Streaming

I haven't written in a long time.  Not seriously, not casually, not for anyone.

The paper trail of James has been sparse and negligible for quite some time now.  Some people capture moments through memorandums, souvenirs, keepsakes, relics, collectibles, t-shirts, photos, and even relationships.  I have a pretty poor memory myself.  The best I can hope for is that my experiences and reflections will somehow accumulate and guide me through this foggy existence.

What's been going on.

Overly pedantic, self-tortured, melodramatic thoughts regarding vocation, aptitude, and the never ending process of defining this so-called soul.

Completions lately.

Mass Effect 2.  After all these years, it always comes down to dialogue, choice, and interaction.  The memorable quotes poignantly delivered by the characters who make defining choices and the lasting impact of it all.  Star Wars, Planescape, Heinlein.

Portal.  Wanted to check this off for a long time.  Sequel is coming out soon.  I wonder if teleportation will make an appearance in FPS.  Or an RPG.  Lamentations for real life and the lemon that is Jumper.

And I've managed to meander my conscious completely away from what I want to record.  The mental block is much more formidable than I anticipated.

Maybe pinkberry will help.  (probably a lie.)

Good to know

What is the minimum number of coins needed to pay the exact amount for any item costing from 1 to 99 cents?

Answer: 11 coins. 3 quarters, 4 nickles, and 4 pennies.

Die, change, DIE.  A more resilient beast I have not faced.

Can't stop, Won't stop

Can't stop eating everything.
Can't stop touching Kitty's soft fur.
Can't stop listening to Hans Zimmer. 
Can't stop reading A Game of Thrones.
Can't stop smelling CLEAN Outdoor Shower Fresh.

Can't stop, Won't stop.

Just Try

The more I look at my newly acquired Boba Fett helmet, the better I feel.  At first, I worried about buyer's remorse, but really, it's a BOBA FETT helmet.  For me, it should've been a no-brainer.  Now I really want a full sized bust similar to the one Barney Stinson had in his apartment.  Except ones by Don Post goes somewhere in the neighborhood of 13 grand.  Hey Georgie, my birthday is coming up.

Summoner Wars.  http://www.plaidhatgames.com/news.html
I remember wanting a game like this a few years back.  Someone, somewhere is building something cool.  You can be the one!  Just try.

Flight Club opened a few days ago.  What a bad ass store.  http://sneakernews.com/2010/08/30/flight-club-812-broadway/

Chew.  Best new series.  It's got my money.  http://chewcomic.blogspot.com/ 

Builder James, reporting for duty

Send Dad home: Check
Shop both Muji and Container Store: Check
Complete Bed setup: Check
Complete Shoe Rack: Check
Rearrange Kitty's World, Inception Style: Check
Back on the treadmill, gear for Warrior Dash: Check
Munch on some KyoChon and Jamba Juice: Check (mmm)

What a day!

Kudos to Jamie for helping with most of the above

The day my blog died

You know how sometimes you might've forgotten about something and you just know it has started dying/decaying?  Like when you suddenly remember you left some food in your backpack and you just can't bear to clean it out?  That's kinda how this blog felt for some time.

But, as always, we must face up to the things we own and show some proper respect.

Blog, I'm sorry.  I should've paid more attention to you.  It was the five books I had to read.  It was the five games I had to play.  Heck, it was the five drinks I had to drink.  And the five trips I had to take.

I can go on for awhile, but blog, just know that I'm sorry.  I'll update you more often.  Promise.
Also, "more often" is completely subjective.

For now, I'll just post more pictures and news about things I like, but can't be bothered to write into my physical journal.  Yes, I'll need to make a lengthy apology in that journal too.  Dear god, I need a secretary that I can just dictate to writing entries for me.

Shiny pictures because my words are dull today:

War Machine Cap that I would wear if I wore caps

Korean Soccer Graphics that make Japanese tourist say kawaii

Latest cops: Lebron 7 P.S

Jordan 2010 Black University Blue

Asics saves a trip to the podiatrist

Wanna take a look at my incredibly flat feet?  Ta~da!

So my feet are a little below average in length, a little above average in width, and super duper flat!

My heel angles are pretty severe too, with the average being +/- 3 degrees and mine are close to +/- 6 degrees.

