Best Movie of 2023- Quiz Lady

 Of all the Top Lists that are published every year, I'm usually most interested in the "This year in search" from Google reminding me of the stories I'd forgotten about (or in some cases, never even learned about in the first place), the Top TV shows of 2023 (I saw The Last of Us, the Bear, final succession of Succession up there), and best single TV episode of 2023 ("The Bear" won that with its iconic "Knives" episode where cousin Richie learned about hopsitality at a fine dining restaurant and ended the episode singing Taylor Swift's "Love Song" in the car), but I'm usually the most interested in the Top movies of 2023, so that I can catch up and see them before the year is over. This year, though, unlike most critics who had "Killers of the Flower Moon," "Past Lives," "Oppenheimer," "Barbie," I submit my own personal entry for 2023: "Quiz Lady." 

"Representation matters" is a trendy phrase right now in the culture wars, and I sometimes agree with it, especially when it comes to seeing the actress Nora Lum, aka Nora from Queens, aka Awkwafina, in movies. In many ways she's like me: grew up in the U.S. so culturally American, both in our mid-30's, both like to goofy but also seemingly hard-working, and she's currently carrying the torch for Asian Americans in Hollywood along with a host of others like Simu Liu (no bigger stage than being Ken in Barbie, and also semifinalist on Celebrity Jeopardy!), Constance Wu, etc. Awkwafina, though, feels like she might have the longest career, now taking on serious roles in addition to the "get paid" roles like Kung Fu Panda or Crazy Rich Asians.....she starred in "The Farewell" in 2019 which was critically acclaimed, and again showed that an Asian American lead can work in "Quiz Lady." Sometimes a film can just be right up one's alley.... and this is about an awkward Asian teenager who grew up watching a quiz show (obviously styled off Jeopardy) and finally getting the chance to go on the show thanks to being kidnapped by her older sister (Sandra Oh) to go on a crazy road trip to......Philadelphia. It's a feel-good, road-trip, buddy comedy (except the buddies are 2 Asian ladies) with trivia involved, and basically spells out the trivia nerd's dream of getting on the favorite national game show. Sandra Oh has also been a representative Asian figure for me since she was in Grey's Anatomy, and she plays someone I always wish I had, a big sister for Awkwafina. It's a movie that could have taken place anytime in the last 30 years, without any political or moral messages to complicate things, deep enduring messages about the human condition, any sci-fi or glimpses of the future, just a good ol' story that warms the heart and has a few laughs. And it's less than 2 hours (looking at you, Oppenheimer), doesn't aggressively push a feminist message (Barbie), doesn't have depressing death and violence (Flowers of the Killer Moon or any Martin Scorcese movie ever), doesn't needlessly have big name actors show up (well, unless you count Paul Reubens), and has cool dogs. "Quiz Lady" is just a perfect movie for what I needed right now at the end of 2023. Streaming on Hulu. 

If there's a "Quiz Lady' version of the best art museum in the U.S., I'd suspect most people wouldn't have Buffalo's AKG Art Museum on the list. Yes, THAT Buffalo, in Upper New York State. As one Google review put it so eloquently, "I didn't feel like I was in Buffalo while at the museum." It has 3 buildings that combines modern building and classical architecture on the outside, has some great collections inside with all the classics Monet, Van Gogh, Picasso. I've been to other parts of Buffalo, New York, and I agree with the sentiments of that Google reviewer: the art museum is the best part of the city. Including if you count Niagara Falls just to the north, which has a pretty cool scene but then the rest of the city has just become a low-grade version of Las Vegas: casinos and glitz. 

So as 2024 rolls in, just something for future Robert to remember in the new year: Give some new stuff a chance; you never know when scrolling through Hulu (my 3rd favorite streaming service to scroll through) what might pop up (life's like a box of chocolates) and when looking for art museums to visit, don't just look at the biggest cities......Buffalo, 6 hours away from civilization, might pop up. 

My Own Biggest Critic (自己最大的批评者, 自分自身の最大の批評家, 자신의 가장 큰 비평가)

 I've been really critical about other people recently. Given the spirit of Christmas, let's change that: I'm going to be critical of myself in this post. Given that Elon Musk (I'm reading his juicy book full of big-picture issues of his business life and various personal relationships but also small little intricacies like turning left at a "do not turn left sign," accusing a man on Twitter of being a pedophile, etc.) thinks that it's very possible we're all just avatars in a simulation being run by unknown greater Beings, this is a list of things in the video game of life that would be warnings before you selected the "Robert Yan" character (ranigng from the mild faults and tendencies to major flaws that fundamentally hold me back from my goals and signify general lackings as a person). 

Self-criticism No. 1:) I bite my nails. I've done this since I was a kid; I was often nervous as a child and developed this nervous tick, that I've been unable to get rid of as an adult. It's not as bad as some other compulsions like smoking or cutting oneself, but it can also annoy others. I sometimes do without even noticing I'm doing it, but I've noticed I do it more when I'm in a stressed environment or have a deadline coming up. 

Self-criticims No. 2) I have problems making up my mind. Sometimes I'll wait until the last second to make a spontaneous decision because I'm stuck between 2 choices that change in attractiveness and vacillate drastically until the second until I have the make the decision. Sometimes this manifests in driving on the highway, approaching a fork, and swerving at the last second to take the other fork. 

3.) I'm too nice. This may seem like a humble brag, but it's actually detrimental in our society today and I wish I could overcome it. Just today I saw a man knocking on the door to our apartment building looking a little suspicious (I've never seen him before around the building and he had his pants hanging halfway down his butt). But being that it was Christmas and he was looking directly at me asking me to open the door, I complied, at least remembering to ask him what he was there for, but he marched right past me and said "waiting for his peoples." I instantly regretted being so nice and letting him in as the building had warned of a package thief entering, so I had to follow this guy around the building to make sure he didn't steal anything, and sure enough, after realizing I was tailing him, the guy strolled around for a bit, never waited for "his peoples" to arrive, and walked out the front door. The world has just as many bad people as good people, if not more; I need to be more discerning and not be so naively nice. 

4.) I internalize my anger too much. This is the root of a lot of arguments I have with my parents, my wife, my sister, basically everyone who's close to me. I let the anger build up just like in "Anger Management" a VERY on-point movie for me about anger management, I should watch it again to build some lessons and I get very unpleasant when it boils over, to the extent it's not worth it to suppress that anger beforehand and avoid mini-drama, I should just deal with those issues piecemeal instead of letting it boil; but then again I don't like confrontation (see Self-criticism No. 5). There will be times I'm just sitting down not doing anything and a negative thought hits my brain and triggers me to get really upset and throw something. Not a great way to deal with anger. 

5.) I don't like confrontation (yet ironically, I get into quite a lot of arguments with those closest to me). I think a lot of people share the general rule of trying to stay cordial, which means even if I disagree with someone, I'll just let it slide or avoid the topic. Sometimes I do this because I don't want to upset the person I'm talking to at the moment, knowing that it will be unpleasant; this is doubly so when I'm talking to my mom or MJ; I know that if I confront there will be an argument and it will lead to an argument. But sometimes this confrontation is necessary, as long as I do it in a calm and measured way, I've learned. As for strangers, I'm starting to alter my behavior to want to say something nicely about a concern; need to find a middle level between staying silent (level 0) and getting upset right away (rarely reach this, but happens when in road rage at traffic or being told I was in the wrong line at Costco). I need to find level 2-5, a moderate level and start there to let some of the steam out. 

6.) I'm apparently not good at keeping friends. For some reason I've just been unable to keep friends as an adult, whether it's not being assertive enough to follow up or not keeping a friendship by writing Christmas cards, or doing someething that ticked off the other person (I'm pretty sure this is what drove people away early in my adult life, but in recent years it's just been the natural flow of life that people drift away from me). It led me to be pretty depressed this Christmas weekend, and I definitely felt the sting of Facebook and social media making my depression worse, all these so-called Facebook "friends" who I can't really message in real life but I'm getting jealous of their seemingly wonderful lives of being with large groups of family, wearing matching Christmas sweaters, cooking something that seems to give them so much joy, or the biggest whammy of them all, enjoying life with their children. I guess the adjustable thing to do here is just not to go on social media, but that's difficult when I'm sitting at home alone on Christmas weekend wishing someone would call me and just talk for awhile (am I already a 75-year-old grandpa without grandkids waiting by the phone) to make me feel a part of the world, to feel wanted, to feel thought about. Christmas is family time, I get it; I sometimes also wish I had some other family to call, more couins and relatives who I maintained solid relationships to call. 

7.) I'm sensitive. I get super sensitive about perceived insults. 

8.) I'm argumentative and the natural instinct is to "win" every argument when I instinctively know form my experience of hundreds of arguments that there is no "winning" arguments with people close to you. 

9.) I can't just pause in the middle of an argument and just let it go. I get angrier and angrier and let the beast inside me win. The logical person inside me telling me "just calm down for 2 minutes and you'll avoid a bunch of unnecessary conflict" gets drowned out and the anger (is this the higher Being pressing down on the "GET ANGRY" button causing me to do this?) takes over. That's the one I've never learned to conquer but is the one that's most likely to cause my downfall. 

