Vivek Mahbubani

Happy New Year...again!

2012-01-23T00:51:00.000+08:00

Well hello hello! Happy New Year again! It's Chinese New Year! One of my favorite times of the year because it forces me to stop and relax! Why? Because pretty much everything's closed and everyone's in the festive mood! OK I'll admit, this year Chinese New Year seems extra good because it's so close to 1 Jan that it feels like 1 Jan was the soft-launch of the new year while today (23 Jan 2012) feels like the actual launch of the new year!

Well it's the year of the dragon and as the fiery and powerful animal depicts, I'm expecting a year of intensity and productivity! I just hope I don't burn out in the process. So far the new year has been good with a lot accomplished and my systems pretty much in place. After having around 3 weeks (ahh 21 days, oh how perfect) to test-run everything, I've found out what works and what doesn't. Sadly, it turns out I was too ambitious on 1 Jan 2012. A few of the things I wanted to keep up doing this year have faded out and I've had to come to terms and accept failure there. On a brighter note, my workstation is absolutely fantastic now! I can raise and lower it making it a seated or a standing desk quite conveniently. Oh not to mention my brand spanking new computer I had to build just a week and a half ago! This baby is faaasssstttt! A dragon might I say :)

I finally got all my gadgets in order, my Macbook is back after repair and now has a new hard disk and track pad, my computer is squeaky clean and super fast, my mobile phone is all ready to rock and well my iPad is....still stuffed with things I want to read :P Man I have so many things I want to read this year, it's insane!

In the last 10 days, I found myself as a guest speaker at Chinese University and it was really good because I got to answer students' questions at the end of my sharing session and one of them asked me "so what do you think is the purpose of living? Just to be happy?". The short answer (and text book answer), obviously is yes. But I'm one firm believer of talk is cheap. It's easy to say that, but is it really possible? I think happiness is far too intangible an item for us to know when we have it. I mean, we are happy, but is this the happiness we are looking for? Have we found the ultimate happiness? It made me think about a lot of things and brings me back to my belief that it's the journey that matters, not the result. I suppose it's the life you live, not the gravestone you have that matters.

I've also realized that the more I think about life, the more I realize as much as I am a get things done kind of guy, I enjoy the process of doing. Like working out, sure it'd be great if I could have a 6-pack now, but if someone offered me a magic pill to have a 6-pack, I wouldn't be proud of it. I need to work for it to make it mine. I suppose it's the ownership of the item as well as knowing that I'm the creator that makes it worthwhile. And that brings me back to my enjoyment in getting things done, to be able to look back and see that I did so much and managed to enjoy it along the way (ok, generally enjoy, there are loads of times the process sucks but I know it's good for me).

I also suggested that the students have a habit of writing journals and noting down their days because it's great to re-read what you were thinking and where you were even just 10 days ago. One of the students asked, doesn't this make you stick to the past and linger there? Like if you kept trying to do something and kept failing, re-reading about those failures only re-enforces the feeling? Oddly, I never thought of that. It's true, but I suppose I prefer to write about what I did do, not what I failed to do, mostly because I do get a lot done each day so the things I did are enough to satisfy my daily journal entries. But it does tell you something about your personality and how you're maturing. When I read my old entries, I can see my struggles, my empty holes I'm trying to fill as I see them in the wall, but now it's more about painting the wall. Sure I'll come across a crack here and there, but I'm not surprised by it, I'm half-expecting it and I'm ready to deal with those cracks and new-found-holes. I suppose that's a sign of maturing?

Well whatever it is, the key is to not just grow, but to soar. Like a dragon through the sky and realize those dreams and fantasies. After all, dragons aren't real right? But their vibe sure is.

The new year anthem

2012-01-10T15:11:00.000+08:00

Well Happy New Year everyone! I hope 2012 is being kind to you all. It's been playing nice so far for me.

Let me be the first to say I am the proud owner of a brand spanking new Samsung Galaxy Nexus phone and I am absolutely loving it! To jump from my ol' Samsung Galaxy S to this phone is a big step up!

Well we're into week #2 of 2012 and things have....reverted to what they were. My trip to Bali was so relaxing that every time I sit here working, I just keep looking back to my Bali trip and remembering what relaxation really should feel like. I've disciplined myself to take frequent breaks in between work and those 5 minutes of just pretending I'm still in Bali feel great. I used to work for 35 minutes then break for 5 - 10 minutes, but now I push 45 minutes then break for around 5. I realized that when I'm in the zone, it's hard for me to stay in the zone while I take a break. So knowing I'm relaxing for 5 minutes just gives me a quick recharge because I'll still be in the zone, but my mind would have had a quick breather.

