Love is love - 10 things I think

10 THINGS I THINK

1. How serendipitous and fitting that the United States Supreme Court effectively legalized same-sex marriage across the nation the same week the annual Pride celebrations are happening. It must’ve have been a raucously good time this past weekend at the respective parties and parades. It’s very well deserved, too.

I think even the most optimistic of us would say that we’d never thought the day love ultimately prevails would come so soon, but damn was it such a moment. It was especially fun turning to Fox News after the ruling was handed down to watch conservative squirm and yell at the clouds in resounding defeat. Religious freedom? You’ve still got it, my fellow Americans. Gay people marrying aren’t going to all of the sudden corrupt whatever’s going on inside your Church. As for what you call “traditional marriage” and “core family”, please explain to me the national divorce rate.

2. Apple Music launched yesterday, and I’m in love with it thus far. I most enjoy the ability to cue up my own music library right on the phone (a function I use often in iTunes on the Mac), letting me interject the playlist with a new song without disturbing the rest of the list. I can also now see the once shuffled song list, and can rearrange the track order to my liking. Cuing up a set of songs for my weekly runs is going to be much easier and more enjoyable.

The brand new, 24-hours live BEATS1 radio station has supplanted my go-to Pandora station as the in-car music of choice. Apple is brilliant in bringing back the human element to Internet radio, something I did not realize I missed until I fired up BEATS1 yesterday evening. I can’t wait to try the Apple Music playlists that are designed by music experts from round the globe. Even the non-curated, algorithmic radio stations have been much better than the previously atrocious effort - I can listen without it turning into a total skip-fest.

3. The Greece debt crisis situation is putting an enormous damper to my international stock holdings. It’s continuously baffling to me how a country that makes up only 2% of the entire Euro Zone output can affect such disastrous consequences if its economy were to fail. Perhaps the UK was smart to keep its pound sterling and not integrate to the Euro currency, because the European Union’s singular monetary device is precisely the reason why the other nations feel impelled to prop up tiny little Greece time and time again.

On a related International fiscal tangent, the Chinese stock market isn’t look so good, either.

4. Donald Trump made some outrageous and highly erroneous comments regarding Mexican immigrants during his campaign announcement, yet it’s incredibly telling that not one single person from the field of GOP presidential candidate hopefuls came out to denounce his statements. Their silence on the matter might as well be the equivalent of a tacit endorsement, which is not exactly surprising given the recent anti-immigration history of the conservative party.

Good to see Univision and NBC Universal take stand against the ignorant Trump in disassociating themselves from the Miss USA pageant, even when its likely not in their greater financial interest to do so. Freedom of speech is only freedom consequence from the Government, Donald.

5. The final Top Gear episode, as known and renowned in its current formula, aired the past Sunday. It was a bittersweet moment indeed for me seeing for the very last time the trio of Clarkson, Hammond, and May on the television screen as Top Gear presenters. Of course, the three will undoubtedly move on to do another motoring show on another medium, but that happy thought doesn’t diminish the melancholy of the occasion at all.

I quite literally grew up on Top Gear. I’ve always had an affinity towards cars, but BBC’s famed motoring show taught me how to love them, and enjoy the automobile for the fun and freedom they represent. The program never fascinated itself too much with numbers and specifications; the endgame is precisely about driving, and how a car makes you feel when doing so. The show’s stunning and awe-inspiring cinematography was the perfect playground to showcase the world’s beautiful locales being made better by the roaring sounds of an automobile.  

This golden-era of Top Gear will be dearly missed.

6. When I do my running exercise on Sundays, I always head to Chipotle afterwards for the post-workout meal. This past weekend, I ran at an earlier time than usual, leading me to discover that Chipotle chains don’t open for business until 11AM. Unfortunate for me, I finished my exercise around 10 AM. First world problem for sure, but I didn’t particularly enjoy having to wait that hour for the local Chipotle to open up. I might need to find another spot to satiate myself after running.

7. Media coverage of the annual “Race to the Clouds” Pikes Peak International Hill Climb has got me extremely excited about my trip there in two weeks’ time. While I won’t have quite the same machinery as I make my very own drive up the famed mountain (a rental Nissan Versa, as it’s projected), I’ll be too busy taking in the spectacular scenery to care. I just hope the weather cooperates and the latter half of Pikes Peak wouldn’t be shut down due to snow, like it did for the hill climb. 

