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[22 Oct 2007|03:30pm] |
following my most recent post - and especially the ensuing exchange with ashley - i thought i would write about how i proposed to soo. i've actually been meaning to document this for a while, but i just never got around to it. this seems like a good opportunity to do so.
if i happen to be playing poker with my own mother, and i happen to be playing a big pot with her, and i happen to be holding the nuts, i would do my absolute best to extract the greatest amount of money from her. i would not "softplay" against her, not because i want the money i would win from her, but because it wouldn't be The Right Thing To Do. i want to make this crystal clear: the reason for my play would not be for the money, or for ego, or anything like that. it would be simply because i feel a moral obligation to the universe, and when playing poker that obligation is to try my best to win as much as possible (from my own mother or otherwise). not doing so would cause me to literally feel a great sense of guilt, the same sense of guilt i might feel stealing $5000 from the bank when i know for a fact that i would not get caught.
soon after soo and i started dating, we were having some conversation and the above happened to come up. she then asked, "ok, you claim that you would behave a certain way when playing poker against your own mother. but what if you were playing against me? would it be the same?" i thought about it for just a moment, then confidently replied of course, i would have to, it would only be right.
a little after that, soo and i started playing gin rummy for fun. it's a 2-player card game, easy to learn, and doesn't require a lot of playing area or setup - in short, a great way to spend some time together while engaged in some activity. neither of us knew how to play, so we printed up the rules from some web page and learned together. as i happen to be more adept at this sort of thing, i quickly became better than her and began beating her consistently.
one day, we were playing some gin rummy at barnes & noble, passing some time before our movie show time. soo seemed kind of down from a tough day at work, and as it happened the cards ran in my favor and i was beating her pretty badly. when we play gin, we are obviously not playing to win in a harshly competitive spirit, so it is generally all in good fun regardless of who wins. but on this day, she seemed really discouraged and down to begin with, and getting crushed in gin game after game really seemed to drag her down even more. so i considered losing some games to her on purpose without her knowledge, hoping it might bring a smile to her face; i did, and it did.
at that moment, i realized two things: 1. that i loved her more than anything or anybody in the world, and 2. that i wanted to marry her. losing on purpose is, in my world view, the lowest form of cheating a human being can engage in. there is not another soul on earth i would do that for, including (especially?) myself. it would simply be impossible. and yet, i would do it without a second thought to bring a smile to soo's face, and not feel an ounce of guilt about it.
for the following 12 months or so, i kept this whole episode to myself. then on 2/21/07, we had dinner at wildfire and afterwards walked together though the glen, just like on hour first date. i told her this story, how that's when i knew that i really, truly loved her. she became teary-eyed, but did not cry - this came as somewhat of a surprise to me, because she is normally a huge crybaby. i then pulled out a kleenex pocket pack, and told her "i brought you this because i fully expected you to start bawling when i told you this." she opened it, and sitting inside was the ring that i had spent the past several months designing with a jeweler. i got down on my knees; i asked her if she would marry me; by now she was all-out bawling, and could not even say, "yes," she could only nod.
i have to be honest: a part of me feels "dirty" that i would willingly and gladly violate these moral obligations that i believe in. as someone who strongly, strongly, values doing the "right thing", it bothers me greatly to not do the right thing, just for a particular person. but when it comes to soo, i feel like i never had any choice to make - from the "choice" to start spending time with her, to the "choice" to start dating her, to the "choice" to intentionally lose to her in gin, to the "choice" to propose to her, to the "choice" to spend the rest of my life with her - each choice has not really been a choice, but an inevitability that i knew all along. i realize how stupid that sounds, and i wish i could explain it better, but that's pretty much it: for every one of these steps, a part of me knew what was going to happen, the inevitable conclusion.
so that leaves me as the man who will never compromise his values for any human being, even himself, except for soo. and i guess i'm ok with that.
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[03 Sep 2007|06:04pm] |
"To this day, my whole philosophy totters after an hour's sympathetic conversation with total strangers: it seems so foolish to me to wish to be right at the price of love, and not be able to communicate what one considers most valuable lest one destroy the sympathy."
Nietzsche wrote this in a personal letter in 1880.
