Some of them I’ve put in one line “reviews” in Flixster right after I came back from the theater, some I have not. To separate from the ones I just wrote I put those “first-impression” Flixster ones in double quotes . The movies highlighted in color are ones I think anyone should watch or they would regret it.

2009 movies watched in theater:

• District 9
  • What a piece of work.
• Avatar
  • By the third weekend I’d already seen it twice. I think that says plenty enough. There were scenes that gave me goose bumps; the music had so much to do with it (just like with Titanic). The whole experience affects you so much you forget your surroundings and totally immerse in it. And just like Titanic, it is such an extraordinary experience you honestly don’t care if it has the most original plot line. That brings about my personal philosophy of movie going: don’t read reviews or watch trailers before going; know as little as possible. The best thing about seeing a movie like these on opening weekend is you don’t have to hear all the people talking about it and end up going in with all the hype building up your expectations (for inevitable disappointment). Go in with a blank canvas and the only experience you will have is your own. That is so important.
• Up in the Air
  • A movie that makes you savor for a long long time afterward, like sipping a good cup of tea.
• (500) Days of Summer
  • “The genre of romantic comedy needs more movies like this.”
• Ponyo
  • The beauty of it was breathtaking.
• Michael Jackson’s This Is It
• An Education
  • There is no shortcut in life. -Jenny
• Up
• Away We Go
• The Time Traveler’s Wife
  • Because I’ve read and loved the book, I went in fully prepared to be disappointed, and an hour and half later, I wasn’t.

DVDs watched in 2009:

• Tropic Thunder
• My Neighbor Totoro

There are lots of truth in the belief that Facebook is killing casual blogging. I look back at my FB statuses written in the past year and realize at least 80% of them could have been made into blog posts, had I wanted or taken the time. To make up for my laziness, here are my year 2009 in Facebook status*:

*I took out some for privacy and other reasons

January

was singing/dancing/freezing herself to death on the coldest night ever, watching White Plains new year ball drop & welcoming 2009 from the bottom of her heart!

thinks this is hilarious: Delete 10 FB Friends, Get a Free Whopper http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10136679-2.htm

had a terrific reunion with some folks she hasn’t seen for 12 years, then didn’t get home until 1am cuz friend’s car got towed for parking overtime.

is feeling the new year of Ox but is not quite there yet… (20 minutes…)

is spending the night calling families in China.

just got a Quicken promo email: On Valentine’s Day, Nothing is better than hearing the 3 magical words… “Get Cash Back.”

February

is invited over to watch Super Bowl with a bunch of Steelers fans/friends, even though she barely knows anything about football and is carrying cold virus.

got a quiz request from a friend that says: “xxx wants to know: Are You Weird?”… So that’s what happens to you after you tell people 25 things??

took two movie quizzes yesterday and scored awfully in both.

just came back from “The Reader” and doesn’t feel like talking.

is enjoying the Oscars very much so far.

had the best time watching art and brilliance be celebrated, talent and passion be rewarded. There aren’t many things better than that.

March

says the fact that 3 SYTYCD (her fav show) ex-finalists will be dancing as pros on the new DWTS (her other fav show) season suits her just fine.

had Chicken Lollipop, Dhedo, a super hot “Bhutanese National Dish”, and many other things Tibetan/Nepali at Himalalyan Yak. She’d definitely go there again…

“What’s on your mind?” So we don’t have to talk in third person any more? I sure am gonna miss That

just did archery for the 1st time ever..

My cat just vomited a hairball in my handbag. My cellphone’s smelling like chicken.

just came back from Chavin and thinks it’s a crime a half Peruvian rotisserie chicken that delicious only cost $8. They should charge more.

What will it be like to be standing at the center of Time Square tomorrow night 8:30pm, watching all the lights go off at the blink of an eye?

had schweinshaxe for dinner; schnitzel was also on the table… German is now #26.

April

Do it the right way, or don’t do it at all.

It’d be nice if winning the Mega Million jackpot could, instead of give me 100 million dollars, give me 10 million dollars and grant me the power to have 48 hours a day.

is heading to her 1st hiking trip in 6 months. Winter is looong…

May

saw this on someone else’s twitter: “Be yourself. Everyone else’s taken.”

Happy Star Wars Day. May the 4th be with you. http://bit.ly/6tDdo

It is not easy being 2.0.

“Having ideals is having a compass that always points to your heart instead of your brain.” – John Maeda

Beef & Lamb Gyro. Falafel with sesame sauce. Hummus. => My very satisfying lunch.

My Saturday was filled with yummy street food, miles of walking and silly chatters. In between those things I also got on a boat in Central Park with 3 Doctors, helped install a cat furniture, enjoyed some super delicious dishes from Wondee Siam’s Secret Thai menu…(the rest was cut off by Facebook’s new length limit)

DWTS has a very honest voting audience. You only need to have watched all 8 seasons to truly understand it.

Did they decide to start serving ice cream in the kitchen on the 1st day of the Weight Loss Competition just to torment the guys that are in it?

Turns out my solution to the Fried Brain Problem was playing through the last level of Enigmo while watching the last episode of Jay Leno at the same time. That plus 2 hours of PokerStars afterwards. My brain is very rested now.

June

Which stupid quiz should I take next? (Mike “The Quiz Police” thinks it should be “Which Facebook Quiz Are You?”. I’m more open-minded than that.)

Yesterday was the 25th Birthday of Tetris.

Wish all the Dads on here a very happy day. The holiday is special to me because I was born on one.

Instead of judging a troubled genius, celebrate and be grateful that the world once had him and gazillions of people’s lives were better because of his music and his art.

July

Will be at Montreal this long weekend. If any of you have been there and have good suggestions on anything, I’d love to hear it.

just died and went to Heaven. There are ducks all over the place. They run around without their liver, and faint at any sound that resembles the name Martin Picard.

just crossed border and is now back in the wonderful America, the only country on earth that has AT&T.

wants to know the algorithm behind the Friends Suggestions on the right.

Since when did the legendary Booze Mail app morph itself into something called SpeedDate?? it keeps sending me notification of “Here are 5 new men for you to meet… Click here to view more men”… … wow who said Facebook is a waste of time

Coconut Pinkberry. High Line Park. Soba-Ya. Milk Tofu. Takoyaki. Sunday. Summer. East Village. I love New York.

has gone 4 days without doing anything on Facebook

was so hungry she forgot to take picture of the food.

is at intermission of the most fabulously fantastically spectacular live dance show she’s ever been to, and loving every minute of it!

