Protest BART Union with Cooking

I am among the public who are angry about the upcoming BART strike on Monday. What is the BART Union thinking? They simply make themselves an ass. They have the highest paying salary among the nation’s public transit agencies; they have retirement pensions and generous health care coverage; they make more than $100K a year when counting overtime pays. Now they want to go on strike when the nation and state in deep recession and when many people don’t even have a job. If the strike decision doesn’t show how greedy the BART Union is, it simply shows how stupid BART union is. And, I am always wondering just what exactly BART station agents do behind those booths. These are the people who are asking for raises and more benefits when BART budget is deep in the red, when the fare is raised, and when the service is cut. Oh, wait, I know what those station agents do, they announce elevator status that we all hear quite often: "Attention passengers, this is an elevator status update. All elevators are working at this moment. Thanks for your attention." WTF? Those elevators are SUPPOSED to be working! Why do you have to interrupt the train arrival announcement and to tell us that nothing is broken? Oh, that’s how they show us that they are actually working for over $100K a year. If BART is on strike on Monday, I almost won’t get affected. But my concern and sympathy go to folks who have to get to work to make ends meet via BART everyday. Not to mention that the pollution will get worse in the Bay area due to more cars on roads, all because the BART Union wants to hold the public hostage. If I could, I would fire all of them who are on strike and hire people who are out of work. Okay, I am done my ranting about BART. I am actually in a very good mood today and the last few days. I have been enjoying the nice summer weather. On Friday I went to the Ferry Building at lunch hour and took a picture of the high rises in the Financial District. It’s so pretty. I am also in the mood of cooking, my way of protesting BART. I had a few friends over last night for dinner. However, I was very disappointed about some dishes’ presentation. Even they taste not bad, but they just look ugly. Today, after the gym workout, I started to think about what to cook for dinner while shopping for fresh vegetables. I want to cook something today to undo yesterday’s damage. In order to decorate the plate, I carved a rose out of tomato. This probably shows that I really have nothing better else to do. After the salmon is cooked, I place them next to the roses, sprinkled with some roasted pine nuts and green onion. I feel that I have put enough love into that dish. Then I cooked stir-fried some woodears, mushroom, bok choy, and purple onion (木耳, 油菜, 鸡肶菇, 紫洋葱). I feel healthy already even before I take a bite of it. In miso soup, I added some tofu and greens, and a tomato. What else? Oh, a bowl of black and brown rice, some kimchi (the only thing I didn’t cook from scratch) and garlic eggplant (蒜茄子). Now the dinner is ready. I am so stuffed. But, it’s not the time for bed yet, I still have more movies to finish. Before I start a new one, here are the reviews I wrote before the dinner. Empty Nest (El nido vacío) After kids grow up and move out, married couples tend to build a new life outside their empty nests and clinging on old memories, although it is not always necessary that they will build the new life together, especially when they have some issues that they have not gotten a chance to sort them out. Award-winning Argentine writer/director Daniel Burman told a bittersweet story about such scenario in his new film "Empty Nest" (El nido vacío | Argentina/Spain/France/Italy 2008 | in Spanish | 91 min.). A reputable writer Leonardo Oscar Martínez and his wife Martha (Cecilia Roth) face a new life when their three grown children move out. Martha goes back to school to explore her academic potentials, and Leonardo begins to daydream and blurs the line between reality and fantasy. Consciously or not, both of them take a closer look at both their relationship and the future. It takes some patience for me to get to know the characters. Leonardo, who still prefers a paper notepad over a computer, is not a very interesting individual by any stretch, regardless how he proactively tells others that he is a famous writer. However, he does have a pair of observant eyes that capture the happenings and people around him, including his young and beautiful dentist. How his dentist allows herself to be part of his fantasy is beyond my comprehension, or perhaps that is a pure fantasy after all. Oscar Martínez‘s impressive performance as Leonardo saves me from turning my eyes away from the unresting characters and jittering images. Like one’s eye movement trying to solve a sudoku puzzle, the camera moves around as fast as the characters talk. This is not a war story in a battle field, so why not leave the camera alone still in the room? "Empty Nest" takes a glimpse at aging grownups’ empty nests, without filling any goodies to make them less empty. "Empty Nest" opens on Friday, August 21 at Kabuki in San Francsico and Smith Rafael Film Center in San Rafael. Cold Souls Which could be worse? Burdened by your own heavy soul or searching for your lost soul? That’s the surreal dilemma the character Paul Giamatti, played by Paul Giamatti of course, has to deal with in Sophie Barthes‘s feature debut "Cold Souls" (USA 2009 | 101 min.). In the film, Paul Giamatti is a theater actor who is suffocated by the role he plays in the Russian play "Uncle Vanya." Desperately seeking for a relief, he takes on the advice of his agent and meets Dr. Flintstein (David Strathairn), who can extract his soul and put it in a storage, for a fee. Even though his troubled soul is as tiny as a chickpea, the almost soul-less (only 5% is left) Paul regrets after the extraction, and he wants to put that chickpea soul back to his body. However, he finds out that his soul is lost to a Russian black market soul-trafficking ring. His odyssey to recover his chickpea soul turns into an espionage mission in icy cold Russia. The plot has a refreshing and intriguing start. For example, Paul’s initial visit to Dr. Flintstein’s office is hilarious and well crafted. It is also the highest point of the film. The idea of living with or without one’s soul is interesting and original. If this story line were developed intelligently, this film would have been more charming and funny. However, the story gets diverted into a wacky soul recovery drama. The story gets lazy and becomes conventional and formulistic. What a pity. If Paul’s chickpea-size soul must be lost or get swapped with somebody else’s soul, it would have been funnier if the chickpea were mixed with a box of wasabi peas and eaten by a Chinese in China. Since there are about 1.3 billion people in China, good luck to Paul for finding his soul. "Cold Souls" opens on Friday, August 14, 2009 at Bay Area Theaters.