Blog

Short blog posts, journal entries, and random thoughts. Topics include a mix of personal and the world at large.

Ready for some football

It is Super Bowl Sunday. (I think the NFL will send me a bill just for using that term.) An American tradition unlike any other. Except in other countries during their team’s matches in the World Cup. I’m sure the Argentinian television station responsible for broadcasting the World Cup final sold some significant advertisements in Argentina.

One day last week I forgot to bring my own coffee. It’s been awhile since I’ve purchased from Peet’s, and wow has the pricing gone up yet again. This particular franchise seem so embarrassed about the prices it’s charging that they are only displaying the price for medium size. How much for a large cup of vanilla soy latte? Spin the wheel to find out.

There’s been this age old battle between two camps. One side says buying the daily coffee from Starbucks is keeping you poor. The other side says (what was) $3 per day is but a drop in the ocean in the face of immense housing cost. There’s truth to both sides. In areas such as our San Francisco, you definitely cannot save your way towards buying a house by abolishing store-bought coffee.

On the other hand, many little things can indeed compound into significant sums. What makes the high inflation of the past years so pernicious is that it’s kind of death by a thousand cuts. It’s fine if only the grocery haul is (for example) 10% dearer. But when everything else went up also, it’s really easy to look at your monthly statements and wonder where the money’s gone. Five dollars extra here, five dollars extra there, five dollars extra everywhere.

And so it is with the Peet’s medium drip coffee I bought for nearly $4. The Keurig life is for me. I rather have the $1000 ($4 x 21 workdays in a month x 12 months) extra at the end of the year.

It's great to be back

It is wonderful to be back in the land of the free, home of the gun shooting at a Super Bowl parade (the price to pay for said freedom). But anything is better than the highly surveillance state of China, am I right? I’ll have much more to write about my two weeks in Guangzhou at a later time. In long form, with many pictures.

Not so pro trip: what really helps alleviate jet lag symptoms is drinking plenty of water during the flight (I must have drank over 2 liters), and wearing compression clothing (better blood circulation or something). It’s been 36 hours since I’ve landed yesterday at SFO, and I feel completely fine. 12 hour plane rides suck no matter what, however. Especially in the cheap seats. It’s all I could afford as a public servant.

I did watch the Super Bowl whilst in China. At a bright 7:30 AM Monday morning, I awoke to turn on the game. Unexpectedly, the local Guangdong sports channel was televising the Super Bowl. I didn’t even have to perform any elaborate VPN magic to get my free trial of Paramount Plus (it is definitely not available in China) to work in order to see our San Francisco 49ers lose to the Kansas City Chiefs.

The bad feeling started when the Chiefs blocked the extra point try in the fourth quarter. That feeling turned into inevitable doom when the 49ers decided to kick the field goal in overtime, instead of going for a 4th and short. When you’re up against Patrick Mahomes in extras, a three point lead might as well be a tie. Mahomes then did exactly as I expected: drive down the length of field to throw the game-winning touchdown.

Disappointed? Sure. But I was in my birth home of Guangzhou, with plenty of activities to look forward to still. The sadness was brief.

I'm going to miss it

While I am extremely happy the San Francisco 49ers made the Super Bowl, I am extremely sad that I will miss the big party. Because I am due to fly out to Guangzhou, China at the end of this week, and scheduled to return after a fortnight. Indeed I will be at the opposite end of the globe whilst friends gather here in the States to cheer on our local team. The fear of missing out is incredibly strong right now.

It will be early morning in Guangzhou - the Monday after - when the Super Bowl is happening in Las Vegas on Sunday afternoon, February 11th. As far as I know, American football is not big at all in China. Finding an establishment over there showing the game will probably be impossible. Especially not during that hour of a work day. Perhaps there's some die-hard NFL fans (dozens of them!) in Guangzhou doing a viewing party? Or maybe the NFL is blocked wholesale over there. Because, you know, too much western values. (Huge American flag and military planes flying over.)

I got to find a way to watch it somehow. Hint hint, wink wink.

Funny enough, the last time San Francisco was in the Super Bowl, it was back in February 2020. That was just before the COVID-19 pandemic effectively shut everything down worldwide. The opponent in Miami then is the same as it is now in Las Vegas: the Kansas City Chiefs. Sports can be coincidentally weird that way. It is going to take the maximum best effort on the 49ers to beat Patrick Mahomes, who is well on his way to becoming the greatest quarterback of all time. He will be playing in his fourth Super Bowl in the past five seasons.

I think Patrick should be kind and let the 49ers have one. Please.

Superb thoughts on Super Bowl

Man, that was an anti-climatic end to the Super Bowl, wasn't it? (Am I going to get fined for using the word “Super Bowl”?) An iffy holding penalty against the Philadelphia Eagles basically sealed the game for the Kansas City Chiefs. As a fan of the game, that is not how you want a match to end. The Chiefs was more than likely to score the go-ahead field goal there. What we were robbed of is a chance to see the Eagles try to fight back to tie under desperation minutes. From an objective standpoint, however, the holding call was correct, much like going 70 MPH in a 65 MPH zone is still speeding.

