Blog

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

I'm only one person

In the fabulous TV series Hawkeye, Florence Pugh’s character Yelena had a funny interaction with Hailee Steinfeld’s character Kate. In Kate’s apartment, Yelena cooked some mac and cheese for the both of them. She went to look for spoons for the both of them but only found one. Yelena then asked Kate why she’s only got one singular spoon, to which the response was, “I’m only one person!”

I felt that innately! I’ve been renting by myself for over a year now, and I too only have one spoon. I don’t even have a fork, preferring to use chopsticks. Due to the coronavirus, I hardly entertain guests. There isn’t even another chair in my studio apartment. Any visitors would have to sit on the floor (a very clean floor, mind you). It’s just as well because it’s rather tiny for more than one person. Besides, most of my friends know my landlord/friend/housemate as well, so when they come visit, we just hang out upstairs.

It is interesting some of the quirks of living alone in your own space. Like having only one set of utensils. I also drink straight out of liter bottles of drinks, because honestly who else is drinking it but me? I pay top dollar for the expensive toilet paper and the most organic of eggs. Unlike a family of four, it takes me a long time to go through one giant Costco package of Charmin Ultra Softs. The extra few dollars over the Kirkland brand is insignificant.

As I always say to my friends, “Come on, guys, we make money now!”

I’m definitely going to lose lots of money to this place.

I got a new TV!

Late last week I wrote that I was finally able to purchase a PlayStation 5. On that Sunday, I picked up the notoriously scarce gaming console at my local Best Buy. Was I a bit self conscious carrying the PS5 to the car? You bet! With the rampant retail crime going on in the Bay Area, some thugs could have rolled up in a Honda Accord sedan and rip the PS5 from my hands in a flash. In hindsight I probably shouldn’t have parked at the lot on the roof. By myself.

Thank providence I made it home with the console unscathed. But now there’s another problem: I don’t have a television to plug the PS5 into. It’s been more than a year since I’ve moved to this new spot, and yet a TV still hasn’t materialized. I’ve always planned to buy one, but it’s definitely been on the back-burner, seeing as I don’t really watch that much TV. Other things I used more often were worth spending the money on, like a new MacBook Pro.

Because if I’m getting a TV, it’s got to be a good one. None of the poverty-spec models that costs in the hundreds. So it’s going to be spendy. The best in the business right now is the OLED televisions from LG. Dubbed the best TV for the PlayStation 5 by RTINGS.com, the LG C1 OLED is the one to purchase. 65-inch is the size I bought; could have gone bigger but alas I’m not made of money, despite appearances.

I’d thought about returning to Best Buy to buy the TV, but the 5% back at Amazon with my Chase Amazon card is too irresistible. What’s another few days of wait? Besides, I didn’t have to bug a friend with a large enough vehicle to transport the thing. It was white-glove delivery by a third-party contractor from Amazon. I know this because afterwards, Amazon emailed me a customer satisfaction survey regarding the delivery. I gave the team high marks as I’m sure their pay would be docked otherwise.

Needless to say I am loving the LG OLED TV. The picture quality is expectedly amazing. I’m happy to see the display has a glass cover, which enhances contrast and it’s easier to clean. Cheaper units would have been polycarbonate. Indeed the LG wasn’t cheap, but much like my Pro Display XDR, I’m looking to keep this for a very long time.

Be generous

Back in my high school days, the Initial D anime series was all the rage amongst us car enthusiasts. Drifting - the act of deliberately power-sliding a car - was fast becoming the rage, even for those us of an age who can only dream of driving. Youtube wasn’t yet a thing then; media distribution was still largely on physical media. That’s precisely how I watched Initial D, popping in a disc one episode after another. Kids have it so much easier nowadays.

One particular day after school, an older friend of a classmate was visiting from another school. Sadly, I’ve completely forgotten his name. It was probably Henry. Like me, he was also enthusiastic about cars, so we naturally got to talking about various automotive-relate topics. Initial D and drifting came up, and Henry mentioned he has a DVD called Drift Bible. The premise is simple: the drift king of Japan - Keiichi Tsuchiya - teaches you how to drift.

Seeing as Henry and I (I’m pretty sure that’s not his name) have only met a few times, I was totally undeserving of the kindness that was about to happen. He offered to drive me to his house, give me the Drift Bible DVD to borrow, then drive me home. As someone who lives an hour bus ride from my high school, the generosity of a lift home was overwhelming enough (no such thing as an UBER back then, kids). Lending a DVD to practically a stranger? That is above and beyond.

I’m writing all this because I feel tremendously guilty: I still have that DVD! I’m looking at it right now as I’m typing these words out. The jerk that I am never returned the borrowed item. An olive branch utterly cut off, a possible long friendship over cars completely disregarded. I can only say thank you to Henry for his massive generosity. If he’s somehow reading this, you can find me via the contact links at the bottom right.

And I know, your name is not Henry.

Here we go again

The omicron variant of COVID 19 is contagious as heck!

I am confined to working from home until the end of this week. In fact, our entire department has paused in-person service on campus for the same duration. On a similar vein, classes at San Francisco State is going completely remote for the first three weeks of the Spring semester. It seems like we’re going backwards in terms of progress, but it’s the correct decision given the amount of infections and close-contacts.