As someone who strongly, strongly values being right (or correct, or just, or whatever), and from time to time appreciates sympathetic human connections, this is a sentiment that I can relate to.
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[08 May 2007|12:10pm] |
recent college graduates usually have negative net worth: student loans, perhaps financing on their first car purchase, and so on. even in the best case of someone who starts off with just a moderately negative net worth, is able to find a decent job immediately, and lives frugally in order to pay off this debt asap, this process takes some time. it only gets worse with advanced degrees.
to this man, the goal that he is aiming for is to get to zero net worth. then he won't owe anybody a dime, and all he has to do is make whatever he needs to live off of. having zero obligations sounds like a wonderfully liberating idea. once he gets there, he'll have "enough" and be satisfied with his state.
to the man who has reached this state ($0), his goal now is to save up enough for a nice emergency fund. having a 6-month cash stash (say, $15k) sounds like a wonderfully secure state: even if he were to lose his job, he would be able to live comfortably while looking for a new job. once he gets there, he'll have enough and be satisfied with his state.
to the man who has reached this state ($15k), his goal now is to save up enough for a down payment on a modest home. maybe a small 2 bedroom condo in a safe but affordable area. so he needs something like 20% of 300k = 60k. then his housing would be taken care of, and all he would need to take care of from that point on would be the monthly payments. very comfortable with a steady job. once he gets there, he'll have enough and be satisfied with his state.
to the man who has reached this state ($60k), his goal now is to pay off his home. then his housing would REALLY be taken care of, and from that point on all he would need to take care of is day to day expenditures - food, gas, bills, etc. that's very, very comfortable with anything resembling a steady job. once he gets there, he'll have enough and be satisfied with his state.
to the man who has reached this state ($300k), his goal now is to become a millionaire. while understanding that the number 1,000,000 is totally arbitrary, it still seems like a cool thing to be: a MILLIONAIRE. then, he would pretty much be set for life. heck, he could work part time if he wanted to. once he gets there, he'll have enough and be satisfied with his state.
to the man who has reached this state ($1m), his goal now is to have $1m in liquid assets not counting the home that he is living in. and it wouldn't be right for a millionaire to continue to live in a modest $300k home, so let's say a new home worth $500k. having a million left over after paying off your home sounds completely magnificent. once he gets there, he'll have enough and be satisfied with his state.
to the man who has reached this state ($1.5m), investment income is now becoming a significant consideration. for the sake of argument, let's assume a 2.5% / year return after taxes and inflation - that's basically a $25k / year pension he has for the rest of his life. that's a significant fraction of the salary he's making at his job. his goal now is to accumulate enough money so that he can up this figure to $50k / year: that seems like a pretty comfortable (if not extravagant) pension, such that if he could not work for whatever reason, he would still be pretty OK for the rest of his life. to get that, he'll need another million in liquid assets. once he gets there, he'll have enough and be satisfied with his state.
to the man who has reached this state ($2.5m), his self-image and lifestyle has now been for a while that of a multi-millionaire. thus, a $50k / year no longer sounds like a comfortable pension: it sounds downright pitiful. besides, he's gotten kind of tired of 7 figures, and having 8 sounds really neat. if he could get to 10m, then he would have a $250k / year pension, which sounds pretty nice. once he gets there, he'll have enough and be satisfied with his state.
to the man who has reached this state ($10.5m), new opportunities are finally opening up to him: he is now in a position to own more than one nice home, to buy that $180k car that he's always wanted, maybe to buy a small timeshare on a private plane... a million here, a million there, and 10m goes pretty quick. but if he could get to $50m, then he could own a really nice home in LA, NYC, chicago, plus a decent share of a private plane to shuttle him in-between. he could pretty much travel year-round, and pretty much spend whatever he wants to. once he gets there, he'll have enough and be satisfied with his state.
to the man who has reached this state ($50m), his fellow $30-$60-millionaires now seem despicable to him. aren't i better than that idiot who has $55m? he thinks to himself, a high-end plane would be nice... but since a nice gulfstream goes for like $35m, he can't afford that yet. but if he had like $500m, then he could get everything: a nice plane, a nice yacht, maybe a $100m estate like bill gates's. once he gets there, he'll have enough and be satisfied with his state.
