Minute Waltz

The Minute Waltz, aka Opus 64 No.1, is by Frederic Chopin, a very recognizable tune that lasts a little more than a minute and baffled me when I plugged into Youtube and watched the version where someone's hands are actually playing the notes on a piano and showing how many keys needed to be played at the same time and how much both hands are doing at the same time. I used to play violin and prided myself on getting through some tough music with all fingers moving around the fingerboard at a dizzing amount of speed, but that was just ONE hand, the other hand was just in charge of going up and down, up and down. The level of 2-hand coordination by piano players is pretty impressive; I barely am able to play the 2-hand version of "Rock Paper Scissors, Minus One" shown on the past season of Squid Game, where each player throws out both hands and then has to take back one of them. All my hands are trained to do is put out 2 versions of the same item, either 2 rocks, 2 scissors, or 2 papers. It was never programmed to put out 2 different items in combination, there's like a mental block preventing me from doing so that I have to re-wire my brain to convince it that it's OK to have each hand do different things (they're so used to doing the same action at the same time). I imagine that would be a huge problem for me playing piano at this stage of my life, although I do like the elegance and clean dulcet sounds of a piano. Even at my peak violin skill level, I could always sense some scratching, some notes being off slightly, violin is just an imperfect instrument for an imperfect person like me. Piano creates some all time classics like "Claire de Lune" by Debussy, "Gynmnopedie" by Erik Satie, Bach's "Goldberg Variations," not to mention modern day classics like the whole "City of Stars" soundtrack and Michelle Branch's "One Thousand Miles." And if MJ and I have a child, I'd nudge him/her towards piano; violin just has a high learning curve and the first few years are going to sound a lot like cat scratch. (Not cat scratch fever, which is an actual bacterial disease transmitted by cats. 

We'll never know exactly what happened in late August 2021 deep in Yellowstone National park between Gabby Petitto and Brian Laundrie, but the latest Netflix documentary gives a pretty good idea, even using AI to generate what might have been Gabby's last few hours before Brian (he claims in his suicide note that he didn't) strangled her to death. The whole story has been denounced as an example of "missing white women syndrome" in that the American populace only wants to hear about stories about missing white women and ignores the hundres and thousands of cases of women missing who are of other races, which to an extent is true, especially for an attractive young white woman like Gabby Petitto, but I'd argue that it was more of the special circumstances of her disappearance that really drew natinoal attention (Britney Griner's case of being detained in Moscow is one example I'd cite of not a non-white woman "missing" but at least getting constant attention for her to be brought home). I think it was the video in Moab, Utah of Gabby and Brian being questioned by police officers that really got everyone's attention. In previous generations, that video would not have made it to everyone's media feeds, the video might not have been available by the police, and it wouldn't have been available on-demand for anyone to watch it on video. As of today there are now 16 million views of that video, and I understand why, especially looking backwards: we're all looking for signs of abuse, that Brian gave away his evil intentions, that Gabby was silently pleading for help, and we've all seen doomed relationships before and want to see one that ultimately failed in the worst way possible. Sadly, I don't see that in the video, and I personally think the police handled the situation correctly.......the fact that they're blamed afterwards for what happened is, to me, confirmation bias and hindsight bias for knowing exactly what would happen afterwards. The problem with relatinoships is you never know who has the capability to kill or what someone will do in the heat of the situation......most people get through it without violence. Gabby was already seeing signs of it with Brian and had already reached out to other people to maybe help her if she needed it, but things escalated way too quickly from loving each other unconditionally to an act of violence so horrible she must have not seen coming despite knowing the guy for over a year, much more than the police could judge from that one interaction. Gabby's case is a cautionary tale, unfortunately, for many women: even if you are sure that the man you are with is safe and the one to be with, just know that life has twists and turns. Protect yourself at all times and be OK to walk away. 

