Blog

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

Epik High is here

Last evening I went to my first concert since the summer of 2019. South Korean hip-hop band Epik High was playing at the Fox Theatre in downtown Oakland. Suffice it to say it’s been a really long time since I’ve experienced live music in person. We were scheduled to attend the BTS tour at Levi’s Stadium back in May of 2020, but sadly we’re all too familiar with what happened to the world that spring. What’s still going on, no matter how lax the COVID restrictions are now comparatively.

Summer of 2019 we saw South Korean pop girl group Twice at The Forum in Inglewood. Kpop was huge back then but not nearly as big as it is now (thanks, BTS). Tickets to the 2019 Twice show were still a relatively easy get. The group’s 2022 North American tour? We didn’t even try. I’m quite happy to have seen Twice in concert before Kpop’s explosion in popularity on this side of the globe.

Being a somewhat indie hip-hop act, tickets to Epik High weren’t too difficult to get. In fact you could’ve bought tickets right at the show, should you be the type of person who lives life so spontaneously. The Fox Theatre seems to be the perfect size venue of the group. We sat up top at the mezzanine level with assigned seating, because we are too bloody damn old to be humping and bumping with the crowd down on the first-come-first-serve floor. Though I totally would for an artist I truly admire, like IU.

I have to say that acoustically, the Fox Theatre is a mix bag. The setup seems to be more suited for the EDM type of music. Songs with lyrics you have to make out will struggle to find the necessary clarity at the venue. It’s loud for loudness sake, which is kind of disappointing, honestly.

Of course, Epik High didn’t disappoint. DJ Tukutz, Mithra Jin, and Tablo sang many of their hits and quite a few songs from their latest album. I had a great time, though I think my ears will need a few days to recover from not having such intensity of decibels in a long time.

Baseball is back!

The 2022 Major League Baseball season has begun in earnest this past weekend. It’s just nice to tune into a Giants game on the television during a lazy weekend afternoon. The YouTube TV package includes the local NBC Sports channel that carries the Giants broadcast, so I am setup for the whole season. No more diving into the depths of Reddit to find that one sketchy streaming channel. Completely illegal, obviously. What’s the statute of limitations on that sort of stuff again?

I also get my Formula One broadcast in legit fashion now. YouTube TV carries the entire ESPN family of channels, home to F1 in America. The NBC family of channels carry English Premier League, so I’m truly made in terms of sports I like to have on in the background while I do something else. Sports that I use to have to access via the aforementioned Reddit.

At $65 dollars a month, YouTube TV is expensively priced like a cable subscription. I would never pay for that by my lonesome - otherwise what’s the point of “cutting the cord”? Thanks to family sharing, we are able to split that cost four ways. $16 dollars per month is far more palatable, and an absolute bargain for how much channels are included (70+). Of course, a de-facto prerequisite is having unlimited home internet. The typical 1 terabyte per month data caps simply won’t cut it: one hour of 4K streaming uses about 20 gigabytes. 50 hours of 4K and you’re already at the limit.

So after a historic 107-win regular season last year, what are my expectations of for the 2022 Giants? I predict a team of feisty dogs that grind out games. This is not a team of marquee names and big-time contracts. But the sum of all the parts will be highly competitive game in and game out. Well worth having on the TV in the background!

It’s the most, wonderful time, of the year.

Not going home

The news out of Shanghai is good. According to this twitter thread, the mega city has been on lockdown for two weeks now, and the situation is getting dire. Not enough food are being delivered to residents, and people are getting frustrated. There’s many things the Chinese can tolerate, but hunger is not one of them due to deep-seated historical trauma. China’s COVID zero policy will for sure fail if the government can’t feed the populace.

From the outside looking in, COVID zero seems to be an impossible goal anyways. The procedures in place are ultra draconian. The Chinese need an official smartphone app to go anywhere. A green stamp on the app means you’re free to move. A red means you must quarantine or face prison time. Mandatory testing can happen at anytime and at any hour. Should you be unlucky to be in a mall where someone else tests positive, you will get locked inside that mall until you yourself tests negative.

This is the same country that only a few months ago hosted the winter games!

My relatives in Guangzhou are also preparing for lockdowns that can happen at anytime. Seeing the situation in Shanghai, they are stocking up on non-perishable foods as much as possible. Again, just a few months ago they were gathering at a restaurant to celebrate Lunar New Year! It’s crazy how things can simply turn on a dime, all because the Chinese government will not tolerate even one case of COVID.

So long as COVID zero remains in effect, I don’t see how I can return home to China to see my relatives anytime soon. No doubt I will be forced to download an app that tracks my every movement. There will probably be quarantine requirements and multiple tests as well. There’s also the risk of being locked down and stuck in the country. Not worth the hassle at all.

It’s been almost two and a half years since I last traveled to China. Looks like it will be a whole while longer still until I can again.

The cold is back

Tuesday morning I woke up with a strong head cold. Obviously, the first thing that came to mind is: oh my god, it’s COVID! However, I didn’t immediately do a rapid test because I felt bad enough that I emailed in sick to work. No point in wasting a test just yet if I weren’t feeling well to even leave the house. Besides, it was a only a head cold, nothing more.

On Wednesday I woke up feeling immensely better. I would put it as about 80 percent of normal. Much of the head congestion is gone, no doubt thanks to the heavy hydration routine the day before. I certainly felt good enough to go to work. But first things first: a rapid COVID test. No way I would go to campus with a positive result.

