Let it go - 10 things I think

I've employed a new mechanism is letting things go. I simply ask myself this question: will this even matter in a year's time? If the answer is no, then whatever I was holding on to or fussing over gets dropped completely. If the answer is yes, I try my best to deal with it as quickly as possible. Letting the issue linger and fester in my thoughts is absolute poison. 

The technique works great in dealing with clutter as well. I recently did a mid-summer clean of all my belongings, and any item that I haven't used in more than a year got tossed away. The results were quite liberating and astonishing: I threw out so many boxes of things my mother thought I was (finally) moving out. Sadly for her...

10 THINGS I THINK

1. I did the ice bucket challenge that's been going viral these days, and I absolutely enjoyed it. Unfortunately it doesn't get too scorching here in San Francisco but who doesn't like a bit of water-sport during the summer? In addition to dumping arctic-cold water on myself, I also donated money to the ALS association even though doing the former precludes the latter. I challenge everyone to, at the very least, donate money to the cause. 

2. What's happening in Ferguson is completely disgusting. Images and videos captured there looked more at home in a war-torn third-world country than the supposedly gold-standard of the free-world. Police in military gear? Tear gas? Suppression of the press? Disregard for any human rights? It's all happening in AMERICA. Time for us to return that high-horse to wherever we bought it from.

 3. I usually don't get too sappy over the death of a famous person but the untimely death of Robin Williams hit me like a ton of bricks. He is somehow I quite literally grew up watching and to have a piece of childhood snatched away from me was devastating. The circumstances of his passing certainly compounded the sadness. He was one of San Francisco's most favorite native sons as well. Rest in paradise, O Captain. 

4. The best to thing to ever happen to the burrito is the "California" version that substitutes rice with French fries. I'm just waiting patiently for Chipotle to implement the delicacy in their eateries - I'd eat there everyday for lunch if that were to happen.

5. Following automotive journalists on various social media is especially jealousy-inducing during Monterey Car Week. The sheer amount of "car-porn" during that week can only be described as automotive heaven. The fact that the annual festival is only a short hour drive away from me makes it all the more difficult to accept that I'm not there. It's on the bucket list though, for sure. 

6. What's good in paying over 25 million dollars for a vintage Ferrari when you're probably not going to ever drive it? I come from a vastly opposite perspective seeing as I don't have millions to spend on just cars but in life I think it's inane to purchase something that expensive and literally get zero use out of it. 

7. Just because you've got the ability to paint a car any pigment you desire doesn't mean you should. I'm confident in saying that for a certain subset of rich people, having (insane amount of ) money definitely does not equate to having good taste. 

8. Sequels are never as excellent as the original, especially when a sequel was never intended in the first place and was only commissioned because of the surprising success of the original (read: money grab).

9. I am totally and unabashedly fan-boy-ing over the impending new Taylor Swift album and the brand new single. That said, the immensely brilliant RED album is one tough act to follow. Also, might we get a song titled "24"? 

10. American football is starting up in a month's time and that obviously means another year of fantasy football. I was absolute dead last in my league last year, so I'm feeling good about this season seeing as it can't possible get any worse than that! I'm still trying to determine a properly hilarious name for my fantasy team, though as a placeholder I've elected to go with "A.A.Ron Balakay" in homage of the popular Key & Peele skit. 

These are beautiful times - 10 things I think

What have I got to be happy about?

Everything.

It's absolutely a choice, you know. Circumstances are what they are, the decision on how to react is entirely up to you. I can wake up everyday lamenting the day ahead, dragging with me the negatives of yesterday, or I can wake up, smile, and say to myself that today is going to be awesome. 

Barney Stinson has got it right: If I find myself being negative, I stop being negative, and be awesome instead. 

Perspective is what's important. There's always someone whose got it worse than you. Here's a rather dreadful thought: someone out there is planning something for tomorrow, but he/she will die before it happens. A bit morbid, perhaps, but that's how the laws of life work. Today, then, is all that really matters.

So whatever I need/want to do today, it's imperative I get it done now. You've got something to say? Say it, cause you might not have a chance later. Putting it off, or being scared into silence, cannot be an option. Most of the time, fear is there to inform you that what you're about to do is absolutely worth doing. 

I let go of the small things. Twice yesterday another motorist cut me off, almost to causing a collision. I braked. That was it; no horns, no gestures involving the middle digit. I simply continued trundling along, listening to music, and enjoying a rare sunny day in San Francisco, in a car I adore dearly. 

Getting riled up over ultimately insignificant events is an enormous disservice to yourself. 