Alarm Fatigue (警报疲劳, アラーム疲労, 알람 피로)

 Alarm fatigue is not exactly the right word for what I'm trying to describe: We need a new word for the oversaturation of everything being a crisis and everything being of critical importance, which is particularly pervasive in today's world of news alerts and instant information.  I've heard "fearmongering" and "news fatigue," but there's no exact term for when everything is sensationalized to be the end of the world or of pressing need to know. This is partly due to news being a business now and needing more eyeballs, and nothing gets more eyeballs than screaming news alerts in bold and in red, begging the reader to clickand care about the issue. It's also prevalent in American Red Cross donation solicitations, as I constantly get emails saying platelets are "critically low," there's a "critical shortage," as if the reason it's low is because I haven't donated, or if I donate there won't still be a shortage. News Flash: there will always be a critical need for platelets, because their shelf life is just 5 days, so you can get all the platelets you want right now, but in 5 days you'll still need a fresh round of platelets. I don't think the messaging is effective: it's like the Boy who cried wolf, an old parable about not exaggerating or lying about danger: you do it too many times, and nobody believes it anymore. (In this case, even if it's true that there is a shortage), people just lose interest. 

It's the same thing with the news. My anxiety levels on a daily basis: high in the morning when I wake up to log in to my computer to start working, get into the flow of things, lower stress level during lunch, pick back up in the afternoon when I want to finish all the work and doing check-in calls when I realize I have to present something or speak on something, and drop much lower after the day is done, to zero or negative when I'm running and destressing, and then suddenly........BOOM there's a breaking alert on a news item, and the president has tweeted something, and it's going to be World War III, or we are going to be a dictatorship soon, or a fascist country, or on the other side there's a new trans controversy, or Nancy Pelosi sold her shares of Apple and Nvidia stock so what does that mean for the stock market, to the Eagles won the Super Bowl which the previous 5 times they did that, the stock market tanked massively later that year...... It's just too much, and it's all presented in this manipulative, emotionally controlling way to get your attention to play on your emotion. Certain words are triggers that the news and algorithms know how to trigger your inner fears, setting off some sort of internal alarm. (For blood donations it's the idea that patients won't be able to get the platelets they need, their surgeries need to be be postponed or cancelled, and I admit it works). Part of the reason I oppose Donald Trump becoming president again is not even that much about his politics, although there are some problematic areas, and it's not the litany of issues any Trump critic can rattle off from the top of one's head....no, it's the fact that him just being in the Presidency creates so much anxeity and alarm in everyone's minds, on both sides of the aisle, the liberals hate him and criticize his every move (sometimes with reason, sometimes somewhat exaggerated) and the conservates are busy defending and applauding his every move and trying to "own the liberals;" it just raises the temperature to a temp much out of my comfort though (even more than the 77 degrees MJ keeps our home at, a little high for me but OK in the winter) and feeling like a constant alarm going off at all times. You ever live in a building or work at a school or office of some kind where the fire alarm goes off constantly? It's so annoying. You can't get back to work, you're constantly distracted, the alarm is just constantly in your ear and your mind you can't even think. That's what news and information transfer is like now. And even when the alarm stops momentarily, before the next one starts, you can hear the reverberations of those alarms in your mind, like your body has adjusted to that sound and can't unhear it. That's also how I feel about the alarmist news now. I'm tired. I'm fatigued. I'm wait for it........"newstired?" 

Cool Kids (Echosmith)

 All my life I've been trying to get on TV, but why? Is it just the very human desire for attention, to show the world how great I am, because getting on TV somehow represents that "I made it" in the world, so I can share on my Facebook and broadcast that I will be appearing on a game show and to see how well I do!!! ( I personally feel like people secretly hate this, even if it's their friends, because we're all jealous of other people's successes, so we have to show up to support them but quietly seethe with rage). Yes, I do have some impulses like these, but recently I've theorized that it's a lot like the song "Cool Kids" by Echosmith, a great song that sums up essentially my whole life up to college and even now applies: "I wish that I could be like the cool kids, 'cause all the cool kids they seem to fit in...." this refrain repeats like 10 times in that song which usually is the sure sign of an earworm, but for me it fits, the song came out in a really formative time for me (2013), maybe because it's not that often played, every time I hear it resonates. I've always wanted to be cool but never got to experience it. I've always walked around with my head down (mainly cuz I was ashamed of my acne as a kid), not walking straight, always just sticking out. Always last to get the new games, the new technology, know the latest gossip, never wearing the right fashion......and it's carried over to adult life. In adult society I'm a nobody, just a passenger on the train, a number on a screen, a customer in line to check out. Nobody cares what I do, no one wants to "fit in" with me. Maybe, just maybe, if I do something cool, people will admire me and I get to be the cool kid for once. I think that's what motivated me as a camp counselor way back in the day; the kids looked up to me because they didn't know better, they're kids and any person older than them seemed cool. But I was cool to them; when I said something they paid attention, actually wanted to hear. I "fit in." 