to the man who has reached this state ($500m), he now has his sights set on becoming a billionaire. 9 figures was soooo 2004. once he gets there, he'll have enough and be satisfied with his state.
to the man who has reached this state ($1b), he now thinks about buying a nice building. a casino, maybe, since he always did enjoy las vegas. but the wynn cost like $3b to build, he doesn't have enough for something like that... besides, he hates being stuck in the "1.0b pack" in the forbes rich list. it would be nice to have like, 10b, that would boost him in the forbes list, and he'd also have a nice building or two. once he gets there, he'll have enough and be satisfied with his state.
to the man who has reached this state ($10b), he now thinks about hitting the top 10 in the forbes list.
my question: which of these men, if any, are unreasonable?
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[28 Jan 2007|09:11pm] |
here are some of the things i've been doing with my time recently:
1. playing lumines live (on the xbox 360). i played this game quite a bit on the psp, where your score maxes out at 999,999; in the xbox 360 version, this cap has been lifted. w00t! however, i keep dying around the 1.7m mark :\
2. i got a membership to www.cardrunners.com. it's not really because i want to work on my poker game, actually it's not at all because i want to become better at poker. i just have this great fascination with anyone who's really awesome at what they do (whether it's stu ungar or federer or kobayashi), and it's very interesting to be able to see what goes on inside his head.
3. i also got a membership to netflix, and i've been taking advantage of it! i am going through the sopranos right now, and am really enjoying it.
4. reading magazines. i got four magazine subscriptions in the past two months, and then robin got me two more for my birthday. so i have a lot of magazine reading to do :)
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[28 Dec 2006|10:18pm] |
http://humanbenchmark.com/tests/reactiontime/index.php
my average over 20 trials (my first 20) is 237. after i just drank a bottle of wine (origin pinot noir, if you care) by myself over the past 2.5 hours. not bad, huh? considering i get to practice something like this everyday for my job, i guess it's not that impressive either.
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[12 Dec 2006|05:31pm] |
I recently had a conversation with Soo about a certain topic, and then just now I saw the following article which reminded me of that conversation: some kid gets kicked out of a game for wearing a hoodie during the national anthem.
The conversation that Soo and I had was sparked by a bumper sticker that we saw. It said "I'm proud of my autistic child," or something very close to that. I thought this was the stupidest thing I've ever seen: It's great that you are proud of your child who has a certain neurodevelopmental disorder, but why make a public proclamation of that fact to the whole world? I have a similar reaction to people who put "Proud to be American" bumper stickers on their cars. It would be like me putting on my car "Proud to be the youngest child of three" or "Proud to use Microsoft Word" or something.
What bothers me isn't simply that these people are making what I believe to be an unnecessary announcement. That by itself wouldn't bother me very much at all, unnecessary things are said all the time. It's that these announcements are made with an implicit "chip on the shoulder" in such a way that the announcement itself implies certain accusations. What I mean is this: the fact that an announcement is made of X implies that X isn't obvious or normal. For example, you wouldn't make a bumper sticker saying "1+1=2", or "Humans have 2 arms." But you WOULD make a bumper sticker saying "1+1=11" (haha 2nd grade joke), because that is not obvious or normal. So the autism sticker, merely by existing, accuses the reader that he does not value autistic children or that he would not be proud of an autistic child. Ditto for the patriotism sticker.
While we are on the subject of patriotic stickers, I am even more annoyed by those "I support the war" or "I support our troops" stickers. What does it mean to "support" something? Does it make any sense for me to say that I'm supporting Michael Jordan right now? No, I'm not doing anything for him. "Support" without sacrifice is meaningless. And what have we as a nation sacrificed for this war? During WW1 there was rationing; during WW2 we WIDELY expanded upon the income tax. During the current war, we have cut taxes. How are you supporting our troops, yes you the beautiful blonde trophy wife driving the Porsche Cayenne Turbo with a "I support our troops" sticker?
Anyway, about the hoodie article. You could probably guess that I think that's really stupid. Again, it's not that I'm not patriotic. I'm patriotic enough that I STRONGLY believe we should raise taxes for the highest tax brackets, and I'm in that group. It's just that I don't feel the need to advertise that patriotism, and that should be within my rights. Why do we sing the national anthem before sports games anyway? Why don't we start doing it at movie theaters too, and then when people complain, call them terrorists?
