Free Boba.

my company has some thing called 9/80. basically, instead of working 80 hrs in 10 days, you work 80 hrs over 9 days. its nice cause, you can take every other friday off. i happen to take advantage of it two wkends ago. how nice and delightful. when sunday rolled around, i was pretty miserable, not because work was the next day, but i looked back at the wkend and wondered where it went! then, i realized, stupid me, i wasted a full 10 hours of it! waste? yes, waste. i wasted it by watching 5 movies. 5 whole movies. i might as well went to work on friday and would've still gotten some more free time.

here are the movies i watched and on a scale of 1-10 (higher number = bigger smile) how i enjoyed it at the time:

1. thursday night - count of monte cristo -- 7.5
i love the plot. dealing with injustice, betrayal, wasted time, and then i love how the author turns edmond dantes' fate around. i love, how the priest teaches him not only education and how to use the sword, but of principles and character. great plot. shows you the evilness of men and the humor of fate. if i ever get good at french, i'd read it in french. maybe i should read the unabridged version in english some time.

in terms of the movie, the ending is weak and cheesy. but, mercedes is pretty enough, so i kept watching. see, the movie and the book have different endings. you gotta go read the book! maybe you can savor it if you ever end up in jail and desired a jail break.

2. friday afternoon - when in rome -- 5.5
random factoid - i love romantic comedies. yeah, yeah, rain on the girl jokes. to fight for my defense, i hate chick flicks (the joy luck club, divine secrets of the ya-ya sisterhood, titanic. those are chick flicks -- romantic dramas. i'd even put the notebook in that list, but i semi-enjoyed the notebook, only cause i watched it with 5 other queers in mammoth, otherwise... nope!) but i love romantic comedies. i enjoy seeing a pretty girl fall in love and i enjoy laughing while it happens. one of my favorite romantic comedies is forgetting sarah marshall. (the sweet song of inside of you sung by carlan and jon chen, echoes in my head. those clowns.) romantic comedies require a good combination of humor/comedy and romance. hard to achieve, but when done well, so enjoyable, so entertaining!

when in rome is a your typical romantic comedy. girl meets boy, and its the story of how they fall for each other, and the obstacles they face to finally being in a relationship with each other. unfortunately, the humor/comedy part of it was a bit bizarre. it was semi-entertaining. i think it ranked a whopping 5.5 because i got to enjoy it with my mom in the theater, while secretly thinking kristen bell of both forgetting sarah marshall and when in rome is cute.


3. friday evening #1 - 500 days of summer -- 5.0
5 minutes into the movie, my friend and owner of the movie, went upstairs and brought down 2 briefcases. opened it, and busted out a dozen airsoft guns, replicas of the real thing. haha. girly movie + guns.

if i was more artsy fartsy i might enjoy it more. the concept of the "jumping time-line" of the movie was unique. i eventually got the hang of it. the quirkiness and subtle artistic rifts were sprinkled throughout the movie. it was hard to pick up, take in and savor when you're fiddling with a gun in each hand and your friend is constantly pulling the trigger at the television every 5 minutes because of a lame scene or dialog - either when the guy was being a wuss or when the girl was annoying. i disliked the guy. he was pretty wimpy, but he grew up towards the end when he encountered the next season. the girl wasn't much better. she was weird and had issues. i enjoyed and hated the contrast and the polarity of the two main characters and their relationship. fitting for such a movie. ultimately, i felt that she needed to be honest, not give him a lame line and then turn around and get engaged/married to some one else. i think we tend to be dishonest so we're not "mean" and hurt each others feelings. understandable, but i'd rather be honest when it really matters. lastly, the movie was gloomy and depressing. i never noticed how gloomy los angeles, which is a total lie cause it's pretty much constantly sunny year round. liar liar pants on fire!

i give the movie a 5.0 because of its artiness, daringness to try something different and the lessons i can learn from the movie. i would probably enjoy the movie more if i was in a mopier mood or if there were bazookas to play with instead of lame sauce guns.

4. friday evening #2 - the lovely bones -- 1.5
i hate scary movies. i couldn't shower nor sleep without looking over my shoulder for weeks after the sixth sense. i was expecting a scary movie cause its trailers advertised it as such. the lovely bones didn't even do that. so in that sense it failed. how lame, couldn't even scare me.

i dont even want to go into details of the movie. i would not recommend it. jon chen kept saying the book is probably better, probably, but, i wont waste my time on it, unless someone could tell me about it and convince me. lastly, the ending pissed me off even more. that just made the whole movie even more upsetting.

man, do i sound bitter. haha.

5. saturday evening - matchstick men -- 6.5
nicholas cage's acting is pretty sweet. i think he does a good job, especially when he's drunk or if he has some weird mental disorder. the plot was interesting, unfortunately for me, towards the end i anticipated a turn in events was approaching, but i just didn't know when. so in that sense, it kept me guessing and that made it entertaining. i liked the shrink and how he dealt with nicholas cage. i admire the courage of changing careers after recognizing how his previous job was messing up his life. lastly, i think it was cool how cons occurred, i.e. like how the whole winning the lottery scene unfolded. pretty clever.

so, after that wkend, i was disgusted with the waste of my 10 hours. the movies were not great and rather unsatisfying, it brought about a feeling of wasted time and wasted life. also, while watching tv, i just turn off my brain. my grade school teacher used to say, if you don't use your head, its going to turn to mush. my brain already mushy, just become mushier. so, i'm going to strike out movies from my life for a little while, only till my trip. what's a better anecdote for a 14 hour plane ride than to waste away time by watching movies? i have a bet with my sister, no movies till then, and i win a cup of juicy refreshing boba. haha. she thinks i can't do it. but little does she know i'm blogging about it, and i'm bribing all of you! hold me to it and i'll share a boba with you.

watch those movies, they're killer!