August

Saw on Tumblr: “The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don’t just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.”

says Jeanine tonight.

still savoring the street-vendor-award-winning German “soul” food lunch I just had… Some things just can’t be put into words… (though they almost always can be put into… … mouth?)

just came back from a very remarkable movie, “District 9″, and has a feeling that people are gonna be hearing A LOT about this movie in the coming days, months, or even years.

If you have never watched any one of Hayao Miyazaki’s (creator of “Spirited Away”) anime films, your life as a moviegoer is incomplete.

ISN’T PHOTOSHOP JUST THE COOLEST THING IN THE WORLD

The (unread count) number next to my Gmail Inbox this morning is 3000.

September

Instapaper. The quality of your intellectual life will be improved drastically once you start using Instapaper. #ImportantLifeAdviceOfTheDay

October

Life is hard. To live, even harder.

“You do not LOVE because it is BEAUTIFUL, but it is BEAUTIFUL because you LOVE it.” – unknown

November

is boarding a ship twice the size of the Titanic

December

“There’s no shortcut in life.”

loves goat curry

I’d rather be wise than smart.

is sitting in the dentist office on the last day of 2009. exciting!

Are we there yet? Are we there yet?

(We didn’t take many pictures during the trip mostly because 1. in lots of occasions it was inconvenient to carry a camera; 2. there was no point walking around with an iPhone with absolutely no service. Besides, we wanted to just relax and enjoy the time, our first ever cruise trip.)

The ship, Liberty of the Seas, is actually more than twice the size of the Titanic.

more looks at the impressive vessel (the second largest cruise ship to date)

Two Carnival ships side by side basking in sunset

Haitian Singers

Imagine coming back to your hotel room at the end of the day only to find a crocodile in the bed staring at you… (hey that’s MY sunglasses!)

Gotta love the Royal Caribbean room attendants… and as we found out later, this is a Royal Caribbean tradition and they do this on every day of the trip, with a different animal each time. Stay tuned.

The turtle farm in Grand Cayman, seeing turtles big and small like you wouldn’t believe. We even got to hold a small turtle in our hands!

the sky in different locations and times

Stingray City, where people swim with stingrays and wrap them around their bodies, literally

Welcome to Hell. That is the name of a town in Grand Cayman. Our tour guide dressed up like the devil as soon as we arrived at this stop.

As far as I can tell you, there are iguanas in Hell.

No worries, No problems. That’s what they say in Jamaica.

Towel animal of the day: an elephant

The water at Tulum Mayan ruins, Mexico

Mexican sky

Another Carnival ship

Tulum Mayan Ruins, Mexico.

More towel animals by our room attendant. By the 3rd day I pretty much was looking forward to going back to the room at the end of the day just to find out what animal we’d get for the day.

A few fun things that weren’t captured in pictures:

• I did parasail! For someone who doesn’t swim, that’s an achievement, even if it was a dry-flight parasail that took off from a boat and landed on the boat. :D
• Climbing the famous Dunn’s River Fall in Jamaica. 600 feet vertical against the current. In swimwear and water shoes, everyone got soaking wet in the end and, like the local tour guide said, felt 10 years younger.
• The trivia games that ran a few times a day on the ship. How many dimensions does a TV set have? The guy right next to us answered “2″.
• The Love and Marriage Game Show rocks. I don’t know if other cruise lines have it. It seems to be a popular mainstay on Royal Caribbean ships. The host (aka the cruise director) was seriously hilarious.
• Finish the Lyrics game show was pretty funny as well, in the way that most contestants were quite bad.
• The 70s disco night. Everyone was dancing in the streets. We were caught on camera, twice. Seeing ourselves on TV (that is, the Royal Caribbean channel on the ship) the next day was fun and odd at the same time.
• Food was awesome, as expected. I didn’t bring my iPhone to the dining table (it’d look ridiculous in a formal setting like that) so there’s no pictures to show for some of those beautifully presented dishes. I also discovered that, unlike in a restaurant, you can in fact ask for as many appetizers or entrees as you want from the menu, without, obviously, having to pay more. A lady told me her brother gained 10 pounds from a 7-day-cruise. I’m just glad I exercised my restraints and am never really the kind of ferocious eater (you know what it means if you’ve been to buffets) anyway.
• Had my first taste of the famous Johnny Rockets’ milk shake. I don’t disagree with the guy on the ship who said it’s 10 times better than McDonald’s’ milk shakes.

By that I actually mean the good eats I recently discovered within walking distance from where I work (possible for lunch), but I hate long titles.

Menkui Tei Ramen

on 56th St, between 5th and 6th Ave

http://www.yelp.com/biz/menkui-tei-new-york-2

Tonkotsu Ramen (hot in rich pork bone broth noodle soup with 2 pieces of roast pork among other things on top)

The soup, as you can see, tasted heavenly… (I know, you don’t exactly see heaven in there, but it’s okay, just go try the soup ;-)

The noodles and meat and everything else was all good, but I have to say the only thing I just cannot forget from this dish is the flavorful soup, and that alone is worth the trip.

My advice though: If you’re going to order one of the hot noodle soup entrees, try avoid going on the hottest summer days; or at least, don’t sit right next to the kitchen (if you have party of two and above you will get a table, which is farther from the kitchen stoves). They do have AC but I don’t think it’s set to the usual level you expect from an American restaurant at all. The place is small and authentic, with lots of Japanese people frequenting.

Before you go you also want to take a look at the photos section of the Yelp page to see what the entrance looks like. There’s no sign at the front carrying the name Menkui Tei.

Jar Jar Ramen (cold soupless with ground pork soybean sauce, sliced cucumber, bean sprout etc), My favorite!

