just got back from the sundance film festival, which runs until the 28th.  i had a great experience and definitely hope to make the trip again in the future, even if it gets more commercial and overridden with tourists and celebrities every year.  during my short time there, i got to see 4 movies (teeth, finishing the game, four sheets to the wind, bugmaster) as well as a compilation of shorts.  a couple of random observations from each film:

shorts program IV: a compilation of shorts.  hard to comment on each of these, so i'll just say most of them were fairly entertaining, with two exceptions.  of note was an amsuing short called high falls which stars real-life couple maggie gyllenhaal and peter sarsgaard.

teeth: imdb gives the following description for this movie's plot: "still a stranger to her own body, a high school student discovers she has a physical advantage when she becomes the object of male violence."  more vulgar translation: it's a movie about a girl who has a vagina with teeth.  needless to say this movie is incredibly over-the-top and delivers a number of 'i can't believe what i just saw' moments - but done in a manner that is both horrifying and comic at the same time.  i have some major issues with this film but the buzz is justified just from its shock-value alone.  the movie was quickly picked up by lionsgate and the weinstein co. shortly after the same screening i attended.

 
jess weixler reading about 'vagina dentata' in teeth (l); bruce lee wanna-bes in finishing the game (r)

finishing the game: justin lin's return to his better luck tomorrow indie roots following his big-studio splashes annapolis and fast and the furious: tokyo drift.  i felt fortunate to get tickets to both this movie and teeth since they were both movies that quickly sold out.  but while teeth delivered quite a punch and generated lots of buzz, finishing the game was somewhat silly and scattershot.  i got bored with both the humor and storyline and rarely found myself laughing spontaneously.  a witty premise (the casting of bruce lee's replacement in game of death) makes the lack of laughs all the more disappointing.

four sheets to the wind:  this movie about a young native-american who experiences life in the big city is about as 'okay' as a movie can get.  pretty standard storyline, a few nice heartwarming moments here and there, but nothing to get overly excited about and nothing that you haven't seen before.  but having themes related to family and independence, it resonates most personally out of all the films i watched.

bugmaster:  the second live-action feature by the same guy who did akira (katsuhiro otomo).  incredibly dull and confusing.  i fell asleep during the first thirty minutes and woke up seeing some lots of japanese characters flying all-over the place.  the friend i went to see the movie with slept through even more of the movie than me.  needless to say we were completely clueless regarding what happened in the movie.  not that staying awake would have made a difference - the entire audience seemed to be equally lost based on conversations overheard after the screening.

of course, there was plenty more to the festival than just movies - celebrity sightings, parties, freebies, skiing/snowboarding, etc.  i didn't have much time to do anything except watch films, though i did attend a couple of events that featured asian-american filmmakers, including a panel discussion where justin lin, sung kang, dustin nguyen, and others discussed their experiences in the industry.  i've always had a strong interest in film and the entertainment industry as a whole, so it was great to hear asian-american viewpoints that were both cautionary and optimistic.  the festival was also a great environment to meet a lot of people who worked in the industry, not to mention those who simply were film enthusiasts like myself.

some other thoughts and observations from my time at the festival:

• i forget how cold the winter can really be.  late evening temperatures in park city were unbearably cold.
• celebrities and recognizable faces are everywhere at sundance.  even people you don't recognize are often actors and filmmakers from films within the festival.
• it's often hard to guage how good a film at the festival is from audience reaction.  in many of the screenings, especially those that are initial screenings, the theater is filled with people who made the film and their friends.  so these people will natually laugh, cheer, and respond positively to all the action on the screen.  during finishing the game, people would be laughing at scenes which you knew were trying to be funny but didn't quite hit the mark.  maybe my sense of humor is misguided, but i definitely felt a lot of the laughs were forced from an overly supportive audience.  though i wouldn't mind being wrong on that one.
• the q and a sessions after the screenings are awesome.  most of the screenings are attended by the director and cast, so it's great to see them up-close and and get some insight into the filmmaking process.
• during the q and a sessions i would often get to see a lot of unheralded but extremely talented actors discuss their roles.  what always strikes me is how natural, i.e. unpolished or un-articulate, they may speak in person. an actor's presentation on-screen can be so striking that i naturally expect them to talk or act the same way in real life - which of course is foolish since they're 'acting' on-screen and answering audience questions with no pre-written lines or advance preparation.
• i was suprised at how large the representation was for asian and asian-american films.  there were a lot of films selected for the festival and i was impressed by the coordinated programs and efforts supporting the asian-american filmmaking community.

