3.5 years... well 3.6 years really

So this is a major blog entry and I'm a little over 1 month late. Man, so much has happened in the last month let alone 6 (7) months!

So I'm the proud owner of an iPAD 2. I bought it really for testing purposes, making sure my websites worked perfectly on this device and figured I might as well extend it's abilities to my daily life. Initially, I really enjoyed the smoothness of the interface and how it just worked. But the more I played with it, the more I realized it was so limited. I'm an Android guy, I like customizing my system the way I want it to work. My phone is full of widgets that make my life easier and allows me to make my phone work around me rather than the other way around. With the iPad, in order to make sure it's user-friendly it's very limited. It's like comparing Pong vs Doom. Both of them were extremely entertaining at their time and no one can say Pong wasn't awesome and addictive like Doom. But when you've played with Doom, Pong seems so.....limited. What annoys me the most is how I have to open apps one by one to have them sync (I don't have the 3G edition, I wasn't planning on adding more $$ to this item).
On a brighter note, I finally have an absolutely awesome device to read my books and Read It Later items (Sorry Amazon Kindle DX, you are still awesome!). The iPad is clearly not trying to be buddy buddy with Gmail and so I'm not loving its ability to work with my emails but the rest is OK.

I'm also almost 50% through the fantastic Bruce Lee book The Tao of Jeet Kune Do. A lot of inspiring things but sadly because of my crazy workload, I haven't applied it much, especially my drumming.

So after a year, Eve of Sin, my band, is still incomplete and after discussing with my guitarist yesterday, we've decided it's time to just ride the wave and enjoy ourselves. I guess if we can't win the complete band game, we might as well work with whatever we have now. We've got almost 7 brand spanking new songs so what the heck, we'll put those together and do the bass and vocals ourselves and if anyone happens to be able to fill in the empty Puzzle piece, then great, if not, we're still moving forward.

These last few months have been a real test of my ability to just power through days. I've found myself once again struggling to stay afloat mostly because there is so much going on. I've been thinking and re-thinking about simplifying my life and I've tried my level best to remove items from my life, but upon further inspection, a simple life isn't my ideal life. I've read many articles and ideas about a simple life and asking yourself if all these extra bells and whistles are really necessary? Oddly, for me I feel it is necessary. I have a need for these routines and having a system to make sure things are oiled in my life. Perhaps I've been dependent on these systems so long I fear the world without them.

The dilemma has been between a simple life and an ideal life. Simplicity, seems more like  a calm needed every now and then. But when things are too simple, I tend to need to make them complex. I could easily just simply type in this blog without making any hyper links to items or even formatting the text based on my emotion in the word, but as much as that still gets the job done, I think the perfectionist in me requires that it gets done right or it doesn't count.

It's been a year since I started writing daily in ohlife.com and it's awesome because every night I'm reminded what I wrote a year ago and it's really freaky reading what I said a year ago and how things have changed! I remember October 2010 was a big season for me because a lot was happening in my life and the weird thing is, the seemingly big issues at that time look like childsplay now. Like seeing a kid struggle with addition after you've learnt multiplication. I strongly suggest you give ohlife.com a shot, you will absolutely love it over time when the old entries come pouring your way and you read your own emotions and words!

So 6 months ago I was psyched about Rain's crazy workouts in preparation for Ninja Assassin. Well 6 months later I've taken myself on a ride with P90X, Insanity, Rushfit, TRX and just plain random exercises I put together from whatever equipment was available at the gym. I'm looking forward to what else I'll dump myself into and see what it does to me. It's interesting to see how I used to have 1:30hr workouts down to my current 45/50min workouts because I've learnt so many new techniques and also just accepted the reality that I don't have that kind of time for a 1.5hour workout! I'm still going mental at the gym wearing my awesome (and freaking big) Shure 440 headphones. I'm still hooked onto As Blood Runs Black but have recently found a new addiction to Foo Fighters (they were always on my cool list, but now it's an addiction to their songs).

The Comedy world is exploding for me, things are happening and tonight marks the opening of the 5th HK International Comedy Festival! I've got my Chinese One Man Show lined up for 9 Oct 2011 which I'm nervous and excited about! And I'll be pretty much doing comedy every night of the week...that is nuts but cool! I've still been struggling to find the right time to work on my bits and really work out a system (see? I need a system for everything) to make my ideas more organized. Evernote is great, but there's still something lacking. I've been trying to find ways to tap into creativity on a more advanced level where I am pro-actively generating ideas. I still feel at times I'm trying to squeeze ideas out when I want to be more spontaneous with them. I find that I'm better able to create these ideas with people rather than with my computer. Again, it's still in a trial-and-error phase. Hopefully in 6 months I'll be sorted out in this field.

Speaking of going places, I flew to Singapore to perform at the Comedy Masala last month and that was crazy! The crowd was awesome and I was very happy with my performance! :D It was a comfortable 17 minutes for me :) I'm going back there on 8 November 2011 for another Comedy Masala session! I also won 2 tickets to go to one of many Asian destinations so I plan on having a little vacation at the end of the year (man I could use it now! :P) before 2012 welcomes me and I start rested, psyched and ready to push the envelope!

Finally, I can only say I've enjoyed the last few months, things have been wild and stressful, surprising and worrying at times, but the fun thing is, when I read about where I was and where I am, I have a smile, not on my face, but in my soul. It's good to know that I don't regret the roads I've traveled and for the sake of that smile in the future, I'm going to keep walking, even if that means I slip a few times.

Remember, ohlife.com! You'll love it after a while! :)