Going Overboard

Kind of weird, but it seems like while our economy was so good not too long ago, it also seems that people have been saying forever that we are gonna snap out of this recession any day now. Nobody really seems to have an explanation as to why the economy has sucked so much for the past couple years, but everyone seems agreed that in no time, we'll be back to our glory days.

Well, I am no economics expert, but I personally think that this recession happened because of one thing: human nature. People are so irrational, greedy and stupid, and it makes me so mad. Back when the economy was expanding, everything was growing uncontrollably: the internet, the cell phone industry, professional sports leagues, and the NASDAQ 100, nobody ever thought it would all crash and burn like it has since then.

So what did people do? Anybody who knew half a thing about computers went out and started their own Internet company. Lucent built itself a little city out by the Naperville/Lisle area. Major League Baseball, already overexpanded with the Rockies and Marlins, went out and got the Diamondbacks and Devil Rays. Enron and other companies nobody had ever heard of spent millions buying the naming rights to stadiums or Bowl Games just so people knew who they were. And every common schmoe went and bet their savings accounts on whatever stock looked good at the time, having seen their friends around them get rich quick.

Now, did anyone back then think to themselves, "gee, there's no way these industries can keep growing 800% per year or at some crazy exponential rate"? Probably very few. No, most people and most companies, having made a hefty sum off the economy's expansion, went out and bought themselves more stock, built more fancy office buildings, and put out as many products as they could, expecting that demand would continue to skyrocket and meet the supply. The classic mistake of "counting your chickens before they're hatched" was one that just about everybody was guilty of.

So then what? The economy started to sputter. Or, the way I see it, people bought all the computers they needed, and got all the cell phones and digital cameras they could use. Companies upgraded their servers already and the country didn't need a million consulting firms or network advisors. Rather than realizing the fact that people weren't gonna need to buy a new [fill-in-the-blank] every other month, they tried to shove more down our throats. Everything snowballed from there, and before you knew it, all of the new internet companies that were so hot went bankrupt and disappeared. The bigger tech companies like Lucent and Motorola went on layoff sprees as their profits plunged. Soon enough, Major League Baseball was talking about contraction, while Enron Field stood as a symbol of the gigantic failures the country was experiencing and the uncontrolled greed which had brought the failures about. And the stock market continues to make new long term lows each day.

They say hindsight is 20/20, but wouldn't it be nice if we didn't have to set ourselves up for disaster? Wouldn't it be great if people had foresight for once? It's sad that human nature is so hard to overcome. Did you know that something like 90% of people who try daytrading come away unsuccessful? It is because of human nature. We are greedy and irrational, not to mention hopelessly stupid at times. Don't even get me started about how normal, educated people can actually have problems figuring out how to vote using a ballot.

Why did I just write so much on this topic, you might ask? Well, one reason is because I have problems writing anything short and concise. But honestly, this is something that really pisses me off. An economic depression sucks for everybody, but I think it is really nobody's fault but our own. I guess maybe I won't be able to change the world and make people smarter by this blog, but at least I can vent a little and throw out some irritable thoughts.

Life As Joseph Y. Chen

People often say to me, "Joe, you got it made. Good looks, millions of dollars in stock holdings, and Britney Spears stickers in your wallet." To this, I usually reply, "Yah, I know."

Actually, nobody has ever said anything remotely like that to me in my life. And I don't really have millions in stock holdings.

But anyways, since I havent written anything in about a week, I thought I would drop down some of what has been going on in the wild and wacky world of dudo509.

I've finished about 4 weeks at the new job already. Life is becoming routine, which is good and bad. Good, in that I have regular sleep and eating schedules, and I feel healthier than I have been in a long time. Bad, in that I miss the freedom and chill atmosphere of school. Basically, this is my day in a nutshell:

