Wow. I just experienced a quake in Tokyo. It was small but noticeable. Reminds me of the big quake I experienced once in SF at like 2am… when I was playing video games and everyone was asleep. Shit. I hope Tokyo doesn’t get the big quake in the 1.5 years that I’ll be here. But hmm… maybe living long term in Japan isn’t such a good idea. Then again… statistically speaking. 200k dead outta 30 million. I like my odds. o.o

It’s weird that I moved from one big quake location to another. I guess earthquakes are my thing. I guess that’s one of the great things about Toronto. No quakes or tsunami risk. Hmmm. New York also has quake and tsunami risk. O.O. I’m scared for future me even though quakes haven’t happened yet. Plus I learned that I should have a earth quake kit… and learn Japanese so I can talk to people and figure out where the quake shelter is.

I think a new environment just time binds you to the max. I just went for about a one hour walk and it feels much longer than… what I’m normally use to. It normally takes me about an hour for me to walk from SF to say City Dance Studio but then it feels really fast. Today just walking from my future apartment to my share house took about an hour. But it felt much longer. I think it has to do with the fact that everything is unfamiliar and new. It’s like… your brain has to slow down to process everything so it feels like time is going slower.

The thing that’s so different about walking in Japan is. There are kids everywhere. And old people. And police on bicycles. I think one of the main differences is in SF downtown… it’s filled with Dinks(Dual Income No Kids) and generally old people don’t live in SF? The case with Toronto is I feel that you need a car to travel and old people definitely don’t walk. So it’s like kids and old people are a rare sighting. Here in Japan it’s so common. I think it might have to do with the density. It’s like… with the huge amount of population you just have a magnitude more kids and old people. 14 million vs 800k. That’s like… 15x. So before there would be one baby. Now there’s 15. Before there would be one old person… now there’s 15. Plus the visibility so I guess it makes sense.

Wow. It’s only been 5 days since I’ve been in Japan. Talk about a huge time bend. It’s been feeling like… a crazy long amount of time.

I just finished signing my contract for my 1LDK. It’s in Toshima and it’s pretty big. The initial move in costs a fortune even though they waived the key money which was about 1.3k usd. I think it’s about 6k usd for the whole move in. Monthly rent after will only be 1.4k which includes internet but excludes utilities. The resources I used were gaijinpot, and walking into random places. So I walked into this place… the guy didn’t speak english and the place wasn’t foreigner friendly so he walked me over to leopalace21 which is foreigner friendly. Then the guy at leopalace didn’t speak english so he referred me to the shinjuku branch which is the international branch.

Then I walked into this other branch that showed me 3 places. The best place cost like 9k initial with tons of gift money and key money. That was too crazy. I eventually went to leopalace shinjuku and the guy there spoke english and showed me places. The place we went to was outside the city and also on the first floor. Which made me sad. Even though it was probably the best thus far. But then I emailed him and he found a place for me over the weekened. We instantly looked at it Sunday and then signed the contract.

The Japanese salaryman life is so… rough. I can’t imagine doing it. Plus I’d get paid like 1/3 or 1/4 even of what I’d make in the US. To be treated like a slave and be paid so little. Then again I know that I’m spoiled from silicon valley. I complain about getting to work for 10:30 even though work was just a 10 minute walk for me.

I think English and Chinese are now the two most dominant languages. There’s almost always a local english speaker since only white english speaking people could afford to travel previously. Growing up… my parents said that Chinese would rule the world and that people would learn Chinese but it definitely hasn’t been the case. I think the reason that Chinese is starting to become popular in businesses is all the filthy rich chinese people that are spending money outside their country. I’m still salty that rich chinese people is making it too expensive for me to buy property in Canada… even though they probably only affect the price by like 50%. That’s still alot.

I charged the most I’ve ever spent on my credit card ever. It’s a new record. I wish I had gotten a Chase Sapphire Reserve… could’ve instantly got all those bonus points. Too bad I’m not in the states anymore. I might still do a stint in NYC since I wanna live in Manhattan the same way I’ve always wanted to live in Tokyo. I’m starting to get a hang of the tokyo lines now. An express train in Tokyo that takes you to Nakano is only 3km. I think… The default distances / zoom on google maps that I’m used to in Canada/USA is just different. Tokyo looks big on the maps… but the distances are actually short. I walked 4 subway stops and it was only about 40 minutes with laziness.

