00

We had lunch at this fancy Asian-fusion restaurant. Peking-duck spring rolls, yum! Truly excellent food: expensive, but not overly so (although I would not go very frequently: I'm still pretty cheap when it comes to food). Worth an occasional splurge, though. And the restaurant itself is spectacular: we were seated on the second floor with a view overlooking the giant Buddha statue.

Love and Other Disasters

2010-12-04T22:13:00.000-05:00

A cute but predictable movie. Good enough to watch on streaming Netflix while winding down after a long day of childcare...but I wouldn't have wanted to pay to watch this movie in the theater. Some cheesy, if amusing, movie-within-a-movie scenes.

New York professor installs camera in head - CNN.com

2010-12-03T09:14:00.000-05:00

New York professor installs camera in head - CNN.com

This deserves a blog post....

Harry Potter 7

2010-12-02T20:53:00.000-05:00

The other part of taking the day off was seeing a movie (how easy is that these days)? I think the New Yorker review summed up the movie the best: it was dull. The only reason to see the movie is if you read all of the books and want to see how it was adapted. This movie was not as bad as the first 2: the creative team did a passable job of shortening the text into an action movie. If you've read the books, it all makes sense: I suspect that if have not, it is just like any other nonsensical string of action sequences. I wish I had seen something else for my day off, and I'm surprised that it got decent reviews anywhere (except The New Yorker). If this hadn't been a special outing for my day off I would have walked out...

Sage Bistro

2010-12-02T13:30:00.001-05:00

Sage Bistro is a fancy little restaurant near where we live. I took the day off and had a nice lunch there: the food was elegantly served, and pretty substantial fare: I had a crepe with shrimp, cheese, and artichokes. Yummy, if not particularly inexpensive.

Is Groupon Good for a Small Business? Do the Math - NYTimes.com

2010-11-26T22:43:00.001-05:00

Is Groupon Good for a Small Business? Do the Math - NYTimes.com

Avatar: The Last Airbender

2010-11-21T16:20:00.000-05:00

TV on Netflix is great; you can get all sorts of "old" stuff to watch. I decided to watch this original Nickolodeon series, on which the horrible movie The Last Airbender was based. The original series is fantastic! Designed for kids, but it's still good entertainment, with good writing/anime-style art. Definitely worth watching, especially if you have some young kids of the right age. I suspect that around 10 years old is the target demographic.

Charity Navigator

2010-11-20T22:43:00.000-05:00

It's that time of year again: making donations to charities. In case you haven't seen/used it, Charity Navigator is an excellent resource for evaluating the effectiveness of your donated dollars.

Dexter Season 4

2010-11-12T23:30:00.004-05:00

We finished watching Season 4 on DVD. Outstandingly intense and depressing ending to another disturbing (and very dark) season. John Lithgow was creepy indeed. I'm very sad about the end to the season; I didn't like the direction it takes Dexter's family.

Four Fish

2010-11-10T18:00:00.003-05:00

Fun (and thought-provoking) book about fish and how mankind is doing a great job of reducing their population drastically. The author finds it depressing that people always ask him what fish to eat, but he does implicitly answer that question: tilipia and tra are apparently very good fish to eat, because they are efficient converters of protein. A lot of fun little anecdotes and stories in this book; well worth reading if you care about food issues.

Sagamore Hill

2010-11-06T12:30:00.007-04:00

We visited Theodore Roosevelt's old home at Sagamore Hill, a national park. The tour of the house was one of the best historic tours I have ever taken; the Park Service ranger was incredibly knowledgeable about the house and TR himself. Fun fact: TR was the first president to be able to run the US from a non-Washington location, because of the invention of the telephone. Definitely worth a visit!

Penelope

2010-11-05T23:05:00.003-04:00

No, not my daughter. This flighty little movie is quite entertaining, with Christina Ricci as the pig-faced little girl. Reese Witherspoon was a co-producer and also played a hilarious character in the film itself. James McAvoy is always fun to watch...

Surrogates

2010-10-31T22:00:00.000-04:00

Yet another so-so movie with Bruce Willis as the surly star. Derivative in nature, but certainly the script had a few novel pieces. Watching it on Netflix was good enough entertainment, given that it's hard to actually watch movies with a baby girl now!

