And so were you - 10 things I think

10 THINGS I THINK

1. I’m supremely happy that Agent Carter is renewed for a second season. Television is still severely lacking in strong, female character-driven programs, so a show saved is very good news indeed. I reckon an eight episode run in between the two half seasons of Agents of SHIELD - as the first season of Agent Carter did - will be just fine.

2. After only 20K miles on the STI, it was time for some brand new tires. When you’ve got extreme performance summer rubber, my god do they wear out quickly. However, it was the perfect opportunity for me to finally sample a set of the sublime Michelin Pilot Super Sport tire. After only a few days of daily driving on them, I’m already infatuated with them. There’s just so much grip on offer, and as a bonus, rides better and quieter than the stock Dunlops as well.

3. I think the penalty Tom Brady and the Patriots got is quite harsh. Sure, he technically cheated, and deserved to be punished, but a four game suspension? A million dollar fine and a first-round pick docked for the team? The league absolutely put down the proverbial hammer, and it simply isn’t fair in my opinion. I highly doubt a slightly deflated ball has significantly affected the outcome of any Patriots game.  

4. Baffling as to why anybody on this side of the pond would give an ounce of care on the outcome of the United Kingdom general elections. It doesn’t affect any of us over here! On that same tangent, who gives a crap about a newborn royal baby? Haven’t you people got better things to worry about?  

5. I’m giddy as a schoolgirl over the announcement that the third Avengers movie will be shot entirely in IMAX, a format which I am a huge fan of. I’d gladly pay the extra bit of money to watch a movie shot in 70mm film: the previous five Christopher Nolan pictures, for example.

Obviously, it’s incredibly fortunate that there’s an IMAX theatre right here in San Francisco.

6. You really take for granted having a reliable car that doesn’t cost a ton of money to operate. I’ve got a student coworker who can’t yet afford such luxury, and the used car he’s bought has been giving him constant headaches (and attacks on the wallet). The constant barrage of a few hundred dollars here and there really takes a toll, especially for someone who can’t exactly afford it.

It’s definitely a privilege that I can drop $900 on a new set of tires and not bat an eye. Humbling, is what it is.

7. This recent celebration of “Dad Bod” in the media is an affront and sexist towards females. Let’s call Dad Bod exactly what it is: FAT. Why are women held to a skinny ideal while men get a pass?

8. This is a perfect example of why you shouldn’t blindly follow an ideology/political party: http://gawker.com/man-who-would-rather-go-blind-than-get-obamacare-now-go-1704019495

9. The two-hour Agents of SHIELD finale was fantastic. It was funny to see that even Coulson wasn’t immune to the Phase 2 traditional of having someone’s hand chopped off (an homage to Star Wars Episode 5). With SHIELD reunited under one roof, and Hydra largely eliminated (save Grant Ward and a few scraps), it’ll be interesting to see what sort of big bad enemy the writers will serve up for season three. I can’t wait.

10. I really hope the departed Top Gear trio of Clarkson, Hammond, and May ends up doing a show with Netflix. Not simply because it would be awesome to binge watch a season instead of waiting a week between shows, but the lack of adverts on Netflix allows the three absolute creative freedom, just as they’ve had at government-backed BBC. The ability to criticize and dress-down a particularly awful vehicle, without the fear of backlash from the respective manufacturer, is something I greatly admired about Top Gear, and in my opinion, absolutely integral to whatever new show the trio decides to do. 

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? 

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.