Blog

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

Superb thoughts on Super Bowl

Man, that was an anti-climatic end to the Super Bowl, wasn't it? (Am I going to get fined for using the word “Super Bowl”?) An iffy holding penalty against the Philadelphia Eagles basically sealed the game for the Kansas City Chiefs. As a fan of the game, that is not how you want a match to end. The Chiefs was more than likely to score the go-ahead field goal there. What we were robbed of is a chance to see the Eagles try to fight back to tie under desperation minutes. From an objective standpoint, however, the holding call was correct, much like going 70 MPH in a 65 MPH zone is still speeding.

I was rooting for the Chiefs, and happy they won. I remain sour that the Eagles beat our hometown San Francisco 49ers in the NFC Championship game. That game was practically sealed the moment Brock Purdy of the 49ers injured his elbow in the early first quarter. After that, the 49ers had no viable quarterback. It just wasn’t a proper matchup, and we never got to see the full potential of two juggernauts of the conference go at it.

Is Patrick Mahomes the greatest quarterback of all time? He’s certainly on his way there. He’s already got two Super Bowl championships and he’s still only 27 years old. Mahomes beat the Eagles on one good ankle, after suffering a high ankle sprain only three weeks ago. At one point during the game before halftime, Mahomes was tackled down and it appear to have aggravated the injury. But he came back out in the second half and led the Chiefs to scores on every possession. It’s a legendary and gutsy performance.

I’m glad the greatest quarterback of this generation plays in the AFC and not the NFC. The road to the Super Bowl for the 49ers never has to go through Mahomes and Arrowhead stadium.

Just don't crash

On a recent episode of The Smoking Tire podcast, esteemed cay guy Doug Demuro chronicles the frustrating experience of getting a door replaced on his Land Rover Defender. Apparently - due to the great supply chain shortage - there aren’t any spare body parts available for people to fix their crashed Defenders. Any and all supply are being used for new Defender production. This, for a car that’s four model years old. This isn’t a case where a particular model is so new, the manufacturer have yet to produce any spare parts.

So what are Defender owners doing when they get into an accident, waiting months for body parts that may never arrive? Doug says the dealerships are actually buying back those cars. That’s right! Because Land Rover cannot (or will not) supply spare parts, they will instead buy your crashed Defender. Perhaps hoping you’d immediately get another fresh one off the showroom floor. That is freaking insane to me. Imagine being a Defender owner, with the specter of potentially losing your car should you get into a fender-bender hanging over you.

That must be the same kind of nervous energy that owner of classic cars have. At least the Defender guys can get another copy pretty easily. That one-of-kind classic car? All the money in the world may not be able to find another exact copy, should you be unlucky to crash yours.

It doesn’t even have to be super expensive, either. I read about some guy with a Toyota Celica with the factory TRD Action Package. He got into an accident that damaged the package. Guess what? You absolutely cannot buy another set from Toyota - the company doesn’t make spares of that anymore. The only resort is to scour the junkyards for another Celica with an undamaged body kit. Easier said that done, however, because so few Celica had the TRD kit to begin with.

Get into a minor accident - lose your car. That’s a heavy burden for any car enthusiast!

No recession?

You know things have truly reverted back to the pre-pandemic times when Zoom - the one technology that hard-carried us all through the pandemic - has also announced layoffs. It seems everybody is preparing for a recession that just can’t seem to arrive. The January jobs report was surprisingly strong, and the unemployment rate is at its lowest in 50 years. Doesn’t seem like we’re heading into a recession, does it?

I see layoffs in the tech sector as a mere reversion back to the pre-pandemic status quo. These companies hired massively for a reality and eventually that no longer exists. Zoom in particular tripled its headcount during the pandemic. Now that universities like the one I work at will soon return to completely in-person learning, the demand will taper off dramatically. In general, inflation and interest rates are high, therefore the appetite for spending is muted.

Even if most people are gainfully employed.

Still, it sucks tremendously to be laid off. And it doesn’t seem like the tech companies are firing only the people they’ve newly hired for the pandemic. That cohort is cheap compared to the folks who’ve been there for decades. When it comes time to trim the excess, there’s zero obligation to cut based on seniority. I directly know of a friend who got laid off from SalesForce, and she’s been there way before the pandemic years.

That’s what happens when the job is not unionized. I am glad my workplace is. If and when the cut hammer ever strikes again, at least I will have a buffer of 10 years of service credit to insulate me. No guarantees, of course. Which is why like everybody else, I am also personally preparing for a recession that may not arrive.

What? Oh nooooo

As someone who’ve stopping working from home since the beginning of 2022, it is fun to see people complain about coming back to the office full time. Mind you I work in education, on a campus where teaching happens in-person. Therefore it’s only appropriate for the support staff to be there as well. Because the university just spent a lot of money on a new arts building, and is currently constructing a new science wing. So damn it, there had better be people using these new facilities!

A coworker of mine is a steward for the union. He’s been fielding complaints from people being asked to work in-person the full five days a week. Of course, those complaints go nowhere, because whether or not you get to work-from-home is up to your supervising manager. Nothing in our contract stipulates mandatory remote working days. California’s COVID emergency is expiring this month, the Federal one in May. Things are going back to the way it were on campus before the pandemic, folks!

