toastykitten

I am deliberately not reading the news, especially not about the Middle East.

Mark is at OLS right now, which is in Ottawa. He tells me the weather there is like it was in New Orleans, all hot and humid, with thunderstorms in the middle of the day. It's really hot here in the Bay Area, too, although thankfully I work right next to the ocean, so it hardly ever gets too hot.

Oh, and I finally got Mark to see and like a Shakespeare movie. We can usually agree on a movie to see in the theater, but that's mostly because I'm willing to see every comic book movie, ever. When picking out rentals, he wants to pick out every Quentin Tarantino movie, or anything with gangsters, Nicholas Cage and other macho stuff. When I want to rent stuff, I want comedies and Hong Kong cinema. He's always objected to Shakespeare because he "can't understand the language".

We rented The Merchant of Venice. Mark agreed to this only because my other pick was Bride and Prejudice (dude, Kumar and Said from Lost!), and Al Pacino plays Shylock, a Jewish moneylender. The Merchant of Venice is one of Shakespeare's most controversial plays, mostly for its anti-Semitism. It's a difficult play to stage, and an even harder film to shoot, because you have to cut down Shakespeare's five-act play to two hours, and make doubly sure that you don't allow the characters to become caricatures.

I really liked the movie. In Roger Ebert's review, he notes that the genius of Shakespeare's writing is that despite the racism, "its venom is undercut by Shakespeare's inability to objectify any of his important characters. He always sees the man inside." Al Pacino is captivating in it, and does a lot with the monologues he's given - "Hath not a Jew eyes?"

At the end of it, Mark turned to me and said, "Wow, and you say *I* like to watch train wrecks. That was half an hour of people just being really cruel." He's right - all the so-called "good" characters - Portia, Bassanio, Lorenzo, all treat Shylock contemptuously, even as they plead with Shylock to "show mercy".

There was one Arab character in here who is not a terrorist, and doesn't die. It's the Prince of Morocco, played by David Harewood - one of Portia's suitors. I guess that makes two.

I wish they had done more with the character of Jessica - Shylock's daughter - she elopes with Lorenzo, stealing her father's fortune and leaving him ruined, AND she converts to Christianity. She's only in the film for a few minutes, and she's shown as a flighty, shallow girl, until she starts feeling guilty towards the end, but she doesn't explain herself, nor are we shown anything of her motivations.

After watching this movie, he told me that a Klingon character in Star Trek liked to quote Shakespeare, and "If you prick us, do we not bleed?" was one of those lines.

In other news:

Japan creates a digital odor recorder: The new device, developed by scientists at the Tokyo Institute of Technology, analyzes smells through 15 sensors, records the odour's recipe in digital format and then reproduces the scent by mixing 96 chemicals and vapourizing the result. This is so awesome.

Reading Versus Watching: Wuxia - This Wet Asphalt article explores why American publishers haven't really tried to translate Chinese wuxia novels - the most popular fantasy novels read all over Asia, especially those written by Jin Rong, the most widely-read twentieth century author alive today. The writer posits that issues of genre-classifying and unfamiliar non-Western styles are to blame, but also points out that Americans picked up on anime and manga fairly quickly and it's one of the largest money-makers for the book industry today.

I think the biggest hurdle, though, is just translating the novels. I've just about given up finding a Chinese novel translated in English that I can read and enjoy. The translations always come off to me as rather stilted, or too literal and I don't know if it's just me, but in the books I've read, I've always ended up hating the protagonist, for either being stupid or selfish. I know Jin Rong's books are not like that - and I know that only because I've watched many of the television serials his books are based on.

Some people have declared it Blog Against Racism Week.

Movie superstar SAMUEL L JACKSON will voice God in a new audio version of the Bible. I am SO getting this.

I have been fashion-obsessed for the past few days. I have no idea why. Maybe it was the sale at Express.

Blogging Project Runway has a cute April Fool's joke.

Torrid interviews Andrae. I love Andrae.

Nick Verreos on people trying out for Season 3.

Diana Eng's blog - we are planning to go see her at the Maker Faire, where she and her friend Emily Albinski will be having a fashion show. It should be interesting. I'm hoping she brings her self-inflating dress.

This is way too early to be going WTF DUMBASSES? But the fashion industry wants to copyright their clothes. 1. How exactly are they going to enforce this? 2. Copying is the bread and butter of the fashion industry! Are they going to pay back people from the seventies for turning bell-bottoms into "flared pants"? Are they going to pay people in China for stealing Mandarin collars? Really WTF DUMBASSES? And fuck Deborah Wilcox, who thinks the fashion industry may have a case: "You don't need to clothe yourself just for warmth. This is one area that has stood out that has not had protection that seems close to other areas that do have protection." Fuck you if most of us don't want to pay 2 months' rent for a dress. How much are these designers paying their workers anyway? Not much, I bet.

