Ties to '21'

The official news from Reuters is that the movie, '21' topped the box office this weekend. The movie follows a team of card-counting MIT students who use their skills at the Black Jack tables in Vegas. The movie is based on the book, Bringing Down the House by Ben Mezrich.

OK, so why am I blogging about it? Yeah, I went to MIT. I knew about the book when it came out a couple of years ago. One of my friends from MIT is in the movie. But I only recently discovered (through a hallway conversation at work) that the book's main character, Kevin Lewis, is really a guy named Jeffrey Ma.

When I heard this tidbit of information, I thought, "hmmmm, I know a Jeffrey Ma - we went to Chinese school together, and he is the same age as my little sister, Michele, and his other sisters were my age and they all went to MIT as well".

It turns out that the Jeffrey Ma I knew as a little kid is THE Jeffrey Ma, aka Kevin Lewis. Wow, it is amazing what some people turn into!

Now, will I go to see the movie? Probably not in the theaters - after all, '21' is based on the book - which means it probably doesn't hardly resemble the book.... Plus, I know too much about MIT and knowing that the movie makers took the main Asian character and turned him into a "white guy" kind of gets my goat. I also hear that the scenes depicting MIT were shot at BU, which is disappointing to this alum who hasn't seen MIT's campus since the mid 1990s. But, I will see the movie eventually, because my friend, Henry, plays a blackjack dealer in Chinatown and Jeffrey plays a Vegas dealer.

Now, I will read the book - and looking forward to it.