Anticipation

The best things in life are those things you don't expect. When you build up something to the point of thinking it will be the second coming of Jesus, you are bound to be disappointed. It's those times that something nice happens unexpectedly that I have found to be the most rewarding.

For example, movies. I already wrote a little about this before, but the big-budget hyped-up supposed "box office smashes of the summer" almost inevitably fail to reach expectations. Movies like Pearl Harbor, Star Wars Episode I, Wild Wild West, etc., get so much attention before they even open, such that when people go see it, they expect that anything less than the "Greatest Movie Ever" will be a letdown. On the other hand, movies like the first Scream, Clerks, or Swingers don't receive nearly as much press, and they are that much more enjoyable to watch, when we don't expect it to be eight-thumbs up and flat out awesome. That's why I don't like to read critics' ratings, or pay that much attention to previews for that matter. And I rarely get that excited about an upcoming movie that hasn't come out yet, except for maybe Austin Powers movies or Star Wars movies.

When I was in junior high, life was basically eat, sleep, school, and Super Nintendo. Any time I had friends over, all we would do was play video games, and if we couldn't be playing video games, we would talk about them, like what the latest codes were. Either that, or we'd be reading our EGM (Electronic Gaming Monthly). Nerds, I know. Anyways, there was a time when the hottest new game coming out was NBA Jam, originally only found in arcades but now being converted to SNES. Having burned endless tokens playing the game at Enchanted Castle over the course of a few months, I was thrilled that I would be able to get the game and play it at home as much as I wanted (provided that I did my daily sheets of math problems and my mom and dad approved). Plus, EGM said the home version was gonna be awesome, and back then I did not realize that all these magazines depend on advertisements from video game companies, so they would almost never diss a game by a big company like Midway.

I waited day and night for the release of NBA Jam for a few long weeks, like I had never waited for anything else in my entire life. I drew NBA Jam logos on my binder when I was at school. I taped up an ad for the game on my wall in my room and counted down the days (March 4th, 1994, isn't it disturbing that I still remember the exact date?). At Toys-R-Us, you could pre-order it, and of course I was one of the first in line. When the day finally came, I called the store to see if it was available and when the lady told me it was, I jumped on my bike and raced there. All I can remember is the feeling of pure excitement as I was riding to Toys-R-Us and picking up this little cartridge that was gonna be the best game ever made.

It turns out that while NBA Jam was good, it never really ended up being as incredible as I expected it to be. The graphics were never as good as the arcade, but the fact of the matter is that after counting down the days for a month or so (which is like an eternity when you are a kid), nothing short of perfection would have been worth all the anticipation. I was a disappointed because I had set myself up for disappointment.

When I was in high school, my mom was panicking because I was always one of the shortest kids in my class. She would make me drink milk all the time, and constantly correct my posture, basically do anything she thought would make me grow taller. Eventually, I did start growing, but I doubt it was because of what she made me do. The point of the story is that for years, my mom got me thinking that growing tall was the only thing that mattered. If I could just grow taller, all my problems would be solved. But now that I am almost 6 ft in height (which is not necessarily considered tall but it's decent for an Asian guy and a whole lot bigger than what I used to be) I find that it doesn't make me glad in any way. Maybe being 6 feet tall is actually a world better than being 5 feet tall, but I don't notice any sort of difference in the way it makes me feel.

I noticed similar things about my years in college. We would spend a great deal of time and money to plan a few big parties for someone's birthday, graduation, or whatever, and look forward to them for weeks in advance as motivation for studying. The parties turned out to be fun times, no doubt, but my favorite memories are of other things. What I enjoyed the most in those years and miss the most now is stuff like playing cards on the Quad, or the times I spent lifting with the same 3 boys in the mornings every day, or watching the Bears' amazing comebacks in each others' apartments and destroying all the blood vessels in my hand from giving people high-fives afterwards. I miss the pickup games of softball, random tackling of people at inappropriate situations, a couple memorable games of Starcraft (haha), and thowing tennis balls at each other's cars while driving down Neil on a Saturday afternoon. Organizing things is great, but it's the spontaneous things that are the most unforgettable, and the unexpected things that turn out to be the most fun.

