I got a message on my answering machine from David Christopherson. He’s the NDP Member of Parliament for my area. The message was a carefully crafted wish for me to have a happy holidays and New Year. Now, what’s important to realize is that there’s a federal election coming up here next month, but the answering machine message didn’t even mention the election. It was just a seemingly friendly “Have a happy holidays” message. There was no mention of the election or of Christopherson’s campaign promises.

Frankly, I’m not going to vote for him. However, I’d be more inclined to vote for him had I not gotten this answering machine message. What strikes me is that I didn’t get a message like this from him last year, or the year before. In fact, no politician has ever phoned me, much less left me a message on my answering machine. It’s obvious to me that the only reason I got that call from Christopherson’s bank of automatic telephone dialing computers is because of next month’s election. Christopherson wants my vote, plain and simple. It bothers me that he couldn’t say it in the message though. He has a right to campaign. Why doesn’t he do it? Does he really think people are going to be charmed by him pretending to be a friend with holiday well-wishes? Bad friends only contact you when they want something, but I really distrust people who pretend they don’t want something when it’s clear they actually do.

None of the political leaders in this year’s campaign seem particularly honest and straightforward. They all seem to be saying things that they hope people will find appealing. There are a lot of wild promises being made, and vast sums of imaginary money being spent. It’s scary to me that perhaps the only one who seems rather sincere is Gilles Duceppe, the leader of the seperatist Bloc Quebecois. He is not hiding the fact that he wants Quebec to seperate from Canada, and he will do whatever it takes to promote the cause of a sovereign Quebec. I may not agree with his message or goal, but I can respect that he is being up front about it.

Maybe one day politicians will learn to give up on the public image management and other phony tricks, and just be real. Or maybe that’s the antithesis of politics? What do I know? I’m just a guy with a camera.

I saw two movies this week: The Chronicles of Narnia and King Kong. One was a good movie. The other one was great.

The Chronicles of Narnia was made from the C.S. Lewis’s very well known book, The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe. I get the feeling that after the success of The Lord of the Rings, Hollywood is going to bury us in movies made from famous books. I’m willing to bet it won’t be long before we see a new Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew movie, or even a Tom Swift movie. It would be a relief from the recent and prolonged avalanche of comic book and video-game inspired movies. Sadly, I’m not joking when I say that a Pac Man movie is coming soon.

I wonder if The Chronicles of Narnia will attract the kind of criticism from right-wing religious nutcases that the Harry Potter series has. I suspect it won’t, since it’s basically pieced together from various Bible stories, loosely draped in animal costumes. For instance, Aslan the lion is clearly Jesus, dying for the sins of Man and rising from the dead to inspire good to triumph over evil. He walks away at the end, but not before we are assured that he will return some day. This is not a criticism of the film. It’s something that simply exists in the C.S. Lewis source material, and was reproduced for the screen.

The reason I don’t think The Chronicles of Narnia is great is because I found it sloppy. There are plot holes everywhere, and it’s almost as though we are expected forget about them because the special effects make us say, “Oh look! Shiny!” Perhaps the same trick was used to distract the religious freaks: “Heeeeeyyy!!! Magic! That’s bad! Oh look! Bible stories!” The holes are awful though. The one that had me scratching my head most was the hankerchief that seemed to teleport mysteriously from one person to the next throughout the movie. I won’t spoil it if you haven’t seen the film, but when you do watch it, pay attention to who has the hankerchief and maybe you can explain it to me later. It wouldn’t have been so bad if the hankerchief wasn’t tied so instrumentally to the plot, relationships and emotional impact of the film.

I think one of the great challenges in a film like this is to grant the non-human characters some depth. Although the special effects were impressive in bringing the physical details of the animal characters to life, I found them to be somewhat archtypical and cardboard, almost cartoonish. One way of looking at it is that I found it difficult to believe that these characters existed outside of the context of what was being shown on screen at the time–that they were simply there because of what was happening on the screen, and that they were otherwise meaningless.

Anyway, the film was entertaining, but I don’t think it will go down in history as anything special.

King Kong, on the other hand, was great. I simply can not say enough about this movie. It is a Peter Jackson masterpiece as impressive as any of the Lord of the Rings movies. Perhaps it’s harder to take it seriously, since it’s a remake of a monster movie, whereas the LOTR books are nearly bona fide classic literature. However, I assure you it ranks way up there, and I won’t be surprised to see it capture a good number of Academy Awards this year.

King Kong is a remake of the granddaddy of all monster movies. It’s been spoofed a million times. The Simpsons did a particularly funny parody of it one Hallowe’en. Anyone who knows anything about monster movies knows that it’s about The Misunderstood Monster. It’s a classic theme. It’s been played out numerous times on the screen. What amazes me most is that despite its ancient heritage, Peter Jackson’s version of King Kong never seems old, predictable or cliche. �There’s a freshness and an energy about it that lasts for the entire three hours of this film.