8. John Oliver is on the absolute point, as usual: 

9. The end of Justice Kennedy’s opinion on the same-sex marriage ruling is simply beautiful:

10. This: 

One last chance - 10 things I think

10 THINGS I THINK

1. I’m not the lease excited about the prospects of a third Spider-Man origin story within the last 15 years. I understand the franchise is starting afresh within the Marvel universe, but can’t they just skip all the getting bit by a spider business and get on with fleshing out new stories?

Sadly, people are no doubt still going to come out in droves to see the forthcoming Spider-Man movie, even if it means seeing Uncle Ben get murdered for the third time.

2. Bravo to the lovely and talented Taylor Swift in standing up to the great Apple empire. Her open letter to the Cupertino tech giant made Apple reverse course, and will now pay artists for streamed songs on their forthcoming Apple Music platform during the free three-month trial period.

Now if only she can get Apple to finally make a Macbook Air with a retina display (no, the MacBook is far from being that).

3. Dietrich Mateschitz is a sore loser. When Mercedes was struggling all those years, they had the integrity to keep their mouth shut, their heads down, and got on with the program. Red Bull F1 is hurting mightily right now; publically stating your discontent with the sport and throwing your engine supplier Renault under the biggest bus ever is not going to change a damn thing. What does it say about your brand/team when the top boss comes off as such a crybaby?

4. Pride Week is always a special time here in San Francisco. I wish plenty of happiness to those who are reveling in the annual celebration. I on the other hand will be trying my best to avoid the downtown gridlock that is bound to occur during this weekend.

5. I have no words for the church shooting that happened last week in Charleston, South Carolina. Jon Stewart’s soliloquy on The Daily Show the day after best captures how I feel: people in power aren’t going to do jack shit about this terror. Nothing's going change, and that’s the ultimate tragedy in my view.

6. A woman should not displace Alexander Hamilton the 10-dollar bill. Rather, a woman should go on the 20-dollar bill in place of Andrew Jackson. Isn’t it bad enough that Hamilton got killed in a duel at the hands of Aaron Burr?

7. More than a week later and I am still in massive disbelief that Final Fantasy VII is finally getting remade for the Playstation 4 system. If you thought the wait for the announcement was lengthy and excruciating, the wait for the game’s release will be unimaginably more so. But heck, another three to four years of wait is peanuts after the incessant begging for the remake for over a decade.

8. I recently setup my GoPro Hero 4 as a dash-cam in my car, using a GoPro-branded suction cup mount. While the main purpose of a dash-cam is to have a visual recording in the event of an accident (to prove innocence or otherwise), a side benefit is that I get to review footage of the myriad of crazy drivers I encounter on the road on a daily basis. I might even throw some footage on here if it’s egregiously terrible or hilariously funny, likely both at the same time.

Now I'm just waiting for that meteor, airplane, and or a crazy Russian.

9. If your song features Fetty Wap then said song is utterly ruined.

10. I always get tremendous amounts of grass-is-greener syndrome during the summer months, because the European continent has got all the cool and awesome automotive events. Back in may it was the 24 hours of Nurburgring, last week was Le Mans, and now coming up this weekend is the Goodwood Festival of Speed. I’ve had endless dreams about living in the EU, and traversing the its fine road networks to attend all these automotive events. The views are often spectacular as well, from what I gather.

Then again, being an automotive enthusiast in California isn’t so bad. We’ve got a few marquee events here as well, one of which is the Rolex Monterey Motorsport Reunion in mid-August, which I’m most anticipating making the trip out to Laguna Seca. 

Live for the night - 10 things I think

10 THINGS I THINK

1. I can’t believe I lived to see the Golden State Warriors win an NBA championship. I honestly never thought I’d see it in my lifetime. It’s a wonderful time to be alive as a fan of sports in the Bay Area, what with the San Francisco Giants’ dynastic run, and now, this. I feel most happy for the legions of diehard Warrior fans that have stuck with the team through many decades of misery; the 2015 title is for you folks. I know the exact feeling back in 2010 when the Giants won the World Series for the first time in over 50 years.