Is the 1986 movie "Stand By Me" one of the best movies ever? Jeopardy sure incorporates it as a clue often enough, mainly because it's also the name of a song by Ben E. King, which also is played in the movie, but it's also basically an autobiography of Stephen King's younger years, apparently King got emotional after watching Rob Reiner's rendition of King's story "The Body" because it was so real. The movie's only 85 movies long, which is a good start because I just can't sit through Oppenheimer's 3 hours again no matter how good it is, it's got a young kids cast who later went on to bigger things (Wil Wheaton, Jerry O'Connell who does NOT look handsome as he does in Jerry Maguire, and sadly River Phoenix) and nothing really happens plot wise.....it's a very basic "4 buddies go on an adventure" plot line that is probably as old as stories, (The whole Hangover and Harold & Kumar movie franchises are based on it, just to name a couple), and no big plot twists, no CGI, no love stories....just spending 85 minutes with representations of your 12-year-old buddies again, which some argue is the most valuable thing to have, and the most wonderful time of life: young, free, naive, your whole world in front of you, everything is new about the world, and time doesn't move so gosh darn fast). It's set in the fictional town of Castle Rock, Oregon, but it might as well be generic Smallville, USA, or suburb like I grew up in, Darien, IL, or anywhere boys grow up.....we all go through that period of growth and making friends and sharing bonds. Not all of us have to outrun a train on a bridge or find a dead body to accomplish that bonding, but we've all experienced what it's like to be 12 years old. "I never had any friends like I did when I was twelve. Jesus, does anyone?" That is the iconic line of the movie, and should be one of the top movie quotes ever, replacing such drivel as "You had me at hello" or "Say hello to my little friend." I get it, the quote's a little long, but the idea is gold: I've had many friendships come and go over my adult life, and I don't even talk to some of my close friends when I was 12 years old anymore (much like the movie), but those memories are the best. Back then I didn't need me to be a cool kid or fit in.... I just needed my friends. Timeless movie. 

Interest (利息, 이자율, 金利)

 Of all the fees, assessments, charges, penalties, taxes, and other little financial ticks that one has to deal with just to get through life, there's this concept of underpayment of estimated tax that I was sent by the comptroller of the state today. Today, February 10, in the middle of tax season, I got sent a nice letter that came in a pink slip (conjuring up bad thoughts right way) for the previous year's assessment, that I need to pay interest for money that I never even had, that was theoretically "theirs" by virtue of taxing me a certain amount, and because THEY didn't withhold enough money from money I made, I need to pay interest on it because technically I'm holding on to the state's money (like I'm manically setting fires around the world and living my best life with this extra money). It's just diabolical logic for the state to make more money, and the more I think about it the more I get upset, as well as subscribe to the theory that organized governments are just organized crime/ gangs but legalized. The whole concept of a sales tax is, when I buy something that I need, the state gets a cut of that purchase. Why? What is that sales tax being used for? I get being taxed for income coming to me so the govenrment can take a cut of it off the top, but sales tax is taking money that's flowing out, I'm not getting any of that. 

