Month: October 2011

Categories
personal

What you’re lucky enough to get is never enough

No matter how much time you get, you always wish you had more

Pumkins in the Village, NYC

Him: Wait, how old are you?
Me: 38. Why, how old are you?
Him: 23.
Me: I think I hate you.

I own some Apple stock. And when I say “some” I mean a pittance. Like enough to buy a really good dinner at a five-star restaurant in the City.

Whenever my stocks go up, feel that greedy urge in me go: Man, I should have bought more. There’s always that feeling that what you’re lucky enough to get, is never enough.

Was wrestling the other day with some Asian guys. The thing with Asians is that it’s always hard to tell how old they are – even for ourselves. While we look young, though, it’s just the appearance. Time just keeps on going.

Which goes with my formula that Time¬=Money; Time>Money. And here the greed’s even greater cause no matter how much time y’get, you always wish you had more.

Read the eulogy that Steve Job’s sister wrote for him. It’s very moving – if y’get a chance today, you should read it. His last words I find especially profound in their honesty and simplicity.

I wonder, then, if there’s a time that we become ok with the amount of time we’re allotted.

Hope so. Not afraid to admit that it scares me. The not knowing.

November 2011, already. Where does the time go?

———-
And now for some levity – think the same is roughly true for Asian men:

How Asians age

Location: surrounded by blueprints and surveys
Mood: slightly anxious
Music: My scarecrow dreams When they smashed my heart into smithereens
YASYCTAI: Read that eulogy. (10 mins/0.5 pts)
Subscribe!

Categories
dating personal

Digital to do / Insult me, beat me, make me write bad checks

Canal Street Subway

Mom: (leaning in, whispering) Act normal. I put two suitcases with your dad’s stuff into your trunk. Get rid of them.
Me: What? How?
Her: Shhh! I don’t know, don’t care. Just get rid of them. (turning to everyone, smiling) Who wants dessert?

I’ve somehow become a digital packrat in my life. My father, god love him, saves everything. Drives my mom mad. On more than one occasion, I’ll go home and find that she’s filled my trunk with random junk that my dad’s accumulated.

Suspect that if she were in the mafia, we’d have similar conversations.

Like me, she accumulates mosta her stuff in digitally. But I take after my dad in that I save everything.

Think it all started when I decided to get rid of all of my CDs years ago. Then I digitized all of my class notes from my school days. Just snowballed from there. The whole thing’d be fine it not for the fact that I didn’t organize it properly from the get-go. So now, as it gets bigger so does that sinking feeling that I gotta go back and re-edit a buncha stuff. So, to avoid procrastination, every time I get a few minutes, go back and start curating.

Amazed at how much stuff I’ve actually got.

On the topic of editing digital stuff, been reading a buncha my friends’ dating profiles for them. They’re terrible. The majority’re just bland and boring with lotsa guys putting up smiley faces every two sentences as if to say, I‘m just kidding, see how fun I am?

The worst are the ones that say, I’m just looking for someone nice. As if everyone else is saying, Insult me, beat me, make me write bad checks.

Figure there’s gotta be a cottage industry to help people not come off as weird or desperate online. Think I’ll have to write a post about writing a good profile onea these days soon.

And there’s another thing to add to my digital to do list.

Location: getting dressed in the front room
Mood: thoughtful
Music: Complacency, a vacancy, checks into your heart
YASYCTAI: Edit another folder of stuff. It’s never ending (a long time/1 pts)
Subscribe!

Categories
business personal

Being busy with actual life

Bar on the Lower East Side

A project I’ve been working on for a while now just came through. More details as it gets closer to actually happening.

In other news, been busy with actual life. Nothing terribly interesting for anyone that’s not me but I gotta stop saying I’m gonna finish something and just finish it.

Location: in front of a hot cuppa coffee
Mood: great, really
Music: Once upon a time, somebody ran.
YASYCTAI: Man, are y’ever gonna finish writing that manuscript? (years it seems/3 pts)
Subscribe!

Categories
business personal

Socialism for banks, capitalism (and arrests) for the rest of us?

httpv://youtu.be/S6svA6Qvq1U?t=1m32s

We both know that it’s rarely political here. But every once in a while, gotta say something.

Got mixed feelings about the Occupy Wall Street protests. On the one hand, agree with the core tenet of it, which is capitalists cannot assert socialism for banks and capitalism for the resta us. On the other hand, just let people get to work and make a dollar already. There’s definitely an element of whiny in it to me.

Having said that, the above video enraged me. Fast forward to 1:33 where a woman outside a bank protest and not actually protesting – she’s wearing a business suit – appears to want to leave the bank. She’s then grabbed by someone in regular clothes, physically tossed into the bank and then either locked in and/or arrested.

Clearly, something is wrong with this picture.

While I don’t agree with the protesters, their right to peacefully protest is something the cops should be defending not making worse. Far worse, IMHO.

———-

Mentioned it in passing in my last post but there’s a seasonality to my work; summer’s usually pretty quiet and right around October, work picks up dramatically.

Last year, this was kinda true – this year, it’s definitely true. Keep wondering when the economy’ll finally turn around but this year is shaping to be onea my best outta the past three.

Which is not really saying a lot looking back at the last three years.

———-

 Gonna be tweaking this blog over the next month or so; don’t mind me.

Former LJ’ers, changed the comment system so (I hope) you will be notified if you leave a comment and someone responds to me – like me.

Leave a comment so I can test our a few things?

Location: this past weekend, out in Queens
Mood: busy
Music: had no idea of the state we were in
YASYCTAI: Leave a comment and I’ll response – let me know if you get an email? (10 sec/1.0 pt)
Subscribe!

