Snakes on a plane

A lot of you won't understand this. But I went and saw Snakes On A Plane. On opening weekend. And I had a blast.

And to make it even more dramatic, I think it is the only movie I've seen in the movie theater this year. No wait, my work took me to see Mission Impossible 3. And I think I saw one other movie in the theater. Everything else I've watched at home on cable, DVD, or TV.

I am a victim of Snakes On A Plane grass roots marketing. If you haven't seen any of the fan sites for SoaP, you need to do check them out. There's a bunch listed here. When you're done with that, you have to check out this page of SoaP sequel ideas (warning: language). Viewing those pages alone got me laughing so hard that I felt I had to see the movie. And even though I might not have admitted it, when my wife brought it up as a possibility for something to do, I wasn't about to say no.

The reviews of this movie are all wrong. They are actually pretty favorable towards it. The movie itself was horrible. The plot was thinner than plastic wrap. But as an event, opening weekend at SoaP was a blast. Throughout the movie, the entire crowd would hiss, yell, cheer, scream, and make fun of the movie. It's the most fun I've had at a movie in a long time.

The theater industry is not doing well. There are many theories as to why, but a prevelant one seems to be that watching a movie at home has become more economical than watching a movie in the theater. With $10 per ticket, $5-$10 for parking, $20 (or much more) for pre-show food or drinks, $??? for a babysitter if you have a kid, it defiintely makes a $4 DVD rental seem pretty sweet.

But maybe SoaP has hit onto something. For a long time, being social at the movie theater was frowned upon. Movie theaters were supposed to be silent. But maybe that's not what movies need. Maybe movie theaters need to be a social gathering. Some movie theaters, such as The Parkway in Oakland are setup more like a pub, with beer and pizza, and bench seats, which tend to promote a more social atmosphere. It might not be appropriate for your oscar-winning-tear-jerkers, but for a large percentage of the movies that hollywood produces, it's probably a better environment than your regular AMC or Century theater.

There's still a bunch of movies that are in the theater that I keep meaning to go see. But SoaP seems to be the only one that actually got me out the door so far.

Jury duty

I spent the last week on call for jury duty, was finally called in Friday, then dismissed Friday afternoon when the case I was assigned to was settled before juror selection really began.

It's pretty easy to point out the problems with jury duty, but for all its problems, it does seem like there are good intentions behind the system.

However, there's one thing about my service that was too ridiculous not to mention. When I first got there, I had to watch a video in the waiting room. The video began something like this:

"California. The best state in the nation. With natural parks, beautiful cities, blah blah blah. But sometimes... it's not so great. And sometimes... there's crime."

It was really hard not to laugh at how cheesy the video's introduction was.

You're right, I don't understand

In reference to the recent court decision that the government's wiretapping without getting warrants violated 2 constiutional amendments and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, President Bush said: "Those who herald this decision simply do not understand the nature of the world in which we live." (Source: cnn.com).

I have to admit it, President Bush. You are right. I don't understand the nature of the world in which we live.

I don't understand why our government allows someone to tack on an estate tax law onto a bill about minimum wage, thus causing the bill to fail to pass. I don't understand why we have a minimum wage that puts a family of four below the poverty line.

I don't understand why people are more concerned with flag burning and defining marriage than they are about education or poverty or disease.

I don't understand why people think the best solution to developing a third world country's economy is to bring in McDonald's. I don't understand why American companies are used to rebuild war torn countries, instead of letting the money stay inside their own economy which desperately needs it.

I don't understand how we can develop these miraculous drugs to cure and treat some of the worst diseases known to mankind, and then not share them with the people who need them most. I don't understand why universal health care is even a topic of debate, as opposed to a human right.

I don't understand why we are cheering for tax cuts for the wealthy, while at the same time we are raising interest rates on student loans.

I don't understand why we claim that as a whole we want to be more environmentally conscious and reduce our dependance on oil, but when large corporations complain that laws are too strict, the government backs off. I don't understand why a major world leader would not watch a movie about theories ofglobal warming Even if it turns out those theories are completely wrong, I don't understand why we would not encourage hearing different viewpoints.

I don't understand why we are trying to rid our government of the checks and balances that we were all taught about in elementary school that made our government so unique and so strong.

I don't understand why people resort to violence and destruction and death to civilians in order to make their point. But I also don't understand why people want to continue creating a world in which oppression and money create this hatred.

I am sincerely grateful that our government is devoting their time and resources to protecting us from horrific acts against us, and I do understand that we do not live in a perfect world. But I don't understand why President Bush feels the judge's ruling was incorrect. Does President Bush want to amend the 4th amendment to say that unreasonable search and seizure is illegal, unless a government official decides they want to do it because they think something bad is happening? Surely that way all of this misunderstanding would go away. Until President Bush can get this change to the 4th amendment through the proper channels, which I'm sure the population is eagerly awaiting, it might be worthwhile just to go through the process of getting warrants, just like our law intends people to do.

Big box stores

One of the most common ways to criticize "liberals" is to find an ideal they support and then point out an every day action that makes them hypocritical (this is also a very common reaction to finding out someone is a vegetarian). For example, most liberals are pretty anti-"Big box store" (the most notorious being WalMart). But at the same time, if you look through their house, they will probably have products bought from a major chain.

I definitely fall into this category. I haven't been to a WalMart in years. But this weekend I shopped at Ikea. And I've often shopped at Target or Home Depot or Costco other super stores that do nothing but cause horribly congested traffic, encourage lots and lots of oil use, encourage minimum wage (or below minimum wage) jobs, etc.

