Category: Rants


One day at the DMV

Filed Under: God, Journal, QTs, Rants by timpaik — Leave a comment
January 12, 2011

Psalm 4, Proverbs 4, Joshua 4, Isaiah 4, Job 4

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So…I stink at writing down what I’ve read for the day.  I probably wouldn’t have noticed either, but I did my reading at the DMV today.  Like I said before, I’m following a watered-down version of Professor Horner’s plan for reading the Bible.  The plan is written down on a note on my computer.  So today, when I was without my computer at the DMV, I figured I’d just access my blog through my iPhone.  And then I realized I’m an idiot who fails at Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V.  Oh well.

I was at the DMV because I had to renew my driver’s license.  It wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it would be: I made an appointment, so I only really had to wait for about 30 minutes, which I spent reading.  I can’t imagine how it was for anybody who didn’t have an appointment…the place was packed.  I don’t know if it’s the state budget cuts or if it’s just San Diego, but I can’t remember not being able to find parking near the DMV in San Jose.

It’s an interesting place, the DMV.  For one thing, there’s plenty of diversity, since everyone needs to drive.  But I think the DMV is relatively unique in one aspect: no one wants to be there.  And it really brings out the worst in people.  For example, I took two steps out of line to check out one of the posters hanging on a wall, and whoop, the three people behind me erased my spot in line.  Not a hint of remorse.  I kinda tried to squeeze back in, but they all just stared straight ahead.  Really cold.  I probably should have tried harder to get back in, but they were all girls, and ladies first, right?

Anyway, the incident I really wanted to write about happened as I just got inside the DMV.  I was about a minute late for my appointment (this doesn’t matter, but I didn’t know that) because I was looking for parking, so I turned a corner kinda fast and ran into a stroller with a kid in it.  Now, my reflexes aren’t ninja-like or anything, but I was quick enough to avoid moving the stroller too much.  It moved half an inch, max.  And the kid’s father (presumably) gives me this look of death and says, “Watch where you’re going, [Focker].”

I’m not a huge fan of his tone, but I know I’m at fault, so I say, “I’m sorry, sir,” and look for my line.  Which, unfortunately, was right in front of this guy.  And this guy’s just staring daggers at me.  Worse, he’s having a conversation with his wife (presumably) and everyone else within 5 meters about clumsy idiots who can’t look where they’re going.  At this point, I’m somewhat annoyed.  For a fleeting moment, I consider confronting him physically.  More than usual.

This is why I stand with my back to walls most of the time. Well, this and the fact that I don't have to bear all my weight.

My imagination gets far enough to the point where I remember consciously thinking “I could totally take this guy*”… but my anger quickly evaporates when I realize his wife and kid are there.  Also, I figure that I would probably lose my place in line.  Which I eventually would, anyway, but I didn’t know that then.

*This is big, since my imagination doesn’t let me win a lot of the time.  Every now and then, I’ll have a dream or dream sequence with a crappy ending…and I’ll spend a long time trying to dream up a happier ending, but my mind won’t let me.  It sucks.

This all happened over the course of about five seconds.  I don’t think I dealt with the situation poorly, persay…I apologized politely, I ignored about a minute of abuse, and even my anger disappeared relatively quickly.  But it’s a situation that’s still stuck in my mind hours later, and I’m trying to consider the best way I possibly could have dealt with it.

First, I’m not proud of the momentary flare-up in my mind.  There’s one truth I have tried to ingrain in my mind over the past month or so, and it goes like this: Situations don’t make a bad person.  If I react to a situation poorly, it’s because the sin is already inside of me, and the situation is merely revealing it to the outside world.  So that anger, as fleeting as it might have been, was definitely in my heart.

Secondly, what remained after the anger left was definitely cool.  I did mentally excuse him for what he was doing, but the feelings I had toward him were definitely not Christian love.  And I suppose he was, at that time, as close as I have to an enemy in this world.  Even now, I’m trying to muster up some feelings of charity, but it’s tough.

Anywho, figured I should write about that before I forget it.  I WILL write on Rahab soon.  I need to.

-Tim

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On LeBron and the NBA

Filed Under: Games, Rants by timpaik — 1 Comment
July 9, 2010

By this point, even the most casual sports observer knows that LeBron going to the Heat is a big deal.  Consider: I have seen and read more about this one man’s decision than I have about the biggest sporting event in the world – which just so happens to be going on right now.  From an unofficial survey of my Facebook friends, it seems like you guys have also.

You don’t need me to tell you why it’s a big deal.  But I’m going to anyway:

1)

LeBron is a superstar.  In the NBA, there are All-Stars (people who make the All-Star game, supposedly the best 28 players in the league), there are franchise players (household names, people who can be the best player on a team that goes deeper into the playoffs…roughly 14 of them in the league), and there are superstars.  Superstars are the franchise players on teams that could potentially win championships.  It’s an elite list that maybe includes 5-6 people.

The thing about superstars is that they don’t change teams very often.  Sure, they make noise about it every now and then to scare more money out of their owners, but they never actually pull the trigger.  Shaq did it.  I can’t think of anyone else in the last two decades.

This completely changes the landscape of the NBA.  The Cavs were, by wins, the best team in the league last year.  They’ll have to fight for the eight-seed next year.  In the East.  That’s just sad.  On the other hand, the Heat are suddenly instant contenders for the crown.

2)

LeBron’s worth to the Cavs can’t be measured in dollars and cents.  But if we were to try, I think the price would probably be $150 million or more.  People are willing to buy LeBron jerseys and pay to watch LeBron play.  Mo Williams and Antawn Jamison?  Not so much.

There’s an open letter from Dan Gilbert (the Cavaliers’ owner) that got published today.  It is a nasty, NASTY letter.  One of those things that I would never post for fear that my kids would unearth it with whatever futuristic search engine exists then.  But can you blame him?  Dude probably lost $100 million yesterday.

Side note while we’re here: in the letter, Dan Gilbert accuses LeBron of being a narcissist today.  I think he has a point…these past few days have not been good for my LeBron > Kobe statement from before.  On the other hand, I read this:

Gilbert hired one of James’ friends and paid him more than some assistant coaches to hang out with the team so James would be comfortable. Gilbert allowed members of James’ management team to fly on the team jet. He spent $25 million to construct a practice facility that was located 20 minutes closer to James’ home than the old one. He rebuilt the locker room. He hired a masseur to travel on the road because James likes massages.

I don’t think you get to complain about someone’s narcissism if you’ve been bending over backwards for the last seven years for him.  It’s like a drug dealer accusing his client of being a junkie.  Sure, it’s the guy’s fault, but you’ve been supplying him with the pills.

…

So that’s that.  Huge ramifications in business and huge ramifications in basketball, huge ramifications for Cleveland’s economy.

So what do I think?  I think LeBron is chickening out, and that he has completely forfeited any tiny chance he ever had of being the greatest player ever.  Let’s take personal accolades: he’s never going to win another scoring title ever again.  Save for the chance that the team wins 73 games (they won’t, smart teams rest for the playoffs), LeBron will never win another MVP award again.  We don’t even know if he’ll ever be the MVP of his own team ever again; by all accounts, Dwyane Wade was the MVP of the 2008 Olympics.

I think what I feel can be summed up by an experience I had in VBS two weeks ago.  I was trying to divide up the kids during a soccer game, but it was getting frustrating.  Two of the better players wanted to be on the same team, but they were clearly two of the bigger and more athletic kids on the field.  No matter how I divided them up, I kept hearing the same thing: “They’ve got three of the best players on their team!”

I didn’t say anything at the time (how can you talk about fairness with fourth-graders?) but I really wanted to encourage them to spread out.  On a baser level, it’s just a smarter move for the ego.  After all, if you win, you don’t gain anything…you’ve only proved what we already knew, that you are better than everyone else.  If you lose, well, you’ve just lost with the best possible team.  It’s a lose-lose situation.

On a higher level, I think you can’t improve the level of your game unless you compete against better competition.  It’s a pattern that we see in real life all the time.  Track and field athletes set world-records when they compete against other world-class athletes, not when they are training alone.  Even horses race faster against other horses.  It’s simply the nature of competition.

In other words, I think you’re cheating yourself if you always side with the best people all the time.  And I think that’s what LeBron is doing: cheating himself of his potential greatness.  I can’t blame him for wanting to win when we have all produced this “winning-is-everything” culture, but I think raising himself to greater heights of pure basketball would be better than winning with all the best people.  But that’s just me.

The second problem with being on a great team is that everyone starts gunning for you.  Like I said, when I’m one of the better people in the game (this does not happen often), I don’t like being on an overpowering team.  But I’m totally cool with being the worse team.  Just know that I’m going to be trying a lot harder than usual…just because I know that I have to.  I think the Heat are setting themselves up for a few years of pain.

Anyway, that’s about 1000 words.  Gonna wrap this up.  Final word: to all the Lakers fans out there…Miami stacked their team, and I’d STILL bet on the Lakers if Bynum’s healthy.  What I’m trying to say is…I kinda hate your team and I hope Kobe chokes next year.

-Tim

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Gripes (and More Toilets)

Filed Under: Random, Rants by timpaik — 2 Comments
February 24, 2010

Every now and then, people ask me to compare Berkeley and San Diego.  I am not prepared to do that right now.  What I am prepared to do is compare the public bathrooms on the UC Berkeley campus and the UCSD campus.  Now, I know that my sample size of bathrooms in UCSD is much more limited than the ones I used in UC Berkeley.  Furthermore, the passage of time may have improved the quality of the public restrooms at Berkeley.  If so, I apologize.  Nevertheless, I have to hand the victory over to UCSD.  UCSD’s bathrooms are relatively clean and pleasant to use.  Berkeley’s bathrooms are a festering wasteland.  Congratulations, UCSD.  You win.

On the other hand, UCSD’s public bathrooms still really annoy me sometimes, mainly because so many things are automatic.  I don’t want to sound ungrateful, but I can’t believe that automatic bathrooms are still so much worse than their manual counterparts.  It has to have been at least ten years since I’ve seen the first automatic bathroom, and they haven’t gotten much better since then.

Let’s start with the sinks.  Automatic sinks are probably my least favorite appliance in the automatic bathroom.  They NEVER work.  And after ten years, I still don’t understand what makes them work.  I always end up waving my hands underneath the faucet and wiggling around in front of the mirror really awkwardly.  Grade: F-.

Automatic driers aren’t much better.  Let’s get this straight first: paper towels are much better than blow driers.  I know the blow driers are supposed to be better for the environment or something, but they just don’t work.  If I see the driers, I just flick the excess water off my self then wipe my hands on my pants.  The only drier I’ve ever seen that actually works is in the men’s bathroom in the CSE building at UCSD.  This thing is so cool that it forced me to write this blog post:

Not pictured: the guy wondering what I was doing taking pictures inside the bathroom

Basically, the idea is to stick your hands inside this contraption, and then two jets of air will blow from each side of the box.  As you draw your hands slowly out of the drier, the excess water will be blown off your hands.  And it works!  I have no idea how, but I think these things should replace every automatic drier in the country.  And then these things should be replaced by a regular roll of paper towels because paper towels are still infinitely better.  Grade: F- for regular blow driers, B+ for awesome blow drier, A for paper towels.

And finally, the toilets.  Automatic toilets aren’t bad at their jobs, really.  They usually flush once I’m done…the problem is that there’s still cleanup to do after I’m done, so I usually end up in a race to clean up before the flush finishes.  I always lose, so I end up having to induce another flush, which always makes me sad.

It’s not the toilet’s fault, really.  I mean, there’s really no way for the toilet to know how long cleanup takes.  Perhaps there could be a compromise.  Maybe there could be a way for the person to tell the toilet when to actually flush…I dunno, maybe a lever or something…

Oh...right.

Seriously though, I understand.  I’m not a germophobe myself, but I understand that it’s icky to touch toilets other people have touched.  Here’s my solution: a foot pedal to flush.  Its already been made, and I can’t imagine that it would cost more to make.  Everyone wins.  Besides, I already use my foot to flush most toilets as it is, so if you’re in the toilet after me, you’re touching everyone else’s hands and the bottom of my foot.  I’m just trying to make it easy for the rest of you.

Well, glad to get this off my chest.

-Tim

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