Pretty good. I was surprised because I was pretty much apathetic about it after seeing the preview. A lot of friends said it was worth watching so I was glad to see it on the plane brochure. I couldn’t figure out how to use the remote for a while so I missed the first ten minutes, but it all still made sense. Pretty good acting, but it’s fairly predictable. There’s a good article about Shia in the August Vanity Fair if you ever need to kill time in the magazine section. Basically, he got his career started without help from his parents, doesn’t go out much (think anti-Lohan), and Steven Spielberg likes him a lot.

[Part 1] [Part 2] [Part 3] [Part 4]

[I wrote most of these the night of whatever day it says it is. I was there for two weeks but only did this for the first week. I'll probably summarize the second week in some way. I hope it's enjoyable.]

It’s a long flight from Seattle to Korea. I watched Disturbia, Bridge to Teribithia, half of Wild Hogs, ate two meals and a snack, and slept for four hours. I sleep well on airplanes. Except there were a few disturbances, like the baby a few rows up crying like she was giving up on life. All the stewardesses look like they’re from Asian cell phone advertisements. Not a complaint. There’s also the oddities of translation. Tim Allen would be in the middle of a joke, then the screen frrezes and says “passenger message”. The intercom comes on and a lady speaks in Korean for a good minute. Then she switches to English: “Buckle your safety belts.” Food was really good on the flights, but the lady was killing me with the refreshments. I’m used to getting the rest of the can with whatever is poured in the cup. Or at least having the cup filled. Not really a trip ruiner though.

The airport in Seoul is huge. I thought it was a bitch to walk to different terminals in San Francisco. This was a whole new level. Then the shops okie doke you with the exchange rate. No coins, so if you give $5 for something that’s 4.01, they keep Mr. Washington. I had a big appetite so we searched for a good food spot. There was a noodle joint and #6 on the menu was Snail Soup for Hangover. I’m not gonna lie, it didn’t look that great. Like a lot of airports, there are a lot of huge glass walls. If you walk up right next to them, you’ll see hundreds of spiders between the glass panes. They’re not tarantulas or anything, but I wouldn’t want to find them crawling around my house. The airport reminded me of Narita, so that’s always nice.

I can’t say too much about the flight from Korea to the Philippines. I fell asleep a few seconds after seating. I opened my eyes, saw a tray in front of me, said Sprite please, scarfed down food, and was back to sleep in like five minutes. May as well have been a dream. I woke up in time to fill out customs forms for landing. Customs and immigration will take a while. More lines.

We skipped immigrations and customs with no more hassle than a few handshakes from my Uncle Rene, who was here to pick us up. All the employees smile when he’s around. Me and dan got an answer: “We’re friends with the vice president. All courtesies will be extended.” He means vice president of the airport, not the country. But it works for me.

I remember thinking when I arrived in Hawaii, wow this sort of feels like a different country. Wrong. This feels like a different country. The air is musty, and it sort of brings me back to when we last came a decade ago. My uncle is honking at a lot of cars trying to turn. Unlike America, horns seem to be used mostly in a polite manner rather than a road rage symptom. Street lights are few and far between. A truck just passed by with a guy hanging off the side. The highway seems relatively dangerous. It’s one lane each way and nobody’s shy about passing multiple cars.

We were welcomed with some plates of crab and shrimp at my grandma’s place. It’s hot right now - - 2AM. I could be wrong but I imagine it’s gonna be slightly hotter in the day.

Gloc 9 featuring Francis M. - “Lando”. This guy’s kind of popular here.

Kind of my first time really, really watching this. I saw it in middle school but that was like when I watched Who Framed Roger Rabbit ? in preschool - - I only thought I understood. Silence of the Lambs stood the test of time pretty much unscathed. Hannibal and Buffalo Bill still deliver some truly chilling moments.

About on par with the third and fourth. Right now I’d rank them 3, 4, 5, 1, 2. I watched this at a 9:30 AM showing. Question: what do senior citizens do at 9:30 in the morning? Answer: they watch Harry Potter. There were two elementary aged kids in the theater, but we were easily the youngest people there on our own. Kind of an odd audience, or “odd”ience. The fifth novel is some kind of endless tomb, so I imagine they’ve skipped a few details to fit the movie. Since I’ll be on a plane a combined thirty hours in the next two weeks, I decided to start catching up on the series. I’m kind of going off track. Nothing’s going to stop you from watching this if you’ve seen the first four and if you haven’t seen those then there’s hardly a reason to watch this one. Some of the actors are so old now it’s a little distracting, sort of like JTT-overshadowed-teen-hunk Zachary Ty Bryant in Home Improvement. Getting back on track–I enjoyed this movie.

I’ll be in the Philippines for the next two weeks. Thanks to Dan, and I think he got it from Jerry, I can share the following video. See you at the end of the month.

Stop. Right there. Dance. With me. Closed. Open. Wet Paint. School. Tell me what signs you see.

Big L - Ebonics video. Fan-made video. Kind of awesome.

Do not watch this movie. It’s a typical J-horror flick. The running time is 97 minutes. I would have been better off shooting footage for my own horror movie for an hour, editing it for thirty minutes, and watching whatever I had so far during the last seven minutes. Nightmare is honestly the worst movie I’ve seen in years. I just got a flashback of Bug. Nightmare is honestly the second worst movie I’ve seen in years. Or at least since I last watched Nightmare, because guess what? I forgot that I already saw it. It was so bad that I forced it out of my memory after the first viewing and managed to dupe myself into sitting through it again, only remembering because of the ridiculous ending. Again, do not watch this.

After finishing the movie, all there is to think is, “What’s the moral of the story?” I checked the IMDB forums for an answer, and it’s sort of depressing. Plenty of people seem to think the moral is to follower your emperor even if he’s wrong. There are fewer action sequences than I imagined, but they happen to be really entertaining. Gong Li is in it, so that’s good. And for whatever reason, all the women in the movie wear corsets that seem to get tighter as the movie goes on. Gong Li defends the costumes as historically accurate. It gets kind of crazy. Probably worth an Albertson’s rental.

NBA Salaries. These guys make a lot of money.