July 2006 Archives

Hectic and chaotic 4 day shoot finally ends in a parking lot, 5 in the morning. Fingers crossed for post and soundtrack now...

Hong Kong is an awesome town to be in. Will return to beijing soon, and pictures will follow a week after.

I will be in Hong Kong from Jul 20th - Aug 3rd for a TV commercial, will update then.

Take care Silvia...

It wasn't much, but.. its something. Glad to have it :)

So this ad ran in europe, for Sony's white PSP. I usually defend controversial communication pieces... but this one is really a tough call for me. Its just a bit too blatantly trying to say... what its trying to say. Although a beautiful photograph, I think I will consider it just a "little" on the offensive side.

Silvia's friend Li Yue was doing dog sitting for her friend and they told me the dog was a bull terrier. Since the breed wasn't popular in Beijing, and I liked bull terrier a lot, I was so excited. The dog turned out to be a mix of bull terrier and bull dog, not one of those typical long muzzled face I love. Her name is 如花, sort of a tacky chinese name to describe beautiful girls, it means like a flower.

I liked this dog a lot, although bull terriers are known to be territorial and mean, this dog is very happy with his surroundings despite two cats' harassment, she didn't even try to fight, just simply chased them away.

I had to watch this film twice because of work interruption. Mixture of conference calls, Jay Chow shoot, and saving Korea creative totally screwed up my schedule.

I was a bit surprised at how average the dialogs were in the film, also there were couple scenes where I just had to roll my eyes at. Take the train set scene, it sets up the eventual climax but it was just simply too much film school techniques. I can't believe the same guy directed unusual suspects directed this.

The new guy Bradon Routh does the job well, but I like Reeves' version of superman more. The new suit is really cheesy, I don't like it, except for the slight curve of that diamond outline. The whole rubber feel of the cape is most annoying.

Visually though its impeccable, I also loved the John Williams' score, it was a beautiful film, just... not very interesting.

I'd say its average, one of those video game films.

So the cats in the tiny photo store got a new place, and they love it. They always slept in one of those common pets cotton tray thingies before, but last week, before the owner can throw away two empty cardboard boxes, they declared it theirs. The owner had no choice but take action and duck-tape it into a two story house for them. Smart cats, they saw something with great potential and claimed it before it turned into greatness.

From PC World, US State department to install RFID chips in US Passports starting in early 2006. Supposedly to keep criminals from tampering with it. So now criminals will have to spend a great deal of money to acquire RFID scanning / altering kits, buying online from texas instrument can set them back about $150 bucks. In addition, all US citizens in the world will now a lot easier to track down now, yay!

Remember last time I said I have yet to catch a Chinese domestic flight thats on time? Well, this one isn't an exception. Tired... exhausted... and hungry, my flight from Tai Yuan to Beijing is delayed first due to Beijing's Air Traffic control, and then thunder storm. There I was... sitting on the plane, with my PSP running out of power, and "Coarse Food Grain Biscuits" on the table.

This game currently is just a demo when you upgrade your psp to a hack proof 2.71 firmware. Thanks to my buddy Lincoln, I have the whole game now without having to upgrade. The graphics and game play is really refreshing and attractive. As soon as people around me saw it, they wanted to play it, it is that good. I love it.

I remember standing on Chang An BLVD when it happened, it was summer 1997, people are happy, red flags everywhere, fireworks lit up the sky. Then we watched the whole hand-over ceremony on TV. So I clearly thought Hong Kong is now part of China.

Well, today, it apparently isn't so. In 9 days I have to be there for a shoot, and for a "non-native beijing resident (living there doesn't count, has to be born there)", US Green Card Holder like me, I have to go back to my home town to obtain a special visa. Imagine that?

This is more complicated than if I were to go to a foreign country. What's even more ridiculous is that I am allowed to go to HK directly with my green card, but, in order to come back to China, I will be required to show HK visa, and I can't get it when I'm there, so what the Chinese government telling me is that they're screwing me in daylight by asking for a ticket to go to Hong Kong, but also, they have invited some airline companies, and the provincial government along because screwing me alone isn't fun enough. Thanks a lot once again PRC Border laws. I'm never going to say HK is part of China now because a Chinese citizen like me has to spend twice the effort to get a f*%&$ visa to get there.

NFS most wanted on PSP, this game was better than I thought, I enjoyed driving these real world cars just as much as driving some exotic concept super cars from ridge racer. The physics and controls are not smooth as ridge racer, but, its definitely more realistic in my opinion. After sitting in the dust as a door stopper, my psp comes back to life once again :)

Too bad england lost that day, it was still a really fun night though, Thank you friends ^_^.

Besides getting addicted to Lost and Prison Break, I also loved this HBO original series called Entourage. Huge guest stars, cuss words and hot naked women aside, the show also has some serious clever writings and witty dialogs. It is also set in LA, and it did its best to showcase some of LA's best spots. Pinks hot dog, Koi, Arclight cinemas, they're all my favorite places.