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[01 Oct 2006|07:06pm] |
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so i bought a car - here is the story.
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[01 Aug 2006|08:47pm] |
my first update in almost a year... in bullet points:
1. soo and i are celebrating our 9 month in less than a week.
2. i am going to vegas for the fourth time this year in about a month (over labor day weekend). i am now a rated player at the wynn, and got comped 4 nights the last time i went :) don't worry, i don't have a gambling problem.
3. cafe iberico > cafe babareeba >> tapas barcelona
4. nobu in vegas >> nobu in nyc (the one on hudson, anyway; haven't been to the one on 57th)
5. koi (in evanston) = shitty and i'm never going there again
6. my nephew joshua is almost 4 months old, and he's DA FUCKING BOMB
7. i bought a pair of the new air max 360's today.
about those shoes. there is a certain smug satisfaction to "knowing something that most people don't" (level 1), and then there is a very great smug satisfaction to "knowing something that most people don't, but doing what they do anyway" (level 2). one example might be: i am good at poker and i can play better than most people, and this makes me feel happy (level 1). but if you take that a step further, and DESPITE knowing better, you choose to donk it up for a night playing drunken 3/6 capping every pot pf without looking at your hand, now that is smug satisfaction (level 2). it's especially fun if someone at your table is at level 1, and is pointing out to you how -EV what you are doing is.
about the shoes... when i got into running and started learning about running shoes, i discovered to my surprise that nike actually doesn't make very good running shoes. i mean, they're not BAD, but other companies (asics, new balance, saucony, etc.) make significantly better shoes. that was level 1. when i chose today to buy a pair of air max 360's for $170 despite knowing that they are not excellent running shoes BECAUSE I LIKE HOW THEY LOOK, that was level 2. in fact, i'm never going to use these shoes for running. they will be strictly for street wear, because i just like how they look. throw in the fact that these effectively last forever (compared to most running shoes, that have EVA soles, and last like 300-500 miles of running), and you have an excellent pair of "shoes to wear with jeans when you are going to a restaurant."
now, if someone would just come up to me and start lecturing me about how the 360's aren't good running shoes and i got ripped off... that would complete my day.
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[28 Sep 2005|04:39pm] |
so we're going to the world rps championships again this year, except this time we actually have a team: me, jan z, charles, soo, soo's friend jan m, and soo's friend josh. we're also meeting up with pete in toronto. the championship is in toronto on saturday night (10/22); the 6 of us are leaving chicago on a minivan friday afternoon. staying the night in windsor, then going to toronto saturday morning... i'm super excited.
anyway, today i got this in the mail:
<gwalker@worldrps.com>> On 9/28/05, Graham Walker <gwalker@worldrps.com> wrote:
>
>> Hi members of Team Dead Money
>>
>> We have had a reporter from the Chicago Tribune contact us about
>> wanting to follow Chicago based players on the road to the RPS
>> Championships.
>>
>> Can I put the reporter in touch with members of your team?
>>
>> If so please provide me with a phone number if possible also.
>>
>> Thank, I won't release any information unless I hear that it is ok.
>>
>> Graham Walker
>> Tournament Organizer
<gwalker@worldrps.com>hahaha... the dude actually just called me, and we talked for a while - he wants to do a special feature in the tribune magazine. kinda cool.
other trips in the pipeline:
1. hawaii in november (thanksgiving weekend) with the family
2. vegas in january (mlk weekend) with john, soo, and jan m
3. orlando in february (president's day weekend) with raph
i'm super excited for all of them.
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[09 Sep 2005|04:48pm] |
i bought an ipod nano: http://www.apple.com/ipodnano/. 4 gigs, black. it's BEAUTIFUL.
the stupid thing is, i don't really have any use for a portable audio device, which is why i hadn't gotten one up to this point... i guess i could use it at the gym, but i would be lying if i claimed this purchase was justified by that usage. but it's so sexy and slick and neat, i got one anyway :) having gotten one, i'm sure i'll find uses for it...
