I tried eating 보신탕 (dog soup) on Wednesday.

Gut reaction?

I’ve been meaning to post to the Emoticon for a while now, but I haven’t had any inspiration.
 
Then I turn on the tube last night and see a plane that looks like Air Force One taking a joyride over the New York skyline for a photo op.  They needed a photo of a big ass plane flying over NYC? That’s why God gave us Adobe Photoshop.  I know it’s expensive but that’s why God gave us BitTorrent.

Forget about the pissed off New Yorkers (redundant?). I’m worried about the fact that this is evidence that we still have at least some morons in charge.  The change I believed in was mostly about getting the retards, fanatics, and combinations thereof out of power. 

With all the other shit going down these days (bank failures, mexican pig virus, earthquakes, global warming, destabilization of nuclear Pakistan by the Taliban, etc.) I feel like everyone is just throwing up their hands and asking these guys one question: Really?

I saw Adventureland this week and I have to say that I really enjoyed it. I'm giving it a solid A. Similar to another "comedy" I saw recently, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, I think the way Adventureland blends serious subject matter with immature college comedy is brilliant. Real life tends to be a lot like that for me, so I can relate. Seriously though, I am liking this (new?) breed of film that mixes slapstick, fart-joke-esq humor with serious romantic, career, and family subject matter.

The movie is set in the summer of 1987 and is about a smart but nerdy guy named James (Jesse Eisenberg) who just graduated college with a degree in comparative literature, but hasn't gotten laid yet. He's cool though- he's definitely down for a good time and is pretty witty. His parents are having money issues and he can't do his post-college summer in Europe, so he ends up working at Adventureland (in Pittsburgh). The theme park is really shitty, but it definitely feels very real, and very 80's.

James works with a bunch of kids that you would expect to find at a park like this, but they are all impressively deep characters for a movie like this. There is also a girl who works at the park named Emily (Kristen Stewart). She's beautiful and interesting, but kind of dark and aloof, and James very quickly falls for her. Unlike James though, she is quite "experienced" and has a mysterious and complicated history with some other folks at Adeventureland. Due to this schism in sexual experience (and James' general naivete), Emily and James end up down a predictable, but well executed road that brings them... (no spoilers). On a side note, the cast is a very affluent group, Emily goes to NYU herself and the characters' family dynamics definitely add some commentary on 1980's upper-class suburbia, which I enjoyed.

So yeah, the movie is great for three reasons. First, it is not really a comedy, but also not a flat our drama. Instead it makes you think, laugh, and cry. Most movies only do one or maybe two of these. Second, the setting and characters are exceptionally real. When I left the film I was feeling downright sad because I missed those high school/early college summers that the film depicts so well. Third, although the main plot line between James and Jesse is somewhat formulaic, both the characters are very likable and I ended up caring a lot about what happened with them. Even though he is above average in nerdiness, James is a very well executed "every-dude" while Emily is a great character because she combines the "perfect girl" with a darker more mysterious side that adds a layer to the movie that a lot of other romantic comedies lack.

In conclusion, you should check this film out if anything above sounds familiar/interesting. I think Greg Mottola (directed Superbad also) has stepped it up in this one and I'm looking forward to more from everyone involved.

My iPhone is awesome. It's the product of years of progress and innovation in computing. In fact, the iPhone is more powerful than either of my first two desktop computers, which is still a little crazy to me. But what puzzles me is the ever growing quality gap between cell phones and the service that they use to transmit and receive. Although my iPhone is the pinnacle of handheld electronics right now, I am continuously baffled by how many calls it drops and how slow the internet is. If I don't have three or more bars of 3G (or Wifi), my data connection might as well not be there. If I'm on Edge, forget it. I just stop trying at that point. I have no idea how the first iPhone worked at all without 3G.

I've been thinking back a lot lately to when I first got a cell phone in eighth grade (1999). Maybe my memory is not serving, but I honestly cannot trace any improvement from then to now in terms of (perceived) service quality. By "perceived" I mean that back then there was no data or digital voice, but the phone did what it was supposed to do and did it well. All my old phones held onto calls way better than my new iPhone. And the internet on my old Motorola Razr 3G could be tethered to my laptop and was wicked fast. It's been almost a year since the 3G iPhone came out, and I still can't tether it without hacking it. Plus, the internet is simply not as fast as my Razr's was. Maybe it's because more people are using the connection now, but whatever, that's no excuse.

My last gripe is about Apple's iPhone commercials, where the iPhone appears blisteringly fast. For some reason their TV iPhone is faster than mine is freshly restored and on Wifi. It's a blatant exaggeration of the quality and I'd even say a flat out lie. I think what needs to happen for a while is less investment in handsets and more investment in infrastructure. That way we'll actually have an experience worthy of the technology we're holding in our hands. The ratio of innovation between the iPhone and the network it's connected to is probably 100:1. There's room for improvement.

Until this day comes I will just have to keep ranting when a call drops or I can't check my Gmail...