Tag: quote

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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
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business personal

Dean Martin and the Street Where You Live

Eve: Sing it to me.
Adam: (softly, saying it as much as singing it) “All at once am I several stories high knowing I’m on the street where you live.” It’s about a young man who is overjoyed just to be standing in front of the house of the person he loves.

Everybody likes Frank Sinatra. Not me; much preferred Dean Martin. Gotta say that his version of On the Street Where You Live is my favourite. Thought about it today after running all over the city.

Got home first, from a pretty busy day. Was up at 4AM. Dashed out to a breakfast at the Benjamin Steak House with a buncha lawyers. Nice group save for one fella who just seemed like he was in a sour mood. Found him annoying; he was the only one.

In any case, had the Eggs Benedict before hoofing it to the office. Caught a train out to Queens to another office, a haircut, lunch at the rents, another appointment at the old NY Sun offices before catching another train.

Made it back home just in time to hear her unlock the door.

———-

Like Eggs Benedicts cause my egg poaching’s not worth a damn and my Hollandaise sauce breaks enough times for me to just want someone to do it for me.

If I get enough time, gonna try and make Chicken and 40 Cloves of Garlic. Love fall. Get to cook again.

Sculpture in NYC

Location: getting ready for another busy day
Mood: weary
Music: People stop and state; they don’t bother me.
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personal

That the North Americans speak English

The little things we do have big impact in our lives

View of New York City's City Hall from Chinatown NYC

Him: I’m unemployed and live at home again. How’s this good?
Me: You have a college education, speak English, live in New York City, and were lucky enough to be born here. (gently) You’re doing better than mosta the world.

A quote that’s stayed with me my entire life’s from Otto von Bismark towards the end of his life. He was asked what he felt would be the most significant shaping event of the 20th century.

Rather than replying that it would be electricity, or firepower, or any of that, he said simply, That the North Americans speak English.

Speaking of which, there’s this interesting theory that part of why English, not French, is the world’s dominant language is because of barnacles on ships.

See, the English plated the hulls of their ships with copper, which stopped barnacles from growing. This meant they could move just slightly faster than French ships that had none.

The French lost control of the seas,  England became the a superpower by the 19th century, and I’m more Bugs Bunny than Pepe le Pew.

A fella recently asked me how I get so much done in my life. Thought immediately about the barnacle story. Cause big things happen with slight changes in trajectory. What’s a small change today can make a huge difference later on.

As a fat 13 year-old, decided to drink a cup of water before each meal. A slight change. Lost like 10 pounds that year. Then changed over to skim milk, lost another few pounds. Always tell people that I look young because of a combo of Asian genes and constant maintenance.

Anywho, back to my friend. He wants to know how to get things done. Told him that it’s all about fighting the inertia. He’s super talented but he’s held hostage by the fact he’s good enough. And good enough is enemy of great.

There’s no one huge leap from good enough to great, just lots of little steps – your assignment, should you choose to accept it, is to take those little steps.

On that note, it’s a busy week for me. Nuthin big. Just lots of little things. Let’s see what happens.

 

Location: apartment, getting ready for the week
Mood: cheerful
Music: thinking about the good things to come and I believe it could be
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business

Stupid on different subjects

Street lamp in Byrant Park, in NYC

Me: Niggardly is a Scottish word meaning “cheap.”
Him: Nope, it’s Scandinavian. (gets dictionary)
Me: Dammit! I hate being wrong…

The weather’s been great in the city since Irene. Calm, cool, dry – it actually feels a lot more like early fall than anything else. Suppose I should enjoy it.

No time to do that today, though. Gotta be in court – although this time it’s not for me but a client. When it comes to court cases and clients, I usually play a supporting role behind the scenes. This time, though, sitting front and center. For a guy that doesn’t litigate, this’s always interesting.

Dunno how people get anything done in hot climates; always feel lethargic and slow in the summertime. But the second it feels like fall, it’s like the year’s begun.

Like to teach myself something every year. Twain said that we are all stupid, just on different subjects. That’s true – I hate not knowing something.

Dunno if I told you but this year, I decided to learn calculus. No real reason except I never did. But then I thought I should do something a bit more practical so I turned back doing  my Mission real estate courses.

Funny isn’t it? The whole time I was in school, dreamed of being outta it. Now that I’m outta it, dream of being in it (especially in the fall). It’s the human condition to blunt the sharp points of our memories.

Enough armchair philosophy, got an important date with an adult in a robe.

Ed note: Niggardly is completely unrelated to the racial slur – which it merely sounds like – the pejorative comes from Spanish/Portuguese noun negro.

Location: heading downtown
Mood: busy
Music: hell ya blew trial and tha judge gave you 25 with an L
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personal

Me, Myself and Irene (and the wife)

NYC Broadway, right before Hurricane Irene

Tenant: Hi! I think I left my window open.
Me: You’re kidding me.