Effective Altruism

 Effective altruism- a uniquely 21st term that sounds ideal and worth pursuing from its mission statement of helping people as much as possible by choosing jobs that maximize the positive impact. Unfortunately the philosophy was espoused by one of the most notorious people in the news nowadays, SBF Sam Bankman Fried himself (who was also a vegan, but not a good look for veganism now) in that he wanted to use his massive wealth to help people (and then let FTX collapse without being able to pay their investors back, and was convicted of fraud and now sits in maximum-security prison), and the philosophy featured prominently in the book "Going Infinite" about SBF. Seems like a lot of people on Wall Street, Silicon Valley, and the top rungs of society espouse this theory to try to help society, but based on some of the justifications in the book (people theorized that it might be better to make as much money as possible as a lawyer/Wall Street person than spend that time as a lawyer in a third-world country saving as many people as possible because the lawyer/ Wall Street trader could use the money he/she accumulated and hire ten doctors to save even more people, or so the argument goes) there seem to be some flaws in the philosophy, as well as the problem of people just falsely taking up that philosophy to justify making as money as possible, or in the case of SBF when he was building up his bitcoin exchange and asking rich people for money, easy to mask his need for money with a catchy term like "altruism." 

Perhaps not coincidentally, at the same time I'm reading "Going Infinite" about SBF I'm also reading "Elon Musk" by Walter Jacobson. Both are extremely good biographies (I've apparently moved on from famous people telling their own life story through their narrow world views to excellent writers who pick the correct anecdotes, conversations, and bits to create a better narrative arc) but also they're about guys who were just different, for lack of a better word. Both Elon and SBF lacked social skills, had trouble dealing with others, were reluctant bosses, could be extremely stubborn, had no problem embarrasing other people and making them feel stupid, didn't finish school, and another thing they had in common: had the skills/genetic makeup/ ability to take risks to go from relatively poor to multi-millionaires in just a couple years, by finding a niche in an industry. Just like generational baseball players or talented singers, Musk and SBF were born in the right time in history and had exactly the right set of skills at the right: ability to program/understand niches in markets and be smart in the ways that mattered: know how internet payment systems work before others knew it would catch on, and know seeing the business opportunity in cryptocurrency and trading before others catch on. Reading both biographies, I can't help but see myself in those stories: like what was I doing in 2013, 2014 when SBF worked at Jane Street Capital, a hedge fund, and making millions for the firm exploiting financial discrepancies? My mom used to tell me when I turned 18 and started college, go out in the world and take chances, take risks, because you're so young and afford to mess up. I guess I took some risks to go to law school and carve out my career, but not nearly as big of risks as Musk and SBF to play with millions of dollars and change the way entire industries operated. At some level I understand that I don't have those special talents those guys had to be able to study at MIT, hang with Silicon Valley people and understand how complex computer and financial systems worked, for example (that's a pretty big part of it), but still I'm still kicking myself that I'm stuck in a pretty ordinary life of middle class without any prospect of doing anything earth-shattering. I guess I'm also glad, I suppose, that with the genius that Musk/SBF had, I didn't also carry the personality flaws that caused them to have so many haters/ and in SBF's case, end up in prison. I guess leading an ordinary life can have some advantages. 

Wild Ride (狂野骑行, 野生の乗り物, 와일드 라이드)

 In a year of reading memoirs, one of the last ones I've read is called "Wild Ride" by Hayley Arceneaux, the cancer survivor who flew on one of the first citizen-crew flights into space. It's a pretty short story, and the actual flight itself was shorter than I expected: about 2 days (I've gone on flights to Asia that felt just as long! but the "wild ride" of going up into space and then coming back down is one I'd never want to do, even though there's plenty of talk nowadays about humankind not being a one-planet species, that we need to branch out into the universe (also I just watched Interstellar where Matthew McConaghey searches the universe to do just that). 

Things you have to do to go into space: quarantine for Covid (pretty obvious, but yea getting infected with Covid is not great, especially the new JN.1 strain even in best conditions, but especially in cramped positions in space), hang upside down( I don't like blood flowing to my head causing headaches in any situations), feel claustrophic (it's a cramped space, so you're sharing a small cabin with 3 or 4 other people, like getting the middle seat of a long Transatlantic flight). Training for G-forces, simulators to emulate space called "the vomit rocket," and ears popping (my ears already do funky things just going up in airplanes) so "No Thanks" to ever going up in space, even I was somehow picked to go or had enough money to fund my own mission/ buy my way on, etc. I do like the idea of establishing a call sign though to be referred to as a cool name, like "Maverick" or "Iceman"- how's the "Gorilla" for pounding my chest. 

The possibility of space travel seemed impossible just 10 years ago, but we live in a different time now: I just listened to a pretty eye-opening podcast about the future of AI: a lot of things we would have thought impossible as a child seem like they might become reality at an exponential rate, like AI taking over all facets of our lives and replacing many of the human functions that we take for granted today: not just helping 6th graders do their homework or creating computer programs, but really fundamentally replacing human beings or at least the need for human beings at all. It's like we're on this "Wild Ride" towards a future that we can't control, that's inevitable- that's what makes it seem really wild. At least on airplanes when there's turbulence and delays and circling the airport you know what the end destination is and it's a safe place to get on the ground, but with the future of AI there's really no telling where it's going to spiral into. One thing I did take away is that today's youth is very in tune with the currency of our time, which is attention: how many people know about you and how many views you get on social media, and the No. 1 sought-after profession is to be a social media influencer.... but maybe instead of replacing old-school jobs like accountants, lawyers, doctors, insurance agents, etc. as is the conventional wisdom, the first job that AI comes for is.......social media influencers? Starting this year there will be more content generated online by AI than by humans, and AI creates better content by learning from the bst content that's already online. I've already heard that in the future actors and actresses won't be needed due to the real-life capaiblities of AI generating life-like characters, what's to stop it from replacing all these slice-of-life videos and how-to-make-a-quiche videos? So unfortunately all those Youtubers and Instagram Models, I don't know if your job is safe guys, AI's coming for all of us. I'll say that I was already worried about AI taking over my office job 5 years old in late 2018; lots of worrying stuff back then already, but here I am still plodding away at my 9 to 5 job (just that it's now in the safety of my home and not at an office). Not taking anything for granted, but here's hoping for another 5 years of work free from the AI Death Star taking over! 

Fragrance Overkill (香水过度杀伤力, 過剰な香り, 향수 과잉)

 Americans smell more than they ever use to now. I don't necessarily mean they smell bad, they could smell good, but virtually everyone has a scent on them now that is overtly noticeable and frankly offensive. I didn't ask to smell you the heavy perfume or cologne that you put on; I didn't try to make bodily contact or have anything to do with a random stranger, but there's your own personal smell, bursting in on my senses rudely without my permission. (It might have been better during Covid to have lost one's sense of smell). 

I use to brace myself to enter into an elevator because I don't want to be standing too close to others due to social distancing and chance of Covid, them not wearing a mask or I'm not wearing a mask....but now even if the elevator's empty I brace myself.... for the scent that someone has left just from their own body. It seems the range nowadays is to douse oneself with certain scent so that everyone within a 15-foot radius knows what you smell like. I could be outside on a clear day, open air, and be trailing behind someone and from quite a distance away know what they smell like. And yes, some of the smells are theoretically good, but eventually even good smells because pungent and just dull, like eating too much cake. I get the idea of deodorant to mask the smell of one's body odor, but when that DEODORANT is stronger than the body odor itself, it's too much. It's also usually the more inconsiderate people who wear that much perfume too: I was at a classical music concert: Vivald's "Winter" of the Four Seasons, and three twenty-somethings (how I envy their youth but marvel at their ignorance now that I'm not amongst their ranks) walk in of course 10 minutes after the performance had already started, force other people out of their seats even though the theatre has plenty of empty seats, make a fuss about sitting down, and promptly sit right in front of me for the whole concert. The most important thing I notice, of course is how they smell. It's a nice perfume, but it's too much, especially if they're about to be sitting in front of me for an hour and a half. Oh and of course they're one of those who clap between movemetns of a piece (you're not supposed to even though some people do it out of habit, just like you're not supposed to smile for your passport photo) and they talk during the brief pause about how they thougth they were coming for The Nutcracker. Sigh. 

Poor MJ, who has better sense of smell than I do: she must be even more overloaded with fragrance overkill than I am. 

Speaking of sensory overload, I finally saw the movie Avatar last night. No, not Avatar: The Way of Water, the 2022 movie, I watched Avatar: the 2009 movie. I saw it on my home computer on a Friday night after a REALLY long week of work, but even on the Acer basic model the sights and sounds of Pandora were incredible, so I can't imagine what a visual masterpiece it must have felt like in 2009 when the movie first came out. I guess I missed out on a piece of moviemaking history. It's kind of incredible how much of history I've missed out on not just from not being alive pre-1987, but even while actually being conscious and present in the world since 2000 (I'll give myself a pass for pre-teenage years) but holy cow, I had the Internet, the news, and everything, and can't believe some of the stuff I missed due to being obsessed with good grades, sports, language learning, and being in my little bubble all these years. I missed a HELL of a good show called The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, I missed Sam Bankman Fried's meteoric rise in the business world due to crypto and didn't hear about him until October 2022 when it all came crashing down like a house of cards/crypto, I'm embarrassed that I had to ask someone who David Bowie was when I heard of his passing in 2016. There's ignorant but I guess I was blissfully ignorant of anything pop music-related back then. Now that I've joined civilization and kept up with what the world is doing, I feel the sensory overload overloading my circuits.... sometimes there's too MUCH going on. What I do appreciate is the overload giving me hope with people like Mr. Beast giving out money for people who need it, and St. Jude's Children's Hospital for providing all healthcare free for children with cancer. That's exactly the right thing to do and I wish I had thought of that sooner. 

