Stop if you've seen this before

So for the fourth straight year, it's the Golden State Warriors versus the Cleveland Cavaliers in the NBA Finals for all the marbles. 

How did we (fans of the Warriors) get so lucky? I can still remember the decade plus of futility that hung over the franchise from the late 90s to the early aughts, where a mere non-losing record would be considered a great season. 

Now, four consecutive trips to the Finals with the chance for a third championship. Ridiculous,. We'd do well to treasure every moment of this because success like this is once in a generation. There's way to many variables in sports to win on simply having the the better team on specs (see 2016 Finals). 

Likewise I'll always cherish the the three SF Giants championships earlier this decade, because It's likely we will never see such a run ever again. 

You have to admire the might of LeBron James, age 33, singlehandedly powering this ragtag Cavaliers team of paperclips and bandaids out of the Eastern Conference. He is the undisputed  best player of this generation, and with regards to the never-ending comparison to MJ... I'll take LeBron's physical body with MJ's mental instincts. 

Even if such a player were to exist and you substitute LeBron with him, there's still zero chance Cleveland will beat the Golden State. In less than a fortnight's time the basketball world will be crowning its newest dynasty. 

Red cafe. 

Do I really need a car?

Is there a thing super low-key bothering you? Is it taking up head-space causing subconscious anxiety, stress, and otherwise in the negative?

It shall do you well to get rid of said thing, even if you have to alter your lifestyle to fit such an arrangement. Having that gnawing feeling taking rent at the recesses of your brain isn't healthy, and you won't realize this until you've done the deed. 

I realized it when I decided to sell my car. What was once my ultimate expression of freedom and joy, vehicle ownership have turned into a something quite unpleasant. 

For someone who have loved cars since I was cognizant of what they were, it's super weird to say that I'm going car-less for the foreseeable future. Public transport and various ride-sharing apps will get me around San Francisco satisfyingly beyond an adequate facsimile. 

How did car ownership sour on me? Ironically (and perhaps not coincidentally) a large part of it is San Francisco. With an extra 200,000 people crammed into this seven square-miles city within the last decade, and many more making the commute from the Bay Area, driving is not an advantage. Our traffic hell is notoriously ridiculed by outsiders, and the lack of parking is so dire that I've known people to have parked some ways from home and had to bus the final part. 

It's practically Manhattan around here. 

I simply don't drive enough to justify the hassle of dealing with all that. On weekends I'm an absolute homebody so the car only gets used for commuting. In the nearly three years I've own the MX-5, it's barely got 17,000 miles on it. 

Commuting in San Francisco is devoid of any driving fun, and when that's the case, the ancillaries to ownership like periodic detailing and taking it to the dealership for maintenance becomes a grinding chore. 

All of the aforementioned have slowly accumulated into a burden that was subconsciously dragging me down. The weight did not fully occur to me until the latest parking violation I received a few days ago and I finally have had it with the whole enterprise. 

So it'll be public transport to work for the first time since high school. The Miata will be sold; for sure there'll be another car in my future, but for now I'll be super happy to get back my peace of mind

The whole stadium to himself. 

People think shipping should be free

Yesterday my boss complained to me about another person complaining to her about the shipping costs on this big purchase the department is making. The person is stunned to find the cost to ship a container's worth of furniture from Wisconsin to San Francisco - including setup - couldn't and shouldn't possibly be $3,000 dollars. 

What did she expect? Free?

I remarked to my boss that Amazon Prime and its free shipping (within two days, no less) have completely ruined people's expectations of what delivery should cost. Just because you can get laundry detergent shipped for free doesn't mean goods of a certain size (say, furniture) can costs equally nothing for UPS to get it to your home. 

I'm paying 10 grand for the television: can't you throw in delivery for free?

Amazon Prime sets a bad precedent in other marketplaces as well. Anybody that have tried selling items secondhand (or even firsthand) knows that offering free shipping is huge incentive to entice customers to buy. 

So they eat the cost. 

I'm starting to think one of the reasons wages have been stagnant is because the poor and lower middle class simply refuse to pay for quality work. They want things done as quickly and cheaply as possible. The rich understands the adage 'you get what you pay for', and have the monetary means to do so. Everyone knows 'Made in U.S.A.' denotes supreme quality but that tool set made in China is half the cost so let's go with that one. 

I guess I'm one of those people because man do I love Amazon Prime. 

Percipitations in May. 

Kendrick and the white girl

During a concert, Kendrick Lamar invites a white girl on stage to sing with him. Naturally his songs contain the N-word and in the moment of joy the girl raps right along to 'M.A.A.D City' and uttered the N-word multiple times. A dismayed Kendrick stops the music to reprimand the girl, putting her on blast in front of the entire audience (that's cold).