So Hurricane Irene came and went. Cause I live on the ground floor and manage my building, spent almost mosta Friday securing all the vacant apartments, helping clear the roof, checking the terraces, and directing all of the tenants on what to do. Some are brighter than others. Was exhausting.

My pad’s flooded in the past so I was filling out sandbags for my back yard  like I was living in Boise, Idaho. Actually, every place in NYC was outta sandbags but another tenant was throwing out potted plants and there was just enough dirt that I could fill several bags up and block off my door.

In the end, mosta the storm ended up being a whole lotta nuthin around me. Which is not to say it wouldn’t have been a whole lotta nuthin if people didn’t take the precautions they did.

Him: You filled up your bathtub? (smugly) Why don’t you buy bottled water like normal people?
Me: OK, you do realize that pre-1994 toilets require 13 gallons of water to flush and that most post-1994 toilets require six, yes? And that, should we lose clean drinking water, that also means that water likely isn’t clean enough to bathe in. So, while you’re stinky and backed-up, I’ll be fresh smelling and regular.
Him: (laughing) Good point. I only have a shower stall though.

When I was a kid, there was this massive blackout. My dad had candles, batteries, ice, and a tub fulla water. It was back during the Son of Sam days so I think my dad also had a baseball bat. Funny, I was only like four at the time, but I remember it. He told me not to play with the tub water cause we were gonna need it. Made me think that, while emergencies’re never fun, it was nice going through something like it with HG.

Surprised at how many people have a zero ability to properly prepare for stuff. Most times, thing end up fine, like it did this time. But some times it doesn’t. Figure that being prepped for that random chance is a good thing, regardless of outcome.

It’s the stuff that y’don’t see coming that should wreck you; at least there you got an excuse.

Ventured outside for just a bit before the storm. Was weird to see everything so quiet. According to FB, the local Chinese restaurant and Korean nail salon were open. We Asians’re nuthin if not industrious. Mosta the garbage bins had been overturned so they wouldn’t fill up with debris and rainwater. No buses, some taxis and a hand-full of delivery bikes along the roadways. Eerie.

The next day, HG and I woke up and took a walk where we met this chain-smoking blond whose boss said she had to come in and work. Also ran into two people from my church. Made me think of that quote, Fear is forward. No one is afraid of yesterday.

The sun’s out now and the air smells like fall.

Doesn’t matter what befalls the City. She just gets up, dust herself off and gets back to work. People live for predictability, and NYC’s nuthin if not crawling with people, so that makes sense.

 

Location: back at work
Mood: relieved
Music: the sun can come back another day, rain please stay
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dating personal

Watching the movie you paid for

View east from Penn Station

Yeah. The funny thing is – on the outside, I was an honest man, straight as an arrow. I had to come to prison to be a crook.
– Shawshank Redemption

Wild salmon costs significantly more than farmed salmon but few can taste the difference between the two.

There’s been a number of legal cases lately where lots of fishermen and restaurants are swapping one fish for another – not just with salmon but with all kinds of stuff.

At issue is really one of expectations; if you paid for wild salmon, you should get wild salmon. Whether or not y’can actually tell the difference between the two is irrelevant.

Let’s switch gears to dating.

I dated this girl once that I was certain was cheating on me. Yelled at her all the time for it until one day she actually did. Then when I caught her in the act, she said to me, I was already being punished for it, so I figured that I might as well do it.

In other words, she already got the punishment, why not do the crime itself? Rephrasing it yet again, got what I paid for.

Learned something profound at that moment, which’s that life’s as you see it in your head.

So I met up with my buddy and another friend for drinks Monday night; he’s back with his girl. The reason why I’m guessing it’ll end badly, just as it did for our other friend that kept clinging, is that she paid for a drama not a romantic comedy.

And whether he realizes it or not, he’s going to give her a drama, regardless of the script he has planned.

Him: What makes you so sure?
Me: I could be wrong. In fact, i hope I am. I’d like nuthin more than for you guys to come back and say, “See, I told you it’d fine.” Cause you’re my friend and that’s what I hope for you. And there’s a chance it’ll work out, but only if something’s different this time.

Location: my room, looking for a lightweight suit
Mood: dreading the heat
Music: It’s not so easy to believe in someone else, Till you do
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dating personal

How to get the person you want most of all

Downtown NYC

Don’t have any comment on the Casey Anthony trial. It shocks me a bit how nothing shocks me anymore. Although, it does provide the useful lesson that, if you’re gonna commit a heinous crime, try to be pretty(ish), young, and white. Or a celebrity. Pick one.

———-

This monk named Thomas Merton once said that, The biggest human temptation is to settle for too little. Think that’s totally true.

Got three friends, all of whom wanted to get good at dating. But they just stopped after a few months because they all just ended up with people that were good enough.

One of them told me that his girl didn’t want a guy that treats dating like an occupation. Which’s yet another onea those things that sounds good on a superficial level but doesn’t make any real sense.