Hospital Hospitality

 Both the words "hospital" and "hospitable" come from the same Latin root word of "host" or "guest," which makes sense: a hospital is where a stranger comes in to be treated for a disease and the hospital hosts the patient. I would, not, however, necessarily associate the word "hospital" with "hospitable" or "hospitality." Even though MJ is a nurse and has worked in bedside nursing, she acknowledges a lot of the downsides of treating patients in the hosptial. This past Monday, MJ was in a familiar spot: a patient at a hospital, and I was once again the lucky guy who goes to the hospital without being the patient. I think I've been on a long, long streak of not being the patient, ever since my birth; I hope to not have to do so for a long, long time. Anyway, the waiting room is often packed with people, giving us a good idea of how crowded the bed areas were; and this was just at 5:30AM, the earliest time to check in and prepare for surgery. Later on even the WAITING ROOM for family members gets crowded and jostling for available seats; feels like the gate area before taking off for a crowded flight on Thanksgiving. As for MJ the patient being prepped for surgery, this is not "The Good Doctor" or "ER" or any medical drama where the patient gets plenty of room in a well-situated room with a TV and a space for visitors, and enough room for Freddie Highmore or George Clooney or Ellen Pompeo or any of many good-looking actors to act as doctors and talk to the patient; these rooms are better described as a "corner" or a corridor with a curtain spread out to pretend there's some privacy; you could still sense other patients in other rooms within arm's length, without any walls to separate. The nurses and doctors do the best they can, but there are just so many people to attend to and people bustling around, it's hard to be attentive to everybody. Because we weren't doing major surgery or anything, we weren't "VIP" or very important people and felt a little like uninvited guests, as soon as MJ was done with surgery the efforts to get her strong enough to go home ramped up, and an urgency wasn't said out loud but omnipresent, despite her still feeling nauseous due to the medication/anesthesia and walking without proper balance (always leaning left when moving forward). Yet the doctor didn't even come out to talk to us about how the surgery went! Until I expressly had to ask to see if she was available to talk to us. Apparently she was busy with another surgery. Sometimes I do wish MJ and I were VIP, or at last treated like ones. 

I know it pales in comparison to the patient's pain and suffering, so not actually complaining, but the life in a waiting room is no picnic neither! Fighting for space, waiting for updates as to the patient's condition, having morning talk shows drone on with an inability to change the channel (who knew Kelly Clarkson has her own talk show now? And Kelly Ripa still has one?) Listening to some other families (who seemed to bring a whole entourage, and a whole church group too) talk about nonsense topics while trying to listen in on a work call, all while trying not to cough too often while still getting over the tail end of a Covid cough. Oh, and there was one receptionist who was very accommodating and receptive to requests.... he also had a stutter that gave me pause for a second but then I realized it was a medical issue. That's the thing, I sympathize with people with natural disabilities because they've probably been treated poorly by others their whole lives, so they understand how important it is and what a big influence it is to treat others NICELY. That's my theory at least; the other receptionist was very UNRECEPTIVE to my request to go back into the recovery room to see MJ because I forgot something. The more I live life, the more I realize how important that representative person at the front desk or the first person you first meet at a company or building is. That's the person that leaves the biggest impression on how a visitor feels. The surgery can go perfectly (as MJ's did, for the most part), and everything else can go well, but you'll always remember if that receptionist had a bad attitude or gave you a hard time in their only interaction with you. It's just not the right place to be grumpy, rude, distracted, abrasive, bossy, or anything that gives a bad impression. And it really doesn't cost anything to be nice. It's really the easiest job skill to have that doesn't take any training to adopt, yet so many places lack someone to do that. 

Hospitality at a wedding can also... vary in experience. MJ and I went to a young friend's wedding this past weekend and while we're very glad for the couple (young love! They're married before I even found my first girlfriend) it was a stark reminder that people respond to incentives. The wedding was let's say, not the most expensive of weddings (I totally understand trying to keep the budget down) but at the expense of lack of hospitality by the staff: an unsmiling DJ who often walked out on the music to go outside, waiters who didn't fill my water cup through the whole 5-hour event despite me finishing my cup multiple times, and a wedding planner/host person who barked orders at the guests (including me) to get out of the hotel at the end of the night so that the bride and groom could have a private dance inside the hotel. I get the private dance and special moment, but is barking orders at the guests really a good experience to have? Seemed like inexperience or lack of understanding of hosptiality, or just being irritated or overeager to go home as to project frustration; not like she had asked us earlier to leave, just immediately, first request, leave the hotel now because we have to do this. I'm not expecting so much hospitality from a hospital, but a wedding seems more like an event that should try to offer that.... at least if you're expecting more customers for future events. 

Late Stage Capitalism (资本主义晚期, 後期資本主義, 후기 자본주의)

Have you ever been at a party where you start a conversation with an attendee but then realize he or she is not interested in talking to you but is interested in talking to more successful, higher ranking, richer, or more connected people? I certainly have. There's a lot of reasons for these type of people, and a generous interpretation is that they are very goal-oriented and "discerning about who they want to talk to," but one of the reasons is that they are trying to take a step up in society, vaulting themselves up into the next social stratum to better their own lives. This is a symptom of late-stage capitalism. 

The Japanese sensation Shohei Ohtani signed with the L.A. Dodgers this past weekend (after a furious Friday of twitter activity in which he was thought to be on a flight to Toronto to sign a contract with the Blue Jays- but Canada in December? Really?) on a contract worth $700 million for 10 years, the most lucrative contract in sports history, not just baseball. My friend immediately reacted to this development as "late stage capitalism," which I hadn't thought about but makes a ton of sense in how society works nowadays. Everyone wants to be the first to congratulate the best in the world, and appalude when they "get a bag," aka get paid a lot of money, a way to applaude others when they make it but also hope to be as successful as them and have that success rub off on them. So the winners win not only in the money and social status achieve but also the attention and esteem from others, branching off one way, while those who are not successful or never get any praise (me!) get ignored, so the top 1% are really the top 1% in everything: they win everything, and the losers get nothing. Very little attention is paid to individuals who need help or just need a little to get on track because the attention is all lumped on those who need help the least (the 1%) while those who need help the most get ignored. That's late-stage capitalism, and I'm really worried about it; the definition includes that the system is on the verge of collapse; this rate of winners winning everything is unsustainable. According to Karl Marx, there will be a violent revolution of this system by those suffering at the bottom who can't take it anymore. 

I'm not saying there will be a violent revolution soon, but I am very sympathetic to those who arent' in the "big club" of celebrities and those who have made it. Everyone (including MJ and I) like to see the success stories and go to luxurious big cities and stores that are winning, but what about the local businesses that close down after failing? The 90% of cities in America that are not the big 4 NYC, L.A., Chicago, etc. and are just getting by? Nurses and teachers and others just making it on a basic salary who are having their purchase power decreased because of inflation and coddling of the richest class. My Youtube and Facebook algorithm is filled with successful comedians, musicians, Youtubers with great cat videos, movies, and if you don't actually go into society a bit you'd think that's all society is, people fooling around, having fun but making money, living a decent lifestyle and being able to create "content" as a career. That's not America, nor the world. Very rarely do I get directed to videos of struggling lower-to-middle class people who are living paycheck to paycheck, in dire financial straits, etc......I've recently seen some Mr. Beast videos and others who give handouts to those in desperate need: not a panacea and won't solve the overall problem, but at least these videos show the underside of our society that doesn't get shown in the upward-climbing capitalist society that only cares about stepping up in society. While doing that, it's important sometimes to also reach down and try to lift some of those who are down there up. (Maybe my roots of being born in a Communist country sprouting up, but Asian societies still value collective communities whereas American and other western societies are much too individualistic and emphasizing individual accomplishments, to hell with everyone else). 

Hope we figure out how to fix this late-stage capitalism thing and avoid the early-stage violent revolution thing. 

Downsides to Eating Out

 A downside to hanging out with fancy office workers who are always working: I often wonder, "do they ever cook anything themselves?" Breakfast was ordered from a bagel place, lunch was at the office park, and then we unanimously agreed to go to a Mexican fine dining/alcohol place for a nightcap. Quick math indicates that there's no room for a home-cooked meal in there. This was kinda me when I went to the office everyday: there was a small lunchtime-cafe who specialized in taking money from people like me, cooking up a mix of cubano, reuben sandwiches, and their specialty, the chicken and bacon wrap. (For some reason, all restaurants all have a healthy portion of bacon sitting around to put in their foods- my theory is that bacon is very easy to put in small doses like salads, other meats, eggs, even pancakes and breakfast foods- bacon mixes well with everything, and nobody complains about it. It's also when of the highest- cholestrol foods out there and adds nothing nutritionally and contains mass amounts of the thing that I DON'T want, salt). 

Yup, salt. I'd been desensitized to it until I started cooking on my own, but salt is like the universal ingredient for most restaurants to make their food taste good. Sure that's MSG, hot sauce, butter, mayo, some other small secrets, but overwhelmingly salt is the thing that restaurants can sneak in there and people just keep flocking back to. It's terrible for our bodies (MJ's the one who tuned me into this). Every time I have something really salty I think of the Meghan Trainor song, "It's all about that salt, 'bout that salt, 'bout that salt, no healthiness....it's all about that salt, salt, salt salt." And it's pretty clear why the girl in that song is "no size two," cuz she's ingesting all that salt. There's nothing inherently wrong about eating out 3 times a day especially when duty calls and work is running late (well, it does tend to flatten your wallet more quickly), but restaurant foods and bar food and Chinese takeout and Mexican foodtrucks and "urban food courts" all tend to have salty options, except maybe like "Sweetgreen" or "Joe and the Juice" or something. Even the Mexican fine dining place I went with my co-workers to at the end of the day: looked high-end, had chips and guacamole brought out, didn't skimp on the margaritas, but the food? Tasty but completely supported by how salty it was. For someone who's used to making tofu and mushroom dishes at home and having a rather light palette, it was like seeing the ocean for the first time: realizing all that hype about restaurant food where people give free advertising to restaurants through word of mouth by saying, "I heard that place is good...." it's mostly just because they've been brainwashed by the salt intake. Their minds cry out to them for more of that salt injection. Next to Big Sugar and Big Corn, the next biggest cartel in the American food industry that I'm slowly understanding: Big Salt. 

