Blog

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

Not too much to ask

Today is one of those days where I don’t have one concrete topic to write about, so here comes a string of thoughts until I’ve achieved the appropriate length for one these blog posts.

My 2017 era iMac is middle of the line in specs with extra memory installed, yet somehow it’s struggling to run Adobe Lightroom smoothly. There’s a noticeable pause between toggling a setting and having it reflected on the image I’m working on. My 2019 era 15-inch Macbook Pro does not have this lag, which is baffling because there can’t possibly be this much advancement in processing power in the span of two years. The blame is squarely on Adobe for putting out a product that can’t run smoothly on a two-year old high-end computer.

Then again, Lightroom was never known for its smoothness and efficiency. Sadly, I can’t move away from Adobe to something like Capture One because my entire catalog since the very beginning of my photographic journey is in Lightroom. Having to migrate and learn a new system is more bothersome than whatever deficiency Lightroom has running on “old” machinery. So I simply deal with it; I could move all my editing work to the newerMacbook Pro, but the 27-inch screen real-estate of the iMac is difficult to give up.

Indeed this is a first world problem, but it’s a problem nonetheless. I get the sentiment of detaching from our issues and taking a different perspective when people remind us that our problems are of the first world variety; it’s a good exercise to remain humble and see that maybe the significance of an issue isn’t what we had initially assigned. However, it’s wrong when people use the “first world problem” refrain as a dismissal of what others are dealing with, as if taking another perspective would magically make the problem go away. That’s not how it works.

Perhaps my particular example of griping about the speed of Adobe apps is hilariously trivial even for first world standards, but let’s see you try editing through hundreds of photos while dealing with the lag. Those seconds of waiting for the interface to respond can add up really quickly. Professional photographs aren’t upgrading their computers every year, so I think the onus is on Adobe to make sure Lightroom doesn’t run slowly on PCs and Macs alike that aren’t of latest iteration in hardware.

I’m not holding my breath.

The waiting game is hard

Continuing with the story from yesterday, I had to order a small part to fix up the Porsche. Problem is, the particular piece of plastic is a special order item, which in combination with the Presidents Day holiday yesterday means I will have to wait a relatively long time the part to arrive at my doorstep (and hopefully not stolen). The extended wait is long and agonizing because I want nothing more than to repair the 911 as quickly as possible, however cosmetic and superficial the damage may be (thank god for that).

For better and worse, that’s just how my mind functions: any task worth doing, I’d like to get it done swiftly. I can remember back in my teens of forgoing meals and sleep on numerous occasions because the home-built PC was malfunctioning and I simply could not mentally bare doing anything else until the fix is finished. No surprised then I moved away from PCs later on in life and migrated over to Apple’s Macintosh. With Apple, at least I can go to sleep, knowing there’s nothing I can do about my broken Mac until my appointment at the Apple Store.

Not to say the waiting game isn’t anxiety-filled: the mind starts going through worse-case scenarios when the outcome of a job is unknown. It’s why I try to speed up the process as much as I can, to silence those voices in my head (Randy Orton theme song plays). Indeed, I could have paid for expedited shipping for the Porsche part, but the need to alleviate my anxiety was outmatched by my spending sensibilities. Instead, I’ll deal with the ambiguity that comes with the wait, difficult as it sometimes can be.

So I preoccupy myself with other tasks, which probably isn’t the best thing to do because the underlying problem is still there, but at some point you have to keep moving forward. Unlike Amazon Prime one-day shipping, life doesn’t acquiesce to your just-in-time wants quite so easily. Processes takes time; and even though I crave the calm that comes after a task is done, there will be others to come, and the anxiety renews again. I have to learn to be calm while things are in-flux, which as always, is a work in progress.

Life comes at you fast

San Francisco has been experiencing some heavy wind conditions lately, and an unfortunate victim to the numerous debris being blown around is my brother. A few rocks that my mother have been collecting over the years flew off the balcony ledge due to the strong winds, and a particular one landed on my brother’s parked car, right on the trailing edge of the trunk lid. Obviously, as a fellow car enthusiast who is deeply passionate about cars, this incident pained my brother a lot, having to deal with a fresh imperfection that’s through no fault of his.

As someone who has a few years on my brother, and used to be just as obsessive compulsive about keeping his car as perfect as possible, I cautioned him that stuff like this is just the nature of the beast, and it happens to everybody. The only way to keep a car absolutely pristine is to parked it indoors under climate-control and never drive it. Our brand of car enthusiasm is actually driving and using our cars, so we simply have to take the lumps as they come. Damage can be fixed, and worse comes to worse, entire cars can be replaced. Merely objects, after all.