I treated it like an occupation – more a hobby, really, but I’m going for parallelism here – started meeting people in September of 2006 and continued to be single until September of 2008. Two years and some 150+ dates later.

And it sucked. It makes you weary. And you have to be coldly dispassionate. The constant hellos and goodbyes.

But If it’s important, and valuable, it doesn’t come easy. Nuthin worth anything comes easy.

Early on, when I started dating, kept repeating favourite quote: With increased intelligence, comes increased capacity for pain. If you’re smart enough, you learn to push all that doubt to the side of your mouth. You get up, go out, and take your chances. S/he’s not going to just show up knocking. Most of all, you deal with the pain.

Bookmarks Lounge bar on top of the Library Hotel in Midtown NYC

Him: How do you know we’re gonna end badly?
Me: I don’t know. But I figure it will Cause I saw the first movie. In this sequel, all of the characters’re the same. You’re still you, she’s still her. Everything’s the same. Why would it be different this time around unless onea you were radically different? You were both single for just 35 days. How different could either of you be? You went back cause it hurt too much, and I understand that. But you deal with the pain to give her, and you, time to be different. 35 days’s not enough time. You should have waited and met more people.
Him: You met all those people, what’d that really get you?
Me: (shrugging) The girl I wanted most of all.

Location: desk, trying to not be insanely hot
Mood: insanely hot
Music: we brave bee stings and all And we don’t dive, we cannonball
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personal

nihil novi sub sole

Tribeca in New York

It seems as if I’m a hack. Two things I wrote once, thought I came up all by my lonesome. Turns out I didn’t.
One was my version of Virginia Woolf’s observation that On the outskirts of every agony sits some observant fellow who points.

And perhaps the core tenent of what I believe, that all we are’s mostly dumb luck, Oscar Wilde said far more eloquently: Life is never fair, and perhaps it is a good thing for most of us that it is not.

S’ok, though. cause maybe true things are just true things that people know on some level everywhere.

It’s like I always say, that there’s nuthin new under the sun.

I came up with that, right?

 

Location: my apt, getting ready for work
Mood: injured
Music: I’d rather disappear than be faking it, anyway
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We have no scar to show for happiness but we have never forgotten your loss

Times Square New York

Won’t lie, am glad they finally killed Osama bin Laden.

Chuck Palahniuk, the fella that wrote Fight Club, once said that It’s so hard to forget pain, but it’s even harder to remember sweetness. We have no scar to show for happiness.

Suppose that’s the purposea this here blog cause I bear the scars of all that hurt me but easily forget the things that comfort me. Like the chance to look back and remember the small good things as well. It’s odd to think of another man’s death as a good thing and yet, if this isn’t, what is? We all want justice for things, it is a human need.

That quote from William Gladstone, Justice delayed, is justice denied is a quote I kinda agree with but think it’s more that Justice delayed is peace delayed.

If nuthin else, there’s some peace here for some people. My favourite parta the president’s speech last night was when he said to the families who lost loved ones on 9/11 that we have never forgotten your loss.

Should the time come, and it will, that the question is asked whether or not there should be a national holiday for 9/11, hope we vote no. Don’t ever wanna open up the paper and see JC Penny’s offering underwear at 50% off on 9/11 Day. Let these people bear their scars quietly and in peace, says me.

———-

One final quote from my friend Lindsay N. by way of Lucy – Pakistan, you have some splainin to do.

They really, really do.

 

Location: my apartment, taking this all in
Mood: relieved
Music: Saw the devil wrapping up his hand. He’s getting ready for the showdown
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Logan’s 38 / What you pay for being alright

Logan LoJust check’n if all my hair’s still there.

Joe: Did they hurt you in there, Mitchel?
Mitchel: Not so you’d notice.
Joe: They hurt me in there, Mitchel.
Mitchel: I know they did, Joe. It’s all right now. Here. (gives him money)
Joe: You don’t have to do that.
Mitchel: Yes, I do. It’s a tax you pay for being alright.

— London Boulevard (film)

You know you’re old when you fondly remeber being 30.

Started this blog five years ago because of my breakup. Then it somehow morphed into my admittedly peculiar dating life punctuated with some really cool highs and some awful, awful lows. Now I’m just a boring married guy.

But at some point in the future, there’ll be more really cool highs and some more awful lows. It’s all about waiting for the next high, I suppose.

I’ll take the awful lows, though – as best one can. And I’ll try to do my own little bit to contribute something to world. It’s all parta the same thing anyway.

Think the above quote’s spot on, paying back to the aether’s the tax you pay for being alright. Isn’t that what a tax is? It’s what you pay to be alright.

I’m alright right now, and feel the need to pay a little more this year. Duuno what that is but I’m looking.

Having said that, you know the drill. Wish me a happy birthday and say something, all of you bastards that read me but never say anything.

Location: home, listening to the rain outside
Mood: hopeful
Music: One girl, one boy, Some grief, some joy
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