Eh, to take my mind off the stupidity, I offer you these food blogs:
TacoHunt blog Burrito Blog Burritophile

Mark's rules for a good Mexican eatery? 1. Questionable cooking practices. (This one applies to Chinese restaurants, too.) 2. Christmas lights.

Mark is sick, so not much going on tonight. Last night's Daily Show was hilarious. That isn't the only news story I've been following, though. I've been keeping track of the China&theInternet stories for the past few weeks, shaking my head, going, "Are you fucking kidding me?" for both the American and Chinese responses. Long list of links below, mostly taken from Slashdot.

This BBC Op-Ed from Bill Thompson claiming that Google's self-censorship in China makes sense. Business sense, that is. And for some reason, everyone else should be behind that because hey, there's censorship everywhere else, why not? I exaggerate, but really, what the FUCK?

Here's the thing that really annoys me about these arguments about the issue of censorship - that the idea that self-censorship is somehow more desirable or less dangerous than regular, state-enforced censorship.

Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, and Cisco invited to Capitol Hill for a meeting on U.S. business practices and censorship in China.
US tech firms that abet China censors face scrutiny
Bill Gates, the billionaire founder of Microsoft, took the rare step of standing up for arch-rival Google today as he argued that state censorship was no reason for technology companies not to do business in China. This quote just about killed me: "Software piracy is a problem that will likely be solved over time, because as Chinese-made technology evolves, the country’s respect for intellectual property rights will improve, he added." - Hey, has he seen the movie industry there lately?
US congressmen have condemned major IT firms including Microsoft and Google for helping China censor the internet.

The Justice Department asks a judge to approve Patriot Act e-mail monitoring without any evidence of criminal behavior.

Net-savvy outfits are finding ways to let citizens see banned sites - "The company distributes software, called FreeGate, which disguises the sites a person visits. In addition, DIT sends out mass e-mails to Chinese Web surfers for clients such as VOA, which is banned in China. The e-mails include a handful of temporary Web addresses that host off-limits content and springboards to other forbidden sites."

Executives from Google Inc. and other Internet companies head to Capitol Hill next week, where they will become feature players in an awkward debate: Are U.S. companies giving in to China too easily?

"I was asked the question the other day, do U.S. corporations have the obligation to promote democracy? That's the wrong question," says Rep. Chris Smith, the New Jersey Republican and chairman of the House human-rights subcommittee that is holding the hearing. "It would be great if they would promote democracy. But they do have a moral imperative and a duty not to promote dictatorship."

Ironically, the controversy comes as Google, Yahoo and others are fighting for "Internet freedom" in the U.S. Google is resisting a Justice Department request for information on user searches to help prosecute violations of a federal child-pornography law. Meanwhile, the company has joined competitors to resist plans by telephone and cable companies keen on exerting more control over Internet lines, which has led to concerns about discrimination and content blocking.

Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., is drafting a bill that would force Internet companies including Google, Yahoo and Microsoft to keep vital computer servers out of China and other nations the State Department deems repressive to human rights. - Good luck, Smith.

Chinese authorities are determined to stop "harmful information" from spreading through the Internet, but the controls it places on Web sites and Internet service providers in mainland China do not differ much from those employed by the United States and European countries, a senior Chinese official responsible for managing the Internet said today.

Ok, I've had enough of this. I'm going to sleep. Read Glutter for better coverage.

Gong Li to be in upcoming movies Young Hannibal: Behind the Mask and Miami Vice. Gong Li is in the current Memoirs of a Geisha, along with Zhang Ziyi and Michelle Yeoh.

Wayne Wang is the director of Queen Latifah's new movie Last Holiday. Wayne Wang was also director of Joy Luck Club and Maid in Manhattan.

Ang Lee is the director of Brokeback Mountain. Which I still haven't seen yet.

School suspends kid for speaking Spanish - the suspension was rescinded after the boy's father complained. Watts, whom students describe as a disciplinarian, said she can't discuss the case. But in a written "discipline referral" explaining her decision to suspend Zach for 1 1/2 days, she noted: "This is not the first time we have [asked] Zach and others to not speak Spanish at school." (And you know what the kid actually said? "No problema." Two words.)

