In past years, I could stand the VMA's. You know, the hype leading up to it, the ridiculous pre-show, and the boring show itself. But this year, no. All the VMA-related shows were too much leading up to it. A flawed pre-show with an out-of-control Ludacris, a laidback Avril Lavigne, and hosts who couldn't get a cue right, and when they did, they just completely messed up. Jimmy Fallon, while original, was horrible. And they didn't even show him that much. Its saving grace was its many, many performances by decent artists. (As Jimmy said during one of his parodies, this would be one of the few times you'd be listening to music on MTV). But still, MTV treats movies better than its trademark music.

As part of this non-life I lead, I've noticed a lot of weird things going on during commercials.

Why do people look so ridiculous promoting those dance videos? First, it was that guy with Lance Bass showing how you can do those dances from the music videos. Now, they've got something called Zumba, something that looks ten times worse than the Lance Bass thing. Its hook? You get a heart watch with every Zumba video. What a deal...

Nicoderm CQ is now a clear patch. Yet still, people will not buy it nor will it work. Of all the people I know who use it, they still smoke.

E!'s TV Tales will profile "Who's The Boss?" next week. In the commercial, the voice-over guy says to see how the show "changed TV". How exactly? I mean, come on, we're talking about Tony Danza here. Alyssa Milano? Well, that's another story.

There's a new batting tool out there where a baseball or softball attached to a rope can be hit with a bat and swing back around in tetherball-like fashion for endless batting practice fun. I have only one question. In the commercial, why the hell are they wearing helmets?

You know what's a stupid movie title. The Transporter. While accurate, it sounds too sci-fi. What's one even worse? Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever. No other comment needed.

Reflections on this the second day of school...

School's a half-hour earlier today since it starts at 9:40am instead of 10:10 the day before. Again, the sun has decided to peek its bright head for all of Berkeley to see. It's just too hot.

Because I'm headed to Evans, I take the 52L bus. Two buses pass, full and late, leaving me at the stop. I'm forced to take a 51, making me walk an extra 10 minutes. It's hot and my feet hurt.

I finally get there. It wasn't too late but late enough for me not to get a seat, making me stand. It's math and it's overcrowded. The professor is one of those fat Russians who always seem to be nice. Loud chalk-writing. Broke at least two pieces of chalk during the course of explaining the syllabus. On the other side of the room is my high school friend Sidney. Considering the amount of complaining he does about math, I was surprised to see him here. He explains he just signed up for it yesterday. But I'm distracted by my standing. It's hot in the room, my feet hurt, and they're getting tired.

Luckily, the professor lets us go a half-hour into the lecture. I quickly head home since there are now 4 hours til my next class. On the way, I see another high school friend, Blaine. He's just transferred from De Anza and now is living in the majestic dorms of Unit 2. We go way back, all the way to elementary school. As a new Cognitive Science major, he's just getting his bearings straight by taking some introductory classes. We walk around for a while just talking. Yes, walk. Did I mention I'm hot and my feet hurt?

He gets to class and I head home. Ah, the strikers again. Louder than ever today. Tomorrow promises to be the best day with the addition of hundreds of lecturers to the lines. And if you know lecturers, you know they can speak really loud. It's hot, my feet hurt, and now I think my ears are ringing from the yelling and the honking.

It's 1:30. Time to head back. I've been thrilled by exciting television, at least exciting as can be during lunchtime, chilled by some nice apple juice, and filled with an omelet. The bus is actually on time today. Now it's all good.

The economics lecture is now. It's another Indian guy but this guy has a really good American accent. Ooo, he's a Power Point guy. It's getting hot again and I've been dozing off a couple of times.

At its conclusion, I realize my next class is all the way on the other side of the campus. On this hot day? You cannot be serious. I find out Datman has these two exact classes and we walk to Lewis for the history class. We sit in the top row and listen to the professor talk and talk and talk. He seems like a normal guy. But again, it's hot.

The history professor mentions the only book needed is a course reader. We stop by the copy place and find out it's $81.00, cash only. Really, what college student has this kind of money? Predictably, I'm broke. Because I'm hot as well, I head home to refresh and to get up the next day.

