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Love’s Labor & Other Complications was the first screening I saw at SFIAAFF. It’s a compilation of short films about love and relationships, and it was a pretty decent smorgasbord of stuff. I’m reviewing the shorts in the order they were shown.

Police Box

This one was pretty short, but I liked it a lot. It’s essentially about a really superficial love triangle. There’s a restaurant with counter next to a large window/glass wall thing. Outside this window is a police box with a police log that is regularly updated by a patrolling cop. A female patron who sits at this counter is interested in the cop, while another male patron becomes jealous at this and messes with the situation. Very simple and cute and even humourous. There is no dialogue aside from some writing in a police log and hand gestures, but everything is easy understand. It’s beautifully shot, with the night time urban (Hong Kong, I believe) setting. This short was actually played twice: one time normally and a second time documenting all the costs. As Andrew mentioned, the second run probably could have used a quicker runthrough, but the short is only 4 minutes, so it’s not too bad. 7/10

Edited to add: According to Rodney and Kelvin, I seem to not have paid enough attention while watching this and missed some nuances. Now I feel like a total retard :(

Fortune Hunters

This USA one was the longest short at 20 minutes, and it’s a *barf* romantic comedy… with an Asian guy dating a white girl dealing with Asian stereotypes and stereotypical Asian pressures. This can’t be good. Actually, it can. It was really, really good. Very funny and cute. The story is about a Arthur, Asian-American guy, who dumps his white girlfriend because she’s leaving to spend a year in China teaching. He ends up regretting this and writes an email to ask her back. Unfortunately, his email gets mixed up with the fortune cookie stuff he writes (his summer job is writing fortunes for his dad’s fortune cookie factory), and parts of his email gets sent out to fortune cookie eaters everywhere… with interesting results. The movie certainly doesn’t take itself seriously, and the stereotypes mentioned or portrayed serve their purpose, which is to be made fun of. The main character isn’t some totally unlikable self-centered jerk, though he may seem that way at first because of the superficial dumping of his girlfriend. I found him to be quite likable. The production values were quite good; it looked like a legit… romantic comedy. And those fortune cookie machines look hella cool. My only beef with the movie is the Chinese-culture obsessed white girlfriend. I liked her character, but her Chinese was terrible. I know the actress doesn’t know any Chinese and is just copying someone, but they really should have made her fake it better. Anyways, this was my favorite short, so it gets 9/10.

His Deafness

Okay, after two light hearted shorts, things start going downhill. They try to make this fall not as steep with this tidbit from South Korea. Very, very, very strange short. This guy gets dumped by his girlfriend because he never listens to her. He misses her and figures out a solution for his problem: bigger ears. No joke. He gets bigger ears. Just… weird. Sad. And it’s sort of shot really dark, gritty, and ugly. And after the first two, it’s a pretty big change, which is probably why it was the only short to not get any applause. I think it still has some cinematic value, but can’t say I liked it. 2/10.

Traffic in the Sky

This Asian-American film, while not necessarily bad, really didn’t click with me. First of all, it’s about love triangles again. And this time, the people are expectedly unlikable. So this guy is on the rebound after being dumped by his cheating girlfriend. He meets a new girl who he likes a lot, but his last relationship still haunts him. This movie is very film-student-ish, which isn’t surprising because the director was a recently graduated film student and some of the actors were his film school friends. There was A LOT of editing, and it’s kind of distracting and annoying. I understood its purpose, but it don’t think it came out as artistic or intelligent as the director intended. I didn’t like the main guy, and obviously I didn’t like his cheating girlfriend. The only person likable is the new girl he likes, but she kinda gets some unnecessary heartbreak, so it’s like… bleh. And even with the editing, it seemed really slow. There’s a lot of pauses and idle chit chat, I guess for the realism of the moment. It also didn’t help that, for this short, the audio happened to be kind of low. Anyways, I didn’t like this one, can’t say I’d recommend it, but it gets some points for effort. 4/10

Also, the director was at the showing and the Q&A session afterwards, and there was a lot of random cheering during the credits, so I’m guessing some of the cast and crew were there also. The film was shot in all digital (which Andrew mentioned might have encouraged the excessive editing), and the total cost was around $8000, a lot of which was used to feed the cast. (The director mentioned that, no matter how low you pay the crew, as long as you feed them pretty good, they tend to be happy :) ) Despite using digital, he used most of the footage he shot.