I started searching for furniture. OMG. sigh. buying stuff online while being illiterate is hard. and a bed and stuff is so expensive. A bed and furniture is double the price of america. WTF. how do Japanese people earn less than Americans but have everything be more expensive?! that… blows my mind.

So. I basically just completed day 1 of japan. I’ve been in Japan approximately 24 hours… and just wow. My mind is blown.

When I landed… I bought my sim card after much struggles. But I got a data sim with 2gb of data good for 3 months so… life is good. Took the bus to Tokyo from Narita and then took the subway line to Waseda where the guy picked me up right on time. Wow. The subway is packed. Packed. around 5pm.

It’s so strange. I’m getting the feeling of… like when I was visiting New York. Grand Central Station reminds me of the movies. The thing is… any random street in Tokyo reminds me of scenes from anime/movies. It’s what everything is based off of. Mind. Blown. I had ramen for dinner yesterday. It cost me less than 1000 yen and I bought it from a vending machine. It was delicious.

Slept for 12 hours straight around 9pm to 9am. Then I woke up… and it was raining like crazy. I bought a black umbrella like a newb but then I lost it today by leaving it somewhere… so I guess I’ll get the chance to buy the correct umbrella. Protip: Get the clear umbrella because it let’s you see where you’re going during heavy rainfall.

For breakfast all I had was an onigiri from convenience store. It was delicious and 100 yen. That’s $1. In SF, on Kearny there’s this place called Onigiri. And it’s like $5 each. Man. I feel so spoiled. It’s just so amazing. I went to a couple of rental agencies to search for places. It was quite painful to deal with… and holy shit the complete move in cost for a place was like $800k yen. Which is like 8000 USD. O.O. I think I’m going to just end up using something from gaijin pot which is a website created specifically for foreigners.

The highlight of the search was… omg. I was sitting in the rental agency. And Exile came on the radio. SHIET son. It’s like… wow. Japanese music from my music collection is being played in public places. Omg. Exile. Also… the rental agency worker who was showing me the places… his cellphone screensaver was an AKB idol. I’m with my people yoooooo. Life is so good. I’m pretty amazed.

There was a period of time when I was sad… because my shared house is really ghetto. Like… there’s mosquitoes everywhere and the shower is a pain. The toilets are dirty. But. It’s just a cheap airbnb. And it’s only temporary. And I’m still hella spoiled. It’s hot with no AC. But still… totally worthy it. I gotta appreciate and be thankful for the greatness than is Tokyo.

I had ramen for lunch. Oh. I also had a iced mocha for $3 in a fancy cafe. The exile and being surrounded by my people. So good. The exile. SO GOOD. I think I’m just too excited. I think I’m gonna probably just live in a 1K or something since it’s the cheapest and I don’t wanna live in something that I can’t afford. For now the next steps is to find housing, setup internet, find a gym and then do my thing.

It’s crazy that… I’m literally living my dream from ~3 years ago. I’ve always wanted to live in Japan and now I’m living my dream. But I think I need to make the next goal post… so that I don’t waste time and just end up playing video games. First housing… but I think I might know what I want now. I was a bit… lost and directionless. But I think I’m found. :)

Wow. In less than 48 hours I’ll be flying to Tokyo. All alone with no friends and making my dreams a reality. Taking a year off to work on software and play video games has been my dream ever since I graduated Waterloo and living in Japan before I turn 27… both of them became giri giri safe. It feels really… different than I imagined it. I guess… it’s like the xkcd comic where you never feel like you’re ready. Kinda like permanent imposter syndrome except I wouldn’t really call it imposter syndrome. There’s the xkcd comic of some guy at the bank.