Of course, it’s easy to preach calm and stoicism when it isn’t you who is suffering the anguish, and as life would have it, I quickly got my own dose of minor car damage to deal with. I was out driving the 911 as usual this past weekend, and on an especially narrow mountain road, I dipped the right-front wheel off the tarmac while trying to avoid an oncoming car that wasn’t keen on keeping lane discipline - it was either that or crash. With the GT3 being super low to the ground, the lack of suspension travel meant the car briefly bottom-out on the section immediately next to the wheel. The scrape of plastic and metallic was the stuff of car enthusiast nightmares.

Luckily, the damage to the 911 is only a small road-rash to the underside of the front pan, and one broken bumper retainer, which costs $50 dollars to replace (For a simple piece of plastic! The Porsche-tax is real). The damage to my psyche however was a constant battle between dwelling on the mistake and taking the same advice I gave to my brother. Old OCD habits die really difficultly, and I had to keep reminding myself that one, shit like this happens when you put miles on the car, and two, the damage is superficial and completely out of sight once the broken retainer is replaced.

The moment you think you’ve matured enough to handle things properly that used to bother you mentally, life will throw you a test to find out for sure. As I always say, with anything in relations to mental health, it’s a work in progress.

I don’t always drink Coca Cola, but when I do, it’s got to be Mexican Coke.

Safety recall on the 911

A few days ago, I received a safety recall notice mailer from Porsche Cars North America. My initial reaction was one of mild annoyance, because my favored dealership is some 40 miles away, and having to take my 911 there out of schedule would be a pain in the butt. That’s right, I was more concerned about logistics, rather than what the recall was about. Because I knew that whatever it was, I would not be out of pocket for any costs, and honestly I had some curiosity on exactly what Porsche - the vaunted German automaker - can actually screw up on.

Turns out, it was much to do with nothing: the safety recall was about insufficient documentation in the owner’s manual, particularly the section pertaining to the child safety restraint system - think car seats for kids. Inside the same envelope was the remedy/fix: a new supplement to the manual, printed on solid paper stock, with the freshly printed smell you’d expect. I’m sure to Porsche all of this is but a drop in the bucket cost-wise, but from my decidedly plebeian perspective, spending hundreds of thousands just to print and send out a supplement seems a bit excessive.

Especially considering, and I’m confident in saying this, no GT car owner has ever used the child restraint system in their specialized 911. These are thoroughbred sports cars of the highest order, not a vehicle to ferry the babies around (that would be a Porsche Macan, naturally). Not to say we shouldn’t: I would wholeheartedly salute the GT 911 owner who actually uses a child car-seat regularly. People who uses their cars rather than letting them sit in a heated garage are the true heroes of car enthusiasm, like this guy who takes his GT 911 to the snow.

Now that I think about it, when it’s time for me to have progeny and god-willing I still have my GT3, I’d totally put a child-seat in the front passenger space to shuttle the baby around. It’s never too early to get a kid started on the path to passion for Porsche and cars in general.

Second car and ride-sharing

Periodically, I surf on the Craigslist classifieds to look for a cheap car to buy. Mind you I don’t exactly need another car: I already have a sports car for the weekends, and I commute to work using public transportation. I guess I’m merely looking for a challenge: buy a cheap used car to drive and fix it up along the way as needed. It’s certainly far cheaper than buying a brand new car, and the repair skills I would learn along the way can totally justify the few thousand dollars spent.

But that’s only for the price of the car and future repairs; it’s easy to forget that there’s other costing components to car ownership, such as gas and insurance. When I include those things into the total equation, I cannot square with the comparative low cost of taking the bus to work, which buying a second car would replace as the commute method. I’m lucky to live in a city where public transportation is decent, and on the rare occasions when the next train isn’t due to arrive for more than a half hour - fairly common for late evening hours - the convenience of calling an UBER of LYFT is hard to beat.

Because parking is also a great pain in San Francisco, and buying another car would add that headache as well.

The occasional 20 bucks to get me home via ride-sharing is way less expensive than the fixed cost of owning a car, even one bought on Craigslist for a thousand dollars. UBER and LYFT have so infiltrated our regular everyday function that sometimes I wonder if both companies have reached the mythical “too big to fail” status. Indeed, neither UBER nor LYFT have ever made an annual profit in their existence, but the ride-sharing has become so ubiquitous that people’s livelihoods are wholly dependent on it, be it a driver that needs the income, or a car-less person who needs it to get to work.