[6:30-7] Wake up
[7-8] Drive to work. Listen to morning radio shows, which are all basically made of a bunch of crank calls by the hosts with a little bit of music sprinkled in here and there. Kind of dumb and pointless if you think about it, but I listen anyways. Sometimes I learn interesting facts. Did you know that some civilizations used shells or corn cobs before toilet paper was invented? sweet...
[8-4:30] Work. Eat lunch. Talk to my coworkers about sports. Work.
[4:30-5:30] Drive home. Listen to my CDs or my Rio because I don't feel like hearing that Nelly and Kelly song or some Eminem song that is on every station every 5 minutes. Although me and Olivia are planning to go see 8 Mile because we are ghetto. Actually just her.
[5:30-6] Talk to people on IM, Check email, Read ESPN.com Page 2
[6-7] Eat dinner. Sit down and chill for a bit.
[7-10] Watch football/lift/write blogs/read blogs/talk on IM
[10-10:15] Make my lunch: a turkey or roast beef sandwich, a bag of chips, a pack of Capri Sun (or can of Sprite if I'm feeling extra spicy), and some fruit that my mom secretly shoves in my lunch bag when I'm not looking
[10:15-11] Shower and get ready for bed
[11-11:30] Sleep

(actually, this is my day in a nutshell: "help! I'm in a nutshell! how did I get in this bloody great big nutshell? what kind of shell has nuts like this? this is crazy...")

Basically, if I decide to do something with a friend on any weeknight, that wipes out pretty much anything else I would normally do on that night. Makes me appreciate weekends that much more, which is exactly what some working folk told me before. I am thinking that eventually I am gonna have to move closer, which will save me up to 2 hours a day.

The drive kind of sucks. I hate stop and go traffic, it makes me irrational and irritable. Like, I know it's not the fault of the car in front of me, but I start hating whatever car is in front of me because it keeps stopping. Unless the car in front of me is a G35 sedan, of course, but I haven't seen too many of those on the street. Yay for me, I like having a semi-unique car. I guess Maximas and M5s are also exempt from my irrational anger. But anyways, I am really surprised that more rear-end accidents don't happen. At least 2 or 3 times a day, I have to slam on my brakes because traffic suddenly goes from 60 mph to 2 mph. That ain't cool.

So this past week was the birthdays of 2 of my favorite people in this world, which was part of the reason for cramping my blogging flava. It's all good though. Thursday was Olivia's 22nd. Yes, she is a Halloween baby. I never celebrated Halloween before, it seemed like a dumb thing that white people made up because they were bored and scaring themselves seemed like a good idea. Then I realized when I went to Taiwan that Asians do that kind of crap too.

But yeah, I still don't celebrate Halloween, though the day is now a day of horror which I dread for weeks or months in advance. I suck at buying gifts, it's so hard figuring out what to get for her. I wish that her gifts for me sucked, so I wouldn't feel bad if my gift for her sucked. It's too bad she has to be the most thoughtful person in the world and notice things I say which I don't even realize I said, picking up all these awesome gift ideas along the way.

For her birthday, we went to eat at Rosebud on Thursday night. It's a pretty good restaurant, good food, nice atmosphere and not that ritzy or expensive. I hear that her friend who used to work there would see Italian mafia-looking guys come in and head towards the back room with some suitcases, that's pretty cool if it's true. Oh yeah, it's the original Rosebud on Taylor, don't blame me if you go to one of the other ones and it sucks.

Friday I went to dinner with her and her friends, then the Bulls game. It was the home opener against the New Orleans Hornets and we sat in literally the last row. So I couldn't tell if Candice was among the Luvabulls. She is on the website though, so I guess the rumor is true. Bulls won, even though Jamal Crawford and Marcus Fizer blow. It's been awhile since we started a season 2-0, but I don't think we should get too excited just yet.

Then Saturday was the P-man's birthday. We watched Jackass, which was hilarious except for a couple parts which were downright wrong. Watching a movie like that is twice as funny when you are with people who appreciate crass humor. I was kind of mad for getting asked for ID twice (once at the ticket booth and once by the guy who rips your stub), but then I talked to Caddy and she told me how she got carded for the Nutty Professor (PG-13) so I don't feel so stupid. Then, we went out for a bit and I saw a whole bunch of the old peeps from U of I. Pretty nice, made me miss school a little more.