As one of my new year's resolutions, I've aimed to live a more balanced life and things have been hard. I've realized that Hong Kong really is a place where you feel like things need to be rushed. I mean while I'm here, it's hard for me to have a I feel like taking the day off... just because feeling because there is always something to be done on my agenda. On a brighter note, at least I've been exercising more and eating better, though there have been days when my craving for junk food has been uncontrollable!

You know what's really odd, now that I've been practicing my drums daily, I'm able to blink my right or left eye separately. Ahaha for the last few months where I rarely practiced my drums, I couldn't do that with my eyes! Weird eh?

Well, I've hit my 45 minutes mark and it's time to take a break and I guess my anthem continues in hopes of being a more balanced person in 2012. See you in 10 days and until then, stay warm and stay happy because if 2012 is the end of the world, well, at least you didn't die while shivering with a frown :)

Over expect and Under promise

2011-12-31T13:31:00.000+08:00

Ahh, goodbye 2011, you have been a good and crazy year for me.

This year, I grew a lot as a person, mostly because I started finding my direction easier and realized that you need to seize every good opportunity. Not every opportunity is good, and it takes experience and wisdom to tell the difference. One thing I've come to learn this year is that as long as you know what direction you're heading, you're heading in the right direction. I still cannot give myself nor anyone a clear indication of where I want to be heading, but I do know that as long as when the day ends and I'm happy with what I did, I'm doing it right.

After a long time, I finally enjoyed a proper week-long vacation in Bali. It did me wonders. I finally got to refuel and recharge as a person and it reminded me of how to be focused without being stressed out. I got to enjoy the sound of the ocean and appreciate the little things in life, like soaking my feet in grass. I realized that working hard and earning a living was only meaningful if I learnt how to spend what I earned on something that enriched my soul rather than my desires. For anyone feeling lost or lacking direction, I strongly suggest escaping the world for 3 - 6 days and just staring at nature. There's a certain magic to it. Reading a book in a coffee shop vs. reading it at the seaside is very different.

Another big chapter in this year was when I found myself drowned in work. I wasn't struggling to stay afloat because I didn't know how to swim properly, but I had taken on too much because I thought I was able to do more than I really could. It sucks when you have to face the man in the mirror and accept that you messed up. I re-read some of my writings from last year and one of my resolutions was to learn to say no more. I suppose, it's a resolution for 2012 again.

On a brighter note, I finally re-organized my desk and wires so that I can convert my desk to a standing desk on-demand, which is awesome because there are days when I'm just tired of sitting. Now, with a few rotations of my handy crank, the table rises and voila, it's a bar-table :) I've also finally gotten back on track with some exercise (man I slacked the hell off for the last 2 months! I am literally as fit as I was....2 years ago..) I've finished most of the items due by the end of 2011 (or at least the ones I still wanted to get done this year) and am in extreme pre-new-years mood right now.

I guess 2011 has been a great year, and the idea of 2012 being the end of the world frightens me. Not because of death or suffering, but because I'm not done enjoying what life has to offer. Knowing that at any moment things could be over gives you a sense of appreciation like nothing else. I suppose the rumors of 2012 being the end of times is a blessing in disguise if you know how to digest it.

So here's to a fantastic 2012 filled with great times, happiness, laughter and beautiful memories that turn into legends for everyone!

Make the most of it! I know I will :)

The Fly on the Wall of Clouds

2011-12-18T22:53:00.001+08:00

Well hello again from 53908502750 feet above land... once again I find myself in a plane when it's time to hit the blog with a new entry. Well this time I got shipped off over to Singapore for a weekend of comedy gigs, it was a lot of fun and this time there was an Indian theme to the shows so that was even better since I could whip out some very Indian bits I have in my little collection of silly things.

Well, here we are ending 2011 and things have been super hectic for me. My schedule has been packed, Hong Kong has been cold and I've been tired. This trip to Singapore has been good because it's forced me to stay very much offline for most of the time which I've come to realize is nearly impossible while I'm in Hong Kong. The temptation to check email or get some work done is far too high.

So on my last day in Singapore I had a few hours to kill so I went to the Marina Bay Sands casino and well...it's a casino. I get it, but they have this weird rule where locals have to pay to enter while foreigners go in for free. That must suck! I walked around, got some food and even treated myself to ice cream (yay for tongue, booo for getting even fatter). Then I decided since I was here I might as well do the uber tourist thing of going to the Sands SkyPark. I knew they'd make us buy a ticket but it cost me 20 Singapore dollars which I thought was more than I expected but ahh well, I might as well. So I got to the top and turns out they've closed off the pool area so I only could be on one side of the roof...and well then I got to see the view....from above. Again, I get it. It's the view of Singapore. Ok. I have to say, this is where Hong Kong wins with the ICC tower's Sky100. Not only does it beat Singapore's 57th floor by being on the 100th floor, it is 360 degrees and absolutely breath-taking!