Sometimes it's hard not to go to one of these stores. For example, we wanted to buy some patio furniture. We didn't want anything fancy, and most importantly, we were on a budget. Ikea was the perfect solution. To find such furniture at a local store would have taken many hours of exploration and probably would have involved more money. We didn't want to put that much effort into it.

If there were a local furniture store in my neighborhood I could depend on, I would choose that over Ikea. But there's not. But maybe there isn't because they couldn't compete against Ikea and Crate and Barrel and all the various other chain furniture stores. So you end up with a chicken and egg problem, where an individual store would have to charge more for their product because they won't sell as much as a chain store, but no one will shop at these individual stores because the chain stores are much cheaper.

I'm not sure what the answer is to this situation. I have a feeling that individual store benefits society more than the chain store (though I'm far from educated in economics and haven't researched this thought all that much), but I'm not sure if that's a realistic ideal to have.

High definition movie standards

I think it's funny that I'm pretty much a techie-nerd, but I haven't had a single entry about technical stuff yet. So it's time to put an end to that.

I think it's pretty much ingrained in our minds that "competition is good for the consumer". That's why we have anti-monopoly laws. And in general, it's a good idea to let the little guy be on the same playing field as the big guy.

But when it comes to technology, I'm not always sure I agree.

Take for example, HD DVD and Blu Ray Discs. These are the two new types of media that will let you watch high-definition movies on your home television. The problem is, the two formats are incompatible, so you pretty much have to pick one or another. And it's entirely possible that one of your favorite movies might be on one format but not the other.

You might think it's good that there are these 2 formats for consumers to choose from, and that the better one will end up winning a bigger market share. While this might be true, often times the "better one" is the one with more marketing dollars behind it. There's a huge incentive for a company's format to be picked as the "standard" because they often own trademarks or patents or other proprietary material that makes them rich when other people start licnesing it. Is that really "what's best"? And until this format-war is played out, consumers will have to pick one side or another (with players costing upwards of $1000 right now it's unlikely people will buy two players).

I personally could care less which format wins. I'd much rather have the format war be over with, so that I know for sure which types of movies I can watch at home. But maybe it's not so bad this is happening, because prices are so expensive now anyway that I'm going to wait a few years for prices to drop, and hopefully by then there will be more of a standard.

But then again, maybe I'll never really need a HD DVD or Blu Ray player anyway. I barely watch the DVD's that I currently own - I'm much more apt to watch something on cable. And with On Demand and internet movie purchases getting better and better, it's possible that video rentals may be going the way of the past. So by the time the prices have dropped and the clear winner has been declared, it may be that no one really wants to buy a high-definition movie player anyway.

Exploring breakfast

Living in a city exposes you to all sorts of food from different cultures. But I've noticed that generally breakfast is the same at every restaurant. You can get eggs, pancakes, oatmeal, toast, etc. You might venture out and get crepes or corn beef hash, but generally if you are eating out for breakfast you are probably eating an American breakfast (well, I'm not exactly sure of the origins, maybe it's not American, but it has come to be considered as such).

I often wonder what other cultures eat for breakfast. When traveling in Europe, I noticed that often times breakfast consisted of cold cuts, cheese, bread, and yogurt. And when in Hawaii, sometimes they served soba noodles at breakfast. So I know that breakfasts must vary somewhat depending on where you are.

Just a few weeks ago, I got to experience an Arabic breakfast (the restaurant's term, I don't know if it's accurate or not) at one of our favorite local restaurants which just started serving breakfast, Goood Frickin' Chicken (and yes, I know it's weird that a vegetarian would consider a restauranted named Goood Frickin' Chicken to be one of their favorite local restaurants). We ordered the Fool Madamas, which we had also had before at another local restaurant, Joe's 24th Street Cafe, and also ordered a couple other dishes, but I can't remember their names. The food was quite unlike a typical breakfast at any other restaurant. It was delicious, but very heavy and oily, and we were barely able to eat half of it, which left us with some yummy leftovers to take home. We also ordered Turkish coffee, which I believe is a thick coffee mixed with cardamom, which, once I put sugar in it, was pretty good.

I'm definitely curious to try more types of breakfasts. I've never seen a Chinese or Japanese restaurant around here open for breakfast, though certainly there must be one somewhere... and there's tons of breakfast burritos being served in the various Mexican taquerias in town, though I'm not sure if that's a California breakfast or a true Mexican breakfast.

PDX

I spent the weekend in Portland, Oregon for a friend's wedding. It's the third time I've been to Portland in 2 years. I'm pretty fond of Portland so far and definitely wouldn't mind spending more time there. The feel is less crowded and more spread out than San Francisco. I sometimes wonder if Portland is similar to how San Francisco was 30 years ago before the big technology boom (even though the actual city layouts are quite different). They have a decent public transportation system around the downtown area, though it seems like Portland has a lot of suburban-type housing areas so I get the feeling that it's really a driver's city. One odd observation I had is that the homeless population seemed very different from the San Francisco homeless - the Portland homeless seemed like they were a younger type of crowd (more like what you'd see around Haight and not around downtown). It also seems like it might be time to widen the freeways a bit.

While we were there, we of course hit my wife's favorite, The Delta Cafe. Being a vegetarian is pretty easy in Portland, and even this southern-style restaurant had vegetarian options. We also had a great lunch at a Lebanese place (when I ordered the Lebanese beer, the waiter was very excited for me, saying it's good I drink it now because in 2 months their restaurant may never be able to get it again with the way things are going over in Lebanon). The other must stop food-related place was another of my wife's favorites, Coffee People. I must admit I found their Black Tiger soy mochas to be quite delicious.

And, to top it all off, the wedding was a great time.