BAEK-LOGGED
Rushed to work yesterday but still found time to stop along the freeway and smell this rainbow. I thought I took this photo this morning, but as "faint ink is better than the best memory," my journal verifies it was yesterday. But the feeling remained today, when I also rushed extra early to work to meet an important deadline.

Which I did, and so felt justified to take a longer lunch to run in to Chinatown to pick up a movie my vendor called me about earlier this week, the prequel to Donnie Yen's Ip Man series. I also wanted to buy a nice lei for a coworker who is moving on, so I captured two birds in one cage. The lei vendor gave me a handful of fragrant white ginger flowers as she was packing the lei. "It's hot today, these will make you feel cool." I love Hawaii.

At the video store the vendor's aunty brought out a bag with my name on it. The Ip Man movie was there but also several other series and films she knew I would like. Little notes were affixed to the items: "Really Good, Hard to Find." "Ching Dynasty, Kung Fu."

"Got any Korean drama," I asked. She pointed to a couple of big boxes along the wall. Ah, the new drug of choice. How could I resist "Damo," the undercover lady detective of 17th century Korea with "dazzling special effects, breathtaking cinematography and mystical martial arts scenes." The Mma Ramotswe of Silla.

"I spent the summer with Jumong and Emperor of the Sea," I told aunty, who then plucked "The Divine Hero: A Man Called God" from a shelf. "You'll want this!" she grinned. Song Il-Guk as a contemporary Korean Central Intelligence agent. I prefer the historical stuff, but this was partly filmed in Hawaii, perhaps why it is readily available. No swords, horses or ponytails here, but who could resist the "new body" of SIG, looking like James Bond meets Tony Jaa.

So my new haul, with a huge "baek-log" of Korean drama, complicated my decision to invest time in Condor Hero or even House, M.D. Season 6. I wanted to kick back with something short and sweet, after the rushed deadlines and exhaustion of the job that allows me to buy all this stuff. So I avoided the decision making and popped the Netflix movie of the moment in my laptop DVD drive, Sherlock Holmes with Robert Downey Jr. I've enjoyed Holmes done by Basil Rathbone and Jeremy Brett....and there have been so many others. Robert Downey Jr. brings a nice credibility to the character in an interesting rendition.

I didn't know that Holmes (from whom the House, M.D. character is derivative) was a martial artist. Downey opens with a scene that is as interesting as any Chinese kung fu duel. I asked the Wizard, a serious Sherlock Holmes scholar, if he really was a boxer. "Sherlock Holmes was EVERYTHING," he said. I later interrupted him to share a choice piece of dialogue: Holmes says to Watson, "Your gift of silence is what makes you an invaluable companion." The Wizard just gave me a dour "duh" kind of look.

I was dreading coming back home tonight, despite the morning rainbow, because the tree trimmers were scheduled to be at it again. The butchery wasn't as bad as I expected, and we are far from Sherlock Holmes's industrial revolution London where there was, at least in this movie, a serious lack of anything green, like a tree. It almost seemed black and white, a set full of chains and machines and slaughterhouses, a dark occult plot and serious sewage. But, a great script, good acting, and more action and special effects than Basil or Jeremy brought to the table. I've recommended it to the Wizard, not a big movie buff. But he doesn't want to talk about it. He can take his time. The Netflix mailing is hardly urgent, and I've got plenty of other stuff to entertain me.