I’m looking forward to receiving my next future me email. I wonder what it’ll say. I forgot what I wrote. There’s this theory that I’ve been thinking of which is that you’ll always be as good / great / as shitty as you demand yourself and project yourself to be. I guess it’s like what everyone says where whatever you think of will come true or whatever. People who think that they’re poor will stay poor or whatever. Sometimes though… it’s really hard to change how you think. I know what limiting beliefs are and whenever I tell myself that I can’t… it’s like I don’t even try. Even though I know this it’s still difficult to think differently. Which is crazy. I’ve always wanted to be able to do the human flag… but in the back of my mind… I always thought that it would be too hard for me. I guess it’s like the people who are out of shape who always want to get healthy and workout. Somewhere in the back of their mind… they can’t believe or see themselves as as healthy and not fat or whatever.

My time in Toronto is essentially over since I gotta spend the entire day monday packing and doing research. It’s been established that I’m a goldfish with horrible memory… but what’s weird is that I feel like I’ve just been retracing my previous trips. It’s like deja vu but a different feeling. Or maybe exactly like deja vu. I go to a restaurant that I don’t remember going to… and then I end up ordering the exact same thing as I previously ordered and then it’s like… wow - I’ve been here before and I ordered exactly the same thing last time.

It’s already been established that I don’t believe in free will and that I think everything is predetermined. But even given that it feels strange to always end up choosing the same thing. Well.. back to packing. So much packing to do. But it’s work that I enjoy doing :)

Hmmm. It’s been awhile since I wrote something. So I’m all settled into the Toronto vacation mode.

And something that’s… always been a bad habit of mine just happened. It’s good that I’m aware of it… I guess that’s step 1… but I still mess up.

Whenever people tell me to do something…. even if it’s something that I want to do or was going to do anyways…. it makes me not want to do it. Kinda like. Fuck you. stop telling me what to do. Urgh.

So I’m living with my parents and spend a lot of time with my grandparents recently. Since the main reason I came back was to spend time with them. They keep telling me to exercise, and watch less stuff on my cell phone etc. And it’s things that I was gonna do anyways. Since I was planning on spending my year off just working out and playing video games. But like… blargh. Whenever people tell me what to do it just drives me nuts.

Hmmm. Dunno why. I’ve been reading the inner game of tennis recently and it’s quite the read. It’s like… describing what’s been happening to me when I try too hard. Whenever you focus too much on the results… (winning) you put a damper on your ability. I guess it is just all about having fun.

From now on whenever people tell me to do something I’ll program myself to say: thanks but never tell me what to do again. I don’t need your advice since it’s something that I already know. Unless it’s actually something new and useful. New and useful advice is few and far inbetween. It’s basically junk and rehash and shit that I already know. Sigh. I guess I’m reminded of why I left home in the first place. The thinking that my family has is outdated and not useful for the modern world. Maybe I’ll write about that more in another post.

Man. Year of the upsets. Year of the underdog. Eddie Alvarez… becomes the the lightweight champion. Just… wow. I mean… RDA looked unstoppable. And then one punch… one mistake. It goes back to the beginning… once you’re at the top… every little thing matters.

Jon Jones off the fight card. Damn. DC vs Anderson Silva. Damn. I guess that just shows the unpredictability of things. UFC 200 looked sick and then 3 days out everything changed. But I guess it’s still decent.

Went to time square. New york on vacation looks pretty sick. And my friends place is in the lower east side which is the ultimate place to live I think. Amazing chinatown food, Had 20 layer crepe cake. And basically ate 3 meals today. 3 mega meals.

Oh yeah. Worse case is after my stint in Japan I’m poor and I’ll have to move to NYC. Which… isn’t too bad I guess. I think I’ll want to live in NYC anyways. NYC… is pretty amazing.

Tomorrow is more food and dessert. Shit.. I’m so fat now. But it’s vacation… and I’ll be focusing on fitness in Japan. So shouldn’t be too bad. I still intend to do the human flag and musicle up within my time in Japan.

Eddie Alvarez… still blows my mind.

