I Wanted to Be Heath Ledger or Jackie Kennedy for Halloween

I didn't end up dressing as anything in 2014 besides myself, which is already pretty scary (haha!).

Many people imagine a good Heath Ledger costume as the Joker, but I wanted to be Heath Ledger from Brokeback Mountain since I happened to have a similar-looking cowboy jacket and was emotionally moved by the romance in the movie.

Friend's mash-up / artist rendering

Alternatively, visiting the beautifully nautical and architecturally interesting Kennedy Museum at UMass Boston only helped solidify my superficial fascination with the Kennedies. Then again, who isn't interested in the political family with the unfortunate Kennedy curse also taking JFK Jr. and Carolyn Bessette from the gossip rags?

I was intrigued by the character and many faces of Jackie Kennedy, who suffered tragedy but reemerged marrying Aristotle Onassis. A mysterious and elegant person hid behind the large sunglasses. Her voice is extremely delicate and soothing in her famous White House tour, probably belying many vulgar secrets and heartache during JFK's tenure. Why do so many historically important assassinations like MLK seem like impromptu and incomplete stories?

After someone asked my reasoning behind why I wanted such an unusual costume, my joking words spilled out: "I wanted to be the epitome of grace, elegance, and poise." This was in reference to the late Jackie O.

I played an obscure children's trading card game in middle school, and an extremely overpowered character named Jackie Cr provided some influence.

Northeastern Memories: Smokers

The sign in question

When I started Northeastern as a curious newbie, the weather was above 60 degrees, Floyd Mayweather didn't beat Manny Pacquiao, and the royals didn't have a baby yet. However, a curious sight of crowds of smokers, many of whom appeared international since cigarettes aren't as "in" around the U.S., congregated in front of the Dodge Hall business building and Krentzman Quad ironically, flagrantly, openly, and hostilely in opposition to a poorly placed "no smoking" sign. I actually enjoyed their cafe atmosphere of socializing, de-stressing, and unwinding as long as I didn't get too caught in the crossfire of second-hand smoke.

Smoking plaza

It felt like we, puffers and passersby, were all busy and occupied by group projects, case studies, and the like. I wondered both how stress-relieving nicotine can be as I don't smoke and whether I'll see the throngs of smokers again next semester. Hopefully, I will for the nostalgia and visual interest of clothing-coordinated people who wore lots of Moncler and Canada Goose when the weather became chilly but not too snowy that they had to stop smoking and mysteriously burrow back like groundhogs.

Out of curiosity, I also asked my roommate why so many business students smoked. My roommate joked cynically, "It's because business students' lives are so empty," which made me give a, "Hmm..." since we're majoring in business, and I wondered if accounting is futile (only wondered! This is not reality. I'm sure many people like net income, auditing, and taxation!).

The reverse psychology and appeal of norm violation can be seen in this humorous YouTube video shown in international business class where Italians supposedly do everything wrong compared to Europeans:

I guess you could replace EU citizens and Italians with any group and subgroup of people

The specific reference to smoking around a "no smoking" sign strangely reminded me of how few people use the closed smoking booths at Logan Airport as if being trapped in your own smoke and adopting the smell are worse than the lungs directly inhaling it. 

If I see smokers again in September, they will give me that warm, fuzzy back-to-school feeling!

Tyrell and the Scientific Businessman

Dr. Eldon Tyrell from Blade Runner created the replicants, which are robotic slaves ostensibly identical to humans. As such, Tyrell wielded great power and wealth to the point of godly references until his death at the hands of his prodigal son Roy Batty, which I mention in this write-up.

I am deeply reminded of the highly respected and esteemed scientific businessmen of today's society. While my list is mostly limited to high technology and popular names, I think of the Asian American An Wang, whom Boston's Citi Wang Theater is named after, Microsoft's Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer, Google's Eric Schmidt, and the charismatic Elon Musk. Their extreme technical intelligence and business savvy are almost frightening. In the ostensibly meritocratic society, they seem like deserved mortal gods shaping or having shaped our modern, technological future.

The Best Sushi I Ever Ate

Murphys, CA Main Street

I am fanatical about some foods like sashimi and prosciutto. "Enjoy" means that the food can fill you and taste good, but "fanatical" means that I have to set limits since scarcity is a part of economics, and I don't want to suffer from mercury poisoning or a heart attack from salt and cholesterol.

I have eaten sushi in a variety of times and places, ranging from the crappy/okay supermarket and school variety to bad buffets, okay buffets, surprisingly good buffets, conveyor belts, and other restaurants. However, the best-tasting objectively by quality sushi I ever ate was in a super-obscure California town called Murphys.

Don't ask how I ended up there since I normally only travel by TV. Making the most of it, I explored this small and quaint midway tourist town in the California gold country that has a population of around 2,200. Surprisingly, there were retail stores and a strong feel of community at facilities like a riverside park.

Eventually, I became hungry and went to a sushi restaurant called Doke on the main street, which was probably the only street running through the town. I just ordered the salmon nigiri since I was in a bit of a rush.

Savoring the 8 pieces outside, I was surprised by the taste explosion (lol) as I was just expecting run-of-the-mill sushi. The salmon was extremely fresh, sinewy, and fatty, placed on top of a slightly sweet mound of rice that was an appropriate size and sourness. It was the freshest raw fish I ever ate since they were apparently from nearby farms, and the portions were generous.

Also, the pizza from Firewood the previous day was pretty good. Will I ever end up at Murphys again? Probably not, at least without a lot of effort. I thought this finding was interesting though. As Hipster Ariel would say, "Yosemite Park is too mainstream!" (Although I camped there too)

I Wanted to Stick My Hand in Dirt

Since I dutifully skim Northeastern's daily e-newsletter that clogs many people's emails, I saw an article linked to the New York Times about beneficial microbes in dirt as the chain of recent newsletters focused on bacteria research. This was near the innately stressful finals week. This was also near when Facebook thankfully informed me that it was World Naked Gardening Day.