In sports, it's the same. When the White Sox signed Albert Belle back in the day to bat behind Frank Thomas, I thought we were gonna be awesome. By now we all know that it was a disaster ("we" being baseball fans). But a couple years ago, the Sox came out of nowhere as a bunch of no-name scrubs and took the AL Central easily. As a fan, that year was probably one of the best I can remember, even though we got swept out of the playoffs in the first round and sucked the years after that. Illini Basketball came off an impressive run to the Elite Eight in 2001, and the next year we came back ranked #2 in the nation, eventually making it to the Sweet Sixteen. Undoubtedly, 2001 was sweeter, and much more so, even though we only made it one round further. This is because we weren't really expected to be that good, but the team treated fans to a pleasant surprise.

What I'm saying here is not that we should live with low expectations. But I do think that a lot of us pin our hopes of happiness on certain things we shouldn't necessarily count on. We, including myself, think that life would be so great if only we won the lottery, had a better car, lived in Florida or Hawaii, had a good girlfriend/boyfriend, or looked more attractive. If only this, if only that. Not just the big things, but the little things. When we go to a restaurant, the food has to be delicious, waiter has to be polite, and bill must be cheap for us to be satisfied. If a fork is a little dirty or your meal arrives late, it can flat-out ruin the night for some people, just like that.

For me, I once thought that to be happy, I needed to find an engineering job like everyone else out of school, move out, and live the young, urban, professional life. When things didn't work out that way in the past year or so, the easy thing to do would be to curse the economy and curse the system. To a large extent, I do wish that it was as easy to find a job now as it was three years ago, but if I let myself cry and feel sorry for myself in disappointment that things didn't live up to my expectations, then I would be missing out on so much.

Working at home with my dad was never the plan, especially since I never had much of a close relationship with him, and because I knew basically nothing about the business world. But not finding a job out of school has turned out to be an opportunity and a huge blessing in disguise. I've gotten the chance to learn how to manage money and invest for a living. I've finally been able to understand and fully appreciate how my dad worked hard and supported his family for over twenty years. And I've gotten to know and better love a father that I had lost touch with over the course of the past 10 years or so of my life. Not only this, but I get to stay around this area and continue to spend time with old friends, keep in touch with college people, and see my girl a whole lot more often than I ever got to before.

If I had chosen to wallow in the fact that I spent 4 years studying in school for a degree that has thus far been worthless in terms of finding a job, then I might very well have missed out on the beauty of the situation I find myself in now. Even though I still plan to find a full-time engineering job soon, or eventually pursue a graduate degree, I would not have given up this summer for anything.

So, we all have the choice of how to look at things we face. Not everyone is blessed with as much as others, but everybody should have at least something that they are glad for. In the process of complaining about a rude waiter, you might fail to notice that your food is exceptionally good. If you continually tell yourself that you can't wait to retire to sunny Florida, you might never appreciate the fact that you grew up in Chicago with the chance to have snowball fights and go sledding.

What I'm saying about expectations is this: while it's good to have high expectations, our lives shouldn't revolve around them. "Take it one day at a time" is probably one of the most annoying cliches, but it is a good way to live and I am still trying to fully understand what it means. I don't get super excited about many things and I don't get extremely depressed about things either. I think we'll all be a lot more happy if we just take it easy and take whatever comes in stride. Appreciate the big things as well as the little things.

Don't think I'm trying pretend to be some sage man who's got everything together all the time, cause I'm not. Probably everything I write has been written before anyways, and in far more eloquent form at that. But sometimes I get struck with some thoughts that I believe are too valuable to me not to write down and record somewhere. I write my blogs for myself as much as I do for other people who read it, if not more (that is probably why I write so much and so often). And I honestly hope that someone gets something out of the things I write, myself most of all. Oh, please do remember that I never intend to write something long and tedious, things just blow up on me. I'm also thinking that maybe I share a little too much about myself, such as the NBA Jam story, but by now everyone knows what a big nerd I am. So oh well, why bother trying to deny it?

More Sizappiness and Nostalgizzle

People are probably tired of hearing my whining about missing school by now, but too frickin bad. Just seeing everyone move back and starting a new year of class makes me more than a little sniffly.

Life at home is nice, but there's just nothing like living on a college campus. Almost everything is within walking distance. Restauarants, bookstores, bars, friend's apartments, softball/football fields, pool hall/bowling alley, workout facilities are all around the corner.