Planting Fields Arboretum

2010-10-31T11:00:00.015-04:00

We visited Planting Fields Arboretum, which is a very nice state park that used to be a private estate owned by William Coe and his wife. (Coe made serious money in maritime insurance; his wife was the heiress of Standard Oil, which of course made her much richer than he.) There are a number of buildings worth visiting on the estate. Coe Hall is a beautiful old mansion that at one point was used by SUNY Stony Brook before their campus was built. There are a number of old greenhouses that have some nice collections of plants. All in all, worth visiting.

Against All Things Ending

2010-10-20T22:12:00.016-04:00

I'm just guessing at when I finished reading this book (if you haven't noticed, I set the time on my posts for when I watch/read a book/movie/TV show, not when I post). It was my first real Kindle book, and I found it to be an interesting experience reading a long novel on the Kindle. First, the Kindle let me skim more than I already tend to skim in dense books (and the Covenant books are all dense, but more on the book itself later). More surprisingly, though, because I use my Kindle every morning on my commute, it lets me reread much more frequently: I find that I've read the parts I initially skimmed over the last month or so. So, all in all, a rich reading experience. And the Kindle gives me far less eyestrain than my iPhone, because of the former's passive display.

As for Donaldson's latest book: it has all of the intensity and drama (melodrama, maybe) of his earlier novels. Either you like it or you don't: and I like it. His reinvention of the Land over three separate eras is fascinating, and well done. The characters are a bit too caught up in their own pain, but it's almost cathartic to read of their travails. All in all, highly recommended if you liked his earlier novels.

Mad Men Season Four

2010-10-20T01:46:00.025-04:00

We watched the last few episodes while in Beijing (iTunes is wonderful in some ways). It took forever to download the HD version, but it was worth the wait. It was nice to see Don Draper happy at the end of season, although he again chose a weaker, supportive woman rather than the stronger one who constantly challenged him. Heather Havrilesky at Salon.com seems to view this as a tragic flaw in her recap of the episode: I view it as realistic storytelling about human choices. The Faye character wasn't able to give Don what he really wanted, which was someone to take care of his family, and make his family easy to manage.

All in all, another fun season to watch. As Don simplifies/cleans up his life, though, he is becoming less interesting as the central character. But I'm sure the writers will keep the show compelling. How will Betty react to the competition for "best mother" with Megan?

Bait

2010-10-18T20:33:00.001-04:00

Remarkable what bad movies show up on HBO/Cinemax in the middle of the night, even in Beijing. This movie is definitely not worth watching: it makes absolutely no sense. But it kept me awake while tending to Penelope, at least!

Gran Torino

2010-10-17T21:12:00.003-04:00

Another movie watched while keeping Penelope company late at night in Beijing. A good Clint Eastwood movie, with an unexpected denouement. The character played by Clint was like a retired version of Dirty Harry.

Enemy at the Gates

2010-10-15T20:29:00.000-04:00

This taut movie about snipers during the Battle of Stalingrad was worth watching. I just turned on HBO while keeping Penelope company early (ok, in the middle of the night) one morning in Beijing, and was able to concentrate on some of the film. Jude Law was pretty good, as was Ed Harris; but my favorite character was played by Ron Perlman (Hellboy!).

Traveling to China

2010-10-12T21:00:00.003-04:00

Traveling with an infant wasn't as bad as I had expected, which was
good (I deliberately expected the worst). But the time change of 12
hours meant that the first night in Beijing was not fun, to say the
least!

Access to blogger from China was flaky at best, so I had to email the blog entries to blogger for later editing/entry (which is now, after we're semi-recovered from our trip back).

The Last Airbender

2010-10-12T09:30:00.000-04:00

Watched this on the flight to China as well. What a horrible movie! The only redeeming factor was that I needed to do something while flying, so I let this movie have my attention. I wonder if some studio will have the $ to waste to make the sequel?

Apparently this movie is based on a cartoon that received very high ratings. I plan on eventually watching that, if I can find it.

