Case of the Mondays

Mondays.

Nobody likes them, correct? Given a gun to my head I’d for sure tell you I don’t much like Mondays either. That creeping feeling of despair you start to feel by Sunday evening; the work week is straight ahead, and that slight piece of weekend bliss will soon be done and gone. We’ve all experience it.

I’m beginning to think that if I’m heading into the week dreading Monday like the plague, I’ve already lost. 

What does the dread and thoughts that go along with it accomplish? Nothing supportive that’s for sure. It sure doesn’t make me want to go to sleep at a proper time. When that alarm clock announces its presence on Monday morning, it doesn’t make me want to escape those cozy sheets with haste. When I’m in the car driving towards work, the dread doesn’t make me look forward to the work-week with good vibes - rather I’m already impatiently counting down the minutes towards end of day Friday.   

How productive is that? 

What if I am actually happy and excited about Mondays? What if the notion of the work-week brings me the same joy and anticipation as the prospects of an entertainment-filled weekend? Wouldn’t I have a better disposition at work and whatever output be enhanced? You don’t have to particularly like you job, but since societal framework predicates that adults ought to have gainful employment, the job is a static reality: how you feel about it is on you alone. So instead of choosing dread, a negative reaction, why not view it in a positive light, even if you have to Jedi mind-trick yourself to achieve it. 

These days, I quite like Mondays. On Sunday evenings I anticipate with a sense of duty, and Monday mornings I jump out of bed ready to handle it all. Some weekends are more difficult that others, but overall this mental practice/exercise have helped my general psyche towards the work-week tremendously.  

Disney launching it's own streaming service

Disney has announced that it will soon pull its library of films off Netflix and will start it’s own streaming service, ostensibly with a monthly free just like every other provider out there. 

It never occurred to me until I read the news, but it’s kind of amazing that Disney, the media juggernaut with vast amount of IPs from its own production house, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, and ESPN, doesn’t yet have its own online streaming platform. I've no doubts whatsoever the service Disney plans to put out would be a tremendous success. Wouldn’t you sign up if the only place to stream Pixar or MCU movies was on Disney’s own online property? ESPN’s entire 30 for 30 documentary collection?

Here’s the problem: it’s starting to get to be too many streaming platforms, compounded by the fact they all respectively have in-house original content. Therefore if you’re a TV and movie buff and want to stream a great majority of it, you’re looking at a potential monthly outlay similar to having a cable subscription, at which point isn’t the endgame of ‘cutting the cord’ completely lost? 

Of course, some tech-bro in the Bay Area will create an app that aggregates all the services together and sell it in an omnibus package priced from $70-$100. It’ll be christened as innovation while the Twitter hoard will lambast it for being a logically circular facsimile of the age old cable tv package. It’ll be like that whole ride-sharing app ‘bus’ episode a few months back all over again. 

As the online streaming fracture continues on, those of us without the financial means to subscribe to say more than two services at a time, the selecting process will be met with more scrutiny. With that I predict comes the battle for exclusives: ‘only on Neflix’ or ‘only on Hulu’ slogan in adverts will be a common thing. Console gaming has been like that for years: I’ve got a Playstation and not an XBOX because I value playing Gran Turismo, which is a Sony exclusive. 

It’ll be interesting to see how Neflix plans to fill that gaping void Disney will vacate in its library. 

GT: Sport photo mode

If there’s one party-piece of the forthcoming Gran Turismo Sport I’m most excited about, it’s definitely the photo mode. For sure I’m also massively looking forward to driving on the new tracks and sampling the new cars - reminds me I’ve got to purchase a new steering wheel device - but for a semi-serious photographic hobbyist like me, the 1,000 photo ‘Scapes’ available looks absolutely delicious. It combines the three things I love: photography, automobile, and travel, for the mere price of the game itself. 

I never got into the photo mode in previous iterations of GT due to the pathetic and appalling “camera” output of 1080p. For someone whose starter camera had 12 megapixels - commence snickering from older folks that started earlier than I on digital - the 2.1 megapixels of 1080p is insufficient. Not to say one wasn’t able to get incredible shots in GT5 or GT6 - there’s definitely some killer gems out there - but I guess I’m more of a stats-whore than I want to believe. 

GT Sport with the power of the PS4 should change things tremendously. There will not be enough hours in the day come October.  

Hamilton Musical

It’s been over two years since me and a bunch of closest friends discussed the cultural phenomenon of the Hamilton musical, and how if it ever does a tour here in San Francisco, we would just about do anything within legal parameters to attend. 

Hamilton started it’s four months stay at the Orpheum Theatre in March.

It’s last show day was yesterday.

We were there at the penultimate show, fulfilling a dream. 

For sure we were heading in with just insane amounts of anticipation and expectation due to the overwhelming success of the Broadway show and how we’ve suffered through four months of people on our social media feeds bragging about the wonderful performance. To say the least, we were not disappointed, but rather utterly amazed, and deeply hypnotized. Hamilton is a masterpiece of performing art, and to see it live is an absolute privilege and joy. 