Back in elementary, all my friends spoke Cantonese, and I actually picked it up from them. There was an all-too-brief period where I spoke Cantonese with no American accent. My second-grade teacher, Ms. H, who was Chinese, kept admonishing us to "Speak English. You live in America now." She meant well. It still pissed me off, and us kids ignored her anyway. I remember my parents visiting her on Back-to-School night, and while I listened to her struggle to talk to them in their dialect, I figured out why she was the way she was.

It didn't annoy me any less.

A 13-year-old girl cannot be held at fault for having sex with her teacher, the state Supreme Court ruled Thursday, rejecting a school district's argument that it shouldn't have been sued because the girl was partially responsible.

Why does so much ancient Greek art feature males with small genitalia?

Dov Charney on 20/20 about American Apparel. I can't watch the direct link because Mark has ancient software and hasn't updated his stuff since he graduated. :P Going to watch it later.

David Krumholtz really grew up. He's so cute now! I didn't even recognize him as Goldstein from Harold and Kumar or Michael from 10 Things I Hate About You, but he is so hot now as the mathematician on Numb3rs.

I am making Chocolate Oreo Bars right now for a dinner party tonight. My friends have nicknamed this "Kim-crack" and coworkers have called it, among other things, "Death by Chocolate and Marshmallows" and "Heart Attack Brownies". It is some good stuff, but definitely not recommended if you are on a diet.

We went to see A History of Violence last night, after a disastrous Chinese dinner. More later on that. It is a great movie, and utterly depressing. I am plagued with silly thoughts whenever I am watching a serious movie, so much so that it can get distracting. Among the ones in my head last night:

Did they just show these people 69ing?
Hee! Butt shot! Viggo Mortensen has a scrawny ass.
Viggo is a brilliant actor, as is Maria Bello.
Really, when you want to kill someone, just shoot them in the head. Any other weapon is stupid, especially if your intended victim is also known to be an excellent murderer himself.
There are less shallow thoughts: Cynthia Fuch's review and Ebert's review.

The disastrous Chinese dinner, which I ended up paying for, because I have a job now so it's expected of me:

We were taking my aunt out for her 93?rd birthday. (It's one of the restaurants near the stinky tofu place.) We'd eaten at this restaurant before with no trouble. We liked the food, the service was your standard Chinese combination of friendliness/rudeness, and it was overall okay. Right before we entered, my dad suggested entering another nicer-looking restaurant, where they probably had cloth napkins because he knew the cook there. He hesitated, though, because he thought it might be too expensive for us to pay.

First off, they brought us four forks. I hate it when Chinese places assume that just because we're ABC, we don't know how to use chopsticks. It's so insulting. If I want a fork, I will ask for it. Second, they brought us the wrong soup, and the server kept trying to serve us the wrong soup, even though we made it clear to him that it was wrong. We had to yell at him in order to get him to take it away, and he only listened to some other waitress that told him it was wrong. And the soup we ordered turned out to be awful. We ordered sizzling rice soup, which, in addition to the sizzling rice, should contain: shrimp, eggs, carrots, mushrooms, tofu, and a bunch of other yummy stuff. Instead, this one came only with mushrooms and a few cubes of tofu. You know what the weird thing is? The night before I also ordered sizzling rice soup, and it only came with mushrooms, too. I'm starting to wonder if it's a trend of Chinese restaurants cheaping out on an already cheap soup.

The scallops and veggies dish we ordered was wrong, but the waiter kept insisting it was the right one. We let it go, but dude, my dad worked in Chinese restaurants for 20 years; he knows what it should look like. The scallops weren't fresh and they had an odd taste, and the portions were small, about half of what you would get on a normal lunch plate. The crispy chicken was late and came after everything else was eaten, and when we reminded the hostess about it, she said that "oops, it'd been forgotten, but it's coming." It came out, dry, and the chips, which are the easiest thing to make, sucked. They tasted like cardboard.

Oh, also, when we were trying to order, they announced that they were out of half the vegetable plates we wanted. It was only 6:30PM.

My aunt, though, is a darling, and insisted that everything was great and ate a lot. She thanked me for paying and proceeded to give us all red envelopes anyway, even though we were paying for the meal and giving her money for her birthday. She's starting to walk with a cane now, which makes me feel a little sad.

Lesson learned: Next time, eat at a restaurant where my dad knows the cook, regardless of price, because the cook will definitely take care of us, and the meal won't be wasted.

Other stuff bouncing around my head:

Art relieves constipation. Thank you, all you artists, for making life less poopy.

Josh Rushing, whom you probably know from Control Room, is now working for Al-Jazeera. And if you haven't seen Control Room, you need to rent it right now. There's also the NPR interview with him. I hope he does well.

