Hindsight

A simple test post from my iPhone. (Photo from my library)

A lot of people feel that the film director James Wong, is somehow, me.

The man above is James Wong, known for writing episodes of The X-Files. He wrote the show along with Glen Morgan. He also was the director of the “Final Destination” films (the first and the third if I recall correctly), “The One” starring Jet Li and also continues to write and produce.

The image above is of me with my friend Dani at the Street Fighter IV launch event in Little Tokyo, Los Angeles, California. For now, this is the closest thing you’ll see me in a photo behind some conveniently placed text as-if-it-were-a-red-carpet-photo-opportunity.

For a few years now, I’ve received messages from people who have something to say to the Director. Recently, every few weeks, I actually receive an e-mail from a fan of the Dragonball series. On some occasions, people ask me to be an extra in the film or have a great idea for the sequel. A few years ago I actually received a full pitch from a film production company with the studio head saying that he “…thought that Final Destination is one of the best horror films in years…”. I’ll thank him for you, if I ever actually meet him.

Well, this evening I received probably the most entertaining e-mail of them all. So I get to share it with you all! Verbatim.

This comes from a user with the sophisticated sender alias “u aregay”.

Dude. Not cool. I dont know what possessed u to ruin such an amazing franchise. When someone is given the opportunity to direct something as wonderful as dragonball and then they shit all over its head then… oh dear.

If u make make another film i will start watching eastenders because its bound to be better than any of ur shit… oh dear.
oh dear…
oh dear…
OH DEAR…

p.s. insert gibberish here… becasue i’d rather listen to that than watch that abortion again.

p.s. (not ALL your fault, but the writer needs to be ground up into a little paste and fed to a gorilla (Oozaru) becasue if he writes the next one i’ll do… oh dear
lots of love

Let’s think for just a minute here. Maybe, just maybe, [filmmaker] James Wong has an address like jwong at foxfilms dot com. No, that’s probably not his REAL address, but I’m just saying. One would think that his e-mail address would be more legitimate, maybe?

If people are finding my e-mail address from my website.. the website you’re at now, just do a little research here. My resume is somewhere there, and if you searched a little more, there’s also an age difference between us.

Me (an Associate Producer standing next to Jace Hall):

Him (a Producer, Writer and Director):

I’m not James Wong. But I am James Wong. I do like to direct and edit videos when my creativity gets going. But, no, I haven’t seen Dragonball Evolution.

I’m looking forward to the next round of e-mails after Mr. Wong is attached to a new project. It’ll give me something more to write about.

As Andy and I ventured deeper into downtown Melbourne, we mapped our way towards Chinatown. There, we explored a shopping arcade as well as acquiring some massive hunger.

We had a hard time deciding on a place. I mean, when you find a placed like “Mao Please” it’s kind of difficult not to be curious.

Some wall signage.

In one of the shopping arcades we found a small but noticeable Hobby Japan… with a liberal message:

Totally legal….right?!

Eventually we stumbled up on the Hutong Dumpling Bar, in an alleyway. Tired and sweating from the day’s walking, we were ready to give it a shot. It doesn’t hurt that the place was actually founded by the group who runs Din Tai Fung, a popular chain even back home.

We ate a bit.

The service was not so spot on, but the food was decent and we got our shot at having some of the ubiquitous “Victoria Bitter” beer, which I turned out to like quite a bit. Even if it might be the most mass-produced beer there, it’s still much better than a Bud Light…

On our off day, Andy and I explored downtown Melbourne.

We had no plan and just had breakfast. Broke out the city/tourist map and decided where to head off. Thanks to public transportation, getting around was easy by rail.

That particular day yielded heat in the 90′s and 100′s. We managed by going into plazas and shops with air conditioning throughout town.

Randomly, we approached the Eureka tower, which houses the Skydeck on the 88th floor. Supposedly the tallest in the southern hemisphere.

We also ran into the Victoria State Library. It was pretty packed, and our stop was brief.

Served with “Frozen Coke”. I’d have to say that Japan’s McDonalds still reign supreme, though.

The month of February has been busy. It started off with a business trip to Melbourne, Australia.

That’s a stopover in Sydney. It was a 14 hour flight from Los Angeles, followed by a quick, one-hour flight from Sydney to Melbourne in the Australian state of Victoria.

Business aside (since I’m really not at liberty to discuss that), I did see things around St. Kilda, the beach area we were accomodated in.

A night market. I felt like the oldest person around.

I didn’t know, until I arrived, that kangaroo is served. Poor guy. Served like a steak. The meat is slightly chewy, like lamb or such?

St. Kilda pier doesn’t look like much, but I still got some beautiful shots at night. Note to self: just put the mini-tripod on the pocket no matter what. Everytime I’ve realized I was going to take evening shots, I always leave it behind. Never again.

