halloween 2003

It's Halloween! It's funny that you're allowed to celebrate Halloween as a kid, and then there's this gap of about 5 years where people look at you funny if you dress up, and then when you're an "adult" you're allowed to dress up again.

Some of the best costumes I saw today at our party:
- Lumbergh, the boss from Office Space
- the "Can you hear me now?" guy
- Owen Pochman uniform complete with knife through head
- a couple bloody Siegfried and Roys (that one is a little mean)
- Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (somehow it's better when Snow White is a 6ft+ man)
- a "multi-threaded bug" (yes we are geeks here)
- a Powerpuff girl costume

This year we're not going to a Halloween party, but we are going to play poker at a friend's and eat, I mean give out, candy. Mmm...

in search of a women's basketball league

With the demise of the Oracle Women's Basketball League, a bunch of us started scouring the Valley for a place to play. Because the San Carlos Women's League started way back in August, the closest program we could find was the Campbell Community Center Women's League, a solid 20 minutes south of Mountain View...and well worth the drive. The league consists of three levels: Novice, Lower Intermediate, and Upper Intermediate. Each level consists of 6 teams of about 9 players each, and each team plays every other team twice during the season. It's really very well organized, and apparently it's been around for 4-5 years now.

Anyway, we joined a Novice team, and started out the season barely beating a good team, and then somehow completely fell apart in our second game. We were disorganized, sloppy, out-of-sync, we were low on energy, and started bickering right before the half. Somehow we managed to mount a comeback, and we only lost by about 10 pts (yes, that did require a significant comeback). During practice on Sunday we ran zone defense drills, passing drills, layup drills, and did some scrimmaging, but more importantly we talked about who would play what position, who our starters would be, how people would sub in and out, and how people would give and receive criticism.

Today, we came out with high energy, getting off to an 13-2 start, and pretty much dominated the entire game. I myself took two shots early on, made one and barely missed one. I think I did a fairly good job of seeing the court and making good passes during the rest of the game; sometimes it's hard for me to know if I should be looking for more shots or just concentrating on creating opportunities for everyone else. Anyway, it was a good game all around, but we'll have to be careful not to rest on our laurels.

Some of the things that we need to work on:
- I need to do a better job of seeing the left side of the offense. Apparently our guards were getting free down low and I wasn't seeing them.
- We need to work on our post defense. Because we got burned baseline so many times last game, our outside low defenders were playing extremely conservatively, and we gave up too many perimeter shots. In general, we need to communicate more on defense.
- We need to work on our fast breaks. We have one of the fastest teams in the league, and we should take advantage.
- Some of our rebounders need to work on securing the ball or passing it back out quickly after grabbing the rebound.
- A few people need to learn not to shoot when they are too far from the basket and/or well defended.
- I need to get in shape! I was yelling for a sub midway through the first half...not good.
- We need to use our center more...she's tall, quick, has great fundamentals, and is a good shooting threat. I should work on finding a way to pass to her, to draw the defense up high.

In any case, it was a very satisfying game, and I'm looking forward to next week.

New York, New York

I'm visiting my sister in New York City in two weeks.

I love the Bay Area best of all the places I've lived, but from time to time, I do miss the craziness of NYC. I was only there for one summer, it was a totally different life, and I'm pretty sure I would have been exhausted at the age of 30 if I had stayed, but sometimes I wish I could go back for another three months or so. It's just not the same when you visit.

Things I miss:
- subways, subways, everywhere (and stations that are open all the time)
- walking around Battery Park amongst the suits during lunch (although I didn't enjoy the wearing part)
- corporate car service (thank you Goldman Sachs)
- hanging out after work at McSorley's, a Irish pub/dive serving exactly two types of beer, "light" and "dark"
- Broadway shows, off-Broadway shows, and way way off-Broadway shows
- concerts at Jones Beach
- outdoor showings of old movies in Bryant Park
- Central Park: rollerblading, chilling on the grass, just looking at it from someone's apartment on the Upper East Side
- never getting ID-ed (and I was a young-looking 21, that year)
- being out and about at 4am and seeing streets full of people
- chancing on a random street festival, staying for awhile, and having a blast
- authentic Russian food, Jewish food, Italian food, Irish food, Chinese food...
- lots of lovely old bookstores and trendy new coffeehouses to sit and read in

Now I'm all nostalgic.

credit cards

Wow, what a giant pain it is to close a credit card account.