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[23 Aug 2005|11:14pm] |
sometimes i lose perspective. it's disturbingly easy to do.
i remember meeting people at yale who complained about not being smart enough. these people were for the most part hard workers with a solid 3.5 gpa, who felt that life was unfair because they were surrounded by hard workers who had a 3.9 gpa, or slackers who still had a 3.8 gpa. while i can sympathize with this sentiment, it always seemed to me like a completely ridiculous thing to say. just by virtue of having a 4 year degree, you're already in the top 30% of the country (which happens to be the most well-off country in the world). and you're getting your 4 year degree from one of the best schools in the country. with an above average gpa. so umm what exactly are you complaining about? if you're not smart enough, then what about everyone else? (i'm using education and intelligence interchangeably here, but i think you know what i mean.)
i was always extremely annoyed by this attitude - it just seemed extremely greedy and arrogant. "i'm in the top 1%, but i'm not happy with that, i think i deserve more, so i'm going to bitch about not being in the top 0.1%." "well, who the fuck do you think you are? why do you deserve to be in the top 0.1%? what makes you think you even deserve to be in the top 1%? but you are in the top 1% whether you deserve it or not, so just consider yourself fortunate, thank your lucky stars, and stop whining." that's how i always felt.
so i kind of feel bad for falling into the same trap now. not about school, but just in general... losing perspective. i had a bad day at work in the midst of my best month ever, and you know what? i felt like a complete failure. i was angry. i wanted to break everything, i wanted to kill everyone, i wanted to drag my body into a closet and die. it took me a couple hours to gain some perspective: i'm young, i'm healthy, i have loving friends and family, and, to boot, i'm having my best month ever. so i had a bad day. so what? i still have more than i ever deserve to have, so what am i complaining about?
it's a constant struggle... you go on autopilot for just one minute, and there you are again caught up in the moment and looking at things through a microscope.
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[22 Aug 2005|04:56pm] |
good old john:
jadedmoments: hm
jadedmoments: i was in this jap market yesterday
jadedmoments: and the amount of talent that circulated made me want to masturbate on the spot
jadedmoments: like we need to go and just sit and eat and stare with our mouths open
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[16 Aug 2005|08:45pm] |
heard on npr today (roughly verbatim):
"after all, the only difference between a dripping faucet and a tranquil japanese fountain is perspective."
this struck a chord with me because of my recent thoughts about
positive mental attitude. i guess "attitude" and "perspective"
are not really the same thing, but the underlying principle is similar.
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[11 Aug 2005|09:17pm] |
livejournal is an interesting thing.
on the one hand, it's a publicly-accessible website, and the fact that it's publicly-accessible is public knowledge. so there is perfect information in this respect, everyone understands that, everyone is happy and no one is surprised, right?
well, not quite. when i write on my lj, i'm very conscious and careful about removing "sensitive information", for example i don't discuss in detail anything related to my work, or in personal situation i might not mention the specific names, and so on. at the same time, i'm very open about my inner feelings, sometimes my innermost feelings and thoughts. content that, in short, leaves me vulnerable. when i do this, i'm perfectly aware that it's publicly-accessible.
and yet, i find myself genuinely surprised when i find out that, for example, my boss at work (at microsoft) was reading my lj. or that the students in my college group are reading it. hmm. i have no right to be surprised, since i knew that it's a public site. and yet i am.
i think what it comes down to is... i am (and i think we all are) an "exhibitionist." otherwise, why wouldn't i just write these same posts into a text file and save it on my computer and never show it to another soul? there's something unsatisfying about that, on one level i want to be known and understood by others. but on another level, i'm afraid to share these things with people outside of my closest group of friends. that's the dilemma.
i think me posting my personal thoughts on to my lj is equivalent to a person on a diet half-heartedly protesting "no i really shouldn't have another piece of cake." you really do want the cake, no question about it. but you feel obligated to at least pretend to protest, so that you don't have to feel guilty... "i SAID i didn't want cake, but they forced it on me, what could i do?" similarly, i think that i want to share these thoughts with others, but i feel obligated to at least pretend i don't... "oh wow, how was i supposed to know that (S)HE would read my lj??"
you know what the funny thing is? i'm gonna go on doing exactly the same thing i've been doing. this realization isn't going to change one thing.