And my gait analysis is also surprising.  I had severely sprained my right ankle a few years ago and it's never healed properly.  So I always assumed that my right gait cycle must be atrocious.  Turns out, I might be over compensating with my left instead.  The analysis is that I have neutral pronation on my right and overpronation on my left. 

Both my stride and frequency are average although I always suspected my stride to be a bit short.  I guess all the stretching and raising of the knees helped a bit.

Overall, Asic's Foot ID analysis was pretty informative and gave me useful data that I can focus on when I'm reading Runner's World or other related articles.  Of course, this guilt tripped me into buying a new pair of running shoes and some new insoles, but I would still highly recommend it to anyone who wants to know their body better.

For my three readers, who are all luckily on the east coast, there is an Asics store with Foot ID in New York on 42nd St and 6th Ave.  My analysis had a fee of about $10 Taiwan and I'd recommend calling the store ahead of time to check availability (212) 354-1908).

I've also heard of other running specialty stores/podiatrists who examine other aspects of your running such as upper body posture, spine position, head/neck movement, etc.  If anyone has more info, let me know!

Abnormally Attracted to Sin (Album)

This photo of Tori Amos evokes Robert A. Heinlein.  Time to read.

Almost forgot: talk deeply, be happy.

Where is my mind?

Some days, I'm this guy:




Oh yeah.


And then, suddenly:



Feels like ... I'm standing in a Timeless Dream ...
of Light Mists ... of pale amber rose
Feels like ... I'm lost in a Deep Cloud of Heavenly Scent
Touching ... Discovering You ...
Those days ... of Warm Rains come rushing back to me
Miles of windless ... Summer Night Air ..
Secret moments ... shared in the heat of the afternoon
Out of the Stillness ...
Soft spoken words ...

I Love You Always Forever Near or Far Closer Together
Everywhere I Will Be With You Everything I will Do for You (Repeat)

You've Got ... the most unbelievable Blue Eyes I've ever seen
You've Got ... me almost Melting Away
As we Lay There ... under a blue sky with Pure White Stars ...
Exotic Sweetness ... a magical time ...

CHORUS

Say you'll Love, Love Me Forever
Never Stop, Not for Whatever
Near and Far and Always and Everywhere and Everything
Say you'll Love, Love Me Forever
Never Stop, Not for Whatever
Near and Far and Always and Everywhere and Everything (Repeat)
I love you always forever near and far closer together everywhere I
will be with you
everything I will do for you ...


o.O?

Overdownloading

While downloading has infiltrated our lives to the point where it's practically second nature, the ubiquity and ease of access has subtly changed our consumer mentality.  I'm not talking about the ethics of piracy, but the way piracy has affected our ability to decide what we want to consume.

Choosing entertainment used to be a very deliberate process.  Take for example buying CDs.  Back in the day, people probably bought one CD or less a week.  You heard the one hit song on the radio, you saw the music video, and there's an off chance you read a written review on it.  If your friends had it too, then the purchase might've been a safe one.  Even if all the tracks on the CD weren't particularly good, chances were you probably listened to all of them a few times cause you already made the commitment through the purchase.  And in this process, the bond between you and the artist became stronger.  Through thick and thin, the experience was complete.

Nowadays, when people hear a song they like, they generally grab the entire album or even the discography.  Their ability to consume and absorb material is completely disproportionate to the speed at which they're downloading.  This results in a fast food, scatter shot approach to finding what appeals to us.  While some may argue that sampling everything buffet style certainly sounds better than a limited menu, the price we pay is that we often consume without tasting.  We're under constant pressure to try the newest and latest, it's easy to sometimes fall victim to our love/hate instincts.  If a song doesn't hook us or have meaningful lyrics within the first or second listen, then it's just "okay."  Snap judgments are made so we can move on and find what we really want.

Lately, I've been limiting the number of impulse buys/downloads, especially when I still have unfinished material.  I try to slow down and research the background and it's allowed me to appreciate each line, color, and design more.  I'm not sure if this way is better, but with the amount of data threatening to overflow unchecked, I need to portion myself even if it means I won't have it all.

My life & the Imbalisk

Karune: Are there any other units or anything that the public hasn’t already seen as far as with Starcraft 2?