Full Frontal
Fresh off his directorial wonder Traffic and his crowd-pleaser Ocean's Eleven, Steven Soderbergh decided to experiment a little. The result is the digital-camera film Full Frontal. Meant to be a follow-up to his great film "Sex, Lies, and Videotape," this follows a group of people attached in one way or another to a Hollywood film being produced and shot. The stars come out in full force for this one. Julia Roberts. Catherine Keener. Blair Underwood. David Hyde-Pierce. David Duchovny. Mary McCormack. Even Brad Pitt in a cameo. All followed strict rules to keep costs way down including no trailers, the task of dressing themselves, being forced to stay in character at all times, etc.

The result is disappointing. First of all, it's nice for Soderbergh to embrace the digital revolution, but his camerawork here is shoddy at best. His use of natural light over conventional light is a bad decision with dim shots and sunny shots wreaking havoc on our eyes. There are shots where he decides to go out-of-focus while dialogue is heard. This is done for reasons I'm still not sure about. Then there's the story. What does it all mean? There's too much stuff going on, all connected in one way or another, to figure things out. What results when you leave is a bad headache and a confused mind. 1 star

Reflections on this first day of school:

The sun actually reared its head from behind the clouds today, creating a hot day to get to class.

As usual, the bus was late.

The strikers are everywhere! Nice enough people; easily excited when somebody honks a horn. They deserve every penny they're asking for.

My first class was Statistics. When I walked into the dreary room known as 155 Donner Lab, I saw my favorite professor, Professor Pham, erasing the board. Was there a switch? Alas, no. He was finishing up teaching the class before. Instead, a young Indian walked in. I remember him as a substitute I had during section in my last Stat class. He explained he just got his PhD but wanted to teach for a year before going out to the world to get paid a decent salary. For 50 minutes, he read the syllabus. Nothing else really happened. Just cramped from the fact that there were 100 people and only 80 seats. It's bad enough the room is in the corner of nowhere, behind the still-incomplete Hearst Mining Building. The teacher? Bad sense of humor but nice guy even though he suggests we switch to the other Stat class being taught by the actual author of the book.

Let's see, 3 hours to kill before my next and last class for the day. Yep, I'm killing myself with two 1-hour classes on the first day. I go home. First, I walk through the mess known as Sproul Plaza. Hordes of people come running up to you, flyers in hand, probably thinking, "Here, you throw this away."

Again, the bus is late.

I have a Hot Pocket for lunch. Whoever made these things is a genius.

It's 1:30, time to go back. This time, I barely miss the bus.

I get to Cory for my Econ class, only realizing then that I've got no idea which room it's in. I hurry through the whole 2nd floor, discovering the last room to check is the room. Only 1 minute late but this guy had decided to start a bit early. After listening to his spiel including a lengthy thing about his office hours being in his living room, gross, it's time to take roll. Among the highlights, there are 5 people with the last name of Kim in the class. The class became out of control when the name Kim Kim was called. Also, in the class was Chun Lee, which drew a chuckle until he quickly said he wanted to be called Steve. Class was over a half hour early. Feeling how thirsty I was, I headed home.

Long lines in the two bookstores. Geez, nobody was prepared this year. Luckily, I took care of that last week.

Yep, the bus is late again.

And so tomorrow begins another year in Berkeley and things couldn't be any worse.

While every school year from now on will start off with the lingering memories of September 11th, the first anniversary will be the hardest. But also raining in on the parade is the air of striking. Not only is baseball threatening to strike this Friday, two strikes threaten to wreak havoc on an already wild first week of school in Berkeley. The clerical workers, who deal with all the paperwork and the all-important waiting lists, go on strike for the first three days of the year. Also, lecturers, underpaid and let go after a few years, will strike on Wednesday unless a new contract is written.

This fall will be the first time the book-buying season is without the Campus Textbook Exchange, the store with the familiar sign on Bancroft, leaving Berkeleyans with only the ASUC and Ned's for the book-buying needs.

More people are arriving in Berkeley, people who look like me, Asians, and less people of the other races, leaving this small minority to protest louder than ever before.

