Eating at Macks

i met up with o for a long over-due lunch. we were supposed to go to massawa for lunch in the haight, but unfortunately it was closed. so we strolled a few doors down and came to Martin Macks. we never heard of it before. but it looked interesting so we popped on in. it's an irish pub restaurant...and the inside looks something like a western saloon type bar. i had a pork loin sandwich which wasn't too bad. afterwards i walked a bit around the haight, b/c it was way too awesome of a sunny day to just go home and be in front of the computer.

Artsy Memorial Service

i went with n to go to a memorial service for this guy who was a huge partron of the arts. they had some stuff in honor of him - ballet, singing groups, dancing. i was out like a light during the ballet and dancing. i had the vicious head nod thing going on again. one of the singing groups was Chanticlear. i'll update this again when i find the program listing everything. there was a reception afterwards. pretty good food there.

Chocolat

on sunday i had a moviewatcher movie pass that was gonna expire which i had to use up. at first i was gonna see hanibal and then the wedding planner, but my friends weren't up for it. finally found f and j to see chocolat with me. it was pretty good. i didn't know much about it except that it was up for an academy award. i thought it was some imported movie from england. i didn't know that johnny dep and carrie-ann moss were in there. pretty funny. cute, light-hearted story. i think if i liked chocolate, i would have been craving some after the movie.

been a long time. way too long. here are new things i've been up to in the past week. i'm going to try to blog daily consistantly over the next 18 days. i heard in today's sermon that you can break or from habits by doing things for 18 days straight. if you lapse, you have to start count from the very beginning for the 18 days.

Oxygen
went to my friend's party at club bas, called "O". i was supposed to get in for free, but they shut down the list and i had to pay $15. this is the new and bigger incarnation of Blue, which was as asia sf. O was way crowded and way packed.

The East Coast Shift
i talked to someone at an internet broadcating services company for financial services. for a job. it sounds interesting. i wonder how well i can handle getting to work at 4:30 am three days out of the week! :P i've gone to sleep that time a few times in the previous week.

Sweet November
saw the new keanu reeves and charlize theron movie. charlize was really good. keanu was just ok. altho it was a chick flick, i wanted to see it cuz it was filmed in san francisco. it's supposed to really depict what it's like to live in sf. there were shots of the dubois triangle and clement street among other neighborhoods. i want to see the wedding planner for the same reason. that's supposed to really romanticize sf and make it the place to be. an added bonus was that keanu played an advertising guy. i wonder what ad agency they used for the agency set. the story is a little sad. it's also a remake of an old movie.

Snatched
finally got around to seeing snatch! i liked it. pretty funny. i caught a twilight show, so there were only about 8 or 9 people in the theater. pretty violent. very complex storyline. i forgot a little how people were connected. but i liked the movie.

Nothing to report
unfortunately i did absolutely nothing significantly new on monday or tuesday. sad. very sad.

Prime Rib at Hungry Hunter

yesterday went to celebrate my grandfather's bday. i was expecting that we'd do our normal thing...go to some little neighborhood chinese restaurant at 5:00 to beat everyone else so we wouldn't have to wait around for a table. to my surprise, we instead went to hungry hunter in south city. i had a prime rib. yum. i was pretty stuffed. on top of that i had a late lunch after church.

New Mags

today i read a new design magazine. print. it had a pretty cool section about advertising today, covering a lot of different aspects. i'm thinking now about what i wanna do careerwise and what my next step will be. this section reminded me why i liked advertising and the cultural relevance and diversity it covers. it also gave a perspective on interactive advertising...and the latest trend for crm...but that's nothing new to me.

Trudging around North Beach and Chinatown

yesterday i hung out with jp. we were roaming around chinatown trying to get some decorations for the ak sisters' appreciation nite. it was last nite and had a chinese theme. first time i really spent a lot of time with him. it was cool. we also went to st. peter and paul - a catholic church in northbeach. it was pretty nice inside. stained glass. statues. candles. very quiet. and for some reason...there were all girls in there. strange. some sort of group came in.