Hiyashi Ramen (cold with sesame seed sauce, roast pork, imitation crab, pickled ginger etc)

Halal Food Cart at 53rd and 6th

http://www.yelp.com/biz/53rd-and-6th-halal-cart-new-york

Here’s how I found this one:

One day while looking for some good new lunch place I turned to Yelp, narrowed down my search criteria to a couple neighborhoods nearby (did you know that on Yelp you can not only search within “New York” or “Manhattan, New York”, you can also pick from a list of neighborhoods within each borough, such as Theatre District, SoHo, Greenwich Village or East Village?), while leaving the name field blank, added a filter to show only those with one $ sign as they’re most likely lunch places, and viola, this thing came up on top. Then I noticed for the first time that there is actually a “Halal” in the list of cuisines at the top. I was like wow Yelp even has a section just for Halal food carts. I haven’t eaten at any street food vendors for many years now, but out of curiosity I clicked into the “Halal” link and scanned through the results. This 53rd and 6th Halal Cart was again listed at the top and had like 540+ reviews, while the second Halal result had only 9! My interest (or should I say animal instinct?) immediately spiked. After a few more minutes of digging around and reading Yelpers’ reviews, here are some facts I found:

1. There is a dedicated Wikipedia entry for this particular Halal food cart. Yes, out of the perhaps thousands Halal food carts on NY streets, this one has its own Wikipedia entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/53rd_and_6th
2. There is a web site called 53rdand6th.com, created by the FANS of this particular food cart. And there is a Chat Room section on the web site.
3. They have their own sweatshirts and bags.
4. They are a finalist in 2005 Vendy Awards (The Oscars of NYC Street Vendors).
5. They only open from 7:30pm to 5am everyday.
6. The typical wait time in the line during those hours is between 45 minutes and 1 hour.
7. In 2006 a fight started in the line with someone stabbed someone else for cutting in line. Later the owners hired bouncers.

(photo source: wikipedia)

So needless to say the next weekend when I came into the city for a movie I made time for this place. The line was indeed ridiculous and we waited for 45 minutes before getting to order (and took the picture below up close, in the center on the grill was piles of piles of chopped chicken meat).

Within minutes we were handed the famous platter (Lamb/Chicken on yellow rice with sliced pita bread) and, following everyone else before us, walked to the side to help ourselves with the even more famous The White Sauce, as much as we like. The red sauce was indeed like the Yelpers said, super hot, but the white sauce, it’s that white sauce mixed up with all the meat and rice that truly defined what it was. A big hearty meaty tasty meal after a long day for a hungry soul.

(photo source: Yelp.com)

The portion was really generous for $6 and I, unfortunately, on that day was not particularly hungry, so I didn’t finish it despite thoroughly enjoying whatever I had. However I have to say, being not really a Halal expert, I didn’t quite share those fanatics’ “this is the most magical thing ever created by God” feeling. I mean it is really delicious and I would gladly have it again, but, maybe I learned a bit too much about it before I went (the wikipedia entry has it that a famous chef confessed he once waited TWO AND HALF HOURS on a cold Christmas Eve for it!)… It is good, but I don’t know if it’s THAT good.

Guess you’d have to find out yourself.

Note: If you ever go there, look for the yellow uniform they wear (below), and remember they only open at 7:30pm. The cart there during daytime is an impostor and completely unaffiliated.

Hallo Berlin Food Stand at 54th & 5th Ave

http://www.yelp.com/biz/hallo-berlin-german-food-stand-new-york

With my newfound Yelping skill (combined with my years of professional experience in quickly extracting information from oceans of web resources, which comes with the job ;-), I went on to discover a few more gems in my vicinity and this one is a true winner.

Remember the famed (some even call it a cult) Halal 53rd & 6th being a finalist in 2005 Vendy Awards? They lost, to this German sausage place, a Wurst Place that became the Winner of the prestigious Vendy Award. Don’t you just love New York City?

Fun Facts:

• Because of all the difficult names (bratwurst, bauernwurst, alpenwurst) for the types of sausages they have (chicken, veal, beef, pork etc), their menu name them after cars. Mercedes is pork bratwurst, BMW is veal, Porsche is beef and Audi is beef & pork).
• As result the picture above has an item that reads: Triple Soul Food Mix – Comes with a BMW, Mercedes and Porsche – $11.

This picture is hung right next to the menu in the previous picture. If you look closely you will see this is also a menu… The Dictators Special (top) and The Democracy Special (bottom).

So the owner has a sense of humor.

And the food, the food was absolutely sensational. The sauerkraut and German fries (pan fried chopped potatoes) blended so perfectly with the sausage meat (which was the most tender and juicy “wurst” I’ve ever had), all companied by the tasty mustard sauces. That on top of a warm crispy bun, grab yourself a cold soda the lunch cannot possibly be any better!

(Soul Food Mix – Trabant)

(Soul Food Mix – Mercedes)

My Advice:

If you go there for the first time, I recommend order the Soul Food Mix with Mercedes. The Pork Bratwurst is simply the best. I agree with a yelper who said when it comes to sausages, “pork always stand out among them all”. Although next time I go I want to try the BMW.

I mean Veal, of course.

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For the quiz junkies out there, here’s another one. I found it while lurking on Jessica’s blog :-p:

What’s Your Perfect Major?

(I know, it’s kinda LATE to ask this question, but that’s not the point)

Before I took this quiz I didn’t expect it to surprise me, because, well for people like us I think by this time we all have a pretty good idea what subjects we excel at and what we don’t. Still, taking mindless quizzes has always been a good stress reliever for me and this one turned out to be moderately interesting in that it helped me see some things about myself ever so clearly, such as, the word “molecule” does not fascinate me, at all. ;-)

Here’s my result. If you’ll take the quiz, share with me your result… (I just shared with you mine, right?)

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Is that even good English? I’m too tired to care. Since I took the time to shoot the pictures, thought I might as well share them.

Snails in black bean sauce, Dim Sum at Guang Zhou Restaurant, Flushing

If you like Pinkberry but have not tried the new coconut flavor, you should.

First thing I saw at the High Line Street Fair… a pink bug.

Then the angle changed and the bug turned around… it was a real leggy, pink bug.

On high heels.

Obviously there were more bugs at the street fair.

Bugs, and some real tall people…

The plants and flowers were quite exotic for a public park (though wikipedia calls it a “greenway”).

A very interesting stair-like seating area… there’s glasses at the front and you can see the cars driving from underneath you, through the glasses…

Leaving High Line we headed to Soba-Ya, one of the main reasons we came in the city. Some think it’s the best soba house in NYC. I know there’s another called Soba-Koh and would like to go some day to compare…

Chawan Mushi, a Japanese egg custard dish. It’s basically cooked the same way as the Chinese 蛋羹 (steam eggs), however the presentation by the chef at Soba-Ya made it into something much more wonderful than what it actually is.