Fire has struck some apartments down the street from me and through the course of last night, Oakland suffered its 72nd and 73rd homicides.

As for me, I'm prepared like I usually am, which means I am not prepared. But I'll probably get up tomorrow and a brand new day will arrive.

My sister is away at her little colorguard cram session this week but she has reminded me repeatedly about recording TRL today. Apparently, her musical flavor of the month, Avril Lavigne, is a prominent guest today. What have they done to this show? When it first started as MTV Live, or something like that, it was the little show that could combine a celebrity with music videos. Then, TRL happened. More guests started appearing. It even brought in a studio audience. Now the concept is dying. There's too much to do in a single hour. What kind of artist wants to see their hard work seen for just a few seconds so that the host can go back to talking to the next airhead who happens to find their way up to the studio? Case in point: the #2 video today, Kylie Minogue's "Love At First Sight" was seen for a lengthy 10 seconds today. 10! You know things were heading south when they moved it to 1pm. Who watches music videos at 1? Carson Daly has wisely busied himself with other things, not good things, but other things to partially flee the sinking ship. Now they have the idiot wheel of hosts taking turns to try to rise to prominence. Trust me, the blond white guy today? No chance to replace Carson. Fumbling words, looking lost, unable to think and react quickly.

Aside from Avril, the "big" story of the day was one of the ladies from 3LW was being forced out of the group. Oh my, watching TRL, you would have thought it was one of the signs of the apocalypse. The host said the whole world was abuzz with this news. The whole world? Come now, you've got to be kidding me.

In other news, the best band with a 40-ish lead female singer is coming to San Jose, Garbage! They're touring with the other band with a similar description (except their last CD and videos have just been awful, awful, awful), No Doubt. Set your calendars for November 14.

Garbage technology has come a long way since we just lay all our garbage on the street, waiting for someone to pick it up. Now everything is in its right movable bin. The funny part is, the contents of the recycling cart and the garbage cart go into the same truck. How do they know what's what?

A curse seems to have fallen on Santana Row, a $750 million project of shopping, townhomes, restaurants, and a 4-star hotel right across from the Century dome theatres, the Winchester Mystery House, and Valley Fair that was supposed to completely open September 19. (Only Crate & Barrel is open right now.) You see, when the first shovel of dirt was moved, the economy started to go down and the era of the dot-com was over. Then after longtime business Courtesy Chevrolet was forced out, one of the structures collapsed. And now comes today. The hotel, parking garage, and some stores are on fire creating a billow of smoke completely darkening that part of the city. Say adios to this center for a long time to come.

Surprises are a-plenty when I ride in a car with the parents. We're driving to lunch when the CD player switches over to some Vietnamese music. Then for some odd reason, my dad begins to talk about it, even comparing it to American music. So remember, while Vietnamese music speaks from the heart and is so beautiful, American music sounds like cats and dogs fighting against each other. Or it's drinking an espresso or cappucino compared to black coffee. Take your pick.

August 15 has come and passed, meaning the last day of school is over. Like clockwork though, sickness has traveled to my body. It was really bad Tuesday but has gotten slightly better before my test yesterday. Even now, there's a sore throat and a little cough. Oh, and irregular sleeping patterns. That's the worst. Look! I'm wide awake at 3am!

We're gonna change directions in the whole movie/life ranting business this one time to talk politics, another little passion of mine. Tonight, we'll talk California with the governor's race. It's a flawed campaign with dumb and dumber fighting to be in the governor's seat come November. As a Republican in Berkeley (yes, gasp at the thought), I'm partial in voting party lines, which means I'll vote Simon, not my first choice during the primaries. I voted Riordan. Sure, he was an old geezer, but he was a moderate who led L.A. past dark times. Instead, we got the lawyer/businessman, two jobs no one wants to be associated with anymore. As a result, all his backers have suddenly disappeared including Rudy Giuliani. To add injury to insult, his company was successfully sued for millions in damages. Simon wants no part of it and has tried to distance himself from it, but to no avail. Inevitably, his financial status became an issue, but he refused to release his taxes. All politicians seemingly do but Simon didn't, causing protesters to rise up in anger. When he finally did, he let inexperienced news reporters with no experts in sight to look at a decade's worth of documents for a couple of hours. Let's face it, he's flawed and he's inexperienced. "If he can't run his own company, how can we trust him to run the 5th largest economy in the world?" the commercial from Davis asks.