On a more positive note, I did get to eat a lot of local good food...man I think my cholestoral and everything has shot up these last few days because there has been no meal without a good dose of grease and just guilty pleasure :) I even got to try flavored yakult while I was here (this trip I had time to explore and walk around myself) and well after trying orange and grape, turns out the original flavor is still the best...the others just seem like they're trying too hard to be tasty.

I did find that while I was walking in the Sands Shopping area, I was..happy. Genuinely happy because I felt like I could just shut off my brain for a while and go with the flow with absolutely no worry of interruption. Like even if I wanted to, no one could contact me. I had no phone service and no wifi, so there was no "oh let me go online and read about this" before taking action, it was purely a "go with the flow" moment. Even when I went for ice cream, the scooper guy asked me if I wanted to go with the larger size cup and I was like....why not. And indulgence began.

I think that's definitely something I need to add to my 2012 resolution. Moments to just go with the flow. I used to take Tuesdays off every week and allow myself to just go out and do whatever, I think it really helped my soul in general as it allowed me to re-inforce the reasons I work for myself, so I could follow my mind and soul and enjoy life. I've read so many articles about how you're only young once and I do believe that. I can feel I'm getting older but a big part of me is still like a kid. I still get excited when I see ice cream and I have a chance to enjoy it. I suppose it'd be a good idea to allow myself to just be a kid and be as care-free as possible once in a while, perhaps every 10 days, just like my blog entries.

And speaking of being a kid, my mac has been loaded up with a classic game I grew up playing: Indian Jones and the Fate of Atlantis. I was always a biiiggg fan of adventure games by lucasarts. They just did a perfect combination of puzzles and humor, it wasn't your straight forward humor, but twisted jokes that you got to laugh about after you solved the puzzle in the game. The best part was, I used to sit at my PC when I was younger for hours trying to crack puzzles because there was no internet and no walk throughs I could get my hands on (you had to buy them and at my pocket money, that wasn't happening). And well while I was playing this, it also reminded me how these games taught me to explore all possibilities, even if they didn't seem to make sense. I mean, now that I'm older, I'm realizing a lot of things in the game were direct hints. For example, when talking to an old man in the game who was an antique collector, he'd say "unless you've got some great antiques to show me, don't bother me" at the end of a conversation. This is a hint to say when I do get any antiques, find this guy and he'll give you the next clue. It's interesting when I think back how these games have influeced my mind. Even first-person-shooter games like Quake 2 that I know I've burnt up hours and hours of my youth at. Thanks to that, it has helped me with eye-hand coordination and when it comes to design work, I can move my mouse precisely where necessary. It also taught me to type fast because in between games, we'd have maybe 2 seconds to type out a whole sentence and since internet wasn't that fast back then, you didn't have mic and voice talking in games...it was all typing...ahaha so video games are in fact good for you! And speaking of which, I think it's time to load up some Indian Jones and enjoy some of its classic goodness while I wait for the 3:30hr flight to finish.....see you soon and enjoy Christmas!

The closing ceremony :)

2011-12-05T15:47:00.000+08:00

Well, here we are, everyone has begun their countdown to the end of 2011 (or the beginning of 2012). It's an exciting time for many people because motivation is at an all time high for everyone. This is the time everyone sits and dreams big, and believes that at the stroke of midnight on 31 Dec 2011, things will be different, things will be better. I am one of those people. The interesting thing is, in 2010 I thought the same thing but wanted to experiment a bit by tracking what I end up accomplishing in 2011, and turns out I've been averaging 50% at doing what I wanted to do. Not that I accomplished only half the goals, but usually my goals are those that require daily work or repeated work, and I've been able to follow that schedule 50% of the time.

Looks like the summer months were the best times in 2011 that I could stay on track with my goals. But I'm curious if this is because of the weather or because of my workload. I notice most of my slacking off has happened near the end of 2011 when things started going mad with me work-wise. One big lesson I've learned in 2011 is my workload limits. So one new year's resolution I have for 2012, is to not allow myself to burn out like I found myself doing in 2011. And as the late Steve Jobs said, “There’s a phrase in Buddhism, ‘Beginner’s mind.’ It’s wonderful to have a beginner’s mind.” and well, I'll keep reminding myself that as I charge through 2012 and hope for the best!

So good luck and remember, a habit takes 21 days to develop, so if you want to test-run a resolution, now's the time! :)

The Kuala Lumpur edition

2011-11-16T18:31:00.001+08:00

Greetings from 739572075203 feet above ground. Yes I'm writing this on the plane on my way to Kuala Lumpur to be one of the comedians in Kings and Queens of Comedy Asia 2! Woah! I am still trying to register that I'm part of this line up!
Things have been hectic, but then again that has become the norm for me now.
I've found myself all over the place in the last few days, from flying to Singapore for a quick Comedy Masala set, to getting stopped (yet again) at customs at the airport, to getting stuck with a slow driver who managed to make me almost too late for my flight, to working late hours, to getting sick with the flu (this time with a madenning headache), to finally enjoying some "peace" on the plane.

