Blog

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

Appointment in Samarra

I have a coworker who doesn’t like the drinking water coming out of a taps on campus. Not even the bottle filling stations where there’s a filter. His explanation is that he ultimately cannot trust the water that are in the (he supposes) old pipes. What does he do to sustain life? The coworker buys bottled water from the campus Peet’s Coffee.

I guess he does not know about the dangers of microplastics. Conventional wisdom is that we should avoid plastics as much as possible when it comes to things that can enter our body. Food and drink containers, specifically. Haven't we stopped leaving the plastic wraps in when we microwave our food?

Sadly, it looks like my coworker is avoiding a (potentially non-existent) harm by embracing another harm. An Appointment in Samarra situation, without the dying.

For a company as successful and beloved as Costco, why is their website and app situation so pitiful? It’s a complete chore to get it to show me whether an item is in stock at a local warehouse. And even if it does show to be in stock, it is not a guarantee to be true. Last week I was looking to buy some fish oil that was on sale, and the two stores I went to that showed to have it on the Costco website, did not. What a royal waste of time that was.

I get it: with all those delicious membership fees that Costco is charging us, what incentive is there to improve online shopping? I’m not sure they feel the need to chase those sales. Besides, the in-warehouse experience is where they can feed us samples to entice us to impulse buy. How many times have we gone to Costco with a list, but came back with twice as many items?

Goes forever on

I think it’s kind of messed up that once you start weightlifting, you cannot stop. There’s really no goal to reach; you have to put in the work continuously, even if all you want is to maintain what you’ve already achieved. Building muscles and strength is one of those if-you-don’t-use-it-you-lost-it type of deals. Wouldn’t it be lovely if once you reach a 300 pound squat (for example), then you can stay there without doing anything else further?

It’s very much like learning a second language. If you want to maintain a decent modicum of proficiency, you have to study/practice almost everyday. I’ve lost all my one year of Japanese skills because I’ve not practiced meaningfully since high school. This is why when I started self-taught Korean back in 2016, I still practice to this day. It can never stop if I want to keep this skill.

I recently put a pause on my piano learning because I simply do not have the time to dedicate to it. I already have too many hobbies that require daily maintenance. To learn this new skill properly I’d have to give one of those hobbies up. Perhaps that may happen in the future, but as of right now, exercise and the Korean language is more important to me.

It can get dark rather quickly when you rail against change. Ever be in the moment of something great and wonderful, and all you can think about is how to best preserve that forever? I certainly have. I can’t even enjoy that fantastic moment because I’m too caught up with making it last as long as possible, which in itself is not possible. Change is a constant in life, and accepting it as a companion instead of an enemy is the way to live with it.

Otherwise is how you see a type of car collector that puts a car in a giant sealed bubble. What is the point? Even if that car can last centuries, you the human will most certainly not.

That's my secret

I’ll be honest, it was not a great week for my mental health. And it’s not because of what happened on election night. I think if who the President of the United States is has material affect on how you feel, then it’s time to shift your perspective on life.

What wrecked my mental health this week was my ongoing cycle with the Accutane acne medication. One of the not too common side-effects of the drug is moodiness, a tendency towards quick to angry. I guess I should go buy a lottery ticket, because that uncommon side-effect found me.

In the movie Avengers, Bruce Banner replied with an iconic line when asked to get angry: “That’s my secret Cap’; I’m always angry.” That best explains how I felt this week. Good news is the short temper did not manifest itself to actual adverse action (good thing I don’t have a car commute). Though it’s equally not great that the anger is bottled up inside. I’d be watching a YouTube video, and suddenly felt the urge to throw something at the TV.

Again, it’s good that there were zero execution to those negative thoughts. I definitely do not want to spend the money to replace my LG OLED.

Exacerbating the issue are some small hiccups at work that really is no big deal when you detach from it. But in my ill-tempered condition, those tiny problems became lumbering boulders on my psyche. It can’t be helped: there’s always going to be problems at work. Being on Accutane is only temporary. It’s not like I haven’t been warned that it’s going to suck for the duration.

Better days ahead.

It's going to be alright

So, how are we feeling? If your presidential candidate of choice won the election, congratulations. I hope America does incredible well under his leadership. I believe nobody seeks democratically elected office to do harm. Because otherwise you’d get voted out the next go around. The winner on Tuesday did lose back in 2020.

If your presidential candidate of choice lost on Tuesday, well, there’s a finite end to your perceived suffering. Four more years is just that: four more. It can’t be anymore than that! And then the pages of history will continue to turn. Spend these next fours years focused on yourself and the people around you. Quit social media and go outside to touch grass often (as the kids say these days).