Luckily for me, MJ realized this early on and pointed me towards restaurants that are lighter and rely more on light ingredients that fit well together to create tasty food rather than just tried-and-true salt, so I've been able to ween off and escape Big Salt. I consider myself a survivor and hope to rescue others from the dietary hell of Sodom Sodium. 

Premonition (预感, 予感, 예고)

 “The Premonition” is a book by Michael Lewis that discussed the warning signs leading up to  Covid. It joined a whole list of other nonfiction books over the years he’s written that offer compelling stories on the most well-known developments in society at the time, like “The Big Short” about thr 2008 Financial Crisis, Moneyball about baseball’s sabermetric revolution which was the biggest thing in the baseball world at the time, and then the oddly prophetic Going Infinite about the rise of Sam Bankman-Fried whom Lewis followed around for a year because SBF was the hot new entrepreneur in the crypto world, only to make like Icarus and fall from Grace horrifically and publicly, now spending time in Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn.

I’ve had a few premonitions from my young days turn out to be true. I dreamt that I would learn Japanese, then Korean. I dreamt that I would one day fly from East Coast to the West Coast to be on a game show with trivia. (In my dream it was Jeopardy, not a knockoff GSN show that aired to a VERY limited audience, but I haven’t given up yet!)

Also when I was a young college kid choosing careers, the lifestyle that appealed to me most was that of a traveling attorney. I had a premonition that in my later years I would be flying around the country for work, from city to city, office building to office building taking on important cases dressed fancifully, staying at swanky hotels, dining with rich people, etc, essentially living the glorious life of an attorney. I could see that life from the middle seat of the back of Southwest planes flying through college because it was a fantastical dream yet attainable…. All I had to do was go to law school.
My premonition turned out to be pretty accurate, at least for the last 2 days. Most of the year I’m just sitting at home in my sweatpants making homemade meals and my commute is from my bedroom to the adjacent living room. I had the opportunity to take a client’s deposition in downtown San Diego today, and I lived the lawyer high-life. The hotel: I have a mental limit in my head (maybe self-imposed?) to not spend more than 200 dollars a night for a hotel. This drives MJ crazy. That doesn’t apply…. When the firm is paying for the hotel! Suddenly I feel like Super Mario and the number of stars in the hotel goes up. It’s really a mindset for lawyers, act the part, be the part. Part of it is how I dress… I was required to put on business formal for the first time working in a long time, and I just feel different… like I’m important, and I belong to the group of people who are enjoying nice things.

Getting breakfast: I almost NEVER entertain the idea of eating at the hotel we’re staying at, but at some of these fancy hotels, they “gift you 25 dollars” to spend within the hotel so that if you don’t spend it you lose it (a tricky resort fee maneuver) but that does mean I wake up ready to eat at the hotel. Açaí bowl! And all fancy places have fancy food. It’s not the Bobby “I’m in a hurry” special, (MJ hates this too) where anything will do.

Office buildings: the stories about commercial real estate spaces losing customers is undoubtedly real, but that doesn’t mean some of the spaces aren’t really nice. And near the beach, or upper-scale office park locations, where there are running fountains, Christmas decorations (this time of year), valet parking, and heat lamps for outdoor dining enhancing the fine dining experience. 

Front desk people: every office people usually has a receptionist or someone at the front desk who is willing to help. That's a very important person! Often hospitals and other busy establishments are so buy no one is stationed with the sole purpose of helping with whatever is needed at the time. Office buildings have the opposite problem: that front desk person is often TOO friendly, with no tasks needed. But when they are needed, it's such a luxury to have and reminder that office people just have it easier. 

I really wish MJ, or any other hard workers who’ve worked in other environments their whole lives, could experience my lawyer world for a few days like I just did. You realize why some people go against the advice that lawyers have bad reputations and substance abuse issues or will be displaced by AI (Isn’t everyone?) and choose the attorney life. It can be nice. 

Dry Cough (干咳, 乾いた咳, 마른 기침)

 After 4 years of its existence, there's still so much we don't know about Covid-19, partly because there are so many variants: we've moved past Greek letters like Omicron and Delta to abbreviations like HV.1 and EG.5. And it can affect different people very differently, even if they are in the same household, like MJ and me. Yup, we both contracted Covid this past week or so, MJ maybe even before that, and it's been just safely resting at home. Actually took a bit of the pressure off to do anything exciting or make a day of it; I'm content with just being at home. Most unusually, though, this disease seemed like a nocturnal animal, like a vampire or something: only coming out and showing its fangs, doing its worst work during the nighttime, being relatively peaceful during the day when the sun was out. 

During our stay in London, (yup, we still traveled to London despite both having Covid during the trip) we would both feel OK during the day and even had time to visit Windsor Castle, the Shard (highest observation point in London), all the touristy stuff but then MJ would worsen noticeably at night, when it got bitterly cold admittedly, but that didn't necessarily explain the excessive shivering and dry coughing all throughout the night. Later, after arriving home from the trip and feeling symptoms too, I also had the worst fits of coughing at night, almost like the disease clicked on and was more active then. 

This is the longest I've dealt with Covid- almost a full week now of displaying symptoms. the side effects of the vaccine were gone after a day, and the previous other time I thought I had Covid also dissipated quickly. Maybe I'm dealing with a more virulent version of the virus now, but whatever it is this disease is not a joke, even for a fully vaccinated, good immune system-having guy like me. I haven't even been able to run like I used to; brain fog crept in.The worst part about it, though, for me, has been the dry coughing. It sucks, not just because I try to hold it back and stifle it like I would a normal cough, but something inside of me feels like it's burning to get out, accompanied with a powerful itch, that I can't suppress it for too long. And one cough becomes a chain reaction of several coughs. At its worst, the cough can make me feel like I can't even breathe, like there's a loss of air supply around me. Nothing that made me fear for my life or anything, but I could see how one might panic a little bit if that sense of airlessness dragged on a little longer. Especially at the beginning of the pandemic when treatments weren't available, patients were not vaccinated, and doctors didn't know what to do, I could definitely see why ventilators were needed to help patients breathe; ultimately though getting put on the ventilator meant many patients would never be able to get off it and passed away shortly after. Sad stuff. 

There's that familiar phrase that most people know but don't practice: an ounce of prevention is more valuable than a pound of cure. It's always better to take steps to prevent getting something in the first place than trying to fix it after you've already gotten it. Feel like America and most of the world has gotten pretty complacent about Covid-19, me included: planes are pretty much full of people who don't wear masks, trains and subways in the biggest metropolitan areas like New York and London are teeming with people who don't wear masks; while masks have been proven not to be 100% effective in preventing transmission, it still has some preventive effects, especially if people like MJ and I who HAVE THE DISEASE wear it to protect others. As with a lot of situations, I feel America went too far to address the disease (lockdown businesses, etc.) but then went too far the other way when totally opening up, and now we just get people who suffer Covid all the time (hearing a lot of friends and co-workers still get it) without it ending up in the news anymore. 

I really hope this dry cough goes away. Several times this week I tried to close my mouth, and instead I cough through my nose. Phlegm everywhere. Not a good feeling. MJ checking my nose every few hours to see if there's new sputim. Spoiler Alert: there probably is. It's neverending, no matter how many times you try to take it out. Still haven't hit the motherlode. 

Memoir (回忆录, 伝記, 회상록)

 2023 has been the year of reading memoirs for me, apparently. From the highly emotional and influential "Crying in H Mart" by Michelle Zauner to Questlove to Matthew Perry to my most recent, "Governator Arnold Schwarzanegger." I guess my consumption of them comes along with lack of social interaction and hearing about people tell me their stories, so I resort to celebrities to tell me their own hyped-up or self-aggrandizing (in Arnold's case) or self-loathing (in Matthew Perry's case, sadly) or self-justifying (in Amy Schneider's case, more in a sec) but which are nonetheless fascinating reads and character studies. 

Not all memoirs reflect well on the person writing them. I would love to write a memoir about my life (this blog is kinda it) but it would likely show all my flaws, prejudices, and unpopular opinions and bad takes, and while I do get the chance to get my own story out there and try my best to appeal to the reader for sympathy and understanding, that can come off as arrogant and disagreeable anyway. 

Take, for example, Arnold's life story in his own words: it's a 700-page massive tome with a huge picture of his face on it (to be fair, most memoirs of famous people do have their face on it) but NOWHERE in the book can I find anywhere where he says he got lucky, caught some good breaks, or won the genetic lottery/ the game of life lottery. At times it feels like a personal advertisement for his next political or personal life campaign, telling only of the good things he did like sponsoring an education bill for education in California or seeking a ballot intiative for the Califronia people, but of course he did that for political gain in preparation for his running for governor in the 2003 recall election (of then-governor Grey Davis). He meekly admits to an affair with his housekeeper, and even having a secret child with her that he claimed to his then-wife wasn't his, because he was caught publicly having done it, not from the goodness of his heart of coming clean. Of course he just gently slides right over that, devoting a couple pages to it. Also the praising of various celebrities like Dustin Hoffman, Sylvester Stallone, etc. but then just taking a shot at James Cameron for being too controlling. (A sentiment shared by many actors, to be fair). The book served as a reminder that if not for Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution, Arnold might have beat Donald Trump to becoming the latest pompus celebrity president....only the fact he was born in Austria stopped him for running. To think just because you're an actor with a history of success you can become governor or even president, you got to be pretty egotstical, which famous people have developed years of being told only "Yes" and never "No.' 

