Month: February 2005

These past two weeks were spent showing up. A couple of meetings with the alumni association, mostly dealing with benefits. I got to buy drinks for Dale Minami, who was being honored at the Waldorf. I saw Salman Rushdie at another dinner at Chelsea Piers, who made a witty comment about being the subject of a fatwah by the Ayatollah Khomeini – “only one of us is alive today”.

In between all of these compulsory appearances, my dad was in the hospital with pneumonia until last Saturday. He’s better now, but I really hope the weather warms up asap. Although that’s not likely with the upcoming northeaster tomorrow.

Oh yeah, happy new year! I’m taking the day off, but not doing anything wild because I have a cold. I have another dinner on Thursday at Jing Fong honoring Glen Lau Kee. Friday is “Table 11”. Saturday is dinner with my cousin T-. Monday of course is V-day with P-. I am planning a trip with P- to Japan and Taiwan in March — more details soon.

So, anyone have interesting plans for the holiday?

Rooster time…

Too soon to make any real analysis, but here are some thoughts –

– like it was any surprise that New England Patriots would win. Kind of boring game, and while it was nice that Philadelphia Eagles made it as close a score deficit as they could, the game was what it was.

– the opening stuff – patriotic; honoring the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II; appearances by the veterans of that Greatest Generation and Pres. George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton. Plus, a rousing Star Spangled Banner by military choirs and appearances by military jets, etc.

– Sir Paul McCartney doing the half-time show, clearly a reactionary approach to last year’s Wardrobe Malfunction involving Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake. While I love Paul as much as anyone else and thought he did a nice job, the halftime show felt like the game itself – felt very conservative. Guess we can’t expect any risk-taking anymore.

– the commercials – most of them felt like poor production stuff (at least that ridiculous GoDaddy.com ad certainly did). CareerBuilder.com had a funny/sad series of ads wherein this poor guy clearly needs a new job, because he literally works for a company of monkeys/chimps. Budweiser did a nice neat job. Muppets doing ads for Pizza Hut – well, a little predictable there. Pepsi was all right, but also nothing too spectacular. Direct TV did a nostalgia ad of TV over the years. Lays Potato Chips had a funny ad, but for the appearance of MC Hammer (yeah, that guy from the 1980’s – makes you wonder how much more suffering that man can take). Ameriquest Mortgage Co. (sponsor of the halftime show) had a bunch of really silly ads. Oh, well. Let’s see what the Ad Report in Slate.com will say.

– The Simpsons’ Post Super Bowl episode – wherein Homer is assigned the task of choreographing the halftime show, with help from Ned Flanders’ Christian Coalition approach of making a halftime show. Very absurd, weird stuff of the World of the Simpsons, plus plenty of guest stars (NBA’s LeBron James and Yao Ming; NFL’s Warren Sapp and the winner Tom Brady; Michelle Kwan).

Back to work, but it should be short work week, since I’m taking time away from the office for Lunar New Year.