Dustin Browder: That they haven’t seen yet? Well I think we’ve been talking about the giant voltron unit made of all of the vehicles; and units of the entire Terran race. Is that right Sammy?

Sam Didier: Yeah see that’s more of a designer thing. Personally, guys on the forums, I don’t think that would work so you know if something like that gets in where every single unit on the Terran side turns into a giant robot, that’s probably not anything to do with my decision. It’s probably Dustin’s.

Dustin Browder: What about the flying two headed ultralisk that breaths fire? I thought we were going to do that one as well.

Sam Didier: Yeah I think that one could work

Dustin Browder: That’s probably what’s coming up next: the flying two headed ultralisk that breathes fire will be on the website next.

Sam Didier: You’ll be seeing those in single player only probably.

That Chumbawamba song comes to mind: "I get knocked down, but I get up again, you're never gonna keep me down (Pissing the night away, Pissing the night away)"

Chinese Christmas

So Chinese New Year officially starts tomorrow night and it's gonna be a ghost town for a couple of days.  Everybody stocks up on groceries and basically goes into Chinese Christmas mode.  You'll see a lot of people wearing sweats, trying to forage for food.  Families will gather around, eat ridiculous amounts of fatty food, and gamble their savings away.  Children receive red envelope and are suckered into gambling with their elders (who then completes the full circle and takes the red envelope back.  Evil bastards.)


Speaking of which, I've been debating about this one.  How do I raise my kids in terms of holidays?  Is there Christmas?  AND Chinese New Year?  Do they receive awesome gifts AND a fat red envelope?  I'm not particularly religious, so Christmas might simply be a pseudo commercial holiday with Santa Clause conveniently thrown in.  And then there's the concept of the red envelope money.  On the one hand, I'm all for giving the kids money and then letting them figure out how they should handle their own finances.  On the other, I'm pretty sure the adage that says "the only way to teach your kids about money is by not having any" holds true too.  I don't think I ever saved a penny from my red envelopes.  Nor did I really save the money to buy anything meaningful.


Holidays have always been magical, so I definitely want to include that as part of their childhood.  I hope I figure this one out before my kids are spoiled rotten.


In the meantime, I'm thinking about buying these all star game sneakers to, um, celebrate the holidays.


EAST:                                                

WEST:

Oh yeah, forgot about this video clip I wanted to share.  I think this fight has one of my gym's coach fighting another gym down south.  The jaw dropper comes at 1:23.

Be like water, my friend. Watahhh!!!

Masochistically, I enjoy lining up for concerts, new releases, and limited edition items.  More often than not, the initial drive to line up is simply sparked by an impulse to capture the moment.  Concerts are magical.  New releases offer a breath of fresh air.  And limited edition, well, let's just say if I only have limited personal space, I would prefer the items that I own had significant intrinsic "values" for ownership. 


So I guess it's no surprise that I lined up overnight for the Kobe V Bruce Lee edition sneakers.  With only 120 pairs available in Taiwan, the forums were ablaze with updates on where to line up for the best possible chance of getting the size you want (Taiwanese people have smaller feet, size 9 and 10 are the most sought after.)  And with crazy demand comes the dilemma of how to fairly distribute the product.  Do they all go to the people who can line up overnight?  Or the people with the fattest wallets?  The official release has to try to appear fair though, lest the media goes nuts with the negativity coverage.  So out comes the lottery system!  If a store is set to receive 20 pairs, then they will let 40 people line up.  Out of the 40, everyone has a 50/50 chance of getting one.  And if you don't get one, line up at the next store!  


Oh it's brutal all right.  Some guy waited in three lines before finally getting one.  But is it any wonder when you design a shoe drawing inspirations from this:

And this?

No, this was simply something that you endure a night's worth of mosquito biting, rain dripping, and random sneakerhead bantering for. 

Watahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

Also, I've been listening to The XX for the last three days.  Great for some quiet listening (like half dazed line ups.)  The ending of their song Basic Space has me hooked so badly.

Shoryuken: it ain't no cakewalk

After about 10 sessions of shadowboxing with jabs, rights, and hooks, the path to the shoryuken has just begun. The 起手式 (starting pose) is tiring like a *beep beep*.  You do a "dash left" where you dodge and crouch to your left hand side to get your punch ready.  Then you release, but it's a controlled release starting with your left leg, waist, shoulder (only a bit), and then your fist.

