I've been binging movies in Arizona this past couple of weeks. The weather there was warm, and didn't even feel like winter. The rain there sure gets dirty.
After double-checking that the blizzard warning passed and the chain controls were lifted, I spent one Saturday in Reno, NV. I drove in, screened one movie, and then drove back to California that same day. The I-80 highway must've had quite the snowfall, as I could see tall walls of snow along the shoulders where the snow blower vehicles had passed through. One of the rest areas looked completely snowed in. All in all, I enjoyed the snowy scenic drive into Nevada a lot more than the dusty nighttime drive out of it (I made a mental note never to do that again).
The Royal Rumble is the only WWE show left that I still watch every year, and I feel like it never disappoints (except maybe those two that the live audience ruined). Despite that clever swerve ending to the Men's Royal Rumble Match (which may or may not have placated a live audience), I have to say I enjoyed the Women's Royal Rumble Match more. I love it when two hungry, evenly matched entrants fight each other with every fiber of their being for that WrestleMania title shot (I still remember marking out in the live audience during the 2007 Royal Rumble Match when the final two came down to The Undertaker vs. Shawn Michaels). I feel like the live audience would've gone bananas when the final three women became that final two.
Dude, I'm the exact same age as that actor Dustin Diamond who died a mere three weeks after being diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer. I can believe it, as my mom died less than five months after her stage IIIB lung cancer diagnosis.
During an extended Super Bowl LV weekend at my usual hotel in Santa Maria, the Santa Maria Valley Chamber actually paid me $100 in stimulus money just for booking a two-night minimum hotel stay in Santa Maria Valley between 2/4/2021 and 3/31/2021. I heard about the stimulus promotion on the radio. Since I was already planning to visit Santa Maria anyway, I anxiously submitted my qualifying form online (the offer was limited to the first 500 registrations). Then once I checked into my hotel, the front desk gave me tourist information and a Visa gift card for $100. I was encouraged to spend the stimulus locally, so I splurged it all on Santa Maria's finest, most expensive restaurants: The Swiss Steakhouse, Shaw's Steakhouse, and someplace called The Garden Mediterranean Restaurant (I liked their beef shawarma). Did I feel guilty spending the stimulus money even though for the past two decades, I've more or less visited Santa Maria at least once a month? Nope. The way I see it, the stimulus was my reward for the lifetime I spent pumping dollars into Santa Maria's economy. :)
Ageless wonder Tom Brady won his 7th Super Bowl ring in an underwhelming one-sided massacre. Funny how packed the stadium looked with all those cardboard cutouts in the seats.
Alas, I wasn't able to use my AMC Stubs A-List at all in January. But I'm going to make up for it in February during my biggest movie marathon outside of California yet.
To give you a sense of how laughable it is that I have to quarantine in Santa Clara County for 10 days whenever I return from somewhere that's over 150 miles away...I can't remember the last time since 1Q 2020 that I even stayed put in Santa Clara county for 10 days. It's torturously boring for me to work from home, sitting there at my card table looking at the same four walls. Though it looks like I won't be visiting Reno anytime soon--I see snow in the city's weather forecast. No way I'm buying tire chains and/or scraping windshields.
I tabulated the music video results for 2020. "Cross Me" topped both the songs and videos.
While waiting for a food order, I looked up at a TV and beamed with pride at the sight of Dr. Anthony Fauci answering questions in the White House briefing room. Now that newly inaugurated President Biden has taken Fauci off the sidelines and on day one, rolled out a national COVID-19 strategy that actually takes this pandemic seriously--the Biden administration has already exceeded my low expectations.
Lately, I feel like Twitch streamers have been ruining "Among Us" by playing the video game much less seriously. My misgivings first began during a round where players started getting drunk, and somebody got voted out just for mocking "Sailor Moon". Then in a later round, crewmates literally paid an imposter to kill for them. Nowadays, I see crewmates covering for imposters all the time--even voting for innocent crewmates just to be funny.
More upcoming movies got postponed to later in the year. But curiously, the Monsterverse film "Godzilla vs. Kong" is now releasing this March. The new trailer got me hyped. I heard this fight is going to have a definitive winner, so I predict Godzilla will win because that's the more marketable monster to build a franchise around IMHO. But I feel like in real-life, Kong would tear that tiny-armed slowpoke limb from limb. P.S. I really dislike this Kong clip, even more than the clip of the giant Dune sandworm looking down at Paul Atreides. What is this, E.T.?
I was surprised to learn that the Tampa Bay Buccaneers will be the first NFL team ever to play a Super Bowl inside their own home stadium. It'll be the greatest football player in NFL history, Tom Brady, versus the future of the NFL, Patrick Mahomes. And with COVID-19 restrictions limiting the stadium capacity to 22,000 fans (7500 of them vaccinated health care workers), I can't imagine how much these tickets will sell for on the scalping markets.
Speaking of that Super Bowl stadium in Tampa Bay, this year's two-night WrestleMania will now be taking place there with fans in attendance. I just hope Daniel Bryan doesn't win this upcoming empty arena Royal Rumble Match. He's a crowd favorite who deserves to win it in an arena with live, energized fans. I say book something bonkers that live fans would absolutely hate--like book The Fiend as a surprise entrant who shoots fire, and eliminates everybody else with movie magic. Or book some part-timer like Goldberg or The Rock to win. Heck, make it a full-blown cinematic spectacle and book Hulk Hogan as a threat to win.
I spent New Year's Eve alone in my hotel room watching the Times Square Ball drop. It was a dull affair.
Root beer isn't caffeinated. I confirmed this after my "caffeinated" answer during a round of "The Chameleon" social deduction board game led the players to gang up on me. Even though I had correctly sleuthed the imposter (who vaguely answered "refreshing" because they didn't know the secret word was "root beer"), nobody believed me. I also think my previous stint as imposter hurt my credibility, because of how well I stayed in character. I falsely accused innocent players, and faked pseudo-intellectual "Impressionist" nonsense about a painter whose name was hidden from me. (I found out later the secret painter was Georgia O'Keeffe.) Overall, I feel like it's hardest to deduce the imposter when they get to answer last, because often times the preceding answers give too much of the secret word away.
Sad scenes of rioters invading the US Capitol. Punctuation for the sad post-truth times we live in, where nothing is sacred. Though it's poetic justice that the politicians shamelessly exploiting "election fraud" conspiracy theories for the Trumpism votes probably depressed Republican turnout instead. (I thought it would be a forgone conclusion that the Republicans would win the Georgia runoffs and retain control of the U.S. Senate.) The dumbest disinformation I've heard yet: that Vice President Mike Pence could have just read aloud a different POTUS winner.