Akin to listening to my favorite hip hop songs, I was glued to the bars and wordplay putting history lesson into mesmeric prose, accompanied by a live orchestra to tingle the spine. This is one musical you cannot go see a recording of in a movie theatre as substitute; I’d dare say that would be an insult to the art-form. Hamilton is so incredibly moving, and so alive.  

Lin-Manuel you crazy genius. 

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Getting back to gaming

I think I shall get back into a bit of gaming.

Gaming used be a huge thing for me; I’ve owned every iteration of the Playstation, and to the detriment of my parents’ wallet, built multiple gaming PCs. Gaming for me was a combination of obviously pure fun (that hand-eye coordination training!) and more importantly, escapism. Games were the greatest escape from reality possible for the kid. My family was decidedly lower-middle class so the housing situation wasn’t great; The Sims series allowed me to dream and build the abode I lusted after and model the life, however virtual, I selfishly craved. 

Another example: I love cars, and the wait for aging to a certain maturity with the privileges of attaining a driver license was absolutely agonizing. Games like Gran Turismo gave me to opportunity to “drive” way before I ever could in real life. I remember fondly purchasing a Logitech Driving Force Pro steering wheel, constructing a stand for it out of Home Depot lumber, and pushing my task chair in front to from a driving simulation cockpit. I cannot tell you the sheer amount of virtual laps I did on the Nurburgring in GT4. 

As I’ve “adult-ed” my way through my 20s I’ve lost touch with gaming because ironically now that I’ve got the means financially, I prefer more tangible entertainment and activities. Perhaps I didn’t need the escapism any longer? Whatever the case, I endeavor to rediscover the joy of gaming, probably not to the point of engrossment with indiscriminate amount of hours as I did in the pass, but just enough to satiate the fun meter every now and then. 

Hello, copy of Final Fantasy 15, it’s finally time to tear off your plastic cover. 

Korean TV shows on Youtube in the early 2000's

I reflect on the time back in the late naughts and watching Korean televisions shows on Youtube. Unlike today’s treasure trove of shows available - many from the producers themselves and already subtitled - back then one literally had to wait many weeks for a skunkworks subbing team to put in english subtitles and upload before consumption. Those crackpot subbing teams, usually consisting of strangers - bilingual of course - having met online but with a common passion for a particular Korea show, are the true MVPs of my early foray into watching Korean language programming, and on a macro level spreading the joy of Korean variety shows to an English-speaking audience. 

Heavens know none of them will read this, but belated and heart-felt shoutout to the Ramen Soup Subs group for the painstaking work in putting English to the Korean on a show called Family Outing. 

Back then, you could nary find any of the Kpop music shows on Youtube, and the ones that were available were generously and illegally uploaded by intrepid folks over in Korea possessing their equivalent of a TIVO recorder. These days, the television channels themselves have official presence on Youtube, and music shows like KBS Music Bank are uploaded within hours of official airing. Such sweet nectar was so beyond comprehension to international Kpop fans that started in the later 2000s. You kids these days truly have it spoiled. 

These days there aren’t so much subbing teams dedicated to a specific show but rather whole entire websites dedicated to putting subtitles to Korean television shows. There’s so many more avenues to get your content if you’re starting today. Obviously, these organizations thrive because of advertising revenue, while in sharp contrast, the subbing teams of years past was pure and unfiltered altruism. The waiting for subtitles may be painful, but I could definitely feel and see the love.

Stoicism

I’ve recently being reading about Stoicism, and one of the particular tenets that struck me deeply was the maxim of, and I’m paraphrasing here, “it’s already broken.” As in, think of your material possessions as if they are already broken and imperfect. That way, when those items do inevitably decay and get damaged, you wound’t be so fraught over it as people, me definitely included, tend to do. 

The tendency to overprotect and maintain perfection was especially acute back when I bought my Subaru Impreza WRX STI. I treated that thing better than myself: the front-end got an insanely expensive paint-protection film done, and the entire car got a permanent coat of synthetic wax (also not cheap). Every new nick and chip was scrutinized and agonized over, while fresh bird-droppings on the paint were dealt with swiftly to the point of obsession. A tiny scratch suddenly appears? Better break out that scrubbing compound!

In hindsight, such pursuit of perfection never bought me joy or comfort; if anything I was in a constant state of paranoia, And this extends to things beyond simply the car - think of all the money spent on protection-covers and sleeves that were purchased for my precious consumer electronic devices (though I’ll never understand why people put glass covers on their smartphone that already comes with scratch-proof glass).

 I’ve let the proverbial things to own me, instead of the other way around. For sure it’s been a constant struggle to change that paradigm, but slowly I think I endeavor to rid myself of obsessive over keeping things perfect (though not necessarily to the point of neglect). Imaging items as already broken makes an excellent affirmation.