last minute change

I've been admitted to Northwestern University School of Law!

ny's aaiff

NY's 29th Asian American International Film Festival will be from 7/13 - 7/21 in Manhattan and from 8/3 - 8/6 in Long Island.

Unfortunately, I will miss most of the festival while on vacation, including American Fusion, a movie that a friend's family helped make. But don't just watch it to support my friend, watch it because it looks like a great movie:

American Fusion

East Coast Premiere
USA | 2005 | 101 mins | 35mm | English, Chinese, Spanish w/E.S.

DIRECTOR: Frank Lin PRODUCERS: Robin Oliver, John Dunn, Jason Inouye
CAST: Sylvia Chang, Esai Morales, Collin Chou, James Hong, Pat Morita

Frank Lin takes a comedic look at the complexities of family, love, and race in this feature film that won the Hawaii International Film Festival's Audience Award. Set in California, AMERICAN FUSION concerns a divorced forty-something Chinese immigrant, Yvonne, played by the beautiful Sylvia Chang (ALL ABOUT AH LONG, see SUN SING THEATER retrospectives) who feels that the best of her days are behind her.

Yvonne's latest writing assignment lands her in the dental office of Dr. Jose (NYPD BLUE's Esai Morales), a handsome and single Mexican American. But her narrow-minded mother injures her back in a massage accident, and uses her suffering to emotionally blackmail her children into doing her bidding. In order to find true happiness, Yvonne must overcome her three demanding siblings and her ultra-conservative mother!

Showcasing an incredible cast of memorable characters that includes Fabio, James Hong, Eddie Shin, and the late great Pat Morita in one of his last appearances, Lin's feature debut goes out of its way to make you laugh and cringe. AMERICAN FUSION affirms that happiness comes out of accepting people and situations as they are.

Followed by Q&A. Frank Lin is nominated for the Emerging Director Award.

SCREENINGS

Sun 7/16 3:30 PM
ASFUSI
Asia Society

Wed 7/19 8:30 PM
QCFUSI
Quad Cinema

a new era

Today I start of the next phase of my life. No more 9-5 workday, so long paychecks, bye bye fiscal independence. Yesterday was my last day at work and now the only thing between me and law school is about six weeks of vacation.

It's a little scary thinking about going back to school. Barring any last minute changes, I'll be joining the class of 2009 at Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law. I know it will be a huge challenge, although I am really looking forward to becoming a student after six years in the workforce. My study habits weren't the best in college, but I think I am finally ready to succeed in a rigorous academic enivornment.

Here are my upcoming vacation plans, as I probably won't be able to update the blog while I am gone:

7/15 - 7/22: Miami and the Bahamas
7/23 - 7/30: Hawaii (Maui and the Big Island)

I wish all of you a great summer and promise to return with lots of pictures!

fancy foods

Yesterday I took an extra long lunch break to meet Gerald at the Jacob K. Javits Center for the International Fancy Food & Confection Show. As a member of the press (via foodite.com), I got free admission to the show, as well as a nifty press kit. Thankfully, I was there with Gerald so everytime I was asked a question about www.foodite.com I would pass it on to the founder/editor.

The show itself was overwhelming with over 5,000 booths of retailers, large and small, all trying to hawk their food items. What really surprised me was how poorly most of the food samples tasted. I only really enjoyed less than a quarter of all of the food that I tried. Part of this was likly due to floor plan of the event, where booths were organized by origin, rather than type. Therefore I would go from sampling soup, to candy, to pasta, to jerky, to dessert again, then chips, cured meat, cookies, etc.

All in all, I'm looking forward to going again next year, and for longer than just an hour!

Flickr photos for the Fancy Food Show

an old man and the sea (or movies/tv shows set in the sea)

Last Friday night, I caught Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest on opening night with Tammy, Muller and Karen. Although it didn't live up to the first Pirates movie, I still say it's worth watching in the theater, just be prepared for a long (two and a half hours!) movie. I couldn't believe that we got out at almost midnight after getting to the theater early for the 9:15 PM show. I won't say much about the film here, but I refer you to the NY Times review which hit the movie dead-on.

On Saturday I may have suffered dehydration or heat sickness from playing basketball in the early afternoon (although I'm sure beer and a heavy brunch right afterwards didn't help). I was completely bedridden after getting home at around 5 PM. I didn't even have enough energy to sit at my desk and play warcraft, so instead I finished wacthing the remaining Lost episodes that Francis gave me. See my previous post about how I feel when I watch Lost. Even though I could barely move around in bed, I still managed to shake a fist whenever I got frustrated by the dumb actions of some of the show's characters (especially Jack and Kate. And Michael. And definitely Claire and Charlie).