Stutter

I think the low point for the series of shorts was reached with this American short. And it’s not really… bad, I think. But rape generally is a pretty big downer. A woman is blown off by her boyfriend on New Year’s Eve, so she goes home with someone who seems nice, but apparently isn’t so nice. The guy apparently likes to bring women home (where he lives with his grandmother) and force them to stay the night. The rape scene isn’t particularly graphic, but it is strange. There’s a lot of editing in the scene, so lots of other images are spliced in. Images of… randomness? I don’t get it. One clip is of the main woman sleeping on a bed on the roof of a building or something. Perhaps too symbolic and artistic for me, I dunno. It was too weird and depressing for me. 3/10 (It scored a little better than the Korean one because it at least looked better and had more depth, but… oh whatever, numbers are totally arbitrary anyways.)

Enough

This Canadian short is also kind of film-student-ish. It’s about this Asian girl who freaks out over her recent choices in lovers, which include a white pot-smoking yoga instructor and black ghetto wannabe gangsta rapper (or I think that’s what he is). It’s the morning after her night with Mr. Yoga Instuctor, and Mr. Ghetto Gangsta is bugging her for his stuff back. I think she eventually finds them both irritating and starts screaming and throwing stuff out of her window. I don’t know; I didn’t really get this one either, though I think I got it more than the last three shorts (guys are annoying = freak out = I kinda understand). I think the lack of story and/or point is what makes this one seem kind of amateurish. It looked okay, but I’m no expert on that stuff. 4/10

Mei

So we finish off with Mei, which is the thesis project for a USC graduate film student… who happened to be sitting in the reserved seats in front of us. Thankfully, this film didn’t suck so there was no back-stabbing dissing; actually, it was quite good. It’s about the people working at a noodle stand in a Taiwanese night market. The shop is named after the shopowner’s daughter, Mei. Mei dreams of going to the US and persuing her dreams there, but she’s concerned about leaving her father behind (whose wife ran off years ago) alone with the shop. Also working at the shop is Jian, a shy guy who loves both Mei the noodle stand and Mei the girl. The film is very subtle in a good way, and it’s incredibly well shot. It captured the essence of the night market really well, and the audio quality was also excellent. Constantly hearing noisy mopeds in the background (in surround sound even) and seeing the dark alleys and neon lights reminded me a lot of my trips to Taiwan. So, I wasn’t sure if I was just biased because I’m Taiwanese and have been to Taiwan, but apparently all the guys I saw it with (all three are not Taiwanese, though Kelvin has been to Taiwan) liked it too. Though not that much happens, it has a natural narrative, and the characters are believable and likable. Beautiful and subtle, I give it 9/10.

The director had some interesting tidbits to mention during the Q&A session. The film was shot in 35mm, which was explained to me as being very expensive but somewhat worth the money, because 35mm looks pretty damn good. As a result, the short film cost $25k to make, and his usage ratio was 10:1 (every minute in the final cut, 10 minutes was filmed). He said night markets are often considered dirty and not romantic, but he personally finds it romantic and he wanted to capture it that way on film. He also said the Taiwanese audience response was quite different to the American one, where the Taiwanese felt the film moved quickly. An audience member mentioned his style was reminiscent of Wong Kar Wai, and he said that he loves Wong Kar Wai and shamelessly takes heavy influence from him and Woody Allen.

