Tag: Tokyo

(Shinning) House in the Alley

Instead of a snow-bound scenario in a vacated hotel, we have  a newly-wed couple of  the House in the Alley

The bloody ax, the shattering glass and the medium-rare steak.

We were placed immediately inside a rain storm. That fateful night, like in Misery,  the first domino that starts a chain of mishaps: married sex life, career, personal safety and destruction of property.

We got two layers of deterioration: psychological and paranormal .

Low lighting, fear and dread, all taken its mark on our man (the Shinning role reversal) good physique aside.

The House in the Alley could have been in Seoul, Tokyo or Manila.

But it’s set here in Saigon, where Dan and I shared a pizza last night.

He already had his mind on the upcoming project, perhaps in Dalat, his hometown where he finished high school.

For now, he can’t wait to get home to Laguna Beach “to have bite of that In-and-Out Burger“.  Instead, we ended up with laughable kid-burgers along with pizza.

House in the Alley got charming sidekicks, male and female. The supporting actress was trying to cheer up her troubled friend with traffic crash stories (occured every five minutes in this city).

“Have you listened to any of this”? I understand….”

We know the actress did try hard to scratch the surface of this very personal subject (the mother-in-law also had a miscarriage, but she had steeled herself and moved on).

So we lost a few fingers on this one, but there is, perhaps, a happy ending (from stormy open to sunny beach ending ), if one doesn’t look in the rearview mirror. Be afraid. The House in the Ally is now On Sale.

Dan is making sure of that, having run a real estate loan company himself.

message in the bottle

Cast away. Sending an SOS. an SMS. I hope that someone will get my message.

We are born to connect (our belly button testifies to this) with nature and others.

Yet marketers are telling us that in Retirement Ville, cruise ship (with sauna sound that reminds us of incubator) and virtual existence can substitute for the real thing.

In Japan, a generation grows up with comic characters and robots ( Miku, a 3-D virtual rock star got

her star treatment not unlike The Beatles).

Children in the West and BRIC nations will follow suit with what Neil Postman coins “amusing ourselves to death”.

If you look at the statistics on how we spend our time, TV and the Web are at third spot after sleep and work.

We in mail, g-mail, dropbox, chat, text, store, tweet, Like, blog, comment, delete spam, mass e mail etc….

As of this edit, Salesforce is buying another cloud-based marketing company at the tune of 2+ Billion.

To be social. To connect. To be human. It will be the first time in our human history that one can connect more than the optimal 120 (The Tipping Point).  This revolutionary change is the most significant since the 60’s.

Music is to be shared (Woodstock), the Earth is to be shared (Whole Earth Catalog), ideas are to be shared (Google), courses are to be shared (Coursera) and ride is to be shared (San Francisco). It’s not by mistake that San Francisco and adjacent Silicon Valley come out ahead in thought leadership.

It’s been a while since campus coffee-house (our 70’s version of karaoke, except you have to bring your own guitar).

Now we got Facebook to share a clip (ironically from Youtube, which is own by rival Google), a photo or an article.

All of a sudden, it’s like play time, share time. Everyone is an artist i.e. to let the world know we once exist.

Adults, retirees, and yes, even x’s, “friending” each other. Amusing Ourselves to Death.

The Genie is finally out of the bottle.

I send an SOS to the world…….I hope that someone, I hope that someone, read my message in the bottle…….

Spent

http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/news/477965/Lotto-winner-Callie-Rogers-reveals-hell-her-pound19m-fortune-brought.html

You can’t handle the truth!

Or blew 3 million dollars of lottery winning on booze, boobs and bags of white powder.

What a boyfriend the 16-year-old lottery winner hangs out with.

Meanwhile, another couple from Tokyo win the Tango contest, leaving the Argentinians in the dust (another couple from Colombia win Second place).

Now, that’s winning by hard work and collaboration.

I can’t help noticing the Japanese influence and presence in South America, just as I have recently about Chinese in Africa.

The East has produced a few “Columbus” of their own.

Can’t blame them for wanting to see it up close after years of Hollywood education. Meanwhile,

America still perpetuates the image of Iowa Jim (Incidentally, Clint Eastwood who directs the movie, also stars in his own Gran Torino which shows sensitivity to the plight of Asian immigrants)

even as Japan has moved on (signified by the start of a newly elected government). As of this edit, Japan has scored some shots at the Trans-Pacific Pact in the absence of President Obama, who had to stay home to resolve US Government shut-down.

We have yet to figure out the post-globalized world model.

Our lyric, liturgy and law that govern commerce and communication seem to freeze-frame at the post-WW world.

The star of Bollywood had already arrived at Newark Airport for a film premier, while  Hollywood still churns out Halloween franchise (same weekend that a Hawaii-born President delivered an Eulogy amidst an Irish white congregation.)

I admire the Tango winners ( hard work and collaboration) as much as I empathize with the 16-year-old lottery winner (luck) who has to move back in with her parents. She is learning her lesson at age 19.

To win means perseverance from within and facing challenges from without. Some passengers on United 93 made that heroic and fateful counter measure to retake the  hi-jacked aircraft. Now, that’s a challenge. In my book, they are winners.  Nature never fails to teach us the obvious: even dinosaurs couldn’t survive bio-meteorological pressures.

Size doesn’t make a difference in the scheme of things (my neighborhood bully, bigger than I then, is now dead). And certainly a whopping $3 million for a 16- year old on her spending spree won’t either. She can’t handle the truth!