Odd contraceptives from history - elephant dung?! Ew.

Composer Adam Guettel and screenwriter William Goldman will collaborate on a musical version or the hit fairy tale film "The Princess Bride," the New York Post reported. My first thought was, William Goldman is still alive? I'm such a dork.

On Wednesday we went to Bistro Elan to celebrate our anniversary. I requested French food because we rarely have it, and the few times that we do it's been excellent. It's a small bistro on California Street (near Stanford University); the entrance is almost obscured by all the foliage around it. Once we entered, it was really warm and had a sweet atmosphere.

Our waitress was French and awesome. I loved her accent; it was so adorable. She recommended a really good wine, and we ended up ordering two appetizers - foie gras and smoked salmon. It was the first time both of us tried foie gras. She assured us that many people came to their restaurant "just for the foie gras, and many think it is better than France". The foie gras came seared and soaked in a buttery pan sauce with some accompanying vegetables. Now, I generally do not like organs; for all my Chinese pride in chicken feet, it ends with pig intestines. But this fatty duck liver was exquisite. The texture was a little gelatinous and it was pleasantly warm inside, and tasted sweet and buttery.

The smoked salmon was also delicious, and was brought on a bed of some puff pastry, also very yummy, and covered with caviar, which was surprisingly flavorless. I guessed that the smokiness of the salmon probably overwhelmed whatever flavor the caviar had. It didn't feel decadent or anything.

Mark ordered the John Dory fish, which tastes definitely better than it looks. Our waitress described it as "sort of like swordfish", and it was very similar.

I ordered "Massachusetts scallops". Now, scallops are my favorite seafood, so I had high hopes for this one. They were perfectly cooked (which is a very rare occurence), not too tough or spongy, and was flavored with a pan sauce and accompanied by some Yukon gold potatoes and chanterelle mushrooms, all of which were very delicious.

I want to go again.

Other things that amused me:

The pop star Robbie Williams yesterday accused the British media of hypocritical attitudes towards drugs, claiming that he had taken cocaine with the same journalists who were now "devouring" Kate Moss for her well-publicised habit.

I heart Joss Whedon more. The key to the story is that Whedon has made a big budget sci-fi film for the comparatively low price of $50 million -- a requirement for him to revive his baby. How'd he do it? Not by running overseas to some low-wage location but by sticking at home in high-wage unionized Hollywood.

The British Library has original sketches by Leonardo, Jane Austen's early work, and Lewis Carroll's Alice drawings.

Penguin Poo Paper Wins Ig Nobel Prize - download the PDF - it's got a really amusing diagram.

A piece on the actor who plays young Chris Rock - Everybody Hates Chris is one of my favorite new shows of the season. It's so damn funny and sweet.

Mice Infected With Bubonic Plague Missing

As if we didn't have enough things to freak out about.

Today's obsession is the female orgasm and weird things people do for it.

Just between us girls. It's about "teledildonics research", which as far as I can tell, is having someone else use a dildo on you from really far away. "If you can execute it like Tribe with glory holes, make your social-networking system come with a really easy interface for anonymous sex that involves teledildonics, you'll be successful," she [Violet Blue] says.

The coming boom. People are looking for a female Viagra. Interesting: "One of the things Dr. Komisaruk discovered is that women who are stimulating the anterior vaginal wall can take 50 percent more pain than they can when they're not," she tells me excitedly. "If they have an orgasm, their pain threshold rises 100 percent." Did you know there is such a job as orgasm theorist?

The Perplexing Case of the Female Orgasm - Transcript. mp3 Could the female orgasm be like the male nipple – a mere byproduct without an evolutionary purpose?

Genes blamed for fickle female orgasm.
Criticism of that study.

Anesthesia can give rise to sexual hallucinations. But in today's lawsuit-happy society, doctors and dentists have found themselves falsely accused of sexually assaulting patients under the hallucinogenic influence of these drugs. Errrg, so much wrong with that sentence.

Neuro-imaging the female orgasm. The results of the study are striking. As the women were stimulated, activity rose in one sensory part of the brain, called the primary somatosensory cortex, but fell in the amygdala and hippocampus, areas involved in alertness and anxiety. During orgasm, activity fell in many more areas of the brain, including the prefrontal cortex, compared with the resting state, Holstege told a meeting of the European Society for Human Reproduction and Development in Copenhagen on Monday.

Commentary from a sex psychologist.

The orgasmic brain.

Most of the links are from MindHack.

Conclusion: People = batshit insane.