(no subject)

[elainegrey]

Argh, i left my bright light at the office. I have my last to-do for the day as driving up there to get it for my trip to Ohio.

Yesterday was very odd as i had planned to take it "off" as comp for traveling on Sunday. Nevertheless, i was on the phone for several hours between 6 am and 9 am, and it was more like i worked an east coast day. On top of that , it was a stressful day, as problems in our testing environment just began showing up a day or two before when we were supposed to report, "All is fine for February's install." AND i still didn't prepare notes for my talk or my monthly report etc, etc. The rest of the day i was in a bit of a daze, somewhere between exhaustion and denial that i'm traveling shortly.

By 5 pm I had little omph left. We agreed to go out for dinner and i think i was missing a nice warm meal. Our experience with Castro Street on Friday night is that there can be significant waits, and we'd chosen a movie that "started" at 6:30. I was delighted to find that the restaurants on Shoreline near the movie theater were open for dinner. Five years ago, when i worked down Shoreline, everything closed up after the lunch crowd.

We tried a Korean Hot Pot restaurant, Sunny Bowl. (I wondered what mopalia might think of the place.) The online menus don't reveal that they ALSO have traditional hot pots: What sort of furnace do they heat those bowls in? That's what we ordered, and we were both delighted. Christine asked for a number of changes to her order, and they double checked to make sure they were satisfying her desire. My sashimi tuna was served on the side. Next time i'll only add some at the beginning of the meal, because it was quite well done by the end of the meal. I also ponder that i might actually not need to ask for the egg to be well done at serving time. Considering how long the sounds of sizzling cooking persisted, i suspect if i pierced a runny yolk at serving time, i'd be pleased by how it cooked up with the rice crisping in the bottom. We will definitely go again. And i'm delighted they're open until 9 pm. I can imagine going there for dinner after traveling.

Then on to Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. We loved it. Yes, as firecat warned, and as she reported ebertchicago agreed, it isn't the easiest film to follow. The first act rarely shows the face of the speaker, and i think Smiley might say two words. Spill your popcorn and you'll miss the important cue that right after Smiley retires he gets a new pair of glasses, which is the best clue you have to whether the following scenes are flashbacks or current time. I loved the challenge of puzzling out the timeline. But even better was how wonderfully period it is. Helvetica! It's a perfect font to capture the sense of period. And as Christine remarked, "The set designer deserves a Nobel prize!" The technology of moving information around is lovingly filmed. I'm sure if the film had been made in the 70s very little attention would have been paid to the files and teletypes except when required by the plot. Filmed today, the nostalgia for telephone boxes, dumbwaiters for files, mobile file cabinets underscores the dramatic change in information handling in the decades since. We'll probably buy the film when we see it available DVD.

Comments

[firecat]

Argh, I didn't notice the glasses cue. Probably because I have half a dozen different pairs of glasses that I wear depending on what part of the house I was in last. Yes, I love the set design and the nostalgia for the 70s. In that sense it scratched the same itch for me that the TV show Life on Mars (the British version) did.

[elainegrey]

I think the glasses cue qualifies as "painfully subtle."

Life on Mars sounds like a show we'd like.