Beam me up, sun!

Since I was a prim person in my childhood, I was afraid of getting dirty when "playing" (standing) in the grass at the park or if bugs, particularly ants, would get into weird places. I still feel that I, as a rational person, don't want to get my clothes dirty and sit on the grass, although part of me wants to if laundry wasn't such a hassle.

Anyways, since exams lingered on my mind even though I didn't want them to and didn't study much, I strongly felt that hippie nature would be a much needed boost to my immune system like a completely organic Emergen-C, which I never drank before. Therefore, I saw a big ceramic pot of earthy brown dirt that I wanted to stick my hand in to feel the nutrients. However, I didn't do this at the last minute since I was afraid of strangers seeing and judging me in the unusual act of molesting the dirt.

Now, it's easy to say, "You should have done it" when reading this on the Internet, but imagine if you were in my position of desperately seeking microbes and students were passing by to see an Asian guy with his hand in a pot of dirt. That would be awkward. Sometimes thoughts spring out of an OCD, but I really felt that my body would feel good with my hand touching nature.

Please Take at Your Leisure : )

What goodies are inside Pandora's box?

It's move-out season, and I think what's left in the "Please Take at Your Leisure : )" box at Kennedy Hall illustrates the desperation. Initially, there were garbage bags for packing, but those were all taken like they were free handbags on Oprah. This is, truly, the tragedy of the commons.

Let's look at what's left from donors and benefactors: silica gel, gluten-free rice cakes, a ketchup pack, peanut butter from our room, and an empty bag of beef jerky. The last one requires a, "Seriously?" as the donor was probably too lazy to walk a few more steps to the basement trash cans, or someone ate it all in cold blood. Truthfully, I would be irrationally afraid of eating that and the big tinfoil loaf labeled "Panera Bread" that was eventually taken. I also considered taking all the exotic Lipton teas, but I was wary of the sugary ingredients. Later, they were gone.

Clearly, I am not asking for better freebies but merely musing on economics and the transitivity of life through a cardboard box of invalids and half-disposables. Would you like some silica gel with your gluten-free rice cakes and peanut butter?

The joy of cleaning my dorm

I Don't Like Blogs About Blogging

First, I am reluctant to call myself a blogger due to mysteriously negative connotations. However, there is a certain breed of blogs run by intelligent, opportunistic people who capitalize on the moderately dead but never fully-dead allure of blogging. They mostly sell pipe dreams which can be seen in many shady industries like penny stocks, covered call writing (which can work I guess), and the lottery.

I may sound like a spited person because I am not a successful blogger, although that can't be expected for a website two weeks old, and I will test basic monetization strategies in the future. However, my website's main purposes will probably be to advertise future services and allow me to write as a hobby.

I'm sure some people end up successful. SOME. However, in the mostly competitive Internet marketplace, this is like selling hopium or, as the phrase goes, "shovels to gold prospectors" during the Gold Rush. That is an intelligent business idea.

Monkeys at the zoo

However, the image of the super-successful blogger used to market crap is like the monkey who takes a crap on all the other monkeys by taking their money through ebooks, courses, and other paraphernalia. I'm not saying that the value of blogs about blogging is completely worthless, but the majority of the time it is. They provide unrealistic expectations with most of their attractiveness coming from the fantasy they sell, and only a fraction of vocal supporters experience strong gains.

My advice is that for small-scale websites, don't buy any advice unless it has essential value-added as most information can be found for free on the Internet even if provided in piecemeal by the blogs about blogging. The irony is that I just made a blog post about blogging and that there may be tinges of hypocrisy, but I prefer blogs with different purposes.

Chinese Dreams

Don't judge me, I was hungry...

I have a hazy, distant memory of stuffing my face at a buffet at a hotel in China. After, when we were walking down the stairs, live music greeted us. A pianist played smoothly while a "pretty woman" (said in Cantonese by a girl in the group as "liang lui") was singing in clearly enunciated, near-perfect English. She was singing to almost no audience as the hotel was near-empty on a Thursday night, which made me romantically recall this time. Currently, I am writing for almost no one and mostly for the joy of myself.

This made me wonder, glistening, neon metropolis, how you can have a time and place of such emptiness and loneliness for reflection, in a city of millions of people? China is both poor and wealthy. I wanted to stay and listen, but that would be awkward, and we had to part.

Lonely night

"Beast Mode" - Turn Off Animations in Windows 8 and Android

She turned off animations.

If you are a free spirit who flies like a hummingbird and don't want to be encumbered by animations or suffer motion sickness from badly-rendered 3D, then consider turning off animations in your Windows 8 and Android.

Windows 8
For Windows 8, there are two components to turn off animations. First, I think it is more convenient to use the search shortcut Windows+S rather than swiping manically with the mouse or touchscreen and searching for "PC settings." Open the Metro "PC settings" app version, and go to "Ease of Access." Go to "Other options," and turn "Play animations in Windows" off.

Next, search (Windows+S) "View advanced system settings," and click on "Settings..." under "Performance" to get to Visual Effects. Here are my minimal preferred settings that I find provide the least frictional issues.

Android

For Android, here is a more complete guide by How-To Geek. Basically, if Developer Options aren't available, activate them by going to "About Device," and keep tapping "Build Number" until they appear. Then, in Developer Options, turn off "Window animation scale," "Transition animation scale," and "Animator duration scale."

It may take some adjustment to what now seems like a jerky lack of motions, but you'll probably find your productivity, battery life, and Sonic the Hedgehog need-for-speed aided.