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[08 Aug 2005|08:46pm] |
what i worked on at microsoft is now shipping, in windows 2003 r2. here is an article that describes the release; i wrote a lot of the user-mode code for storage resource manager. it's kind of interesting, and satisfying, to see.
what i do now is completely meaningless in an existential sense. what i did at microsoft, in contrast, is (arguably) meaningful: creating useful software that improves the lives of millions of people. i think it's important to note that i never really even thought about this end goal - to me it was just something that was fun and i was good at, and if it also has the side effect of helping other people, then great.
in that sense, what i do now and what i did then is the same. they're both activities that i find engaging, interesting, and fun. and yet, the absence of this "side effect" sometimes leaves me feeling a bit empty. the only logical conclusion i can reach is that this is an illusion, because to ME the agent, both activities were equally devoid of existential meaning.
at no point in my life have i been even remotely interested in becoming a medical doctor, but suppose for a moment that i did become a doctor. i'm almost certain that, in this hypothetical case, my interest in medicine would also be of the same "hey it's fun and i like it" form. in other words, it would not be out of some selfless higher-calling mission to dedicate my life to helping others; the fact that people's lives are saved would again be a mere side effect. and yet, in this case, i'm almost certain that i would not feel the same "hey this sucks, what i do is existentially meaningless." again, the only logical conclusion i can reach is that in this hypothetical situation, i would just be fooling myself by falling back on the mantra "hey i'm saving people's lives," ignoring the fact that that's not my motivation for being a doctor, and therefore there is no meaning to that fact.
my assertion just now assumes that an act has existential meaning only if both the consequence of the act AND the intention of the act are there. i guess it's possible to argue that an act still has existential meaning if the consequence is there but the intention is not, i.e. me being the selfish doctor, but i don't find this very plausible. if i idly throw a rock out my window, and through the butterfly flapping its wings this act ends up saving someone's life 3 years later, does that give my act existential meaning? i don't think it does, because the intention was not there.
i just switched up "motivation" and "intention", but i think my point stands. i feel like you need all three - consequence, motivation, and intention - for there to be existential meaning. or, at the very least, motivation and intention. in my case, the motivation is not there, nor is it ever likely to be there, as far as my career is concerned. so, it appears, i am doomed to this dilemma.
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[02 Aug 2005|08:39pm] |
by nature, i'm not a particularly optimistic person. but i'm not a particularly pessimistic person either. i've always thought that i'm a by-the-numbers realistic person. the cup is neither half empty nor half full - it just contains exactly 4 oz of some liquid.
what i've come to realize in the past couple weeks is that those are two entirely different things. i guess i'll call them: 1. understanding reality, and 2. what attitude to have given this understanding.
i had always misunderstood "optimism" and "pessimism" to mean "altering your understanding of reality by these filters." but that's not it at all. the probability that you roll a 7 (when you roll two dice) is exactly 1/6. being optimistic does not mean that you believe this probability is greater than 1/6. it also does not mean that while you agree that the probability is 1/6, you have some "hunch" that on this next roll it will be a 7. it means that while you fully understand that the probability is 1/6, and that you have no control over what the next roll is going to be, you maintain a positive mental attitude (pma) about it.
this misunderstanding seems obvious, but i think it's an honest misunderstanding. when you see "positive" people saying things like "come on, we can do it!", it's easy to misunderstand that as a claim about the probability of a future event. and the kicker is, a lot of "positive" people probably DO mean it in that way. but that's not it at all.
why am i writing this... i've come to realize how important pma is. theoretically it should not matter, because the probability is what it is and what else is there? but we're humans, and theory doesn't always predict the practice. in practice, pma is HUGE. i'm sorry that i can't elaborate on this more.