Also depressing how slow the COVID-19 vaccine rollout is going. I read that at this current pace, it would take the U.S. ten years to reach herd immunity. :(
I'm currently staying at the Nugget Casino Resort in Sparks, Nevada near Reno. I drove here just to screen an Oscar contender. I'll probably keep coming back here for new movies if California theaters stay shuttered and hotel room prices stay dirt cheap.
Best of 2020 | Worst of 2020 | |
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Events that happened to Steve |
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Movies |
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Songs |
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Music video | "Blinding Lights" The Weeknd | "Until I Bleed Out" The Weeknd |
TV series | "Survivor: Winners At War" | "The Eric Andre Show" |
Commercial | Cyberpunk 2077 commercial about a video game with "no limits". | Burger King commercial that time-lapses a moldy Whopper to show the "beauty" of no artificial preservatives. |
Movie trailer | "POSSESSOR" | "Swallow" |
Beverage | Gatorade Zero Lemon-Lime |
I triumphed again. I pulled the trigger and reactivated my AMC Stubs A-List membership on 12/18/2020. Turns out that my guess was correct: I indeed had 14 days left in the month my A-List membership was paused. So my new monthly billing date landed exactly on January 1, 2021. Granted, my local AMC theatres probably won't open for quite some time; but I'm willing to donate whatever monthly membership fee I lose as a consequence.
For this year's holiday movie marathon, I drove to Las Vegas and stayed at Treasure Island again. I figured what better place to spend my cancelled Christmas. So I spent my Christmas Day watching "Wonder Woman 1984", then holing up in my hotel room to eat my "Christmas dinner": a "Bobbie" from Capriotti's Sandwich Shop. It's a sandwich full of turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, and mayo.
For the rest of my holiday movie marathon, I drove to Phoenix, Arizona.
My local Bay Area counties jumped ahead of Gavin Newsom again, issuing stay-at-home orders even though our intensive care units haven't dropped below 15% available capacity yet. Meaning that in addition to the indoor dining and movie theaters that were already shut down, we'll have no outdoor dining and hair salons either until at least January 4. Sigh.
Also for the first time ever, Christmas with my family members is cancelled. So I'm going to use Christmas Day to get an early head start on my yearly holiday movie marathon...somewhere outside of California.
Warner Bros. confirmed it will release the Wonder Woman sequel in movie theaters (on Christmas Day in the U.S.) and on HBO Max simultaneously. Interestingly, Warner Bros. also announced that all of its films in 2021 (17 or so including Godzilla vs. Kong, The Suicide Squad, Dune, and The Matrix 4) will be released day-and-date in theaters and on HBO Max.
The Philips DVDR3576 DVD Recorder that I use for music videos can no longer dub DVDs without crashing. I purchased it in 2008 from circuitcity.com, so I guess that was a decent shelf life. It certainly outlived its five-year protection plan.
Lately, I've enjoyed watching Twitch streamers play the "Among Us" online multiplayer video game. It resembles the social deduction games "Mafia" and "Werewolf" in that space crewmates must vote off all of the imposters among them to win (or alternatively, complete all tasks on the map to win). The imposters can kill crewmates, sabotage systems (like the lights, the reactor, or oxygen), and jump across the map through air vents. If the crewmates no longer outnumber the imposters or fail to stop a critical sabotage, the imposters win. Crewmates and imposters can only call a vote by reporting a dead body or pressing the "emergency meeting" button on the map. To my amusement, the players spend these voting discussions throwing "sus" (suspicion) on each other, asserting their alibis and tasks, denying accusations, and trying not to sound guilty. I've seen some entertaining strategies like players tailing suspects, imposters "marinating" crewmates (hanging around them to earn their trust), crewmates voting off multiple suspects just to be safe, and "gaslighting" (imposters contradicting crewmates with boldfaced lies). Sometimes I've heard the players insult a crewmate as a "third imposter" if they mistakenly vouch for an imposter or wrongly accuse a crewmate. The most suspenseful games I've seen occur when the final five vote the suspected imposter off, only to realize that the game didn't end with a crewmate victory screen. Meaning, the final four still have one imposter among them. This scenario typically ends in another kill and then two players heatedly trying to convince the "swing vote" crewmate that they're innocent. I've also watched funny "proximity chat" mod games where players in the same vicinity can converse with one another, eavesdrop, or scream.
I found the "Supernatural" series finale...anticlimactic. Makes me wonder how much of it got scaled down due to COVID-19. The cynic in me did smirk at the consequence of removing God from the show's narrative: a world of meaningless random accidents and plain vanilla deaths. But to be honest, I was hoping for more of an "Avengers: Endgame" finale.
After basking in how perfectly I had timed my AMC Stubs A-List membership reactivation, it got paused again. This time I don't know when it happened--I can only assume it was the day most California theatres closed back down due to the "emergency brake" order. I have until 3/1/2021 to time the next manual reactivation, so my best guess is to do this 14 days before the last day of the month.
Today San Francisco and San Mateo counties rolled back into the purple tier, and my own Santa Clara County tightened COVID-19 restrictions even further. I didn't really mind the 10pm curfew on all of the purple counties, as nary anything is open that late anyway. But this new Santa Clara County directive that I must quarantine for 14 days if I return from somewhere that is more than 150 miles away? Laughable.
Just when my appetite got whet for this year's Oscar contenders, most of the movie theaters in California shut back down today because Governor Gavin Newsom hit the "emergency brake". Now after all of the new rollbacks, 41 of California's 58 counties are in the purple tier.
I might have to resubscribe to Netflix earlier than expected. They're poised to dominate the 93rd Academy Awards now that streaming and VOD service films may qualify for Best Picture (and other categories) without a seven-day run in a Los Angeles-area theater. And I might need to buy Disney+ just so I can watch Pixar's "Soul", due out on Christmas day. So this year, my holiday movie marathon tradition might have to go virtual.
When I think of American democracy, I always think of that profound scene from "Clear and Present Danger" where James Earl Jones tells Harrison Ford that the highest boss in the land isn't the President of the United States...it's the People of the United States. And after four years, the People of the United States just fired Donald J. Trump. It was a fairly close race too. Had he not inexplicably downplayed COVID-19 (even after he himself contracted a serious case of it), he probably could've won.
