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i woke up early this morning to wait for the water department to send someone over to replace the water meter in my house with a new meter they can read remotely. i watched just one of the guys (1985) while waiting, one of the great movies of the 80's. it took the repair just a few minutes to replace the meter once he arrived.
around noon i met up with bruce (here in town for the weekend) to go have lunch at sugar & spice. by the time we left, the sun already looked like it was about to set. i came home and did some work. the client actually called me, said they were really happy with what i delivered last night. we figured out some final details and then corresponded via e-mails and instant messages. all the while i felt very detached, like i didn't even recognize myself, didn't recognize the level of professionalism and expertise that was coming from me. it feels good to be working and such an integral member of the team.

came evening i went with my parents to bj wholesales to pick up some supplies. NESN's dvd of the red sox world series victory, faith rewarded, came out today, and i'd been talking with julie about it, and she even went out searching for the dvd but couldn't find any copies. so imagine how excited i was when i saw bj carried them, $12 a piece. i called up julie, who asked me to buy 2 copies for her. the NESN version is the better version compared to the MLB version that came out last month because NESN is the local baseball broadcasting network so the coverage is more in tune with red sox fans. the NESN version contains the footage of a-rod slapping the ball out of arroyo's glove during the playoff. so way was MLB going to embarass its golden boy by put that lowlight in the official baseball dvd. nevertheless, i bought both versions (the MLB dvd was just $10). my parents, who are going to taipei next month, also bought a NESN edition for my cousin eric, who's a big fan of american baseball.

my parents came over my place for dinner, some pan-fried gyoza and breaded eggplant slices. what time is it there (taiwanese 2001) arrived from netflix and we watched it while eating. i can say without a doubt that what time is it there is the worst movie i have ever seen. there's hardly a story, about a street vendor who meets a girl going off to paris and then goes about resetting all the clocks in taipei to paris time. okay, actually, that premise sounds mighty romantic, perhaps the start of something special, but the pacing of the moving is excruciatingly painful. 6 minutes go by at the start of the movie and there'd been only 4 scene changes. the camera lingers painfully long, and we watched most of the movie on fast forward, and even then it didn't seem like it was going by quick enough. it's never explained why the girl is going to paris, and she doesn't seem to be having a good time while she's there. at the end of the movie, the girl attempts an unsuccessful lesbian tryst with a hong kong woman vacationing in the city of lights as well, the boy sleeps with a prostitute in a car who later steals his suitcase, and the boy's mother masturbates at home with a pillow. this movie is so stupid, and i hate it so much, just talking about it gives the "film" more credit than it deserves. i almost smashed the dvd after i ejected it, but thought better of it.

by evening's end, i had already watched faith rewarded twice.