The sake, the cold dishes (Chizimi Konnyaku, Fried eggplant in broth, Lotus Root in sour plum paste), and the cutest spoon holder ever seen in a restaurant

Cold soba with salmon roe (left/top) and cold soba with uni (right/bottom).

Someone said on yelp that if you go to a Japanese restaurant that specializes in soba noodles, you should order the cold version over the hot ones (at least the first time) because you can get a better feel of the complexity of the noodle’s texture when it’s cold. After a long hot summer day that advice was very easy to follow for us.

Milk Tofu.

Perfection.

I think I will remember this place for a long time.

Afterword

We found on the back of the business card that there are like 8 other Japanese specialized food places operated by the same group that runs this restaurant: a Ramen/homemade Gyoza place, a Sake bar, a Japanese Teahouse, a Shabushabu/BBQ place, a small take out place for Takoyaki/Okonomiyaki (章鱼小丸子), to name a few, all within 3 blocks. I am definitely coming back to East Village again.

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Should have done this long time ago. Feedburner.com was bought by Google and as a result my RSS feed urls have changed to:

http://feeds2.feedburner.com/walkingbetween

http://feeds2.feedburner.com/walkingbetween/comments

Please update your RSS reader. Thank you for subscribing.

(The original WordPress feed URL http://walkingbetween.com/feed or http://walkingbetween.wordpress.com/feed will always work.)

If you don’t know what RSS is or don’t use RSS, I strongly recommend you check it out. My favorite desktop RSS reader is SharpReader from http://sharpreader.net. It has an Outlook like UI and, when a new item comes in it slowly raises a light blue box, with summary line inside, in the right bottom corner of your screen, stays still for a few seconds (during which you can peek and decide whether to click on it for more), then slowly descends and disappears. You can customize the frequency each feed checks for new items, among other properties per feed.

If you can’t use desktop client Google Reader is probably the most popular web-based RSS reader out there. Just click the “Reader” tab at the top of your Google/Gmail account.

If you have many blogs you follow regularly, a desktop RSS client with notifications on new posts is, IMO, a must.

About a month ago on Facebook my friend Jun used the word “resuscitate” to describe the action I needed to bring this blog back. She also volunteered to teach me CPR… ;-)

Although I did not take up her kind offer, I have been thinking about how best to “resuscitate” ever since. Lots of things have happened since my last post on August 4, 2008; it doesn’t feel right to just skip the past 6 months and suddenly start posting the latest things I want to write right now. I need a “bridge” post, I’ve decided, if only just for the one or two readers who were not with me on Facebook the past 6 months.

So here’s a really quick look back to the last few months of 2008, up till now:

• The Beijing Olympics. During those 3 weeks I subscribed to almost all the Olympics blogs by major media sports writers and journalists in my RSS reader, and read just about everything that’s been written every day in the western media, NYT, ESPN, FoxSports, Guardian Sports, BBC Sports, Yahoo! Sports, CNN, ABCNews… On top of those I also read tons of message board posts and did my share of postings. It was pretty crazy. So many things happened. There were times I felt powerless. sad. And there were the times of pride. awe. and inspiration. They could go on a separate post of its own, but somehow I have lost the drive to write it.
  (or perhaps it’s the courage to write them that I’ve lost, like a climber facing an insurmountable mountain…)
• The U.S. Open. The first time we went to see live tennis. We went on the Labor Day weekend and later for the men’s finals. Notable players/games that we watched include: Zheng Jie/Yan Zi women’s double, Djokovic vs a pretty good young guy, Li Na vs Dementieva (the freshly crowned Olympics Gold Medalist), and of course, Federer vs Andy Murray. I was hoping for a Nadal/Fed final but didn’t get it.
  Live tennis games are fun. I highly recommend you try it once, if you watch tennis on TV. Don’t buy the worst seats though, you need a reasonably good view to get yourself into it.
• Yellowstone Trip. We were lucky enough to have caught the perfect weather, beautiful foliage, and plenty wildlife sightings that include: a black bear (next to a dead elk body), a grizzly bear (walking in the woods at roadside), a wolf and an antelope wandering in the same valley (and missing each other!), a fox-like wolf in the vicinity of a bison (of course neither was interested in the other), three different types of deer, a coyote, a group of sheep, and the best of all, an army of bisons walking right in front of our car (and right next to it within an elbow’s length). The geysers and hot springs were also amazing as advertised. They look even better on photos :c).
  One lesson learned from the trip: you need a binocular, a video cam, AND the best camera/lens you can afford to go to Yellowstone. All three are necessities.
• The Financial Crisis. The best thing that came out of the whole thing is, it prompted me to start paying real good attention to my 401k… ; ), which then resulted in me delving into a reading fever on some of the best, and academically sound if you will, investment advices that I truly wish I had learned 10 years ago.
• New Year Eve. Another first: First time we spent the countdown watching a ball drop with a crowd outside. It was freezing like hell, but I really wanted to go, to send off this crazy year of 2008. When it counted to 0 and all the fireworks erupted, I was cheering with everyone else from the bottom of my heart.
• Movies. 2008 was a great year for movies. I’ve been putting in short, one paragraph reviews on Facebook (via Flixster) for movies I watched lately. Maybe I’ll make a compilation of them into a post later. I think I’ve watched 3 of the 5 best picture nominees as well as some very good ones like The Wrestler and Revolutionary Road in the last couple months alone.
• New Food. Nepali is now added to my list of Cuisines I’ve Tried At Least Once, as #25. ;-)

Lastly, to whoever that noticed, the kitties pictures on the right is replaced with the latest Flickr photo feed. There seem to be something wrong with Flickr’s RSS feed on a set that caused the kitty set photos all broken. Until I figure out the problem this is the only feed that works here.

For the first time of the entire season my predictions for who goes home went all wrong. I was sad to see Mark and Chelsie eliminated, especially Chelsie. When was the last time a latin dancer advanced to the final on this show? I don’t think it ever happened. What a bummer. If someone as good as Chelsie couldn’t do it, I don’t know if it’s ever gonna happen.

Just read here that two of the 4 finalists collapsed during the Saturday rehearsal and were rushed to the hospital. They were released soon after and had Sunday off. It seems every season something like this happen at least once to someone on the show. Maybe they (the producers) should do something about it, if they can.