In the last few days, I came across a video and an article that talked about something I've been experiencing and enjoying a lot lately. The idea of just living each day to the max without always worrying about the big picture. As the year comes to an end, I look back at everything, all the little things I did and I realize I'm happier like this. I'm better at accepting failure when I realize it's just a small dent in my day rather than an obstacle in my way of achieving something really big in the future. I'm also better at making myself do things because I don't feel the pressure of something really big associated with what I do, so I just do it the best I can.

Last Saturday, I was invited as a "book" at a "Human Library" event, where youngsters can borrow me for 45 minutes and talk to me about anything. We talked about exactly that -- anything. From what flavor ice cream to what it's like when other Indians find out I barely speak Hindi? It was really nice because these youngsters had open ears and a wide curiousity that they were ready to fill, but not with whatever they could scrape. Then Sunday I MC'ed a city-wide-amazing-race-like event and got to experience Hong Kong's SKY100 (a 360 degree view of Hong Kong) which I must say was extremely impressive. It made me fall in love with Hong Kong even more! I've been asked if I like Hong Kong and I've always answered yes. It's a game that you need to know how to play if you wish to enjoy it. The other night, speaking to some other comedians, one of them mentioned that you can never fully experience Hong Kong. And it's true.

I've also been watching Derren Brown's TV Show "Experiments". Absolutely fantastic and I love the guy! I've (kind of) read his books and love his shows showing how humans are really beings that can be manipulated if played the right way. It's quite spooky when you think about it, how he's able to get his subjects to do things by his command. There must be people out there using this to their benefit. I just feel bad for the poor souls who get caught in the dirty side of this mix.

Well 2011 is nearing an end and if you have any loose ends to tie up, it's time to get moving. I've got a bunch of reading to still do so I better catch up on that and just go over some comedy ideas I had. See you at the shows! If not, have a lovely week! I know I will (try)! :)

The step back before

2011-10-28T22:17:00.000+08:00

I have to power through for 2 (more like 3850353) steps forward.
My mind has finally hit a point of exhaustion that I literally have nothing to say. But as they say, ignorance is bliss and right now, oddly enough, this mind-blank feels pretty good :). At least it gives me an excuse to just sit back and watch some comedy.

If you still haven't, please go check out Bill Burr on Youtube, his stuff is absolutely fantastic! I have seen his specials 3 times and I still can't get enough of it :)

Enjoy and happy October (and happy Halloween!)!

3.5 years... well 3.6 years really

2011-10-05T16:12:00.000+08:00

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! :)

The fight for everything

2011-08-16T19:18:00.000+08:00

Someone asked me, "Do you hope one day you could do this full time?"
My answer, "No."

Am I missing something because this isn't the first time I've been asked this question regarding one of my passions. As a drummer, I've been asked this question when interviewed with my band Eve of Sin. As a comedian, people who hang out for a drink after the show are curious about this. As a self-employed (who used to consider himself freelance before) web designer, I've heard this, and even as a lazy person, someone has asked this (yes, do you hope one day you can just laze about all day at will?)

Call me greedy, but is it really surprising to people that I'd like to do all of them full time? Yep, I admit, I find myself whining about the lack of time a lot, but that's probably because I'm trying to pursue more passions that the typical person may do so? Maybe I've been too hugely influenced by the multi-talented Leonardo DaVinci or maybe I haven't found the one road I want to be walking?

I'm going to be helping out at a Youth Camp in October and I'm in charge of a self-discovery session where I'll share my stories about growing up and how it helped me better know myself. I suggested to the organizing committee that why don't we present the kids with 100 questions and they can pick any, say, 50 to answer. This idea came from one of the exercises in the book Think like DaVinci but the book required you to write 100 questions in one sitting to ask yourself over the next few days. While creating the questions, I kept running into a recurring term -- "favorite". After writing all those questions, I found I had a problem when I had to pinpoint one thing. Like what is my favorite food? Well it really depends. Is it breakfast? Did I just have a workout? Sometimes I would die for an ice cream, other times all I want are instant noodles. Even when I reversed my question, and asked something like "what is your least favorite subject in school".. again it depended. Sometimes I really hated math, but if it was algebra, I could sit there for hours, but throw in a graph and I'd find myself cringing....

It made me think about a person's passion. I really enjoy drumming, but if you told me I had to drum for 8 hours a day, I'd hate it. I enjoy comedy, but if I had to write funny material all day, I'd be bored and fed up. Ask me to design websites from morning to night and I'd puke the next time I heard the sound of a computer mouse clicking. And honestly, could I expect my body to be able to practice vigorous drumming for more than 2 hours a day? I think not, it needs time to recover. The same goes for my mind...

