serene’s posterous

Caught bits of the auditions and the Las Vegas callbacks of this season's So You Think You Can Dance (SYTYCD).  A dancer, Alex Wong, really stood out.  I thought his solo piece in Las Vegas was amazing (and it doesn't hurt that he is kinda cute).  I guess that's why he is already a principal soloist at the Miami City Ballet. 

Unfortunately that also means he is still under contract with the ballet company, and can't join the competition this season.  And therefore I won't be "appreciating" his dancing on TV this summer.  He apparently has a youtube account, and put up this cool Pas de Deux rehearsal.  The song is Hallelujah by Vitamin String Quartet, which I love.

This is a rather disturbing film.  What if there's some kind of virulence that spreads easily, making everyone infected blind?  What if there's one person who is immune?  Julianne Moore is excellent as always.  Although, I wonder why didn't her character do more when the inevitable Lord of Flies thing happens.  She is the only person with sight after all...doesn't that give her an enormous advantage?

Not sure how this movie ended up on our netflix list, but I think we probably read a very positive review somewhere...

Essentially, this was a teenage road trip comedy.  The movie wasn't terrible and we had some laughs from it.  It was rather puerile and crude at times, but at its core, there were cute love stories, and characters who were likable.  Memorably, James Marsden plays against type in a supporting role as a macho, crazed brother.

Fraiche frozen yogurt is usually very tasty.  But a large serving of the frozen yogurt in the natural flavor, with 3 toppings (mochi, chocolate shavings and mango) was just too much.  Particularly at 6.30pm in the evening before dinnertime.  I thought since I always wanted a little more after eating a regular serving, a large serving of yogurt would be fine.

For some reason, the frozen yogurt was also not as good as I remembered.  It wasn't as smooth and had some lumpy ice crystals.  At least the toppings - particularly the mochi - were tasty.  But it would be back to making my own frozen yogurt.

I loved the movie.  I watched this in 3-D, which was an interesting experience given that I haven't watched any of the recent 3-D movies.  The effect is subtle, no gimmicky popping in your face kind of things.  I am not sure if the regular 2-D would be a diminished watching experience because presumably the colors would be more vivid in 2-D.

The best part of the movie is the prologue, which I think is the emotional core of the movie.  The sequence of little scenes of Carl and Ellie's lives and the passing of time and the dreams and heartbreak.  I can't say I have watched a more emotional and powerful sequence in an animated movie.  The rest of the movie was very good, but it never reached the heights of the prologue.

I really want to go watch it again.

Danced a great Zwiefacher at Jammix on Friday night.  Richard Powers doesn't seem to play Zwiefache (a description on wikipedia) regularly at Jammixes, although I think he sometimes covers it during the waltz classes he teaches. 

Zwiefache are dances that changes time signatures between 2/4 and 3/4.  The one played on Friday has a simple regular pattern, mixing waltz steps in 3/4 time interspersed with pivots during the 2/4 time.  This particular song is Wintergrün (hear a sample on amazon), which has a WWWW PPWW PPWW (W=waltz, P=pivot) timing.  I like the musicality of it.  My dance partner and I role-reversed part way through, so I managed to have fun leading the waltz and pivot steps too.

Another action-packed movie.  Well, it was entertaining but pretty preposterous, with several plot threads left hanging by the end of the movie.  The movie is all about Liam Neeson, the grizzled, experienced ex-intelligence agent, trying to save his daughter, played by Maggie Grace, and not caring about what/who gets in the way.  The body count is high.

After an afternoon in the lab on Memorial Day, I decided I needed to be outdoors for a bit, and persuaded Eu-Jin to visit the cactus garden close to sunset.  The light was beautiful, and there are lots of pretty flowers.  We also saw a humming bird partaking in the nectar and bees too.

         

Tasty lunch on Sunday.  We redeemed all our deli coupons (given for purchases above $30) from Marina Food at San Mateo and obtained about a pound of BBQ Pork (Char Siew) and half a roast duck for practically free.  Eu-Jin then stir fried bean sprouts for the veggie part of our meal.  Pictured is a small portion of the duck and char siew, and lots of bean sprouts over rice in the bowl.

This song by Crowded House (off their Woodface album) popped up on my shuffle while I was jogging on Sunday.  I had forgotten I had added the song to the shuffle, and how devastatingly moving the song is.  I had to go back and start listening to my collection of Crowded House songs again.  I probably have all of their regular albums (other than Afterglow, their collection of b-sides and rarities).

In this live version at the Linda McCartney Tribute Concert from many years back, it seemed Neil Finn screwed up a little with the lyrics.  And there appeared to be something wrong with the microphone of guest, Sinead O'Conner, because I can't really hear her in the audio.