Angeles Crest

Hiking up Angeles Crest. We're at the Charleton Flats area. Watch out for giant pine cones falling on your head.

Universal City Walk

Black Friday

Going shopping at the Century City Mall.

Turkey Day Weekend

On Thanksgiving, Sarah and I went to my sister's house for dinner. Everything was delicious. I overate as usual. Saejin, Ben, Amanda, and Amanda were also there. We played Guitar Hero III and other games too. That was fun.

On Black Friday, we went shopping in the morning. I don't think the deals were that great. I never want to go shopping on Black Friday again because of the long lines at the malls.

We also took Sarah's cousin around L.A. to show her the sights.

Here are some pictures of the canyons in Malibu. This was a day before the fires there. "We didn't start the fire...." Billy Joel.

Bee Movie

Jerry Seinfeld is a bumblebee that doesn't know what he wants to be when he grows up. All the other bees are perfectly content with having the same job for the rest of their lives. Not Jerry. He wants to go outside the hive and explore a whole new world out there. One day he flies out with some pollen jocks, but gets trapped in a human's abode. He almost gets flattened, but a sweet woman named Renee Zellweger saves his prickly behind. He's so enchanted by the human girl's beauty, that he seems to have fallen in some sort of weird bee love/crush. Jerry wants to sting her, as in "birds and the bees" sting her, if you know what I mean.

Jerry the bumblebee is kinda like me. . .a lawyer who is a dreamer. I don't know how that bee got his license to practice law in human court. He just wants to fly around and experience the beautiful world out there.

Jerry uncovers a conspiracy by the damn humans to steal all the bees' honey by smoking the bees. He sees that there are hundreds of man made slave hives. He gets Renee to file a lawsuit against all the honey farm companies. They win the case in court. All the bees get their honey back. The bees now have too much honey so they stop working and chill out. Later on, plants, flowers, and trees start dying out because the bees are not there to pollinate them. Jerry and Renee go to the Tournament of Roses Parade in Pasadena to get the last flowers on earth. They get the other bees to get the pollen and start sewing their wild oats across the land.

The Highs: Humorous, cute, good animation, somewhat educational about the importance of bees in the world.

The Lows: Absolutely ridiculous and silly. How'd a bee pass the bar exam? How can hundreds of bees lift up a 747?

The Verdict: A film for kids that parents can tolerate watching.

My rating: An appropriate B, 81, for Bee Movie.

Lions for Lambs

Chicken or Lamb?

Tom Cruise plays a U.S. Senator trying to become the next President. He's interviewed by a reporter, Meryl Streep. The movie starts off okay, but nothing really happens. People talk about politics and ideology. Their conversations become louder and more heated. Then more talk. Blah blah blah. A couple college kids join the army to prove that they're making a difference in the world and then they get shot by Afghans. Oh no. More pontificating. More diatribes.

The Highs: Good sound effects when the army helicopter goes by and gets shot down. A good discussion on war and politics.

The Lows: Too preachy; Can't get Tom Cruise as a crazy scientologist out of my mind; nothing really happens in the movie.

The Verdict: A Political Science major's dream movie.

My rating: D, 61.

Beowulf

I went to go see the advance movie screening of Beowulf. I thought it was an awesome visual spectacle. It's a total thrill ride. Scholars may look down upon this film because it doesn't have the haughty Old English poetry, but action movie buffs will like it a lot. The only way to see this movie is on the big screen. Once you put on the 3D glasses, you enter a world full of amazing special effects. I really liked the way they made this movie, except for people's faces. CG faces never look as good as real people, but this is the most realistic CG I've ever seen. I hope that video games strive to be like this movie in the future. All action movies should be in 3D. I thought this was the best 3D movie ever made.

Beowulf is a powerful hero who is a little bit full of himself. Aside from his ego, he really does kick ass. When he has to fight the monster Grendel, he decides to fight him naked, because Grendel doesn't have clothes either.

***Warning: Spoilers Ahead******

All my reviews contain spoilers, because I like to talk about the movie. Beowulf has to fight Grendel's mom, the beautiful and seductive demoness, Angelina Jolie. Not even the mighty Beowulf can escape the enchanting beauty of Angelina Jolie. Not Beowulf. Not even Brad Pitt. That Angelina Jolie is a homewrecker!

Beowulf's only weakness seems to be women. Or anything that looks like women. He lost a swim race because of a sexy mermaid. Giant sea monsters were no problem for him though.

In Beowulf's moment of weakness, he falls for Angelina Jolie. I don't think he could have killed her if he wanted to anyway, because swords go right through her as if she was a ghost.

Many years later, a new monster appears. It's Beowulf's bastard son, a dragon. Beowulf has to kill his dragon boy, because the dragon is hellbent on destroying mankind. Beowulf slashes the dragon's neck where his heart is. Why the heck is the dragon's heart in his neck? The dragon's heart seems to be too small to pump enough blood to the giant dragon's body too. But, we can't be too nitpicky about the details. This movie is just about the spectacular 3D effects.

After Beowulf kills his dragon boy, the dragon turns into a golden man, just like his mommy, right before he croaks. Beowulf sheds a few tears. Angelina Jolie comes to kiss Beowulf when he dies too. Beowulf's best friend becomes the new king, but Angelina Jolie, who is no angel, seems to seduce him as well to come join him in the sea.