The more I think about how I live my life, the more I realize it's like how I eat a buffet. I alternate sweet and savory foods because it allows my sweet tooth to be happy without decaying. The interesting thing is while I eat my desserts, I'm not thinking about that bowl of curry chicken at the counter, and perhaps the concept of "doing it full time" could be applied in a similar way. Even thought I may not be using all my 24 hours a day to do one thing, but as long as while I'm doing it, I'm fully immersed in the experience/moment, then I'm as good as the next guy who does nothing but that.

I typed this whole entry while sitting in the train station listening to music and just speaking my mind (with my fingers). I even forgot it's actually quite noisy around me :P Guess someone should ask me if I hope I could blog full time as well :)

The legend obsession

2011-08-06T14:59:00.000+08:00

So I'm super late for this entry but big things have been happening since my last entry. First, if you haven't checked out the Albert Einstein exhibition at the Hong Kong Science Museum, go for it. Expect to spend around 2 hours there so you can slowly read and absorb everything. It was really inspiring for me just to read the more human side of the man. Did you know he had sweaty feet? Ahaha, that brought him right down to earth for me. Made him so human.

I've been struggling to find time to study those that I admire but one man that still blows my mind is (you guessed it), Bruce Lee. I'm currently reading his book Tao of Jeet Kune Doe which is a bit abstract but brings me back to the same idea I've learnt about music and performances, where you just lose yourself while you perform. I'm still in the initial pages of the book but it keeps reminding the reader to stop allowing "rules" to stop you from expanding and experimenting. I also watched the extremely kick-ass documentary How Bruce Lee Changed the World and have now started watching the Mandarin version of Legend of Bruce Lee (just watched episode 1), which is a great excuse for me to expose myself to more Mandarin.

I've started to follow Bruce Lee's idea with my fitness workouts where anything goes but it's kind of like you know the rules but you play by your own. So instead of having a fixed routine, I try to mix things up with all sorts of exercises. I've been experimenting with isometric, plyometric, endurance and strength exercises. Making my own combination of exercises as I go along. A combination of P90X, GSP's RushFit, Insanity and all the general forms of fitness. I'm still looking forward to trying to mess with TRX one day, but I've got so many things to mess with right now.

I'm still working on trying to incorporate some of his philosophies into my drumming and comedy.
Had a good jam session with the band guys last night, we're working on new song #6 and so far so good. It's great to see us growing as a band, becoming more experienced at song writing and opening up to new ideas. No longer are we stuck in a "man how can we write something like that?!" when we hear a great song, but instead a matter of "we just have to keep writing and improving and we'll get there". We're still stuck with no bassist and vocalist at the moment, but we're still progressing as a band so that's a good sign.

I've got 2 comedy gigs tonight so it's a great chance for me to give the idea of being totally free on stage a spin and see what happens. I really do enjoy having back to back gigs, especially when they're in different venues, it just makes it more exciting. I've got a bunch of new ideas and bits and so far they're going good. I have to admit, my workload has been pulling me away from writing comedy bits, but hopefully once I catch up with everything this weekend, I'll be back on track next week.

I'm excited to see what happens in the next 10 days with everything because August is going to be a relatively less busy month for me. Once September comes, I'm going to be jam packed with stuff, not to mention I'm going to Singapore to perform! And then October is the comedy festival, November will see me make my debut in comedy in Kuala Lumpur! Woah! Great things ahead! Time to rock!!

There is never enough...

2011-07-18T17:42:00.000+08:00

There is never enough excitement, happiness, movies, money, food, people, opportunities and my favorite, time. You name it, it's not enough. You find yourself with enough food in your belly at a buffet and you realize your stomach doesn't have enough space for more. You don't have enough energy because you're busy digesting or something else will not be enough.

Which brings me to something I spoke about in a lecture I gave yesterday at a social service center. It was interesting as they invited me to share some of my methods/ways/techniques of story-telling (stand up comedy is still story telling after all) and at one point, someone asked me what books I liked reading. For anyone who knows me, Art of War is ranked numero uno for me. I then remembered how everytime I read that book (I usually read it once a year), it has a different meaning for me. I told them how the same book gave me new insights because my life was at a different place each time I re-read it.

And then I realized how many things I repeatedly enjoy, even if it's the same exact thing. I'm re-watching a whole bunch of Pinky and the Brain cartoon episodes. I used to religiously watch it on TV while growing up and when I watch it again now (some 10+ years later) I absolutely love it. Sure I know in the end the two lab mice aren't going to take over the world, but that's not the point. It's just entertaining at a different level! I've started going through a bunch of my stuff to see what I can re-experience simply because they are that good.

