In summary, I found this year's Summer Olympic games unexpectedly thrilling. I'd rank the highlights as follows:

1. Michael Phelps' swimming gold rush. I always treat Olympic gold medal runs skeptically because in the past, NBC hyped them even though the odds disfavored the athlete. So I'd call Phelps' gold medal run nothing short of inspirational. First, it astonished me when his team won the 4x100m freestyle relay. I experienced a delayed reaction because I thought that France had sealed the victory. Unbelievable moment. Then on Friday night, Phelps' 100m butterfly race compelled my Dad, my brother, and I to lean toward the TV in total suspense. Phelps won by a fingertip. Afterward, I attempted to write down some notes but couldn't even keep the pen steady. What an amazing nine days.
2. Women's all-around gymnastics showdown. I loved how Nastia Liukin and Shawn Johnson managed to prevail despite the inexplicably high scores for their rivals' flawed routines (I kept thinking that the Americans had to perform perfectly just to keep up with them)! To my admiration, Nastia and Shawn systematically overcame each challenge while other gymnists (including their teammate from the team competition) faltered under the pressure.
3. Beach volleyball finals. Although I enjoyed watching Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh duel the Chinese in the rain, I'll never forget how Todd Rogers' protégé, Phil Dalhauser, blocked spike after spike in the men's final set. He dominated.
4. USA basketball redemption. During the gold medal final against Spain, USA performed so below their average that I started to wonder why basketball fans revered Kobe Bryant and LeBron James. But when Kobe scored that 4-point shot in a clutch situation, my faith in team USA returned. They sure looked happy. Heh heh, when a correspondent asked LeBron to address the critics who called him "Le-Bronze" James, I liked his reply. "Witness gold."
5. Usain Bolt's lightning sprints. I found Bolt's antics entertaining (even though the IOC president publicly criticized his pre-finish celebration). It amused me how other sprinters strained while Bolt seemed to casually jog into first place. I guess we can call him the "world's fastest man" now.

Honorable mentions:

• The women's 4x400m relay final when Sanya Richards caught up to the Russian sprinter to win gold.
• The men's indoor volleyball final when USA reclaimed gold.

I look forward to attending the Winter Olympics XXI in February 2010.

I've never seen a praying mantis before...but ever since my Mom passed away, I spotted two white ones: one in Santa Maria and one at IBM. Coincidence? They spar pretty good.

Good beach volleyball finals. I liked how Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh dueled the Chinese in a rainstorm (almost like a samurai showdown). I also duked the air excitedly when Dalhausser and the Professor outplayed the Brazilians. No question about it...Dalhausser schooled those guys. I couldn't believe how many consecutive spikes that he blocked in the final set.

"In response to a request from the International Olympic Committee, the FIG has now asked the Chinese Gymnastic Association to submit further documents testifying to the birthdates of the gymnasts." Haha, as if anything will come of that. The Chinese government can just print out whatever proof that the FIG needs. :)

I actually care little about the age controversy since my favorite U.S. gymnists already won gold medals. I care more about why the Olympic judges kept overlooking those Chinese girls' mistakes. Maybe the commentators biased me.

I had a funny debate at work about which U.S. gymnist we liked better: Nastia Liukin or Shawn Johnson. A co-worker felt that Nastia had a chip on her shoulder, whereas I characterized her as unpretentious and game-faced. I guess I favor results over smiles and sociability. :)

My friends and I also differed on the antics of Jamaican racer Usain Bolt. Personally, I find the guy entertaining.

You know, I find it ironic that kids could grow obese from Michael Phelps-endorsed Frosted Flakes. Couldn't Kellogg's have picked a healthier cereal to portray Michael Phelps on?

Speaking of Michael Phelps, I noticed that I now have to expand his medal record in Wikipedia to scroll through all of the gold medals that he won. As they say in India, bo saurus che.

I always thought that the International Olympics Committee awarded two gold medals for a first place tie, but I guess they made an exception for gymnastics. I have no idea why. In any case, I predict that the rule will change thanks to the convoluted tiebreaker that victimized Nastia Liukin. Haha, the gymnastics tiebreaker reminded me of the one I use to break music video ties. I sort music videos by the following algorithm:

1. Lower ranking average
2. In tie, higher rating average
3. In tie, outside ranking pairs get eliminated until average differs
4. In tie, outside rating pairs get eliminated until average differs

But I wonder why they ended up discarding the lowest score instead of eliminating both the lowest and highest. Maybe that would have caused another tie.