There's crime, but you definitely feel safer than walking in downtown Chicago, and worrying about drunk college kids is about all that's worth considering. In fact, it's almost like living in a bubble, isolated from the rest of the world, and you have travel 2 hours from civilization to reach it.

Waking up early is optional but most of us pull it together despite staying up into the wee hours playing Starcraft or next video (the show was called After Hours, Vic... and after that was Dawn Patrol). Unhealthy eating habits and an irregular schedule are long gone for me by now, which is probably for the better, but I can't help missing those days of gross irresponsibility.

5 bucks could get you a pitcher of beer on almost any night at a Champaign bar, not just one bottle like in the city. IMPE was free for all of us to use, same with computer labs all over the place.

Everybody cheered for the same teams, Illini Basketball and Football, and the entire campus felt noticeably different any time a big game was going on.

Pretty much all of the people you see on a daily basis are your age, meaning that they enjoy all the same things you do, suffer the same life of class, studying, and exams with you, and basically see life from the same perspective.

There are things I don't miss, like exams, loud neighbors, and getting nailed by the bookstores every semester, and I would not go back to school just to re-live the good times. It's just weird, once in a while I'll think about all the stuff I miss, and it comes back in a huge wave of some emotion - nostalgia, maybe, I don't even know what that means really.

Fantasy Sports Ramblings

Ok, probably the best thing about the growth of the Internet in the past few years is not the convenient access to news, email, mp3s, or even AOL Instant Messenger. It's fantasy baseball and football. Besides Starcraft, it was probably the single biggest distraction from studying at school. During baseball season, every day I would rush back to my apt after class (or skip class entirely if there was a crucial pitching matchup) so I could watch a game on TV. At nights, when studying at Grainger, I would have to periodically visit the computer lab so I could check how my players were doing. Many times, what was supposed to be a short visit would turn into an hour of watching GameCast.

When football season started, all day Sunday and Monday nights were almost forbidden times to do any school-related work. So basically, during the school year, there is about a 3 or 4 month window in which I was not constantly thinking about my fantasy team. I think it just so happened that I would do the best in my Spring semester classes, especially exam 2, but I may have to look into that in more detail. If Starcraft lowered my cumulative GPA by half a point, fantasy sports probably took care of pretty much the rest for me. Sad but true.

It's a fact that to some extent, fantasy sports has taken away a little bit of the purity of sports fanhood, though this probably applies to some people a lot more than others. I've never really been able to appreciate the talents of Kurt Warner and Marshall Faulk when they would regularly rape my team and put me out of contention every year. I just can't bring myself to like the Rams because it has become my instinct to hate them. Same goes for the Diamondbacks, when Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling destroy the rest of the league by putting up ungodly numbers. On the other hand, I find that I am an even bigger fan of guys like A-Rod, Mariano Rivera, Robb Nen, Alfonso Soriano, Mike Mussina, and yes, even a jackass like Barry Bonds, because they have carried my team so much in past and present years. (I purposely did not mention my specific favorites in football because there is a draft coming up and I know people will try to annoy me by taking my boys early).

A side story on jerseys while I'm on the general topic of sports fanhood: Yesterday I saw a guy wearing a Carolina Panthers Joe Nedney football jersey. It's hard for me to imagine a good reason for spending 40 bucks or so to buy the jersey of a kicker, who isn't even especially good. I can only guess that Joe Nedney is his cousin or maybe he is a really big Panthers fan. Come to think of it, there is not a single player on the Panthers who is good enough to warrant buying a jersey. So I suppose if that guy was indeed a huge Panthers fan, a Nedney jersey is as good as any.

Then again, I bet a lot people are puzzled when they see me wearing my Yankees Mussina jersey T. Even if I was a big Yankees fan, Mussina would probably be among the least common jerseys to get, considering that the team has a wealth of flashier and more popular stars like Jeter, Giambi, Clemens, Soriano, Rivera, Williams, and so on. But of course, there are reasons why I have Mussina. First of all, back in the day I was somewhat of an Orioles fan, when they had guys like Cal Ripken, Scott Erickson, Brady Anderson, Robbie Alomar, Rafael Palmeiro, and my boy Harold Baines. If you liked the Orioles in those years, you had to like the Moose. Then, the first year I joined a fantasy baseball league, I ended up with him on my team, and he turned out to be probably my only good player and most consistent pitcher. So I got him the next year, and the next, to the point where every team I ever owned had to include Mike Mussina. Thus, when my sister told me she was going to New York with her friend, and asked if I wanted anything, I told her to get me a Mussina jersey. Later, I found that wearing it on days he was scheduled to pitch was good luck, and even though I am not a superstitious man, fantasy baseball is fantasy baseball.... quite important to me.