Alright, that took forever. Overall, my favorite I think was Fortune Hunters, simply because it’s very humorous, but Mei was a very close second. I also really like Police Box, though it was very simple and short. The rest I didn’t like so much, but not enough to deter the positive feelings I got from the three I liked. I was initially disappointed with the order; it seemed like they teased us with some fun comedies, climaxed with depressing crap, and settled with a nice subtle film. My general attitude is that they should save the best for last, but my fellow viewers correctly commented that a romantic comedy might not as entertaining after watching someone get raped. ANYWAYS, definitely a good mix of shorts. 7/10

Right now I’m sitting with Kelvin’s final project group at City Restaurant/Cafe/Bakery on the corner of Santa Clara and 7th. I just ate their Duck Noodle Soup, which was pretty good. Right now, I’m enjoying some sort of red bean smoothie. It’s all delicious, but very expensive. I think it’s because they need to cover the costs of being a restaurant, cafe, AND bakery and being open until 2AM every evening. I’m not really sure what I’m doing here, but I think it’s to motivate Kelvin into staying here and not leave early to go home and see me. I’m trying to do work, but I’m being lazy.

I had a really good weekend. Rodney came down Saturday afternoon, and Andrew came up to check out the day’s movie with us and discuss parody stuff with Kelvin. We all had lunch at Pizza Chicago (mmm… such good buffalo wings) and headed to the Camera 12 theaters to check out Love’s Labor & Other Complications. We sat behind reserved seats, which included the director of Mei. Quite fortunately, Mei turned out to actually be good, so no complaining-behind-the-director’s-back occurred. (Luckily, the Traffic in the Sky director, who was also there, wasn’t sitting near me.) There was a short Q&A session with the director of Mei and the director of Traffic in the Sky, and it was interesting to get a look behind the making of those shorts. We went back to Kelvin’s place and played some Excite Truck, which Rodney discovered he really enjoyed playing. Andrew eventually headed home, and we had dinner at Sonoma Chicken Coop. Saturday night was finished off with several episodes of Arrested Development. With club sauce.

Sunday morning, Rodney, Kelvin, and I got up early (by early, I mean before noon), and we had breakfast at Peggy Sue’s. With Kelvin’s blessing and my disapproval, Rodney had a milkshake with his pancakes. (Kelvin had even suggested that he put the milkshake on his pancakes. Thankfully, he did not do this.) Afterwards, Rodney and I headed out to the theaters to check out The Great Happiness Space: The Tale of an Osaka Love Thief at noon. Ravi, Anna, Calvin, and Jennifer were also checking out the same film. (For some reason, I was the only one who knew the movie was going to be a documentary.) After the movie, we went to Hydration to chat and have pearl milk tea. Rodney and I eventually went back to Kelvin’s place, where Kelvin was playing DotA. Rodney wanted us to check out Do Over, but I passed because four independent films in one day was probably more than I can handle. Instead, I napped in preparation for the next two movies, while Rodney played Excite Truck with Kelvin for the next two hours. I eventually got up, and we had dinner in at Johnny Rockets. We sat next a booth of incredibly rowdy cub scouts. All the parents were at a separate table, with the exception of one father sitting at the cub scout table. Eventually, even he couldn’t take the volume levels, so he finished his dinner and left with is (very loud) kid.

(btw, it’s now, like 3 hours later and I’m at Kelvin’s place. Didn’t get to finish my post earlier.)

On the way to Woman on the Beach, we saw the line for American Pastime. Probably the most straightforward of movies at the film festival, it was sold out and even had a fairly substantial rush line. Also, it’s a film about Japanese Americans, and San Jose has a decent sized Japanese American population (Japantown is a couple miles away), so I wasn’t surprised that it sold out. After Woman on the Beach, we waited for Kelvin to show up for Year of the Fish. I ran into Brian (high school classmate and Clarence’s cousin), who was there to check out Year of the Fish with a guy named Jared and an oh-so-famous girl named Goldie (I say that because, even tho she didn’t go to my high school, tons of people from my high school know her… or maybe it just seems that way cuz she’s got a unique name). Very cool to see more familiar faces.

