Blog

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

Art for art's sake

Amazon’s The Grand Tour - a car show featuring the intrepid trio of Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond, and James May - released its latest episode a few weeks back. Named Sand Job, the premise is same as ever: take three used cars and drive them over a very long distance. Insert some manufactured shenanigans along the way. It’s been the same recipe since the trio was with BBC’s Top Gear, and yet we still watch every time a new episodes drops.

I tune in because the cinematography remains as beautiful as ever. The Grand Tour’s production value is immense. It’s turned into a sort of Planet Earth documentary, but with cars. Each episode is a showcase of an exotic locale that I would likely never step foot upon. Sand Job takes viewers to the Islamic Republic of Mauritania. A country that I have to admit I cannot pin on a map of Africa before watching. The drone shots of the Sahara desert is spectacular. And not once can you see the drone’s (or helicopter?) casted shadow. The attention to detail is to the maximum.

The car shenanigans is almost secondary to the motion-picture technicality, at least for me. There’s the usual explosions, cars breaking down, a drag race, and pranking James May. It’s all been done before, and I hope the trio continues to do so for at least a few more years. (Looks like this is the second to last episode in the series. Kind of sad!) They are getting up there in age, and none of them seem to care much in the taking care of their body department. What’s with guys getting to middle age and growing a large pot belly? (They are otherwise skinny without it.) A prolonged lack of a clean diet and exercising, surely.

In a world of Youtube car content - of which there is plenty - is there still room for The Grand Tour? I hope so, simply on the count of its splendid cinematography. Art for art’s sake! Let’s see if Amazon is willing to continue subsidizing such a series. Especially after it has reportedly lost a ton of millions on The Lord of the Rings…

Can't be me!

Now that I finally bought an OTA antenna for my LG TV, I’ve been tuning in to the local morning news during my hour of getting ready for work. Every morning I see how horrible the commute traffic is, and count my lucky stars that I don’t have to participate. I’ve got the next best thing to working-from-home: living a few blocks from work. The only traffic I encounter is the traffic light at the main thoroughfare next to campus.

I drove down to Souther California last week, and timed it horribly. I arrived in Los Angeles just as the Friday evening commute began. The 405 was an absolute parking lot in the Culver City area - where our hotel is. It was utterly despondent to see on the navigation that it will take half an hour to go a mere four miles. And to think: most of these folks do this every single work day, every single work week. Either they’re numb to the soul-sucking, or they’re watching YouTube videos while inching agonizingly forward in traffic.

If that were me, I’d move closer to work. As I have done in my current situation.

Did you know there’s a Hilton in Culver City? I didn’t, until on a recommendation from an acquaintance who does lots of business travel. Culver City is close enough to LAX that I saw many guests checking-in from their arrival flights. The Hilton Los Angeles Culver City is a finely-appointed hotel, with broad and clean rooms. The lounge area with a full-feature bar on the first floor makes it easy to hang out with friends staying at the same property (as we did). Of course, it doesn’t come cheaply: I paid (with points) about $300 for one night. Granted, any decent hotel these days is going to run you in the $200s per night. That’s inflation doing its work.

Fair warning: if you have a car, valet parking is mandatory. You absolutely cannot self-park. Cost? $42 per day. Extortion, is what that is.

Galpao Gaucho review

Buffets and all-you-can-eat restaurants are great for spending a few hours with friends and gorging endlessly on food. The only downside is the inevitable food coma that comes afterwards from massively overeating. You want to get your money’s worth, so of course you’re going to eat way more than usual. Bring on the expensive stuff! Don’t fill your stomach with the cheapies like the potato salad.

Or a one liter bottle of San Pellegrino, as I did yesterday.

We went to a Brazilian steakhouse called Galpão Gaucho, featuring unlimited cuts of grilled meat and a full-feature salad bar. Time limit is two hours. There’s several locations in the Bay Area, we went to the one most convenience to us: Cupertino. Price on a weekend is about $63 dollars. Drinks and desserts are extra. That one liter bottle of Pellegrino? Five dollars.

It’s worth it because if you don’t constantly hydrate throughout the meal, you’re going to be drinking lots of water afterwards. The salt content is no joke, though the steaks are absolutely delicious, seasoned just correctly. My favorite cuts are the bottom sirloin, and the ribeye. Rather disappointing though the restaurant did not offer prime rib, in my opinion the best cut of them all.

Obviously, none of us could eat like we used to back in the college days. I purposely did not go to my limit (this isn’t a hot dog eating contest) because I still had errands to run afterwards. It was still a decent amount, and for the dinner that followed I only ate a peach and a banana. I’m going to be swearing off cow meat for this week, though honestly I’m more of a pig and chicken person anyways.

For a good time and properly done (unlimited) steaks, I highly recommend Galpao Gaucho.

Selling my old Macs

In the paradigm to have one laptop to do all my computing needs - I recently purchased a 16-inch MacBook Pro will lots of delicious options - I have to sell my remaining machines to the second-hand market. Not wanting to spend the time nor energy on the likes of Craigslist and eBay just for a slightly higher return on price, I elected to go with third-party resellers that guarantees a price up front. All there is for me to do is box up the computers nicely and drive it to the local Fedex store.