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[24 Jul 2005|09:17pm] |
i remember the first time i decided to go out and buy a bottle of cologne. it was the summer of 2001 - i was in chicago for a couple weeks, before going off to seattle for my summer internship. the thing that you have to understand is, up until that point, i was COMPLETELY uninterested in anything related to clothes, shoes, accessories, cologne, etc. if you had asked people i knew to pick the last person on earth who would say to himself, "hmm, i think i should start wearing cologne, i'm gonna go out and buy a bottle," they would probably have picked me. i could not believe it myself - being a "cologne wearer" was NOT part of my self-image.
as it turned out, that ended up being just the beginning. since then, over the course of 4 years, i've become steadily and increasingly more interested in such things. at this point, it would not be inaccurate to say that i'm quite the metro. this change is especially dramatic when you consider the initial state, i.e. how completely disinterested i was in such things.
i'm not completely sure about the exact mechanism that brought about this change. i am sure, however, that it was the combination of several factors. one factor that sue pointed out when we discussed this was money: in order to buy clothes and such you need money - if you don't have $50 to spend on a shirt then you're probably not going to be walking into stores looking at $50 shirts. the summer of 2001 is right around when i started to have a significant amount of disposable income, compared to before anyway. i think this is definitely one of the factors that contributed to this change. i have an idea of what the other factors are, but that discussion is beyond the scope of this entry.
it has been an eye-opening experience. i kept on discovering a new medium through which to express myself, and each new discovery brought a whole new world of possibilities:
"oh wow, i can control what i smell like by wearing a cologne! i can wear X for this, i can wear Y for that, ..."
"i never knew how much difference a belt makes. that wide, black belt goes particularly well with jeans of this type, and that slightly less-wide brown belt goes well with these khakis, and..."
"shoes! i had no idea how much influence they have over the look and feel of the rest of your outfit. [proceed to accumulate a large collection of shoes, each one for a specific and distinctly different purpose]"
i recently had another "i can't believe i'm about to buy a bottle of cologne" experience. my most recent eye-opening experience... watches. i was never really interested in them, so when i started noticing it on others it was somewhat of a surprise. this eventually led to vague thoughts of hmm i kind of want to get a nice watch too. this thought has been incubating and growing in intensity, culminating in the purchase of my first "really nice watch."
i actually deliberated over the purchase for a very long time. for some reason i'm always afraid of being seen as "that young, cocky punk." e.g. this was one of my considerations in the purchase of my car - how would it look for me to drive a nice car when my boss at work, who makes more than i do, drives a honda civic? i finally asked my parents what they thought about me getting such and such watch, and they both thought that it would clearly be acceptable. (although they did add that getting a nicer watch than that would be sketchy.) so, i bought it.
i absolutely love it :) i wonder: 1. what my next eye-opening experience will be, and 2. if that will be the straw that breaks the camel's back, and cause everyone to think that i'm gay.
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[07 Jul 2005|11:15pm] |
i suppose i should post some sort of a vegas trip report.
our first night there (thursday), i sat down and played some 2/5 NL at the bellagio. now, i'm someone who "grew up" on online poker, in the sense that that's how i gained most of my skills and that's what i'm used to playing. i've played quite a few hours of live poker in my life too, but my live experience has not been anywhere near as formative as my online poker. so anyway, when i was sitting there playing live NL, i felt very much overwhelmed by all of the "extras" of a live game: controlling my breathing (when someone is staring you down after your all in bet), controlling where my eyes are looking (the board? the pot? my stack? my opponent's stack?), controlling what my hands are doing (am i playing with my chips? fidgeting with my cards?), controlling how i'm handling my chips for my bets (carelessly throwing them in? carefully cutting them in?), and so on. it's not that any one of these things is difficult to do: it was just that i felt overwhelmed having to think about all of them simultaneously, while i'm trying to figure out my play. i felt how i imagine a new pilot to feel after logging a thousand simulator hours and flying a plane for the first time.
anyway, that was interesting. i felt dramatically more comfortable in my subsequent sessions, and by monday's WSOP event i was feeling just fine.
in between thursday and monday, i had a great time doing a lot of different things. i played some 2/5 NL, i sat outside by the bellagio pool (blazing sun in 100 degree dry heat, w00t!), i went shopping, i stuffed myself at the lunch buffet of various casinos, i went out to fancy dinners, and i went out to fancy clubs. vegas is fun; spending lots of money in vegas is a lot of fun.