At Year of the Fish, Rodney, Kelvin, and I sat behind reserved seats again. In the middle of the movie, this group of older women sat in those seats. I’m pretty sure they were just theater hoppers, because 1) they were late, 2) they didn’t look important, and 3) they were insanely rude. Particularly the woman in front of me, who decided to answer her cellphone during the middle of the movie. This prompted Kelvin to kick her seat, which I usually wouldn’t mind because I agree with the sentiment, but I was the one sitting behind her. If she had decided to confront her kicker, she would have turned around and assumed that I had kicked her. Anyway, luckily Ms. Stupid Bitch was too enthralled with whatever was on the other end of her cellphone to turn around. She just leaned over with her cellphone at her head. Luckily, the conversation appeared to be one sided, as she didn’t say anything. Unluckily, when she was done with her cellphone, she proceeded to talk to the woman next to her through most of the last half of the movie. Stupid bitch.

After that, Rodney went home, and I passed out at Kelvin’s place. It was a really eventful weekend. I don’t get out very much, so doing something everyday this weekend made me feel like I was on vacation in San Jose. All the eating out and film festival watching and having kind of a schedule was pretty different from my usual weekend routine. Yeah, it was fun. I just hope I never have to see that stupid SFIAAFF trailer they showed before every feature EVER AGAIN. If I ever hear that song again, someone’s going to get their brush made out of patent leather shoved up their butt.

(I have a couple pix I wanted to add, but I’ll put them in later.)

I’m going to try and write a review for all the features I saw, but it’s probably going to take all week. In the meantime, I’d really like to recommend Sandra’s new blog: Bad Movie Mondays. One of the “perks” she gets is to watch horrible movies, and she listened to my suggestion of making a blog about it. No one can tell you how horrible Blood Gnomes is the way Sandra does, so please check it out. Sandra is teh awesome.

New thing I learned today: Michel Gondry directed one of my favorite music videos: “Come Into My World” by Kylie Minogue.

I woke up an hour or two ago in coughing fit. I don’t feel particularly sick, but it felt like (still feels like, actually) that there is this one speck of dust in my throat somewhere, totally aggravating me. And for some reason I woke up incredibly pissed about something I was unhappy about earlier today (errr, I mean yesterday). Anyways, I haven’t been able to get back to sleep since then, so here I am, blogging as the sun comes up over downtown.

Rodney is coming down from SF to check out the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival… in San Jose. The plan is to check out one movie tonight, hang out, crash at Kelvin’s place, and then watch more films tomorrow. Today is NCAA Tournament Finals, too, so I’m sure downtown is going to be insane.

Today the only film we agreed on checking out was Love’s Labor & Other Complications. a collection of shorts about, well, love. Rodney originally considered Tre, but I shot it down because it sounds like another Asian American film about identity and Asian American sexual prowess/promiscuity that Bobby has been ranting about recently. King and the Clown sounded interesting, but since it was so popular in South Korea, it seems like something that can be easily seen later. Tomorrow’s schedule isn’t set in stone, but I think we’re going to see at least a couple of the following: Great Happiness Space: Tale of an Osaka Love Thief, Do Over, American Pastime, Year of the Fish. I think the only Asian American one from that bunch is American Pastime.

This is the first time I’ve gone to one of these things, I hope tickets won’t be a pain to get.

New thing I learned today: Actually I read about this a couple days ago, but forgot to put it as my “new thing learned”. Daffodils are poisonous, and putting them in a vase with other kinds of flowers can kill the non-daffodils.

btw, I was bummed leaving my bouquet at work yesterday. I’m fairly certain they’re not going to make it through the weekend with no water changes in an overcrowded vase. *sigh*

Man, SO unproductive at work today. Last night and this morning, I was feeling a little queasy (I think that milkshake yesterday probably wasn’t a good idea), so I skipped belly-dancing. I’m feeling pretty fat right now. I’ve been craving Halu really, really bad, so I went today with Ravi and Wonsop. It was incredibly satisfying. I don’t know if I could have waited until the next new episode of the Office (in April?!?) to satisfy my craving. It’s kind of good no one else came with us, because all three of us were at different stages of sickness. I am feeling a lot better today tho. I should be mostly over this cold by the weekend.

I don’t really have anything to talk about, so I’m just gonna mention one of the pictures I took yesterday. I had this thing on my old page where I would talk about warning labels. I never really did much for it because, as you can tell from those pictures, my old digital camera sucked. I got these two from the bag my Katamari shirt came in. (Apparently the bag for Kelvin’s spinner shirt is not a choking hazard.)