What a torturously slow ballot count with Trump sprinting to a huge lead on Election Day like the proverbial hare, and Biden crawling to the finish line one mail-in vote at a time like the proverbial tortoise. How dumb that Pennsylvania couldn't just count the mail-in vote before Election Day so we wouldn't have to wait all week. I also couldn't reconcile why Fox News, of all networks, called Arizona for Biden so early in the contest.
To my relief, Biden is expected to win 306 electoral votes instead of just 270 on the nose, as now the result is completely cushioned against recounts, bottomless litigation, faithless electors, and other threats to the legitimacy of the Election. I still remember the contested Election of 2000, and never want to see anything like that again in my lifetime. I also must confess that I'm relieved the Democrats have no Senate majority to entertain that dangerous slippery slope notion of abolishing the filibuster and/or packing the Supreme Court.
The polls were way off on Wisconsin and Michigan (averaging both of them at 8 points ahead for Biden), and Ohio and Iowa (they were nowhere close to being toss-ups). But they did accurately predict that Arizona and Georgia would narrowly flip from red to blue. So I guess even a stopped clock is right two times a day.
A good year in sports for Los Angeles. Congratulations to the Dodgers (and Clayton Kershaw) for finally winning the World Series after losing it twice in the previous three years. I found Game 6 suspenseful after I had seen that Game 4 clip where the Dodgers were just one strike away from winning the game, when outta nowhere they blew it with a comedy of errors. Too bad Justin Turner tested positive for COVID-19 and had to miss the Dodgers' celebration (though I found out he came out later). I was also curious why the stadium fans kept booing the MLB commissioner.
My local theatres finally reopened at the end of October, requiring that masks be worn at all times with no food or beverage permitted (and patrons must answer a COVID-19 questionnaire). I keep my mask on and avoid concessions the entire time anyway; it just bothers me that my local theatres could go out of business while indoor dining and theatres in neighboring counties were inexplicably allowed to reopen with looser restrictions.
I also screened a movie in PRIME at AMC for the first time. It seemed exactly the same as other large format auditoriums that feature tiers of recliners.
I'm sure glad California makes it so easy to vote by mail. Election Day's gonna suck for the voters waiting hours in line during this latest COVID-19 resurgence. I'm now of the thought that without a vaccine, states can't ever hope to subdue COVID-19 until after they've had at least one major outbreak to make enough people immune. Meaning, all states can hope to do is flatten the inevitable curve and minimize deaths.
Michael C. Hall is returning to Showtime for a 10-episode limited series of "Dexter". It'll have the original showrunner from the first four seasons. I'm still bitter about the series finale, so I can't say I'm very interested in a revival. But come fall of 2021, I doubt I could resist reordering Showtime for that season premiere. (Same would probably go for "Twin Peaks" if that ever came back, despite my constant gripes about that last season.) Incidentally, Netflix has a very similar Dexter-like series titled "You", about a stalker who narrates his romance with the woman he secretly stalked, and stops at nothing to live happily ever after with her. From the scenes I watched on demand and on YouTube, the series intrigued me.
My calculations were correct. Once I reactivated my AMC Stubs A-List membership on October 17, AMC pushed back my billing date to compensate for the 15 days I lost from their membership pause. Per my prediction, this new monthly billing date indeed landed on November 1, 2020. You might be wondering why I reactivated my membership so early given that my local AMC theatres STILL have not reopened (due to county concession bans) and most of the big movies have been postponed to April 2021 and later. Well, if I had miscalcuated the billing date and canceled my membership to fix this, I read in the fine print that I'd have to wait 6 months to qualify for an A-List membership again.
Dude, have you ever seen such folly. Trump apparently learned nothing from the Rose Garden ceremony superspreader event that caused a major COVID-19 outbreak at the White House. He departed his own quarantine early, made a point to peel his face mask off on national TV despite being highly contagious, still downplays the virus despite all that expensive special treatment to save his life, and held an even bigger superspreader event at the White House! Plus who was that personal physician who kept spinning how "great!" Trump's health was, disclosing only the good results but refusing to reveal important ones, e.g., the lung scans and PCR test results. Given that Trump needed supplemental oxygen and an immunosuppressant steroid (a drug that masks symptoms and can cause mania), his lungs could've been damaged. Thankfully, the debate commission tried to hold the second presidential debate virtually. It could've been a fatal mistake trusting anything that Trump or his "doctors" claimed about his contagiousness.
As soon as the Esquire IMAX Theatre reopened in Sacramento, I screened its first showing of "Tenet" in IMAX 70mm there. The 70mm format didn't add that much other than the taller ceiling-to-floor scenic shots and action sequences. I noticed the horizontal black bars kept appearing on the top and bottom of the screen during the heavy dialogue scenes, and I think that's because the IMAX camera would have shuttered too loudly to hear them speak. In any case, this was my fourth viewing of the movie and I caught three new things: a) the young Sator found a time capsule with his name written on a letter atop inverted gold bars, b) Sator witnessed the algorithm piece fly backwards (not forwards) from the inverted Protagonist's backseat, meaning Sator and/or his henchmen would have to go forwards from this point in time to the freeport where this car was originally parked, and c) I could actually spot Neil's humvee driving both backwards and forwards in time during the final mission, starting from the backward shockwave to the forward shockwave. To my amusement, somebody returned from the restroom during my favorite part of the film and asked her friend what she missed...her friend attempted to explain that the Protagonist was fighting himself.
Although I'm still annoyed at the conceit of Roland Garros tournament officials to postpone the French Open to this colder, wetter time of year with fans in the stands (limited to 1000 fans per day) despite the COVID-19 pandemic still raging, big congratulations to Rafael Nadal on crushing Djokovic in that French Open final. Now that Nadal has won 13 total French Open titles and tied Federer's record of 20 Grand Slam singles championships, it's official: I have to start thinking of Nadal as the greatest tennis player of all-time.
Speaking of GOATs, now that LeBron James has led the Los Angeles Lakers to a 2019-20 NBA championship, I'm starting to think of LeBron as the greatest basketball player of all-time again. It's such a weird phenomenon how sports (and politics) can polarize human psyches. I supported his move to the Miami Heat to win his first NBA championship ring; then I hated his guts when he kept whining and flopping against the Golden State Warriors (and bragged about the ONE NBA Finals he beat them despite losing the other three); now I'm starting to like him again.