Anyways, I have noticed certain jerseys are so popular these days that it is ridiculous and annoying. Everyone and their mom has an Iverson, Darius Miles, Sosa, Randy Moss, etc. Urlacher #54 is an exception because he is on the Bears and he is awesome. Same goes for Jordan #23 (Bulls only). But nobody I know of has a Mussina #35, so I can rest assured that I won't look silly walking down the street if I pass somebody with the exact same thing on.

Ok, back to what I was talking about originally. The real conflict that fantasy sports poses with real sports is when one of your fantasy players goes up against the team you root for in real life. For example, if Mussina was scheduled to pitch against the Sox. I personally hold myself to the rule that I should always root for the Sox, Bears, etc. over any fantasy players. Even if there is money in it for me in fantasy, I still gotta have unconditional love as a fan, right? So to minimize these conflicts, I often times bench my fantasy players when they go against my teams, and as much as possible I will draft guys from the Sox and Bears, even if they suck. Of course, one exception is like right now, when the Sox basically have no chance of making the playoffs, plus the whole baseball strike talk is turning me off from the game, so I can root for my players over the Sox as much as I feel like.

One thing I have found is that a lot of the time my overall mood is dictated by how my team is doing. That is true of sports in general, though. It just seems like when my team sucks, everything else in life sucks. Food doesn't taste as good, exams tend to be harder, and everything is a chore to do. But when my teams are flying high, so am I. You will be that much more likely to see me walking around with a smile on my face.

In my own experience, fantasy sports has only made being a fan more interesting. Yes, it wastes a lot more time when I end up watching a game like Panthers vs. Seahawks only to root against Shaun Alexander or something, but hey, that's 3 more hours I get an excuse to watch football instead of doing something useful. It's kind of funny if you think about it, I always feel like me watching my players will make them more likely to perform better. Or, I'll say something like "You've got Manning and I got Marvin Harrison, so I'm gonna have to root for more yardage since any touchdowns would cancel out." In reality, it doesn't matter who or what you root for, or how closely you watch them, but I still like to think I am somehow channeling my rooting energy through the TV to make my guys do better.

I'm gonna take this opportunity to list some characteristics that I have deemed important in a girl. (Maybe count this as an addendum or amendment to Dennis' list). Of course, not every guy has the same values as me or Dennis but you should all know what you want in your girl, from the big things to the extremely little things.

1. Understands the importance of fantasy sports - It might be near impossible to find a girl who likes fantasy sports as much as me but I'm happy as long as she doesn't get mad that I pay attention to Alex Rodriguez more than her. Haha just kidding.

2. Appreciates good music - Almost every girl I know of likes today's pop stars like N Sync, Nelly, Ja Rule, Pink, as well as every single mindless dance hit they play in clubs or on the radio. The real question is whether or not a girl can enjoy and value the old school and quality music too.

3. Not a Cubs fan - It's hard to be a legit Sox fan for anyone these days, but I could never be with someone who cheers for those freaking Cubs. I don't expect a girl to like baseball, but if she does, that's a plus. Going with me to a game is always nice too.

4. Likes cars - I don't want an import model or a hoodrat chick, and she doesn't have to change her own oil, just someone who doesn't abuse her car by driving like an idiot and hopefully knows the difference between a BMW 318 and a 330.

5. Not skanky - This is crucial. I don't wanna date a skanky girl.

6. Likes Adam Sandler and the Austin Powers series - If a girl fits this criteria, it means she is not easily offended or disgusted. Basically, she needs a good sense of humor, and to be able to understand my weird sense of humor too.

7. Likes seafood - As someone who loves crab, fish (including the raw variety of course), shrimp, squid, clams, etc., it's hard for me to imagine someone who would not love these things.