Speaking of, Rachel Dratch and McCauley Culkin just dominated on the most recent episode of Celebrity Jeopardy, with Rachel winning in the end by pulling out canine infectious tracheobronchitis is "kennel cough" and the classic IHop pancakes and bacon dish is "Rooty Tooty Fresh and Fruity," further reinforcing the notion that comedians are smart. And McCauley, I though he grew up to be another lame child star....turns out he's a pretty chill guy at least from watching him for an hour on prime time television!  

And unfortunately for Amy Schneider, whose memoir "In the Form of a Question" (kind a expected a more original title, TBH, than the generic Jeopardy-related one. See "Prisoners of Trebikistan" as a catchy one) and whom i really respected and admired during her Jeopardy run, it made me have mixed feelings about her. The book had some of the expected portions like Amy's early life and her previous marriage and how she became so smart/ so good at Jeopardy, but her transformation to transgender rubbed me the wrong way: Amy has been open in that she still likes women, and she admitted to being a little excited to seeing femailes in the dressing room and admiring some of their bodies. That may seem like a pretty innocent thing for someone who truly thinks of themselves as a woman, which I do believe Amy does (I'm sure this post will be later flagged as transphobic now whenever I become famous- yea right), but should her right to be transgender precede other women's privacy in the locker room not to be ogled by any person who likes females? I guess there are lesbians who will be in the locker room who like women's bodies, but that does seem to me to be a little different than someone who transitioned from a man. to be doing it. Not questioning Amy's personal motives for transitioning, but what if someone else saw that as an opportunity to identify as female to get into the women's locker room? Or (as a kind of extreme example by right wing, but similar line of thinking), what if a prisoner identified as female to get into the female prison? Should that one person's right to identify as a certain gender override everyone else in society? Also kind of like the Lia Thomas trans swimmer issue: should she be allowed to compete with women and express herself placing her own needs over others? In both cases I think the reasonable solution is to have a separate category for trans athletes or trans locker rooms ( logistically difficult I know). So I didn't see that as a "win" for Amy on behalf of the transgender community, the more she wrote about that topic the less I was convinced. 

You know whose memoir I'd loved to have read? Princess Diana's, who died at age 36 (my current age!) in 1997 but probably had so many more life experiences (married into the Royal Family, for one) than I had at my age. (My Sundays consist of 3 hours trying to talk up random guys in between chess matches at the lcoal cafe). The Crown Season 6 started up its last season most recently (My dad apparently loves the show and actually asked me if the show was on yet, making me feel like a millenial explaining the new world to my Boomer dad). The show is generally even-handed in regards to coverage of both sides of the Diana v. Charles and Queen Elizabeth conflict, but the last several weeks show Diana somewhat in a negative light, able to manipulate the media into getting what she wants and being openly combative to Charles and Camilla's relationship. I wonder what she'd have to say now....and if the rumors were true that foul play contributed to her death? (Spoiler: we didn't find out and likely will never know for sure). 

Emmanuel Ax

 An interesting way to spell one's last name for Emmanuel Ax, a famous piano player from Ukraine who often shows up onstage with Yoyo Ma and other famous classical musicians. Well he showed up tonight at a concert as the star of the show, and he rocked it. Very few instruments command as much attention as the piano... Ax didn't swing his bow wildly like many violinists MJ and I have seen (Ray Chen) or have anything terribly distinctive, but the Brahms piece just rang out......plus the Schubert Serenade solo he played as an encore. What I noticed tonight, though, like most nights at a classical music concert, is how locked in everyone is for a 2-hour orchestra concert. It's one of the most polite audiences in the world: a classical music concert. Everyone applauds furiously when the conductor and even the first violinist steps onto the stage indicating the beginning of the concert, and then everyone dutily SHUTS UP. And they look at the screen unflinchingly, without getting distracted in an era of cell phones and online connectivty. I looked around the hall and everyone had their eyes pointed directly ahead......except for one guy in the rear orchestra seating who fell asleep of course, in full view of everyone else (good reason never to sit there). Everyone even had the presence of mind to cover their coughs and sneezes and everything else until after the piece ended, or at least between movements in between a piece. Remarkable discipline, one of the only places in the world now you can get that in public places: airplanes, buses, subways, restaurants: there's always someone doing something objectionable, or weird, or socially unacceptable, and MJ will surely catch it. Even in movie theaters there's always one or two bad apples making comments or being loud ruining it for everyone, or museums where someone's standing too close to the art, touching the art, or letting kids run around a Richard Serra maze-like sculpture. They save the standing for the standing ovation at the end, which was reciprocated today by Ax giving the above-mentioned encor performance. I was impressed and proud of the classical music crowd, a crowd I've grown up with and learned to appreciate. 

I may have been impressed also by the Chinese food I had during intermission; for some reason the local Chinese restaurant MJ and I have always desired but it's on the other side of town from us was hosting a food event at the concert hall and had food for sale later, and it's the only time ever MJ and I had Mapo Tofu and Veggie spring rolls, or any other kind of Chinese food, at a music concert. I guess I'm easily impressed, and the mapo tofu was good. 

I sure do wish Emmanuel Ax will come up on a Jeopardy question one day: I now have the 74-year-old man imprinted in my mind. I find that I do well with names of people because usually I associate them with a specific thing or accomplishment, or I connect them to a picture, and the visual image helps me remember better (although I still have trouble remembering the names of people I meet at a party). The names of specific tools, objects, furniture, rooms in a house, cheeses, clothing items, and other commonplace items though.....I have a really tough time remembering and inherently knowing, because I grew up in a household of Chinese people who didn't use those terms for any of the commonplace items around me! (convenient excuse, but it is a reason). Today I had a hard time in Celebrity Jeopardy! (the easiest version of Jeopardy!) coming up with a fulcrum that could be used as a bar to lift a car (answer: lever) or the type of Dutch cheese that looks like a wheel and has a red band around it (Gouda). I really need to know what stuff are called. 

Taylor Swift (泰勒斯威夫特, テイラー・スウィフト, 테일러 스위프트)

 Nothing makes me feel old more than spending a day with my sister, who's part of another generation apparently even though she's just 9.5 years younger than me. She has multiple tattoos, is into the most recent social media news, supports Palestine 100% in the most recent Gaza conflict, still keeps in contact with her college friends, and has the very 1970's attitude of "don't trust anyone over 30." (Wonder what happens when she turns 30? She doesn't trust herself anymore?) The most noticeable thing she does that separates her from me most clearly, though, is her undying love for Taylor Swift. 

Have you heard of Taylor Swift? She's only anywhere and everywhere you look. I looked up her name in different languages, and yup, she's famous enough to have a specific translation in all the key languages. International superstar who is probably more the face of America than anyone in America rigth now, including Joe Biden, Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and a host of other candidates. She played "kingmaker" to Travis Kelce, a formally successful tight end for the Kansas City Chiefs but unknown outside of the sports world, who has suddenly become the most famous famous sports star in teh world and transcnding sports by dating Taylor and having her show up to the games. Football fans have been complaining that the telecasts featuring the Chiefs cut to Taylor in her box seats more than the game itself. Superlative, superlative, superltive, Taylor has lived up to all those superlatives. 

My sister went to watch the Eras Tour concert film today in theaters; I abstained from spending time in the theater, but on Netflix I'm watching the Renaissance Tour concert film from 2018 (before her mega-mega-star status, when was just a mega-star). 

1.) Some questions: How does she not sweat through all her outfits and makeup after dancing so actively? She really gives it all in her performances, but she looks fresh the whole way through 3 hours of concert action...she has costume changes, sure, but I'd be sweating my ass off........it's not like she has a private shower backstage. Magic. 

2.) She's 33 turning 34 in December. Are Taylor and Travis going to make a baby soon? That baby will likely be the most discussed baby in the history of the world, eclipsing Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie's babies, Kim Kardashian's babies, the Jon + Kate babies, the Octomom babies, Baby Jesus, etc. 

3.) Does she write all of her own songs? If so, she's the Moazart of her generation, a virtuoso who generates hit after hit after hit, where she played 30+ songs during her live performances but people like my sister still got "super salty" (yes, that word makes me feel old too) that she didn't include certain songs out of the 100+ hit songs she's ever had. 

4.) If Taylor ever performed at the halftime show for a Super Bowl, it migth be the most watched event ever, not just of Super Bowls. She definitely has the stage presence for it, and her shows have the entertainment quality for it, with massive props (like giant snakes, drummers baging on gong drums, half-naked dancers (both men and women), strobe lights, etc., etc.) I have to say she'd probably be better than pregnant Rihanna in the last halftime performance (unpopular opinion I guess). 

5.) I've never been to a Swiftie concert of course, but I imagine that watching it from home in the comfrot of my own couch and big-screen TV is a more pleasant experience than paying upwards of 4-digit prices (per ticket!) to go to a stadium to sit in the nosebleeds, wearing adult diapers (apparently fans this summer reported wearing them to not take bathroom breaks so they didn't miss a thing). It's just like UFC events, any sports events, really: you get to see more not going live. This is the old geezer Bobby Yan talking though: the film had close-up shots of fans who were pleased as punch, screaming their heads off when Taylor came onstage for the first time, shedding tears throughout the performance and when Taylor was speaking, holding up lights while the lights went dark, and I'm sure shouting the lyrics of the songs as Taylor was singing throughout along with 50,000 other screaming fans. Sounds stressful for me; heaven for others. 

6.) She has very quotable lyrics and catch phrases, like "Shake it off, shake it off." Also "Cruel Summer" (also title of a different song by Bananarama, "You Belong with Me." "I don't know about you, but I'm feeling 22." (For me, it's soon to be I'm feeling 42). And of course, the one I say to my sister everytime I see her: "I knew you were trouble when you walked in....." surprised that one hasn't made it into the cultural zeitgeist: it's a classic. 