Next year, IBM is planning to split off its IT services business and roughly one-fourth of its employees to a new company, temporarily named NewCo. IBM will stay focused on hybrid cloud and AI, so fingers crossed that I don't get moved to the new company. Mostly because when somebody asks what I do for a living, I can just answer "IBM" with less risk of follow-up questions. Follow-up questions can lead to the listener getting bored and me getting offended. One time I had a relative rude enough to call my career "boring" after I took the time to explain it--as a result, I never talked to that relative ever again.
In the latest cautionary tale about what happens when people don't take COVID-19 seriously, Donald Trump and Melania tested positive for COVID-19. Which goes to show that COVID-19 gives no f**ks who you are, whether you're a homeless person or the President of the United States. I'm still dumbfounded, even though I really shouldn't be surprised after all the times I've seen him hold large public gatherings and inexplicably flout health precautions like masks and social distancing. I thought he got tested every day though--did he not get tested before that debate with Joe Biden???
I actually watched that debate after I told myself I'd just skip it (they don't seem to matter in the long-run). I have to say I was impressed with the moderator Chris Wallace despite widespread criticism that he totally lost control of the reins. He really did his homework and asked the hard-hitting questions, like whether Biden would pack the Supreme Court (which he unsurprisingly dodged) and whether Trump would condemn white supremacist groups (to which he answered, "Stand back and stand by."...WTF?!). Pretty clever debate technique for Biden to speak directly to the camera (possibly to avoid losing his train of thought from all the interruptions)--I read he had a severe childhood stutter, so I kept thinking back to that suspenseful scene in "The King's Speech".
My eyelid finally stopped twitching. It first acted up after RBG died. This last happened to me in college when I didn't get enough sleep. It might also be psychosomatic. Lately I've been stressing that a contested Presidential election could tear the United States apart, especially if courts or legislatures decide the winner rather than the voters themselves.
Recently, I've been staying in Orange County, California to screen new movies. Turns out I didn't have to go to Arizona after all.
R.I.P. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. And probably R.I.P. any hope of the Supreme Court staying apolitical now, whether enraged Democrats wind up "packing the court" or not. Like I said before, politics poisons everything it touches--even the CDC and the FDA. Trump promoting a "warp speed" COVID-19 vaccine by Election Day was all it took to scare me away from that.
My first litmus test of the new Supreme Court will start one week after Election Day with Trump's lawsuit to kill affordable health care. If the Supreme Court overreaches and strikes down the entire Affordable Care Act in the middle of a pandemic (just because of the repealed individual mandate tax penalty), I think the 60-vote supermajority filibuster will be toast the next time Democrats take over the Senate. It might already be on borrowed time now.
I go back and forth on whether to abolish the filibuster. I'd rather not have America's laws swing back and forth endlessly on majority rule. But I feel like we're on the cusp of this situation already.
In movie news, I'm definitely going to watch Denis Villeneuve's cinematic adaptation of "Dune", but something's bugging me about that scene in the trailer where the giant sandworm stops to look down at Paul Atreides. A sandworm has no eyes, so to me it feels illogical and unfaithful to a novel that I had found so intellectual.
To my irritation, my Bay Area counties keep snubbing movie theaters during the lower tier reopenings. I'm thinking of roaming southern California and possibly Arizona for the latest film releases.
I returned to San Jose to see that the California wildfire smoke had dusked the entire Bay Area orange like some kind of nuclear winter. So I might keep leaving town until the air clears up.
In shocking tennis news, Novak Djokovic was defaulted from his fourth-round match at the US Open "bubble" when he angrily swatted a ball into a line judge's throat by accident! You can't make this stuff up. I had actually been watching this match live, but then turned the TV off figuring Djokovic would most likely cakewalk through the round as well as the rest of the tournament. He was the overwhelming favorite with neither Federer nor Nadal in the draw. But you know what--I can't help thinking this was karma for his long history of on-court bullying, racket abuse, and ball abuse (plus his defiance against what he called a "witch hunt" over his COVID-19 spreading tennis event).
"The Walking Dead" will finally end in late 2022 after 7 season 10 episodes and 24 (!) season 11 episodes. But then, ugh--we'll get a new spin-off series starring Daryl and Carol, as well as a new anthology series of stand-alone episodes titled "Tales of the Walking Dead". :( Plus there's still those other two spin-offs I don't watch: "Fear the Walking Dead" and "The Walking Dead: World Beyond". I have Walking Dead fatigue, man.
I found my room at the Treasure Island Hotel & Casino fairly decent until I stood under the weak shower. That's a dealbreaker for me. I couldn't resist the bargain of $55.97 per night--but once they tacked on a lame mandatory resort fee of $44.22 per night, the nightly price ended up exceeding $100. At least the self-parking was free albeit all the way across a lengthy bridge. I didn't do much inside the casino itself, as most of the restaurants were closed and I don't gamble, smoke, or drink.
Currently I'm staying at the Candlewood Suites. They have an amazing 2-for-1 deal where every third night is free. But I hate my next-door neighbor. I can smell the cigarette smoke from his room, and can hear his loud swear words and racial slurs (sometimes in the middle of the night). Plus he has a stupid laugh. I expected him to check out by now, but it's like he lives there permanently and hardly ever leaves or sleeps.
Stoplights in Las Vegas also try my patience. They seem to take a long time to turn green. I've gotten used to the 100+ F degree desert weather though. It's funny how the birds here keep their beaks open like they're panting in the heat.
I still can't believe "Black Panther" star Chadwick Boseman died. I had no idea he had been battling colon cancer since 2016. I'm only a few days older than him.
At long last, I finally got to screen "Tenet". I had insomnia the night before, arrived to the theater early, and sat there alone in the IMAX auditorium waiting excitedly.
In regards to the "Rick and Morty" argument about whether "Inception" makes sense--"Inception" makes sense! You just have to premise that dreams don't need to make sense. They're not in some holodeck bound by immutable laws of physics and logic. Impossibilities like the Penrose steps can exist, and subjects in the dream can believe even contradictory fantasies (like why Fischer's father would be in Browning's secret vault). I will confess that I still don't understand what the heck "limbo" is. The movie described limbo as "unconstructed dream space" and "raw infinite subconscious". I keep picturing some kind of cloud storage space made up of human minds, where dreamers can visit each other's islands like in "Animal Crossing: New Horizons".