Gimp

random factoid: i heart basketball.

given the amount of time that i've played basketball, i've only expereienced one significant injury that has kept me off the court. but after monday, things might be different...

fortunately, that's not my ankle. mine doesn't have all that yellow and purple in it (i wouldn't be able to get much sympathy from you, would i?) but it is swollen and i'm sure just as painful! so i may be out for a period of time. my goal is to be like kobe, tough it out and play in our northrop grumman basketball league by next tuesday. you know, modern day warrior. manly stuff! haha.

more importantly, i'm glad this did not ruin my day.

*****BON VOYAGE - HAVE A WONDERFUL VACATION*****

random factoid: i was born in taiwan, raised by my grandparents till i was a striking young lad of 3 years old, moved to ohio, and then to briarcliff manor, ny. my childhood is in briarcliff. when i was 10, my family moved back to taiwan, where i learned chinese from 5th grade to 9th grade. when i was 15, we decided to move back to the u.s., but this time to rancho palos verdes, ca where i graduated high school. i then moved to la jolla, ca for undergrad. when i was 24, i moved to shenzhen, china for work. eventually, the Lord brought me home, rancho palos verdes --

the Lord has blessed me with travels, and it sure is a blessing and an enjoyment. i've been to china, thailand, japan, and a good amount of places in taiwan, europe, and in the united states.

pictures are amazing, but its different when you travel with someone. because of this, i'm actually debating whether or not to travel more now being single, unengaged and wifeless. on the one hand, its cheaper and you have more freedom. but how sweet would it be, to travel with my spouse (or the girl i would marry) and experience it together? but i suppose i'm just impatient, and needed a fix, so...

my latest itinerary:
1 CI007Y 18MAR LAX TPE SS1 1225A 600A+* TH/FR E
2 CI0108Y 19MAR TPE NRT SS1 830A 1225P * FR E
3 CI0131Y 29MAR CTS TPE SS1 335P 640P * MO E
4 CI006Y 04APR TPE LAX SS1 1120P 805P * SU E
(cts - sapporo, hokkaido.)

i was hoping to go for longer period of time, but since i'm still employed, i had better behave.

tokyo is such a cool city, but since i've been there before, my adventurous side urges me to venture out and wander off to new places. only reason why i'm revisiting tokyo is to see my good old japanese friends. its been a while and sure am looking forward to seeing them! hopefully i can take an excursion or two with base camp being in tokyo.

why am i going to sapporo you ask? besides the excellent beer, gorgeous scenary and lucious onsens with red monkeys bathing with you, i'm looking forward to seeing my good friend, mr. t --

he's actually a pretty good looking fella...

much better!

and since i'm in asia, might as well swing through taiwan, visit my dad, grandparents and other family & friends.

sounds so exciting, i'm getting goose bumps!!!

now... i just need to find my backpack and also tell my boss/program to keep me on board after i return. hopefully i wont have a post on that. :P

bon voyage - have a wonderful vacation~~~

in Thy courts.

random factoid about me: i heart kids.

there are these kids at my church that i have just grown to love and adore, let me name some names, there's noel, joy, jeffrey (pardon me, he's jeff now...), matt, vincent, dustin and alex. my church's winter retreat destination for the past few years has been at beautiful murietta. murietta is sweet because there are a bunch of cute little outdoor natural hot spring pools. the adults love that place. i'm sure its to rekindle their aging marriages by reliving their younger scandalous days in these cute little hot spring pools. but talk about a headache! especially, when you're in charge and a bunch hormonal teenagers, bathing/enjoying the same little hot spring pools ... at a church retreat. %$@@#^*!%@#

sorry, i digress, back to the kids.

these young boys get there and just start having a blast! they were having such a good time, laughing, running around, splashing each other, giggling... haha. silly boys. i sat around to watch over them and the Holy Spirit opens my eyes. while watching them, a deep sense of joy begins to grow in me. it brought me back to my childhood, and how i loved going on church retreats. why is there still such a strong positive emotional connection with church retreats? what is it at church retreats that led me to such joy and peace? it dawned on me, as i realized the joy of dwelling in my Lord's courts.

Psalm 65:4 -- Blessed are those you choose

and bring near to live in your courts!

We are filled with the

good things of your house, of your holy temple.

as a Christian, we have the right and the privilege to be in the courts of the Almight God. the one who created the earthquake, the tornado, the hurricane, the blizzard, the rain that creates floods, the thunder, the monster waves, and little ol' me, i get to dwell in it. privilege? joy? what am i smoking??? but it is! because He is good. and He loves me.

Psalm 84:10 -- Better is one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere;

I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of the wicked.

those boys at murietta were able to have such a good time, because the environment was safe. they got to be them, in all their innocence, and have a good time. its also the same way when you're spending time with safe friends. you get to be you, the entire package - the weirdness, the quirkiness, all the idiosyncrasies, even your annoying peccadilloes. in my Lord's courts, its beyond that. the environment is perfectly safe. not only are you accepted and loved for your uniqueness, but all the wrong that you've ever committed is wiped clean. the blood of Christ that has opened the pearly white gates to these courts and allowed my entrance, has wiped away all the shame, all the guilt, all the judgement and all the fear. you are fully loved and wholly accepted.

hence...

in Thy courts i dwell. in Thy courts i choose to be.
in Thy courts i live my life
and blog to share it with thee.

oh, those silly boys... :)