I've really looked hard at living in states with no income tax, and I've narrowed it down to a few states that MJ would find (barely) acceptable and that I can, you know, find a job in: Texas and Washington state. Alaska, Wyoming, South Dakota- yea I get why there's no state tax there. If you think about it from the baseline of starting with no state tax, then each year I live in California and/or other states, I'm paying upwards of 5 digits on tax, just free money I deliver to the state government. Am I really getting compensated for that money through public services? Yes, highways, but they're always crowded. Yes, DMV but they're always mean to me. Yes, fire department but the fires showed public disasters can wipe out your home ASAP. 

The concept of interest bugs me too, just the idea of the amount I owe ticking up like a clock each time a new hour strikes makes me lose sleep. It makes my stress levels go up, makes my blood pressure go up just thinking about owing money, kind of like Mr. Beast's challenges where the money count goes up incremenetly.  I do NOT want to owe any money to anybody, a lesson American don't really understand otherwise credit cards wouldn't be able to charge an exorbitant TWENTY-FIVE PERCENT INTEREST RATE! Even my current mortgage that I got at the rock-bottom low rates of 2021 right after the pandemic when everything was depressed, I'm still fretting every month about paying that evil line that says "interest" and not "escrow" or "principal." At least I can justify having the 2021 interest rate because it's lower than what I can get through dividends or savings accounts (I get taxed on those by the way), but now with the federal mortgage rates on a 30-year mortgage at 6.833%, not an all-time high but definitely high considering the last decade, and about the rate my first student loan was charged at for law school, I'm not feeling on aking on more debt. 

Who created interest? Apparently even ancient civilizations had this concept of interest, so human beings have devised ways to screw other people for thousands of years; it's nothing new. Just like the ancients, if anything, I want OTHER people to be paying ME interest...... which is what the bank (and Robin Hood and other financial institutions do), but of course they're taking your money and ledning it out at a larger interest rate to other people. It's all just a sick game in a world revolving around money. I really feel bad for the people who earn a lot less than I, who have just one stream of income, but so many greedy hands coming to pick at it through interest and other organized means. So I declare interest to be........one of the worst inventions of mankind. 

Girl Scouts ( 女童子军, ガールスカウト, 걸스카우트)

 MJ and I went to a bookstore this weekend and came away with $3 calendars, apparently some of the most depreciable items and very, very time sensitive, like Christmas ornaments selling for 90% off the day after Christmas, or Halloween costumes after Halloween. Calendars ironically lose most of their value after you flip the calendar on January 1st of that year. Except........MJ and I never bought a 2025 calendar, so it was prime time to swoop in, we went crazy and bought 3 different ones reflecting our interests: 1.) a nurses calendar (for MJ), 2.) a Jeopardy calendar (with updated 2025 questions! for me) and a 3.) Peanuts calendar, kind of for both of us. The best part was, since it was February 8, we've already had 39 days of 2025 so we flipped through 39 days quickly, with the consensus being that the Jan. 1 Peanuts day was the funnies, lamenting that it can't be 2025 yet, he wasn't even ready for 2024. Yea I wasn't ready for it neither, Charlie Brown. 

Girl Scout cookies.....are good. I'm not a Thin Mints guy so I always stay clear, but Peanut Butter and Chocolate, suggested by one of the Girl Scouts (Trefoils) we met at a local food court today, was good. Chocolate and peanut butter cannot be bad, and this was it. I'm reminded of my Cub Scout days, apparently I didn't graduate to Boy Scouts as I didn't make it past 5th grade...it was a great way to get out and meet other boys in the neighborhood, though, and a good idea by my parents to try to get me to make friends. Sometimes when I pass a bake sale in the neighborhood or a lemonade sale, I go ahead and just get something, to encourage the kids that their cottage industry enterprise is viable. Girl Scout cookies aren't THAT expensive, they're like $6 a buck, which is probably marked up twice the retail price, but I got those $3 calendars for 20 cents on a dollar, so I could afford splurging a little. 

