VoxSentia

Crystal Skull story in Indiana Jones a real legend

That changes things. I thought the story was a little out there. But I just saw a History Channel special on Indiana Jones movies and real archeological findings and legends.The crystal skulls exist and there are 13 of them. They are currently scattered throughout the world, but they exist. The people that own the skulls say they have healing powers. Also, the skulls were cut so perfectly that it doesn't even have marks on them of someone carving them with tools. The legend is that they may be from another planet. The legend is that they will one day all come together, just like the movie. The History channel goes into a lot of detail.

Well, that definitely legitimizes the story a little more for me.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull -- eh...

I went and saw Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull tonight. All I had to do was venture downstairs after finishing up at the office at 9:00PM. I work at the promenade and the AMC movie theater is literally downstairs. The movie was just okay. I can't say I loved it. I thought the plot/story-line was a little silly. There were some good moments in it but I think I prefer the previous Indy movies. Harrison Ford still looks good in film. He looked capable and strong even though he's old. He didn't really look that old or weak as he usually did in recent interviews. He still looked healthy, able, and believable as an action hero.

I have to say, my top two favorites of the summer are still "Iron Man" and "Prince Caspian." Those two are definitely worth a watch. 

Update: The ending to Indiana Jones was what killed it for me. It just came out of left field and left me with "what the hell"? The best part of the movie was the nostalgia factor: Harrison Ford with the fedora hat and whip going on these awesome archeaological expeditions. Everyone was clapping and shouting when Harrison Ford first came on screen with his hat and all. You are reminded of what kind of a cultural icon Indiana Jones has become and that was the best part and not the movie itself.

Edible Arrangements - a nice alternative to flowers

I really like giving and especially receiving flowers. But I found a good alternative to flowers: edible arrangements. I've seen their vans around in Santa Monica so I thought I'd check out their website. They can get a little pricy, but I think they're gorgeous and it's unique gift-giving. The small group leader was hospitalized (he's an older gentleman) but he's out and better now. I thought instead of getting him flowers like most people do as a get-well gift, I decided to get him edible arrangements. This is the bouquet I got him. The only difference is that the daisies are not chocolate dipped and some of the strawberries are chocolate dipped. I have to pick it up before small group tonight. See the other arrangements. I think I'll use edible arrangements again for my mom's birthday or Mother's day next year.

OMG! My block is barricaded with cops and yellow tape - homicide

I was on my way home from church tonight when I got a voicemail from my neighbor Courtney. She told me that our whole block and building is barricaded and that there are police cars everywhere including the K-9 unit. Not only that there were several ambulences too. She said the cops didn't let anyone go back to their apartments unless they had children or had to take medication. Luckily, by the time I got home, which was a couple of hours later, I was able to get back in. Apparently there was a shooting in the adjacent apartment building. There were 2 people shot and killed and 4 others wounded. The guy went on a shooting rampage with a machine gun. A machine gun! What the hell? That is so CRAZY!

I've been thinking about moving out of my neighborhood for some time now, mainly because it's not a hip enough place to live; there really isn't enough to do here in the valley. I've been thinking that around early next year, I will move to Santa Monica, Westwood, Century City or Beverly Hills. Now that this happened, I'm really thinkng about moving. I can't believe this happend. Some guy gunned down a whole bunch of people! I only see that in movies.

Now the block is barricaded again with yellow tape because the block is now a crime scene. We can't drive out to go anywhere. And no one can drive in either.

Ben Barnes - Prince Caspian to play Dorian Gray

Perfect casting choice! The handsome Ben Barnes will play Dorian Gray in the adaptation of Oscar Wilde's "Picture of Dorian Gray." Filming will start this summer. Woohoo!

Summer movies - what's worth watching?

1. Iron Man - Watch it. You won't be dissapointed with the action, story, and dialogue. Robert Downey Jr. does an excellent job portraying this anti-hero. It's a smart action movie for the adults. Plus, the Iron Man suit is aweome-o.

2. Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian - Watch it. If you liked the first installment, you will like this one as well. It's actually better than the first movie. It's more mature. It's got a darker story-line. The battle scenes remind me of "The Lord of the Rings." The winged creatures remind me a little of "Harry Potter." And these are both good things in my opinion if you are fans of both. There is one scene which is heart-wrenching and reminiscent of a scene in "Platoon." Added bonus: Ben Barnes.

3. Speed Racer - If you are in debate whether you should see "Speed Racer" or the other two movies listed above, skip this one. It's definitely not as good as "Prince Caspian" or "Iron Man." The movie is colorful and candy-like except it's on speed or LSD. It looks too much like a cartoon, but I guess that was intentional. The story never grasped me. I didn't care too much about the characters either. The special effects didn't impress me that much. It was loud, fast, and colorful, but for some reason, it didn't wow. This is a very mediocre film. Bonus: If you're a K-pop fan or Korean nationalist, you get to see Rain's Hollywood debut.

4. Harold & Kumar - Skip it and wait for it to come out on DVD. There were some laugh-out-loud moments, but overall a terrible movie. You might want to watch it a little buzzed.

5. Baby Mama - Skip it and wait for it to come out on DVD. If you're a Tina Fey and Amy Poeler fan, this movie may be funny. It's got some funny moments. It's a cute movie, I'll give it that, but not worth the $10 admission ticket.

I'm waiting on:

6. Indiana Jones: Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

7. Sex and the City

8. You Don't Mess with the Zohan

9. Dark Knight

10. Get Smart

11. Wall-E

Prince Caspian - one handsome dude

I saw Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian. It was great. I loved the first move "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe" and this second installment did not dissapoint. I did find Prince Caspian (Ben Barnes) to be one handsome dude. Move over Orlando Bloom. He was tall, dark, and handsome...and young. His long hair really complimented him. And his armour suited him well. He sort of reminded me of a young Keanu Reeves back in the "Point Break" years. I felt a little like a cougar thinking he was much too young for my ogling. Judging from the fact that he starred in this virtually a kid's movie, I thought perhaps he's still in his teens. But he's actually 26. I feel better now that I wasn't ogling at a teenager. I at first thought Ben Barnes who played Prince Caspian was Spanish, but he's actually an English actor; he just put on an excellent Spanish accent for the movie. Chronicles of Narnia will definitely make this virtually unknown actor into a star. Here are some pictures of the young star. Handsome, right?

And here's Keanu in his younger years. There are some similarities. I guess I have a type.

Maybe my weight-loss program is working

This week, I've been exercising a lot. I ate no more than around 1000 calories a day and burned about half of what I ate with exercise. Monday, I ate 900 calories and burned 700 calories at the gym. Don't worry, on Tuesday, I ate a lot more than 900 calories. I went to a church pizza party. Earlier that day, just so that I can eat pizza, I burned 400 calories at the gym. Here's the breakdown of what I did at the gym for 2.5 hours on Monday.

Elliptical machine for 30 minutes: 300 calories burned.

Power Yoga for 1.5 hours: 200 calories burned.

Treadmill for 30 minutes: 200 calories burned.

Addendun: We had a pizza party at the bowling alley at work today. So naturally, I had pizza. I had 2 slices so I didn't go overboard. But I also ate a couple of snack bars which were nearly 200 calories each. It's very sad when I have to count calories like this. I can't lose weight unless I exercise and eat no more than 1500 calories. I gained 10 pounds in 3 months. In my 20s, or actually even a year ago, I used to eat ANYTHING and EVERYTHING I wanted and I would still be skinny. That's not the case anymore. Long gone are the days where I could lose weight quickly even though I would eat a lot.  All I had to do was skip a few meals and I was skinny again. It's so much more difficult now to lose weight. I have to now get excercise in there to up my metabolic rate. I have to cut out snack and misc things like starbucks and yummy desserts from starbucks. The lattes alone are around 200 calories and the snacks are around 500-600 calories. If I feel the urge to eat them, I just don't eat lunch or dinner that day. Something has to get cut. I'm having a mighty hard time losing the 10 pounds. I lost only about 1 pound and that's because of exercise and eating less than 1000 calories a day for a week. My metabolic rate definitely went down. These are some calories a person burns per hour on some activities. Check out some other activities here.