I was rooting for the Chiefs, and happy they won. I remain sour that the Eagles beat our hometown San Francisco 49ers in the NFC Championship game. That game was practically sealed the moment Brock Purdy of the 49ers injured his elbow in the early first quarter. After that, the 49ers had no viable quarterback. It just wasn’t a proper matchup, and we never got to see the full potential of two juggernauts of the conference go at it.

Is Patrick Mahomes the greatest quarterback of all time? He’s certainly on his way there. He’s already got two Super Bowl championships and he’s still only 27 years old. Mahomes beat the Eagles on one good ankle, after suffering a high ankle sprain only three weeks ago. At one point during the game before halftime, Mahomes was tackled down and it appear to have aggravated the injury. But he came back out in the second half and led the Chiefs to scores on every possession. It’s a legendary and gutsy performance.

I’m glad the greatest quarterback of this generation plays in the AFC and not the NFC. The road to the Super Bowl for the 49ers never has to go through Mahomes and Arrowhead stadium.

Be generous

With the coronavirus still raging on - even though we are at the endgame now with the vaccine rollout - there were to be no Super Bowl party this year. We simply cannot take the risk. Getting COVID now would be like getting shot after the war has been declared over. Just need to hang on until we each get our date with the vaccine needle.

So I was fully content with watching the big game alone, until my housemate said our neighbor is having a party. He - the neighbor - pulled the TV from his bedroom, placed it on a stand in his driveway, and circled it with various folding camping chairs. Since it’s not wise to have an indoor party, our neighbor brought it outside. Turns out I watched the Super Bowl with a crowd of people after all. It was a good time.

What struck me most was the sheer generosity of the neighbor. Along with the television setup, he had the barbecue going with various meats, and coolers full of beer and soda. All this out-of-pocket money just to serve others, to give them a good time. I have to say, enjoying this generosity humbled me to do better myself. To be kind, and help make the lives of others better and happier.

This same neighbor let us borrowed his absurdly tall ladder to string up our own Christmas lights last December. That is someone you are glad to have to live by you. A person you can count on in case of emergencies.

I endeavor very much to be that type of person as well.

Brady the GOAT

Tom Brady is now the undisputed greatest NFL quarterback of all time. 21 seasons, 10 Super Bowl appearances, and seven wins. All of them “and counting”, because Brady at age 43 still isn’t done playing the game. He is a special, once-in-a-lifetime mix of talent, skill, luck, and longevity. On the same weekend that Peyton Manning - Brady’s biggest rival QB - is elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame, Tom puts yet another ring to his finger.

Surely it’s the middle one.

With last night’s Tampa Bay victory, even 49ers fans have to give respect to Brady, and recognize that our great Joe Montana is not longer at the top of the mountain. Montana is still on Rushmore, but Brady is the unqualified number one.

He left New England and took a new team to Super Bowl on the very first season. It goes to show just how important an elite, franchise quarterback is in football. It’s not everything, but a great quarterback can take an otherwise solid team over the hump very quickly. Brady proved it last night.

More pain for 49ers fans: during the last offseason, when Brady was a free-agent, he actually wanted to come to play for San Francisco! And the team declined his services! Hindsight being what it is, but when the greatest of all time wants to come play for your team, you don’t say no. One year later, Brady has another Super Bowl win, and the 49ers are on the prowl for a new QB to take them over the hump. Life is cruel like that.

Some guys really do have it all: the best at their job, supermodel-handsome, marry a supermodel, live in a giant mansion, and unfathomably rich. The closest parallel to Brady I can think of is Cristiano Ronaldo.

I'm fine

Perhaps it’s because I’m older and wiser now at the age of 32 (ha!), but I’m feeling quite fine today, even though the team I was rooting for utterly lost the Super Bowl the previous evening. The younger, sports-obsessed version of me would’ve had his night and the following week completely ruined; current me understands what’s truly important in life, and local sports teams isn’t one of them.

Don’t get me wrong, I still love to watch sports; it’s the outcome that I’m now detached from. Obviously, I don’t judge people who stake their entire being and existence on a particular sports team; those are the true believers that make sporting events possible in the first place.

What I take out of the Super Bowl is the time spent with friends watching the game. Those are the moments worth remembering: gorging on unhealthy food, drinking alcohol, and focusing more on the conversations than what’s being broadcasted on the television. Truthfully, because I had a vested rooting interest in this year’s big game, I did pay more attention to the match than year’s past, though I kept reminding myself that there will always be a Super Bowl, but the people around me are only as young as they are today.

Not to get completely morbid, but just look at what happened to Kobe Bryant: anything you hold near and dear can be taken away from you in an instant. Relationships are what’s important, not a football game. Would I be tangibly happier today had the 49ers won the Super Bowl? Probably, but that sort of happiness is fleeting - the shine will inevitably wear off. Having great experiences with people close to me? That sort of happiness is forever.

Footnote: I did try the vaunted ‘White Claw’ drink for the first time at our Super Bowl party, and I have to say it’s a damn efficient way to get people drunk without realizing it. There’s no alcohol taste at all, so I can see how a person can down multiple cans and not think about the ramifications. In certain hands, I would say White Claw might be more dangerous than the infamous ‘Four Loko’ drink.