echo {con,in,{d,r}e}ception

I was having a BBQ at a friend's place. First, I marveled at the houses on her street. Who knew you can find suburban style neighbourhoods in Toronto? Then I was astounded by her news: she's pregnant again. This will be the 3rd child in 5 years which seems fairly remarkable for modern times - although I do notice that mothers around my local park usually carry in tow children quite close in age and sometimes more than two. I guess she'll probably be extending her stay-at-home mom status to at least another 2 years and counting. I find it a bit troubling as she studied to be a doctor for probably 10+ years: 4 years undergrad, 4 years med, and several years of residency. Consider how much money went into her education from taxpayers' money to subsidize the universities she attended, and to pay for the doctors, medical staff, and hospitals where she trained. On top of that, we need her skills. But I suppose in theory she can still contribute 20+ years of service in her lifetime.

I went into the movie Inception with anticipation though I hadn't heard much about it. However, the reviews seem to be all positive. But I was disappointed by the end. What was a great premise became just another shoot-em-up Hollywood film. Not too many spoilers but here's my complaint. The 2 main impetus of the movie are flawed: the reward Cobb anticipates for his inception job makes no sense, and neither is the reason why the job is harder than expected. The supposedly ambiguous ending is not at all, given the rules of the movie, and it's a disingenious for Christopher Nolan to suggest otherwise - or perhaps he overlooked the consequences to his own plot details. Finally, the possibility that the entire movie may not be real doesn't appeal as I've grown tired of unreliable narrator, time travel, and other movie tropes where things don't really happen because there's a built-in "undo". For another take on dream vs. reality, try Paprika.

On the other hand, I enjoyed Salt. Its premise isn't wildly original, but the movie executes it well. But the central mystery - is Evelyn Salt a good guy or bad guy - isn't really much of a mystery though given the standard Hollywood story arc. And if that's too abstract, it becomes rather clear that despite her furious take-down of her various pursuers (CIA, secret service agents, etc.), none of them was actually hurt - most are simply knocked unconscious. So nice of Angelina Jolie given that most them were shooting at her, but we can't have a good guy acting badly against "innocent" bystanders. She also looks too skinny to fight convincingly, unlike Sigourney Weaver in Aliens or Linda Hamilton in Terminator II. Ms. Jolie is a bit of an odd duck. I never found her to be the great beauty that the media has claimed: neither conventionally attractive like a Charlize Theron nor mannishly handsome like Julie Roberts or Hilary Swank.

At a small get-together, someone was telling a bad date story. Various guests commented on some particularly odd details, though I didn't contribute much, and 10 amusing minutes passed. Afterward, I was thinking to myself. If I was the story-teller, I would have summed up the tale in about 3 sentences. As the listener, I would have nodded and grunted: "That's a bad date alright." Having used up 1 minute, the remaining 9 would probably pass by in uncomfortable silence. And that difference is probably why I'm still single and don't throw dinner parties.