MJ and I just want to go see U2 in Las Vegas's new Sphere theater, Achtung Baby Live. 

Bradycardia (心动过缓, 徐脈, 서맥)

 Bradycardia is a term for a slow heartbeat, a term I recently learned from an episode of Jeopardy but also from my intermittent viewing of the Good Doctor, a series that's not really available on any of the streaming services I've ever subscribed to (Hulu, Netflix, HBO) but is curiously readily available on the Southwest WiFi system. That's pretty much how I learn stuff these days: it comes up on Jeopardy, I forget about that term because it's new and I haven't developed an interest in it yet, but then it shows up in another medium in a memorable way (in this case, Freddy Highmore's character Sean, a surgeon at San Jose Hospital, is rushing a 10-year-old patient to the ER explaining her syptoms including slow heart beat aka bradycardia), and now I've mastered that term hopefully forever. Also I created the image in my mind of a Tom Brady-like heart being slow, which the New England Patriots QB was famous for, solidifed it for me. Also tachycardia is a irregulary fast heartbeat- helps to know sets of opposite-meaning words, like hyper (over) vs. hypo (under). 

The Good Doctor pairs nicely with the Korean drama MJ and I have been watching recently, detailing the lives of nurses and doctors at a psychiatric hospital in Korea. It has plenty of interesting elements like treatment of patients, the causes of patients' trama and symptoms to look out for, scientific terms originating in Latin then to English then turned into Korean, but it also includes an element of every medical drama I've ever seen has to have: the dynamic between doctors and nurses. It's inescapable, like the "chicken-or-the egg" dilemma except for hospitals, or more like Batman and Robin. Doctors are supposed to be the more advanced level, or at least have received more schooling than nurses, but they often overplay their degree and disrespect nurses, often criticizing them and not listening to nurses (at least, according to the Good Doctor). I may be biased because MJ is a nurse and she reports plenty of drama about doctors who don't know anything or are too arrogant or are not responsive to nurses' advice, but it seems to me doctors need to value the nurses they work with more, even in situations where the doctor is the direct supervisor. Just because someone obtained the necessary qualifications for becoming a doctor, doesn't mean he or she is a good doctor (pardon the pun), I often say there are plenty of lawyers who became lawyers who shouldn't have, and to go further with that, some doctors should not be supervising others. Supervision in itself is a totally different role than being a doctor, so a lot of doctors are not fit for supervising others, despite having to play that role at the hospital. Conversely, just because nurses don't have the necessary qualifications for being a doctor doesn't mean they aren't just as knowledgeable about certain aspects of a patient's treatment. 

MJ is currently working for a doctor who pushes MJ and other members of the "team" around without regard for MJ's well-being and quality of life, and it's really disappointing; the doctor has even threatened in not-so-subtle messages that if "the team" doesn't perform well enough to gather patients for a study that there's not enough money for MJ to get paid her salary. (The doctor uses team to her advantage when it suits her to boss people around but not when it comes to not paying out people's salary or other disadvantageous situations). An unethical move to threaten people's livelihood and salary if they don't meet a certain level of performance and depending on the situation and employee contract, not a kosher way legally for a boss to incentive her employees. Doctors like that really bring down the whole profession and further make me realize I shouldn't be looking at real doctors (I can trust Freddy Highmore!) with rose-tinted glasses and assume they know best about everything. They don't, not even about medical issues, but definitely not about how to be a good boss and supervise others. 

Rant (on behalf of MJ) over. 

Nyad

 "naiad" or "nyad" in Greek means water nymph, a recurring theme in the movie I watched on a whim today about Diana Nyad, the famous swimmer who swam from Cuba to Florida, 110 miles through the gulf stream and shark-infested Caribbean waters. I'd only know her name through Jeopardy clues over the years, as trivia circles like "first ever person to" accomplishments and adventures that had a lot national buzz, and apparently it was a huge buzz in 2013 that Nyad accomplished this feat......at 64 years old! (Where was I when this story broke? For many years of my life I just completely tuned out the news and current events, apparently, or just completely dislodged this story from my brain). 2013....I vaguely remember Batkid, Edward Snowden, the Boston Marathan bombing......yup, that's about it. I was barely part of this world participating in its daily events. 

But yes the story of Diana Nyad is actually one of perserverance and various failures and believing that one is never too old to do something......we're a society that incentives being young and accomplishments...I always envied the Forbes "30 Under 30" editions and "College Students making a difference," especially after I had passed those ages/milestones and hadn't accomplished what those people had. So for a swimmer to come back after 30 years from her last attempt to cross from Cuba to Florida is really a pretty significant feat, a reminder for us that as the movie says, "a diamond is just a lump of coal that stuck with it." (I believe the actual quote from Henry Kissinger is "a diamond is just a lump of coal that did well under pressure,") but both apply as inspirational messages. I appreciate those stories about perseverance and personal accomplishment that also highlight the trials and tribulations that it took to get there, the toll that it took to get there. Too often nowadays I see people wanting to get famous or get rich with the easy route, like snapping your fingers and turning into a millionaire (for a crazy story about how making crazy amounts of money insanely quickly, read "Going Infinite" by Michael Lewis about Sam Bankman Fried, who was just convicted of criminal fraud this week and will be spending quite a lot of time in jail now), and the grind-it-out determination and grid and "10,000 hours" gets overlooked as part of that process of accomplishment something great. Diana Nyad apparently had to fend off sharks, cold water, violent waves, and jellyfish attacks while swimming the 110 miles (doesn't feel like a lot for walking, running, or driving.....but swimming? I don't think I've swum even half a mile consecutively my whole life). Just the logistics of getting a boat to be by her side monitoring, having to refuel with food every few hours (because she's burning so many calories every hour), keeping her head above water, keeping an even pace (apparently a lot of Beatles songs helped set the beat), not suffering any diseases, darkness, and just the fact of being 64 years old! My dad stopped playing tennis with me around age 60 because he couldn't run anymore, my mom had issues with her kidneys at 64, and both just go on long walks now. 

I met a guy today at chess club who mentioned during our brief conversation between games (yes chess players talk, not just bury their heads into the chess game) that he was locked up for awhile and played chess there- I should mention this gentleman was not Sam Bankman Fried. I did a double take at first, hopefully not rudely, but recovered quickly and kept the conversation about chess, but it was certainly unexpected information: here was a guy around my age who was talking to me normally and seemed pretty friendly, nothing out of place, who had just revealed to me he had spent time in prison. Talk about a big setback in life; but he got through it and is rediscovering his life, partly through chess. Him and Diana Nyad remind me that there are people suffering much bigger setbacks than I have the last few years (not getting on Jeopardy, not having a baby yet), and I really haven's suffered real loss that compares to spending one's whole life dedicated to trying to accomplish a single goal of crossing Cuba to Florida, but then not completing it three times in 2 years (like Diana Nyad had in 2011 and 2012 before she finally made it in 2013) and feeling life slip away as one just gets another year older wondering if I'm ever going to reach my goal. 

The Big, Terrible Thing

 Over Halloween weekend, an actor most poeple of my generation know intimately passed away: Matthew Perry, who played Chandler "Muriel" (I saw a trivia question asking about his middle name) Bing on friends. Not Matthew Calbraith Perry who fought in the War of 1812 and opened Japan's doors to foreign trade, the funny Matthew Perry who was apparently originally from Canada where he was pretty good at tennis for a Canadian, but it turns out a country that sends all its best athletes into hockey and winter sports doesn't have too many great tennis stars. I know all this about Matthew Perry because immediately after his passing I put Matthew Perry's memoir "Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing" on hold at the public library, hoping I'd be the first one to get the news and think to check out his memoir which just came out last year. Is this a faux pas to do? I felt just a tiny bit guilty about trying to "beat the crowds" to get at a recently dead man's book, like I was capitalizing on his death like buying art right before an artist is about to die. 

I don't usually like to read celebrities' books because I don't like putting famous people on a pedestool (see many previous entries on this blog) but I wanted to read what most people were interested in: the stories about drugs. It's like when people bought Bill Clinton's first book after his presidency called "My Life": they all wanted to see what he had to say about Monica Lewinsky. I wasn't reading it to spite Matthew Perry or anything: I generally wanted to see how a seemingly good guy can just let drugs and alcohol spiral out of control and get addicted so many times, go through rehab so many times, only to relapse and get back on it. When I was a kid I always thought that only bad people were addicted to drugs and took to the streets; as an adult I realize it's not that simple. Apparently Perry was a colicky baby so he was fed barbiturates as a newborn baby to get him to calm down....that seems unhealthy and starting off life on the right foot. Kind of reminds me of how lucky I got to not be pre-trained to have a disposition towards drugs, or be in an environment growing up of drug use, or have that much of an addictive personality. Perry apparently had all of those, and as much as I wanted to point out holes in his story about blaming addiction like "HA! You had a choice! Don't just blame it on drugs!" I couldn't help but wonder if there are good people who just can't control themselves. Perry says that "he can only control the first sip of alcohol...." once he's had one, he's going to have them all. Fatalistic catchphrases like "you take the first drink of alcohol, but then the alcohol drinks you..." or something like that. 

