Something kinda crazy - 10 things I think

10 THINGS I THINK

1. The supposed Fight of the Century was quite the letdown, wasn’t it? I’m hugely disappointed in Pacquiao’s inability to land any punches of significance on Mayweather; getting through Floyd’s vaunted defensive style was the only way Manny could’ve persevered in the bout. If Pacquiao wasn’t able to breakthrough, I’m not sure any other fighter out there can (don’t humor me with Amir Khan).

I completely understand the common fan’s complaints of the fight being uninteresting and Mayweather is a coward for the frequent evasion and hugs on to Pacquiao: they’re simply unfamiliar with the sport. Admittedly, Floyd’s style never made for fantastic fights, but from a pure technical standpoint, his display against Manny was an absolute masterpiece.

I for one don’t want a rematch. The result will be the same.

2. Avengers Age of Ultron was as spectacular and awesome as I thought it would be. There will definitely be many more viewings in theatres in the immediate future, a personal honor reserved for only the very best of films (the first Avengers film, Inception, Lord of the Rings trilogy, etc.)

It is slightly bittersweet that Joss Whedon will no longer helm the third Avengers film, though it’s a good bet he’ll have some input on certain macro elements. I’ve full confidence in the Russo brothers, and am already anticipating next year’s Captain America film, poised to be essentially Avengers 2.5.

3. I’ve completely fallen head over heels for Elizabeth Olsen. There was no character I adored more in Avengers Age of Ultron than her brilliant interpretation of Scarlet Witch. Forget a standalone Black Widow movie (blasphemous, I know); I now desperately want a Scarlet Witch movie. It won’t happen, of course, because Disney and Marvel have shown they aren’t particularly fond of female super heroes. I doubt we would’ve even gotten as much Black Widow screen-time in the previous films if not for Joss Whedon.

4. It’s almost guaranteed that Pietro Maximoff will not “stay dead” in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, so take heed, Avengers fans mourning the death of Quicksilver. It is no coincidence that a scene of his burial was conspicuously absent at the end of Age of Ultron. Don’t you think if Pietro had truly passed, there would’ve been be a proper funeral worthy of a fallen Avenger?  

I’d bet good money Quicksilver will return for the third Avengers film, if not sooner.

5. Judging from the size of the men in the Dear Future Husband video, Meghan Trainor is most definitely not all about that bass. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

6. The entrepreneurial spirit in me absolute applaud the company that’s offering a gold-plating service to Apple Watch owners. For a relatively cheap sum of $400 on top of the price of the watch, customers can own a timepiece that resembles exactly the insanely expensive Apple Watch Edition model. I certainly can’t tell the difference between the factory gold and aftermarket gold plating.

Face it, only the richest of the rich can afford to blow upwards of 10 thousand dollars on a watch that is a guaranteed to be obsolete in a few year’s time. Now, thanks to a few enterprising folks, you too can wear a gold Apple Watch for only 10 percent of the price. Fake rich never looked so good.

7. First person to invent clear or invisible brake pad material - so you don’t get those visually horrendous brake-dusts on your fancy aluminum wheels - will make a princely sum indeed. Due to the drought, I haven’t been able to do a proper wash of the wheels on the STI, and the resulting mess is not pleasing at all. The wheels were silver in color, but now they are a brilliant shade of matte brown. It’s okay, because like a well-worn pair of Chucks, Subaru cars look good dirty. At least that’s what I tell myself anyways.

It’ll be a splendid day when the Californian drought is over, though I’m not holding my breath.

8. Good to see the San Francisco Giants make it back to .500, not that I’ve got any expectations for this season or anything. It was a historically dreadful month of April for them, so perhaps the team is merely deviating back to the mean. Nevertheless, I simply want them to be somewhat competitive, so that when I attend games in the flesh, the product on the field is entertaining and worth my hard-earned (ha!) money.

9. I recently for the first time encountered a person with one of those brand new Macbooks. In the flesh the laptop looks impossible skinny, easily mistakable for an iPad plugged in to a keyboard dock. Unfortunately the guy who owns it chose to purchase the gold version, which I have to say, made him look incredibly douche. A golden laptop just looks altogether awkward and unnatural. Unless you’re a Prince from the Middle East, it would be wise to tick the box for either the silver or space gray option.

10. It’s inconceivable that in 2015, the LPGA tour can name a tournament the “Swinging Skirts LPGA Classic” and everybody is fine with it. You don’t see the PGA tour name an equivalent tournament the “Swinging Pants Classic”, do you? The fact the tournament was held here in San Francisco’s Harding Park is especially shameful. 

Some people just go bowling - 10 things I think

10 THINGS I THINK

1. Absolutely dreadful news out of Nepal. Earthquakes are terrible anywhere but especially so in third world countries. They simply haven’t got the capital or infrastructure to construct buildings that can withstand (or at the very least not crumble to oblivion) such destructive forces. I may live in an active earthquake zone (San Francisco!) but the city has proper earthquake-ready codes and regulations - Nepal, not so much. Please donate a few dollars to the Red Cross if you haven’t already.

2. A great shame that what was once peaceful protest in Baltimore in the aftermath of Freddie Gray’s murder by the police has turned ugly in the worst way. Count me amongst the skeptics who question just how productive it is to burn down a local CVS and loot from community liquor stores. Of course, the perpetrators of those acts don’t give an ounce of care for the protest and the fight to end police brutality: they simply want to cause violence and destruction because it’s good sport. Since when did wonton rioting ever persuade those in power to alter their position? If anything, it strengthens their resolve, however misguided it may be.

For the record, I’m against any and all forms of violent rioting, by people of any color. Tipping a bus over and burning it because your team just lost the championship (or won, in the case of San Francisco…) is equally inane as the chaos happening in Baltimore in recent days.

3. Rumors has it that Lotus, the great little British sports car manufacturer, is planning to produce a sports utility vehicle. Cue the Colin Chapman rolling in his grave cliché. I have zero doubts that if engineered to the renowned capabilities of Lotus engineers, said Lotus SUV would be a brilliant drive, and will sell plenty to upper-class housewives. However, is an SUV really fitting for a company whose unofficial motto is the famous quote of its founder: "Simplify, then add lightness”? If anything, I don’t think one can get more removed and opposite of the Lotus ethos than a sports utility vehicle.

The company in Hethel should first concentrate on homologating the Elise/Exige twins for American consumption once again before commencing on an SUV project. Secondly, improve its current products. The once excellent Lotus Evora has fallen immensely behind its competition, notably the Porsche Cayman/base 911. There’s no secret to why sales have been so abysmal in the U.S.

A part of me still wishes Dany Bahar remained at Lotus long enough to realize his bold five-new-models vision.

4. Those that don’t watch Agents of SHIELD regularly or at all are going to miss out on the why with Avengers Age of Ultron’s opening sequence. As I’ve said before, AOS’s tie-in with the greater Marvel Cinematic Universe is one of my favorite aspects of the show, and the producers have done a fantastic job this time round with the second Avengers film. Viewers of show will instantly recognize just why (spoiler alert) the film launches right into the heroes attacking a Hydra base in Sekovia.  
I absolutely cannot wait to watch the Age of Ultron in theatre this weekend, and next week’s showing of Agents of SHIELD.

5. The biggest fight in boxing history is also happening this weekend, and all I’m hoping for is a great bout between Mayweather and Pacquiao. I’ve got conflicting emotions heading into the fight because while I’m definitely rooting for the Filipino champion, a gun to my head will have me picking Pretty Boy Floyd to be the victor.  

Whatever the outcome, we all know there’s going to be an eventual rematch with the two boxing greats.

6. Cecily Strong did a superb job at the annual White House Correspondence Dinner. A real win for women and women issues, and genuinely funny as well. Word of advice to the association: book Amy Schumer for next year’s soiree.