lastly, here are a few personal pics from park city, utah:

   
park city main st. at night (l); a view of the slopes (r)

   
finishing the game cast (l); director justin lin with hammer and dustin nguyen to his left (r)

 
partying it up at 4 am cabin-style

 
with friends at sundance: c and k (l) and b and d (r)

i've got about 3 months of work to finish in about 3 days, so what better time to blog than now.  after months of bench-time, getting back into shape as a productive contributor has been challenging.  but overall, i can't complain - i just have a lot of documentation to do, so a few sleepless nights should be a nostalgic reminder of my equally unproductive college years.

speaking of college, i did my first alumni interview a little while back.  i've been somewhat active with my alumni association so i figured i'd volunteer to do interviews as well.   the interviewee was shy and somewhat socially awkward, which means she would fit right in at chicago.  and since i'm no longer a student there, i'm looking for brains over beauty, so she gets a positive interview report.

one last note related to college admissions...i'm still in the prospectus viewbook for the university of chicago.  if you filter through all the silly dialogue about marxism and bubble tea, you'll find me in a small pic on the last page of the flash deck.  in case you're wondering why they'd want to keep my ugly mug in their viewbook for 8+ years, there's a simple formula: smiling asian male + smiling black female = viewbook immortality.

since this is likely my last post for another month or two, happy holidays to everyone.

my company sends out periodic statistics to let you know how you're doing in terms of utilization, how much revenue your projects are bringing into the company, your profit margin, etc.  i  recently received my performance scorecard for the last 12 months and it wasn't pretty.  my LTM utilization rate was 16.06%...which basically means i worked on average about 3-4 days a month.  on the positive side, it's insane how much i'm getting paid for doing nearly nothing.  on the negative side, such numbers  don't bode well for job security and career advancement.  but being a sloth by nature, i'm not complaining.

fortunately for my career, i am currently staffed through the rest of the year.  furthermore, i somehow got a raise and my evaluation for the one long-term project i worked on was strong...so things are stable for now.  my current project does have some room for induced laziness; since my current assignment is local, i don't have to worry about travel time.  which means by thursday afternoon my entire team is gone and monday mornings are a breeze (which is when everyone flies in and why i'm sitting at work posting a blog entry).

so overall i'm enjoying work and i like the company i work for.  though if my utilization starts approaching normal levels that might change.

back on the bench again so time for an update.  i should write the obligatory 'i haven't updated in ages/i hardly update anymore' spiel, but that has to be the most common opening line to xanga posts so i will avoid doing so (even though i indirectly already have for this post).  but since i'm back at home doing what i do best (i.e. nothing), i might as well provide my dwindling number of readers with an update.

an update is in order rather some than some introspective rant since a few rather significant events have occurred in the last 2 months.  mainly, i bought a place and moved up to san francisco.  i've been up in the city for just over a month and it's been hectic but great.  as always, timing has been less than perfect - just moving in is tiresome enough, but i've also been busier than normal with work and travel obligations.  combine this with my attempts to buy new furniture and move all my belongings from 40 minutes away and i'm barely left with any time to explore what the city has to offer.  but hopefully things are calming down to the point where i can get a sense of my surroundings and finally start to settle in.

so here are a couple of shots of the new pad and its meager furnishings:

taken from upstairs loft.  notice the great view of the costco parking garage.

pseudo-bar area avec mondrian.