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Best night of the whole season! I almost cried watching Katee/Joshua’s contemporary piece to Celine Dion’s “All By Myself”. It was no doubt Tyce Diorio’s best work of the season, if not all seasons. Equally powerful, but in a totally different way, was Mark/Courtney’s Jazz choreographed by Sonya. Watching it just left you in awe.

The voting this week is going to be crazy, crazy close. I have absolutely no idea which of the guys are going home. Personally I feel Mark’s strong performances last night, especially the Sonya number, probably will push him slightly over Twitch and into the final. On the girls side it won’t be so close though. Courtney is probably the one to go. I’m happy that the two girls I liked from the very beginning, Chelsie and Katee, are likely the two favored going into the final.

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The Bollywood dance was really exciting. I’m glad it was Katee and Joshua that got to do it. The costumes fit them perfectly and they nailed the dance from beginning to the end. It was very refreshing, and crowd pleasing.

I don’t know about others but I found what Mia Michaels said to Will about him carrying Jessica all the time to be cruel and totally unnecessary.

As soon as the bottom 3 was announced I picked Comfort and Thayne to be gone, but I was somewhat surprised when Nigel implied that they would have eliminiated two girls, meaning obviously Comfort and Jessica, rather than Comfort and Thayne. So the judges have no love for Jessica and they aren’t even trying to hide it.

Note: News came today that Jessica just dropped out of the show due to an injury and Comfort is now back in Top 10 to replace her.

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Once again the best numbers came from my two favorite couples: Chelsie/Mark’s Jazz by Mandy Moore and Katee/Joshua’s Contemporary by Mia Michaels. Chelsie is doing extremely well for a ballroom girl. I wouldn’t be surprised to see her in the final 4. Katee shined in Mia’s routine. I couldn’t get that “aided run” out of my head. Twitch/Kherington might be popular among viewers but I really didn’t like their Paso Doble.

When the bottom three couples were announced there wasn’t really any surprise. After Gev gave the best solo of the night I was thinking Thayne’s time was  over, but to my surprise Kourtni and Matt were sent home instead.

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All the bottom 3 couples have been there more than once. None of them was a surprise. Kherington/Twitch escaped the “curse of the first” and were safe, I feel they are a popular couple. Once again I loved Matt’s solo, very well choreographed. I thought Chris and Comfort would be eliminated but it turned out to be Chris and Chelsea. So this was the first time they broke up a couple in 3 weeks.

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Performance wise this was the best week so far. I absolutely loved Chelsie/Mark’s Hip-pop routine choreographed by Napolean/Tabitha. Both were outstanding and the choreography was fantastic. They are a very strong couple and Adam said they were “the couple to beat”. My second favorite of the night was the Samba by Katee/Joshua. For a popper dancing Samba for the first time in his life, Joshua was surprisingly good. This is the first time I truly see why Mia said he would go to final 4, he is extremely versatile. Katee’s costume I personally felt was a bit too long for Samba. Had it been shorter it would have enhanced her hip action more. Luckily the vibrant choreography covered up a lot of ground for them.

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The right couple went home. Susie for being the weakest female and Marquis, whose solo demonstrated his technique but more importantly I felt it also showed his lack of ability to interpret and express the music. He piled up turns after turns without choreographing to the music. Nigel took the words out of my mouth when he said it was all “tricks” and was not what this show is about. His solo is like the polar opposite of Will’s solo, the latter was all about interpreting the music.

Of all the solos last night I liked Comfort’s the most. I also noticed something interesting, but not surprising: it’s been two weeks in a row that the first couple that danced on Wednesday landed in bottom three the next night. Let’s see if the trend continues.

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Overall I feel it’s a better night than last Wednesday. Here are some of my chaotic thoughts:

• Wearing the oddest costume I’ve ever seen on SYTYCD, Chelsea and Thayne’s Jazz routine didn’t impress. By the end of the night I almost totally forgot about the performance.
• “Beauty and quirkiness”, two things in life Mia Michaels claimed she loved the most, and she used them to sum up Chelsie and Mark.
• The judges all seemed to love Will. I thought Jessica did pretty good in the hip-pop number, but only Nigel agreed with me.
• Mia found the perfect word to describe Matt when he dances. Elegant. Just every move he makes looks so elegant. Very pleasing to watch.
• Courtney/Gev’s Mandy Moore contemporary was so beautifully choreographed it reminded me of another piece by Mandy Moore from last season, danced by Sabra and Dominic to The Pretenders’ “Stand By You”, one of my favorites. In both numbers she used small movements of dancers’ feet and hands to connect them in a way that they appear sometimes attached to each other. Very expressive.
• Katee/Joshua got the best reaction from the judges after their Broadway routine. Mia was spot on when she noted the “connection” between the two. It was so good.
• I was not that shocked after seeing Susie’s mediocre Salsa, partly because from the very beginning I was never impressed by her “street salsa” style audition performance. Nigel said her turns and twists looked “labored”. I think she should be in the bottom three tonight.
• Loved the Celine Dion song used by Kherington/Twitch’s VW. A great song goes a long way to enhance the performance. Their all white outfit was also perfect for this beautiful piece.
• I laughed when Nigel said his granny was more gangster than Chris in the Krump number, not only because it was funny but because I had the same feeling. Whatever Chris was doing it didn’t look much like Krumping to me.
• On a side note I found the the quality of the judges’ comments a lot better than last Wednesday’s, especially Nigel and Mia who were almost always right on point. Mary Murphy however I don’t know why Fox decided to make her a permanent judge last year. She’s not particularly eloquent and when it comes to styles other than ballroom she sometimes struggles to make any sense. Perhaps the producers want the screaming and yelling to make things more colorful. I for one would rather have someone who can always contribute something insightful.

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It’s Martin Seligman again. I didn’t read every paragraph of the book, kind of picked and chose what I read. There are some interesting facts mentioned, such as a ranking of countries by how happy their citizens are (the happiest ones are not necessarily the most developed ones). China ranked fairly high. I bet that surprises lots of Americans.

A few points I’ve taken away from the book:

• Social life is strongly correlated with happiness. All happy people have a rich and fulfilling social life.
• Married people statistically are happier.
• Higher percentage of religious people are happier than those religionless.
• Money has little to do with a person’s happiness.
• Use your signature strengths (there is a test for you to find out what they are), you will be happier because of that.