A lot of people would be really hurt if UBER and LYFT were to collapse and go away - as money-losing companies are typically wont to do. I guess it’s that prevailing force of preservation that is somehow keeping both companies in business, even though there’s not a cent of profit made. Ride-sharing has become a subsidized method of transportation for the public good, and it’s not far-fetched to imagine one day the government stepping in to provide that subsidy.

I mean, it sure is nice to be able to quickly get home from anywhere, at any hour of the day, without needing my own personal car.

I almost bought an Apple Watch

Awhile back, the leather strap on my Hamilton watch finally broke off after years of use. To get that “officially” fixed, I was to send the watch to the Swatch Group’s service center. Weirdly, the website doesn’t list prices, but from what I can sleuth on the Internet, it’s about $300 dollars to recondition the watch. That price makes the situation slightly odd because that’s about how much I paid for the watch brand new, which means I can also do so again - buy another one new and save the hassle of shipping the old one in.

The nostalgia factor took over, however, and I decided it’s worth keeping my Hamilton watch going for as long as possible. I emailed the Swatch service center for instructions but then I never heard back! I guess they didn’t want to make money off me, and I sort of treat it as a sign that I should let my Khaki Field go to permanent rest.

It definitely feels weird to have an empty wrist after years of watch-wearing, so lately I’ve been hankering to (finally) buy the Apple Watch. I’m so entrenched into the Apple ecosystem that getting yet another device from Cupertino seems like the next logical step. Back when I still had a functioning Hamilton watch, it seemed irresponsible to splurge for the Apple Watch, but now that I’m free from those clutches, I’ve been eyeing the device on the Apple Store app frequently.

What the Apple Watch would be most beneficial to me - on top of telling me what time it is - is the heart-rate monitor. I’ve written before about my anxiety issues, and a clear sign when I’m having a case of it is an elevated heart-rate. Being able to set alerts on the watch to let me know when such an event is occurring would be fantastic, and on that reason alone I think I can justify the high cost. The Series 5 Apple Watch starts at $399, which is not cheap for a thing that is bound to be obsolete in a few years.

This past weekend I was desperately close to pulling the trigger, because there were discounts on the Apple Watch at all the major retailers (all except for Apple official, obviously). What stopped me from doing the deed? I remembered the yearly registration fee for the 911 GT3 is due soon, and being that the car originally stickered for ~$145,000, even five years on the fee would be quite hefty. I can’t justify spending over $400 on the Apple Watch when I have that looming over my head so soon.

Indeed, I got the renewal letter from the DMV just yesterday! For the privilege to operate the 911 on the road for another year in the eyes of California, I have to pay just over a thousand dollars. Honestly, that is still a shocking figure, even though I was wholly prepared for it. That’s one of the many consequences of buying such an expensive sports car, though ultimately I’m willing to pay the price.

But good thing I didn’t buy the Apple Watch!

Authentically Asian

Director Bong Joon-Ho’s “Parasite” becomes the first foreign language film ever to win Best Picture at the Academy Awards.

That is a heavy and well-overdue achievement, and the overwhelming joy from the Koreans on my twitter feed last night was especially heartwarming. Their feelings must have been what it was like for Chinese people when Ang Lee won his director Oscar for “Brokeback Mountain”. Lee absolutely paved the way for Bong’s eventual triumph, with the seemingly archaic Academy willing to give the ultimate recognition to a film that’s entirely in Korean, and produced entirely in South Korea. Honestly, I was prepared for disappointment throughout the ceremony, but when Jane Fonda read the word “Parasite”, the elation was rather emotional.

It’s been a banner year for Korean entertainment on the world stage, what with the great success of BTS, and now Parasite wining the top movie award on the planet. Even though I’m Chinese, I feel prideful for the achievement of people that look like me; for better or worse, the West treats us Asian faces as one homogenous blob (who amongst us hasn’t been falsely called one of the many Asian nationalities?), so the success of one group has a positive correlation to the other. Even though our cultures are varied and experiences different, within the bubble of American and European culture we are seen as one giant group.

Therefore, a win for Parasite is a win for other Asians in the film industry.

A belated shoutout to the team behind “The Farewell”; Awkwafina winning best actress at the Golden Globes was super amazing, and it’s a shame the film didn’t get one ounce of recognition - not so much as a nomination - at the Oscars.

I think Parasite winning Best Picture is the final signal to Asians all over the globe, but especially in Western countries, that we no longer have to contort and distort our true culture to succeed or receive recognition in the West. We can be completely ourselves - unapologetically unfiltered, and still get to where we want to be. If anything, it’s catering to what we think the West wants that has gotten us continually stuck. Authenticity is the best currency, even if it isn’t in English.

We’re only getting started.