07-25-05 Short trip to NYC . My sister just moved to her new place in the Village (Manhattan). She has now gone from being a Brooklyn person to a preppy "Manhattan'er". Nonetheless, her place is spectacular, nothing to complain about. My mother and two little sisters were also up there for a short visit since I will probably not see them for another year or so. I really don't have a lot more to say. Here are just a few pictures I took. |
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07-20-05 Google. These guys don't cease to amaze me. Their search engine, unquestionably the best out there with the best features such as image search, news, etc. Then came 'Froogle', the perfect product search engine. Recently we all heard about Google Maps adding their unique satellite images features, much superior to Mapquest. You think that's it? that didn't keep them satisfied. Google has released the Beta version of their new Google Earth. This is perhaps the best thing that has come out on the internet so far. You can basically travel the world from your home PC. Zoom into any place on earth. Click your way through some with 3D constructions (try Manhattan, NY). Tilt down and get the feeling you're literally 'navigating' through the city. Just today, I visited my home in Beijing, Hong Kong, Paris, the Amazon, Cape Town, Tibet, Barcelona, Athens...the world is yours! Download their free version of the software here. Upgraded versions are also available with better features for a 20 and 400 dollar annual fee. |
07-17-05 Migraines. For the past 2-3 weeks, I have had nothing else but migraines. From the moment I wake up until I go back to sleep. At first I thought they would eventually fade away with time. I was wrong. In much pain and distress, I decided to pay a visit to the Health Services Center here at George Mason University (which by the way deserve two thumbs down for customer service). After asking me a set of questions and making me touch my nose and her finger several times, she comes up to me and says: "Daniel, what you have is a migraine." - Geez! thanks, I wasn't sure about that one! The good news is that she gave me some Midrin (sedatives) which started to have an effect on me after 3 days of taking them. As of today (Sunday 17th), I'm feeling a good 50% better. Exactly one month. This is it, the final stretch. Classes will be over in about 2 weeks and exactly one month from today I will be back in Beijing. What can I say about these past few months? I certainly did miss my life in China, but it's good to come out of there once in a while and remember there's still another face on the world. It seems like foreigners tend to get very isolated out there, which is part of what makes 'China' such a great place to live. As far as my classes over here, I wish I would have had the same motivation to learn I had this summer throughout my past years in school. After this, who knows when I'll be back in the U.S. |
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Oompa-loompas. As you might have noticed in my 'movie rating table' I have already seen the new Charlie and the Chocolate Factory movie directed by Tim Burton. Well if you've see any of his movies such as Edward Scissorhands (1990), Big Fish (2003) or Beetle Juice (1988), and consider the fact that Johnny Depp stars in this remake, one can only assume a great show awaits. Having seen the first movie, it was hard to think that any other version could be better. Well not only just as good, this movie exceeds in the first one in my opinion. Don't think it's the exact same movie with different actors and better special effects, you will have to go and watch this in order to figure out what new twists were added to the production. The content was funny, colorful and Tim Burton's imagination was present in every single scene. Depp's performance as Willy Wonka was flawless, as was the one of Charlie played by Freddie Highmore (Finding Neverland, 2004). Don't miss this flick! |
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07-09-05 Enough Spielberg. I've always been a huge fan of Steven Spielberg's movies. When you consider he's produced and directed titles such as Back to the Future, The Goonies, Empire of the Sun, Indiana Jones, E.T., The Terminal, Saving Private Ryan and many others...it's troublesome to think anything bad and non-entertaining could ever come out of him. A few years back, for the first time I walked out of a movie theatre. I never really do this, once I pay 10 dollars for a movie I'll sit through it. In the case of A.I. (Artificial Intelligence), I could not resist. Also being a big fan of the late Stanley Kubrick, I thought A.I. was irremediably the most perfect movie of all history (yes, better than Citizen Kane) considering these two directors were creating such a work of art. To my surprise, the movie was horrible. |
Photo by Jemal Countness - WireImage.com - Image courtesy |
*Spoiler* Now let me tell you a little bit about War of the Worlds (2005). The movie came out not long ago as you might already know. If you've seen it already, then I'm sure you could only agree with what I'm about to say. If you haven't seen it, stay home and make muffins. It stars Tom Cruise, Tim Robbins, and the extremely menopausal but talented little girl from I Am Sam (Dakota Fanning). To make this short and sweet, and short, this movie makes absolutely NO sense. If you thought this was going to be the epiphany of all 'alien invasion' movies, think twice. Huge 500 meter tall tripod robots that have been buried underground for millions of years, all of a sudden decide to come out and kill everyone and everything. Spielberg gets carried away with explosions and special effects (which I must admit were cool just like his camera movements) but then the storyline does not really adapt to the way us humans think. Maybe he made the movie for aliens. I don't know. The fact is, the four main characters are barely described, we have no idea of who they are, robots start attacking everything as they deactivate any type of electronic device (yet there is one guy in the movie using his Handycam to film what's going on and Tom Cruise's car is apparently the only car in the U.S. that works). One moment it's winter time in New Jersey, no leaves on the trees, it's snowing but they do not die of pneumonia when swimming across the river, the next day it's the end of autumn in Boston, only 4 hours away from NJ. Unless I'm unaware of these climatic differences between these two cities, this movie is just full of inconsistencies. The robots have some weird fetish about drinking human blood. They pick people up, throw them into metal basket-like containers they have on their backs, and then get sucked up by an anus-shaped hole that throws them back on the ground followed by a vampire-like blood feast. After a weird episode with Tim Robbins, the most obscure character of the entire movie, the robots all of a sudden start dying. I was thinking Tom Cruise was the one finding the solution and way to kill these guys. He spends the entire time not only evading the creatures but also observing them trying to understand how they worked. Well, sorry to disappoint you but Tom Cruise did nothing. I guess that's kind of original, since he was just another one of the masses trying to escape from the horrifying attack, only he didn't get killed. After robots start collapsing one after another, the movie ends. YES, that's it. Oh no, hold on, Morgan Freeman ends the movie, with some wise quote that I forgot, but basically says "We've been on this earth long enough creating immunities against bacteria and other diseases, no 500 meter tall tripod robot from outer space is going to come here and survive our sickness." And that's how they died, probably contracted some type of STD or Flu. Great huh? yeesh. |
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07-04-05 Happy B-Day Gringuitos Locos! Today was a hot day for a 4th of July. This year however, I worked at Gravelly Point, right by the Reagan National Airport, where one can see planes landing only a few hundred yards away. The two Pablos, Ross and myself were split up in groups of two to sell drinks and other products off of pair of 'pimped out' golf carts. We spent the day driving up and down along the Potomac where hundreds of thousands of people gathered up with BBQ's, coolers, chairs, tents, volleyball nets, etc. and waited for nine long hours until the fireworks started. One thing that really impressed me was that on this day, as I sold to the public, I can honestly say that about 80% of the people out there were all hispanic. If you want to check out some info on Hispanics in the U.S., check out the following links: - A 2002 Powerpoint Presentation made by the Census Bureau
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A mom full of spirit shares a freezer pop with a kid |
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