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The show started with a Wade-Robson-style group dance that featured the kidnapping of Nigel Lythgoe. I got a chuckle out of it. The dance itself was okay, but the line Nigel delivered in the end was pretty good, “Let’s be kind to the dancers, they are evil!”. He also joked that this was Wade’s revenge for his criticism last year on the fox routine Wade choreographed for Lacey and Sabra. I for one really loved that number.

The only surprise in the bottom 3 couples was Jessica/Will. I was sure Gev/Courtney was going to be in there instead of them. Good thing is the judges pick who goes home out of the three, so I wasn’t too worried Will will get the boot. His solo reminded me of Danny, my favorite dancer from last season. It was unique and full of expressions.

Jamie’s solo was clearly the weakest of the three guys and his bad outfit didn’t help. It didn’t flatter his body at all. On the other hand I really liked Matt’s solo, very fluid. This was the first time I saw him dance solo. I hope Nigel, who does this to someone every season, would stop telling him he has no personality, because, guess what, everyone has a personality! Stop telling people in their face they don’t have personality. Just because they don’t appear outgoing on TV camera doesn’t mean they don’t have a personality!

In the end Rayven and Jamie were sent home. I correctly predicted both after the solos and before the judges revealed.

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Some random thoughts from the first night of the real show:

• In the beginning intro of the top 20, I found myself not able to tell apart any of those contemporary guys, or actually, with the exception of Twitch, Joshua and Will, any of the guys period, while most of the girls have at least made one appearance in this year’s auditions coverage (Rayven and Chelsea are probably the only ones that didn’t). What a discrepancy.
• Didn’t like Rayven/Jamie’s hip hop piece much. The music was the problem. It didn’t grab you, neither did the choreography.
• Kourtni has great eyes, and she did at some point look a little like Princess Diana, once they said it, however the Mandy Moore Jazz piece didn’t do it for me.
• Chelsea/Thayne’s Chacha got great music and they got excellent reviews from the judges. I was surprised Mary didn’t point out the lack of real Chacha basics or good hip action, but I guess it’s the season opening they wanted to pump up the impression this is going to be a great season so they were being generous.
• I was a little worried at first to see my favorite girl Chelsie picked Mia’s contemporary as first dance, but the performance was beautiful and she did really well. Judging from the incoming URLs on my blog stats page, I know I’m not the only one who has her as a favorite. Lots of people are searching for her on the web.
• Twitch/Kherington did Broadway. Nigel again was commenting on a contestant’s look (this time Kherington’s face). Hey it’s not a beauty pageant!
• Comfort’s Jive kicks were very weak. Once again the judges were being really nice.
• Finally, my favorite number of the night: Katee/Joshua’s hip hop choreographed by Napoleon and Tabitha. Great choreography, great performance. Katee as a contemporary dancer was surprising. I’m not sure if this couple will continue to excel in other styles but tonight they easily won the round.
• Jessica did very well in the Tango, despite the little tumble on heels. I don’t know what Mary had been drinking though as her comments throughout tonight were off, to say the least. Sometimes I feel she’s running out of things to say so she just yells and screams to cover it up.
• Disco is never my favorite genre. Gev, the breaker, I felt is probably a weak partner doing those lifts.
• Overall it was an okay night, choreography wise, with only one standout number. I think I’m spoiled. Last season really set a high standard. I hope they live up to it this year.

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It’s always exciting to watch the Vegas rounds, not just because of the dramas, but also because it is so challenging. The contestants have to learn choreographies in Hip-Pop, Broadway, Ballroom and Contemporary, all in a limited time, on top of that they also have to choreograph themselves in groups and perform. With six judges scrutinizing their every move, one bad routine means it’s the end of road.

Robert Muraine, the amazing contortionist popper, was having trouble learning the Hip-pop choreography just when the first round started. He looked ready to give up. Nigel asked him to perform a solo perhaps hoping that would change his mind, but in the end he still said he’d rather go than give it at least a try. I wonder if he made that decision because all the instant fame that resulted from his spectacular audition has got to him, that he didn’t want to make a fool out of himself doing something he’s bad at on TV.

After the broadway round, twins Anthony and Antwain faced their fate. Anthony, who ironically was able to come to Vegas because of his brother’s plea (see my DC auditions post), got through and Antwain didn’t. He eventually survived through the very end but didn’t make the Top 20.

Ballroom round has always been tough for street dancers/breakers alike, so when Joshua and Comfort, both from Texas and are popper/breaker, cried after they learned they did well enough to survive the Foxtrot, you know it must have not been easy. Hard work doing something you are not very good at, it’s good to see that rewarded.

The pageant girl was eliminated. Her dancing to me lacks authenticity, you don’t feel anything watching her dance.

As the rounds went on I found myself liking Twitch more and more. He just seems such a likable person. I was so happy when they told him he made the Top 20.

The group performance round, where contestants were divided into groups and was given a piece of music to choreograph themselves overnight, bore some resemblance to what was shown last year: the bickering. I’ve always wondered the merits of such a format. You put a group of dancers together and have them work out a choreography all by themselves. When every one of them is fighting for their own survival and there is no authority or any form of designation, there’s bound to be lots of conflicts on who is in charge and who makes what calls. Teamwork spirit is rewarded here but when the real show starts they won’t be required to do something like this again. They will just perform professional choreographer’s routines. So there is not much incentive here for them to strive to be the best team player. That in my opinion explains why most of the group performances were not very good and sometimes the dancers didn’t even look happy doing them.

After Mia Michael’s contemporary round, Liz the female tapper from Milwaukee was eliminated because she “talked too much” back to the judges arguing about her apparent stress. I guess they don’t want someone who gets stressed easily and who argues a lot on the show, which is reasonable.

Among the top 20 revealed, the fabulous ballroom girl Chelsie Hightower is my early favorite. I was surprised that Kelli Baker didn’t make it. Nigel suggested she needs to show more personality, I then remembered what a personality contest this show is and didn’t like it. Even more surprising was that girl who auditioned a latin like routine in boots, Susie Garcia, made it. I didn’t see what’s so good in her at all. Both Joshua and Comfort made it. Brandon Bryant did not! After the judges told William Wingfield he was the “best all around dancer by far”, I became interested and looked him up on youtube. Turns out he auditioned in LA which I didn’t write much about. I’m looking forward to see how he does on the show.