I called up Fleet today to close out my Platinum Cash Dividend card. It used to be a tiered rebate card with up to 2% cash back a year, but starting in September it became a flat 1% card. The customer rep redirected me to a "closing specialist" whose job it was to convince me not to close my account. I spent a good ten minutes turning down all of her reasons for not closing my card, many of which involved lowering the APR %, which would have done me no good, since I don't carry a balance. Finally she closed out the account, and I requested written confirmation that the account was closed at my request, since I'd heard that was a good thing to do.

I'll be using my tiered 1.5% Amex Platinum Cash Rebate card as my primary credit card from now on, with my flat 1% Motley Fool Platinum Visa card as a backup, and my AAA Visa card at the pump (5% cash back on gas). I prefer the Fool card to the Chase PerfectCard (aka Freedom), even though the Chase credits your rebate to your card monthly instead of paying out annually. I find the Fool card more consumer-friendly, since it offers a 25-day grace period, all the normal platinum services, and no additional fee for overseas purchases. Plus, the Chase card charges you a fee if you don't use it at least 10 times a year, and I don't want to have to worry about being charged. Anyway, if you like rewards cards, Credit Card Goodies has a pretty active forum where people post information about all the different cards.

TMQ and MMQB

When you say you love your job, how much do you really love it?

From SI's Peter King:
Peyton Manning missed football so much during his bye week that he played touch football Sunday morning in his backyard, then went inside to watch all the pregame shows followed by the actual games, and then fell asleep with the Madden 2004 controls in his hands.

The quote is courtesy of Peter King's Monday Morning Quarterback, so it may or may not be true. I love MMQB, but I also love(d) Gregg Easterbrook's Tuesday Morning Quarterback. Unfortunately, Easterbrook made an anti-Semitic comment on his New Republic blog last week, resulting in ESPN dumping his column. I understand that Easterbrook's comment was hurtful and offensive and wrong, and I'm not defending him and I don't vilify ESPN (although it's worth mentioning that Easterbrook's comment criticized Michael Eisner, whose Disney owns ESPN), but I am sad that a column that I found witty and insightful and well-written is gone.

SJ Ballet?

I'm going to the ballet tonight. Nope, not the San Francisco ballet, the San Jose ballet. Yeah, I didn't know they had a ballet company either.

Not to be a snob, but I'm generally skeptical about SJ's performing arts. They just can't compare to the SF companies, especially for the ballet, symphony, and opera. The touring performance of Rent was pretty good, I guess. Plus, I think I get an extra kick out of watching the SF ballet because I indirectly know Yuan-Yuan Tan.

Anyway, I decided to give SJ a chance tonight because (A) a group of my co-workers are going, (B) it's only $10 for us, and (C) they're performing Appalachian Spring, which I've never seen. I'm trying to keep an open mind.

bleah

I've been writing a lot recently, probably because I'm finishing up the beta release of my project, which means I have lots of things to do that I've been putting off because they're tedious or otherwise annoying. There's nothing like procrastinating from one task to make you accomplish something else.

I was talking to someone the other day how it seems like days go by faster now. When I was a kid, my parents used to say that, but I never really got it. I think it has something to do with not having school (vacations do a good job of breaking up the year) but it also has to do with having more abstract goals. When you're trying to get a degree, your milestones are exams and problem sets and semesters. When you're trying to just do good, interesting work at your job, you don't notice days and weeks slipping away.