It’s 1:48am. And I can’t sleep so it’s time foc some ufc 200 and maybe gsl predictions.

daniel cormier vs jon jones. head says jon jones. heart says / wants daniel cormier. jon jones is just… untouchable. it’s really hard to bet against the guy who is undefeated against essentially the murders row of light heavyweight contenders. the guys that jon beat decisively… they would and could easily be the champion if jones wasn’t in existance. if it wasn’t for jon jones… i see the ufc light heavyweight belt being the same as the heavyweight belt… being passed like a hot potatoe. on the other hand… i really want daniel cormier to win. it’s like… jon jones did coke the entire time he was the champ.. he basically slacked off while being the goat. while everyone else worked super hard. and i guess i want hard work to be rewarded… not that jones doesn’t work hard. but how hard can you work when you’re doing coke all the time? and besides… cormier is the underdog at 38 years old… and everyone likes the underdog. or at least i like the underdog… since society has conditioned me to root for the underdog in the heroes’ journey. sadly i think jon will prove that he’s untouchable and most likely finish cormier. i want but i don’t believe. jon jones via finish.

brock lesnar vs mark hunt. omg. it’s like… what i said when at the top levels… it’s just a battle of whose reality is stronger and becomes the actual reality. lesner wants the takedown which will lead to the finish / beatdown / submission victory. hunt… he’ll go for the knockout walkoff punch that he’s essentially patented. i think hunt takes this because the fight starts standing. he’s a badass striker. and he’s still in the game… lesnar while a freak of nature… and hasn’t rested… is coming back from essentially a 5 year vacation. i find it hard to believe that he’ll be better than him at his prime… and even him at his prime… the one that smashed carwin / randy couture… i think old man hunt is probably better than both of them. in terms of dishing out the hurt and taking hits. hunt via ko.

miesha tate vs nunes. i have no detail info on either aside from the promo video. miesha does have the championship mentality that few fighters have. in the 5th round she went with the go big or go home takedown that lead to her victory. so many other fighters wouldn’t have risked getting knocked out for the winning takedown… i also wonder why fighters don’t want to win and risk getting knocked out… and they chose to lose a decision instead. i think i know… it’s the fear of a huge loss. over a small loss. even though the huge loss is weighed by the chance of victory. the risk/reward isn’t worth it. but to be a champion… you gotta play to win. they both lost to a common opponent in the same way… so all i can conclude is that they both have relative weak striking to shared opponent. /shrug. gonna go with the champ because that’s the standard after seeing the all out knock me out but i’m gonna take you down submission victory. the champ via submission.

jose aldo vs frankie edgar. shit. this one is hard. i want both of them to win. i want jose to win so he can get revenge against mcgregor. i want edgar to win so he can become another dual champion and since he’s usually been the underdog in most of his fights. head says aldo and heart says frankie. aldo… he was untouchable. and honestly, i still think he’s in the untouchable tier. the knockout.. it wasn’t a fluke because one does not simply knock out jose aldo via a fluke. but i do think it was mind games plus a statistical anomaly. frankie is the clear number 2 and he only barely lost to aldo. frankie beat a prime bj penn though… and in my mind prime bj penn > aldo > everyone else. blargh. hard to say. i don’t actually remember frankie ever being finished. wow. i looked at his record. never been finished. hmmmmm. guess this is now really hard to call. i’d pick both of them over mcgregor though. i’m gonna go with aldo. i think he’s actually had slightly less wear and tear plus the guy was a mini anderson silva… so aldo via ko/tko.

cain vs browne. browne did the eyepoke in his last victory. cain is championship quality. gonnna go with cain… via a brutal ground and pound tko.

i want mousasi to win. and to get back to the top… at one point he was mentioned as the one to bring down anderson silva. the guy has such good striking too. i wanna see him become top tier again.

alright.. oh yeah. rda vs the guy who beat pettis using rda’s gameplan. uh… what’s his name. alvarez. the guy that beat shinya aoki. hmmm. i’m gonna go with rda… because rda just looks unstoppable. he beat pettis much more convincingly and he smashed cerrone. it was like… hulk smash. and cerrone is killing it in lw and even ww.

oh yeah… sc2 predictions for the gsl group. i do think zest will advance. however… i think mc will advance first. because he has… the championship mentality yo. the killer instinct. i think the boss toss is back. he’ll upset zest and then take first. and zest will hulk smash through the losers and win 2nd place.

mc > zest mc > whoever zest > both

mc and zest to advance. even though that’s statistically unlikely. i believe in the boss toss and also… the tl writers curse. they predicted mc to get murked… so i’m gonna predict that mc makes it out first

So… It’s officially the day after ax. Let’s see… it’s currently 4pm and I spent all day lazying at my airbnb. ^_^

I woke up. Had food. and started watching the hype video for UFC 200. UFC is one of the few sports that I follow since it’s just so… beautiful. It’s like… what happens when two indomitable wills crash? the other thing is that.. I think at some level. Once you reach saikai level… you need delusion. I mean… if Michael Bisping didn’t believe that he could become the UFC champ… why would he fight? I think.. it’s similar to the sc2 Harstem line. You don’t want to be the number 1 sc2 foreigner… you always want to be the best in the world.