Indeed, I say. But now we turn to Gray Davis, the dumber of the two. I mean, come on, he still raises the roof every chance he gets. It wasn't cool the first time and Davis doing it makes it that much worse. He's had three years on the job, but he himself hasn't proven that he can run the 5th largest economy in the world. Back in 1998, he ran on a platform of education and he's certainly fulfilled. Standardized testing reigns in California. Money is tied in with the results. Shape up or ship out is the motto. Spending on education increased much faster than other spending. As a result, the state's kids may be well-funded (not compared to other states, but much better than before) but everyone else isn't. Right now, California faces the largest budget deficit in history, about $24 billion from a $100 billion budget. The fiscal year started 45 days ago and the stalemate in the Legislature doesn't look to be ending soon. Sure, Davis can lay the blame on them but he hasn't done anything to help either. Who knows? We might go back to issuing IOU's like in the early '90s. While all this is going on, Davis continues to fund-raise for his own governor's campaign and a very remotely possible presidential campaign two years from now. Figures show he's got $30 million in the bank while Simon, who's cutting half his staff to save money, has only $5 million. As a result, Davis keeps running attack ad after attack ad. But where does fund-raising stop and political decision-making begin? An allegation exists where the now-defunct Tosco refinery donated some money to the Davis campaign and a week later, a state agency appointed by Davis gave Tosco a few more pollution credits. There's also the mess with Oracle and the new database system they were supposed to make for the state. Oracle also gave him a bunch of money. Then, who can forget the power blackouts? Instead of preparing for it, he took a reactionary stance and made up policy after policy including binding the state into expensive power contracts, most of which aren't needed anymore with cheap power running rampant throughout the state now. And the power companies gave him money too!

Last month, the race was a tie. Now, the Washington Times reports Davis has built a huge 17-point lead over Simon. While the election is three months away, things are looking dim for us Republicans. But as long as they raise those UC fees after I graduate, I'll be okay whoever's in the governor's office.

Yes, Star Trek: Nemesis hasn't even come out yet, but the DVD better have tons of deleted scenes in it. News has it that they've shot a 3 hour movie, unheard of among Star Trek movies. It means they'll need to cut at least an hour from it. One of the scenes includes Wesley Crusher at Troi and Riker's wedding, frankly one of the more annoying characters in Next Gen lore but also barely seen since he went off to Starfleet Academy.

XXX
Curiously, when you start walking out of this flick, you hear the words "none of this makes any sense" during the song blaring over the speakers. How perfectly does it sum up XXX? Very well. Vin Diesel plays Xander, a no-fear type of guy out on parole. When the NSA needs help in getting the 411 about a new biological weapon, Samuel L. Jackson, in his worst role to date, with a ridiculous unexplained scar no less, calls up a group of people including Xander for the task. Predictably, the group is weeded down to one, Xander. With his reputation and interest in cars, he successfully infiltrates Anarchy 99 and finds out its leader has acquired rockets that can spread gas and kill a city's population instantly.

It's loud and pointless. The powers that be turn this film into stunt after stunt after stunt. It never gets a chance to really develop its characters, something that needs to be done since they're probably going to do many sequels. Sure, it's an action film but they seem to dumb it down so much it's simply one-dimensional thinking. It all becomes quite over the top and so ridiculous that you can't help but laugh. As for the stars, this is Diesel's vehicle. Everyone's focused on him. As a result, Jackson seems to be in the way and beautiful bad-girl Asia (3 syllables!) Argento does nothing but stand there. The stunts speak for themselves and the gadgets, while few and far between, look cool with the exception of the bazooka at the end which is just a camcorder with a pole attached to it. 1.5 stars

The best new show from 1999 was Sports Night, a little-watched show on ABC. It was the show Aaron Sorkin did before The West Wing. While well-done, it got cancelled. Now, it's coming out on DVD November 5. Thanks to the Digital Bits for the image.