with the minimally required furniture in place, i went ahead and had a little housewarming shindig this past saturday.  surprisingly it's the first time i've hosted a true housewarming event or anything remotely close to a weekend house party.  needless to say i was ill-prepared for a couple of things - here's a list of things to remember for next time (or for anyone else about to throw a house party):

• must have a corkscrew.  there were a few girls who would not drink anything but water or wine.  i think they left early.   at the every least, i've got plenty of unopened wine bottles left over.
• must have LOTS of ice and water.  these ran out quickly mainly due to the heat.  air-conditioning isn't the norm in san francisco, since it rarely gets that hot.  but try to cram 50-100 people in a loft and it'll get steamy real quick.
• buy some fans.  for the same reasons as above.
• must provide more food.  a number of people didn't have dinner so a number of people were pretty hungry.

as usual, i neglected to take many pictures, but here are a few i remembered to snap while i was upstairs:

despite the heat and resulting mess afterwards, i had a great time, and hopefully everyone else did as well.  one of the strange things was that half the people that showed i didn't even know...which can be
a good thing or bad thing.  but everyone i met was very friendly and i've already cleaned up my place with no lingering damage or issues.

so there begins my new life in the city.  i will still be heading down to the south bay often since so many people i know are down there, but hopefully i can save a little gas mileage on the weekends and take
better advantage of what san francisco has to offer.  and for anyone who comes up to sf or is already in the city, feel free to stop by for a drink or just to say hi anytime.

more of my usual self-aggrandizement on my next post.

parking is such a pain.  looking for parking can be daunting - the good spaces
are always taken and the competition for available spaces is fierce.  i seemingly always arrive too late, when all the best spaces are gone.  and when good spaces do open up, i'm too slow to react.  aggression is often rewarded, even if it might lead to an accident or altercation now and then.  unfortunately, i'm conflict-averse.

then there are always the tactics of following people back to their cars or just staying in one place and waiting for that space to open up.  but i lack the patience or desire to allow such ploys to work.  persistence just isn't my style; if something isn't available, i just move on.  my thinking is that there are always some open spaces somewhere.

of course, i can't waste all my time just circling around forever.  how much time should i spend looking for a suitable parking space?  is it worth it to use those extra minutes to find a better space, even when there's no guarantee a good space will open up?  or should i settle for a distant space, understanding that time is limited and any space is better that none?  yes, the distant space is less appealing...but waste more time and even that space may be gone.  worse yet, take too much time and there might be no spaces left altogether. 

if i'm looking for parking, it's usually for a reason - to get somewhere to do something.  so in that respect, a lot of spaces can serve that purpose, even ones that might not seem like ideal spots.  but for whatever reason, i'm very short-sighted; i always think i can find that perfect parking spot (whatever that means).   needless to say i spend a lot of time driving aimlessly about.

if i were stranded on a deserted island with a high-speed internet connection and could only choose three websites to have access to (a common dilemna), no doubt i would pick google, yahoo, and craigslist.  although i peruse billions of other sites on an hourly basis, those three alone could adequately provide online sustenance for someone who pretty much lives and breathes on the internet.  

i'm not going talk about google and yahoo (for now), but i was reminded by craigslist of how useful these websites are for accomplishing simple daily activities.  on its website, craigslist describes itself as trying to be 'a trustworthy, efficient, relatively non-commercial place for folks to find all the basics in their local area.'  i'm sure we've all used craigslist for apartment rentals, but the site has become an expansive community where pretty much any service or need can be provided in some form.  you can find a place to live, a place to work, even a person to date...all of life's 'basic' necessities.

my reminder came this past thursday when i used the rideshare section of the site to catch a ride down to los angeles.  needless to say i'm putting the 'trustworthy' part of the craigslist vision to the test.  any time i mention to people that i hitched a ride off of craigslist, they think i'm nuts.  but it makes perfect sense - how many people make the drive by themselves between san francisco and los angeles every weekend, spending hundreds of dollars in gas yet always leaving unoccupied seats in a car?  by using a rideshare, you save gas money, you conserve energy if you're not driving, you can take advantage of any car pool lanes, you're helping the environment with less traffic, you even have company for some conversation if you so choose.  in being true to the craigslist premise of helping our fellow neighbor, the rideshare concept exemplifies, in an ideal world, a sensible approach to being practical and efficient.  