Especially now with really lethal substances in street drugs (aka fentanyl) and opiates, it is SO DANGEROUS to do drugs (although Perry apparently did not have meth or fentanyl in his system and his death is being called a drowning so far)... it is literally life and death. Perry called the drugs and alcohol in a lethal combination the "Big, Terrible Thing," aptly named because it really is like an invisible demon you carry inside you that makes you a zombie (I've been hearing a lot of people call San Francisco the scene of the zombie apocalypse because of the drug users, and from the little time I spent there in 2018 that I've hard the 2023 version is a lot worse, I'd have to agree) that can focus on nothing else but brains......... I do think those drugs do rewire one's brain so that you only get stimulated by those drugs... the drugs just take over all of the impulses and instincts that a brain normally would do. That's what I always say, you can get hurt playing sports or other body parts, but you gotta protect the brain, from the outside (skull) and inside (drugs). Such a shame, I had a good time reading Perry's book, I recognized a lot of the comedic timing and writing that made Friends gold (Perry apparently pitched a lot of jokes for the show); it's too bad there won't be any more of his work. Just 54 years old; I would be distrought if I knew right now I'd live to 54, and he died without any children, which he laments throughout various parts of the book, one of the greatest joys in life sacrificed mainly because he couldn't settle down due to drugs, even a guy as successful as Matthew "Chandler Bing" Perry. Really is a big, terrible thing. 

Danse macabre (死的舞蹈, 死的舞蹈, 죽음의 무도 )

 I feel like I'm late to a meeting; the writing of this entry was delayed 15 minutes due to looking up old blog entries from 2013: from my 26-year-old self, indeed a pivotal year as I predicted back then; too bad I only wrote 31 entries, which makes sense considering the monumental nature of moving into my new career, beginning my long journey to find a partner. The posts aren't too bad, actually, and with some work and editing I could become Amy Schneider, Jeopardy superchamp and trans activitist and now writer; quite an awesome story of how she got to where she is now. She's also very humble and realistic about her own abilities and some of the breaks that she's gotten (as well as setbacks) so it's a refreshing take contrasting with some actors and celebrities' memoirs that have some arrogance and "of course I made it in this world, I'm just that good!" underlying their stories of their own life (I understand MJ's boss kind of has that attitude now too, unfortunately). I'd like to think IF (and when) I become that successful I would also be able to keep a level head about it like Amy; all I need is to win like 40 games on Jeopardy and get to be as famous as her. 

The "Danse Macabre" is a famous classical music masterpiece by Camille Saint Saens, a French composer who was a genius in his own right but just had the misfortune of coming just a few decades after Mozart, Beethoven, and all the most famous classical composers that became household names, and perhaps accordingly his pieces don't get their proper due (as you might gather from some of my posts, I'm a big fan of people who don't get their due from the public eye). Last night MJ and I went to a "Halloween fusion musical concert" with classical music intersperced with other forms of music like rap, pop music, ("Uprising" by Muse was somehow prominently involved in a Shostakovich Symphony No. 5 Finale piece. Whether you agree with the decision to have "fusion" music can be debatable (I persoanlly liked some of the pieces but thougth others were jumbled excessively to become cacophony) it reminded me how much I like classical music and how many movies, songs, operas, cultural events, etc. is shaped by classical music. I was proud to have once by a classical musician again; I often am when I go to any classical music concert, but especially where there's a long violin solo or prominent violin parts. That's my jam; those violinists are my people. 

Danse Macabre is a piece that most people wouldn't be able to place, but you've probably heard somewhere before. (Google it now). For MJ, she was immediately reminded of a Yuna Kim skating program in 2009 (Yuna Kim is the most famous South Korean figure skater of all time, the GOAT really). It has like a 2-minute violin solo at the beginning where the first violinist can just go crazy as a "Macabre Dancer" would....and at our concert the soloist definitely did. I was never that expressive when playing violin, and I never had a chance to do a solo at a concert, which suits me just fine, I was always one of the "backup violins" towards the back who just tried to make sure I didn't stick out like a sore thumb. It reminded me, though, that I once played Paganini's No. 24 Caprcie as part of a solo competition and did it.....OK, especially for a high school violin player. It's one of the trickiest violin parts in history, and Paganini really proved that violin is the devil's instrument; he created music that only he could get through and his rivals wouldn't be able to play due to just how hard it was. (For bonus points, listen to "Paganini's La Campanella," which I have humming in my head all the time now because it's the beginning of a Blackpink song called "Shutdown." More pop music songs should try to use some classical music if only to throwback to an earlier time and hook some classical music lovers; instead we get Doja Cat and "Paint the Town Red." Sigh. 

But yea, anyway, 2013, 2023, 2033, whatever comes my way, classical music will always be my jam. I was embarrassed to tell peopel as a kid when other kids asked me what my favorite type of music was (I think in 7th grade I HAD to say Eminem in order to not be bullied) but the great thing about being an adult is that things deemed uncool in middle school are flipped and become really cool........classical music, learn it! Also it might come up on Jeopardy (Jeopardy writers get it). 

Egg Retrieval (取卵)

 I've learned a lot about the female reproductive system through the process of trying to get pregnant, and a big lesson is that there's a lot going on in the uterus and vagina, fallopian tubes, etc. Thanks to the wonders of science, I've been in the room to watch as MJ's doctors inserted ultrasound devices into her reproductive system to check out "what she has going on down there." One of those things going on in the uterus is that egg cells are being developed each cycle after a period, and eventually they turn into follicles that get really big in size (doctors can somehow measure it on the screen to the precise millimeter) and determine when they are ready to be fertilized by the sperm (this would normally be where I would come in). However, thanks again to the miracles of science, there are other options now to try to fertilize those eggs, and the one that MJ and I have tried once already was to retrieve the follicles through a sort of vacuum or suction cump, artificially inseminate them with sperm in a lab, and then let them develop into fully fertilized embryos. Hopefully, one or more of these embryos are deemed ready to go and sent for testing, where it's determined whether they have the right number of chromosomes, look good in appearance and shape, etc. For a truly miraculous process like childbirth, the egg retrieval process sure sounds more like making dumplings on Chinese New Year for the Yan family (gotta be in the right temperature with the right amount of ingredients, and must look good in apperance and color). 

Egg retrieval, unfortunately, is NOT an easy experience for MJ, and I imagine not a great experience for most potential mothers out there. I've learned over this process in order to feel sympathetic to what MJ is going through, I actually need to be experience what it's like to be in the room, (kind of an empiric style of observation) so I've followed her to the medical clinic, and luckily the fertility clinic has allowed the big, bad man to go into the examination room with MJ. The "operating table" that MJ lies down on is unique for expecting mothers or wannabe-mothers in our case, where there are leg posts up high and apart so that MJ can rest her legs while the doctors inspect her reproductive system, and the doctors physically insert a tube up through her vagina into her body. I can't imagine the tube is very warm and comfortable, and although the doctors are nice about going in and trying to do their best I can't help but compare it to an unwanted guest coming into your most private areas and rustling around trying to find the best angles to take a look inside. I can only imagine how it feels if someone were to push a tube into my reproductive system: probably one of a man's worst nightmares. 

It's sad to think that this is just the BEGINNING of the journey of childbirth: if we do somehow succeed at egg retrieval and egg deposit and implantation and getting a blastocyst/ fetus/ eventually a baby, that's where the real fun starts of doing testing, etc. All for the chance to add a person to one's family who you don't even know what he or she will be like: life is like a box of chocolates, you don't know what you're gonna get, you could get a well-behaved angel kid....or the opposite. 

Statistics show that people who believe in religion tend to be happier than those who don't. That's just on average over a cross section of like 9 billion people, but one side effect of religion is being involved in a community and seeing the same people week after week. That's what I miss about being part of human society now; the community aspect of it. The closest I come to believing in religion, ironically, is being in a room of science, the examination room, seeing those follicles that the doctor pulls up: somehow, women were born with those eggs inside them, and the only way to create more humans is to have trust and love enough to have someone with sperm to connect with those eggs. It's really the closest I come to beliving in religious forces, no matter what the science says that it is just part human evolution/ how the human body works. I'm sure egg retrieval is probably not looked on fondly by religion, maybe relying too much on science and man-made techniques? Well, maybe we can just give the religious forces a little bit of a boost to help with this baby-making! (and with a little less pain for MJ, please). 

Echoic Memory (回声记忆, 반향기억, エコー記憶)

 The Proust effect is the effect that smells have on memory; appraently the writer Marcel Proust's works including "In Search of Lost Time" theorized that smells can help people access their childhood memories. I agree on a certain level; certainly the first things people think of when accessing memories is a visual memory of seeing someone's face, or a particular color, or seeing an event take place, but smell definitely plays a big part when I go back to childhood places like going into a school, my parents' closet with the same smell of old clothes, the aroma of dumplings and other Chinese goodies being cooked. Sometimes I crave the smell of chocolate that permeated downtown Chicago when I worked there oh so many years ago now because there was a chocolate factory nearby; everytime I drive down to Camarillo and pass the fertilized fields the familar smell of manure and whatever else is in the fertilizer reminds me that I'm back in Camarillo (It's not all bad; I do like the green grass, abundant flowers, and fresh air smells of Camarillo as opposed to the smog and urban city of L.A.). Not to be hentai (perverted) but I also like the smell of new books, and often crack open a new book partly for the scent. 

However, I think at least for me sounds are more memorable than any other non-vision senses; probably has to do with my good sense of hearing. Even with earwax constantly stuck in my ears most of my life, I hear pretty well; my mom used to marvel that I could hear her conversation with my dad despite being several rooms away and upstairs. (Chinese people call it having "sharp ears.") I don't actively think about it when I go back somewhere I've been before, but I do get a jolt of recognition of familiarity every time I start heading towards a dodgeball gym and hear the balls thudding against the wall, or turn on a baseball game and hear the dim murmur of a buzzing crowd; there are a lot of sounds I appreciate, which is probably why TV shows all employ a catch theme song at the beginning of each episode, or commercials create musical jingles to be memorable like Kit Kat Song or the State Farm ad. There's a ton of sounds from my youth I just don't hear anymore, like ring tones from a non-smart cell phone; old radio shows, the dismissal bell signaling the end of class; echoic memory is important. 