Categories
personal

The world limits us enough, why do it to ourselves?

Train arriving at Columbus Circle

Her: It looks worse, you should go see a doctor.
Me: Nah, I’ll be fine.

Wonder how many people died saying those as their last words.

Been going to the gym like crazy cause summer’s usually my slow time and I wanna get in as much gym time as possible before things start getting mad busy. So I was rolling with my buddy Car when we got onto the topic of MRSA (pronounced “mer-suh”). If you don’t know what that is, do NOT google it, instead, just believe me when I tell you that it’s gross and deadly. I’m a germaphobe by nature – to the point that no less than a dozen people remarked why I’d wrestle since that’s so unlike me. Which goes to show, that as much as I hate touching stuff, hate not knowing stuff even more.

Feara ignorance > OCD hand-washing.

In any case, had just shaved earlier that week and rolled and had gotten some razor burn. After a week, it started looking bad. Like real bad. After HG put her foot down, went to the local medi-merge where the lady doc walked into the room, took one look at me, and said, “You’ve got staph, man.” It wasn’t MRSA – thankfully – but it was something dangerous and gross. She gave me some meds and told me to go home and shave, which I did for the first time.

Lemme tell you: (a) it was insanely painful and (b) it far worse than I thought.

Killed all of my weekend plans. A weeka antibiotics later, about 90% back to normal.

The psychological scars’re gonna take a bit to get over though.

Do you know I’m scareda flying? Was the international sales manager for a Fortune 500 company and terrified of flying. But I board that plane every damn time.

Cause the world limits me enough; don’t need to do it to myself.

So Thursday, back in the gym.

Course, gonna be covered in plastic wrap from head-to-toe but that’s really neither here nor there.

 

Location: in fronta piles of papers
Mood: better
Music: rolling in the deep the scars
YASYCTAI: Do the uncomfortable things. (always/3 pts)
Subscribe!

Categories
business personal

Real Artists Ship / Goodbye LJ / Goodbye Steve

Grand Central Station

 

My favourite thing about Steve Jobs was this thing he said a while back. The story goes that some guy was constantly tweaking and editing something, saying it wasn’t ready yet. He was an artist, y’see. At which point Steve blew up and said, “Real artists ship!”

He meant that the only difference between a nutcase with a notebook and a writer was that a writer tossed his baby out into the world and let come what may. Anyone can call themselves an artist but a real artist produces.

Thought about the man and that quote a lot. He had a million ideas but the difference between him and everyone else was that he rolled his dice, he took his chances. He never was onea those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.

Who knows what he could have shipped if given just a little more time?

And that’s the thing, isn’t it? He made more in month than I could ever make in a lifetime. Yet it’s why I despise that saying, time is money. Any idiot can make more money.

But time, that we’re not afforded enough of, regardless of the person. Time is a trillion factors greater than money.

Bye, Steve. Wish you had less money but more time.

 

Logan Lo in Paris

For those of you coming from LiveJournal, thanks for coming along.

It’s been a while and hopefully a little while more.

 

Location: Not livejournal any more. Just here. It’s weird.
Mood: weird
Music: For every beginning There must come an end I want to thank you
YASYCTAI: Maybe hit that “subscribe” link just below? (30 secs/0.25 pts)
Subscribe!

Categories
personal

My dull life / The Real F-Word

Wall Street subway station stop, downtown New York City NYC

Spent the day yesterday trying to track down a leak in my building that was causing a mini-waterfall in my lower bathroom. Stressful.

Water’s the single biggest danger in a small apartment building but finding the causesa water leaks are Sherlockian adventures. Traced it to a clogged main drain somewhere between the first and second floors. Waiting for the Phoenix plumber now.

Also, despite my best efforts, may end up the condo president again. It’s like the mafia. For serious.

Before that adventure began, broiled a flank steak for dinner last night. Never really ever broiled anything cause we didn’t have a working broiler until last year. Gotta say, it’s probably the easiest way to cook a steak. May never go back to any other way.

Reading this, realized how dull my life’s become.

Thank goodness.

———-

Seeing as how I rarely curse, rather enjoyed this.

And it’s totally true, it’s a offensive thing to have famine in this day and age.

Location: my pad, waiting for Godot and a plumber
Mood: insanely busy
Music: Talking bout if you had love
YASYCTAI: Set up a doctor’s appointment for a check up. (15 mins/0.5 pts)
Subscribe!

Categories
personal

Glutton for punishment

Lobster and oysters on the half-shell in downtown New York City NYC

Went out with a buddy to a banquet with lobster and oysters on the half-shell. For some reason, tend to drink Old Fashions there insteada my usual rum. Got raunchily ill the next day and through the weekend; felt like my innards were doing somersaults. Did manage to head over to the gym to wrestle but not without rushing to the restroom in the middle of the class.

Speakinga wrestling, WM came by to practice some fencing and then we hopped into his whip to head over to the boogie-down Bronx to check out my buddy’s first MMA match. He did phenomenally, dominating the guy at every position from every point – despite the guy outweighing him. It’s parta why I enjoy my class so much: we emphasize skill overcoming violence versus violence for violence’s sake.

In other news, work’s gotten busy again, in contrast to the usual summer slowdown, so that means hustling all over the map.

Finally feel well enough to have some coffee. Wish me luck.

Grappling bout in the Bronx NYC

Location: staring at a cuppa joe, wondering if I should drink it
Mood: weak
Music: Doesn’t everybody deserve to have the good life?
YASYCTAI: Set up a doctor’s appointment for a check up. (15 mins/0.5 pts)
Subscribe!