Spy Kids 2: The Island of Lost Dreams
Them people from the first Spy Kids movie are at it again with this sequel, a waste of time the first time and a waste of time this time. Apparently, some device that can make electronic devices to not work is coveted by the new head of the spy organization. Stung by the emergence of new kid spies, our two main characters switch assignments secretly to retrieve it, where mayhem ensues.

First of all, this island has no lost dreams. What the heck are they talking about? Second, having the spies turn against each other defeats the supposed purpose of showing off gadgets to solve mysteries. Third, see the previous sentence. If they go to a mystery island where there's no such thing as electronics, what's the point of Spy Kids? Fourth, there's an action sequence in which skeletons are fighting Carmen and Juni. It looks so fake that the sequence in Jason and the Argonauts looked more realistic. Fifth, having Ricardo Montalban and Holland Taylor as the grandparents was a good idea, but they're wasted in this film. Sixth, what happened to George Clooney? Seventh, if Gregorio (Antonio Banderas) was originally supposed to be head of OSS as it said on the teleprompter, why didn't anyone say something? Eighth, who would elect Christopher McDonald (the villainous golfer from Happy Gilmore) as president? Ninth, it may have been in the first movie and I didn't remember. What are those fans supposed to do when the spies point it at someone? Tenth, how does something that renders electronic devices useless kill people? Eleventh, if the OSS is so high-tech, why can't they detect people hacking into their system? Carmen gets Juni back into the OSS when he gets fired simply by hacking. They get Gary and Gerti transferred to the Gobi desert by hacking. What kind of security does this place have? Twelth, how was it that it reused jokes from earlier comedies this summer? There's that shittake mushrooms joke from Goldmember and the lengthy trip down to the secret underground lair from Undercover Brother. Finally, there's so much more but everything I know is only the beginning. 1 star

I happened to stop by the CNN home page this morning and find the big words BREAKING NEWS plastered on top of the page. With my 56K connection, I'm left to wonder. What happened? Has there been another disaster? Did the president slip and fall while eating a pretzel on vacation? Has Al-Qaida been eliminated? What? None of that happened. Apparently, Domino's is considering charging a buck for pizza delivery.

Eight Legged Freaks
Hitless David Arquette strikes out again in this feature about spiders taking over a small town in Arizona. The star of such classics as See Spot Run and Ready to Rumble comes back to his childhood home just in the nick of time to see spiders at the local spider farm mutated by nearby river contamination and run loose in the streets. Predictably, the rest of the movie shows a bunch of running and shooting and little story in between. It also stars Scarlett Johansson of Ghost World fame, reduced to the role of rebellious but helpless daughter of the pretty and cool Kari Wuhrer, who people will (or will not) remember from the old MTV game show Remote Control. Nerds and geeks alike will remember her from the last years of the Fox/Sci-Fi channel show Sliders. She's the sheriff who leads the town against the spiders.

The commercials had this one comparing itself to Tremors, but this my friends is no Tremors. For some odd reason, that struck the odd balance of being realistic, smart, creepy, and humorous all in the same movie. But like Reign of Fire, Eight Legged Freaks dumbs down the movie to simply kill or be killed. Heck, Tremors' two awful sequels are slightly better than this. Storylines designed to make this a little complex are handled in a line or two. "I know you love me but let's kill that spider first." or "Hey, there's the gold that will save this town." Not actual lines from the movie, but it certainly wasn't meant to be memorable either. Besides, the spiders weren't too realistic. You could really tell they're fake. I will give it credit for making fun of itself. It is such a ridiculous idea to fathom that it has to be somekind of self-parody. Plus, I don't understand how if fire didn't kill them earlier in the movie, it does later in the movie. Was it because with the gas, it made the fire ..., what, hotter??? Please! But all in all, it's awful, boring, and awfully boring. 1.5 stars

See, I was right about the mole. Too bad nobody was watching.

Tonight, we find out who the mole is on The Mole: The Next Betrayal. My money's on Bill. Why? In the opening credits, there was a message saying "The mole is Bill." As for who wins the money, it seems Dorothy cares about the game more than Heather, so Dorothy will win. Find out tonight at 9.

