9 more days!

i borrowed the car this morning to return client P's computer along with the source files cd's. this gesture marks the conclusion of project P. i've been on this project for nearly a year, always in the background, slowly working at it, until finally this day. it was the thing that kept me going when i came back from my trip last year, my first big project, which gave me a glimmer of hope that i'd be able to pay my bills. weird thing is i never submitted a single invoice for the project (yeah, i know, not the best business practice) so now i'm sort of scared to finally count up all the hours spent.

with just nine more days to go before i leave, i'm still not done with the rest of my work, and project N still looms in the air. one interactive is almost done, but there are many unforeseen hardware issues. the other interactive is much easier to build but i haven't started - mainly because i don't have all the assets yet.

andrew and maura came over briefly, to show me their engagement ring. they also came by to get some photos of the rock to show their friends and family. in the early evening i rode out into the city to meet up with eliza (arriving via bicycle) for a movie at the boston common theatre. it was crowded, and a list of movies were already sold out, particularly pirates of the caribbean (opening today). fortunately for us we were seeing the devil wears prada instead. be bought tickets for the 7:55 showing and went to chinatown to get some dinner at pho hoa. i got the hue noodles again but it'll never be as good as the first time. i never realized this before, but pho hoa is actually a franchise eatery. i may need to find myself a new favorite vietnamese restaurant.

we made a quick stop at cvs to pick up some contraband snacks. eliza got herself an ice cream sandwich. since we were a little bit late, we found our screening room with previews already in progress. we were surprised to find it already to near-full capacity, and had to settle for some front row seats. i noticed the demographic was mostly females.

the devil wears prada is the tale of idealistic young journalist wannabe andy sachs (played by easy-on-the-eyes anne hathaway) who gets a job as an assistant to miranda priestly, the high power editor of a fashion magazine (played by meryl streep in full-on cruella deville bitch mode). said editor (the devil of the title) is the ultimate boss from hell, and at first andy wants to quit, but becomes seduced by the fashion world and her own ambition to parlay this job into something better and more suitable for her talents and interests. gleaning from the audience, i could tell this was a chick flick. if you love sex in the city (i'm not a fan), you're probably going to love prada. yet at the same time i didn't feel excluded from the story, as there was plenty of humor and office nightmare moments that anyone can relate to. watching anne hathaway prancing around in pretty outfits also has its perks. the writing is top-notch, full of little scenes you'll remembr and tell friends about later (not sure how much of it was taken from the novel the movie is based on). streep is awesome as miranda, and she plays it so over-the-top yet subtle, i wouldn't be surprised if there's an oscar nod even though the woman has a closet full of gold statues already. as for hathaway's performance, i love her in everything she does, so my opinion on the matter is biased. it's a fun movie, the kind where after it's over, i sort of want to see it again.

afterwards eliza made a hasty exit to catch a 10pm concert at the paradise. i mounted my motorcycle parked in chinatown and sped home in the dark speedway of storrow drive back to cambridge. i chatted with ang tao and he gave me a quick tour of shanghai (where he lives in china) via google earth.