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Friday, April 18, 2003
The Breakfast Club + Joy Luck Club + Reservoir Dogs
Time for a shameless plug: Go see Better Luck Tomorrow when you can. It opened in NY, LA, SF and Chicago last week and it opened here in Atlanta as well as a few other cities today (DC, Dallas, San Diego, Seattle, Portland, Toronto) I was told there were a few changes to the ending compared to when I saw it at the AAJA convention last summer, but I didn't see anything really drastic. Someone hit it on the head when he compared the ending to The Graduate.
The movie was just as sharp as I remembered it, and it really is something you don't see too much in the movies today. The film definitely shatters some of the stereotypes of the overachieving Asian-American kids (hell, I definitely fit into the stereotype they try to break down). Something that a number of people mentioned about this movie is that we're "finally seeing people like us" on the screen. Scarily enough, I can say the same thing about this film. I swear I could pass for a couple of the extras. I'm almost surprised Justin Lin didn't do some double takes when I saw him in Dallas last year promoting the film.
posted at 10:46 PM
Thursday, April 17, 2003
Beer: It's what's on after wrestling
I don't think this move is a bad idea, given there are three distaff-focused channels. It'll be curious what else gets added to the schedule. I would think that the hunting and fishing shows that still remained from the original incarnation would be a good fit. However, I think this channel will likely serve a more narrow male demographic than people might expect.
posted at 2:02 PM
I'm still trying to recover a bit physically and mentally from last weekend. Tournaments like this can drain sleep time and just about everything else from you.
What made things worse this week was the fact that we had another round of layoffs as soon as I got back. (I got a call about a staff meeting and the related cuts just an hour after getting back to my apartment Monday afternoon.) While I could debate the merits of the people being let go, all of this makes us that much leaner and casts more doubt as to what our future will be. I am often full of self-doubt and insecurity about what I do, but maybe because I set high (maybe too much so) expectations for myself. But I just wonder if the people seemingly responsible for some our problems (the same that just about every Web site has, mind you), don't seem to be held to higher standards than my co-workers. In fact, while we cut our staff, other areas are getting more people. We all need the money, but it doesn't help things when the people trying to sell us seem to have no idea what they're selling.
Then again, have more ads for products like this, maybe everyone will be back on track soon. It might've been one of the first pop-ups I actually clicked on in a long time. Then again, the utter shock of it was the primary reason for it, and well, that wore out quickly.
posted at 1:55 PM
Monday, April 14, 2003
Back in blog
I guess I can breathe a little bit now that the latest edition of TRASHionals has come and gone. Not only was there plenty of work to do on the tournament – including serving as the bracketeer (now only if Jennifer Connelly could’ve joined me on the mission), and writing questions sometimes based on links/articles I would’ve normally used here. I can’t give that type of advantage to those competitors who usually read these things.
The tournament went over very well, I think, as it seemed like a bunch of us knew what to do and/or took control of the situation. Other than some problems with figuring out the main entrance that wasn’t locked on Saturday, the BU facility worked well – everyone in the same building is a good thing, even if it is spread out over five floors. A bunch of the BU folks were really helpful and made our jobs easier.
As Craig did last week, here were our brackets:
Saturday’s Round Robin: (Peter) Gammons, (Will) McDonough, (Bob) Ryan – homage to Boston sports writers; sorry, no Bill Simmons here – at least not for now
Sunday’s Playoffs: Williams, Yaz, Rice, Manny, Greenwell, O’Leary – Red Sox left fielders; however, there was some debate whether Greenwell or O’Leary deserved to be last. I thought Greenwell was better for a longer period of time to deserve not being last.
It was a load of fun seeing everyone again, although I did wish I could’ve spent more time with my friends on a bunch of the teams. But sometimes you’ve got to sacrifice some of that to make sure the tournament goes over well.
I hope questions went over well. I saw a decent amount of points scored in all of the matches I read, so I don’t think the tournament was overly difficult, but I guess everyone will have their different opinions.
The entertainment value seemed to be higher than last year. Part of it can be attributed to the questions. Part of it can be traced to some decent organization. Part of it has to do with the players. Having Charlie around really upped the fun level of the tournament, especially reading for the top playoff bracket Sunday. The match against the eventual champion Keenans was one of the most light-hearted playoff matches I’ve been part of ever. (The dictionaraoke question helped with that, as did some funny negs.)
Of course, the pinnacle of entertainment value came from Dave Murphy’s playing Dance Dance Revolution as a bonus question. I think we did well in putting that in there to make for a fun question and great theater for the finals.
Congrats to the Mike Keenan Employment Agency, LLC for becoming three-time, three-time, three-time TRASH champions by beating Battleplanet in a rematch of last year’s finals. I wonder if we’ll keep on seeing that matchup in the next couple of years. However, I was impressed by much of the field. My alma mater made an impressive run to qualify for the top playoff bracket and finish fifth overall (I also loved the Sports Night-themed team name). The Rutgers team (featuring one of my brother’s high school teammates who’s really good) pulled off upsets of both NU and Battleplanet.
To any regular readers of this blog, feel free to add some comments about your favorite questions from the weekend. Maybe I can take credit for some of them, maybe I can’t. Maybe I’ll just steal some of the credit.
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