It seems like a lot of people have birthdays around this time. I guess January and February were the times when our moms and dads needed to keep each other warm the most, twenty-some years ago. eeewwwwwww

I don't think the concept of a birthday is that meaningful, and I personally don't care if nobody even says happy birthday to me on my birthday. My ideal birthday would be to sit around and not be stressed about anything. But birthdays are still good to celebrate, because everybody has one, and it's like one day of the year where you can kind of show appreciation to a friend that you don't usually appreciate the rest of the year. Kind of in a Mother's/Father's Day sense. But it's weak if they try to milk it for all it's got, like make people buy them dinner and drinks for a whole week and demand awesome presents. Good thing I don't know anyone like that though.

Ah, I got off track from what I was originally writing about, like always. That's my life though, aren't you all jealous? Women want me, men want to be me...

Daylight Savings Time

A couple days ago, all of us got to turn our clocks back one hour because of daylight savings time. (Or is it, because daylight savings time ended? how does this work anyways?) It's one of those things that everybody loves and nobody would ever complain about. Whenever someone finds out they get to turn back an hour on a Saturday night in October, usually a wide grin comes over their face and they are like "sweet, more sleep for me tonight."

As well they should, because you simply can't beat being able to gain an hour for no good reason. Actually, I hear the reason is because some gangsta farmers (or should I say farmahzz) bullied the government into shifting the official time for a few months of the year. But whatever the reason, I like it.

Of course, it's gonna suck in spring when we gotta "spring forward" and lose that hour right back. Most of us don't think about that until the time comes and when it does, you usually see a lot of people conveniently "forget," sleep that hour anyways, and be late to class, work, or watching Jerry Springer. That's how I am.

But this year, I am thinking of the future, months ahead, when I am gonna be robbed of a precious hour of beautyrest. So, I am thinking, we should make some drastic changes to the country to maximize the amount of wide grins and minimize the trashy daytime TV show missage.

Since everyone loves turning their clock back, and hates turning it forward, I would like to propose a plan that will eliminate the latter while multiplying the former. The math or logic minded readers out there are probably already saying, that's impossible, you can't gain an hour of time without giving it back!

Ah, but you can. See, I think every other week of the year, we should turn our clocks back one hour. That means, after a year, we will have turned our clocks back 26 times, having gained about 26 hours of sleep in the process (not to mention the many smiles that go along with such a benefit). Of course, the catch is that we lose about 1 day each year, and that we have wacked out schedules all the time (waking up when the sun goes down in the summer, for example), but that's a small price to pay. How many of us really are gonna miss that one day out of the year anyways?

Yeah, I know that 26 hours a year means that we lose more than one day a year, so for the sake of order, we would probably have to have a "leap day" every 12 years to account for this. Who cares.

Seriously, it would work. I am thinking of running for office using such a platform to build my campaign on. Since it doesn't really save daylight anymore, I guess it would have to be called "sleep savings time" or something. But I'm sure a lot of people would vote for me if it meant more sleep for them...

ESPN.com and The Ring

You might not think it, but sometimes reading just the news headlines of ESPN.com is pretty funny. (Skip this section if you don't like sports). Today I saw a hilarious headline: "Cubs will dig deep to get Baker." Hmmm.... Interesting thought. Maybe the Cubs will dig deep, but why would they bother? Baker would be an idiot to leave the Giants for the Cubs, and anyways, the Cubs are better off hunting for their managerial positions at a temp agency, because they are gonna end up replacing whoever they get within a couple years anyways. Anyone who doesn't know by now that the simple strategy of Cubs ownership is as follows:

1. Sit around and let your team suck. Collect money from the machine known as Wrigley Field.

2. When fans finally begin to complain more, make some fake effort to get good players. Except, don't get players who are actually good, get players that used to be good, or had one good fluke season. Focus on getting old, fat, dumb closers or washed up, injury-prone outfielders and you're on the right track.

3. Though you try your best to draft as ignorantly as possible, as the Chinese saying goes, "Even a blind cat catches a dead mouse once in a while." So once in a while, you'll somehow stumble upon a young talent that brings excitement to the organization. When you have a hot sensation to work with, be sure to milk him for all he's got, so the fans will think your team is going somewhere. Either pitch him till his arm falls off, or let him develop and get good, then just shrug your shoulders when he inevitably leaves to sign with a better team (pretty much all 28 non-Chicago teams will do).