Calories burned sleeping: 62

Calories burned sitting at a desk: 82

Calories burned watching TV: 82

Calories burned in a 12 min mile: 544

Calories burned for walking as a break: 238

Seriously, I must only burn 62 calories per hour or something judging by the difficulty with weight loss and the amount of exercising I need. I'm getting old!

Mother's Day and going back home

We had a pretty nice Mother's Day dinner. I bought my mom this very beautiful arrangement of flowers. It was one of the best arrangements I've seen and very big. It was nice spending some time with them. But there is always this heavy burden when I think about them.

Truthfully, I don't really like going home to my parents' place that much. I rarely do. It's been months since I last saw them. I've never been that close to my family. It's not that I don't like them. Sure they have their differences and oddities and sometimes the things they do and think annoy me to no end, but that's all families. My family depresses me. I have a brother who's been ill for years, and apparently, it's gotten worse lately. He goes through periods where he's better and worse. But overall, he's always been ill. So I guess better or worse within the ill spectrum. My parents are generally negative people, especially my father. But I guess I can see why. My other brother (youngest) isn't doing too well either.  Well, I guess if you measure success in terms of career and material things. I hate talking about my family and rarely do. I don't want to have kids when I think about my family.

Update: I guess the Christian thing to do is be supportive of them. But I just don't think I have it in me to rise above it. It's just easier not having to think about issues and just live my own life. It's just not fun thinking about them when there is nothing I can do to help them financially or make the illness go away. I can't make us less dysfunctional.

Why did my work load quadruple when my pay didn't?

I'm still at work and it's 11PM. I've been so busy these days. I have to now get on 7:30 AM conference calls(thankfully at home). But I also am not used to my early morning schedule so I'm more tired these days. I took a nap on the bean bag here at work and I'm waiting for the Moscow developers to get in the office. The CTO went over the project plan that I have to accomplish within 90 days with our outsourced resources in India. Right now I'm only overseeing one product (a large product, but nonetheless, just one). I now have to have a good grasp of 4-5 products. Even though I don't have to know it too much in detail; I'm overwhelmed that all of a sudden, my work-load has more than quadrupled. Even though I have deferred my management duties to the new director we just hired, I still have to train him, get him up to speed and participate in all the meetings and conference calls.

Lately I've been relying on this one guy who reports to me a lot to get things done. If it gets too crazy, I'm going to quit. I'm not one of those people that live for their jobs. I believe in balance and quality of life. And I lean more towards the leisurely lifestyle so too much work isn't something I want or good at handling. But I must say, I learned a lot at this job, and still learning. I now have some management skills under my belt as well as more technical skills. Also, a lot of my management kills are remote managing which is difficult in its own way. I also got better in presentation skills; I had to do a lot of product training lately because of all the new people that started. Now the ultimate test that will make or break me is multi-tasking on multiple projects. Contrary to popular belief, not all women are good at multi-tasking. I suck at it. I prefer focus on one thing at a time. I get REALLY overwhelmed when I have to do too many things. And I have a tendency to stress out. I don't really take things in stride. But being able to handle stress is like a muscle; you just have to slowly train yourself to develop those stress handling muscles. We'll see how long I last. I have no interest in seeing how far I can stretch.

Even my boss was like, "Can you handle it? I'll help you as much as I can." It should be a fun challenge though. I'll have to negotiate salary when it gets really tough.