I noticed that my sorting algorithm only works as well as the judging. Meaning, unpredictable results can occur if our rankings and ratings lack consistency. For international gymnastics, that problem strikes me as irreconcilable. :)

All in all, I concluded that tiebreakers can lead to total madness. The IOC should just award two gold medals. Alternatively, they could go into overtime and make the gymnists repeat their routines until a winner emerges. :)

By the way, props to Shawn Johnson for finally winning a gold medal.

Too bad about that hurdles sprinter Lolo Jones. Like the title character in "Run Lola Run", her misstep probably caused a major butterfly effect.

Congratulations, Michael Phelps! You the man.

My hands actually trembled after his fingertip win in the 100m butterfly.

I also beamed when Nastia Liukin and Shawn Johnson won gold and silver medals, respectively, in the women's individual all-around gymnastics competition. Haha, the commentators had me convinced of biased judging (scoring the Americans too low and the Chinese girls too high). But I'm proud that the Americans performed so well that no judge could credibly deny them victory. Side note: I can hardly understand that Béla Károlyi.

Watched movie: "Tropic Thunder" (2008)

I found this movie halfway decent...and halfway indecent. The spoof on Hollywood entertained me the most. Faux trailers rock! I also enjoyed the celebrity cameos, ridiculous one-liners, and parts with phony animal or people props. Can't say the same for the characters though. I didn't find any of them that funny--particularly Robert Downey Jr. and that terribly offensive Simple Jack character. I can see why disability advocates protested the premiere. :) Rating: 5

Watched movie: "Mirrors" (2008)

Lackluster horror movie with a couple of standout scenes. It bugged me that Keifer Sutherland kept acting like his volatile "Jack Bauer" character. Also, I wish that the red band trailer hadn't spoiled most of the shocks. Rating: 5

Watched movie: "Star Wars: The Clone Wars" (2008)

A Star Wars movie for little kids? The cutesy characters and sophomoric banter reminded me of a Saturday morning cartoon. I longed for the characters to stop talking, and felt like the film utterly failed to develop them. Personally, I learned nothing meaningful about the Star Wars genre. So unless you're a little kid, skip this movie. Rating: 4

Warner Bros. strategically bumped the release of their nearly-completed "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" film from November 21 to July 17! Das not cool at all.

For the third consecutive season, I predicted the Mole incorrectly. Did the wrong person walk out of the booth? I griped. The show chose a naturally unathletic Mole this time--meaning, he could sabotage the missions just by playing normally. In retrospect, the thought of a Mole who "futilely tries hard" actually crossed my mind...but in my opinion, Craig tried too hard (he once required an ambulance after winning one of the missions). That throws me off whenever the Mole intentionally helps players instead of betraying them.

I'm impressed with this swimmer Michael Phelps. He managed to win three more gold medals at the Beijing 2008 Summer Olympics (one of them in a harrowing 4x100-meter freestyle relay). If he wins all eight of his eight swimming events, then he'll break the U.S. record of gold medals won in one Olympics. Some call him a "fish", but he looks more like a "Street Fighter" character to me. :) Heh...it amuses me whenever mild-mannered athletes go crazy with euphoria (see photo below).

Correction 8/13/2008: If Michael Phelps wins all eight of his eight swimming events, then he'll break the world record of gold medals won in one Olympics. At this point, he has won five out of eight gold medals.

Speaking of U.S. records, "The Dark Knight" only needs around $19.46M to overtake "Star Wars" as the second highest grossing film of all time in the United States. I still remember feeling skeptic when Christopher Nolan chose to direct a Batman movie. Here I thought that "Batman Begins" would break his streak of extraordinary films. :)

It also disappointed me when I heard that James Cameron would direct "Titanic". What a waste of his talent, I initially thought.

The Camera 7 recently hosted a Midnight Movie Madness screening of "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan", my all-time favorite "Star Trek" movie with the original crew. I attended despite the following disclaimer at the box office window:

Sure enough, every scene looked reddish. Occasional buzzing noises disrupted the dialogue. And at one point, a vertical hold problem divided the screen. But all in all, I think that the movie still rocked. Here's what I like the most about it:

Ricardo Montalban as Khan. Easily the greatest "Star Trek" villain ever.