Happy Birthday Jeanette! You didn't ask for any, but your present is on the way. See ya at the party.

My siblings and I went to Sizzler last weekend. Ever since the company went bankrupt, leaving the franchises to carry the Sizzler name, they've been slowly trying to bring it back to respectability. But my brother noticed it has become the anti-restaurant in the process. First, what's the first thing you see when you walk in? The bathrooms. Who would put bathrooms at the entrance? After you pass them, you're confronted by a line in front of the menus. You want your own menu? Tough. It's on the wall. Before you even get your first bite, you must choose and pay within minutes of stepping through the door. Once you're done, you have to carry your drinks and find your own table. What kind of dining is this? If it was a buffet, I'd understand but they promote that they are a restaurant, because after all, you get more than what you pay for.

Before things get normal, they get weirder. The salad bar is supposed to be its pride and joy. Yet they serve chicken wings and tacos in the salad bar? Find that at Fresh Choice! Remember that receipt you got documenting what you ordered? Say bye-bye. The server needs it to know what you ordered. Once this happens, food is actually served to you! You would think you'd have to cook it yourself or at the very least, pick it up yourself but no. Then it's on to dessert. What dessert? There's only one option. The non-dairy lactose-free soft serve ice cream with your choice of toppings of course. They don't even have real M&M's, they're fake ones.

Yes, Sizzler has been doing this for years. It's just that I hadn't noticed until now. I'm not complaining either. The food's pretty good.

Signs
I'll try to be as spoiler-free as possible. Mel Gibson stars as a former minister who finds crop circles in the middle of his field. Predictably, his family, two kids and his brother, is freaked out. Soon, through the magic of television, they found out similar circles are being seen throughout the world, mainly India and Mexico. What follows is a sequence of events leading up to an invasion by unknown aliens.

Director M. Night Shyamalan has only made two movies before. Now all three follow his distinctive style of focusing on single objects in the picture, studying them, and moving on as if they were pieces to a puzzle. The Sixth Sense was his best effort at this because I was just blown away by the ending the first time I saw it. Unbreakable worked on a lesser extent but the revelation that Samuel L. Jackson played the villain justified doing it. In Signs, there really isn't any payoff to paying attention. It's basically all laid out there, as any traditional movie would. Sure, he does have flashbacks at the end but you have the feeling of what they're going to do instead of being totally surprised.

Also, when Shyamalan does this "focused directing," it makes things awfully S-L-O-W. It gets frustrating sometimes, more so in the beginning when they were setting up the story. As the movie progressed, there were some frights and the movie got more exciting.

Lots of questions remain unanswered pertaining to these aliens. Because Shymalan chooses to focus in on a house of people watching CNN, we'll never get to know, making it a missed opportunity. Curiousity drives the human race and it would have been satisfying to find out what these aliens wanted but again we never find out.

Now about that ending. In Unbreakable, its main characters had an Achilles Heel. It's no different for these aliens. What it is in this movie is so dumb, I thought Mars Attacks' lousy music as a way to defeat those aliens was just as plausible.

The movie does frighten and it is suspenseful but I think it's unsatisfying, especially compared to the caliber of films Shyamalan has made and is capable of making. 2.5 stars

My aunt and uncle celebrated their 25th anniversary last night. Leading up to it, they talked on and on about hiring a live band for the young people at the party. After watching their performance, I must say, I will never have a live band perform for me anywhere. This band, named "Passion", wasn't bad. Its just that their performance really stood out by the antics of the male lead singer, who bears a striking resemblance to that bassist from No Doubt. He was an energetic fellow, always a few notches ahead on the energy scale compared to the audience and his fellow band members; possibly high, possibly gay, I'm not sure. While barely any of the young people danced (they were quickly heading out the door or took refuge in the back of the restaurant), my sister and I couldn't help from laughing by this guy's gestures and pointing. Even the band chuckled a little as if he was the new guy. (Maybe he was.)

After that, we headed home. Remember when I ranted about Speed becoming an American Movie Classic? They've now added Short Circuit to their list of movies. Now it certainly wasn't a classic. It did have a robot and I did like the movie, but it ain't a classic. For one thing, it stars Steve Guttenberg.