On a slightly related note, sometimes I worry that I'm losing touch with people that I used to know and hang out with. I feel like I must be doing something wrong; I used to see these guys every day, and we'd eat dinner and chill and crack stupid jokes and go out for movies and talk about politics and religion and art and music and gadgets and human nature. Now, I see them maybe ten times a year, and a lot of times its in these big party-type group settings where you don't really get to talk about anything interesting anyway, since you don't know anything about each other's lives. Maybe some people can have good conversations at a party or at a bar, but I manage it best at 4am in the morning while taking a break from finishing some life/time-sucking project. I don't have many of those moments anymore...maybe I really should think about going back to school. Having felt this rush of horror just now while saying (typing?) that, I'll go ahead and take it back.

So what am I doing wrong? It's not like I'm lazy and sit at home all day surfing the web and watching TV. I play league sports. I'm taking Chinese class. I vacation in interesting and beautiful foreign countries. I go shopping with my girl friends. I hole up on Sunday watching football with the guys. I go to poker night, and movie night, and whatever other nights those crazy young'uns come up with every week. I sometimes think if I moved to San Francisco I'd have more of the life I want to live, but I'm pretty sure that's not true, either. And, the thing is, it's not as if I'm unhappy. I do lots of fun things, I hang out with cool people, I have a nice place, and an interesting job, and great co-workers...I guess I just have a vague inkling of missed opportunity. In the back of my head, I'm wondering: are these supposed to be the best years of my life? Am I missing out on something?

back to my favorite topic

Wow, I haven't written a post about Taiwan in months...how unlike me.

I was reading an article this morning with a pretty good explanation of Taiwan's political situation.

As an aside, the article also includes an explanation of Taiwan's history by former President Lee, that clearly articulates a point that I often have trouble making; that China does not have any reasonable claim to sovereignty over Taiwan:

Lee pointed out that Chiang's regime was originally asked by the United States in 1945 to go to Taiwan to set up a temporary administration, since the US itself was somewhat overstretched at the time. There were no implications of sovereignty attached, no more than there are to the United Kingdom's current responsibility for Basra in Iraq. The whole question of who was to own what was to be sorted out at the peace treaty to be negotiated after the end of the war.

Chiang's regime then made a land grab - based on the gentlemen's agreement - claiming to have recovered China's "lost" territory, and returning to Taiwan as the sovereign power, which, of course, it wasn't.

In 1952 the final claims of the war were settled in the San Francisco Peace Treaty. By this time there were two rival Chinese regimes, Mao's in Beijing and Chiang's in what it is becoming fashionable in Taipei to call "occupied Taiwan". In the treaty Japan finally renounced the sovereignty over Taiwan it had gained in 1895 and that sovereignty was given to - nobody, a situation that remains to this day.

Anyway, back to the main point...

The author uses the premise that any act of aggression by China will push Taiwan's voters further towards independence-minded candidates, and hypothesizes that the recent inflammatory statements by President Chen and ex-President Lee are designed to provoke Beijing into initiating such acts. It is possible that some of Taiwan's politicians may use China's highly reactionary nature to advance their agendas, but politicians aren't the only ones annoying Communist China. Last month, 150,000+ marched in Taipei to advocate that Taiwan (currently the "Republic of China") officially rename itself as Taiwan. Although it's a possibility, it isn't highly likely that all of those citizens were involved in a ploy to advance the DPP party agenda. I think it's just becoming clear to an increasing number of Taiwanese that they have to stop cowering in China's shadow, so that they can get the international recognition that they deserve.

those crazy Californians

So, today is the recall election. I can't even explain my feeling of disgust over this whole spectacle.

I know that as a good citizen I should vote, but looking at the candidates, I can't imagine ever telling someone that I voted for one of them. I'm really hoping that there will be someone in the 2004 presidential election that won't disgust me. Hear that, candidates? All you have to do, to get my vote, is not disgust me...and I'm sure I'm not the only one who feels this way.