I read that there was a wholesale shift towards the Republican ticket this time compared to 2020. But I think we have to wait for the total vote tally to tell the full story. If Trump got roughly the same amount of votes as his two previous campaigns, and it’s the Democratic ticket that got less votes, then that’s an entirely different conversation. Where did that chunk of blue voters go? It can’t be entirely California…

Is it as simple as it’s the economy, stupid? The stock markets may be at all-time highs, but inflation is indeed pernicious. Even though inflation supposedly normalized this year, it’s not like the inflated prices then went back down, right? The prices merely stopped going up. The grocery budget is still unaffordably high for lots of people. While the President of the United States can’t really do anything about that, it comes down to this: the vibes are bad, so we need something different.

Wasn’t that the case in 2020? Difficult to believe that COVID was that long ago now.

A free screwdriver

It’s kind of interesting that when I bought a non-stick fry pan on Amazon, it came with a full-size screwdriver to assemble the handle to the pan. It goes to show just how absurd the profit margins are on these products when they can afford to throw in a screwdriver for free. IKEA furniture at least expects you to have some tools at home. Or you can buy the tool set from them.

Avid watchers of Shark Tank understand how much margin are in the products we buy. It’s fine: that’s just how capitalism works. I needed a fry pan for eggs, another person is smart enough commission a factory in China to make them. I can certainly do it myself, but then I’d have thousands of fry pans that I’ve got to sell. I have a need, someone can fulfill that need, therefore that someone can reap the profits. (There’s a joke about hookers in there somewhere.)

The fact the seller can afford throw in a screwdriver for free with every pan shows how cheaply things can be made in my motherland of China. The country truly is the factory of the world. And with that means a whole spectrum of price and quality. I think it’s way past time to associate “Made in China” with horrible quality. Yes, many things coming out of China are crap (looking at you, Temu), but my brothers and sisters over there are equally capable of making world-class products.

Lest we forget, the Apple iPhone has been made in China for the longest time. The ever popular Fujifilm X100VI camera - a precision photographic device - is manufactured there. I wouldn’t hesitate to buy a Hisense branded TV (if LG weren’t so damn fantastic with OLED).

The equation is simple: same (high) quality, lower labor cost. What corporation beholden to shareholders wouldn’t shift manufacturing to China - or any other country offering the same incentives. Made in U.S.A might only mean you’re overpaying for an American worker’s wage.

It's cozy season

Perhaps it’s my inability to go outside talking - I am on Accutane medication, and therefore hugely sensitive to the sun, but the autumn and winter months are truly the best. Short days, long nights, and cold weather. Since I am avoiding the outside as much as possible, the cozy feelings of this time of the year makes it less confining to be stuck indoors. Seasonal loneliness? That cannot be me!

As we head into the month of November, I am reminded that the year 2024 is almost over. Doesn’t feel like it for me, honestly. I’ve been sort of in a time lock ever since I started Accutane about two months ago. The infamous symptoms of the medication are so overwhelmingly constant that you kind of endure it until it’s over. It feels as if I cannot move forward with life until this cycle is done. I’ve not felt 100 percent since I started the medication.

I helped my aunt and uncle moved home last weekend, and it was extra tough due to being on Accutane. I was chugging water every so often because I knew that if I didn’t, I would probably collapse due to dehydration. The drug drys me out so damn much. Add on physical exertion and being outside for a time? It was a struggle for sure.

Three more months of Accutane - I can do this. The battle with acne for twenty years must end in my victory.

This one is still fine

Today, Apple announced the fourth-generation of their beloved MacBook Pro with Apple Silicon. I am sure the latest and greatest from Cupertino is amazing and expensive. However, Apple made the mistake of making Apple Silicon so damn good to begin with. It’s almost like All-Clad selling me stainless-steel cookware: I never have to buy another one again.

I am typing this out on my first-generation M1 Max MacBook Pro, and I absolutely do not feel any iota of sluggishness. There’s no incentive to upgrade to the new M4 Max MacBook Pro, other than bragging about the numbers on the spec sheet. (Though the all-black color introduced in last year’s model is kind of delicious.) Thunderbolt 5? It’s not like Thunderbolt 3 is slow.

It is good to see Apple keeping a yearly cadence now to updating their laptop lineup. Anyone buying one at any time throughout the year can be sure that it won’t be made obsolete for a long time. Remember back when the Mac Pro went over 1200 days since the last update? You can’t in good conscience recommend someone to buy one when a computer is that old. Especially a Mac running on Intel chips.

Because Apple Silicon is so awesome since inception, a not so secret hack when Apple updates the Mac lineup is that customers can buy old stock of previous versions at a solid discount. MacBook Pro laptops with the M3 chips are still state-of-the-art capable. A discounted one of those - once the M4 MacBook Pros hit the shelves - is the smart buy if you are pinching pennies in this economy.