I rented Stardust today on my way home.  I've wanted to see it since before it was out in theatres; was a little wary due to sketchy commercials featuring Michelle Pfeiffer and Robert DeNiro - two of the biggest names in the film, but after seeing the film, actually my least favourite performances in an otherwise wonderful film.  Anyway, I didn't get to see it when it was out in theatres and it just happened to be a new release in the DVD rental store, so I brought it home to watch.

I'll be wanting to buy a copy of the dvd when I can!

Here's my review:

Truly
a fairytale for grownups (especially the sexual humour and violence), Neil Gaiman's latest masterwork will bring out the child in any grown-up who still remembers fairytales with fondness.  Having only just watched it, I can say that it has instantly become one of my favourite films. Heartwarming, charming, and witty
throughout, Stardust is enough to warm the heart of anyone with a glimmer of
the romantic in them. Combine this with compelling performances by
Charlie Cox and Claire Danes, a rousing and adventurous musical score by
Ilan Eshkeri, beautiful production designs, sharp and quick pacing
throughout much of the film, endless tongue-in-cheek jokes, rapier
wit, excellent dialogue (that doesn't venture too far into the cheesy
as it could so easily have), a delightful story by master writer (and
producer) Neil Gaiman (who wrote the original novel), amusing and
entertaining characters (oh the ghosts!), plus everything you could want in a fairytale
and you have some of the best 2hrs 8mins you've spent in quite a while.
Stardust also has one of the most creative climactic and original concepts for a swordfighting sequence that I have ever seen.  It's one of those rare movies where I found myself smiling almost the
entire way through, and I definitely didn't realise until I looked at
the running time here that it was over 2hrs long. The only things that
detracted from the film, personally, were two of the biggest-name
actors in the flick: Robert DeNiro and Michelle Pfeiffer. While Robert
DeNiro's performance was entertaining enough thanks to the colourful
character's writing, he didn't even attempt a British accent (or even a
Pirate one) and an American accent in a fairytale about Princes and
Witches always stands out like a sore thumb to me. I can't say much
better of Michelle Pfeiffer's attempt at an accent (slipping in and out
of her accent), I must say she was a far more menacing witch in The
Witches of Eastwick than in this film. Oh well, still one of the best
films I've seen in the last year.  A good, long-lasting effect feel-good movie.

-Four and a half lightning bolts out of five!

Oh, and my mini-review for my favourite movie (alongside The Matrix), Contact:

My favourite movie - it embodies that sense of wonder one feels gazing
upon the stars above and always makes me wish I'd gone into astronomy.
At the same time, it mixes in a healthy dose of intellectual reflection
on some of the most fundamental deb...(read more)ates of human existence.
-Five lightning bolts out of five!

[This post is a work in progress.]

People who have talked to me recently might have noticed how much I detest righteous indignation no matter the source.  Righteous indignation does not help problems or solve them, but its primary purpose is to make the source of its wrath satisfied at how much 'better' they are than others.  Those who know me also know that doing the right thing and striving to be a good person is at the very core of who I am.

I'd like to speak out briefly about three outlets of righteous indignation as relates to parrot ownership - or rather those who oppose parrot ownership.  At the risk of sounding righteously indignant myself, people who maintain these three positions assert them in a smug superiority that they are 'arguing for the welfare and rights of animals', that they are 'leading the charge' for the animal equality, and other equally vague umbrella causes.  Unfortunately for the animals, most people who lead these charges can or will not (unwilling by choice, intellectual inability, laziness) distinguish the implications and details of different cases and situations and conflate all cases of keeping animals with those that are clearly cruel and unethical.  Extremists exist in all societies and disputes, but even simple close-mindedness can - in this situation - lead to the suffering and even harm of the very animals people claim to be protecting.

(1) The first of the positions, specifically, is the proposal of bans on parrot ownership that either include or leave open the possibility of the confiscation and destruction of currently-owned parrots. 
(2) The second position is the charge that all parrot owners support or buy from smuggled, wild-caught, imported parrots. 
(3) The third position is the proposal of categorical bans on private or public keeping of animals.