8. Plays Starcraft - Ah, yes.

9. Smells nice - Girls are supposed to smell girly, that's one of the best things about them.

Yes, in case you are wondering, Olivia does happen to fit mostly all of these little things, which is a good sign because I had come up with most of them in a mental list a long time before we got together. But it still drives daggers into my heart when she hates on Britney all the time. By the way, I am not sharing this list for her sake, because she doesn't even read my blog. I am writing it down more as some sort of informal record of my thoughts on the subject. Also, maybe it will provide something for people to think about or talk about if they read my blog. And don't mistake this to think like I only care about these things, because there are things that are more important to me of course, I'm not that shallow. It's just a blog, after all, so I'm just writing whatever and don't take it too seriously.

While I'm at it, here are some things I don't care about:

1. Good dancer - I don't dance, so it doesn't really matter if she's the best dancer in the world, makes no difference to me. Then again, I have never met a girl who didn't like to dance. Now if she has a good voice, I definitely dig that a lot.

2. If she has other guy friends - I am not that much of a jealous type. I don't expect to be the center of a girl's life. If she is prone to want someone else when she already has me, then I'm better off without her anyways. It might be even better than her having all girl friends because girls gossip too much. Plus I am pretty secure and I am confident that I'm better than all of her guy friends. tahahaa

3. Cooks and cleans - Honestly, I don't care. Not that I'm against it, if she wants to do it, but I can take care of my own shiznit. Especially if she is gonna complain all the time about doing that stuff, I'd very much rather her not do anything for me. But my future wife has to be good about taking care of kids, that's a different story.

4. Athletic - It don't matter, as long as she's healthy and isn't gonna die of a heart attack at age 35.

5. Money - My love don't cost a thing haha. I don't think a lot of guys look for a rich girl, more the other way around, but I thought I'd list it anyways.

Again, I thought of all these a long time ago so it wasn't meant to apply specifically to Olivia. For example, I know she loves to dance, and she would not complain about cooking or cleaning, that type of thing. It's just good to know what's important to you and what is not, like I already said before. I think everyone should have something like my two lists, or at least a general idea.

So I'm sorry that my mind has strayed so far from my original topic of fantasy sports, but hopefully anybody that has read this far has found my thoughts to be worth your time.

Buy One Get One Free

Last week, I was listening to the radio and a commercial came on for one of those laser eye surgery clinic places. I forget how exactly the ad went, but the gist of it was "I bet you thought laser surgery was too expensive. Don't, we've got the lowest prices around, and the best part is, if you get one eye done, the second is always free!"

I don't know if anyone else has heard this same commercial (I think it was on B96 but I'm not sure, there are like 10 stations I regularly listen to), but hopefully someone out there is just as disturbed as me after hearing it. I mean, it's not like getting eye surgery is very comparable to buying tomatoes at the local supermarket, where they have buy one get one free. Admittedly, a big part of the reason I haven't gotten the surgery is the cost, but just as much a concern is the possibility that they might pork up my eyes and I would go blind for the rest of my life. So really, the last place I'd want to go to is somewhere that is advertising a Buy One Get One Free deal. I'm surprised they haven't sent out 30 cent off coupons in the mail yet, or maybe they have and I missed it. I can only imagine what kind of TV commercials they would do. It would probably turn out like those Eagle Man or Victory Auto Wrecker commercials, something so amateur it's a joke.

And shouldn't it be kind of implied that wherever you go for surgery, they would do both eyes, not just one? Who is gonna pay thousands for someone to fix one eye and not the other? I am guessing the one-eyed pirate portion of their customer population is very limited. Anyways, what am I supposed to do with one good eye, walk around with my hand over the one they didn't fix, looking like a flaming fool? Needless to say, you will not find me frequenting this organization for their services. I will continue to wear my nerdy glasses and struggle with the inconvenience of contacts until my trust is earned by the people in this profession.

Good Songs

My Winamp playlist right now:

Erasure - Chains of Love
Aaliyah - Those Were The Days
India.Arie - Simple
John Mayer - Your Body Is A Wonderland
musiq - dontchange
Clipse - Grindin'
Avril Lavigne - Sk8ter Boi
Ashanti - Happy
Erika - Relations
Sugarcult - Pretty Girl (The Way)
A-Ha - Take On Me
Alice In Chains - Got Me Wrong
Nas - Rule
Dave Matthews Band - Dancing Nancies
Radiohead - Lucky
Ludacris - Hoe-where