Two featurettes about "Tenet" and "Inception" preceded the movie screening. I like Christopher Nolan's philosophy of making his films look and feel as authentic as possible. I always considered that CGI-fest in the "Inception" workshop the weakest part of the movie. Rating: 10
Such a relief to breathe without my sinuses acting up. I hurriedly drove to Las Vegas ahead of schedule to escape the overpowering smoke from the California wildfires. It blanketed the Bay Area like tear gas, and I couldn't stop coughing and sneezing. I could even see some of the smoky haze as far out as my hotel in Las Vegas. Needless to say, I won't be back in California anytime soon--Labor Day weekend at the earliest.
I thought I would really enjoy my first movie inside a theater since COVID-19 shut theaters down, but that glaring loophole where patrons can stay unmasked while they're eating and drinking their concessions dampened my enthusiasm. I guess my paranoia is the new normal now, as I still got take-out here even though Las Vegas allows indoor dining. I'm also avoiding all of the casinos. I'll tell you one thing, though--I'm not going to let anything dampen my excitement for this upcoming "Tenet" sneak preview that I reserved a seat for.
Currently, I'm staying at the Holiday Inn across the street from Allegiant Stadium, that brand-new Darth Vader-looking home stadium for the Las Vegas Raiders. Tomorrow I move over to the Treasure Island - TI Hotel & Casino.
In "essential" WWE news, I guess I'd call that new WWE ThunderDome an improvement over fake fans in the WWE Performance Center. Now simulated crowd noise gets piped in, and real fans appear via individual web cams on monitors that span each stadium row.
Hmm...the sequel to "Train to Busan", which has currently been playing in Asian countries, is actually going to premiere at the Capitol Drive-In across the street from me this Friday on August 21. Too bad I've never liked drive-in theatres. I'm currently hatching a plan to screen this movie in Nevada, where it premieres on August 21 on the same date as the 10th-anniversary re-release of "Inception" (this re-release includes a bonus look at "Tenet").
Then coming out in select U.S. theaters on August 28: "The New Mutants" and "Bill & Ted Face the Music".
In streaming news, I never planned to watch the live-action "Mulan", so I shrugged off the news bombshell that it would stream directly on Disney+ on September 4. I also shrugged about "Antebellum" going direct to video on demand as well. But now it's starting to snowball, with "Run" (from the "Searching" filmmakers) now set to stream directly on Hulu, and "The Woman in the Window" now set to stream directly on Netflix.
To my excitement, AMC Theatres e-mailed me an update to my AMC Stubs A-List membership. I now have until 12/1/2020 to reactivate my paused membership before they automatically reactivate it for me. They're also trying to lure me back with double AMC Stubs points and $10 in bonus bucks--promotions that both end on 10/31/2020. Alas, with most new releases postponed to next year, it'll be futile trying to use up 3 movies a week in 2020. My current plan: just reactivate my membership on November 17, then cancel it (thus losing all my account history) if the credit card charge doesn't land exactly on December 1. :P Side note: Starting on 12/1/2020, they'll stop awarding AMC Stubs points for my monthly membership fees. I never understood why they did that anyway, and it was always a nuisance trying to use those rewards before they expired.
Now that Warner Bros. formally plans to release "Tenet" in international markets starting on August 26 of this year, I'll have to avoid spoilers as vigilantly as I can until it opens in select U.S. cities on September 3. Hopefully it'll play in a state that borders California, given how California will probably be the last state in all of America to reopen. I've pinpointed the Galaxy Legends as the closest IMAX theater to me--a drive of 4 hours and 20 minutes into Sparks, Nevada. But I'm willing to drive further out for an IMAX 70mm screening, as far as the Grand Canyon or Seattle even. Beyond that, I'd probably just resign myself to wait for something closer. I'm not open to flying or any kind of 14-day quarantine.
I took a break from streaming in July. I only saw one movie that whole entire month.
Now that some professional sports have restarted without fans, I've found NBA basketball pretty much unwatchable without that fan energy. I also hate the simulated crowd noise at those empty MLB baseball games. It did fascinate me listening to MLB sound engineers explain the science of it. They actually have to anticipate the plays and then try to pump out the right crowd reaction before it's too late. Personally, I would just reuse the same three reactions: the normal pop (for a hit), the heightened pop (for a home run), and the booing (for when the pitcher throws to first base). It would be hilarious to be able to play the "M-V-P" chant too.
WTF was that massive explosion in Beirut that injured thousands of people. The Lebanon state-run news blamed it on fireworks going off in a warehouse fire. What kind of fireworks cause a mushroom cloud?!
Depressing how bad COVID-19 has gotten in California despite our consistent quarantine measures since March. Too many irresponsible people, I reckon. I still see a lot of folks entering stores without masks, which goes to show why this has to be mandated rather than just encouraged.
Warner Bros. delayed "Tenet" indefinitely. Rumor has it that they might just give up on a simultaneous global release, and start opening the film wherever they can in select international markets and possibly select U.S. cities. The major movie theater chains subsequently delayed their reopenings as well, which sucks because I'm getting tired of streaming. So tired of streaming that recently, I've been web surfing the closest movie theaters outside of California's borders. :(
"The Walking Dead" will finally air its season 10 finale this year on October 4, as announced during the show's Comic-Con@Home panel. So I'll finally get to see the resolution to that cliffhanger. Though apparently this episode won't be the season 10 finale anymore, because it was also announced that the show will tack on six more "season 10" episodes in early 2021 due to the COVID-19 delays that are postponing season 11.
All movie theaters in California have been ordered to reclose--even though nary any of them were open anyway. Also, 30 counties on California's watch list were ordered to reclose their hair salons, gyms, indoor malls, and churches. Meanwhile, Disney World visitors, the NBA, the WNBA, the MLS, and "essential" WWE employees have all been congregating in Florida despite the state recently shattering the record for most new statewide COVID-19 infections in one day. Madness. I'm fed up with the inconsistent and arbitrary criteria for which businesses can reopen when (why do churches get to reopen before equally risky movie theaters?). We could have just locked down the entire United States for a couple of months; embracing quarantine, science, and face masks like much of the rest of the world did. Instead, over four months later, we're towering over the world in coronavirus cases and will probably continue to be plagued with this pandemic going into 2021. And people wonder why I'm a hardened cynic.