The first one looks like a creepy alien has his mask on too tight. I don’t get why the choking head is over the slash of the warning circle; they need to emphasize the intense anxiety in his face? Actually, when I first looked at it, it reminded me of:

I think the second warning label is supposed to be a baby with a bag on its head. The proportions are kind of weird, so it looks more like a kinky fat chick on her hands and knees with a bucket on her head. (No, I’m not going to find a picture of that for comparison.)

I’ve been getting lots of compliments concerning my daffodils on my desk. A lot of my coworkers have passed by and complimented on how nice they look and smell. It’s a nice conversation topic. Of course, everyone who talks to me has no idea where I got them because everybody seems to have this habit of ignoring all the recreational email spam we get from HR. Hopefully, next year people will be more aware and get their own bouquet. Actually, maybe with most of them being male, they’re not too keen on buying flowers for themselves (one of the guys in my group managed fine), but at least maybe for someone else. I’m glad people are taking notice. It’s really a nice visual diversion from bland cube space.

I do have a total irk to mention though. One of my coworkers (whom I shall not name… but he’s pretty much the only person at work that annoys me) came to my cube and commented on my flowers. As he was commenting, he proceeded to rub the petals of one of my daffodils. Like, take a petal between thumb and finger and rub vigorously… right in front of me. In my head, I’m like, what the f*ck? He tends to be fidgety, but does he really need to freaking touch my flowers?? They weren’t cheap, and they don’t last that long. Can’t you observe and touch flowers like normal people without potentially damaging them?? I glare at him until he finally figures out to stop. I know this seems trivial, but I was really pissed! ARGH! Don’t come to my cube and violate my flowers. Next time there’s gonna be some pencil-in-hand stabbings.

New thing I learned today: Dungeons & Dragons came in different editions.

Okay, so I’ve installed more junk on my site. I downloaded and installed (I wanted Kelvin to do it, but he made me install it myself) Gallery, some fancy-shmancy open-source photo album thingamajig. Now I don’t have to deal with Flickr anymore, yay! My photo album is located here. There’s nothing in there except random junk I wanted to post about today. I’m supposed to be able to integrate it with my blog, though I’m still figuring all that stuff out. But regardless, I’m pretty excited!

Last week, Panic Goods announced that they have new Katamari Damacy shirts for sale. If you don’t know who they are (I didn’t), Panic makes happy Mac software, including Transmit (a nifty Mac FTP program I always use at Kelvin’s place). I think Apple originally wanted them to do iTunes or something. Anyways, what do they have to do with Katamari Damacy? I don’t think they have anything to do with Katamari Damacy. Apparently, they went to the guy who made Katamari Damacy, said they like the game and want to sell their shirt, and he and Namco agreed. So this Mac software company sells official Katamari Damacy shirts. Each shirt even has their own paragraph from the designer rambling about his inspiration for his designs. I actually bought one of the older designs. I was really torn up about getting it, because it’s hella expensive ($25 + $6 shipping!), but I really like Katamari Damacy. I figured I’d get it since it’s hard to find shirts I really like, but I’d get another shirt for Kelvin since the shipping doesn’t change. (I know that’s a lame way of “saving money”, but give me a break.) I got this idea because they had a shirt with the Mac spinner on it (shows up when a Mac boots up), and it seemed like a shirt that Kelvin would really like. (I think I told Kelvin I was 90% sure he would like it.) So I ordered that one too, and it came out to $50 shipped for two T-shirts. Ouch, especially after getting $70 in T-shirts the last week. Anyways, I splurged. I got them this week. I was a little disappointed with my shirt. I knew the logo would be small, but it was really small. I wish it was bigger, but oh well. Kelvin’s shirt, however, looks pretty good. It’s a nice grey color, and the logo is an appropriate size. Kelvin said he likes it (yay) and that it’ll give him an excuse to make funny “I’m loading” faces when his coworkers ask him questions.