of course, we live in a selfish and paranoid world where it's risky and possibly dangerous to put complete trust in a stranger.  but this idealism is part of what makes craigslist so wonderful - the evolution of craigslist's community has allowed the internet to connect people, and as craig newmark (the founder of craigslist) puts it, 'to realize that most everyone is OK, means well and wants to get along.'  i've used craigslist for a variety of purposes, and i have yet to have any negative experiences (minus the occasional flake here and there).  for example, my rideshare experiences have all been positive - my most recent ride was with CFO of a public company in the bay area who was driving down to arizona to pick up her daughter from college, and before that i rode with a professor and documentary filmmaker from los angeles.  not only did i catch rides, but also got to meet interesting people to help make the trip even shorter.

please realize that this is not an endorsement for everyone to go out and hitch rides off of craiglist or to put complete faith in whatever strangers are out there.  the rideshare thing is definitely a little more on the extreme side, so i wouldn't except anyone, particularly females, to make use of such services.  for every 99 good experiences out there, there is always that 1 negative experience - martini_gal can surely attest to that.  but i bring up the rideshare example to illustrate my own affection for craigslist and the purpose it serves.  despite my growing cynicism that comes along with age, i'm still an idealist at heart and craigslist helps me realize what a supportive and helpful community we're all a part of.  not to mention that it's a great place to save money for a cheap-ass like myself.

maybe some other time i'll write about my obligatory craigslist crazy-girl experience.  but probably not.

anytime you meet someone, you undoubtedly ask or get asked the question, 'what do you do for a living?'  a harmless question, one that could merely be an attempt to make conversation or be a casual probe to gain a better understanding of an individual's interests, lifestyle, or social class.  regardless of the purpose of the query, i will undoubtedly answer something self-deprecating like 'boring tech stuff' or 'what every asian guy around the bay area does.'  the detached tone of answer represents a lack of pride in my occupation, or more simply, a lack of interest in the question.  which is partially my intent; i want people to realize that for myself, work is work, and it's not something i'm passionate about.

but upon closer examination, it's that same nonchalant tone that's surreptitiously being used to present myself in the best possible light.  by associating myself with the tech industry, it connotates at least some minimal left-brain intelligence (i.e. i'm not a dumbass) and places myself in the standard professional pool of overpaid tech workers in the bay area (i.e. i'm not in debt).  however, by answering in a cynical tone, i reveal disdain for my work, as if i could or should be doing something more interesting or fulfilling (i.e. please don't associate me with all the uncool aspects of being an engineer).  while i would argue that some engineers are among some of the smartest and most successful people i've ever met, there's just something that seems unimpressive about being 'simply' an engineer, especially in the silicon valley.  maybe that's why all the normal people eventually move to business positions or go to business or law school.   

not to say that there's anything wrong with the tech industry or people that work in technology positions.  if anything, engineers rank quite highly in my own twisted social hierarchy of respectable occupations for some of the resons mentioned above (e.g. engineers typically possess some level of intelligence and financial stability).  and in reality, i'm not even quite a 'true' engineer myself - while i claim association with the high-tech industry, i have no engineering or technical degrees and have barely written any object-oriented code in my professional life.  as a liberal arts person in college, i spent more hours reading the the likes of weber and durkheim than i did in a computer lab (that's actually a lie, but you get my point).  yet somehow in this weird path of life i've gone from being a liberal arts softie to having titles like 'consultant', 'software engineer', and 'manager'.  of course, job titles are so vague and broad that they cover a wide spectrum of abilities and disciplines - i represent the low-end of the talent curve within a technology area that isn't exactly rocket science.  it's odd to think that a hack life myself can share the same title or salary as some of the truly brilliant and talented people that i've met or worked with.  needless to say,  i'm immensely fortunate and thankful for the opportunities that i've had; i just haven't always worked with the same level of passion or enjoyment as my peers.

