Author: Pearl L

Happy Birthday PC!
My friend sheetal shah is in mentioned in this story. whoohoo!! go sheetal!! RCI LUUUUV!! ;D

a belated HAPPY BIRTHDAY! to my sister, who just turned 16!!!
and on the related birthday notes, happy birthday to…
Edward – August 9
Kelvin and Doug – July 30

I’m BACK!!
(back! back in business… this ain’t no hit and miss.. I’m gonna get my waaaaaay….)

heehee!! randomness!! well, now that it’s said, I might as well make somethin’ of it. anyone who can name that song to me gets my kudos and a mention in this blog! maybe even a cookie, but i’ll have to think about it. hint: the song’s off a movie soundtrack, but not a particularly recent one. if you know what song it is, email me and lemme know. =)

So I’m back in LA, taking summer school, working, and messing around with my extracurricular activities. >_

Oh yeah, I forgot to blog my dad’s 50th birthday. :)
HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY, DAD!

we didn’t do anything too special to celebrate his big day. we did a “Lu Family Bowling Day” at Cloverleaf, where the “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” team of my sister and me (she’s the dragon, I’m the tiger… we are team CTHD because we will pounce when least expected! muhuhahah!) proceeded to tie team Super Parents twice, and lose by ten points twice. So much for truth in advertising.

Dinner at the Equinox in San Francisco was less than expected. The company was good.. but I hink everyone was sort on in a “blah” mood. we were all very tired from bowling all day. my ribs are kind of acting up now. =\ I guess I strained them a little.

Anyway, back to dinner. Here’s a mini-review:

Equinox in San Francisco: every major city needs a restaurant atop a hotel that turns to give “great panoramic views of the city.” Equinox is San Francisco’s offering, and while its novelty is unchallenged, its quality as a restaurant is quite disappointing. The first thing that hinted at sad things to come was the poor service. Our waiter made no effort to introduce himself.. and half the time he wasn’t paying attention to us anyway. When the waiter came by to offer us drinks, he carded me when I ordered a strawberry daquiri, ignoring my father’s protests. The conversation went like this:

Waiter: What would you like to drink?
Dad: [insert dad’s order for wine for parents] Pearl, do you want anything? some champagne or something?
Waiter: Sure, we have some virgin drinks for you. Would you like some sprite? Virgin strawberry daquiris, margaritas…
Me: I’ll have a strawberry daquiri, not-virgin please.
Waiter: do you have ID?
Dad: yeah, she’s 21, she has ID. [chuckles] don’t worry, she can order something!
Pearl: yeah, I have ID.
Waiter: Well, can I see it? [semi-dirty look]
Pearl: sure thing!! [busts out driver’s license.]
Waiter: [kind of miffed, but he nods] ok, I’ll bring that right over.

Several things about this: First off, it’s a really really tacky thing to card in a nice restaurant where you’re paying upwards of $30/entree. Second of all, I’m with family. Would parents really support underage drinking in public? Third of all, my DAD was protesting, and the waiter completely ignored him. -shakes head- Shame on him~!! To be fair, I understand why he did card me.. I know, I look really really young! but.. damn! over parental protest! that takes a pretty good measure of density.

The rest of the night went somewhat better. I don’t know why I ordered the prime rib; I really can’t eat that much meat anymore, especially in portions that massive. >_

Went to Dave and Buster’s for the first time last Friday. next time I go there, I’m wearing sensible shoes. ill-fitting heels don’t work in a big place like that. =)

D&B is a pretty fun place as far as respites from suburban hell go. the basic idea is that people can go someplace to drink and play arcade and midway games. or pool. or shuffleboard. etc. the idea works! they have really nice pool tables too. =)

biggest movie disappoinment: PLANET OF THE APES
runner up: BATMAN RETURNS

I haven’t seen many Tim Burton films, but the ones I’ve seen I’ve liked immensely. Sleepy Hollow was terrific. Batman was absolutely awesome. Burton has this incredible flair for the visual: his films always look gorgeous in every element from sets to costumes — and while every element is in itself dazzling, each piece in each frame meshes together in a wonderfully stunning fashion. And the music… Burton’s work with composer Danny Elfman is consistently fantastic: the former Oingo Boingo lead singer’s work is a perfect fit for Burton’s sepia-gray fare.