So yesterday I mentioned I really wanted to get to work to pick up my daffodils for Daffodil Days. My plan was to spend $100 on Daffodil Days, buying a Daffodil Days item or two and donating the rest. I know I wanted the Sunshine vase (I thought it was more classic and not ugly like orange Vision one), but I wasn’t sure if I should get the bear or not. I feel kind of retarded buying myself a bear… but it’s so cute. And it’s limited edition. I consulted Chris about my dilemma. He told me that the bear is cute, and that I should get it. But I’m like… but I’m buying myself a teddy bear, I feel kind of dumb. Chris says, “It’s not dumb. Hey, how about this? How about I buy the bear for you?” I refused, because I was bent on spending $100 anyway. Chris clarifies by saying he meant he’d buy it in addition to the $100 I was spending. Well, how could I say no to that? Free bear for me and an extra $25 for the American Cancer Society… of course I’ll take it! Yeah, so now I’ve got this nice beautiful bouquet of daffodils on my desk and cute limited edition bear advertising for American Cancer Society. I haven’t figured out a name for the bear yet; his default name is Hugh R. Hope. I thought about naming him “Chris”, but I already know too many Chris’s. I’ll work on it. Since he’s got a little sign, I’m thinking about making him a protesting bear. He can’t protest anything political because it’s against company policy, but maybe things like “We need a FREE WATER COOLER” or “PING PONG TABLE = PRODUCTIVITY”. Anyways, THANKS SO MUCH CHRIS for the protesting bear and extra flowers! You’re awesome!

Oy, it’s getting late. I think I’m gonna watch an episode of Arrested Development and then go to bed.

New thing I learned today: Dairy products should be avoided during a cold because they increase phlegm production.

I didn’t sleep too well last night, so I’m feeling pretty tired at work. Also, my cold has progressed to a painful cough, so I’m not feeling too hot either.

My first dream is kind of weird and disturbing. I’m sleeping in my room, and Kelvin is there, too. I hear my mom getting ready for work and hear her leave, which means it’s pretty early in the morning and it’s still dark. For some reason, I decide to look at the head of my bed, where there’s some shelves and magazines strewn about. I look at the one of the magazines, and there’s a pencil sketch (drawn over an article) of me sleeping. There’s another magazine, and one of the pages also has a pencil sketch of my face. There’s this stone plaque thingy next to my bed that as some art carved in, but my face is also carved into the stone. I’m hella creeped out, so I wake Kelvin and asked if he did this. He’s really groggy and says no, and he tells me to go back to sleep. I’m like, “I think I have a stalker! Aren’t you worried?” He says no and tells me to go asleep again, and then he passes out. So I go back to sleep and wake up a couple hours later, when the sun is up and my room is lighted. I see in the wall in front of my bed, and there are tons of small sketches of faces on the wall done in pencil. Some are incomplete; some are clearly my head. Kelvin has finally come to the conclusion that I have, which is I have a stalker. And then I hear movement outside my room, which is strange because my mom already left for work. We open the door, and I see my mom in a bathrobe… but I see two of her. These mom-clones freak out when they see me and run away. I chase after one and knock her down, but I have a hard time knocking her out because… well, she looks like my mom. But I know my mom left for work, so this isn’t her. Or is this like some weird part of her, like my mom has been split into three people (one of whom sits in my room while I’m sleeping drawing sketches of me)? My mind is all hella confused, but whoever I was shaking up has finally passed out, so I go look for the other one. It’s around this time that I wake up in real life, coughing my lungs out around 6AM.