Today I also played basketball with a dog- no I did not intend to do so, but I was shooting baskets in a park and a man of the neighborhood just came by and shooting with me during his afternoon walk with his dog. VERY friendly dog, and just wanted so badly to fetch the basketball and bring it back to his owner.....it was black lab or some sort, maybe some other dog mixed in, maybe a descendant of St. John's water dog, a Newfoundland, and didn't bark or anything when seeing me, which always brings up bad childhood memories. Unfortunately it couldn't bite into the ball to fetch it, it was just nudging it back to me. Also, buddy got super excited and jumped into my arms like it wanted to play, not in a mean way or anything. If MJ and I don't ultimately succeed at this baby thing, maybe that type of dog would be swell; our recent Seattle adventure allowed us to roam at a dog park and hang out with so many awesome dogs, all pretty playful and obedient and definitely changed my paradigm about having dogs, although it's still a bummer on traveling and free time and allergy season and taking care of them 24/7. St. Jude's Children's Hospital, great charity, recently has been running an ad of a cute baby kid running up to go greet his dad when he sees him from far away, definitely one of the attractions of having a kid, and I remember one particular time I did that for my dad too........and then within a couple years I stopped doing it, showing love or any affection at all. That's the downside with kids, they're cute and cuddly and so loving and depend on you for everything........until they grow up and don't. Dogs don't do that. So it's as they say in a familiar phrase but also the title of a 2020 documentary, "We Don't Deserve Dogs." 

Pineapple ( 菠萝, パイナップル, 파인애플)

As you navigate through the congested grocery aisles at Costco looking for fruits that are going to be sweet but juicy, there's one that people overlook because of its rough exterior: the pineapple, usually going substantially lower than other fruits in quantity, where grapes will be $6.99, organic blueberries will be $8.99, strawberries will be $6.99, organic golden kiwis are like $11.99, heck even a container of Medjool dates are $7.99 or $10.99 depending on the quality......one whole pineapple is under $3. Under $3 for some of the most tropical tasting, watery goodness you'll get at any grocery store, but I often see customers, even the bargain-hunting ones at Costco scrimping off the free samples and $1.50 hot dog + drink combo, passing up the pineapple. I think it's the complexity of cutting the pineapple. In this day and age of "I want it now, streaming, and ready to consume for me with no hassle," people are probably lazy about cutting pineapples. I got news for those people: cutting pineapples is fine. There's something really liberating about cutting a pineapple, scraping through the exterior shell and getting to the juicy center, it's one of my favorite "pasttimes" (MJ had never heard of this word before tonight) I like doing, more than cooking food (just heating stuff up) or washing dishes, I like cutting pineapples. Possibly even more than cutting watermelon and the squishy sound of breaking through the rind into the exterior and looking for the sweetest-looking piece (hint: usually in the exact middle of the fruit). Refrigerate the remainder and they usually last about 5 or 6 different sittings, and all for $2.59.  

Pineapple, for whatever reason, has also become the symbol of fertility for mothers trying to get pregnant, and it's big in the IVF community. There's no science or studies showing pineapples actually increase fertility, but it's more of a figurehead for strength and unity and hope in types of trial and tribulation for people who just don't seem to find the spark. There's also no evidence that pineapple DECREASES fertility, which is actually more than people can say for a bunch of American foods, with fried, greasy, microplastics, etc. Honestly, anything that provides a positive placebo effect is good with me, I've heard plenty of stories of people feeling better after just altering their mindset and tricking their bodies into getting healthy, maybe it works with pregnancy. 

History of the pineapple: orginated in the Amazon rainforest, and native tribes called it "the excellent fruit," aka nanas, and Christopher Columbus brought it back to Europe ith him and spread it. That's like 3 Jeopardy facts right there. But still, as good as pineapple is, let's just keep it off any pizzas, okay? Two different ethnicites of food there, even though Columbas was Italian (but sailed for Spain). 

Hopefully these excellent fruits stay out of President Trump's crosshairs and don't get the 25% tariffs for being imported in! MJ has already warned about certain foods we like going up like avocados. We must have our pineapples! 

