10 THINGS I THINK
1. It’s going to take all my self-control powers (and there isn’t much to begin with) to not trade in the STI for the forthcoming Mazda MX-5 Miata Club. A lightweight roadster with just enough power (atmospheric, of course), mechanical limited-slip-differential, Brembo brakes, and forged BBS wheels: the recipe for pure driving fun. The amount of want for that car is immensely palpable. Someone please stop me from pouring all the positive equity in the STI down the drain.
2. I’m supremely happy that Duke men’s basketball has won the national championship. I know rooting for Duke is akin to rooting for the Yankees or the Dodgers, but they’ve been my favorite team ever since I started watching college basketball more than a decade ago. Every year I pick them to win the tournament in my brackets, even though I know the likelihood of that happening is next to zero. Duke does have a knack of winning it all once in every decade, so as a fan I can absolutely live with that. Granted, I sure hope this championship won’t be the last in the 2010s.
3. Baseball is back, and the Giants are already in trouble (haha!) Before the first pitch is even thrown the team lost two starters in the rotation, with no timetable for their return. Hunter Pence is still recovering from his spring training injury, so he’ll be watching from the dugout for the first few weeks. It’s going to be tough sledding for the team at the start of the season, with big question marks in the rotation for anybody not named Madison Bumgarner.
I couldn’t care less, really, whether or not the Giants are competitive this year. After winning three championships in the previous five years, I’m more than fulfilled and satisfied as a long-time fan of the team. This year I’m simply going to enjoy the baseball for what it is: a good time no matter what. I will draw zero negativity from the Giants, even if they lose every night in the most stupid of fashions.
4. The ending tribute to Paul Walker at the end of Furious 7 was so incredibly, brilliantly well done. If I were a person capable of crying in movies, I would have (lady sat next to me had full-on waterworks.) For sure that final sequence will be replayed on my computer many, many times once the film is out on home media.
RIP once again to Paul Walker. A good guy, a car guy; he was one of us, and gone far too soon.
5. Food product manufacturers: please stop trying to infuse Sriracha into every bloody piece of food you can find. If I wanted a Sriracha-flavored doughnut, I’d put actual Sriracha sauce on a doughnut (that actually sounds quite disgusting) Leave the flavor as what it originally is: hot sauce.
6. The blatant murder of Walter Scott by a cop in South Carolina is absolutely sickening. Scott’s family and the American public cannot accept anything less than a first-degree murder conviction - it’d be an epic failure of justice otherwise.
It’s horrifying to think the aftermath of the shooting would’ve transpired completely differently (and the murdering cop likely off the hook) had someone not caught the heinous act on video.
7. You know that phenomenon where you think you don’t need something until you’ve got it, and that once you’ve got it, you don’t know how you ever did live without out it? Well, like a smartphone or Bluetooth in a car, my recently purchased Macbook Air has been a joy to use. Browsing the web while lounging on the couch is such an experience, especially for the massively lazy person like me. Needing a lightweight laptop when you’ve already got a desktop computer is for sure a first-world problem.
8. I’ve found a new favorite font! In place of the previous champion Helvetica, I’ve moved my typeface preference to Helvetica Neue Light (big difference, I know.) It’s the same gorgeous Helvetica, just much more minimalist and elegant.
In fact, this humble blog have just converted from vanilla Helvetica to the evolved version. Looks awesome, doesn’t it?
9. Apple finally rolled out the much-anticipated (by me) Photos app alongside the new Yosemite 10.10.3 update. Finally, I can save my entire photo collection permanently (hopefully, anyways) into the cloud. I’ve been meaning to collate and organize my photos for the longest time (compared to my immaculately maintained music collection, the state of disarray is downright tragic), and now with the transition to the Photos app in OS X, I finally got the impetus to do it. Best of all, I can access to all of it from anywhere on the planet right on my iPhone.
10. All the congratulations in the world to my good friend Charlene for passing her board exam, and is now a certified family nurse practitioner. All my friends are smarter/better than I am, and that’s absolutely awesome.