I'm still bitter about how close I was to getting my favorite hobby back, movie theaters. Although I should count my blessings, I feel this one pandemic could fill up my entire "worst of the year"/"worst of the decade" list with different woes. For instance, being denied movie theaters and new film releases; the shock from that last round of workplace layoffs; the permanent loss of beloved restaurants; and the torment of working from home in a brutal heat wave.
I tried a 7-day free trial of Sundance Now. Only streamed one movie on it.
Just when it looked like we would finally get movie theaters back, all of the major movie theater chains delayed their reopenings until end of July at the earliest. And given the latest COVID-19 resurgence and California's new restrictions on indoor businesses, I see the end of July as a longshot at best. :(
I cancelled my Hulu free trial. Now I'm looking at streaming services that offer 7-day free trials to fill up my July.
In the latest cautionary tale about what happens when people don't take COVID-19 seriously, that top-ranked tennis player whom I regularly root against, Novak Djokovic, recently organized an exhibition tennis tournament called the Adria Tour. It required neither masks nor social distancing for any of the players or thousands of spectators. Off the court, he and other players socialized, danced, and partied. Now Djokovic, his wife, his coach, his fitness coach, and at least three of the other players at the event tested positive for COVID-19. This is sure to spook the players and organizers of New York's US Open tennis tournament, recently green-lit to begin at the end of August without spectators (followed by the postponed French Open in September).
In another developing story, "essential business" WWE had a COVID-19 outbreak at the site where they tape their shows, the Orlando Performance Center in Florida. Pro-wrestling has been pathetically unwatchable nowadays anyway, with the WWE resorting to fake crowds of their performance recruits (absolutely killing my suspension of disbelief). I actually liked the empty seats better.
In demoralizing movie news, "Tenet" has been delayed again from July 31 to August 12. AMC theatres are finally supposed to begin reopening on July 15 under new "AMC Safe & Clean" policies, which includes a social distancing of seats and mandatory masks. I wonder how many people will reject this mask rule out of defiance against all of the medical professionals of the world. :(
My AMC Stubs A-List membership will stay paused until I go in and manually reactivate it (fine print: they plan to automatically reactivate any memberships that remain in a paused state on 10/1/2020). So despite saving an embarrassingly large sum of money on this membership already, I'm still strategizing the best way to milk its reactivation (do I have the willpower to abstain from enough movies until I can binge 3 of them a week?). One wrinkle: to credit me for the days in March that I missed out on due to the theatre closures, AMC is going to move back my monthly billing date by the number of credited days that were left in my billing cycle prior to the closures. So I need to pinpoint the exact day to reactivate my membership in order to keep getting billed on the first of the month (otherwise it's hard to tally how many free movies saved me money in each billing cycle). :P My theory is that if I reactivate mine on the 17th of the month (the day all AMC theaters shut down), they'll continue to bill me on the first of each month. But I don't have any data to go by. Another thing is, I don't want to reactivate if the movies are discounted to like $5. Then I'd have to see at least 5 movies a month to make up for the membership price. :P
Don't know whether this is canon, but Tony Shalhoub recently reprised his Adrian Monk character in a new short, "Mr. Monk Shelters in Place". Apparently, the coronavirus managed to make his neuroses even worse, from microwaving his mail to burning his clothes everyday to socially distancing six feet away...from the web conference. I've actually gotten worse too, to a much lesser extent. Like I don't like breathing other people's air anymore (even with a face mask on) and I still avoid kids. :)
At long last, I was able to get a haircut, dine inside a hotel restaurant, and walk through an indoor mall. Now that California can start reopening movie theaters, I'm finally seeing the light at the end of this long dark tunnel.
Curfew sucks. Screw the idiots who exploited legitimate George Floyd protests to loot struggling businesses.
While I'm at it, screw politics. Politicians lie for a living, and yet nowadays people seem to trust them more than ever. Even in this deadly global health crisis, I see people entrusting their lives to politicians rather than medical professionals. (How is it that face masks became politicized?) If you think about it, politics has poisoned everything it touched, e.g., science, religion, and truth. Now people can't say "thoughts and prayers", "climate change", "religious freedom", or "fake news" without triggering some kind of political connotation.
In other news, I cancelled my Amazon Prime membership once the free trial expired. I was only able to watch one free movie with it; the rest I had to pay for. :(
Now I've subscribed to a one month free trial of Hulu. Hardly any movies of interest on it. :P
The latest round of IBM layoffs cut deep. Don't know how many more of these I can last through.
My friends and I had a lot of fun playing the nostalgic "Streets of Rage 4" video game on Microsoft Windows over Memorial Day weekend. The controls felt enhanced yet still very familiar, and four of us were able to play at the same time. I enjoyed the challenge of brawling together and double-teaming bosses without accidentally hitting each other. (It seemed unfair later when we managed to turn off "friendly hitting" and were able to just swarm over bosses like a pack of wolves.) Also enjoyed the prison riot (where the inmates and prison guards fight each other and you in a free-for-all), and felt juiced anytime I managed to conquer a stage as the last player left standing. Side note: What's with this Adam taking all the credit??
I heard it might be next year before I'm allowed back to my office. Ugh.
I started a 30-day free trial of Amazon Prime, and so far I'm not impressed. Although it unlocked Prime Video movies for me, I still have to pay to rent them.
Bay Area shelter-in-place order extended to June 1. Ugh, might be months before I can get a haircut, go to a movie theatre again, or return to my office. Then when I do get to return to my office, I found out my workplace will issue masks to wear at all times, all day (except when eating or drinking). At least some restrictions got eased like construction and certain outdoor activities such as golf. None of which affect me, but now I feel there's a light at the end of the tunnel.
My days have just been blurring together. I have "The Simpsons" each Sunday, morning meetings every Tuesday and Thursday, and "Survivor: Winners At War" each Wednesday.
On "Survivor: Winners At War", I've been rooting for Jeremy, Sarah, and most recently Tony (though I don't know how much longer he'll last with the way he's been peaking). That last episode might've actually been my favorite of the season due to a variety of subtle moments I appreciated. For starters, Sarah talking her fellow police officer Tony down from his "spy nest" as if there was nothing weird about it. Then at a refreshing tribal council where a two million dollar mistake could happen at any time, Sarah refused to let Tony play immunity for her and Jeremy screamed instead of playing Michele's 50/50 immunity coin. I say "refreshing" because for once, it genuinely felt like long-term friendships transcended Survivor's growing moral decay. P.S. Such a nuisance having to look up everybody's votes on YouTube. I rarely even bother.