The obvious pain point of coming to campus is the commute. Traveling from San Jose into San Francisco five days a week - like a coworker of mine does - is just brutal. I shall never take for granted my living proximity to campus, and the ability to simply walk the 10 minutes to work. But those are personal choices, right? The employer have zero duty to acquiesce and account for how far you live from the workplace. Again, a university isn’t that sort of job anyways.

Back in January, our supervisor informed the team we will be working on campus the entire work week. I replied with gleeful nonchalance that I’ve been doing so for well over a year now. The low-key griping from some is schadenfreude-ic music to my ears.

What's a smog check?

Recently, a friend asked me about the process of getting her car smogged. I sheepishly replied that I never owned a car long enough (and old enough) to require that service. In California, smog requirements only apply to cars older than six years from new. Then it’s a biennial requirement. The longest I’ve owned a new car is three. Even the one used car I bought - the dearly departed Porsche 911 GT3 - had one more year to go before needing smog check when I tearfully sold it.

Needlessly to say, cars is where all my disposable income goes. Utterly disposed.

The friend booked an appointment at the gas station down the block from where I live. Good to know such service is available within walking distance (even though I’d have to drive the car there to get it smogged). I’m currently on year three of BMW M2 ownership, so it would be another four years yet before that car has to be smog checked. Will I own it for that long? I certainly hope so, but I said the same thing about the GT3…

2023 is not the year to be extravagant with spending, right? Look at the numerous tech companies laying off workers in preparation for recession that can’t seem to arrive. The unemployment rate - 3.4% - is at its lowest level since May of 1969. It seems people are employed, but just not spending as much. Look at Dell announcing layoffs today, because people are not buying as many computers.

So I’ll be keeping the M2 through at least this year. Previously plan of adding another car to the stable has been put on hold. Sorry, San Francisco: you won’t be seeing a chunk of sales tax from me. Maybe you should cut back on throwing enormous money at the endless homeless problem.

HomePod still not for me

So Apple have reintroduced the full-size HomePod. At $299, the second-generation HomePod does the same thing the first one did, but now the cable detaches from the unit! There’s also a temperature and humidity sensor, so the thing can tell you (and keep track of) the current room temperature. I’m not sure that’s enough new to make it the sales success that the first-generation HomePod definitely was not.

A HomePod mini at $99 does everything the bigger one does. Price is the pain point, not sound quality. Most people who are perfect fine with streaming MP3 over a bluetooth connection wouldn’t care that the HomePod sounds absolutely amazing. $299 for a smart speaker is absolutely outrageous. The niche that the HomePod appeals to is very small. Who the heck have $600 to drop on two of them for a stereo pair? I’m told that’s the fullest HomePod experience you can buy.

It’s for that reason I bought a HomePod mini. Which I’ve since sold. The dealbreaker is these HomePods cannot accept a bluetooth connection. Sending sound to one uses Apple’s AirPlay technology. The problem for me isn’t that you absolutely need an Apple device - Mac or iOS - to use a HomePod. The problem is the AirPlay connection has to be renewed every single time. I wanted the HomePod mini to stay connected to my MacBook Pro constantly.

Unfortunately, that is not possible. Every time I started up the laptop, I have to toggle the sound output back to AirPlay - thereby waking the HomePod up. Having to do that day after day compounds it into a great annoyance. The new HomePod sadly still cannot accept a constant bluetooth connection. Shame, because all the intelligent room-mapping audio stuff is really neat.

So long, so slow

Boy, that was a long January. At least it was to me. Yesterday a coworker remarked that January went by in a flash, and I had to politely disagree with him. What was 31 days felt like 60 days. I mean, shouldn’t we prefer that our days go slowly? The whole life is short thing, right? What we don’t want is the sensation that time moved by in a flash. The that felt like it was only yesterday. I guess I’m doing something right: I didn’t speed-run through January.

I got an email yesterday from Amazon notifying me that in 2022, I’ve earn over $300 in cash-back from my Chase Amazon rewards credit card (the card earns a whopping 5% on purchases if you are an Amazon Prime member). That amount easily offsets the annual $139 premium for Prime membership. In fact, $300 would cover the membership fee for this year as well. It’s spending neutral, so to speak, for me to keep Amazon Prime.

My friend did some quick math, and figured out that $300 in 5% of rewards equals to about $6,000 of spending last year. Since I’m notorious for buying lots of books, the friend quipped, “How much are these books that you buy?” Honestly, I was a bit surprised at the $6,000 figure. Granted, about $2,500 of that was spent towards an LG OLED TV and a set of speakers. The rest of the $3,500 is simply the spending of daily life. The books, the supplements, the health products, etc. Since I do get 5% cash-back in return, I try to do as much shopping with Amazon as possible.

Shoutout to the delivery guys and gals.

I certainly don’t plan to buy a TV this year or anything too spendy. I’m at the stage of life where it’s all about buying high-quality things and using them for a very long time. For example, this Herman Miller Aeron chair I’m currently sitting on, I’ve had since my college days. I endeavor to have this sort of longevity with the things I own now, and the stuff I buy moving forwards.