we also went to see the cirque du soleil show "mystere". this was my fourth cirque du soleil show (i had previously seen dralion, alegria, and o), and i think it was my least favorite. which isn't to say i didn't enjoy it, i liked it a ton. but it was not quite as impressive as the other ones.
it's kind of interesting how i now have absolutely no desire to gamble. well, i really should separate into two classes of gambling:
1. poker: i am now in a position to fully grok (as opposed to merely "know") what is necessary to play correct poker. in short, correct poker (at the games that i play) is boring. so, whenever i sat down at a poker game, i felt this kind of dread, "ok here we go again, this is boring." i could have chosen to play incorrect, but fun, poker - but the practice of playing correct poker has been so deeply engrained in me that it would have made me feel terribly wrong to do so.
2. non-poker, e.g. craps, blackjack, roulette: roughly speaking, there is no "correct" or "incorrect" play here, it's all just "let's gamble for the fun/thrill of gambling." this used to give me a thrill, but it no longer does. i suspect this is because of my work, which has deeply engrained in me the principle of "don't gamble unless you have an edge." this principle has been so firmly set in my mind that gambling for the sake of gambling (with no edge) just isn't that much fun anymore.
fortunately, i had an awesome time doing plenty of other activities outside of gambling.
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[19 Jun 2005|05:24pm] |
i did a mental double take the other night while talking to a college student. she was saying how she earns $7.50/hour at her job, and how she is envious of her friend who's making $9.50/hour at j crew.
i don't consider myself to be one of those people who "forget where they come from." quite the opposite. just how long ago was it that i was making $7.60/hour working as a computing assistant in college? not that long, really - 4 years? i remember my normal paycheck was something like $40 / week if i worked the standard weekly 6 hour shift, but then during reading week and such i'd pile on the hours and sometimes get $200 - $300 / week. this felt like an absolute fortune. how big a deal would a $2/hour raise have felt like back then? totally massive.
and now, when i was listening to this girl wishing for a $2/hour raise, my immediate reaction was "what's the difference, $7.50 and $9.50 both sound equally tiny." my immediate reaction both amused me and disgusted me.
i really really don't think that i'm a spoiled, in-his-own-bubble person. i really think that i tend to be very aware of the different circumstances that different people find themselves in. technically, my reaction above is not evidence that i'm NOT aware, since you can both be aware and at the same time have that not be at the forefront of your thoughts (and as a result, be surprised). but it does make me wonder if i'm losing touch?
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[16 Jun 2005|11:04pm] |
i went to see batman begins tonight, and really enjoyed it. what i found appealing about it was the following - no spoilers!
when i look around, in general i see a lot of people refusing to take responsibility for their actions and their choices. i don't mean something as blatant as performing an action X and then claiming to not have performed X. i mean a more subtle and pervasive general attitude. it's always "this and that happened to me," rather than "i did this and that." it's focusing on those factors that are outside of your control, rather than focusing on what you CAN control.
here is an example. guys (who play poker recreationally) will often tell me bad beat stories. "oh i flopped a set and the betting went like this and that, and he caught his flush on the river and i lost!" my first reaction to anybody who tells me such a story is, "do you like how you played the hand? is there any way that you could have played it better?" at this point i'm often accused of being unsympathetic, or missing the point, or sometimes worse things.
this is partly true. the teller of the bad beat story wasn't coming to me for poker advice. he just wanted to tell me a bad beat story, and maybe get some sympathy from me. i understand that. however, this FOCUS on what's outside of your control (the cards) is an implicit claim that everything within your control (how you played the hand) was optimal. this is a misplaced focus, and is a counterproductive attitude.
anyway, in batman, bruce wayne is the opposite of this. he takes his destiny into his own hands. he takes the situation that he is placed in, asks himself how can *I* best play this hand, and plays it. he takes his destiny into his own hands and, through sheer force of will, makes something of himself and succeeds.
i have the same outlook on life. this can sometimes be a flaw, in the sense that i always want to figure something out on my own and do it by myself, or that i beat myself over something that i fuck up. but it seems to me like the correct attitude to have. worry about what you can control and try to improve that; forget about what you can't control, and don't sweat it. you are in control of your actions, and therefore you're the only one responsible for them. don't blame anything on the circumstances, other people, fate, whatever.
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