2. This is not a drill: Square Enix will be remaking the beloved Final Fantasy VII game for the Playstation 4 system! After over a decade of constant wanting, anticipation, and many disappointments, I cannot believe this is finally happening. Towards the end of the reveal trailer at the Sony E3 press conference, faint tears were streaming from my bewildered eyes. That fact that Tetsuya Nomura is spearheading the remake as director, alongside much of the original team, makes the announcement that much better.

Now the wait truly begins. The game is being outsourced to another studio so I’ve hope that it will be out in time to celebrate the original game’s 20th anniversary in 2017.

3. Sony also showed The Last Guardian, and Shenmue 3 at its E3 press conference. I honestly felt like a kid again while watching the proceedings. This has been an E3 for the ages, one that Sony will quite literally have to hand out free PS4 systems in future shows in order to match 2015 for pure awesomeness.

4. I think Jon Stewart might be ruing his decision to leave The Daily Show, what with the smorgasbord of characters who are running for the Republican presidential ticket. Donald Trump has thrown his hat in, for god’s sake! The jokes will write themselves.

That said, I’m quite excited to see what new host Trevor Noah can do. I reckon he’ll be brilliant.

5. I’d no idea the Jurassic World movie would be such a huge deal. Can’t believe it beat the second Avengers’ opening weekend box office numbers! I’ve been antagonistic towards movie studios rebooting the crap out of all the classic movies, but I guess nostalgia really does sell - to the tune of a 200 million domestic weekend.

As for me, I’m not watching Jurassic World in theatres. I much rather give my money to originators and creators of new ideas and stories, which is why I absolutely adore Christopher Nolan.

6. John Oliver will have to regurgitate that Bud Light Lime he drank of Sepp Blatter does rescind on his resignation as FIFA president. I personally wouldn’t be surprised if old Sepp pulls off the switcheroo: a sizable contingent of federation countries is still in full support of him.

7. Congratulations to Porsche for winning first overall at this year’s 24 Hours of Le Mans. Beating Audi in LMP1 at that historic venue is no easy task, as Toyota and Peugeot can attest to. Guess I’ll have to wait a bit longer still for the first Japanese manufacturer since Mazda to win the legendary endurance race (the pace of the Nissan LMP1 effort was utterly disappointing.) Hope it happens when I’m actually there to witness the whole spectacle.

8. It seems Cristiano Ronaldo only scores for his country Portugal when it’s a non-World Cup type match. He is otherwise downright useless during the quadrennial world tournament.

9. I’m madly in love with coffee, but I seldom - if ever - drink it because its innate acidity doesn’t jive well with the linings of my stomach. Recently though, I found out the cold-brew method of making coffee, which lowers the acidity level by two-thirds. Suffice it to say, I was excited about the prospects of drinking coffee regularly again. Unfortunately, it just wasn’t meant to be: even cold-brewed coffee proves too acidic for my innards. Shame, I’ll just have to continue to drink tea.

10. I take great joy in seeing Pablo Sandoval struggling in Boston, while the Giants’ Matt Duffy continues to thrive at third base. Karma is real indeed. 

Sandy bottom of Puget Sound - 10 things I think

10 THINGS I THINK

1. There remains nothing quite like the joy and adventure of traveling. A few weeks back I made the impulse action of making a trip up Highway 5 towards Seattle, and I have to say I’m very glad I listened to my inner spontaneity. It’s a huge world out there after all, and we owe it to ourselves to see as much of it as we can, while we still can.

Seattle is an immensely lovely city, and in fact it’s quite similar to San Francisco. However, up in the Pacific North West, the pace of it all is much more relaxed compared to the hustle and grind of my own 7x7 city. I felt right at home in Seattle, and actually prefer the slower lifestyle of the Emerald City. It forces you to take your moments and enjoy everything that’s around you, which isn’t so terrible at all when the scenery in Seattle is so incredible.

I don’t suppose I’ll make it back up there anytime soon, as there are other places I haven’t yet seen. That said, some day way into the future, I would love to retire somewhere within the Pacific North West region, if not Seattle itself.  

2. Not in my lifetime did I think the great FIFA empire would be struck down by outside forces. It’s an open secret that FIFA is one of the most corrupt organizations in the world, but nobody does anything about it because one, the game itself is still brilliant, and second, no one’s got the power. Enter the United States of America.

For a country whose populace couldn’t care less about football (we idiotically call it soccer), who would have thought it would be the American government that finally did the unthinkable. Granted, it had nothing to do with football and everything about taxes. America will bludgeon you to the depths of Guantanamo if you don’t pay or evade your taxes, no matter how large or evil your organization is.