Another thing I spoke about in the lecture is that there is never a moment you can honestly say you've learned enough. I mean sure when you've been studying for 8 hours straight, that's definitely enough, but to say I know enough about something would be a lie. And that takes me back to this blog, it was my little place to connect all the things I do. I realize how much my drumming influences my comedy, how my comedy affects the way I deal with clients in my web design business, how my web design skills have an impact on the way I see myself, and how the way I see myself ultimately determines the way the world around me is formed.

There is never enough time to waste it on worrying about scarcity. And as many wise people say, 'nuff said.

Someone is going to not like you eventually

2011-06-30T17:41:00.000+08:00

I was reading a very interesting article online about how it's very bad for you if you try to please everyone around you. No matter how good you are to the crowd in your life, there are always going to be people who don't like you.

The best part of that article was that and it doesn't matter. The world is still going to turn and you are still going to go about your life. Even if you feel bad that you may have found a new enemy (well ok maybe not enemy, but non-friend).... so what? A lot of times in my life I've had people complain to me about my ways or my habits that they didn't like and I keep reminding myself, "so what?" and move on. I remember when I was younger, I had this obsession with black (and eventually colorful) nail polish, I used to enjoy the look on people's faces when they'd see my fingers painted in red, green, yellow, black, etc. colors that had no apparent relationship to each other. Many people would question if I felt uncomfortable when people gave me those looks, and I'd usually respond with my usual so what? I suppose having grown up in Hong Kong as a foreigner, I've gotten used to people giving me weird looks, or I've just grown numb to them.

The so what attitude probably came about when I was blessed with Metallica's cover of Anti-Nowhere League's So what:

This song definitely had an impact on me when I think back to the number of times I had this drilled into my ears. Especially when you're a teenager, searching for your own identity, realizing that so what is quite a powerful attitude really helped me.

Speaking of teenagers, I recently had an interview with a group of 40+ students who fired questions at me one after another for 1.5hours. They included my growing up as the foreigner amongst my local friends, the challenges I may have faced learning who I am and accepting me for me. It reminded me of all the times in my life I was ashamed of who I was. I wanted people to like me, so I was searching for the ideal person that would fit into what everyone wanted to like.

Sadly, everyone likes something else and unless I can be a chameleon of personalities, I was never going to achieve that goal. Initially, the challenge was to make the people around me like me, then came the phase where I wanted to make girls around me like me, then came the period I wanted to make the girls I liked like me, which transformed into wanting to make my girlfriend at the time like me, and on and on and on. Each time things didn't work out, break ups happened or friendships ended, it was a good lesson and reminder to me that there is always going to be someone who doesn't like who you are, no matter how you change to suit their tastes. Heck, people's tastes change all the time. I used to enjoy painting my nails as a teenager and in university, but today I have no interest in it mostly because that's not time well spent in my books anymore and the surprised look on people's faces when they see my fingers isn't what I'm looking for.

Everything I do in my life has been criticized and there's at least 1 person who doesn't like me for that thing I do. But I guess instead of focusing on that 1 person who doesn't like it, why not focus on that (at least) 1 person who does. Me. And if you don't like what I just said, so what? :)

Long weekend ahead here in ol' Hong Kong, which means one thing for me (it always means the same thing), catching up on my work! Yay! At least I do this to myself because I enjoy what I do :).

Juggle your thoughts

2011-06-20T18:51:00.000+08:00

For anyone who knows, I'm a good Slayer fan. A good fan? you ask? Yes, I won't say I'm a big fan or a great fan because to do that statement justice, I'd have to do more than just listen to and like their songs. This month I'm studying this band and their history to get a better grasp of what it is that made them...well them.
As my last entry stated, I've come to notice that all great icons were nobody's with a big dream at one time. Slayer is no different. They're another band alongside Lamb of God that I'd travel to a nearby country to check out. My experience watching Lamb of God in Taiwan was a life-changing one and I can totally imagine Slayer doing the same thing. Ever since I started playing drums, I've admired these 2 bands even more than before.

As I study Slayer, I've come to notice that even though these guys are at the high-end of the spectrum of technique and skill with their instruments, if you really break down what they do, it's not as complex as you'd imagine. The phrase keep it simple comes to mind. When I used to play drums before, I'd try to think of these wild crazy grooves that left drummers in the audience busy trying to figure out what I was playing. Sure, it made me feel good that I could master something like that, but when I look at what these great drummers do, I've finally accepted that it's absolutely stupid if not useless to try to play drums for drummers in the audience vs playing drums for the song which then works for everyone in the audience. I guess the same goes for any performance, like it'd be silly to do stand up comedy for the comedians in the greenroom vs. the audience in the main room. The same goes for making websites to show off to web designers vs making them so they're actually useful for the client.