Iron Man 2

2010-10-12T09:00:00.001-04:00

Entertaining movie, if not that good. It was fun to see the basic Avengers cast coming together. Scarlett Johannson as Black Widow was quite amusing! I watched this on the airplane, so it was almost impossible to hear the dialogue; which was fine, because it wasn't really that deep or necessary, from what I could tell.

Health Care Costs

2010-10-02T16:29:00.002-04:00

Read these slides. They are a great source of information about the American health-care system.

Barnes and Noble

2010-09-28T09:00:00.000-04:00

I went to my first (and possibly only, looking into the future) shareholder's meeting. I was expecting/hoping for some fireworks, as there was a contentious board election. However, it was clear that the attendees, at least, loved Leonard Riggio, the chairman of the board. All in all, very non-contentious and anti-climactic. Oh well!

Hipsters, Hustlers and Handball Players

2010-09-25T10:30:00.001-04:00

While we were at the Met, we stopped by this small collection of photographs by Leon Levinstein from the 1950's and onward. What struck me was how non-beautiful the images were: very strikingly so!

http://www.metmuseum.org/special/se_event.asp?OccurrenceId={C9CE6916-DFEF-4B86-BDB0-EE290C523227}

What is odd is that blogger won't let me use the above link on the title because it contains illegal characters. The curly braces?

Kubilai Khan at the Met

2010-09-25T10:00:00.000-04:00

No, he didn't come back to life and conquer the Met. This exhibition was impressively curated, with works from all over the China (not to mention the rest of the world too).

Queens

2010-09-18T11:00:00.001-04:00

We drove through Flushing over the weekend, and saw lots of downed trees from the macro-burst that happened last week. Very intense weather!

The Specials

2010-09-06T14:00:00.001-04:00

This odd little superhero movie isn't particularly good, but it was easy to watch while taking care of Penelope. A bit too much swearing for kids who can pick up language, though. But it was mildly amusing.

Razor

2010-09-04T10:00:00.000-04:00

This DVD has been sitting next to our TV since Penelope was born, and I finally got a chance to skim through it while watching Penelope this Labor Day weekend. Ah, the series was so good...this episode was fun to watch.

House of Cards

2010-08-30T22:41:00.000-04:00

This nasty British political thriller is well worth watching. At first it seems like a story of pure political intrigue (with a little cocaine and sex thrown in for titillation), but in the last episode (the 4th) the intrigue gets more and more evil. Ian Richardson is brilliant as the manipulative Francis Urquhart. And what a name!

Mila's Daydreams

2010-08-24T14:18:00.000-04:00

This blog has some lovely, imaginative photos of a beautiful little girl.

Inception

2010-08-21T22:49:00.000-04:00

A fascinating film: almost too recursively gripping at many levels (in the sense that the tension becomes overwhelming). And they never explained how the team popped off the last level of the stack. Nevertheless, a clever script with lots of good actors = fun movie. And the last shot was cleverly ambiguous.

Water

2010-08-16T22:00:00.000-04:00

I finally was able to take this book out of the library (again) and finish it, given the reading time I have on the train. It is an impressive history of the world through the lens of water in its many forms: water for transport, for power, for drinking, for sanitation, and for ecosystems. At points it felt like a stretch to talk about water in its many uses as the same historical link in this manner, but the book was nonetheless entertaining and informative. The final section of the book, which talks about our modern water-shortage problems due to population growth, wasteful and inefficient usage, and poor management, is pretty depressing: many countries are looking at running out of water in several decades!

Torchwood 3

2010-08-15T21:36:00.000-04:00

An interesting third "season" comprised of 5 episodes. A few thoughts:
  1. Much higher resolution: couldn't tell if that was Netflix or better video quality from the BBC. In either case, the show had much higher production values across the board.
  2. Sad to see Ianto die. All of the cast (except for Gwen) bit the dust over the last 2 seasons.
  3. Another deux ex machina ending. I thought they might try and find out if the drug-dealing aliens were criminals in their own society, or something mildly clever. Instead, they copped out. Oh well.

Still, enjoyable except for the ending. They tried to close out the series (but apparently they are doing yet another season?).