For my old 15-inch MacBook Pro, I went with Apple’s own trade-in program. Customers can either directly apply the credit towards a new purchase, or take an Apple gift card for a future date. I did the latter because at the time I was not yet ready to order this 16-inch MacBook Pro I am currently typing on. It turns out, the Apple trade-in program is handled by a third-party company: Phobio. It does feel a bit bait-and-switch because the the Apple website makes it look like the reputation of Apple is behind the trade-in, but in reality you are to deal with Phobio. Should something go wrong, Apple support isn’t going to do anything - they’ll instead refer you to Phobio.

That’s not exactly confidence inspiring, but I am happy to report I was successful in getting the money for my 15-inch MacBook Pro as promised.

For my circa-2017 27-inch iMac, I went with the company called Cash For Your Mac, after reading solid reviews about the San Diego company on the forums. Like most resellers, they will pay for the shipping, but because it’s a huge iMac, they don’t provide the box. If you need a box, Cash For Your Mac is happy to sell you a bespoke one for $50. I work in IT on a university campus, so lucky enough I was able to grab a spare original iMac box from work. Many rolls of bubble-wrap later, the machine got down to San Diego in two days, and another three days later I received the check in the mail. The transaction is as painless as it gets.

Now that I’ve consolidated my entire digital life onto this 16-inch MacBook Pro, up next is to pursue a solid backup strategy. After all, these mobile machines are relatively easy to lose compared to something stationary like a workstation. I would hate to lose absolutely everything in an instant.

2018 Audi A3 impressions

Recently my brother traded in his Volkswagen GTI for a 2018 Audi A3, and I got have a brief go in the new-to-him car. Here are some quick thoughts on the entry-level Audi machine, though I’ll caveat my opinions with the fact that my views are incredibly colored by the fact I drive a 911 GT3, the preeminent sports car, so the potential to misjudge a compact luxury sedan with some sporting intentions is quite high. Anyways, here goes.

The first immediate complaint is that the seating position is far too high. My brother’s A3 has the optional sports seat for the driver, and while its comfortable and supportive, it doesn’t go down nearly far enough - the stock seats of the front passenger can go lower, which is just baffling. I’m only 5’10” on a good day, and with the seating position adjusted properly, my hair is brushing the ceiling. I had more headroom in my old Mazda ND MX-5!

The A3’s 2.0-litre turbocharged four-cylinder, ubiquitous within the entire VW group portfolio, offers decent punch and adequate passing power; it makes the car a solid urban runabout with the occasional fun sprinkled in. I was able to zip in and out of traffic with ease. The motor obviously doesn’t make the most entertaining noise, emitting the same dull growl that all other turbo four-poppers make. Coming from the mighty atmospheric GT3, it’s indeed a bit of a let down, and so is the meager redline of barely 7,000 RPM. Gunning through the gears in the A3 for the first time, I almost didn’t upshift in time because I’m so used to having an engine that revs to 9K.

Main reason my brother switched from the GTI to the A3 is for the transmission: at a ripe old age of 21 years, he’s already tired of the manual transmission (someone take his car enthusiast card away, honestly) and wanted out into an automatic. The DSG dual-clutch unit in the A3 proves to be as advertised: the shifts are rapid, and its slow manners are super smooth (it even imitates the off-brake creep forward of a traditional automatic gearbox). It’s definitely engineered towards an economy bent, however: at anything less than full spirit throttle, the DSG will acquiesce to minimizing emissions such as letting the engine rev-hang before snicking over to the next gear, and upshifting to the highest gear as quickly as possible.

Armed with an all-wheel drive system, the A3 never lacks for grip, though the reactive Haldex differential is not an ideal situation. Again, it’s a luxury sedan with some sporting intentions, rather than a pure sports sedan, so the all-wheel drive system is designed towards efficiency, rather than maximizing lap times. Under normal situations ,the A3 feels like a front-wheel drive car because indeed only the front-axle is getting power. It’s not until under certain conditions does the computer activates the Haldex differential and sends power to the rear. I could feel this happening, too: punching the A3 off the line there’s a definite pause because the rear-axle hooks up.

None of this is to say the A3 is a bad car; I can even live with the slightly high seating position. One aspect I cannot excuse, however, is the utter lack of steering feel, a sort of achilles heel of Audi products, even on models as focused as the R8 supercar. The A3’s rack is responsive and direct enough as most modern electric assisted units are, but there’s really no feel at all. I have zero idea what the front tires are doing, and road imperfections gets utterly filtered out. I intentionally ran the car over some cat’s eyes and I couldn’t feel a thing in my hands.

Even though they are built on the same MQB chassis and shares the same engine, I reckon I’d take the GTI over the A3.

Avengers Endgame is a masterpiece

Spoilers, I guess?

Avengers Endgame is everything I ever wanted or needed. The absolute perfect culmination to this particular 22 film saga that makes up the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The fine folks at Marvel Studios deserve all the special Oscars for their singular achievement in turning a franchise of films into a super convincing facsimile of a television season. Endgame is the best season finale one could have wished for.