So my goal for the next 10 days isn't to achieve as much as possible, but to do what is most useful in just making me the person I want to be. I suggest you try it out. It's quite refreshing when you change your to do list to a need to do list. And if it's a need to do item, why is it necessary? And what would happen if you didn't do it? So compare Do it vs don't do it and which one makes your life better?

Virtually Real

2011-06-09T18:19:00.001+08:00

For a Wednesday, when I have a bunch of work still lined up, I still don't believe where I am right now. I'm enjoying the peace and quiet of the seafront near the Hong Kong Science Park. Yes. Very unlike me to be here when I should be busting out my chops and getting things done.

I was invited to visit the ALIVE lab where they showcase a bunch of Virtual Reality installations and I must say, I am completely blown away. When I experienced some of these creations on display, my mind was very visually and physically stimulated. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. We weren't allowed to take any photos of the venue so I can't share this with you, but consider scenes from Minority Report and imagine you were in those scenes where little video clips literally flew around your head and you could control them!

There was another work that involved a hexagon box and you could shine a torch into it to see the virtual world of people walking inside the box, and you could see it from each side of the hexagon in real time! Very fascinating stuff1

But the real reason I'm sitting here writing this is because I needed a moment to calibrate myself back to reality. It's been a while since I just randomly got pulled out (I used to pull myself out) during the day and did something completely out of the ordinary like today. It was both refreshing and necessary. I found I was starting to fall into the grey area between a habitual lifestyle and a rut. I've been spending a lot of time reading stories of other people's struggles that lead to their accomplishments and I'm starting to feel that of my own with everything I'm doing. I am feeling that I'm getting there feeling, but it's kind of like you see the light at the end of the tunnel, but you need to remain patient and focused, otherwise you risk wasting away all that hard work from before. Things are taking off big time for me, all those "dream goals" are starting to be realized and I feel like I'm on that tight rope, but I'm feeling my muscles, and mind slowly wear out. I'm not saying I'm tired, but that initial adrenaline has subsided and I need to make sure I focus myself and keep at what I'm doing. Habits are formed, routines are set and things are happening.

I started to feel this way since last night, when I re-visited my old university department (my department used to be in a renovated university car park) and it brought back a lot of care-free memories and good times. Back then, where I am now was a dream I didn't know how to realize. I was still busy building my foundations as a solid human being. Today, being in that virtual reality room, made me realize that all the "cool" things I used to see as a kid, can be realized, it's just a matter of doing it. All my childhood dreams, having my own business, being a drummer, doing stand up comedy, they're all happening, now it's a matter of making sure I can keep feeding fuel into that engine or risk seeing it die down. The chapter on Embracing Ambiguity that I read in Think Like DaVinci has to be one of the most inspiring chapters that have influenced my life like nothing else. It's made me notice how everyone I admire has embraced the idea of "you never know" and just put their faith in themselves and worked at what they wanted. A clear strategy may not have been in place, but it was a mixture of going with your gut, analyzing your situation and just making sure you're progressing in the right direction that got them to where they are. I'm reading the book I'm Dying Here and

It's times like these that I've noticed that all the people with great accomplishments cherish the time they get to spend alone. And that's what I'm doing now. Living in a virtual reality where all life's worries are on hold and I'm just staring into the sea and absorbing the sound of quiet breeze with little tinkles of sweat dripping own my back.

Update: I continue this post a day later, after enjoying the 4th anniversary party for alivenotdead.com at the Happy Valley Race Course. I'm sitting in the train station clearing out all my emails one by one. I wanted to share one more thing. I've started reading I'm Dying Here which retells stories of many famous comedians and how they struggled to follow their dreams as a comedian. It's such a fascinating read I am already 25% into it (yay for kindle books telling you your progress) just 2 days into starting it.

Update #2:The CEO of nuffnang.com came to one of my comedy shows with his family (wife and son) and it was a pleasure to hear his 3 year old son could relate to some of my bits (which makes me wonder what level of humor I'm actually dealing with ;P). The good folks at nuffgang.com are running a competition for all you bloggers out there, so go check it out and possibly win yourself an ipad 2

Maximum Insanity

2011-05-29T01:05:00.000+08:00

For those of you who feel invincible, first let me say good on you! But if you want to see how solid you are and how much you can mentally push your body, I suggest you check out this awesome workout program I've been using for the past few weeks called INSANITY. No, that company doesn't give me a dime for saying this and honestly, I don't care. I can only say, I've moved on to their MAX segments (ie. disc 7 onwards) and 2 weeks later it still kicks my ass....I can only say, when they talk about working out in your own sweat, they freaking mean it! But for someone like me, kicking my own ass is a pleasure (oddly). But seriously, every time I do these workouts, it's a real mind vs body challenge, my mind wants to go but my body is like noooooo!