But Burton’s perfect looking world could sometimes be shattered when the characters opened their mouths. the script for BR is kind of weak, but the script for POTA is TERRIBLE. So even though the movie looked awesome, and the score is awesome, parts of the film just made me cringe.

so I have this very nebulous sense of myself. hear me out for a minute here. I perceive myself to be one thing. whether I’m actually what I think I am is something else. something has to be done to either make that congruous, or I just need to deal, dammit~!!

all I’ve been doing since getting back is watching movies!!.. and generally putzing around. it’s definitely good to be at home, but at the same time, incredibly frustrating to find things to do with friends. there is nothing to do in podunk fremont! waaaaah!! it’s back in suburban hell!

getting friends together to hang out is pretty treacherous — harder than it is in LA, that’s for sure. part of it is because it’s hard to find things to do in the bay area (none of us know san jose well enough to be ok with wandering around drunk there.. or maybe that’s well enough, hmm). mostly it’s people related. the biggest problem so far has been this being 21 business. I have a bunch of friends who’ve recently turned 21 and want to abuse their newfound access as much as possible, some who have absolutely no interest, some who want to but can’t because they’re not 21 yet, and some who want to go but can’t because they’re working the next morning, etc. it sucks major butt. so.. I’ve gotten out, but it’s been rather challenging — in both finding people to hang out with, and also things to do. I’ve ended up watching lots of movies. so far, I’ve seen shrek (twice), kiss of the dragon, final fantasy, tomb raider.. so far, everything’s been very “eh,” but I guess here are some specific-ish remarks.

shrek: great animation, great script, lots of fun to watch. the first time I saw it, I couldn’t get the “look! it’s fat bastard!” thought out of my head. :) it was a lot better the second time around. there were some hilarious disney-skewing references in there. kinda gets me thinking about where disney’s place in modern society is. consider that when disneyland was built, the postwar generation had their kids grow up in “sanitized for your safety” type worlds. you had the self-esteem movement, all these lax parenting techniques. the baby boomers grew up in an idealized world, and have slowly been smacked back into “the way things have been.” so now it’s kind of come full circle.. have you seen those “parents. the anti-drug” commercials on tv? they feature teenagers saying stuff like, “I hate you. I lied, you caught me. you invaded my privacy. blah blah blah” and then, “thanks.” the baby boomers grew up thinking that they should raise their children to be “pals”… and now it almost feels like parents need permission to be parents and disciplinarians.
…. but back on the disne note. it feels like we’re finally disillusioned with the meticulously manicured plastic disney world.. and the backlash is now here. we have “reality television.” we have movies like american pie that are portray high school life in less idealized — albeit far raunchier — than we’ve been used to in the past. after spending years in a blue besparkled sleeping beauty dream, we’re now inundated with “reality.”
… shrek was a great movie. :) I really liked everything about it.

kiss of the dragon: it’s jet li kicking ass to a rap music soundtrack! black people have been good to jet li. =P KOD is similar to romeo must die, but far more violent and bloody. Jet Li is such a bad-ass. =) thankfully, they don’t try to pretend there’s too much of a blooming love affair between the jet and the lead actress. that’s kind of what pissed me off about RMD. in movies like that, the lead actors inevitably kiss. why didn’t aaliyah and jet li kiss? is interracial dating still as taboo as ever? or is it because it’s a black woman and a chinese guy? are chinese guys not allowed to be sexual creatures? are black people possessive of their women? (for the record, I say all of this with my tongue firmly placed in my cheek. -grins-)
… ok, but back to the movie. :) KOD was pretty cool. I kind of got tired of the fight scenes after a while.. I think it’s just cuz I wasn’t in the mood for a big action movie. but if you are, this movie’s great. =)

final fantasy: visually stunning movie. i think it’s easier for people who’ve played the game to be impressed with the story, the way it looked, etc. it doesn’t have the “summer blockbuster” epic movie feel yet… I think that’s still difficult to accomplish technically at this point. there are just too many details to worry about. in final fantasy, only one person really has hair. there are still limitations for how real the CGI will look… it still takes sooo much work to produce scenes and motion. FF is an accomplishment. I enjoyed it. =)

tomb raider: fun movie. there was a LOT of focus on angelina jolie’s boobs. I personally found that more distracting than arousing. I also thought the guy she was interested in was so not hot.