You don’t work a blog for a few months, and suddenly there’s 299 comments waiting to be tended to, most of which are trying to people boner pills, or urge to me to click on a link (usually involving boner pills).  They go something like this:

I apologise, but, in my opinion, you commit an error. I can defend the position. Write to me in PM, we will communicate.(real link omitted because I don’t want to encourage them)I have a joke for you =) A neutron goes into a barber shop and asks the barber, “How much for a haircut?” The barber replies, “For you, no charge

They don’t even close quotation marks, but I’m sure it’s the fault of some poor kid in some far off land trying to make a buck or rupee or whatever it is they decide to use.  Each time I see one of these, it reminds of the This American Life episode in which people bait Nigerian scammers into doing humiliating and sometimes dangerous things, and it surprises me how a myriad of emotions can erupt from the torrent of spam comments I get on this site.

It seems a little late for resolutions, and this is on titanic tangent, but I’m set on having a more fun, exciting life, and so here’s what I’m going to start doing:

1)  Take more pictures.  If the pictures are still boring at the end of the week, then I’ll have to re-evaluate my time spent, but I’m hoping to have at least one jaw-dropping experience a week.  I live in a pretty magical place after all.

2)  Blog.  Also, so I can post the pictures.

3)  Get out of the country.  Some things on the horizon, but it’s too early to tell what’s going to pan out.

4)  Get serious about learning a language.  Portuguese, Japanese, French?  So much to learn, so little time.

5)  Buy a new laptop.

Is this list too humble or over the top?  The next post will have pictures.

It.  Was.  Genius.

I just got back from a screening of Chan-wook (Old Boy, Lady Vengeance) Park’s Thirst, and I am…I have no idea how to adequately describe what it was like to see this film.  You just have to see it for yourself.  Basically, it’s about a priest who becomes a vampire, and it keeps itself prety distinguished from any other vampire movie I’ve seen.  It’s not overly morbid, has just the right amount of sexuality and mystery embedded in it, but manages to avoid so many vampire cliches that I didn’t even recognize as cliches until this movie.  It was beautiful, disturbing, tragic, sweet, and weird.

After filming, there was a Question and Answer with the Chan-wook Park, which was very insightful.  It came to light that he has no problem with Will Smith and Steven Spielberg adapting Old Boy for Western audiences, and that he hopes he does something very different than the version that he made.  Like Spielberg, he has a deep admiration for Hitchcock, though the feelings that Park invokes seem more in line with Kubrick.  Man, do I love and loath Kubrick.

He was also really funny.  After the Q&A, I was hoping to get a picture of him strangling me, but I settled for the ironically-cliched shaka sign.

He looks much less twisted than his films.

Haven’t posted anything in a while, but this was very post-worthy!

Forget recycling.  It’s all about upcycling now.  I was so proud when I finished cardboard laptop stand:

Simple and easy.

Then I found the cardboard sculptures.  I am inspired and intimidated:

by Chris Gilmour

You can check out more at WebUrbanist.

This American Life did another great show about the economy, and how we all got into this mess.  You can listen to it here.  They always do a great job of breaking down the jargon that makes most of us tune out when it comes to the complicated and dizzying world of corporate finance.

Jonathan Jarvis also did a bang up job of visualising the credit crisis with these videos:

Hope this helps all of you that may be confused as to what’s going on, and why it’s going on.

On Monday night, a friend and I decided to get some dinner.  We were feeling cheap, so the choices were between a $10 Costco pizza or this ramen place my brother is insane for.  We arrived at around 7 pm, and were pleased to see a crowded restaurant with a line of about 4 people, with rumblings of how much they’ve been craving this ramen.  It’s always a good sign if people have a crack-comparable craving for an eatery, unless said eatery actually serves crack.