There’s so much dedication and hard work that goes towards becoming a ufc champion. And even with all the hard work… a title shot isn’t a given. Getting a title shot requires hard work, dedication, skill and luck. And it’s still a rare opportunity.

I’ve been purposely just taking it easy these past few weeks since I quit work. I think… I needed a break to reset. Travelling actually tires me out… I much rather have a home base. It’s like… the ajito. Aka the hideout. Without your own hideout… where will you go to recover your hp/mp?

There’s so much that’s been on my mind. AX honestly felt like a full circle. It’s my second AX and definitely my last for awhile. But it was still so much fun. Even though it’s the same thing. Like… it’s the same… but different. I actually ended up leaving the airbnb every day in LA so that’s like… an improvement over previous shut in. Then again… I think each time I travelled to LA I ended up leaving but I don’t really keep track.

Oh… once I went on vacation in vancouver for 10 days. I think I just marathon played pokemon. I literally went from starter to finish in probably… 7 days. It was so much fun..

So my year in Japan. There’s so much that I want to do. In a way… my year in japan will be my title shot. It’ll be me chasing my dreams. I can level up into the next circle. Or end up having to do another lap. And either way… it’ll be fine because I tried my best and took the best course of action.

The thing is… it’s really hard to determine the best course of action. I guess I’ll know in retrospect if I tried my hardest or did my best. What’s funny is that at some point in time… other people lose to ability to judge how hard you tried. Cause… they don’t know how good you are.

So where was I. Oh right. Japan is like my title shot. I have one year to do whatever it is that I want… and it’s going to be a lot of things. I’ll eventually write a checklist.. but I think and strongly believe I can hit all my objectives. Because I know myself and my abilities.

You know… this trip was hella weird in a way. Because… things that people started telling me that I thought were crazy and unbelievable… started coming true. So… I think I lost the ability to sleep in. I use to go partying with older people… and and even at work whenever I arrived late to work… people older than me would be like. Eventually you can’t sleep in. Last saturday… I woke up at 8 and did a bunch of shit. And when I looked at the clock it was 9 something. blah. And holy shit. I think… I’m officially old to the point where I can’t sleep in. Like.. I’m still a night owl. And I don’t really sleep until 2am. But I’m awake at 9am. I think… it might just be the airbnb. The blinds doesn’t shut out the sunlight completely like I’m used to. I’m used to total darkness. Cause I’m a vampire. So… if I regain the ability to sleep in… I would definitely enjoy it. If not… I’ll enjoy the extra hours in the mornings. After all… waking up early is a.. what’s the word. maxim. It’s something successful people do. Alot of successful people wake up early. So maybe I’ll join that crowd.

The other thing is… I was gonna perscribe myself laziness. I told myself it would be okay to spend an entire day in the airbnb watching anime… and while I did spend a large amount of time watching anime. I eventually went out and spent time with friends. I finished owari no seraph and seven deadly sins in my week in LA. Also finished akito the exiled code geass. It was meh.

And here I am… writing this post after cloning the repo on my new laptop. New being new OS… I’m still on my 2310M sandy bridge msi laptop with 16gb of ram. It’s still kicking so much butt. I gave my laptop 16gb of ram and 2x ssds. And now on linux it’s still good enough to essentially be my portable desktop. Life is good.

it’s weird… that i somewhat censor myself in these posts… since google analytics tells me that 3 people read it. LOL. and I’m one of the 3 people… so basically only two people in the world knows my deepest darkest thoughts. My deepest darkest censored thoughts.