That’s right. Three hours. It’s a long movie, yet I never lost interest or found myself wondering when it would end. That brings me to my next point. This is a film that only Peter Jackson could make. It is here that I can tie it to Narnia. It’s a film that could only have been made because of the success of LOTR. After raking in multi-zillions of dollars for the studio, Peter Jackson was in the position to make this movie with no compromises. Watching this movie, I get the feeling that no one ever said no to Peter Jackson. He got whatever he asked for. He wanted not one, not two, but three Tyrannosaurus Rex to fight with King Kong. He wanted a stampede of brontosauri through a canyon, pursued by velociraptors. He wanted swarms of giant bugs to chase the heroes. Most movies would only have the budget to show one or two of these scenes, but King Kong got to do them all, and much, much more. There seemed to be no limit to the ever-increasing perils and terrors that this movie served up for its characters.

The environments and surroundings of the film were lush, realistic, and meticulously created. In the LOTR movies, we could always say, “Sure he could make it look real. Tolkien described it for him in thousands of pages of boring and excruciating detail.” Jackson didn’t have that luxury when he made King Kong, but he still managed to conjure up a world that was terrifyingly and awe-inspiringly real. From the Great Depression era New York City, to the damp and rotting Skull Island, I felt immersed the entire time.

If I have a criticism of this film, it’s of Jackson’s very liberal use of time compression. I’m sure that even at three hours, there was a lot left out of this movie. However, time still passes very strangely, which requires us to suspend our disbelief a bit more than usual. For instance, a ship departs from New York, and is soon sailing in the neighbourhood of Rangoon, Myanmar (Burma). I guess the continents have drifted a great deal since the 1920s. Even more unbelievable is that the hero–who is also a nerdy writer with no adventuring experience–manages to chase his darling through a mountainous jungle on an uncharted island, free her from the intelligent yet savage ape who has captured her, then make it back to safety via an entirely different route, all within less than a day. Of course, exciting stuff happens along the way, but time is compressed so much that we wonder how it could actually happen.

I guess this is where the big difference is between Narnia and Kong for me. Both of them use the, “Oh look! Shiny!” technique to distract us from the flaws in the film. However, I’m willing to overlook that in Kong’s case, but not so much in Narnia’s. That’s possibly because of King Kong himself. Like the myriad creatures in The Chronicles of Narnia, King Kong was computer generated. However, I found him to have real depth, and ability to communicate real emotion and intent. What’s most impressive is that he could do this without speaking. This would be difficult for a human actor, let alone a computerized one. It was always quite clear what King Kong was thinking or feeling, and what’s more, it seemed real to me. It wasn’t even hard to believe–like it should have been–that a beautiful woman could love him. That’s a tribute to Peter Jackson’s masterful visual storytelling skills. Without the benefit of dialogue, he convincingly answers the questions, “Why would a giant ape love a human woman?” and “Why would a human woman love a giant ape?” Narnia’s talking animals seem like empty shells beside the mighty King Kong.

Anyway, I can recommend both movies. However, between the two of them, only King Kong earns a place near the top of my list of favorite movies.

I bought three types of tiles yesterday. I laid some of them out on the window sill to get a feel for them. I’ll probably go with a grey grout between them. All three are kinda natural-looking stone, which appeals to me. The other option is to go with glossy glass tiles, which look pretty cool, but I kind of feel like I want a more natural look in here. I’m leaning towards the grey slate tiles on the left side. They are quite uneven in texture and flatness and thickness, but I find the randomness of them very cool.

The Thom family is well-known for its Chinese dumplings. Of course, we’re Chinese, so we just call them dumplings. We’ve honed the process of mixing, wrapping and cooking these little treats into a well-oiled “Dumpling Machine.” And by well-oiled, I mean cooked in delicious peanut oil. I am The Fry Guy, an essential cog in The Machine, so I know of that which I speak.

About five years ago, we decided to bring the Dumpling Machine on the road, and took it to Pickering for an extended family gathering. There was no turning back. The Thoms are now expected to produce The Dumpling Machine at every family event. Family members line up at the frying pan to get their share of the pockets of goodness when they’re fresh and hot.

This Christmas was no different from any other. We loaded the Dumpling Machine into the car, and set it up in Pickering. I managed to catch a snapshots of The Dumpling Machine as it began operation, before my skills as Fry Guy were set in motion. Here, you can see my Dad and sister Jadine hard at work in the initial stages of dumpling production. Family members circle like vultures, waiting for the magic to unfold.

As a side note, The Dumpling Machine was almost smashed en route to Pickering. A large cargo van ran a red light and nearly mashed our car. We would have surely seen the deployment of side impact air bags and liability insurance policies had Dad not noticed in time that the van was not stopping for the light. It made me wonder if I would have noticed if I was driving. Tonight I caught myself automatically looking down every side street as I drove home, and both ways before I proceeded into any intersection. I guess it’s become such a habit that I don’t even know that I do it. I wonder what other things we do without realizing?

Well, my 10D went for about $845 on Ebay. It’s less than I would have liked, but Ebay seems to find the market value for something. Other similar cameras are selling for similar amounts. Look at it from this perspective: I paid about $1600 altogether for Baby D and the battery grip. I shot with her for over 2 years. I took over 18,000 photos. In the end, I got $845 back. That’s $755 for for 16 months of use, or roughly $47 per month. It’s about four cents per photo. I pay more than that for cell phone service, and I enjoyed Baby D a whole lot more than my cell phone. Not too bad, I think!

I got payment quickly from the buyer, and I took it to the post office, all within an hour of the auction closing. Baby D has a new home now.