The Showroom Issue

the only thing new i did on thur was pick up a new mag while waiting for my class to start. frame is an international review of archtecture and design. pretty cool stuff inside.

whoa. 4 days. since i last blogged. it's been a long time...but i havn't forgotten. still doing new things...

Valentine's Day @ Ristorante Franchino

went on a double date to a new north beach restaurant. it was with my parents and my grandma. for our v-day dinner, we almost went to gold mountain in chinatown, which i really didn't want to go to cuz i've been there a couple of times already for chinese new year. we were gonna walk instead to the steps of rome in north beach, when we came across ristorante franchino on columbus. totally new restaurant for all of us. a small cozy place. the caesar was just ok. pasta with chicken and shrimp in a tomato sauce was great.

Mt. Davidson

went for a hike with r today up to mt. davidson. i had always wanted to go there, so i opted to go there instead of to the beach. nice weather. great view of the city. a view of the south side of the city, which i often don't see. it's a famout hill in sf which has a huge cement cross at the top...visible from most of the city.

In The Mood For Love

i bought the vcd of the highly acclaimed wong kar-wai movie, in the mood for love, a few days ago. it's about to be released in the us this coming weekend. i was planning on watching it anyways...so when i was at a vcd store on irving buying another movie, i figured that it would be worth picking it up anyways. especially since i was willing to pay to see it in the theaters and i didn't know anyone who would go see it with me.

it's a beautifully directed movie about unrequited love. these two hong kongers move in next door to adjacent apartments on the same day. over time, they realize that their spouses are having an affair together. as they meet with each other to figure out how it could have happened, they begin to have feelings for each other. this movie had crazy cool reviews at the cannes film festival. i've been reading about this more and more in film reviews in the papers and magazines. i really like wong kar-wai's style. very artistic. he also directed chungking express.

here's the premise, quoted from the cannes:
"Hong Kong, 1962. Chief editor of a local daily newspaper, Chau (Leung) and his wife move into new accommodation in a building mainly inhabited by the Shanghai community. He soon meets Li-chun (Cheung), a very beautiful young woman who has also just moved in with her husband. She is a secretary in an export firm, and her husband is a representative for a Japanese company, which means that he is often away on business trips. As his own wife is often away from home, Chau spends more and more time in Li-chun's company. As their landlords are good friends, they often meet for games of mahjong or to discuss the latest gossip. Chau and Li-chun become friends but, one day, they are forced to face facts: their respective partners are having an affair..."

from the cannes it won Best Actor (Leung) and Grand Prix de la C.S.T. (Special Prize for Cinematography and Editing).

i actually fell asleep watching the ending, but i almost always fall asleep watching foreign movies. i guess the pacing was a tad slow for me at 2am. but when watching it again (and trying again a third time), i liked it. i liked the cinematic direction a lot...the camera angles...also the catch nat king cole music riff was very cool.

Java Beach

went to a cafe by ocean beach to study. java beach is at the great highway and judah. a few blocks down from 7-11 and thanh long. it has nice couches and sunlight from the beach. i had irish breakfast tea. that was new for me too. i think i'm going thru a tea thing. there was some weirdo in the cafe tho, who was singing with the music. i guess this place gets beach bum people like that.

Praise nite in the Mission

i attended a youth rally with ak at bethel church on valencia and 24th. a rally with different churchs around the city. ours was the only chinese church. the worship and nite had a different feel, than what our group was used to -- worshippers dancing wildly, jumping up and down...at one point there were a bunch of girls who were supposedly speaking in tongues. they were so loud, that they were disruptive at one point to everyone else. the worship leader had to tell them to stop and get some help... the worship was pretty wild. it was cool, but we noticed how the songs were very me-focused; none really had the focus on exalting god.

afterwards, my car went to get some burritos close-by. good thing for my handy (and now replaced) palm. i had a list of burrito spots that i wanted to try. El Farolito Taqueria, 2777 Mission St. (near 24th Street) was closeby. it was pretty good and pretty cheap...but it wasn't the best burrito i've ever had. i guess i'll have to try one of the other three places i have listed in my palm notes.