4. When the Cubs start to suck horribly again, blame it on the manager. Fire the manager and hire whoever is sucker enough to take the job.

5. Repeat steps 1-4 a few times. Once in a while, it may be advisable to change GMs in addition to the manager, so as to better mislead the fans into thinking the team is headed for better days. Tell the GM to say stuff like "I'm here to shake things up" or "We are gonna do everything in our power to make this a winning ballclub."

Ah... enough ripping on the Cubs for now. Sadly, the Sox aren't a whole lot better. As a matter of fact, Chicago fans as a whole probably suffer the worst collection of owners in the 4 major sports among all the cities in this country.

Another ESPN.com story was about the Lakers game, when Rick Fox and Doug Christie got into a shoving match on the floor, then the teams clashed in the tunnel. If whoever reading this doesn't know, Doug Christie is the guy whose picture you see when you go to a dictionary and look up "whipped." He makes up all these flaming hand signals to his wife when he's playing on the court, she doesn't "allow" him to do interviews with female reporters, and they also have a entire wedding ceremony every year on their anniversary. Here he is, getting into a scuffle with Rick Fox, who is well known as Vanessa Williams's man. Anyways, Guy-who-dropped-his-balls-somewhere-and-forgot-to-pick-them-up fights Guy-with-some-sort-of-manhood; is there any question what the result will be?

In an unrelated story, I saw The Ring earlier tonight. Pretty good movie, I actually watched the Japanese version a few years ago in Taiwan (my sister should remember because she liked to mess up her hair in front of her face like the girl in the movie), and both versions are pretty good if you're in the mood for some thrillin. It doesn't all make sense or fit together, and the acting isn't the best, but there are worse ways to spend 7 bucks these days.

Which leads me to the real reason I brought up this topic: to complain about AMC. Is it just me, or was the student discount $5.25 at AMC only a couple years ago? They have steadily raised the price where it's barely a discount anymore. I feel like some sort of middle-aged moviegoer who doesn't look like a student anymore but is too young for the senior citizen discount. Sucks.

Even worse is, that place is freaking littered with junior high kids. Seriously, I felt like I was back in the O'Neill lunchroom at that theater. Everyone was all chattering and being immature that I thought I should have pulled out a stack of detention slips and started writing kids up.

Another thing: how did this movie only get a PG-13 rating? I'm not even considering the fact that at least half the kids watching that movie there tonight did not look 13 to begin with. They looked like they should be at home playing with Barbies and reading Tiger Beat or something. But honestly, I've seen plenty of rated R movies that aren't half as disturbing as this one. I guess it explains why I didn't get asked for ID at the ticket booth though.

Kids these days... little punks, all of them.

My Momma On Losing Your Credit Card

This is already the 3rd post I have made about my mom, but she is too funny sometimes. Just now, she was telling me not to lose the credit card in her account, because it has a very high credit line. Her exact words (in Chinese) were "Make sure you don't lose the credit card, because it has a high limit, and if you do, someone might take it and go use it to go get gas for free."

Hahahahaha of all the things you could do with a stolen credit card, my mom is most afraid of people filling up their car with a tank of gas. The funny thing is that I think I remember her telling me the same thing a few years ago. Yes, you know that is the most lucrative scam for credit card thieves, they just go and drive their car around until they hit empty, and then fill up courtesy of Mrs. Chen. Soon enough those $20 spots will add up. I bet they wouldn't hesitate choose premium, either. Those bastards...

Although I must say, the last 2 times I filled up, the charge came up well over $30. As much fun as this car is to drive, it eats gas like a mofo. With me driving about 60 miles a day just to and from work, that's gonna add up.

Since this post is short, I'll post a link to take up some more of your time. Play this game called Spear Toss if you haven't already, it's fun. Basically you just click once to start the guy running forward, then click and hold as he raises the spear, then release when you want him to throw it. I think the idea is to release as close to the foul line without crossing it, and at a 45 degree angle. That's what I learned from 10th grade Physics in Mr. Wiemerschlage's class.

http://games.alentus.com/games/makai/games/speartoss.asp

Good luck, my high is like 534 something