So I stopped getting id at places. Bars/Clubs… I think I’m now in the middle age rich label even though I’m poor. Hmmm. Actually that’s not really true. I’ll probably write a post on financials and growing up with poverty. While I don’t think that I’m poor I think I still have the poor and poverty mindset. It’s like… I’m only 2 years away from living on the streets. Friends won’t let me crash on their couches and all my skills will suddenly become worthless. I’ll lose the ability to do anything.

I guess part of adulting is just teaching yourself what your parents failed to teach you. In the past I would always wish that I grew up with different parents with more freedoms or whatever. But I guess now it’s ok… since everything is up to me.

so moving from sf. I think I threw away $1000 worth of goods. that just blows my mind. I don’t think it’s $1000 cash value but it’s like… $1000 book value for sure. still though… I guess I’m still looking at it from my poor kid point of view. I think at some point in the future I’ll probably be okay with losing 10k and even 100k worth of goods. But I’m not there yet.

I’m all about the time bending. and I think time slows down when you’re all… the power of now and eckhart tolle and stuff. but it’s kinda hard to get into that state. i think for me it’s more about just noticing when i’m in that state and enjoying it. that airport line… wow time goes forever.

i can’t wait til i’m free of the clock. when i’m in japan i’ll be able to sleep/work/wake whenever i want. so stoked. ok. i think it’s rambling now. gonna continue with the ufc 200 hype before getting lunch with sexy kawachi ojo sama :D

This is a repeating story: I’m feeling shitty. Basically just tired and lazy. I got the flu before vacation and I decided to just rest and not work out. Feeling so wasted and crappy from EDC. I couldn’t sleep this morning at 8am. I tried sleeping at 6am. Woke up at 8am…gave up and went to target to buy some food. Came back home and then couldn’t sleep until 11am.

Then I woke up around 3pm. So I guess I got 4 hours of sleep. But I was just feeling really shitty. And irritable. And then… after dinner I started practicing dance for the friday performance. Then I did my stretch habit. And then even though I was lacking sleep… I just went fuck it. Let’s go to the gym. Stretching -> Gym has been a habit that I built. It’s like a cue. It’s my pre-gym routine. And it’s pretty easy to start stretching. And once I start it’s somewhat easy to continue. Except today I was really sleep deprived. I kinda forgot… where I was in my stretching habit. You know when you go into autopilot mode.. I was just like… what stretch did I just do?

Anyways. Went to the gym. Tried to practice dance without the video and my left/right sense was way off. I didn’t remember which hand/foot went where. I just gave up instead of trying to practice bad habits. Did the usual 5x5. And then got home and showered. And now I feel great. It’s 2:30am… and I’m watching starcraft 2. I think I’ll probably sleep at 3 / 330. I need to wake up at 9:50 for dentist. But I think working out will give me the 6 hours of beauty sleep that I need.

I’m thankful that… 24h fitness is so close. Still trying to sell my TV and my desktop computer. We’ll see… if it doesn’t happen I’ll just ship it back. No biggie.

I was gonna write a weekly / thoughts and reflections on EDC 2016. But… I just watched game of thrones. The episode that missed while at EDC. And… holy fucking shit. Sick nerd chills. So fucking good. It’s like…. damn. media/television can you bring the epic highs. Almost drug like.

Tons of spoilers below obviously

Well. Shit. We all knew Daenerys was a goddess. As in like… her rise to power and her storyline puts her into the goddess tier. And holy shit. Her horses, her dragons and the slaying of the two masters. MAN. That was picture perfect. I think this season because it’s the first time that it’s ahead of the show… I can finally be surprised and living in the present. Like… I need to pay attention to every line of dialogue. I have the volume turned to the max. It’s that good.

The Daenerys plot line is so good. Now that she got her dragons, her horses, and her ships. She’s a bigger khal than khal drogo. Mind blown. I think at this point she’ll definite rule the five kingdoms and protect them from the white walkers. After all… her dragons will melt the white walkers without a doubt.

This episode was the usual 59 minutes. But it felt so much longer. The contents were so jam packed and juicy. I was like… shiet. It’s like 3 normal episodes of content. I even forgot what happens next. Like… just the Daenerys part would’ve been a glorious episode for me.