I will not speak to any other issues than the specific ones above; my intention is merely to argue specifically against each of these positions and not any other positions on animal ownership or welfare.  I will argue that the first is utterly contrary to the principle of humane treatment of sentient beings (upon which the presupposition that animals are sentient the entire animal rights movement is based), that - especially for parrots shown to have intelligence comparable with young children - the forced confiscation and destruction of said animals can be tantamount to the state-sponsored incarceration of young children from their parents and is comparable with murder of young children.  My argument against the second position is that its assertion is false, and that the majority of good parrot owners - at least in North America - are fundamentally opposed to the inhumane treatment of parrots involved in smuggling.  I may or may not argue the further position that the treatment of parrots involved in smuggling is tantamount to what supporters of the confiscation/destruction of parrots propose.  My argument against the third position will proceed that categorical bans of this type most importantly rule out programs that are beneficial to the welfare of animals, such as breeding and conservation programs aimed at bolstering populations of endangered species, programs aimed at education that keep animals under humane conditions with the animals' interests in mind, and knowledgeable private owners (of some species - few people, for example, have proper resources to safely and humanely keep cougars or lions, or cetaceans for whom their extreme intelligence further obviates against their private captivity) who meet the animals' needs to extent enough to maintain their satisfaction and happiness.  Furthermore, such categorical bans are often proposed in sweeping groupings of varying extents that ignore the differential needs of specific species; these include categorical bans against the keeping of all animals (including domesticated ones), categorical bans against all 'exotic' animals, or specific species.  These bans also typically assert some vague moral principle as justification, regardless of the variability of specific cases, causes, and situations in order to ignore the alternate proposal of the varying extents possible with regulation or oversight.

...  to be continued.

Great amusement:

Haha... go see more from the Worth1000 Photoshop-Celebreties-into-Star Wars contest here:
http://www.worth1000.com/contest.asp?contest_id=17338&display=photoshop

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/worldnews.html?in_article_id=495538&in_page_id=1811

You really have to see these pictures. Some eccentric from the late 70's who claimed he saw visions of a temple in a previous life, got a group of followers, went to the Alps, and built this amazing underground temple without permission of the government there (they later got permission retroactively after the government there demanded to be let in, were flabberghasted, and claimed ownership of the creation).

Crazy...

Woo... nevermind the white kid, and the fact that it's in English. It's a good way of introducing north american audiences better to Chinese culture if all the Chinese elements are done properly, and not in that tacky Hallmark-Movie-Of-The-Week way.

http://www.scifi.com/sfw/news/
http://www.jamesmarsters.com/qanda.shtml

[edit: 24 Jan 2008, 4:06pm]---

Ok, so the buzz is that the film will be called Dragonball, and that Goku will be played by a caucasian canadian??  Justin Chatwin, who will play Goku, was previously seen as Tom Cruise's son in War of the Worlds.   *Sooo* weeeiiiird...  Huge wtf moment.  Furthermore, Emmy Rossum (Christine from the film adaptation of The Phantom of the Opera) will play Bulma.  It is set to be produced by Stephen Chow (Shaolin Soccer) and directed by James Wong (The X-Files, Space: Above and Beyond).

I mean the source material's pretty cheesy, but this is starting to sound like another travesty-in-the-making like the Super Mario Bros. movie and the Street Fighter live action movie...

Scuttlebut from its source @ Variety:
http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117975946.html?categoryid=1236&cs=1
http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117977810.html?categoryid=13&cs=1&nid=2608

Actually, I don't know how much you can trust this additional source, but for those who can read Spanish (I can't, but it's close enough to english/french that I can just make out what they're saying):
http://blogs.hoycinema.com/movieland/post/2007/12/15/aexclusiva-primeras-imagenes-dragon-ball-y-set-se

It sounds like they're indeed doing to Dragonball what they did to Super Mario and Street Fighter:  Rewriting the whole premise and idea of it all!  What?  Goku in highschool?  Having an accident?  City of the Future?!

*sigh*.  It's that sad.

Fucking Disgusting!

a world that has such amoebic leeches in it.

Still makes me mad whenever I see that trail of slime.

I was added on one of my personal networking sites by some spam under
the name "Mona", which had the odd consequence of jogging some formerly
lost bit of memory that I can't quite retrieve.  I seem to remember once
having a friend or acquaintance by the name of Mona, a somewhat lanky
average-height Chinese girl with long hair (slightly curly), but I have
absolutely no idea from where or whence I knew this person.  I have a
feeling it was sometime during undergrad, might possibly have been from
kung fu, perhaps from rez - I don't think from science world but I could
be wrong, and I'm pretty sure not from grad school.

hmm...

[edit:  12:48am, I just remembered.  Mona, the fencing girl, Shuyi's
friend, from the last year of undergrad.  Surprising how these little
details slip with time.  I wonder whatever happened to her.]

--

Anyway, as for me, still a little sick.  Got an intermittant cough now. 
Sucks to be sick over the new year, but oh well.  Spent the last two days sleeping to try to recover, but this
lingering cold is being recalcitrant about giving me up.  grr.  Oh
well. 
Doesn't take from the
fact that it's so cool to have gotten a Wii for xmas!  Went boxing day
shopping and got a second controller with the future shop gift card from
Karen and Zhongxi, then got Super Mario Galaxy and Resident Evil
Umbrella Chronicles to add to the Wii Sports that came with the bundle. 
Spent an hour yesterday on a whim and made a Ichigo Mii (actually, I'm
quite proud of the results, even without having a proper orange for the
hair), followed by a Rukia Mii, and a Neo Mii - posted them on the "Check-Mii-Out" Wii
channel in case anyone wanted to see them since I'd just also set up the
wireless for the Wii.