It was actually my first time doing a antigen test of the nasal swabbing type. The procedure is simple enough: swab each nose canal five full turns, then dip the swab onto a solution. The solution gets poured onto a result pad - not unlike a pregnancy test. 15 minutes after that you’ll know the result, provided you’ve done the steps correctly.

I luckily tested negative. It was indeed just a severe head cold. I guess as we head into the waning days of the pandemic that’s turning endemic, we are once again experiencing common respiratory ailments. Say what you want about mask wearing and hygiene theater, but they’ve really saved our butts from the cold and flu. As we relax those preventative measures, it’s only natural those ailments make a triumphant return.

It was kind of nice to stay home for the day, honestly.

Stereo sound again

The one thing that’s been missing from my home office setup is a good set of stereo speakers. For the past year I’ve been relying on a HomePod Mini to provide the tunes from my laptop. It does an adequate job, though not without its quirks. The main one being the HomePod does not broadcast stereo sound - it’s just one round speaker, after all. Indeed I could buy a second Mini to make it a traditional stereo pair, but at that point I much rather get a proper set of speakers.

Because the others quirks of the HomePod makes it not so easy to use. The only way to connect to it is via AirPlay, Apple’s proprietary software to beam audio and visual between devices. It’s great when it works, but the consistency is surprisingly poor for an Apple product. Often times I have to reset my MacBook Pro’s sound to send the signal to the HomePod, even though I’ve changed nothing since last use. Sometimes it flat-out refuses to reconnect with the laptop after using the HomePod with my iPhone. Last but not the least annoying: there’s a considerable lag between pressing play and the sound coming out of the HomePod.

I’ve always wanted a pair of large bookshelf speakers for my setup. They look awesome in a retro way, and they can output great volume throughout the spectrum without the need for a secondary subwoofer. I rent my place so I wouldn’t want house-shaking bass anyways. My eyes were set on the well-reviewed Audioengine A5+ for the longest time. However, a chance encounter with the Kanto YU6 page on Amazon - a direct competitor to the A5+ - saw an open-box item for a lot less than MSRP.

So here I am sat on my desk with a pair of the YU6 speakers flanking my Pro Display XDR. They look particularly snazzy too, in the matte white finish. They sound great to my ears, though I’m admittedly not an audiophile of any sort. I’m just happy to have stereo sound again on my desktop.

Toyota GR Corolla!

Ever since the spectacular Toyota GR Yaris debut to the rest of the world except for the North American market, I’ve been badgering Toyota USA’s twitter account constantly to bring that road-legal rally machine to our shores. Not once did the intern in charge of that account ever got back to me. I understand why it’s not sold in America: the base Yaris model isn’t available in the States either, so it doesn’t make financial sense for Toyota to homologate the GR version just for the enthusiasts.

The company probably sells more RAV4 sports utility vehicles in a month than the GR Yaris will ever.

That said, my prayers were suitably answered last week when Toyota announced the GR Corolla for North America. Essentially the GR Yaris with two more doors, the GR Corolla features the same 1.6-litre turbocharged inline-three engine and a super trick all-wheel drive system. Even the sweet performance package is available, providing limited-slip differentials for both the front and rear. Best of all: the only transmission on offer is a six-speed manual. Plus a physical handbrake. Because donuts.

I have not been this excited about a new car in a very long time. If the GR Corolla rings in at around Honda Civic Type R money (high $30,000s), then I’m totally plucking down cash for one. For sure there will be plenty of dealer markups, but I can patiently wait until one is available at MSRP. After all, I still have my M2 Competition. The intention is to keep the BMW - the GR Corolla will be a second car. Not sure how that’s going to work for someone who walks to work, but let’s cross that bridge when I get there.

For now, I’m so happy the GR Corolla is going to be a thing.

Car repair is expensive!

Recently my father got into a minor fender bender in this leased Toyota Corolla. As he was driving along on the right-most lane of a multi-lane road, a car to the right merged onto the roadway without checking the blindspot. A severely mangled front-end was the result, though thankfully the car was still able to drive straight. No injuries to the persons, which is ultimately what you want any time you’re unlucky to be in a car crash.

As modern cars get more and more expensive (average transaction price is well over $40,000 in the United States), it seems so have the cost to repair them. My father’s Corolla sustained damage to the bumper, headlamps, bits of the front fenders, and radiator core support. Rather minor in the grand scheme of things (no frame or suspension damage), but those items alone amounted to some $14,000 in cost from the body shop. That’s more than half the price of the car brand new!

A portion of that cost is the relatively expensive radar cruise sensor up front. Not only a new part is needed, but the car also has to be sent to a Toyota dealer to recalibrate the entire system. Hooray complexity, all in the service of ease and comfort whilst driving.

And because we’re still in the midst of global supply chain shortage of many things, it took a solid month from start to finish to fix the Corolla - for a minor fender-bender! We’re lucky because my father was able to get a rental car, so the extended repair length was not that bothersome. I’d imagine others aren’t so fortunate. That’s the true hassle of getting into an accident: dealing with the lack of a car or finding a temporary replacement while your own car is getting fixed. And also taking time from work to deal with the body shop, most of which are typically not open on weekends.

We’re just glad it’s over with now.