I have a hard time getting back to sleep (especially since I have to wake up pretty soon), but I eventually do. My second dream is more vague and hard to remember. It starts off with some about Ratchet & Clank. I’m not sure if I’m playing the game or if I’m in the Ratchet & Clank universe. Eventually I’m in some concert venue (I’m not sure if this is the same dream or a different dream). It’s pretty ghetto, some weird covered outdoor thing (similar to that one outdoorsy-tent conference room at the San Jose Convention center). It’s not even the entire hall, it’s just a part of it sectioned off. There’s a stage on the end where bands play, and there’s a bunch of folding chairs lining up the rest of the open space. I’m here to support my boyfriend, who apparently isn’t Kelvin and is some guy who looks like the lead singer of Blink182. I know he’s not the lead singer of Blink182 because he looks younger and his bandmates don’t like the Blink182 guys. His band is playing at the end, so we’re sitting around waiting for the opening acts to start. From the stage distance-wise, we’re in the middle. I leave to get some drinks, and when I come back, my boyfriend and his bandmates are no longer where I found them. Some girl with a headset comes and finds me and tells me to go to the front, where we apparently have seats now. So I go sit next to my rocker boyfriend (our seats look like… speakers or something), and the show begins. The first band is some weird otaku band, with everyone wearing some sort of cosplay outfit. They sound pretty horrible. They finish, asking the audience vote for them at some amateur contest this music thingy is supporting. The next group is some old fogie hippie band. They’re pretty decent. One of the women in their group (or maybe she’s a groupie, no idea) comes to the front row, trying to sell us some homemade alcoholic beverages the band makes. She doesn’t ask me for money, she asks me to trade her something. I tell her I have nothing to trade, and I don’t want her beverage. She’s like, “That’s alright, I’ll just give him (directed at my boyfriend) two then.” So he gets these two weird capsule container thingies, and he shows me how to open them. The drink inside looks like ginger ale. My boyfriend takes a big gulp, but then all of sudden starts coughing, maybe because the drink is too strong. As this is happening, I notice that my boyfriend is no longer some rocker guy, it’s back to Kelvin, and he’s really not digging the drink. (Reminds of when Kelvin drank some Assailant: 1 2 .) I give the drink a shot, and it doesn’t taste that bad. I keep asking if he’s okay, and then I wake up in real life. I lay in bed for an extra hour because I feel terrible, and I eventually arrive at work late.

Anyways, I hope you guys found that an entertaining read. Feel free to offer up interpretations as to what it all means. I’m going to get back to my lunch from Jack-in-the-Box: Fish sandwich, curly fries, and mint milkshake (all that stuff is GREAT for a cold…).

I remember seeing this on Engadget (or was it Gizmodo?), but I forgot about it until Clarence reminded me today. At the Geneva Motor Show, Toyota showed their design direction for the their hybrids through their concept car, the Hybrid X. I… love it. It looks like the love child of a Prius and a Lamborghini (car enthusiasts, don’t hate me… I don’t know jack about cars…). I’ve never really liked the look of the Prius that much, and even though the Hybrid X just looks like a squashed Prius, it looks MUCH better. Honda also unveiled a concept hybrid car, but unfortunately, it looks kinda of stupid.

I want to put up pictures of some stuff I bought recently, and I was trying to organize my Flickr account. Apparently, when you use their free account, you only get three photo sets. To add more sets, you have to pay their $24.95 for a year of their service. Well, I’m much too cheap for that (especially since I already storage space through Kelvin’s host), so I’m looking into alternatives that don’t require much effort on my part :P

The Godfather: Blackhand Edition came out for the Wii this week. Reviews have been pretty decent, with scores ranging from 7 to 8. The game has already been released on the Xbox, 360, PS2, and PC, where it got similar scores. However, one thing that all the reviews praise for the Wii version are the Wii controls. Apparently EA’s implementation for the Wii is outstanding, and most reviews say the Wii version is the one to get. Along with the additional content (also on the PS3 version released this week), all reviewers seem to enjoy shoving their controllers around to emulate shoving thugs around, and shooting with the Wiimote seems to be accurate and fun as well. Having recently seen Scarface in action (which is also getting a Wii-make) and liking what I saw, this seems like a pretty tempting buy. Though, of course, I’m going to first wait for a price drop. With Madden and Tiger Woods already making bank, it seems like EA is really taking the features of the Wii to heart.

Bleh, I’m still sick, but I’m feeling a little better. I went to work late today so I could sleep more, but I came in around lunch. I had to anyways to pick up the daffodils I got for Daffodil Days. More on that some other time.

New thing I learned today: A year ago, some WoW Guild called Serenity Now crashed an online funeral for a WoW player that died in real life. That entire scenario is just sad in so many respects.