I thought the whole re-vote thing with Katee just because she said she wouldn’t come back for a 3rd try was a bit overreacting. Nigel wanted some TV drama so he took the opportunity to stir it up. These artificial moments are times when I don’t like the show.

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Final destination for auditions (I wonder why they skipped New York this year). A few sketchy notes:

• Natalie Reid, who gave a quite unique routine
• Evan, the Gene Kelly like dancer (according to the judges)
• That Salsa couple rocked! Their tricks were so good they got everyone in the room standing up. The girl was a stronger dancer than the guy, and went on to Vegas without him.
• Yesenia who lost 50 pounds since she auditioned, and was cut in Vegas, last year. She was very emotional talking about how the show changed her life and made her want to be a better dancer. Unfortunately she injured her knee during the routine and the judges couldn’t let her move on. I still remember her energetic hip-pop performance from last year, despite her size. Shane Spark back then was very fond of her dancing.
• I was surprised to see that Yesenia’s friend Philip got sent straight to Vegas. I didn’t see what was so good about him.
• There are a few others that were good, the Travis Wall like guy, the girl who got turned down in LA and came back, and the girl tapper in the end.

Tomorrow is Vegas callbacks. Top 20 will be announced, then the real show begins!!

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Are you a pessimist? Is it better to be an optimist than a pessimist? Can you learn to become an optimist even if you are not one yet? These are some of the questions answered by this book, Learned Optimism by Dr. Martin Seligman, known as the father of Positive Psychology.

I find the book very interesting, but not “life changing” like some Amazon reviewer wrote. It contains a test that will tell you whether you are an optimist or a pessimist. In the end you will be able to understand your own explanatory style, i.e. how you tend to explain good and bad events. I found the exercise illuminating, and thought provoking. When you blame yourself for a project’s failure, are you being pessimistic, or responsible? Having done the test myself and had my husband do it, both of us Chinese, I’ve also come to a prediction that most highly educated Chinese people, especially people like us who majored in engineering, will probably test to be pessimist, like we both did. It’s a baseless speculation on my part, and won’t be proved unless all my Chinese friends go and take the test (by the way it’s available under Questionaires->Optimism at www.authentichappiness.org, free registration required). Well, it’s not entirely baseless, it has to do with how we were raised and taught, but I won’t elaborate further because if I do it will ruin the test for anyone who is interested in taking it.

The disputation techniques introduced in the later part of the book are interesting. I can see it being helpful to some extent but am not sure how effective it really can be in practice. Maybe I’m just hopelessly pessimistic and hard-headed. :-(

In Charleston auditions there was this identical twins, Anthony and Antwain. They were about same height, same weight, and have the same face. When Anthony danced first, it wasn’t impressive and the judges all gave an “no”. Then his brother Antwain danced. The judges thought it was terrific, and talked to Antwain about why who then said he thought his brother was a “cleaner dancer” than he was and deserved to be here more. Nigel summoned Anthony back to the stage and asked to see them dance together. Boy what a decision that was. The twins gave an energetic, totally-in-sync-from-start-to-finish performance where Anthony suddenly turned to a totally different dancer. He was quick, sharp and every bit as good as his brother. All the judges were wowed and gave both of them the green light to the choreography round (where both then went on to win the ticket to Vegas). What an interesting turn of events. Talk about second chance.

Claire Calloway’s comeback performance didn’t impress. The choreography wasn’t there. I guess it’s hard to keep up the high level when you’ve spent most of the two years having/nursing a baby, but I’m glad she made through the choreography and moved on.

In DC auditions as soon as they showed the clip of Brandon Bryant lying about his age on season 1 auditions, when he was actually only 15 back then, I had the gut feeling this must be someone really good. The judges thought he was one of the best they’ve seen this year and sent him straight to Vegas. I wouldn’t be surprised if we see him again after that.

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Finally some good ones! The latin girl Chelsie Hightower, from Salt Lake City auditions, was so lively. She caught your eyes right from the start and never let go. Mary was right on, she got “great legs”, and her upper body movement was equally fabulous. I hope she makes the top 20 and gets on the show. I really want to see more of her.

Another memorable dancer from Salt Lake City auditions was choreographer Bonnie Story’s daughter, Kelli Baker. She did a very beautiful piece, I loved it.

This was the first time they auditioned at Salt Lake City. I sense there will be more to come in the future.

In comparison, Dallas was not so strong. Arielle was the only girl that left an impression on me. Joshua the bulky hip-pop dancer did some moves that were ridiculous and Nigel said he “had never seen before”. And that was about it.

Tonight there will be more from Washington DC and Charleston, NC. Things are warming up.

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So You Think You Can Dance is back. The first episode was LA auditions. Not very impressive. I wish they had shown more good dancers. Didn’t care for some of Nigel’s comments on the bad dancers. Sometimes I feel he tries too hard for TV. I like his comments better when the real show starts, and when he’s being positive.

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For the last two Sundays in a row we went to ride bicycle at the Bicycle Sundays event at Bronx River Parkway (Every year from April to October a 7 seven mile stretch of the Parkway closes to automobile traffic on Sundays 10am -2pm so cyclists can enjoy the road). It was a breezy and very relaxing 2 hours ride. I saw lots of people take their kids out with them. The older kids would get their own little bikes to ride along side the parents; the younger ones, who couldn’t ride by themselves, would sit in a trailer that was towed behind their parent’s bike. It was a family event. Everyone was enjoying it and they all looked so happy.

Then came the news of the Sichuan earthquake. Tens of thousands lives lost, families destroyed. Small luxuries in life like riding a bicycle on a Sunday morning suddenly look so insignificant and precious at the same time. I think of the things I feel unhappy about in my life, then I think of those who have lost home, children, and parents in the earthquake. Things like this really change your perspective. It makes you realize what is and what is not the most important in this world.

April Fool’s Day always bring back fond memories for me, mostly because of my numerous successful pranks I’ve played back in the college days. Every time I think back of those they bring smiles back to my face. I guess the reason it feels so warm is that they were played on my best friends (and boyfriend, once) who now live far away. It seems back in those golden years everything was full of happiness and laughter. They were certainly the happiest five years of my life.

I dedicate this post to my husband (my then b.f. who was fooled by me into thinking the lock on our dining hall (#9) locker was hacked by thieves), my dear friend Garfy (who fell victim to my naughtiness and went to boys’ dorm to fetch a letter that didn’t exist), and friends on a mailing list that I sent a “printer-shredder” prank to. They made beautiful memories, and it’s this time of the year again.