A few parties started leaving, so we were hastily seated at the bar after a five minute wait.  The atmosphere was casual, while maintaining the ambience that this is a place that one should come to with friends.  The only strange thing was the Ultimate Japan show that kept airing a segment where they dismember a live softshell turtle.  Not the most appetizing entertainment.  From online reviews, and from the semi-stoned and hungry patrons outside, we already knew what we were going to order.

We started off with spicy memma

I’ve never had this before, but Mandy loves this stuff.  It was basically bamboo shoots (probably from a can) with spicy seasonings.  Canned or not, I loved it.  Mandy said that it’s usually not this spicy.

Next up was the gyoza

I love gyoza.  Actually, I’ll eat almost anything fried to a golden crisp.  This gyoza was pretty run of the mill, however I noticed a little more ginger than I’m used to, which was a good thing.

Mandy had the Assari Ramen

Good stuff.  The Assari Ramen had a chicken and shoyu broth, which worked, but it was the noodles that really stood out.

I had the super famous Kotteri Ramen

The Kotteri Ramen is what Tenkaippin is famous for, as it is a little unusual.  It’s almost more gravy than broth, made from the boiling down of chicken bones and feet.  The chicken flavor from this collagen-laced concoction is intense!  You can really taste the chicken, and not in the way you kind taste chicken from a ramen packet.  This tastes like actual chicken.

Both of our dishes were accented with green onions and a slice of char siu, but the main event in both ramens were the noodles.  I always feel that the essence of good food comes down to the basics.  The best pizza is defined by the dough, the best sandwiches by the bread, and the best ramen by the noodles. The noodles from Tenkaippin are all made locally from a secret recipe, and I can see why.  They are tender, without being too soft, while maintaing a flavor on their own.

As intense as the chicken flavoring was in the gravy, it still felt a little mellow for my American-tinged palate, so we decided to add the raw garlic and chili flavoring that is provided at the counter.

This stuff was like a ramen power up.  It basically turns up your ramen to 11, maintaining the flavor of the broth, while adding a new dimension in flavor.

I’d recommend any of the dishes we sampled, but you probably can’t go wrong with anything that uses their noodles.  My reccomendation is to try the broths on their own, and then adding a little of the chili garlic flavoring to the dish for a little zing.

Tenkaippin Ramen
617 Kapahulu Ave. (at Mooheau Street) / 732-1211

I just thought I’d share a few of the random crap I find on the internet:

Passiveagressivenotes.com – I think the name says it all

Stuff White People Like – Again, the name says it all

Work it Out by RJD2:

Work It Out – RJD2 from Christoph Sullivan on Vimeo.

That’s it for today.  Love you.  Bye.

I got this email from my buddy Michele in regards to holiday gift giving this year, that I thought was insightful and important:

Please please check out websites like these first to make sure the products are not in violation of human rights:

globalexchange.org
corpwatch.org
hrw.org (human rights watch)
iccr.org (interfaith center on corporate responsibility)

In college, there was a point when I was so poor I lived off of canned tuna, bread and lettuce that was on sale. For about a month, i was able to live off of about $9 of food. With the second great depression going on, I thought it might be a good thing to post some interesting ways to stave off hunger on a budget.

One of my favorite blogs: Cheap Eats. This nifty little blog has tips, recipes, and techniques to eat on a budget. A very limited budget.

Bucket o’ Food. Costco has a vegan-friendly emergency food kit with a shelf life of 20 years, and 275 servings of food. If you eat three meals a day, that comes out to roughly 90 days of food. You could survive the entire year on about $340, less than a dollar a day. I’m going to send Sally Struthers one of these.

I just came back from watching Dirty Hands: The Life and Crimes of David Choe at HIFF, and I have to admit to being deeply interested and enthralled by this piece.  I don’t think I’ve ever witnessed anything so completely raw before, and I’m thankful that Harry Kim and David Choe were brave enough to make this happen after 7+ years of work.  For those of you in Hawaii, try to catch it again on Wed, Oct 15 at 7pm.

Hawaii International Film Festival