Happy New Year All!

After the tumult of the first half of December, I tried to make the best of the rest of December.  To my disdain, it didn't get much better, but there were some notable moments in there.

Wed, December 12th - Got my new suit.

Thu, December 13th - the Science World Xmas Staff Party.  Had work that
Sat/Sun the 15/16th, but I got the 16th off work so I could attend
Patti's Christmas Music jam session over at her parents' house Norm and
her friends, and thereafter go rock climbing with her & Quinton and
their friends in the evening.  Gave Patti & Quinton, Lucy, Norman and Hailey their presents (Monty Python killer rabbit plush, USB Snowbot with Cylon eye, bumper sticker; Red Konoha headband; Knight of Ni bobbing head; Black Knight bobbing head, respectively).  Patti found me this super-cool 3D notepad for her present.  Left Michelle's Secret Santa gift (the
uberkool Finger Drums) on her desk after work on the 15th.

Sat, December 22nd - baking party at Shari's.  Baked gingerbread cookies
again with Shari, Camille, her friends Matt and Billy and Rose.  Watched
the Patrick Stewart "A Christmas Carol" from 2006 (I think) that I'd
rented.  Exchanged Xmas presents with them  (I got Camille and Shari personalized soap bars from Lush - orange swirly performery one for Camille, and a gold glitter bar for Shari - had a good laugh at that on the phone today (Jan 2nd) about that... plus a "Meh" tshirt and a notebook for Camille, and a gift card to Chapters for Shari). Got home at around 11:30pm or so, watched Underdog that I'd
also rented and had to return the next day.  Had work the following
morning (Sun).

Went home to parents' on the 24th, Karen and Zhongxi too.  We had dinner
at that place on Renfrew and Grandview first.  25th, we all went out for
dim sum at the new Canto food place on the corner of Victoria and 41st
with the green traditional tile awning that was once the Shanghai food
place where I was first introduced to my love of shanghai wuo-teep pot
stickers and zha zheng mien noodles.  We went to Karen and Zhongxi's
house for turkey dinner and I got to test out my new chocolate fountain
that I bought from my trip to the states.  Mmmm...  yum.  Karen
programmed the whole family into the Wii so we could play Wii Sports (I
did my own Mii) so I could break out the brand-new Wii.  Zhongxi figured
out this technique of playing Wii bowling so that you can fire the
bowling ball from your hand at super-speed and get almost 100%
accuracy.  We got to meet Karen's new lovebird too that she recently
adopted to keep Sing company after Dewy passed.

Got back to the apartment at almost midnight on Boxing Day (Wednesday)
and had to quickly unpack everything (kept me up really late) and get up
early the next morning to meet parents and Charlie and his mother at the
Club, which included dinner at that chinese place (Victoria?) at the top
of Burrard, Downtown.  Dad dropped me off at Jordan's farewell party at
the Keg downtown on Hornby after and then I bussed home and had the
annoying experience of transiting mentioned in my previous post.  I
think that headache was the start of my cold - didn't help that after
the early mornings of the previous xmas week plus having to wake up
early to open Friday through Sunday... save for switching my shift with
Anna on Sunday so that I could come in at 12:45.  The extra few hours of
sleep were very welcome.  I will leave out elaborating on the
atrociously horrible Saturday.  Had to work on Monday, New Year's Eve
too from 10:45-5:30, which left me tired and still somewhat under the
weather, but at least looking forward to Denise & Mark's New Years party. 

The party was fun - I bought Denise and Mark one of those long holiday
candy tubes I've been eying for a while, got to play Guitar Hero for the
first time thanks to Wilson's Wii, saw Linda and Simon, learned some
beginner's Gai Wu mahjong thanks to Mark and Simon, played Wii Sports
with Denise, Linda, Simon, and Mark's friend.  We all watched the
countdown on tv in Seattle after mahjong - actually we were distracted
at the countdown and missed the moment, but we did a retroactive
countdown, which was amusing.  I commented on how very sad it was that
Vancouver rarely has any festivities of that sort.  Mark's friends &
Wilson played poker for a while, I only dealt since my head was somewhat
foggy from the long work day and I hadn't played poker since Jenn and
Steve's party a while ago.  Linda, Simon, Denise, and I slipped out
halfway through the game to playWii Sports (we played tennis and bowling
until Simon and Linda had to leave) in the other room, which was
especially fun since they had that Wii in the other room connected to a
projector.  After Linda and Simon left, we tried to figure out with the
Mark's friend (Mansten?  The name sticks out b/c it makes me think of a
butler, lol.) how to get my Mario Galaxy to work on his Wii, since it
was a Wii from HK that just didn't want to run Mario.  Sadly, we were
unsuccessful.  It was an enjoyable way to spend New Year's Eve, better
than my usual fare, though it would have been better if I weren't in a
daze from the long work hours and the lingering cold.  Oh well.