The awesome lines. I loved all of the smart dialogue from the screenplay, such as:

• Their quotes from "A Tale of Two Cities" and Shakespeare, especially Khan's classic line: "From hell's heart I stab at thee. For hate's sake...I spit my last breath at thee!"
• Cool lines from Kirk and Spock:

  Kirk: "These cadets of yours--how good are they? Will they respond under real pressure?
  Spock: "Like all living things, each according to his gifts."

  Kirk: "You're about to remind me that logic alone dictates your actions?"
  Spock: "I would not remind you of that which you know so well."

  Kirk: "Khan! I'm laughing at the 'superior' intellect."

  Spock: "He's intelligent, but not experienced. His pattern indicates two-dimensional thinking."

• And of course, who doesn't like Kirk's classic scream: "KHAAANNNN!!!"

Spock at his best. Unlike most of the original "Star Trek" movies, I really admired Spock in this one. He struck me as an invaluable crew member and a true friend to Kirk (exemplified by my favorite line in the movie, "I have no ego to bruise"). To this day, I still get emotional during his selfless rescue of the Enterprise.

All in all, the audience disappointed me as I expected more of a crowd reaction like when I watched "First Contact" in college. Heh...but I liked how some folks showed up in old school Starfleet uniforms.

Looks like I never posted my ratings of each "Star Trek" film, so here they are:

1. The Motion Picture (My rating: 5)
2. The Wrath of Khan (My rating: 9)
3. The Search for Spock (My rating: 8)
4. The Voyage Home (My rating: 9)
5. The Final Frontier (My rating: 4)
6. The Undiscovered Country (My rating: 6)
7. Generations (My rating: 8)
8. First Contact (My rating: 9)
9. Insurrection (My rating: 5)
10. Nemesis (My rating: 6)

Watched movie: "Baghead" (2008)

I couldn't tell whether the plot would gravitate toward "Blair Witch Project", "Cry_Wolf", or "Friday the 13th Part 2". The movie sure took awhile getting somewhere though. I started getting really sick of the main characters. They reminded me of all the shallow, territorial, and/or oversensitive people that I try to avoid in real life. I kept thinking: just bring out the slasher already and spare me from all this awkward personal drama. Rating: 4

Watched movie: "Pineapple Express" (2008)

Idiotic...yet funny. I particularly liked the characters' dumb insights--they made me think "Stu-pid!" or "That don't make no sense!" many a time. Props to the comedic chops of James Franco and that inexplicably deathproof "Foot Fist Way" guy. My only main criticism of the film: two sub-plots where the humor escaped me, i.e., the high school girl and the "Dumb and Dumber" throwback where the villains kept giving the inept duo too much credit. Rating: 6

"PLAY! A Video Game Symphony" cancelled again! Ordinarily, this wouldn't aggravate me...but dang, that PLAY! concert series has consistently frustrated me for the past two years. Cases in point:

• March 29, 2007: The concert got cancelled after my friends and I already booked flights to Hartford, Connecticut.
• May 26, 2007: The concert snubbed my favorite music in favor of newer world premieres.
• January 1, 2008: The concert snubbed "Silent Hill", the topmost reason for my flight to Fort Worth.
• August 23, 2008: The concert got cancelled.

WWE also irritated me recently. As you know, I reserved a ticket for WrestleMania XXV expecting big matches (I would post my own "dream card", but I lost the list I compiled). Well during last night's show, they booked one of my dream matches for SummerSlam in August...meaning that I can no longer expect this match to happen at WrestleMania XXV anymore. I think the cliche goes something like: "they sailed that ship too early".

Sometimes my downstairs neighbor shouts obscenities and slams his door multiple times. It sounds like threats against someone--yet I never hear the other person. I sure hope that he's not talking to himself. Anyway, on Thursday morning I heard him ranting at the top of his lungs and slamming his door. It really affected my dreams because I could've sworn that a mob gathered around the guy to beat on him. Yeah, I'm pretty sure that I dreamt that part. Don't you hate those dreams that make you second-guess what happened in the waking reality? :)

Occasionally, I joke to people that I live in the downtown part of my apartment complex; the "ghetto" district.

