Everything is the same, even if it's different

Side Notes:
(Sorry Dimes, I meant 2000 not 200, if he graduated 1,764 years before our high school opened AND he was still able to bowl, that would be impressive.
Sorry Cash, I had already seen I Heart Huckabees, I will discuss with you later. By discuss I mean I will give you my opinion regardless of your blatant ignorance to well written scripts)

I’m not sure if you have heard about these Anti-Japanese protests going on in China. Today (Saturday April 16th) is actually the organized day for the protests for Shanghai, Beijing, and Guangzhuo. The protests in Shanghai are taking place in People’s Square, where I used to live and where my office is. I’m not very clear on the history of these two nations and or exactly what is causing this feud. I do know that China is angry at Japan for not apologizing for the atrocities they committed during their invasion of China from 1937 to 1945. The story here (what I’ve been told by locals) is that the Japanese army killed or injured up to 30 million Chinese during their invasion of China. This number I am not sure includes the tens of thousands (hundreds of thousands maybe?) of Chinese women, the Japanese army forced into sexual slavery. Recently a new Japanese textbook came out that wasn’t entirely factual in the telling of the history of their invasion of China (which I could see why) and that has only kindled the fire. The protests here are to urge consumers to boycott anything and everything Japanese (I had sushi last night, oops). An interesting plot twist (I was informed of last night) is that the protests are being promoted by the Chinese Government on one side and then denied on the other. Because this is a communist nation, you are not “allowed” to have public protests, especially something that could hurt trade agreements. However, the government is not doing anything to stop this from happening, while in the public “asking” people to not partake in these protests. What people are saying here, is that the Chinese only want an apology for Japan’s actions, nothing more. For me, it’s a little hard to believe that China only wants a “I’m Sorry” and then Japan and China can be allies again. My take you ask? I just hope some idiot doesn’t put a brick or a Molotov cocktail through the window of the Japanese restaurant downstairs. The food is really good. Your food comes out extremely fast. The beers are cheap and one of the waitresses is smoking hot. If that place goes up in flames, I will be greatly disappointed. That disappointment would be only slightly less than the disappointment I felt after risking my life to come to my office, despite the protests, by 2 pm (Beijing Time) in order to come online and read the WhatIf play by play with my friend Dell, only to be no-showed. That is only slightly less than Coyote Ugly status, but greater than the news that there will NOT be a Napoleon Dynamite 2. BALLS!

Side’s DVD wrap:

I Heart Huckabees (also know as Cash Hates Huckabees), but not to be confused with the catchphrase “I Heart Whatif”. You’ve got a great cast; Dustin Hoffman, Lily Tomlin, Jude Law, f-ing Marky Mark and that blonde chick from The Ring, Naomi Watts. I must say that before Closer I was not “a big fan” of Jude Law. I always took him for a poor man’s Hugh Grant. And I HATE Hugh Grant. But to be honest, is wasn’t a fair assessment of him as I really haven’t seen many of his films. He has a laundry list of movies that I have either missed or chose not to watch, The Talented Mr. Ripley, AI, Enemy at the Gates, Cold Mountain, Alfie, Gattaca. Come to think of it, I don’t think I had ever seen him act before Closer. I had just heard girls whimper about how hot he was, so obviously I took him for a fag. Sorry Jude. To borrow from Harold and Kumar go to White Castle, “Dude, on a scale from 1 to 10, 1 being not so extreme and 10 being extremely extreme” but instead of extreme I would use good, I’d give I Heart Huckabees a 7.5, based mostly the merits of its philosophical ideas. I was thoroughly entertained by Dustin Hoffman’s lines, like “The center of the universe is a sphere, with a center everywhere and a circumference nowhere” and “Everything is the same, even if it's different”. Marky Mark’s character is hilarious and I laughed out loud in just about every scene he was in. I know my good buddy Cash is not in agreement with this (he probably liked KungFu Hustle), but I highly recommend you watch this film. Now, it’s not a good “guys” flick, probably better watched with a chick. If you can sneak this one in instead of Fever Pitch or Dirty Dancing 2 when arguing/negotiating with your lady about the DVD rental, you will have a great laugh “all the way to the bank” (figuratively).

I didn’t get Band of Brothers yet, it wasn’t at my local DVD “shop”. I will try another one and see if they have it, so hopefully by Monday or Tuesday I’ll have watched a good portion of it. Has anyone watched the Anchor Man commentary yet? I only made it through about 15 minutes of it, but the first 15 was just Will Farrell and various other people talking about what would be censored on the commentary. It’s basically a swearing session reminiscent of the South Park episode where they say “shit”. Some really weird things are mentioned and almost nothing has to do with the movie. At one point they were talking about Ron Burgandy’s dog’s cock which led to a discussion about a Polar Bear blowing a Donkey. It’s pretty damn funny.

One more thing. I have once again regressed back to (is that redundant?) watching Fight Club. I have watched from the introduction of Tyler Durden to various places in the movie, no less than 7 times in the last week.

“It's only after you've lost everything that you're free to do anything.”