Both my housemates tested positive last week, which is why I am staying home this week. San Francisco Department of Public Health guidelines state that if you’re vaccinated (in any capacity) and you’ve come in close-contact with a COVID infected person - but you have zero symptoms, you actually don’t have to quarantine! Wear a proper mask and you can go about your business as normal. I guess we’re playing it more cautiously when my supervisor told me to go home last Thursday.

I would have been perfectly okay with continuing work on campus.

Anyways, I’m getting a PCR test later this morning. Thankfully it’s the saliva method and not the one where they stick a thing way up your nose. My friends who’ve had the latter said it was not a pleasant experience in the slightest. Fingers crossed it returns negative.

It’s another weird start to yet another year. 2020 we were looking at bad news from Asia and Italy, and doing nothing ourselves to prepare for the eventuality. 2021 we were rejoicing at the availability of the vaccines, (falsely) thinking we were going back to normal fairly soon. 2022 looks like it’s pseudo lockdown part two, electric boogaloo.

A rare sight: a clean first-generation Ford Focus!

How the turntables

I was writing yesterday about how difficult it still is to buy a new-generation gaming console. The PS5 and the XBOX Series X is out of stock everywhere, and the periodic drops the retail stores do are infrequent enough to miss unless your’e super lucky. I even wrote at the end that I reckon my gaming days are over!

Well, I was super lucky shortly after that. Just as I was done with breakfast, I saw on my twitter feed a post by The Verge saying the PlayStation 5 is in stock at Best Buy online. Without getting my hopes up, it was a worth a shot, so I got in on the virtual line. Meanwhile, I created a Best Buy account as that was a prerequisite for purchasing. The stars must be aligning, because soon as I was done with account creation, it was a my turn to finalize a purchase.

I’ll be picking up a PS5 this Sunday at my local Best Buy store. What a surprising turn of events!

Sadly I won’t be actually playing on the PS5 anytime soon. I will need to buy a TV as well. The most suitable unit would be the 42-inch LG C2 OLED that was just announced this week at CES. That is scheduled for release in the Spring, so I’ve got a bit of waiting to do. It’s been a relatively long time since I actually had a gaming console, so what’s another few months of waiting? No need to compromise on the TV I want simply due to impatience.

Besides, there isn’t yet a truly next-gen game out that I’m desperate to play. Gran Turismo 7 isn’t out until March. If anything, I will probably be playing PlayStation 4 titles that received quality updates for the PS5. Final Fantasy 7 Remake is one such game.

Anyways, I guess if you shout at the universe enough, sometimes it will give you what you want.

Really? Come on, man

It really grinds my gears to see guides like this: the best PS5 accessories for 2022! As if we are able to simply walk into any Best Buy and Target today and buy one these gaming consoles. A solid year since both the PlayStation 5 and the XBOX Series X have launched, and supplies are still heavily constrained. Unless your’e willing to pay extortion prices on eBay (I’m not), to snag a unit you practically have to keep an eye on supply drops everywhere. Miss them by minutes and stock will be gone again.

On a similar vein, yesterday Nvidia announced the latest top-tier gaming graphics card: the RTX 3090 Ti. Meanwhile, plebs like us still can’t buy a regular RTX 3080 for MSRP. Supplies are so low that practically every place that sells it is charging double. Why doesn’t Nvidia concentrate on making more 3080 cards instead of releasing yet another new card?

I understand why there is a shortage, but it doesn’t make it less frustrating.

However, I really don’t need a gaming console. I hardly have time to game in between my other hobbies and happenings. A PlayStation 5 would just sit and collect dust like my PlayStation 4 did. I currently don’t even have a television to plug a console into. My Pro Display XDR famously only have one input (thunderbolt 3) with no physical controls. A PS5 will work, but there’s no way to control screen brightness or turn on HDR. The $5,000 Apple display truly is the most niche of products. But I do love mine!

I honestly think my days of gaming are over, at least for the foreseeable future.

Pro Display blemish

A week ago just after Christmas, I noticed a tiny dark splotch at the bottom center of my Pro Display XDR. No matter what is being displayed, the screen blemish is constant. Probably a malfunctioning LED, one out of the 576 in the backlight array. I’ve had the monitor for about six weeks before I even caught this defect, likely one of those things where you don’t see it, but once you do, you can never unsee it.

I likely would have let it go if the display had cost $500. But since the Pro Display XDR famously starts at $5,000, the screen had better be as close to perfect as possible! The panel has a one year warranty, so off to the Apple store I went. Carrying a display worth that much from the mall parking lot to the store was rather stressful. The box indicated exactly what’s inside, ripe for enterprising robbers to have an easy payday.

My local Apple store did not even have the requisite power and data cables (nor the $1,000 Pro Stand to prop up the monitor) on hand to test at the Genius Bar. All they could do is check for exterior damage, then intake the display for further testing. I figured once the tech verify the splotch, Apple would simply ship an entire replacement unit. The Pro Display XDR doesn’t look to be a product that can be serviced readily. Take off the front glass to repair a single LED? No way.

A replacement display is exactly what Apple sent to the store some five days later. Quite a quick turnaround, given the globe chip shortage still ongoing. The staff there was curiously surprised Apple didn’t send parts instead, though I’m not sure I would want a display that’s been fettled with internally by a store-level tech. No offense: not for a $5,000 monitor.

After suffering another stressful journey from the Apple store to the parking lot, carrying an effectively brand-new Pro Display XDR, I’m happy to report the replacement screen is as clean as can be. Hopefully I won’t have to do this again.