Sepp Blatter is no longer the president of FIFA. I can’t believe I just typed that sentence.

Suffice it to say, the United States will not be getting the opportunity to host another World Cup every again. Further more, every tournament henceforth will see us grouped into the proverbial group-of-death. It’s all in good sport, really.

3. Much congratulations to the Golden State Warriors for ascending to the NBA Finals. It’s incredible to see the team meet and exceed the expectations of greatness that everyone has put on them. Now it’s time for them to finish the job, and I have no reasons to doubt the Warriors wouldn’t defeat LeBron’s Cavaliers, especially with no Kevin Love and a hobbled Kyrie Irving. The Dubs in six, I’d wager.

I can’t wait for the Thursday evening to arrive for the start of game one. The Bay Area has waited far too long for this.

4. I’ve found that I dislike driving people to the airport, because inevitably there will come a moment where melancholy will set in. The sadness stems from the fact I myself isn’t the one whose traveling somewhere. The pangs of wanderlust, and tinges of jealously towards the person leaving, are very strong indeed. Call me selfish, but hey, my friends can simply call an Uber to get to the airport. It’s a more desirable alternative than me holding a grudge towards you the entire time because you’re heading off to some other place without me.

5. Lewis Hamilton should not have pitted under the safety-car; end of discussion. Mercedes must’ve have momentarily forgotten just what track they were on. It’s bloody Monaco! Track position is absolutely critical in the streets of the principality. A car could be many seconds faster than the one in front and still wouldn’t make any impressions of an overtake maneuver. Jarno Trulli won the only Grand Prix in his career by holding up the field in the 2004 Monaco race (giving birth to the ever popular Trulli Train moniker).

The thought of pitting Lewis’ car at that stage of the race should have never entered the minds of Mercedes race engineers. Have they forgotten that Nico Rosberg himself won the 2013 race while being slower than the cars behind him? Lewis should go ballistic if at season’s end he were to lose the championship to Nico by fewer than 10 points. Team Mercedes royally screwed him over in Monte Carlo.

6. Reviews of the new 2016 Mazda Miata in American specification have come out this week, and it’s a massive mistake that I’ve read them all. In the famous of words of Spongebob, I NEED IT. The car is everything that’s right about driving purity, where the only number that matter on the spec-sheet is how lightweight it is. Sure, compare to my current car it’s the polar opposite in terms of practicality, but the again, I don’t much like driving people and carrying round lots of stuff anyways.

Not since my WRX STI have I wanted a car so badly (realistically speaking, of course), though I think my wallet will have the final say. Unfortunately, in the specification I’d prefer, the ND Miata would cost around $32K - the same price I paid for the STI a bit over two years ago. It means I’d have to put a considerable sum on top of the STI in order to procure the car, and to be honest, I’d much rather spend that money towards traveling.

Someday.

7. A group is banding together to sue Harvard University for instituting quota caps on Asian student enrollment, and I think it’s about damn time. In the application process, all students should be judge on merit, without any biases towards the color of their skin. So what if doing so would render the top universities predominantly White and Asian? That’s simply the reality of the education system. I’d be supremely indignant if I didn’t get accepted and someone with a lower metric got in simply because they weren’t Asian.

And you’re naïve if you think this type of discrimination only happens at Harvard. Heck, my own high school unofficially had the same policies. It needs to end.

8. I think 12 hours is just about the longest duration I can drive in one day. Being in a car for that long definitely does weird things to you mentally, even if physically you can still do more mileage (proper seat adjustment is very important.)

That said, a good car, lovely tunes, and the open road is an absolutely sublime combination. It’s why I take a long road trip at least once every year since I’ve started working (ergo earning money to do so.)

9. It pains me greatly to see Emma Stone, one of my favorite actresses, play a quarter-Asian (she’s fully white) in the massively whitewashed Aloha movie. As others have pointed out, how are they going to have a film set in Hawaii but then go on with cast that’s entirely white? Half of the population on the island is Asian! That fact the producers failed miserably to cast a mixed Asian actress (Chloe Bennet, anyone?) to play the quarter-Asian female lead is practically criminal.

10. I think I really should get a move on and finish playing through Grand Theft Auto Five…