I guess while I'm on this subject of annoyances, I'll disclose one more: parsley. I discovered that this herb really offends my palate...not as badly as cilantro does, but enough for me to pick out every leaf that I see. :)

Watched movie: "Ne le dis à personne" (2006) a.k.a. "Tell No One" (2008)

A decent French thriller that likely would have appealed to me more had I not seen Hitchcock and De Palma explore that same type of premise already. In this rendition, the leading man desperately sleuths whether his wife came back from the dead. Other than an unexpectedly thrilling police chase, the movie didn't impress me that much--probably because I didn't really care whether the guy succeeded or not. Maybe the movie should've built up the couple's original relationship better. Rating: 6

Watched movie: "The X Files: I Want to Believe" (2008)

I found the movie ok even though I never cared for those "X-Files" episodes where Scully wrestled with her Catholic faith (kind of like how I never cared for those "Star Trek: The Next Generation" episodes where Data quested for his own humanity). I still like how "X-Files" characters talk. e.g., "Why set up such an elaborate fiction?" and "I'm cursing God for all His cruelties." Interestingly, I remembered every plotline that Mulder and Scully alluded to, including the fates of William (their son) and Samantha (Mulder's sister). I began wondering if I remembered the final episode correctly though...because the movie all but dismissed everything that happened in it. Skinner still works for the FBI? Side note: I'll never get used to that corny romantic relationship between Mulder and Scully. :) Side note #2: Why did Crissman and Scully say that the FBI agent still lived? Rating: 5

Watched movie: "The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor" (2008)

An inferior photocopy of "Indiana Jones" and "Army of Darkness" loaded with sophomoric tongue-in-cheek humor, ridiculously contrived action sequences (where the characters kept surviving overwhelming odds), painfully cornball drama, and a mummy who should've massacred the heroes easily but inexplicably couldn't. Sigh...what a shame to see such top-notch Chinese actors in such a shallow American blockbuster. Like that cool cop boss from the "Infernal Affairs" trilogy relegated himself to playing a mere cardboard villain. And I've seen Jet Li and Michelle Yeoh in some way more artistic Chinese films. Rating: 3

I'm actually glad that "The Dark Knight" still beat "The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor" at the weekend box office. That mummy movie totally didn't deserve #1. :) Looks like "The Dark Knight" just needs a mere $5.113M to shatter the "Shrek 2" record of $400M in 43 days. "Titanic" holds the next record: $500M in 98 days. :)

The "Dark Knight" movie keeps breaking box office records. It broke another one by earning $314.245M in its first 10 days (by comparison, it took "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest" 16 days to pass $300M). I've never seen anything like it. I'm still skeptic about whether "Dark Knight" can beat "Titanic", which plateaued at over $600M in around 250 days (the only U.S. movie to ever break $500M). However, I think that "Dark Knight" can easily beat the "Shrek 2" record of $400M in 43 days.

This horror movie "Mirrors" looks pretty gruesome. I caught the red band trailer and didn't expect such graphic images.

I'm unimpressed by the quality of movies this year. Last year, I rated six movies an 8, four movies a 9, and one movie a 10. This year so far, I rated zero movies an 8, zero movies a 9, and zero movies a 10.

I compiled a list of some of the movies that I'm looking forward to:

"Blindness" (September 26, 2008)

An interesting "Children of Men" type premise where everyone goes blind except for the main character.

"Saw V" (October 24, 2008)

Whenever someone asks me why I keep watching these "Saw" films, I can't think of a good answer. :)

"Quantum of Solace" (November 7, 2008)

Cool title. Hopefully, it'll live up to the new benchmark set by "Casino Royale".

"Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" (November 21, 2008)

The book featured my favorite "Harry Potter" moment of all-time. The movie better not omit it. :)

"The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" (December 19, 2008)

Strange premise, but usually David Fincher films don't disappoint.

"Knowing" (March 20, 2009)

The plot: Nicolas Cage works to prevent the major disasters prophesized in a numerical cypher. The movie will star my favorite actress, Rose Byrne.

"Terminator: Salvation" (May 22, 2009)

I always wondered whether anyone would attempt a prequel to "Terminator" (or a sequel, depending on whether the chicken or egg came first). I guess now they'd have the modern special effects to accomplish one.

"Green Zone" (2009)

I look forward to any movie directed by Paul Greengrass.

"The Descent 2" (2009)

Hopefully, this sequel will book the WrestleMania-caliber showdown that I waited for in the first movie.