Got home around 3:30am.

Is Translink hiring more assholes to staff their positions these days or are people just bigger assholes when it snows in Vancouver?  Here I am skytraining it home in the evening from downtown, usually a very enjoyable and pleasant experience.  I've almost never had any problems.  I've got a little bit of a headache that's been growing since halfway through Jordan's farewell dinner.  It gets steadily more snowy as I head east.  I get off at Production to take the transfer up to SFU, and I flick up the collar of my coat and adjust my black scarf to keep me as warm as possible.  I need to  take a leak, and so I go in to see if I can find a washroom at the mini-mart there (which I remember having used before).  Walking up to the counter, an older Middle Eastern gentleman is manning the stand, doing what looks like paperwork.  I walk up to him and say "Excuse me."  He ignores me.  I say "Excuse me" again and ask if they have a washroom, and he looks up briefly just enough to mumble no and shake his head before returning straight to his pen and piece of paper. 

I'm somewhat perplexed, but begrudgingly I head out to the bus stop and accept that I'll have to wait till I get home.  I reach the bus stop.  There are two people there.  We wait for about ten minutes in the freezing cold and just sheltered from the snow until one of the two, a man, goes up and checks the next bus arrival time, and he motions to his partner to go inside and says the next bus won't come until 11:00pm - about 15 more minutes.

I'm somewhat irritated and I head back to the minimart, thinking that perhaps I can find a washroom somewhere in the complex.  There are no other shops or stands other than the mini-mart because all the vendors (the Subway and the other small food bars) are located in the mart and are closed.  I go back inside out of the cold and walk around to where I remembered there was a washroom.  I walk to the hallway and see that there is indeed a washroom with a sign that says "see cashier for key".  I am miffed because there clearly is a washroom and the man behind the counter flat out lied to me.  I do not know why he is an asshole tonight.  I have a headache and do not feel like making a scene, so I wait -annoyed- until it's time to take the bus.

At just before 11, I go out to the bus stop with the other waiting passengers and wait for another five minutes until the bus finally comes.  I stand at the middle 'Fare Paid' entrance since I have my valid UPass on me, as with two other people.  The door opens and I patiently wait for the people inside to exit, but when I step up to the door the bus driver slams the middle door shut almost trapping my arm in the doorway!  I even have my UPass in hand, as I walk up to the front entrance with the other two people and show it to the driver as I enter.  The bus driver, a tall bald middle-aged white guy with a brown beard barely acknowledges that I have it in my hand.  I'm appalled but I still have a pounding headache, I still need to go to the washroom, and I really don't have the energy to confront him.  All through the bus ride, I think, "I really ought to go up to him as I'm leaving and tell him 'Am I NOT supposed to enter through the middle Fare Paid entrance as indicated at the bus stop when I have a VALID Upass?  You almost took out my arm in the doorway as I was trying to get in.' "  All the while, my arm is a little sore, and I tell myself I will certainly write a complaint letter if it bruises.  Asshole.

In any case, my headache and everything makes me ignore the rude behaviour of the Translink employees until I can get back home, as I still have a seven minute walk through the continuous snow and freezing cold back to my apartment once we reach the top.  Utterly appalling!

Spent the entire day out today - Patti organised a little get-together of a few former musicians who no longer play regularly (including former spyo-ites: her sister Lucy on violin, Norman on
trumpet, and me on 6-string electric violin; and her friends Zaida
(sp?) on clarinette/guitar and Gloria? on chinese pipa... and Patti on
flute/piccolo) to jam and play some xmas carols for which she'd gotten the sheet music.  It was over at Patti's parents'/Lucy's/Alex's house; everyone was rusty, but it was very fun - especially having a pipa in the mix!

After that, we stopped for donuts and I joined Patti, Quinton, and their friends Zaida and Adam to go indoor rock(wall)-climbing at this place near Ikea in coquitlam.  My first time - other than a few attempts in my early childhood attending SFU Mini-U.  I tried two 5.5's and then took a stab at one or two 5.8's and the rope ladder, and watched as Patti, Quinton, and Adam tackled the 5.10+ and 5.12's.  I'm happy to say I made it up all of them, but now my forearms are wicked sore (and probably will be so for a few days, yay).  I may go with them again next time I have a Sunday off work.  I think I got home around 10:50 or so, after we hung out and ate at the Tim Horton's nearby with Quinton and Patti's friends.

Thanks guys, it was fun!