Finally, Leslie and I rented About Schmidt last night. I was pretty excited to watch it, and was hoping it would turn out to be a funny black comdey, but instead it was a sad movie about an ornery old man. Jack Nicholson may have been a great young/middle-age actor, but I think Walter Mathau, Jack Lemmon and even Bill Murray play senior citizens much better.

west coast burgers

In addition to being excited about seeing my family and friends in California last weekend, I was also looking forward to having some of my favorite burgers. I've had some great burgers in New York, but nothing compares on a price/quality level to my two favorites:


Hamburgers (I always order two - one animal style, one plain) from In-N-Out Burger



Carl's Jr.'s Western Bacon Cheeseburger

I consider In-N-Out Burger to be a step above all other fast food chains, but after them, here is my ranking of signature sandwiches:

1. Western Bacon Cheeseburger, Carl's Jr.
2. Whopper, Burger King
3. Sourdough Jack, Jack in the Box

I don't have a favorite sandwich from McDonalds or Wendy's. The more I think about burgers back home, the more I miss the chili burger at Clearman's Galley.

- News tip from my sister: They're thinking of closing Magic Mountain! (you may have to log in to latimes.com to read the article)

holiday weekend

It's been a while since I last posted, but I promise to return soon with an update from my great weekend in Los Angeles and San Diego.

Hope everyone had a great long weekend (if you had one)!

go bear!

Tonight's the big NBA draft so I'll be sending my positive vibes out to Leon Powe. I wish he stayed one more year at Cal, but after his Pac-10 domination last year I can understand why he'd want to test the waters in this year's weak draft.

Let's also hope my Lakers get a solid contributor at #26.

steer 'n ale part 1

Steer 'n Ale is the name of a steakhouse right down the street from my house in Pasadena. Considering what big steak fans my friends and I were back then (and still are), I'm surprised I've never been there. I guess the exterior never looked that appealing, plus there's no way it could've beat the 50% employee discount we had at Outback Steakhouse. Anyways, I think of it only because steer 'n ale is the best way to describe my weekend.

Two of my teammates on Moe's Tavern are moving on to bigger and better things (more PT for me! j/k, we'll miss you guys!), so a couple of us decided to celebrate by taking the day off and having lunch at Peter Luger Steakhouse. This place came highly recommended, especially from my cousin Ken, a huge fan of steak and meat in general. Of course, prior to heading out to Brooklyn, I met up with Mike and James at Phebe's. They had already been drinking for an hour by the time I got there at noon. We watched a little ESPN (who else needs subtitles to understand Ozzie Guillen), had a few drinks and hopped into a cab.

Peter Luger's does not joke around. It's certainly got a Old-World feel, with a brick exterior and wooden interior that probably hasn't changed since 1887. My friends, Luger's veteran's, scoffed when I asked to see the menu. All you have to order is a round of Canadian bacon, and simply say "Steak for five" (or insert number of people eating). We ordered our steak medium rare, and it was the most perfectly cooked steak I've had in a long time. And of course, our steer was accompanied by ale (locally brewed Brooklyn Lager).


Everyone loves bacon


Grilled to perfection


Mike posing behind the steak sauce


The aftermath

The huge lunch kept us more than full the entire day, but we weren't done with the drinking. We caught the first half of the Korea vs. Switzerland World Cup match at Iona, a Brooklyn bar which unfortunately did not have their air conditioner on and turned into a sauna. At the start of halftime, we took the train back into the city. A few of us ran errands for a bit, while others (myslef included) went home for a quick power nap.

Phase II started off at d.b.a., a bar with an endless beer selection (which my friend James seems to have memorized). After a few beers downed, the rest of the evening was spent at King Size (which is actually tiny and intimate), Good World, Winnie's (James was disappointing with Prince's Kiss, but Jae and I made up for it with some rocking Bonnie Tyler), and finally Opus 22.

All in all, it was a quite a long day of meat and drink. Of course I was home by 1AM, as we had to rest up for the big Moe's Tavern BBQ on Saturday. More details to follow...

- Yours truly gets mentioned in a Dream League article!
- Thinking about SF taquerias make my mouth water.

check me out!

I will be a contributing writer on foodite! My first article may not be cheap eats though, as I'm hoping to hit up Peter Luger's for lunch tomorrow.

- cool SMS site (at least it looks cool, I haven't tried it yet), from the Alpha Blog
- I'm glad to see I'm not the only one who hates to be asked, "still or sparking water?"