Shoe Dog (Phil Knight)

 Sometimes you watch a good movie after not having sat through a good movie for awhile, and it feels like the best movie you've ever seen, even though you realize it's mainly because you haven't actually sat down and been engrossed in a movie for a long time. That's how it felt watching "Air" about the creation of the Air Jordan shoe, but the movie is so much more than that: It's another collaboration by Ben Affleck and Matt Damon (I know, we're probably all sick of them, but as of the release of this movie in 2023, they still got it), it's a movie about something I grew up with, basketball, it's a movie about strong mothers (Delores Jordan, Michael Jordan's mom), it's a story about a decade I just missed out on, the 1980's, with lots of bangers in the soundtrack like the Violent Femmes, ZZ Top, REO Speedwagon, Chaka Khan (Rufus), and Born in the U.S.A. by the Boss, Bruce Springsteen. It's about marketing and big business, where Nike was dueling it out with Addidas (of "My Addidas" fame by Run DMC) and Converse, and it's a story about living in Portland, something I've always wondered about with the mystique of the Univeristy of Oregon, Portland, Mount Hood, Voodoo Doughnuts, Powell's Books, Tonya Harding, and now......how Nike got its groove, thanks to the visionary leadership of Phil Knight, aka the Shoe Dog. 

Nowadays billionaires have a pretty bad reputation, with the richest man in the world now delving into politics (rather ill-advisedly) and implementing "DOGE" (Department of Government Efficiency) while funding President Trump's presidential campaign, and others in the top 10 have similar drawn negative headlines, especially with the world increasingly turning into an plutocracy, government run by the wealthy. It's nice to see, from the surface at least, that there's at least one billionaire who's not consumed by amibition and power, and that's Phil Knight, net worth $60 billion, philanthropist to the University of Oregon plus various other charities, and apparently an avid runner. Maybe something about getting that runner's high and getting out into the world at least an hour today clears your perspective and gets your priorities straight: I find that running once a day keeps me sane, makes me enjoy the simpler pleasures of life, makes me feel better about myself, reminds me of who I am and the journey that I've taken to become who I am. Maybe that's Phil Knight, and maybe Elon Musk could use a run or two in his life (he reportedly is one of the best Diablo players in the world, which means he's not running around playing that video game). The movie "Air" definitely depicts Phil Knight in a good light as well as documents one of the biggest deals he made to get to that $60 billion, essentially becoming a partner with Michael Jordan, who was relatively unknown back in 1984 but is considered the G.O.A.T., and Phil Knight (and others at Nike) took a chance on him. And early shareholders at Nike are probably happy they took a chance on Nike too, from a 1985 price of $0.14 to $76 today, although the chart shows that Nike's hit another wall, similar to what they faced in 1984... maybe they need to make another seismic shift (this is the Nike shareholder in me talking). 

I loved the movie from a sports perspective (John Stockton, Hakeem Olajuwon, Charles Barkley, and Michael.......these are all my sports heroes growing up!) From a business perspective, it made me lament that familiar phrase: all the best ideas are taken! And it always seems like someone is one step ahead, gotten into the game earlier and if I had lived in the 1980's, I'd found a way to get rich. Maybe, or knowing me I would have found a way to ease into a comfortable life and get hooked on something unprofitable like playing chess or getting on TV. What are today's untapped potential opportunities? They all seem to be in technology, an area I have no expertise in at all, and a big one everyone talking about now is A.I.: what is the next technological revolution going to look like, and how will humans interact with A.I. And if you're a Nvidia shareholder like me, WHAT THE HECK IS DEEPSEEK, and why did the Chinese company just make Nvidia shares dip 17% on Monday? (the stock tried to rally over the course of the week but the fears of its business getting taken over by China and China winning the A.I. race are real enough to keep the stock down). Maybe, though, just maybe, with all the hype about A.I. and the new race for digital supremacy, maybe the time is to zig when everyone else is zagging and there will be a backlash back to a simpler time of books, movies, and the good ole' days of the 1980's? Seriously, teenagers and Gen Z, if you haven't tried a time without the Internet, don't knock it until you try it......it is so much less stress and you get such a great high when you actually do get quality work like "Air" the movie.