Wow. The Jon Snow one on one fight proposal. That was pretty ballsy. I was thinking that Ramsay would accept and treachery to a win. But I guess even he wouldn’t be stupid and risk losing a sure win battle. Watching the beginning… of freeing the brother. He was dead man. He was a dead man the second he landed into Ramsay’s hands. No matter what.

And then Jon Snow tried to save his brother. Sigh. I was like…. what the fuck. Your brother is fucking dead. I guess… one on hand you almost always have to try. On the other hand… if you know you’ll fail… would you still try?? That’s the paradox. Trying to win when you know you have essentially zero chances.

I guess real life isn’t really like fiction in that regard. It’s rare that you’re actually put into that position. Only in stories and fiction is such a thing guaranteed. Which brings me to my next point… I think emotions is generally bad. I mean… emotion / animal / non logic is good from time to time. Like the sword fighting… that’s almost all based on muscle memory and emotion. I guess in that case emotion would somewhat make you a better fighter by giving you adrenaline. But from a logical perspective… charging into the army was suicide. And he performed suicide because… he was emotional.

Oh shit. let’s cut back. Sansa… telling Ramsay that he would be dead come morning. What. The. Fuck. That was so badass. It was a pretty bold prediction. And the ultimate mike drop moment. The whole time I was watching the fight I was thinking… oh shit. Jon Snow is gonna lose cause he’s an idiot. And then the LOTR moment when Sansa shows up. Wow. Mind blown. So fucking good. Just so fucking good.

And then chasing down Ramsay into his castle. What the fuck. That was badass and crazy. This is literature so I guess you can’t really approach it purely from a logical perspective. After breaching the walls… I thought Jon Snow would be crazy to accept a 1-1 fight. I mean… he had it won. But he still made it a 1-1 fight… and it was a shield against the arrow. That was pretty damn badass. The entire fight… when he got mount and was raining down punches. I was expected a cheap knife to happen. But then Jon Snow just beat the living shit outta Ramsay. That was pretty satisfying.

One thing I learned about EDC and the music that I like. Is that I’m actually mainstream. I’ve been sold man. I’ve been sold. I mean… all your beliefs and likes and idealogy was learned. You learned from society, the world, your parents, literature… whatever. To become who you are. And I guess… I’ve learned to enjoy karma. The villain getting the death penalty… or the good guys winning. That’s all stories and literature right? The good guy overcomes obstacles and villains to win. Even though in real life villains rule and live prosperously. Then again… over a long timeline… all humans die so I guess all villains do die. Like all humans die.

Oh man. That ending. When Sansa feeds Ramsay to the hounds. It was… picture perfect. It’s just like… justice is restored and life is good. Real life isn’t like that though and I’ve come to accept it. But in fiction… damn. That shit is gold. That shit is gold. This is probably the best episode of all time. My mind is just blown. So much goodness happened in this episode. I’m kinda worried that shit will just happen like in real life and Jon Snow will die again or something. =/

Anyways. I’ve been sold on the karmic justice in fiction. I even wish that was the case in real life even though I know that’s not the case.

tl;dr - This was THE episode. Probably the best episode of all time in game of thrones. So much enjoyment. Goodness prevails and life is good again.

Wow. Today is actually going to be my last day of work. I already commited my last code. It’s… 1:50am. And work is in 7 hours. But tomorrow is gonna be mostly chill and writing docs and stuff. It’s crazy. I won’t have to wake up for work… for like the 1.5 years. Wow. I get a 1.5 year vacation. I gotta say I’m prety stoked.

It’s something that I’ve been dreaming about… and now that it’s almost reality… I don’t know how I feel. I had chicken dinner with my coworkers today. It just randomly happened since we were playing video games and then I just tagged along. It was pretty fun.

So one of my coworkers told me that he took a house dance class. And it’s super cool that I know all these house dance moves. Thanks Buster. The Jack :D Actually I think my favorite move is the reverse jack. Hue. Hue.

I haven’t been writing… or doing my 3 thankful things. I’m thankful that I got catered lunch. I’m thankful that I got such wonderful training in silicon valley (I did my last interview today). I’m thankful that I have access to amazing american credit cards. I just got the united 50k credit card promo. I got 200k miles in the past year… since I reached the pinnacle of american credit worthiness in 3 years.

