Pan's Labyrinth

How is it that this movie has been out in theaters since December and I had not heard anyone talk about it till last Sunday? My friend told me over lunch about it and she said to walk in and just soak it in without doing any research.

I did just that and it was good that curiosity did not get better of me. The film has two strikes against it: The main character is played by a child actress and the screenplay by Guillermo del Toro who did Hellboy which I thought was plain goofy. I would have passed had I known.

I am usually put off by child actors because they tend to go overboard on either cuteness or precociousness. But the little girl who played "Ofelia" was virtually flawless in this movie which I will only characterize as an "adult fairy tale" with depth and meaning told through the eyes of an innocent young girl.

The story has left me stunned, numb, and sad, but hopeful and renewed all at the same time. That is all I will say about it because any more from my big mouth (or keyboard) will only ruin what I promise to be a very enriching cinema experience for you. Two thumbs up.

My long-term girlfriend

Now I am talking really really really long term here.

Why did they have to slam her on Valentines Day when all women, the crown jewel of God's creation, are to be looked upon as sublime beauties?

I hope you all had a good one. My blog friend Mad Ethel has posted a very poignant love poem which had me weep through the entire box of Kleenex.

No, I am Sparticus

and the father of Anna Nicole Smith's baby girl.

Since I don't have the kind of pull to call a press conference, this is the only way I know how to make this very important announcement. Hope you don't mind.

You know that the media frenzy surrounding this tragic event has reached critical mass when the very same people - the media - responsible for the feeding frenzy are asking why we are so obsessed with this tragedy. The media is covering the media now that they appear to have run out of developments in order to keep the story alive and on the front page.

The only way for me to make sense out of this bizarre phenomena is through the computer science concept of recursion.

Recursion is exemplified in a function below. Please stay with me.

....................................
function factorial(n)
{
   if (n <= 1)
      return 1;
   else
      return n * factorial(n-1);
}
....................................

What makes the function called "factorial" illustrated above unique and "recursive" is that it calls itself which is something most functions don't do.

Likewise, the media usually cover stories unrelated to the media themselves. The story started out as the death of Nicole Anna Smith who was not a member of the media, but now without another hot off the press revelation in the last five minutes, they have resorted to talking about themselves.

If it does not make sense to you, that is fine. I don't blame you. To understand recursion, you must understand recursion, and therefore, if you don't understand recursion, you won't understand recursion.

Sorry, that was a computer science joke.

I suppose one can etymologically decompose the word recursion to mean to curse again - re(again) + curse, which seems more appropriate at this point.

Do I know you?

What looked to be an ordinary shopping trip to a Costco store turned out anything but.

While I was flipping through the DVD bargain bin, there walked through the entrance this beautiful Asian woman whose appearance could only be described in heavenly language. What made her triumphant emergence even more celestial and enchanting was the thick fog bank in the parking lot from which she descended from like an angel.

Okay, angels usually don't show up with a shopping cart, but please for the sake of discussion, let's not over-analyze.

But there was more to her captivating beauty, the true emblem of the crown jewel of God's creation. She looked really familiar. I had seen her before in person. And more over, we made eye contact and when we did, she briefly paused, and threw another quick glance at me which had me reeling.

I could die a happy man now.

You know the sensation you feel in your stomach that stubbornly gnaws at you when you see someone you recognize, but can't put your finger on who that person is? How could I possibly have met this beauty of this magnitude and had forgotten who she was? And she appeared to recognize me as well.

Though painfully shy at times, I saw this as a defining moment to rise above myself. There comes a time in everyone's life to test the limits of one's courage and determination, and this was it for me.

"Hi, I think I know you. Do I know you?"

"Yes. Pecking Wok"

Said so tersely, and she walked away to the deli section.


********** Flash back to Last Summer *************
It was a sultry day here in Southern California, and I and a couple of colleagues decided to try out this Chinese takeout place near the office. It was a typical Chinese fast food joint where you tell the people behind the counter what items you want, and they scoop the stuff out of the trays on display into a plate which they hand to you at the cashier.



After paying for the two item combination, I proceeded to pick up some napkins and utensils then my mind drifted to heaven knows what. It was lunch time. Give me a break. It happens to everybody.

"Sir, you did not pay for the soda."

Huh? The next thing I saw was a dispenser of the soda fountain from which a stream of Coke was pouring into the cup in my hand.

"Huh?"

"Sir, the cup I gave you is for water, not for a soft drink, " continued the Ice Queen. "That will be $1.25."

So there I was, in front of all these people, fumbling around in my pockets in search of $1.25 while apologizing profusely. She made me pay after catching me allegedly stealing when in fact my mind had blanked out and found me operating a wrong dispenser.

How embarrassing was that? The food wasn't all that great. In fact it was horrible; hence I nicknamed that place "Michelin Tires R Us."

And I've decided against marrying her.