10 THINGS I THINK

1. I feel like we've been experiencing lots of "Super Moons" lately, but it still doesn't distract from the sheer beauty of it. I'm lucky to have a window that faces east, so on Sunday evening I practically sat in the dark and admired the moon for a good hour as it climbed out of the horizon. 

2. If you utter the words "Damn, the weather is hot!" yet you're wearing a black t-shirt, I tend to not have much sympathies for you. I know dark colors are flattering if you haven't exactly got the right body type but wearing them in anything beyond 80 degrees weather is absolutely asinine.

3. Rumors has it that Luca Di Montezemolo, the long-time head honcho at Ferrari, will be stepping down from his duties to go do other stuff (he is Italian aristocracy, after all). While it's lamentable that Formula One will lose one of its most potent voices, I must motion that if LDM really does leave, Ferrari must change the name of the LaFerrari hyper-car - a moniker chosen by LDM himself, probably in a heavily drunken state - to something that doesn't suck.

4. Not once during this entire "Share a Coke" campaign has anyone actually shared one with me. To that end, I'm extremely saddened and slightly bitter. It's not too late, though: I'll gladly accept a Diet Coke any day of the week, as long as it's Sunday.

5. Guardians of the Galaxy is a fantastic movie. I'm not the most hardcore of Marvel Cinematic Universe nuts (Iron Man 2 was decidedly terrible) so I'm not just blindly stating this. For those of us pinning for a proper space western since the untimely demise of Firefly (tears), Guardians finally delivered. Here's to hoping for many movies to follow.  

6. It's not a secret: car enthusiasts love fast cars, and when given one, we drive them fast. Problem is, we don't exist in a vacuum: there's other motorists sharing the roads with us. The Jessi Lang story posted earlier last week is a stark reminder to be alert and careful when driving, because it can all be taken away from you so quickly. 

7. Thanks to Vladimir Putin and his power-tripping shenanigans, the European stock market was terrible last week. Compounded by the seemingly endless unrest in the Middle East, my International stock holdings completely wiped out any gains I had in the domestic stock market. Diversity is key in any investment portfolio but what Russia is doing to Europe is simply extraordinary. I'm having serious thoughts about shorting. 

8. America should not be going back into Iraq. Retrieve any citizens still living there abroad and leave the two warring sides to their own device. The U.S. should not be picking sides on what is really a religious civil war. Offer only what is necessary from a humanitarian perspective; if we want to fix countries we need to first fix our own. 

9. I don't see myself as the most ardent of grammar nazis but people not using the Oxford comma is proving to be quite irksome. 

10. Far more people I personally know are participating in The Giants Race than I had thought. Either running for health is very much en vogue these days, or the allure of a plastic bobble-head is simply too enticing to ignore. That and getting drunk with food and booze afterwards is always a very welcomed endgame. 

Happiness - 10 things I think

Last week was quite terrible for the stock market, as the gains I've earned in my investment portfolio this year almost completely withered away. Of course, it shouldn't matter at all because investments are not meant to be touched in the short term, and more likely than not the stock market will steadily keep growing over many years. It's simply too much fun to keep an eye on the daily fluctuations, especially when the market is up. 

I was stunned to learn from my parents that they really never kept a budget. They simply spent their income on the necessities and saved what was leftover. They've got zero inclination on how much they are spending on a monthly basis. How they ended up saving so much money over the years is baffling to me.

In contrast, I keep rigorous records of my spending and I make sure I save before I spend each month. This method ensures that I don't go around and blow my entire paycheck - because I totally would. I truly admire my parent's tenacity and a sort of innate ability to not overspend each month, without so much as a piece of paper and a calculator. Our generation is spoiled rotten with myriad of tools for us to be fiscally responsible and yet so few of us actually do it. 

10 THINGS I THINK

1. I'm surprised no one has yet did a parody of that Chris Brown song "Loyal". An intrepid female Youtube personality should do a rebuttal version that centers around the line "These bros ain't loyal." 

2. Oakland A's GM Billy Beane is a genius. Crazy, but a genius. It's still shocking to me how he could trade one of his marquee (all) stars on his championship-favorite team simply to improve the already stellar pitching staff. Why hasn't the likes of the Yankees or Dodgers lured him away from the East Bay is befuddling. 

3. I didn't get the hype with "Sharknado 2". My twitter feed was entirely useless during its airing. I had no idea it was so culturally crucial to the people i follow. And for the record, the people I follow aren't exactly of the unintelligent mass. 

4. I'd punch you in the face too if my ex-wife is Miranda Kerr and you slept with her while she and I were still married. Good on you, Orlando Bloom. You don't fuck with Legolas and get away with it. 