The End.

I bet the new king follows her too. All the guys make the same mistake.

My rating: A, 91.

Highs: Gorgeous 3D special effects; great action; humorous.

Lows: Ugly CG faces; no longer a highbrow adventure of Old English tales; it's Angelina Jolie, but not really her.

Verdict: A 3D roller coaster of a movie. A must see movie in 3D.

Battlestar Galactica Razor

This should have been called Battlestar Pegasus since that's what the movie focuses on.

TV Guide has said that Battlestar Galactica is the best show on television. It's a great sci-fi series that appropriately airs on the Sci-Fi channel. The show has great special effects and great drama, if you accept the fact that Cylon robots have now evolved to look exactly like humans. It's amazing how they make those robots look and act just like people!

Too bad that this, the fourth season, will be the last. If this aired on a major network like NBC, then I'm sure it would do better. It's much better than that crappy Heroes show. Heroes was good the first season, but the second sophomore season sucks bantha fodder so far. Hopefully, they can bring things back soon. With this WGA writer's strike, however, that might take awhile.

In this plot filler of an episode, Lt. Kendra Shaw, a new character in the show, is the center of this movie. Lt. Shaw is assigned to the Pegasus under the command of Admiral Helena Cain.

The Cylons have just destroyed most of humanity and the Pegasus has just narrowly escaped. Admiral Cain has a lesbian affair with a female Cylon, but she does not realize it until Kendra reveals that she's a robot whore.

Admiral Cain is one ruthless bi@tch of a commander and orders the Cylon chick to be tortured and humiliated to obtain information from her or it. Cain is one Machiavellian female leader. She orders her protege, Kendra, to take all the supplies from a civilian spaceship, because military needs outweigh everything else during wartime. Kendra, a sharp razor, does as ordered. When the civilians resist, Kendra is the first one to shoot. Later on, she struggles with guilt and shoots herself up with drugs to ease the pain.

***Warning Spoilers*******

Starbuck and Kendra go on board in old Cylon base and see Cylons from the 70's Battlestar Galactica (BSG) show. They have been capturing humans and studying them to make organic Cylon/Human hybrids. They try to blow up the Cylon spacestation, but their remote nuclear trigger is broken, so one of them has to stay behind and manually blow the place up. Lee Adama who has been promoted to be the Commander of Battlestar Pegasus by his daddy, Admiral Edward James Olmos, orders his not-so-secret lover, Starbuck, to stay behind and nuke the spacestation. Starbuck gets teary eyed but follows orders. However, before she blows the place up, Kendra orders her to leave with the other no-name space soldiers. Kendra stays behind to blast the place to smithereens. Before she could pull the trigger, an old man (Cylon?) tells her that he knows everything that is going to happen. He says that Starbuck will lead humanity to their ultimate destruction. Kendra tries to tell Adama, but her transmission is jammed. Kendra then blows the place up.

This was another great episode. Too bad it didn't have Grace Park star in it. Grace only appears for a couple seconds. What's up with that?

This wasn't as intense as the mid-season finale, the Eye of Jupiter, that they showed at one of the advance screenings I went to last year.

My rating: 90, A-

Highs: "Star Wars" like special effects; "Alias" level drama; Return of the 1970's Cylons that were lost in space; great acting.

Lows: Where the frack is Grace Park, the best star of the frackin' show?; Too many flashbacks to Kendra's killing of innocent civilians (oh boo hoo, we frackin' get it already!); no physical evidence of the lesbian love affair with Admiral Cain and Cylon Number 5 (just kidding!).

Verdict: A great season premiere to the final season to one of the best shows on television, BSG.

Hollywood

A brief trip to Hollywood.

I saw a whole bunch of stars just hanging out in Hollywood, including Elvis, Marilyn Monroe, Willy Wonka, Batman, Tigger, Supergirl, Jason from Halloween, and Captain Jack Sparrow.

3rd Wedding Anniversary

Time flies when you're having fun. I can't believe it's been 3 years since our wedding on November 6, 2004. It seems like it was only a few days ago. I think our lives have been really exciting and hectic with work and all the things to do and places to go. We just had a nice mocha cake to celebrate our anniversary. We didn't have time to go anywhere since we're both working. Sarah comes home late around 9:45 at night because of work.

We bought Wicked the musical tickets so we'll be going to see that. I'm pretty excited since I love musicals. I really liked seeing Les Miserables and Rent.

I also plan on taking Sarah and a few friends to see the screening of Battlestar Galactica: Razor next week at the movies. We were planning on going to a trip to Utah to see Zion and Bryce National Parks, but I don't think we'll have much time over Thanksgiving weekend. Instead, we plan on going camping to Kings Canyon and Sequoia National Park. Hopefully, it won't be raining or freezing that weekend.

Carpe Diem! Seize the Day! That's what I always say.

Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden

Here are a few pics from our trip to the Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden in Claremont. Most of the flora are California native plants. The paths are like a maze through a desert garden. I thought it was fun, because I like to explore.

Me & Scooby Doo

Or Scrappy Doo in this case.