Linda was nice (and patient) enough to teach me the basics of snowboarding. I took my first slide down Mountain High last Sunday. We’d been talking about giving it a shot… that is, me actually getting out there and locking my two feet onto a piece of fiberglass and sliding down a bunny slope.

According to her I was a fast learner. I learned how to stop heelside, even toeside a few times. Though learning the ropes was not without it’s fair share of bruises for me.

Apparently, she had enough points for us to go back up on the lifts a bunch of times. I count around 7 times we went back up to board down again. Good times.

I fell a good amount of times forwards, backwards, and somewhat sideways on several occasions. But it was extremely rewarding to be able to eventually steer around people and come to a stop (or slow down) when I needed to. Towards the latter half of our time at the mountain, I’d be sliding down a little faster and falling less. It was exhilarating to hear the sound of [manmade] snow getting pushed away as I sped down the mountain.

It’s safe to say that I am going back as soon as I can. More than likely in the next three weeks…

Signs all over San Diego Comic Con…

What is D-9? The one thing I actually love is that I have no idea what it’s about. Even at the bathrooms, there were signs saying “For Humans Only / Zone Restricted / www.d-9.com. It leads you to a website that is “translated” in English and Alien.

This is the way to do viral marketing. The “Multi National United” website seems like a full site as well. I’m intrigued.

Quick shipment from The Valve Store! Great, simple mugs.

Long story short, it’s been a little over a month since our breakup. I’m not the same blogger I used to be years ago and have kept more personal issues to myself, reasonably so. Some things change. Even slightly.

Work has been good and I’ve been doing a bit here and there. I signed up for an Orange Savings Account as well as started to invest in a Roth IRA. Additionally I enrolled at my company’s retirement plan (finally). From a spontaneous standpoint this is the worst thing to do right before the launch of Metal Gear Solid 4 and the reported PlayStation 3 bundle. But let’s get serious: that stuff isn’t going anywhere and I have a few friends with PS3s. Right now there are a lot more important things to worry about.

The “Survival Edition” of Fallout 3 (an Amazon.com exclusive) includes the Collector’s Edition goodies plus a Pip Boy 3000… which essentially looks like an alarm clock:

Will the game actualy ship in October ’08 though? For $129.99, money is better spent on, oh, an entire Rock Band set. It’s a $50 alarm clock! Are you kidding me?

I ran across two decent films on my Netflix run.

Hot Fuzz (Dir. Edgar Wright / Simon Pegg). When Clay asked me to go see this (long ago) I was very hesitant – I just don’t watch enough comedies. Turns out that this film was really entertaining and just silly-funny. Recommended. I’ll have to rent “Shaun of the Dead” next.

One Hour Photo (Dir. Mark Romanek / Robin Williams) was an interesting and cold film. Sy the photo guy is calm, creepy and sometimes pathetic. But I can’t help but feel sympathetic. What also stood out for me was the films soundtrack. I ended up picking it up in the iTunes store. Haunting, sad, but very compelling. Music for the darker corners of your mind.

I’ve been jogging every other morning at work. We have a fitness room that has two treadmills. One of them is helping me meditatively jog for 2 miles a few mornings of the week.

I’ve been in a very big creative lull for obvious reasons – but I am keeping myself busy.

Considering how well Gears of War sold, it came as no surprise that Gears of War 2 was announced at the Game Developers’ Conference a few weeks ago. That’s lead designer Cliff Bleszinski as he tore a paper wall to make the announcement.

Gears was more than just a game for me. It was a gathering of friends and a social experience. This was a dinner in Koreatown, Los Angeles organized by Jennie and Tom.

Granted, Gears 2 will come out in November. It’s a ways off and I will definitely be quite busy then, but I’ll be sure to have a copy and join them again… if everyone’s playing it :)

I’ve been playing N+ on Xbox Live Arcade. I wasn’t aware of the PC/Mac versions at all, and even though they are free I opted to play the console version.

N+ is an addictive platformer. It’s simple presentation is the draw- a stick-figured Ninja, shades of grey and bits of gold strewn throughout each level.

The game has 50 single-player episodes, each one comprising of five stages. It starts off easy enough to familiarize players with controls, jumping, wall-sliding and so on.

All is not fun though, I will admit. Maybe I should say the game gets pretty challenging, enough to have me cuss quite a few times. Oops.

If you guys are wondering what the secret Achievement is in N+, die 1000 times and get 15 gamerscore points. This is an awesome achievement, simply because it popped up as I was naturally progressing (and dying) during play. It’s nice to know that even when sucking at the game so badly, the developers still had the persistent in mind…