7. Ferdinand Piech being forced out of his chairman of the board role at the Volkswagen Group is a bit of a surprise. While you can certainly question his business acumen, Piech’s engineering acumen and enthusiasm for sporting automobiles is infallible. I haven’t the time to list all the great cars he had a hand in (see Top Gear’s brilliant expose), so I’ll simply present the most recently famous one of them all: Bugatti Veyron.

Shame, because there’s most certainly a mountain of non-compete papers to prevent Piech from working with any other manufacturer. He’ll probably go the way of Luca Di Montezemolo after his ouster from Ferrari, and be employed in a different industry - if he so choses.

8. Anything Google does to shake up the nascent and arguably anti-consumer wireless industry with their Project-Fi imitative can only be a good thing. The Internet is massively vital to a person’s everyday life, and must be regulated as a utility. As such, consumers should only pay for what they use. I’ve got a smartphone with a 2GB monthly wireless plan, but each month I barely breach above 1GB of actual usage. Therefore, half of what I’m paying Verizon is practically a bonus for them, a donation if you will, and that’s simply not awesome.

I hope Project-Fi’s pay-as-you-go wireless plan will achieve board enough traction to impel other carriers to change and emulate.

9. Turns out, backing up my entire music library to the cloud take a really, really long time. It’s long overdue, though. I’ve always kept a separate copy of all my songs on an external hard-drive, and that gets stored at work. The thinking is, in the extreme case the house burns down, my music will still be intact. Now that it’s also uploaded to the cloud (Google Drive, if you’re wondering), I’ve got triple-backup protection, which apparently is the standard amount of backup one should do for all their files.

That said, no way I’m performing the same duty with my movie and video files, because not only will it take months upon months to upload (we’re looking at multiple terabytes of files), surely I’ll get a sternly written email from my Internet Service Provider long before then.

10. Is the Briggs Myers personality test making a comeback all of the sudden? In recent months I’ve got asked multiple times what my results were, and every single time my reply is this: IDGAF. I believe it’s incredibly fitting to my personality, don’t you think? 

Not spring, love, or cherry blossom - 10 things I think

10 THINGS I THINK

1. It’s always a fantastic time when the San Francisco Giants goes head-to-head against our bitter rivals the Los Angeles Dodgers, especially so when I get the chance to listen to the Dodgers’ broadcast legend Vin Scully calling the games. Don’t get me wrong, I’m massively fond of our very own Giants broadcasters, but as baseball fans all recognize, Vin Scully is simply on another stratosphere.

Every new season could be Scully’s last, so every opportunity to listen must be taken advantaged of. It’ll be a bittersweet day indeed when the great man hangs up the microphone.  

2. I love it when people call out Millennials on their frequent entitlement tendencies. As someone that works at a university campus, I witness first hand the disease everyday. Not exactly sure how the latest crop of college students were raised, but never before have I encountered a group of people so expectative of having everything handed to them or go alongside their wishes. Worse, college Millennials don’t seem to handle failure well, if at all.

I’d be a insanely rich person indeed if I received a dollar every time a student came into my office, asking if they could borrow a charger for their laptop. Why do people not bring chargers along with their laptops? It’s common sense, isn’t it? Battery technology hasn’t advanced to a state where you can risk not carrying a charger just yet.

And the students had the gall to complain the university doesn’t provide services for them. Sorry, darling, you’re responsible for your failure to bring a charger with you, not me.

3. Sad news: Chipotle will be raising prices on its steak and barbacoa meat in the near future. Well, sad news for other people, because personally I always select chicken when I frequent Chipotle, because I am a cheapskate, and chicken is likely better for me anyways.

Let me know when they raise the price on chicken, because then I’ll be incredibly annoyed like the rest of you, and subsequently will still begrudgingly eat at Chipotle. Because it’s so damn awesome.  