It's amazing what gamers can accomplish in that "Animal Crossing: New Horizons" video game. I've been watching some streamers play Survivor on one of the islands, complete with challenges and confessionals (hilarious seeing cute smiling avatars vent and stoke drama). The competition was meant to be non-serious and fun, but I think a couple of those streamers got legit angry.
Was it just me, or did the hypnotic voice of that schizophrenic AI ball "Solomon" sound like Rami Malek? I've actually been liking this third season of "Westworld". The idea of a well-spoken AI that runs predictive modeling to save humanity fascinates me. IBM's actually working on a new AI named "Debater" that constructs arguments and counterarguments, and works to emulate the most persuasive human debaters.
Now that California has bent the COVID-19 curve, I finally braved a grocery store for the first time since the shelter-in-place began. (I wore the same face mask that I think I originally bought in 2005 to caulk my parents' bathtub.) The stories about toilet paper were true. Nothing but empty shelves. Good thing I'm still stocked up on the toiletries I accumulated because of my natural, everyday aversion to running out of the brands I like.
Georgia is really allowing movie theatres to reopen on April 27? What's the point without any new movies to show? From what I read, none of the major theatre chains plan to open until mid-summer. They're targeting "Tenet" on July 17 as the first new release to screen.
Before I cancelled my Netflix subscription, I spent the last days of my free trial streaming original Netflix films from some of the directors I like. I do plan to resubscribe once the new season of "Stranger Things" comes out, whenever that is. I also drafted a potential watch list of Netflix titles that piqued my interest, such as "The Haunting of Hill House" series and "The Lovebirds" comedy movie.
Would be great if social distancing restrictions got eased enough where I could get a haircut again. How is it that WWE is designated an "essential" business but not barbers?!
I read a study that between 50 and 85 times more people in my county (Santa Clara County) may have been infected with COVID-19, based on antibody blood tests. I'm actually very curious about whether I ever contracted COVID-19 long before the outbreaks started in the U.S. I distinctly remember feeling sick on January 22 of this year. It was a Wednesday, the same day I screened "Color Out of Space". I had no respiratory symptoms but felt fatigue, chills, and body aches. I took two naps before going to the movie. Fortunately, I had secured my ticket online and was sitting far away from everyone. Then the next day, I felt perfectly fine again. I would love to take the antibody test if it becomes available to the public--but if I have to prick my finger, forget it. :P
Bay Area shelter-in-place order extended to May 4. My life feels like that "Groundhog Day" movie where I wake up to the same routine every day. I work at home, eat in my car, listen to the same news and "traffic" report, and avoid people (especially kids). No sports to follow, no new movies, and pretty soon no new TV content. But I guess there's another blessing I should count: I never feel lonely.
Incidentally, I didn't watch either night of the WrestleMania 36 pay-per-view. I found it laughable that WWE charged $59.99-$79.98 for both nights. But I did find out what a Boneyard Match is: the winner has to bury the loser alive. So I guess that means the Undertaker's opponent is dead now. :)
Well, I finally subscribed to Netflix for a 30 day free trial. I managed to watch all three seasons of "Stranger Things", a Netflix original series which reminded me of my own nerdy childhood in the 1980s (including the part where boys get interested in girls and neglect their friendships). It's funny how I never really appreciated the awesomeness of the 1980s until after I grew up.
Torturously boring to work from home without movie theatres and restaurant dine-ins. I spend my days eating meals in my car (trying to patronize my favorite restaurants)--and as a new hobby, I sightsee what my old hangouts look like without people. But I should count my blessings. I still have a job and feel great health-wise. Possibly because I've been sleeping more and eating mostly poke (raw fish in a bowl of rice that I can easily eat in my car).
Another upside is I don't feel self-conscious about my sanitary quirks anymore, like washing public bathroom knobs and eating pizza with a knife and fork. Now people besides me can understand what dried-out hands feel like. :)
I was ok with the "social distancing" phase of the COVID-19 pandemic since I'm already a recluse, wash my hands often, and don't like touching doorknobs. But now my Bay Area county issued a "shelter-in-place" order, meaning I'm supposed to stay at home until at least April 8. The worst part for me might be the theatre closures, even though they were pretty much empty anyway.
Before the theatres shuttered, I did finally screen a movie in IMAX with Laser, which uses a sharper and brighter 4K laser projection system instead of a xenon arc lamp. All in all, my eyes couldn't detect much difference. :P
I guess WrestleMania 36 isn't getting cancelled after all. The show will simply air inside an empty Performance Center. Wow.
To my disbelief, this global novel coronavirus pandemic has wildly snowballed into one news bombshell after another. At first it was just film festivals getting cancelled, the James Bond film release moving from April to Thanksgiving, the 2020 BNP Paribas Open (a Masters tennis tournament at Indian Wells that I've considered attending ever since Serena Williams stopped boycotting it) getting cancelled, and my workplace banning handshakes. Now my workplace feels like a ghost town with employees encouraged to work from home. My moviegoing schedule has been completely upended. The NBA suspended the rest of the season, and other sports leagues followed suit (still can't believe that the NBA player who had prank-touched every microphone and recorder at a media event ended up testing positive for the coronavirus)!
What's next? For sure WrestleMania in April. (I never dreamed WWE would ever cancel that.) Cannes Film Festival and French Open in May? Anime Expo, Wimbledon, and the Summer Olympics in July?
After ordering the last 14 WrestleMania pay-per-views, I'm thinking this is the first year I'm going to pass on it. The show has gotten way too long to sit through, and I'm just not excited about anything on the card--not even the Undertaker's return to WrestleMania after missing last year's. I still remember how hyped I used to get for his undefeated WrestleMania streak matches.
It's criminal how WWE underutilizes Daniel Bryan at WrestleMania. Instead, we're going to get Goldberg and Roman Reigns spearing each other for five minutes, one Brock Lesnar suplex after another, and "The Fiend" Bray Wyatt shrugging off five+ Attitude Adjustments.
I'm intrigued by the suggestion of a two-night WrestleMania with two main events. The suggestion alone wouldn't convince me to watch either night, but I'm intrigued by all the different matches that wouldn't make the card otherwise.
Man. I can't screen any more movies at the six-week long Akira Kurosawa Film Festival because the final two weeks got cancelled. The Stanford Theatre closed until further notice out of "an abundance of caution". The owner's scared of the coronavirus even though no one in the theatre's actually been infected.