So then of course the Twitterverse is having the same ole discussion again about who can or can't say the N-word and whether it should be banned entirely or only black people can say it, suck it white folks because slavery.

This particular episode reminds me of Trinidad James's 'All Gold Everything' a few years back. The song's chorus got a bunch of N-words in it and you can bet non-black people rapped through it without self-censoring (at least privately, or on an all-white party bus). An old white-lady even got into trouble when fraternity kids videoed her singing the chorus. 

I think people should be free do do what they want. Want to say the N-word? Go right ahead; just be aware that depending on the color of your skin and whether you're in public or private, there may be consequences. Don't be so naive to think non-black people aren't rapping the N-word to hip hop songs when there are no black folks around to hear it. 

At the very least, you know the white girl invited up by Kendrick does it. 

It's an MX-5 party at the campus parking lot. 

By age 35, you should....

By 35, you should have twice your salary saved, according to retirement experts: https://t.co/QoVA6EFpHJ

— MarketWatch (@MarketWatch) May 12, 2018

The above tweet caused a humorous row on Twitter, with legions of millennials mocking its futile commandment. Twice my salary saved up by 35? Perhaps you mean twice the salary in debt? What's this 'retirement' you speak of? Double the salary is easy when you have a salary of zero! 

While I enjoy the hilariousness of people's responses (it's why I can't seem to quit Twitter, after all), I failed to find anyone argue the "rule" itself is intrinsically flawed - because it isn't. It seems the need to save for retirement is an universally accepted truth; it's just that in today's economy of stagnant wages and high housing costs people find it bloody difficult

I have to call bullshit, though: anyone absolutely can and should save money, for retirement or otherwise. While double the salary by 35 may be not applicable for everyone, it's a fine goal to work towards. I'm fairly certain no one has ever complained they've got too much money saved up in the bank. 

Back in my childhood our family of four lived entirely on my father's measly salary of $1,500 per month yet however miraculously my parents still found ways to put money away every month. It wasn't easy in execution but as long as the spending is always less than income they were satisfied. 

The habit has passed on to me and it's serving me excellently. 

I'm 30 this year, and on my current employment trajectory the goal set by MarketWatch is attainable should I choose. I'd need to perform some hardy austerity to get there so we'll see how it plays out because I'm not one to miserly store away money - in the expense of the now - for a future that may never arrive. 

Overheard in the Library hallway

The hallway outside my work office is a busy part of the Library with plenty of foot traffic. Whenever it's Finals time the conversations and exclamations I overhear are super interesting. For one it's incredibly easy to discern who is done with Finals and who isn't: those who are have a sunny and loud disposition to their voices.

They would smugly mock their friends for still having tests to take and needing yet another night's worth of studying. "What are you doing in the Library?" they condescendingly/jokingly ask. 

Some of those not yet finished with classes (perhaps they picked professors who hold exams on the actual week of Finals and not the week before like the cool ones) have walked down the hallway saying horrible things like how they hate this University and should've tried being famous on Instagram instead. I may have made-up the latter but on appearance being an "influencer" on social media seems quite lucrative. 

You get the few cryers as well, which always freezes me stuck between letting them get it all out and being a gentleman going out into the hallway with the box of tissue. Two weeks ago I experienced the perfect symphonic alignment of a female student crying in a concert with a baby (of another person's). You can't put a price on that, my friends. 

To those stressed with Finals: hey, it's okay. This too shall pass. Soon it'll be over, you'll survive to fight another day, and with the students gone the campus will be nice and quiet. 

Ready to play. 

Airpods are more robust that they look

Airpods, these wonderful little things are so comfortably inconspicuous in feel that it's often easy to forget I am wearing them (never mind for a moment the disconnect about music playing in my ears should make it obvious). When that happens it can get dangerous - for the Airpods. 

This morning I was washing up listening to music as usual. When I went to wash my face with a towel I forgot I had the Airpods on so sure enough the towel brushed the left-side pod and it tumbled into the sink-pan. The faucet was running so it got properly soaked. Dread filled me as I fish the thing out of the torrent, facing the likely possibility it was wrecked.

To replace a single Airpod costs $69 (nice) from Apple. 

I grabbed a can of compressed air (those are always convenient to have around the home) and proceeded to blast through the orifices and apertures on the soaked Airpod. Plenty of water came out, which was more evidence the thing was probably a goner. 

Not waiting for the thing to dry completely (stupid move in hindsight), I stuck the Airpods back into my ears to test it out. To my utter surprise the soaked piece still works, with no degradation whatsoever! These brittle looking things have turned out to be quite robust. Prior to today's folly I've also dropped the Airpods many times (from standing height to concrete, no less), and they've yet to fail or even look worse for the wear. 

Whether it be good luck or otherwise, kudos to Apple for making surprisingly durable product. 

I love it when B&H sends their massive catalog goodies.