Italian on Fillmore

thur for lunch was with my grandma and ma. my grandma picked someplace different that i hadn't been before, b/c she knows how i'm always looking for someplace new to try. we ended up going to ristorante Via Veneto on fillmore and clay. nice, clean white decor. i had a foccacia pollo sandwich, with the house salad. i also ordered a cup of minestrone soup, since i was still fighting a cold. pretty nice place for lunch. on my way back from the bathroom, i bumped into this guy, cl. he's now a cop in the sunset. i first met him a couple of years doing some community service stuff. we chatted a little. now i know two cops in the sunset, both from being involved with some community service.

More Food

wed nite i had a belated 80th bday dinner with my grandma. i took her out to Sam's Grill. it was listed in the chronicle on sunday as one of the top 100 restaurants. the decor was pretty clean and straight from the 40's or 50's. we had some great fried calamari, poached salmon, and clam fetuccini in red sauce.

The Daily Brew

yesterday i had to crank on my clown museum logo ideas for my tue nite class. after making a trip out to green apple to find a couple of typography books (which weren't there and i had to end up ordering on amazon), i hung out at this small cafe around the corner in the richmond. the daily brew. The Daily Brew. 4355 California @ 6th Ave.

i just passed by when i was looking for parking, and decided to go there. i remember passing it before, when i once went to lee hou (the place with rats) for dim-sum. anyhoo...the daily brew is a small little place on the corner. nicely decorated - earthtones and teapots. as soon as i walked this eldery customer guy said hi to me. he was chatting with some elderly chinese guy, just passing the time. during the 3 hours i was there, a couple of other older people came in to hang out and just chat. quaint little place. parking wasn't too bad. only thing is they played koit type music. easy listening junk. yuck.

Two weeks of new things

finally done with my two weeks of chinese new year busyness and hangin out. here's a bunch of new thangs for me:

- toured city hall. visited the mayor's office. took a picture with the mayor.

- toured pac bell park. (first time i went there at all!). went to the giants' locker room, dug out, and up to the press box. the field was configured for the first xfl game on sunday.

- met an asian elvis impersonator - john newinn. he's only 22 and a sophomore in college. also vice-president of the houston based asian world-wide elvis fan club.

- drove a mini-van and a couple of vans. criss-crossed the city a lot and played chauffer a bunch of times.

- ate at baghdad cafe . i had the turkey hash and eggs. pretty good for a 24 hour place.

- went to church at first chinese baptist church. attended the 9am english youth service where cc leads worship. i needed to go to a church in chinatown that day. worship was really great, since i missed it at lumps on thur cuz of my class.

- met a ton of new people. from different places: seattle, new york, houston, honolulu. from different walks of life: a venture capitalist, a 49er cheerleader, an aspiring broadcast journalist, an art instructor, a physical therapist, and probably topping them all off...an elvis impersonater. i wish i talked to him. i wonder why he likes elvis. i initially thought seeing him perform would be pretty hokey, but it was actually pretty kewl.

- visited chinese hospital. i don't think i ever really went around in there, even though i used to go to church next door for many years.

- visited st.mary's. i was walking to chinatown, passed by, and decided to walk on in and play tourist. i think it's the first time (maybe second time) i ever walked into a catholic church. really beautiful stained glass. lots of candles (just like in a john woo movie). it's supposed to be like the oldest catholic church on the west coast or something.

- went around the chinatown ymca. was looking for j who works there. used the upstairs bathroom there, since the bottom one was supposedly not very clean.

- learned that b used to be an exterminator. to my disgust, i learned how dirty the chinese restaurants that i would frequent are. rats and cockroaches. (once when i went to the four seas the past two weeks, i saw a fatty cockroach scurry across the floor.) b said that clement street places are pretty bad. i'm gonna probably stop going to lee hou on clement and 5th. too bad, since it's open til 1am every nite. it supposedly had major rat problems a couple of years ago. royal thai is also supposed to be bad. b would trap rats by putting glue boards up in the ceilings. i think he made a lot of money doing that.