Which is why America has to improve some of the sounds that its country represents. When I went to Japan, getting on the subway was a joy a.) because the trains run on time, b.) because the subway stations and cars themselves were clean and organized, c.) the people riding the subway were generally disciplined except maybe during rush hour traffic, and d.) the spectacular chime that Japanese trains lead off with before their announcement. It's a very soothing sound that is just what you need when being in a high-stress environment like a train where you're worried about your surroundings, you're surrounded by strangers, you might be late for an appointment and in a hurry to get somewhere......the little jingle just makes everything OK. Contrast that with any metro system I've ever been in the U.S., from L.A. to Chicago to NYC to DC.....not very welcome at all, just announcing the next stop and if there are any delays; and "beware of the closing doors...." I know subways are for mid-to-lower-class society people, but at least act like you actually want people to use the service (we did actually pay for it!) Without that magical chime that Japan and some other Asian countries have, the lasting impression of the American trains are just garbage, the smell of marijuana (constant on L.A. trains), the sound of train rushing by, and people talking loudly (MJ got annoyed the other day on the subway listening to a fellow passenger carry on about her personal life while the rest of the car had to listen in). Even arriving at the airport in American cities, I don't really feel welcomed, just a bunch of corporate signs and PA announcements about Flight so-and-so departing in 5 minutes or final call looking for a passenger who hadn't shown up at the gate yet, or "This is Mayor Karen Bass. Welcome to L.A." Give us some tunes! Something to welcome us to the city! 

MJ and I crashed a wedding on Saturday night; not really crashed but witnessed a boathouse wedding from a public bridge that we were passing by; a perfect way to see joy and harmony as well as listening to piano music as the bridesmaids, groom, and finally bride walked down the aisle. A perfect harmony of memories ranging from visual (great sunset after a rainy morning that cleared up), smells of autumn and falling leaves in an urban park, (relatively) fresh air filling our lungs, the sounds of a wedding going on nearby reaching our ears even through the occasional gusts of wind blowing through, and of course the collective wonder and celebration of the wedding guests at the boathouse but also other uninvited guests who had stopped on the bridge to witness the occasion. An unforgettable scene. 

Bob the Not-Builder

 Bob the Builder is a British (never knew that) TV show first aired in 1999 and somehow got super popular even in the U.S., so popular that it became one of the many nicknames for Roberts like myself everywhere (except mine was like "Bob the House-Builder" for how many bricks I created in basketball); Bob the Builder's catchprase was "Can we fix it?" due to his proficiency with renovations, construction, and repairs. 

I'm like the opposite of Bob the Builder. I've always thought that there's some professions people are born into...construction was not one of those for me; even though my grandfather worked on building houses (not sure if he designed them or coordinated building projects or actually got down to work with his hands). I got confused with Lego directions as a kid. I got a C in Home economics and always needed help from the teacher in "woods" class (or was it called carpentry?) where we would build clocks and pen holders out of raw materials; I was lost. I'm still lost. MJ ordered a shelf from Floyd (apparently a high-quality furniture company) yesterday and the guy delivered the boxes in 4 neat packages, so seemingly doable project; I asked him before he left if it was easy to assemble; he gave a dismissive nod and left, assuming reasonably that I'd have an adequate amount of competence around assembling things as a 7th grader. He was wrong. I REALLY considered offering the guy $20 or more to assemble it for us right then and there, but he seemed busy and in a rush, and well......20 dollars is 20 dollars. Later that night, with me in a cold sweat and pieces of furniture strewn eveywhere, I realized I had made a bad decision. 

I think of other things that I'm decent at: solving math problems, learning languages, responding to emails from my bosses.... what am I doing wrong with assembling things? Some people just seem to have a natural affinity and a general sense of what they're doing, like just inserting pieces in where they go logically and not even looking at the manual. I hate the feeling where I'm 10 minutes into building and I realize I've just opened the box and taken out the materials......still on step 1 (or worse, 0). Or as MJ's worst nightmare sets in, I've made a scratch on one of the pieces, without having made any progress. It's kind of like watching some chess Youtube videos where an adult just has no idea how to play chess...it's comical but sad at the same time, to see obvious moves that they should make but they just don't get it. I feel the same way if others were watching me trying to assemble a desk, except I get nervous and psychologically affected if my dad were watching and judging (likely why I'm actually a decent cook nowadays experienting with different recipes and ingredients at home with no judgment, but with my parents they always were eager to take the spatula away from me and do it their way, and I also kept feeling judged all the time and would screw it up). Maybe that's why Montessori schools exist too....let the kids learn on their own and try everything! Not that it's all my parents' fault or anything, I definitely shied away from any type of assembly or construction projects as a kid, much rather lying on the carpet or couch on a sunny day and read a book, dreaming of Bob the Warrior being a hero in a battle or Bob the Detective cracking the puzzle to solve a crime, or Bob the baseball player coming up to bat in the bottom of the ninth. Being Bob the Builder was never really on my mind. I also have like no muscle memory of doing physical tasks (I need like a Google "save my password" function to automatically enter in the steps to build things, I think). The other day I went to fill up the tire in my car (PSI was low) and realized I wasn't putting any air into the tire.....I had to google the right way to use the tire pump. It's a good thing I live in a society that values other skills besides working with my hands, because otherwise Bob the Not-Builder would be screwed. 

And now the real Bob the Builder is in the Mattel franchise and probably will appear in the Barbie movie franchise at some point (if he hasn't already- waiting for Barbie to come out on HBO Max!) 

The Last Honest Businessman in the U.S.

 Amazon prime, Netflix subscription, trial membership, Costco executive membership, health insurance, skyrocketing car insurance premiums, on and on and on.....almost all business nowadays is trying to get the consumer to pay for things he or she doesn't need, or pay more for things that the consumer does need, like add-ons every time you want to purchase just a laptop, or asking to pay tip at any restaurant, not just sit-down restaurants anymore (the tip options are now all 20 percent- 22 percent-25 percent, an uncontrollable rise of tip inflation). Even podcasts and TV shows are complicit in the "bundling" and bait-and-switch schemes, advertising their products in the middle of the show and taking money from advertisers. It's a bleak time to be at the bottom of society and fitting under the term "end consumer," aka the sucker at the end of the pyramid scheme who has to pay for all the graft, add-ons, litigation, and cost of business associated with any kind of business. 

It's refreshing, then, when once in a while I meet the rarest of breeds: an honest businessman, especially a small business owner who isn't just trying to get my money and take advantage of my lack of knowledge about their industry. I fear going to car repair shops, dentists, and other routine places that can easily mark up their prices without fear of repercussion or minimal risk of me leaving the shop and comparing prices somewhere else: the auto shop knows it's got you and you're willing to pay almost any price to fix your car. MJ works for a type of small business owner at her hospital that works in that fashion: sign up any patients that she can convince to join a study, make money from the study, not give patient the best medication (sometimes they get the placebo, which basically does nothing for their health but does help the hospital earn money for the study). However, when I went to a car wash business called "Sammy's Car Wash" the other day to get my car seats cleaned (some blood had been left on the sheets), Sammy, presumably the owner of the car wash, came over to the car, I rolled down the window, and he took a quick glance: "I'm not a thief," he started (good to know). "I'm not trying to steal your money by having you pay for something you don't need." Apparently, my car was not dirty enought to need an interior car wash or in the parlance of the car wash business, a "detail," which sounds expensive but really is just doing a thorough cleaning of the carpet, upholstery, inside parts of the car, maybe with shampoo or some other cleaning product. He did suggest a wax job for the outside of the car to prevent rust, which is fair because I've never applied wax to it and I've had the car for 10 years (just passed my anniversary with the car!) but allowed me to think it over as I just left. 

What a luxury to be able to leave a business without having to come up with excuses about not doing business with them! Usually businesspeople will do their best to have you stay on the line or do high pressure tactics like making you worried about not getting the product ("you don't want your car to have an accident, do you?") and weak-willed people like MJ and myself are so used to being nice that we'll cave at some point and just agree to it even though we don't want to, or they'll appeal to our natural inclination to please people by trying to relate to us and being our friend, making us feel like we'd be doing them a favor if we helped them out with the sale, which is true I'd be doing them a favor but in reality I barely know them and don't owe them a thing. Even restaurants now are preying on good-hearted people to feel bad for the waiter/waitress serving them by making the customer pay for the service at the counter while the employee is standing in front of you, and they're literally looking at the same screen to see whether you tipped or not, and give you instant reaction if and when you tip. NOT tipping feels like I'm screwing the person right in front of me, and the button saying 20% tip in big bold letters is staring right at me with the "no tip" or "custom tip" option (usually for a lower % or like $1) hidden way below in an inconvenient place. As long as they're trying to guilt trip, they might as well have a pop up that says, "Are you sure?" if you click "No tip." Even just the whole idea of having to select "No tip" is so crazy. It implies that the default option is NOT "no tip" and you're actively taking money away from employees, when in fact I'm just trying to buy a Subway sandwich or Chipotle burrito (yes, even these places now have option to tip).

I think there has to be a system for rewarding Sammy of "Sammy's Car Wash" for being an honest businessman: usually the financial incentive is to be the exact opposite of honest: you're likely not to see the customer again, so might as well get as much out of them as possible. At some point the threat of losing customers should take over if they continue to screw us and make us buy things we don't need. Another incentive used to be through Google and Yelp reviews, although I'm not sure they're as reliable anymore due to businesses catching on and getting bots to write reviews or encouraging customers to write 5-star reviews for some sort of reward. So for now, I guess the only way to reward Sammy is with repeat business, or at least the spiritual reward of being able to look at potential customers in the eye and give a straight answer, putting one's ethics and conscience ahead of profit and money. A rare breed nowadays indeed.