4. The news of that Pulitzer-winning journalist in Los Angeles having to quit his newspaper job because he couldn’t afford the rent on his salary is extremely depressing. The future of the fourth estate is murky indeed if talents are quitting the industry due to finances. People should be alarmed because local news media is immensely more important than national news networks because the stories they cover/uncover directly affects the citizenry. The survival of those entities is absolutely crucial.

On a more selfish tangent, I’m glad I chose not to major in journalism for my college study, though the reason wasn’t because I knew the financial future for journalist is less than ideal. I simply hated grammar and editing; it’s the writing component that I really enjoy.

5. Allow me to fully admit that I am a bandwagon Warriors fan, and now that they are in the playoffs, I’ve now started actually watching the basketball games. Hopefully the Warriors run through the playoffs will last all the way until the end of June, because the Bay Area certainly needs a championship for their sport franchises, am I right?

Unlike most bandwagon fans, I refuse to refer to the Warriors with the pronouns we, us, or our. Doing so would be despicable.

6. The second Star Wars Episode 7 teaser trailer is short, but spectacular all the same. Of course, we still have zero inkling of how the plot will unfold, nor have we even seen all the major characters yet. The producers did throw Star Wars fans a bone by ending the trailer with Han Solo and Chewbacca, and I’ve got to say that brief little sequence was absolutely awesome. “Chewie, we’re home.” My god that was perfect.

It’s going to be a banner year indeed for cinema, what with Furious 7 already broken all sorts of box-office records, the second Avengers movie comes out in less than two weeks, the 23rd Bond film, and of course, Star Wars to bookend it all in December. My wallet is ready.

7. Today is Earth Day, the one singular day out of the year where people whom otherwise couldn’t care less, pretend they actually give a crap about environmental conservation. That is no shade, because society has made it such that the priorities just aren’t there. The poor haven’t got the money or time to worry about whether or not they are recycling properly, because they spend all their energy simply surviving another day. Rich people don’t feel the need to care for the Earth and limit their personal carbon footprint, because I must have five cars and a mansion to park them in, damn it.

As someone who lives on the lower fringes of what is considered middle-class, there’s not much I can personally do. I sort and recycle, try to use as few amounts of water as possible, and keep a careful eye on my monthly energy consumption. Beyond those strategies, I can only entrust on the powerful few to fight the bigger battle in preventing humans from destroying the planet.  

8. A few weeks ago (some date in the lunar calendar) were the time most Chinese families visit and pay respect to their respective dead. That means a pilgrimage to the cemetery. Unfortunately for me, the entirety of my deceased relatives are buried in China, therefore I was unable to fulfill the annual duty. It did however led me to a discussion with friends on why did our previous generation spend so much money simply to have a plot of land to be buried in.

My own maternal grandparents are each paying more than ten thousand dollars for their eventual resting place, which I must admit if a bit morbid of an act. For me, I just can’t fathom paying such sums for a thing I won’t even be alive for. I’d imagine my offspring would rather me bequeathing them the money instead. When I’m gone from this world, I shall give instructions to turn my remains to ash, and then ceremoniously scatter into the ocean; the ocean from whence all life originates from.

9. Jon Stewart has announced that August 6th will be his final appearance as host of The Daily Show. His farewell show will no doubt be one for the ages, more so than even Stephen Colbert’s epic final Report. I quite literally grew up watching The Daily Show, and the sixth day of August will one of great sadness and celebration all at once.

10.  I’ve been having tremendous amounts of ‘grass is greener’ syndrome with my car lately. Fairly sure I’m not sick of the STI, but more than ever I find myself looking at other cars to buy. It certainly doesn’t make financial sense to trade the car in having only owned it for a little over two years, because the not insignificant amount of taxes I paid in purchasing it will largely be forsaken (not to mentioned I’d have to pay taxes again on the new car.)

But life is about variety, isn’t it? There are times you’ve just got to go for it. There’s a stark difference between financial irresponsibility and financial incapability, and besides, the future isn’t guaranteed anyways. We shall see, but chances are good I might not be in the same car in a few months time.  