5. The bursted water main that flooded much of UCLA wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for the fact California is in the worse drought of our lifetimes. Terrible timing, Moore's law. 

6. What an absolutely horrendous injury Paul George suffered. I couldn't stomach watching the video; the still photographs were terrifying enough. All the best wishes to his quick and full recovery. 

7. The first car at a stoplight has an almost fiduciary responsibility to be alert and go at the first turn of green. Being lethargic here can cost quite a few cars to have to wait for the next light. That's simply not awesome. 

8. 49ers' brand spanking new Levi's Stadium reportedly has got the same traffic and congestion issues that was the hallmark of the old Candlestick. And I thought the entire point of the new facility (other than being able to sell more tickets at a higher price) was to alleviate the usual nightmare involved with actually getting to the stadium. 

9. The problem with having a full can of Altoids is that you absolutely cannot stop eating them. They are indeed the Pringles of the breath-mint world. 

10. Whoever is in charge over at LAY'S potato chips need to stop putting out those fan-suggested specialty flavors. Potato chips should never taste like a cappuccino; ever. 

It's not about you - 10 things I think

It wasn't a good weekend sports-wise, but overall it was plenty decent. Got a chance to see Woody Allen's latest motion picture vehicle (Magic in the Moonlight), which was quite pleasant. Lucky, too, because the movie was released in limited theatres and the one we went to just happened to be one out of only 17 in all of the United States. It definitely pays to live in a relatively artsy metropolitan area. 

I've got five weeks until the SF Giants Run event, in which I'll be attempting the 10k. Exciting stuff being that it will be the first time I will be paying to run. Sure it's all for an excellent cause but the reason I took up running as the exercise of choice this year is because it essentially costs me zero dollars (sans any sunk cost for shoes and various sports clothing). All runners in the Giants Run do receive a nifty commemorative bobble-head, which is just about the only reason I'm participating.

Over the past two months or so I've lost almost 20 pounds, coming down from a high of 178 to now a more slender 159. I wasn't overweight, per se; I merely wanted to slim back down because the body-weight lifting and protein-heavy diet these past years has made me bulkier than I far wanted to be. Every time I put on a black t-shirt I'd feel like Johnny Tran looking for Dom Torreto in "The Fast and the Furious".

So I stopped doing body-weight exercises completely, and in conjunction cut my daily protein intake by two-thirds. The only exercise I do now is the five mile run on the weekends. Because I've stopped working-out everyday, I also am eating much less than before. It's quite simple, really: the law of thermodynamics dictates you will lose weight if your daily intake of food energy is lower than your body's daily energy exertion. 

10 THINGS I THINK

1. I'm happy Chipotle just posted a record quarter. I absolutely love the food there, and would be happy to eat it daily for the rest of my life. Just stop raising the prices, please? Okay?

2. The laughably light suspension the NFL levied on Ray Rice for basically knocking a woman unconscious is completely unacceptable. I hope there's enough social pressure on the NFL to change its mind and increase the severity of the punishment.

3. Street festivals should be banned in San Francisco. There's simply not enough real estate to accommodate the throngs of people that flocks to them. Traffic is bad enough as-is! Last week's ramen festival in Japan-town was an utter disaster.

4. Presidential visits should also be banned in San Francisco. Must you add to the already tragic levels of congestion just to raise a few dollars for your party? Thanks, Obama. 

5. I'd love to upgrade to an iPhone 6 when it releases this fall simply because of the larger screen size, but ultimately I cannot justify ditching my still decently capable 5S and pay almost 300 dollars for the privilege to upgrade. 

6. The new Levis Stadium looks spectacular, as one would expect. I'm keen to try the "Peking duck bao" it's offering in its food menus. It'll probably taste nothing like the authentic stuff I've had at Chinese restaurants. 

7. I'm a huge fan of baseball, but the Baseball Hall of Fame means nothing to me. Not only is the selection process highly draconian, some of the best players to ever play game will never get inducted (example: Rose, Pete)

8. Some days I really tire of getting only a scant 18 miles to the gallon in my STI. A car with only four cylinders shouldn't be that inefficient, but it is. Bloody fun to drive, though. Good trade-off. Sometimes.

9. It feels like everybody and their mothers are opening up boba-tea establishments in the Bay Area. Those tea cafes are like coffee shops for Asians. I personally don't get the appeal, though I wouldn't mind having a cup once in a great while.

10. Great words to live by: "You just have to realize it's not about you." Sometimes, not giving a f*ck is the best way forward.