so what's my point?  as always there is none, except that i care a little too much about what other people think of me and that i talk about my dissatisfaction with work a little too much.  but that's already common knowledge.  i was actually meaning to write about a conference i attended last week before i started rambling on.  i guess my long-winded intro will suffice for now, so maybe i'll write about the conference later and shed some light on what exactly i do on a day-to-day basis (i.e. next to nothing).

happy new year everyone.  kind or ironic that now that i have
all the time in the world i rarely read/use xanga.   but for
whatever reason i was browsing some old posts today and thought
i'd revisit some 'things to do' from 2 years ago.  you'd think i could accomplish a few measly tasks within a mere 700 days...

things to do, in no particular order:

renew DMV registration (by 2/1).  don't want my car impounded again. 

done.

fix brakes (ASAP).  they literally hurt my ears to listen to.

no comment.

fix or replace car radio/cd player (ASAP).  my car is such a piece of crap.

no comment.

pay outstanding SF parking ticket (already overdue, ASAP).  does this affect my credit if i'm late? 

done.  though i have a couple new ones to take care of.

call home (ASAP).  i'm horrible at calling my family.

mom and dad, if you're reading this, happy new year's!

have wisdom teeth pulled (ASAP).  i was supposed to have this done about 4 years ago.

no comment.

buy new running shoes (ASAP).  i've gone running three
days in a row now!  but my ankles and arches are starting to
hurt.  5 years for a pair of running shoes is probably enough.

done.  i actually bought these in 2004...and they still look darn new.

have an abdomen similar to john basedow (by summer).  realistically, shave off enough of my gut that i don't feel silly at a beach or pool party.

no comment.

pay taxes (by 4/15).  this will be painful this year.

i paid them, but not without problems.  my return that i
filed in 2004 was audited and they claimed i owed them some insane
amount money.  thank god for for 1-800-TAX-HELP.  what drives
me even more insane is that i messed up my 2005 return and overpaid -
i'm fairly sure uncle sam owes me over $7,000.  i filed
an amended return, but getting that money back has been pure
madness.  needless to say i'll be getting professional help
this year (for tax purposes).    

take GMAT (by 9/1).  i don't want to go to b-school but i'm running out of time to figure out something better.

no comment.

find girlfriend (sometime in the current millenium).  no comment.

no comment.

my life is so productive. 

i submitted my first offer attempt for a home in san francisco today.  considering the exorbitant prices, a slowing market, and my own doubts about even settling in the bay area, i'm coming in with an extremely lowball offer.  i fully expect the seller to laugh at my offer, but i guess i have nothing to lose except the seller's respect.

i've been spending a lot of time looking at real estate listings since i have very little to do at work these days.  while i've been able to bill some hours here and there, i have yet to be staffed full-time on a project and have only had to leave town for work a couple of times.  so pretty much i've been sitting at home doing nothing for three months.  i'm a big fan of doing nothing so i'm not complaining. 

despite all the free time, i've been surprisingly inactive on xanga.  today is the first day in awhile i even read my subscriptions.  and even now as i post, it's rather insipid and uninspired, a mere update on the goings-on in my life.  maybe xanga is more of a diversionary tool from real work for me.  i guess my true passions come out when i actually have time on my hands.  no wonder i've been sleeping so much lately.

since i've come to the conclusion that i'm not going to really do anything productive with all this free time, i've decided to at least come up with more cocktail-conversation fodder by signing up for netflix and perusing wikipedia on a daily basis.  my current netflix target is to watch every movie on afi's list of the 100 greatest movies.  at my current rate i'll be done by february.  and thanks to wikipedia, i can wish all my friends from the barbados a happy independence day. 

alas, i must have jinxed myself with this post.  just got a call and it looks like i might be heading to dc or new york next week.  though i've been told in the past to book travel to new jersey, wisconsin, and london, so i'll keep my bags unpacked for now.