Went to the LA Festival of Books over the weekend.  I never knew so many people in LA pretended at literacy.  After faithfully avoiding all books and concentrating on ogling college-aged girls and getting hungry smelling the fair-food, we called it a day after about an hour of senseless wandering.

In the interest of pretending to be literate and absolving myself of guilt over my non-interest at the Festival of Books, I highly recommend reading Catch-22 by Joseph Heller.  I read it a couple of years ago, and the following article in The Straight Dope (my favorite daily website) reminded me that maybe I should revisit it.

http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mcatch22.html

Dunno how long that link will stay active, but if I can get one person to read a book....that's one less book I have to read.

Just got back from dinner and a movie.  Dinner was chicken soup and oxtail stew, the movie was Better Luck Tomorrow.  BLT was everything I'd hoped it would be and more.  Check out their official website here:

http://www.betterlucktomorrow.com

It was funny to see the Asian-American stereotype turned on its ear.  The movie is satirical, funny, violent and provocative.  There are no easy answers, and I really wonder what the original ending is since I read that MTV toned down an originally even more nihilistic ending.  It's a great flick, go catch it and support intelligent, interesting Asian-American filmmaking.  If that doesn't suit you, you can always go rent The Tuxedo or something.

All of my dinner companions bailed for the movie except for one friend whom I don't know that well.  I figured "What the hell." and we saw the movie together.  Turns out I enjoyed her company.  We passed the time discussing how old we felt compared to the kids in line for the flick.  It's funny how you spend a lot of time with some people in a group and never get to know the individuals in the group.

The line was completely INSANE.  I seriously think that every pool hall, karaoke joint and chinese restaurant was empty because everyone was at this movie.  Aside from some schmuck asking us if we went to UCLA and talking behind us, it was a good moviegoing experience.  Anyhoo, it's like 2am here.  Time to turn in.