Breast Milk Sugars Give Infants a Protective Coat - NYTimes.com

2010-08-07T22:45:00.000-04:00

Breast Milk Sugars Give Infants a Protective Coat - NYTimes.com

Fascinating, how evolution works!

Torchwood 2

2010-08-07T22:09:00.000-04:00

I like this series, although it is somewhat silly (in much the same way that Star Trek is silly). Enjoyable fluff, nonetheless. The characters are generally more interesting than those in typical sci-fi fare.

Hospice Care

2010-08-01T22:31:00.003-04:00

Hospice medical care for dying patients : The New Yorker

If I had more time to read regularly, I would subscribe to the New Yorker just to read Atul Gawande's articles on medicine. I wish we had discussed such issues in my family when my father's Parkinson's disease started to worsen.

Torchwood 1

2010-07-27T10:00:00.000-04:00

I've been watching this BBC serial on and off for the last year, and finally finished the last episode of the first season. Entertaining sci-fi. Some of the episodes are derivative, but overall the series does a good job of filling out a bunch of interesting characters. Watching over the Internet is convenient: just like a DVR! Very useful with a baby around...

Ben's Kosher Deli

2010-07-25T19:00:00.002-04:00

Lots of take-out food today. We had a power outage, so we gave up on the idea of cooking dinner and instead went to this nearby deli. Excellent food, although the salami sandwich was heavily meat-laden.

Wild Fig

2010-07-25T13:42:00.000-04:00

We tried this Middle-Eastern restaurant in Syosset for lunch; the food was pretty good! Definitely less expensive than Manhattan too. We shared a couple of salads and entrees.

Zombieland

2010-07-21T17:00:00.003-04:00

Hilarious road-trip movie about America overrun with zombies. Apparently they're making a sequel as well!

Oracle Bones

2010-07-15T17:40:00.000-04:00

I finally have some time to read: on the train commuting to/from Manhattan. It is a bit difficult to work, so I combine leisure reading and some work to make the commute bearable.

I managed to finally finish this lovely book by Peter Hessler, which is about China in the first 5 or 6 years of this century. (I had to return his newest book to the library before I could even crack it open, given the arrival of Penelope!) Even now it feels like it is about an "old China", given the pace of change there (as well as here).

My favorite quote: "General Tso and Colonel Sanders: great chicken imperialists."

The funniest chapter was the one about Imre Galambos and his website, www.logoi.com. He sells Chinese characters for tattoo art, but the funniest part was where Peter Hessler describes how Galambos kept trying to explain to people that Chinese doesn't have an alphabet!

Trader Joe's hits Chelsea

2010-07-08T09:44:00.000-04:00

Saw this sign up yesterday morning! Too bad we won't be living in Chelsea very soon...

Eleven Madison Park

2010-07-06T20:53:00.000-04:00

To celebrate our anniversary, and the beginning of our new lives on Long Island, we went to Eleven Madison Park. Magnificent food, with a lovely ambience. If I get in the mood (which I probably won't), I'll recap the menu. Suffice it to say that it's probably the best restaurant we've been to in NYC. No more fancy restaurants until Penelope gets much older, probably!

Ottimo closed

2010-07-03T17:52:00.000-04:00

Another restaurant bites the dust. It wasn't cheap, but the food was very good. And it was close to our apartment.

Lend Me a Tenor

2010-07-03T16:30:00.005-04:00

We thought we'd see a show, since we're moving out of Manhattan soon, and our anniversary is coming up. This outstanding farce was hilarious: Tony Shalhoub was just one of the well-known actors in the cast. The play was directed by Stanley Tucci, too! Great writing and acting, and just crazy plot twists.

No 7 Sub Shop

2010-07-03T12:15:00.001-04:00

This Manhattan outpost of a Brooklyn restaurant is a pure takeout sandwich shop. And what sandwiches! We had a tuna sandwich (the phrase "tuna sandwich" hardly does justice to it), a veggie sandwich (different kinds of tomatoes, mostly), and a lamb sandwich. All very delicious!

Medicine and life

2010-06-21T08:36:00.001-04:00

This essay about medicine and end-of-life issues is well worth reading. It reminds me of what my mother went through when my father's Parkinson's became debilitating.