Tomorrow will be lots video games, magic and celebrations. Life is good.

Wow. Michael Bisping knocked out Luke Rockhold. Just… wow. If you told me 5 years ago that Michael Bisping would beat Anderson Silva and become the middleweight champion of the UFC… I’d laugh and say you’re crazy. UFC middleweight champion at age 37… via knockout. Michael Bisping. My mind is blown.

I guess it’s really all about hard work and dedication. I mean… Michael Bisping could’ve retired by age 37. Most fighters don’t fight for 10 years… and most retire before age 37. But he believed in himself and he worked… and now he’s the champion. But then there’s also survivorship bias. For every Michael Bisping… there’s probably 10x people who just crash and burned.

You know… leading up to the fight I actually gave Bisping no chance. Since Rockhold already finished him. Even though… knocking down Anderson Silva is a pretty amazing feat. There were a few articles on how… Rockhold dedicated his life to becoming champion while Bisping has kids and stuff. How could someone with a family be more dedicated to the fight game than Luke. How could someone with less dedication and physicality beat Rockhold? Man. It just blows my mind.

I think it’s a combination of hard work / self belief and choosing what to bet on helps decide if you succeed or not. That and of course luck. Luck is there… but you gotta believe that it doesn’t exist I guess. It’s like… you need to put in the hard work and believe in yourself to get lucky in the first place. If Bisping didn’t keep training and fighter, and accepting the short notice fight he wouldn’t have gotten ‘lucky’. So was it really luck? /shrug.

I guess the plan is to take as many actions that lead to a lucky result. It’s like… gambling where you just keep gambling until you get lucky. Except you rig the expected value to help you succeed. I think I gotta re-read Black Swan. Or just finish it. You want unlimited upside but limited downside. And to keep doing what you love.

Man. I’m gonna take this as a sign. If Bisping can become world champ at age 37 via knockout… I feel okay leaving a rocketship silicon valley startup for one year in Japan.

I just wanna read about one of my favorite manhua of all time. Feng Shen Ji. It’s so good. The storytelling is so cliche… and it follows all the patterns of manga/comics. But it’s still so good.

It starts by laying down the foundations of the world. You meet the gods that rule over humans. And you see a great fight between the king + phoenix against the great gods. But then Tian descends and just rules with an iron fist. You have a kid of the king that has to live undercover and train. Of course he has divine backgrounds - he’s the chosen one. So he’s part god / part human.

What is below will contain spoilers. Since… I just wanna explain why the manga is so good.

He gains divine power. Then he gets trained by his uncle - the #1 swordsman in the world in the art of smelting aura. Then he inherits soul powers from the #1 dark one. With just one of the 3 powers alone… god/smelting/soul is enough to reach the uber top tier… he of course achieves top tier in all 3. And then he even gains the power of nothingness. It’s like… the best powers just fall into his lap.

I think my favorite character is actually the uncle. White hair and number one swordsman in the world. When I read the fight on the mountain it was just. Omg. Zi Yu is such a badass.

I think one of the goodness of the manga is that the powers were well thought out. You have divine power, soul power, smelting aura, mantra and within each of those broad categories you had specializations that made each power unique.

hmmm. fanime was a pretty big time bend. go look up the time bending ted talk if you wanna know what i mean.

i’ve been thinking about what i’ll be putting on this blog… and in the end i decided on just it being sort of a public diary met for myself. it’ll be a place for me to reflect and brain dump my random ideas and theories. i’ll just write about all my bouts of crazy here. like the times where i keep thinking that my place will get robbed because i didn’t lock the door etc.

i think i just wanna write for myself. since writing more makes you a better writer and communicator. and also just brain dumping is therapeutic. i had to look up the spelling. so i guess it also improves my english speling. thera. peutic. that’s how you remember how to spell that word.

last day of work. was way different than i imagined it. but it was good. and life is good. i’m thankful for… decisive. and also bruce lee. i recently read the quote. of his that from my memory is basically. take what is good. discard the useless. and add it to your style.

i think… i incorporated all the different skills and learnings to turn myself into a badass. moving to sf was pretty crazy. and i think moving to japan will be what takes me to the next level.