Thanks to a Family Programming initiative courtesy of SFFILM Education, I got to see Netflix's new Shaun the Sheep sequel for free at the Castro Theatre in San Francisco. Awesome movie. Wasn't happy to see all the nude protesters outside of the theatre though, standing there in full view as parents and their children exited.
Recently I reviewed my checklist of lifetime goals, and removed several items that I completely lost interest in: "race in a marathon", "advanced swimming", "car mechanics", "Easter Island (Moai statues)", and "Funspot". Funspot is the famous New Hampshire arcade in "The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters", which I soured on visiting once I learned of the Billy Mitchell and Todd Rogers video game records scandals.
Although this is the fifth consecutive time I've mispredicted the Academy Award for Best Picture
(I sensed the upset coming when Bong Joon Ho unexpectedly won Best Director), I've never been
happier to be wrong. "Parasite" was my favorite Best Picture nominee of the year and in my opinion,
the most deserving film to break through as the first non-English Best Picture winner. I also
loved the warm reaction to the win, from audience members chanting for the lights to come back up to
filmmakers tweeting affectionate words about it. Other highlights from the Oscar ceremony:
I'm also excited by the announcement during the Oscars broadcast that the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures will finally open to the world on December 14, 2020.
Now that the San Francisco 49ers lost Super Bowl LIV (it's like they couldn't do anything right halfway into the fourth quarter) and my favorite taqueria for chili verde inexplicably stopped making chili verde, I already came up with my four worst events of the year. :( I did get a kick out of some sage fortune cookie advice I got from that prophetic Panda Express in Oakridge mall: "IT IS IMPORTANT TO KEEP YOUR PRIORITIES STRAIGHT."
Congratulations to the "unloved champion" Novak Djokovic on a record-extending eighth Australian Open title. Don't know how he got away with patting the chair umpire's feet and bullying him. Goes to show the double standard on code violations. And speaking of unsportsmanlike conduct, congratulations to American Sofia Kenin on winning her maiden Grand Slam final. I hate her bizarre hysterics but admittedly, I'd rather root for an astoundingly clutch player over a wildly inconsistent player whom I've always found overrated.
I'm not too bummed about an injury-hampered Roger Federer losing his Australian Open semifinal because let's face it, he had no business winning that bizarre five-set quarterfinal against Tennys Sandgren. I watched Federer save all seven match points with my own eyes and I still don't believe it. He looked so sluggish with no pop on his serves, like he wanted to just retire from the match. Afterward, I was impressed to find out that Federer has never retired during any tennis match.
Loved the classy 24-second shot clock violation tributes to Kobe Bryant. Still in disbelief that he and his 13-year-old daughter Gianna died in a helicopter crash. (This goes to why I'd never ever fly in private aircrafts.) My favorite memory of Kobe actually isn't from a Lakers game. It's from the 2008 Olympics gold medal game where he helped LeBron James redeem the U.S. men's national basketball team after their 2004 bronze medal. I fondly remember Kobe knocking down a clutch 3-pointer (picking up a foul too), and shushing an anti-USA section of the crowd with his finger. Then afterward, he looked genuinely overjoyed to have won a gold medal for America.
In WWE news, I really enjoyed this year's 30-Man Royal Rumble Match. Unlike the 30-Woman Royal Rumble Match, which just cobbled a bunch of random encounters together, the 30-Man Royal Rumble Match focused on two strong storylines and coordinated the whole match around them.
In Australian Open news, imagine the emotion had Caroline Wozniacki ended her tennis career against best friend Serena Williams in the fourth round. Instead, disappointingly, both players lost their third round matches and didn't even make it to the second week. Well, Wozniacki can still retire with her head held high, having finally won a Grand Slam title in a thrilling final that I'll remember fondly from the 2018 Australian Open.
In award season news, I can't remember the last time the Golden Globes and Guild Awards made my Academy Award predictions so easy. My final Oscar predictions for 2019:
Rather annoying how the live Oscar nominations broadcast excludes the supporting actor/actress categories. Wasn't until later that I learned Jennifer Lopez got snubbed. One could argue other snubs as well, but to me this potential Oscar nomination had the strongest precursors.
Here's how I rated the 2019 Best Picture nominees from favorite to least favorite:
Now that both "Once Upon a Time ... in Hollywood" and "The Irishman" lost the Producers Guild Awards and Screen Actors Guild Awards, I see "1917" as the Oscar frontrunner for Best Picture. If Sam Mendes wins the DGA Award, that'll cement my prediction.
Congratulations to the San Francisco 49ers on finally taking back the NFC crown (after a long and demoralizing drought)! I actually felt bad for Aaron Rodgers, having to watch the 49ers run the ball past the Packers defense again and again and again. There was just nothing they could do.
Well, looks like I already have a candidate for worst movies of the decade from 2020 to 2029.
AMC Stubs A-List continues to impress me. They quietly added a new feature called A-List Entourage. It allows an A-List member to invite other A-List members into an "entourage". Any member of this entourage can book free A-List tickets for each other--a huge convenience for reserving seats next to each other in one fell swoop. If only Regal did something like this. None of my friends patronize AMC.
My AMC Stubs A-List membership comes with an AMC Stubs Premiere membership, meaning I accumulate 2395 AMC Stubs points for every monthly membership charge. So about every six months, I get enough of a reward for a free standard movie ticket. The trick is what to use the free ticket on, as the activated reward expires in nine months and I already receive three free movies a week. So rather than attempt four free movies in one week, I've been watching "alternative content" films that are excluded from A-List. This month, I'm going to watch a fan preview screening of Japan's animated Oscar submission for Best International Feature Film. Incidentally, I also have to figure out when to redeem the "guest re-admit pass" I received from AMC when their digital projector broke in the middle of "1917" (forcing me to book another A-List reservation for a later screening). Same goes for my free Regal Crown Club standard movie ticket, which expires later this year. Guess at some point I'll have to see four movies in one week. :P
Welcome to the new home of my blog! I was the only blogger left on blog.flup.org, so many thanks to Allan for maintaining that web site for so long. Unfortunately, my new home lacks the handy search feature from blog.flup.org--so I've aggregated all of my past blog entries into one humongous blog archive that can be searched by web browser via the "find" tool.
I've also decided that starting this decade, I'm going watch movies without taking any notes. Ironically, I found I was missing noteworthy moments onscreen because of my preoccupation with writing notes. I also found that I hardly even referred back to my notes after each movie. So we'll see how this bold new practice goes.
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