See some good vibe - 10 things I think

10 THINGS I THINK

1. Marvel Agents of SHIELD just keeps getting better and better. Ever since last year’s Captain America movie turned the show over to an entirely new tangent, plot development have come at a much more rapid rate, and the show is all the better for it. I hope Agents of SHIELD had got enough longevity to stay on television at the very least until it’s destined intersection with the Inhumans movie. The show’s tie-ins with the greater Marvel Cinematic Universe are a personal favorite of mine.

2. Looks like 2016 presidential campaigns are launching left and right (see what I did there?), all of which doesn’t remotely interest me. There’s still a massive amount of months to go before election night, and I think it’s way too premature to be discussing it already. Can’t we keep our focus on the current administration? Those ongoing discussions with Iran are a fairly huge deal, aren’t they?

Besides, I bet most of you can’t even name the person that represents your district in the state legislature. Those are the bureaucrats that have and will have an immediate impact on your daily lives, and not the president of these United States.

3. It’s always a lovely compliment when someone tells me that I’ve got the appearance of an 18 year-old instead that of a 27 year-old that I really am. It would appear those Asian genes of mine are doing a fine job at keeping the ravages of aging away from my face.

4. I don’t understand: what is the point of building and having hundreds of Apple stores but not a single person would be able to simply walk in and purchase an Apple Watch on launch day? It’s baffling to me that the vast Apple conglomerate, with enough cash reserves and economies of scale to bludgeon all, can’t conjure enough amounts of Apple Watch for people to buy in store.

Inventory shortage also plagued the newly released Macbook, with plenty of Apple stores not even having a model to display. What the heck is going on? Apple has been producing notebook computers for decades - it’s their core expertise! Something is not right in Apple’s retail supply chain.

5. Speaking of the new “retina” Macbook, my advice is to hold off on purchasing one until the next generation comes out. Much like the first ever Macbook Air product back in 2008, this completely redesigned retina Macbook is highly compromised in terms of function and power (you’ve got to be kidding me with that one USB port). The second generation will undoubtedly be vastly improved and a much more usable notebook - exactly like the revised Macbook Air that came out in 2010.

The new Macbook then is only good for early adopters and trust fund hipsters, because brand image to impress others is everything.

6. Steph Curry should (and likely will) win the NBA most valuable player award. The stuff he does night in and night out is simply spectacular, enough to have you question whether the moves and numbers he puts up can even be replicated in video game simulation. I get the chorus of James Harden supporters putting up protest  - and honestly I wouldn’t be at all mad if Harden wins the MVP - but come on: we all know Curry will win the award.  

Never thought I’d see the day a player from the Warriors will win the NBA MVP award.

7. It’s tax day, and if you’re getting or have received a sizable amount of money back from the IRS, then you’re absolutely doing it wrong. That is, unless you really do enjoy lending the government your money at zero percent interest.

8. We’ve got a little over two more weeks to go until the second Avengers movie hits the theatre. I’m not sure I will be able to last that long without internally combusting from anxiety and anticipation. Yes, it’s very much a first world problem. That said, I value my slumber hours too much to ever attend a midnight showing. The cheapskate in me will probably do an early Saturday morning matinee.

9. Every day I get increasingly resigned and disappointed at the glaring reality that I won’t ever be able to afford a home in San Francisco. How tragic is it that a kid that grew up here, and is now gainfully employed within the city, can’t afford to live in it. I don’t think that is what cities were designed to be. Certainly, cities should never be a haven for investors that don’t even live there (looking at you, rich Chinese nationals that buy up a tremendous amount of San Francisco’s housing inventory.)

10. I think Couchella is an infinitely better than Coachella. Thanks, YouTube!

Though I’m not sure I’d be willing to pay a monthly subscription for the rumored ad-free YouTube. Thanks to a certain widely known browser plugin, my Youtube experience is already advertisement-free.