It’s the MCU’s Return of the King, and it deserves the same accolades and awards the final Lord of the Rings film received.

While you needn’t have watch the prior 21 MCU films to enjoy Endgame, would argue it’s not nearly as fulfilling. In electing to use time-travel as the mechanism to undo the damage done by Thanos in Infinity Wars, Endgame offers an endless amount hark backs to the earlier movies that are not mere fan-service, but integral plot-points. Throughout the lengthy 3-hour runtime (I survived the great bathroom avoidance experiment), audiences are delighted with surprise after surprise, and each hit wouldn’t have as great an impact if you didn’t see some of the films in the series.

And that’s why the MCU is indeed like the biggest television series ever made, in terms of scale and monetary expense (take that, Game of Thrones). Endgame does superbly well to provide closure to the many plot-lines that’s been simmering for the past decade. There’s heavy emotional weight to the entire proceedings because of the backlog of stories that preceded it, where otherwise in a vacuum, Endgame wouldn’t have made any sense at all. Everything felt precisely earned, and as an audience you cannot help but laugh, cheer, and cry during the moments because the satisfaction hits you right at the heart.

One example: not once in the over ten years of MCU has Captain America uttered the iconic phrase “Avengers, assemble”, so when he finally did so just before the climactic battle in Endgame, my emotions came rushing out just as the Avengers went charging towards Thanos’ army.

Is that the best moment of the film? Difficult to say right now; there’s so many to choose from, and I’ve still got to see Endgame many, many more times. Cap’ wielding Thor’s hammer, Iron Man’s ultimate sacrifice, Hawkeye and Black Widow on Vormir, Tony saying goodbye to his father, Professor Hulk; there’s brilliance littered over the entire movie, and I’ve only peeled off the first layer of the onion.

The Russo brothers have created a masterpiece in Avengers Endgame, a marvelous bookend to consolidate the interweaving MCU storylines into the most gratifying last chapter. It’s a resounding closure for all of us that have followed from the very first episode: 2008’s Iron Man.

On 10 months with the iPhone X

Today is Apple’s annual new iPhone announcement event, and mere hours from me typing these words right now, I will find out how spectacular of a phone I shall be getting really soon. Before all that happiness however I’d like to talk about the iPhone X, a phone I’ve thoroughly enjoyed for almost a year.

It’s an interesting reflection of human nature that we’ve grown accustomed to iPhone X’s eye-watering price. Starting at a hair under a thousand dollars - which itself is shocking enough, I of course simply had to get the SKU with additional storage (Apple, as ever, was clever to provide the “base” model with only 64 gigabytes), so the final suggested purchase price of my 256GB unit is $1,149.

It’s been said that smartphones are essentially computers that fit in our pockets; well, now they cost the same as one too. The price shock quickly wore off, though: nowadays when I see smartphones costing in $700 dollars range, I think of them as inexpensive. Hashtag crazy rich Asians.

I have to say the iPhone X is absolutely worth its significant purchase price. It’s easily the most transformative iPhone since iPhone 4. A return to glass on the back, along with the stainless-steel band, makes iPhone X feel tremendous to the hand. It’s solid and exquisite to the touch, so much so that I decided from the outset to not put a case on it. 10 months later and aside from a few nicks on the band from the two times I dropped it on solid ground, my iPhone X have held up excellently.

Operationally, the iPhone X, to quote the late Steve Jobs, is a screamer. Everything is incredibly fast and fluid, and it makes using lesser phones and tablets (my Microsoft Surface Pro 4) a frustrating experience. Why can’t all touch devices be this responsive? Lag is nonexistent, and apps closes and switches with nary a hiccup; I don’t think I’ve ever had to perform a hard-reset. The fact that I can edit 42 megapixel photos from my Sony A7R2 camera right on my iPhone X and it’s all super smooth is a testament to Apple’s ingenuity with its A series silicon.

Suffice it to say the camera on the iPhone X is sublime. I’ve said it before: we are ever close to having photos from smartphones be indistinguishable from those out of traditional DSLRs.

What about the new features? The transition from nine years of having a home button to Face ID feels incredibly natural. It’s amazing what Apple has done with the feature in its first generation (Touch ID was a logistical mess when it first debuted): Face ID simply works, and its miss-rate is no worse than the fingerprint sensor of previous phones. As for the edge-to-edge OLED screen and the much maligned “notch”, let’s just say there is a reason all the other Android phone manufacturers are copying it, and not doing a very good job either. What’s the point of the notch if you’ve still got a chin bezel at the bottom?

While I am excited about the next iteration of iPhone, I’d be completely okay if I were to keep my iPhone X for another year (I won’t be, just saying). It’s still superbly quick and chews through everything I throw at it, and the camera module is still amongst the class leaders. Apple have engineered the iPhone X so magnificently that aside from the obvious screen size increase I’m honestly stumped as to how they will improve the other parts.

We shall see in a few hours.

That time when I was the only passenger on the train and it wasn’t late at night.