Damn near sprained my wrist/hand today.  I foresee a lot more shadowboxing.

It's weird that I'm either a middle or a supper middle weight.  I guess I'm still housing a lot of excess chub.

So Nature News released some findings by Harvard professor Daniel Lieberman on the merits of running barefoot.  I think they might have made the article pay-to-read, but the professor's website still has some youtube links up.  It's a fascinating read for me because I'm severely flatfooted (I say severe because I literally leave a flat footprint with no arch on the wet cement test.)  And for me, shock absorbing shoes are absolutely critical.  If it weren't for awesome Asics/Mizuno shoes, I probably would have quit running a long time ago.  It's really frustrating when you have to stop mid-exercise just because your feet is hurting while the rest of your body is fine.
Back to running barefoot.  In Lieberman's research, he proposes that heel strike running may cause a lot more stress to your feet and knees.  This is because when your heel strikes the ground first, your leg is essentially in a straight line.  The impact goes straight to our feet and knees and the force is about 2-3 times our weight.  And why do the majority of us run with the heel strike stance?  Because of the design of our running shoes.  Almost all of the shoe designs are centered around heel striking first and then rolling the force evenly to the forefoot.  When you look at people who run barefoot, they're almost always forefoot strikers.  Lieberman says that this is due to natural evolution and it's what our feet is intended to do.  In his video, it even shows that impact drops greatly when you compare the two stances.
While this almost has me ready to go out and run like a wild man, they do warn about the differences between running barefoot in the savanna (like our ancestors) versus running on paved road and cement.  The ground has gotten a lot harder and less absorbent.  Maybe we do need the cushioning of the shoes to simulate soft earth.  Also, Lieberman doesn't really tie issues of being flatfooted and pronation into his findings.  I think I'll write him and ask whether he's got anything for me.
But all in all, if you're fancying running like a Na'vi, you might actually have an advantage.

Boxing, the story thus far

Question: What happens when you mix Taiwanese street food, Winter holidays, and a James with no set schedule?

Answer: Doughy James + 15lbs.

Oh yeah, and a blogger that continued to remain neglected even after his return to Taiwan in early December. It's clear that this is a serious condition. A condition so serious that this entry is written in the third person. A condition SO SERIOUS that it needs a name. Let's call it Fat And Indecisive Lee (FAIL.) James was suffering from a massive case of FAIL.

Let's start from the beginning with the Fattiness. No one needs to know that James was close to 180 lbs, but there you go, 'nuff said.

And then the Indecisiveness started setting in. Was James really going back to school? And what is he going to study? Tick tock goes the GRE clock. For the first time in a quarter century, the future never looked so...foggy.

So the FAIL piled itself on and the vicious cycle seemed to have a life of its own.

THE END

Yeah, no. Keep reading. Otherwise the title doesn't make sense. I just got tired of typing and took a break to eat some pork jerky. Taiwan/Macau's jerky? Untouchable.

James then went into a cocoon and decided not to come out until he thought of something awesome. But before James actually thought of something awesome, he had a conversation with his ex-boss Jane. It was her birthday and they were chit-chatting about what the chinese zodiac says about 2010. Jane said that both work and fitness will be a serious challenge for her. So she's got this plan to draw a line in the sand and hunker down. She's gonna treat this year like everything is going down.

Then it hit me. I'm not a prophet about my own future, work-wise. But I can definitely prepare by being healthy and ready for whatever comes around (when it comes around.)

So I started gym hopping. I wasn't looking for anything special, just an energetic gym with decent intensity. Man oh man was I disappointed. Every gym was either dead or had an obscene program to join. Taiwanese people want to live forever, but not by being gym rats.

Well, since I was out of options, my thoughts turned towards martial arts again. I've already tried tae kwon do, judo, and chinese martial arts. What's left? MMA sounds cool, but no one even watches the UFC here. Suddenly, I remembered that my dad and brother tried boxing around 15 years ago. It all clicked then. Boxing training puts heavy focus on cardio training so I'll stay fit. And it has the added bonus of making your arms, pecs, and abs look good. And shit, Hajime no Ippo baby.

And that's how I came here and shed the FAIL: