Going 0-2 in the playoffs

When people ask me what Houston is like, I tell them that it's a lot like LA...only without the beaches, nice weather, and beautiful people.  Yet in spite of the fact that I may be stuck in this humid urban sprawl for the next X months, my currrent project did give me the opportunity to catch playoff basketball at its foulest.  In a seemingly fortuitous gift from the NBA scheduling gods, my project happened to coincide with Game 6 of the Lakers-Rockets playoff series in Houston.  So while I did have to spend my Thursday in a hotel room 2000 miles from home, I did get to trek over to the Toyota Center in Downtown Houston to watch my beloved Lakers try to close out their series against the Houston Rockets...

Now, 12 hours after having watched the Lakers throw up all over the themselves, losing by 15 points, I only have a few questions.  How on earth does a team that won 65 games in the regular season lose to a team that is missing two all-stars, and starts a 6-0 guy at point guard and a 6-6 guy at center?  How does this Laker team go from beating a Houston team by 40 points, to falling behind the same team, 19-1 in the first quarter?  And no, that's not a typo, it was really 19-1. 

Honestly, being a Laker fan this season is like having a really hot, but emotionally unstable girlfriend.  On a good day, when the Lakers are at their best, it's like watching the second coming of the Magic Johnson Showtime era.  Passes are crisp, defense is tight, and shots rain in through the hoop from all corners of the arena.  But two days later, and it's like I'm watching a different team.  Players are tentative, all-stars are getting beat to rebounds and loose balls, and 6-6 Europeans with long hair are dunking on our TWO 7 foot centers.  Problem is, on a day to day basis, you never know which team you're going to get.  And really, that's the problem with being a Laker fan these days.  Like the hot girlfriend, you know exactly what you're getting yourself into when you make a commitment.  Yes, she has the ability to dazzle others and make your less fortunate friends in cities with uglier teams jealous of how lucky you are to have her.  But at the same time, you never know when she'll completely wig out on you and crush your spirit  Only the next game, she'll "apologize" by absolutely blowing out the opposition and reminding you of why you love her in the first place.  And if this last paragraph mixed a few too many metaphors, that's probably because I'm still a bit hung over at watching the Lakers forget that opponents won't simply forfeit at the sight of them taking the court. 

But in spite of the drubbing my beloved Lakers took at the hands of the completely shorthanded Rockets, I still had a pretty good time.  For one, my seats were great and the crowd was absolutely fantastic.  Of course, 99.9% of them were wearing red and cheering as they watched my team get pounded into the ground.  But the atmosphere was truly electric, and showed me what a real playoff crowd should be like.  And nothing quite beats the excitement of being less than 50 feet away from all of your basketball heroes.  Even if they are in the midst of breaking your heart...

Giving Notice

Okay, so maybe writing once a week is a bit ambitious given the sudden 4 hour weekly commute to Houston and the increasingly lengthy work days.  So in lieu of something particularly insightful or compelling, this week, I'll resort to random thoughts that have come to me over the course of series of particularly long team meetings.

I've Noticed That...

• No one can tell the difference between Fiji water and Kirkland water from Costco.  And if you try swapping the water in the two bottles, I bet you anyone you ask to taste the two will swear that the "Kirkland" water is inferior to the "Fiji" water. 
• Honey should always come out of a plastic bear's head.  End of discussion.
• Daylight Savings Time serves no real purpose, other than to make morning meetings really, really hard to get through.
• If you ever meet someone named "SexyNYCGirl" on the Internet, you can pretty much guarantee that they aren't sexy, don't live in NYC, and is probably not a girl. 
• When you ask someone what kind of music they like and they reply, "Oh, I like all kinds of music...", invariably, the next words out of their mouth are, "except country/heavy metal".
• If you speak in a British accent, people automatically assume you're smarter than you actually are.
• If you really want to make money in this stock market, ask me for my stock picks, and do the exact opposite.
• You can get as much happiness out of a $2 taco from the Mission in San Francisco as you can from a $40 seabass in miso glaze reduction at Hoity Toity Grill. 
• If anyone ever starts a sentence with "No offense, but...", prepare to be completely offended.

The Dark Side of Yelp...

First off, I just want to say, I love Yelp.  I truly do.  After all, if I didn’t think the idea was a great one, why would I have created a competing site back in 2006 (Oh, wait, that link doesn’t work anymore).  But for all the well deserved adulation that has been showered upon Yelp by yuppie trendsetters in the Greater Bay Area, there is a dark side to Yelp that I didn’t realize until very recently. 

Last weekend, I was in the city trying to figure out my lunch plans.  As usual, in spite of the many options available to me, I gravitated towards a few tried and true haunts that I visit on a regular basis.  Finally, I settled on ramen at a slightly out of the way hole-in-the-wall in Japantown.  This place has, in my opinion, the best ramen this side of Osaka.  It’s popular among neighborhood locals, with an occasional wait of ten to twenty minutes for a table.  But I figured, “Hey, it’s almost 2pm, so there shouldn’t be a wait at all."  So imagine my surprise when, upon arriving, a crush of people milled about the entrance, eagerly adding their names to the ever increasing waiting list the restaurant puts on a chair outside the door.  Doing a quick scan of the list, I figured the wait would be at least an hour.  I must admit, the sight of throngs of people waiting outside my favorite ramen house was a bit disconcerting.  After all, although the place got crowded on occasion, it was never like this.  And then I saw it.  The red sticker that adorns more and more restaurant windows with each passing day:  “People Love us on Yelp!” 

I thought to myself, okay, maybe this was an isolated incident.  There’s no proof that Yelp has directly led to the sudden discovery of this hidden gem of a restaurant.  Undaunted, yet still craving noodles, I took a bus to my backup choice, a Vietnamese Pho restaurant in the heart of the Tenderloin.  For those who are unfamiliar with SF, the Tenderloin is pretty much the place to be if you want to buy drugs, do drugs, or get shot by a drug dealer.  So the odds of finding crowds are rare, unless they are surrounding a chalk outline.  And yet, imagine my surprise when upon reaching my destination, I saw a line snaking out the door of the pho house and around the corner into the alleyway next to it.  And sure enough, when I got to the restaurant door, I saw the red Yelp sticker on the window.

This, in a roundabout way, is the reason why I don’t like Yelp.  It ruins the process of restaurant discovery.  Think about the world before sites like Yelp existed.  Any time you were tired of the same old restaurants, you’d go out and randomly pick a place.  Many times, you ended up disappointed, eating something that would look and taste better coming out than it did going in.  But every once in awhile, you’d find that special place.  The place for those “in the know”.  The place that makes up for the countless dining horror stories you’ve had in the past.  And even more importantly, the restaurant was “yours”.  It was the place that you always had a special table you liked to sit at.  The place where you could order by number because you’d gone through the menu so much.  But with Yelp (and competitors), all we have to do is fire up a website, sort by star rating, and BAM, we know the “best” places to go for ramen, sushi or Italian.  There’s no such thing as hidden gems anymore.  Bad hidden restaurants will remain bad hidden restaurants.  And good hidden restaurants will maintain that status only until the day they get Yelped for the first time. 

Maybe I’m being a food snob.  After all, who really gets hurt when a restaurant gets Yelped up?  The owners benefit from the windfall of extra customers.  And more people get to experience the joy of eating some really great food.  And in that regard, I think Yelp has served its purpose, and done so commendably.  But at the same time, I can’t help but feel a bit sad over the loss of my own personal restaurant roulette, where each new restaurant has a chance to be a new favorite, a new discovery.  So by all means, continue to use restaurant review sites to find the best “place for groups” or “cheap eats” in the city.  But if you’re ever eating with me and I recommend that we try someplace new, PLEASE don’t say, “Let me Yelp it first.” 

Operators are Always Standing By...

I consider myself a pretty astute shopper.  Before I make any signficant purchase, I check multiple websites and read multiple reviews to find the best prices for the best products.  Heck, I'll even spend a solid few hours making sure I've purchased the best value tuna from Amazon's grocery service.  And yet, in spite of the many years spent building up my shopping savvy, I have a weakness that I have been unable to overcome:  the infomercial. 

It sneaks up upon me so unsuspectingly.  Usually when I'm flipping through the channels late at night when there's nothing actually interesting on.  And then suddenly, in between an I Love Lucy rerun on TV Land and a Very Special Lifetime Movie featuring a former B-Level actress playing a woman who has overcome sexual assualt/discrimination, I stumble upon what can only be described as:  "The PRODUCT of the CENTURY."  Of course, the particular product I see varies on a daily basis.  And upon first glance, I can't begin to fathom why one would need a giant blanket with sleeves.  Or a giant portable steamer. Yet inexplicably, the longer I watch, the more I decide that I must have it.  What is particularly frustrating is that I see through all of their marketing gimmicks.  The "Act Now and we'll double your order at no additional charge!" trick.  Or the "It's originally priced at $99.95, but we're not selling it for $99.95 or $79.95 or $49.95.  We're selling it for $29.95" gimmick.  Or even their perfectly scripted "True stories from actual customers."  And heaven forbid they put on an actual "doctor" recommending a product.  I can't pick up the phone fast enough.

But even though I've made a few info-mistakes in the past, I've decided to turn over a new leaf.  Buzzy catchphrases and "limited time offers" aside, I know it's time for me to stop accumulating junk that I never use like a food dehydrater, a 3-in-one pen, or a Flowbee.  And the next time Ron Popeil (the "set it and forget it" guy) shows up on my TV screen, I should quickly change the channel.  Because the last thing I need is more "stuff" in my life.  Then again, if someone were to make an informercial that sold something to help me to organize my clutter, I might just give them a call.  So long as they throw in the second one for free...  

Time for Change

It seems so contrived for me to say, “Today is a momentous day!” or something equally trite.  As if an event as historic as the swearing in of Barack Obama as our new President can be distilled down into a simple adjective or sentence.  And yet, as I watched Obama give his speech this morning, I knew that this was something that I had to write about.  Those who’ve read my previous entries know about my close encounter with our new President.  Yet in all honesty, I am not an Obama-fanatic like certain people in my family (you know who you are).  Yes, I voted for Obama last November.  But it wasn’t as if I blindly filled in his circle based solely on the man’s transcendent oratory skills.  In fact, on certain matters of public policy I tend to disagree with our new President.  But in reading his book, and studying his record, I am convinced that there is no one else that I would rather have lead our country. 

Our world is filled with so much uncertainty, not simply in matters of foreign policy and endless wars, but across an entire spectrum of issues from the environment to the economy.  Things are no longer simply black and white, good and bad.  It’s not just the good guy Americans vs. the bad guy terrorists.  Now we have “bad guys” like Bernie Madhoff, who has stolen more money from charities and individuals than even the worst of bank robbers.  And amid the disaster in real estate markets, people are playing the blame game with a remarkable frenzy, pointing fingers at the irresponsible mortgage brokers, investment banks, and, let’s be honest, homeowners.  We’re facing a global economic meltdown that has caused iconic American corporations to beg for a bailout or worse yet, shut their doors.  And amid all this chaos, we’ve basically thrust Obama into the role of savior.

Obviously, no one can know for sure whether Obama can indeed bring America back to the prosperity of years past.  And though I am optimistic that Obama can truly affect change during his Presidency, I think it’s important that we exercise restraint before we start anointing him the next FDR.  Not because I doubt him or his abilities in any way, but rather because it’s not fair to put such high expectations on anyone.  If you look at a consensus list of the top 5 presidents of US history, I would argue that the challenges Obama currently faces rival those of these past Presidents.  I was so excited to see Obama get elected President.  And I truly believe that he will go down as one of the greatest Presidents in the history of the US.  But if he can accomplish even part of what he has promised us, he will still be remembered as a great president. 

I don’t envy the task Obama has in front of him: fighting two wars, trying to stimulate an economy that is currently teetering between recession and depression, figuring out a way to reduce energy dependence without further hurting the environment, fixing health care and social security, and doing all this while balancing the needs of different constituencies, all with their own competing agendas.  But in spite of these challenges, I do know that there is no one else that I’d rather trust to guide us through this difficult time.    

So as Obama finally steps into the White House today and sees the daunting task before him, I hope the rest of the world will give him time to get our country back on track.  And if it takes a year, two years, or even his entire first term, that’s okay.  The United States won’t be fixed in a day.  And I’d rather Obama take his time to make sure everything gets done right.  After all, it’s not like he has big shoes to fill…