If it weren’t for the 4 rollover days I carried from last year and must use before April 1st per company policy, this trip never would have happened. I wasn’t exactly in the mood of going on vacation and the choices for destination took us a while to settle on. Some place warm, some place domestic. Florida? been there more than once. New Orleans? read somewhere that safety is now a concern. Police advises tourists to not fight purse snatchers. As soon as we read that it was off the list.

So Vegas it was.

Bellagio

It is a very nice hotel, for sure. The indoor botanical garden (and a butterfly house!) is always attracting tons of tourists, whether they stay at the hotel or not, to take pictures. The famous, signature music fountains in front of the building definitely gives it something that distinguishes from other hotels. We have over the course of our 5 day stays watched the performances at least 4 times, each with a different song.

(pictures taken in the botanical garden)

“O”

Last time we were in Vegas we watched Mystere by Cirque du Soleil, because we couldn’t get any tickets for “O”. So we booked the tickets in advance this time. The show was pretty good. My expectation going in might be a bit too high though, I ended up a little unsatisfied. But the opening was really spectacular and impressive.

The Buffets

We went to the one at Bellagio and the one at Paris. Both were among the best in town. Both had huge lines. You won’t go wrong with either one. The smoked salmon and mushroom salad at Bellagio were so tasty, so were lots of other things in both places.

The Chocolate Fountain

Inside Jean Philipe, a French pastry shop located in Bellagio hotel, there was this “world’s tallest and largest volume chocolate fountain”. The photos were taken using our cellphone camera so the quality was not very good, but you should be able to read the print (click to enlarge) that described this very interesting (and delicious) design.

Coca Cola Tasting

Another thing interesting we discovered was a Coca Cola store near MGM Grand. They sell a $7 tasting set where you get 16 glasses of Coca Cola soda, each a different flavor. The flavors are actual products Coca Cola sells across the world, in 16 different countries. So we paid our 7 bucks and got these two trays of colorful drinks, along with a list of what each drink was and where it’s from.

That was a real fun way of wasting some time in a nice, sunny day.

(As for the tastes, most of them were just so so, a couple were quite bad, a few, including one called “Smart Apple”, were really good.)

Gambling

As usual I didn’t win money gambling. I never do at casinos, no matter what I do. Playing live poker games with a table of strangers for the first time was not an enjoyable experience to me. I had trouble keeping track of the pot size (which is important for calculating pot odds when you are facing or making any bets) and got easily distracted by all sorts of things going on at the table and the surroundings, people chattering, overhead announcers etc. The speed of action was faster than I thought too. It was overall kind of chaotic, and very, very different from playing online, where concentration was not an issue.

But that’s not even the biggest problem. Players in a casino are in general much worse than those online, maybe because they are mostly tourists rather than poker fans (you have to be into poker a little bit to seek out an online poker site like PokerStars to sign up account and play there). Some of their plays were so inexplicable it made any assumption you made (and any conclusion you drew) basically useless (and sometimes totally wrong). Common “poker sense” didn’t seem to exist there. It was quite frustrating and turned out to be costly too.

I did have a better time playing at one of the daily poker tournaments at Caesars Palace. I made the final two tables but busted out after making a mistake on one of the hands preflop, because I wasn’t patient enough. But overall I enjoyed the experience. It was my first ever live tournament in my 3 short months of playing poker.

At Bally’s we walked past a standalone, super-sized slot machine (picture above). We put in some bills and instead of pushing the button, took turns pulling on the huge handle on the side to roll it, so it felt more like real gambling. It was fun (and silly :-)).

This might be old, but when I first heard about it a few weeks ago, it got a good chuckle out of me.

Question #1: How do you put a giraffe into a fridge?

I will let you think about this for a second before I post the answer. It’d be in your best interest to think for yourself before scrolling down to see the answer, as it will leave a stronger impression when you do see it. :)

Now think.

<…>

<…>

Ok, the correct answer is:

Open the door, put the giraffe in, and close the door.

Question #2: How do you put a hippo into the fridge?

Again think about this. If your answer is "open the door, put the hippo in, and close the door", you have learned something, however, that is not the correct answer.

<…>

<…>

The correct answer is:

Open the door, take the giraffe out, put the hippo in, and close the door.

Question #3: Lion King summoned an all-animal conference. Who’s missing?

<…>

<…>

The correct answer is:

of course, the hippo, because he’s in the fridge.

Here is a random collection of what I have done (that’s worthy of note) in the first two months of 2008, in random order:

• Saw “Persepolis“. Very artsy movie. Didn’t beat Ratatouille for best animation oscar, but equally good, in totally different ways.
• Saw “Juno“. It will touch you, in one way or another.
• Discovered in Windows Live Writer the very convenient “block quote” toolbar button which automatically formats the quoted text for you (I always do it manually by myself!)
• Managed to post twice in the month of February.
• Bought three poker books.
• Finished one. Dan Harrington is a great poker author.
• Signed up an account at PokerStars.
• Finished in 9th place in my first ever online poker tournament. (For those who don’t know, it was a very short, single table tournament that lasted less than 1 hour. There were 9 players in total.)
• Finished in 6th place twice in my subsequent two tournaments.
• Finished in 1st place in my 4th try.
• Got tagged for a meme for the first time.
• Saw a total lunar eclipse.
• Bought 3 habitat backgrounds, a bunch of accessories and items to decorate my Haikoo Zoo pet profile, all for free!
• Found out Scrabulous is addictive.
• Discovered a very nice, local Moroccan restaurant.
• Someone told me a joke that I thought was very funny. When I told it at our team dinner, nobody laughed.
• A building collapsed and caused huge delays at Metro North, resulting a 2 hour trip home that night.
• Hosted two parties for the Chinese New Year.
• Worked on Chinese New Year’s Day.
• Watched the Oscars (which I do annually). Thought Jon Stewart did a better job this time around. Also thought this year’s Best Foreign Film category was a joke because neither “Diving Bell” nor “Lust Caution” was nominated.
• Had a really bad day on 1/30.
• Was very moody for several days in a row.
• Slept a lot overall.
• Ate less.
• Booked Vegas trip.
• Booked “O”, the famous Cirque du Soleil residence show at Bellagio.
• Finished this post.