Speaking of mind vs body, lately, I've been trying to find the balance of not getting burnt out (I'm starting to better notice what is my borderline and lately I've been.... well exhausted at the end of the day, but not burnt out). As I've said before, my golden timeframe for concentration has been 35 minutes followed by a 10 - 12 minute break. Usually I can crack it up to 50minutes but after that I really need a good 20minutes to rest the mind. It's still a warzone every day as I fight between people wanting my attention, my work wanting my attention and ol' rest wanting my attention. But speaking of fighting, I've picked me up Sun Tzu and the Art of Business. Yes, for those of you who know me, yes, yet another Art of War book. But it's good revision from time to time. I was debating whether I wanted to re-read the awesome Art of Deception or this one. So for it's a good read, many concepts that I know and adore but in a different light.

I was also reading a bit about the concept of time and how some tribes don't live by it, but instead use events as their clocks which was a really interesting read. I guess it explains why it's a Saturday night, I'm sitting with my laptop, on a bus writing this at 1 in the morning. Not because it's late, but because a whole bunch of events happened today (that crazy workout being one of them). I guess that's what this blog is about, instead of being a capture of moments in the time of my life and how I think or what I'm thinking, it's really capturing events or my life. Hopefully I'll be able to shift my focus more on events and accomplishments so I don't keep feeling "oh my goodness, it's already 1am and I'm only on a bus on my way home and writing my blog?!"
But then again, even if that's how I'm thinking right now, wouldn't that still be me thinking about all the events that are happening right now? At this time?
Heh, something to ponder for the next 10 days (unless I'm too tired lying in my own sweat!!) :)

Download your update patch

2011-05-16T15:56:00.000+08:00

Well here we are, the beginning of summer and I lay on my bed taking a break in between my awesome sessions of getting work done. The weather is fantastic today because it's cool enough to not make me drown in my own sweat but warm enough so I feel limber. I've got around 2 hours before I'm going to head out for some meetings, and good ol' Chinese Open Mic at TakeOut Comedy tonight. I'm getting better and better at organizing my comedy ideas/writing but I have yet to work on a full concrete bit. I mean, I have a bunch of scattered ideas that are funny but nothing that can tie them up together.

I've been watching the Jerry Seinfeld Archives everyday and I must say, each time I do, I get re-inspired to write comedy. As he said on his site, he hopes his videos can inspire others like the comedians he watched and man, that alone is inspiring. Jerry Seinfeld is really one of my favorite comics, not only because he's funny, but because of his attitude. He was the one who inspired me to not break the chain. I have to admit, that's harder than it seems, but it's a kind of pressure that we need to keep things going. So far, I've had to fight through to keep the chain alive for more than a week. But these last few days have been a renewal of my goals and methods. I've realized that I enjoy working in 35 minute bursts and all I need to do is overcome the first 5 minutes of "oh I'm not ready right now, let me first...." and I'm good to go. I've realized that I'm a man who needs things to be convenient or I sure as hell am not going to keep at it. The reason I spend so much time finding the best/better way to do things is not only to save me time, but to make sure there is a maximum chance that I will actually keep doing it. For example, I used to have to pick up my mobile phone and hold it to my ear while I'm at my desk to make phone calls. Just this simple gesture was enough of an inconvenience for me to want to push making necessary phone calls for later. I later invested in a blue tooth device and ever since, a phone call has been nothing more than, just talking.

The last 10 days have seen me do 6 comedy gigs, a heck of a lot of freelance work and the birth of a new song with my band. It was sad to see our vocalist go, but the remaining 3 stay united and are determined to jam it out! So if there are any bassists or vocalists out there who are into heavy metal (like Slayer, Lamb of God, etc.) then please let me know, we want you! :D

My stomach's starting to rumble which is really a good sign because I've kind of figured out my metabolism/eating habits quite well lately... I've learned to listen to my body with food and also decided to stop logging everything I eat. Why? Well it's kind of like how you get to a certain point and you're no longer practicing for technique, but instead, practicing for functionality. I've managed to pretty much have a good idea of how much I should/can eat at one go. Sure there are times you'll find me sneaking into a Ben and Jerry's (oh how good you are to my taste buds!) and gobbling down a pint of ice cream with my friends, but otherwise, I doubt any dietitian is going to complain.

And before my body complains, I better get some food in there! So enjoy the next 10 days! Things are going to be going wild like the weather so let's see if I end up sweating/freezing it out!

The right way to write

2011-05-06T18:05:00.000+08:00

Well these last few days have been witness to me reaching burnout points where I was borderline PMS-ing as well as those 'ah ha' moments where ideas just seemed to flow without any effort.
I've been trying to work out a better way of writing comedy because now that I've got more and more material, things are starting to get messy (again).
I've tried keeping all my ideas/writing/bits in Evernote and that has worked out very well... up to a certain point. After a while, I started having bits that were tagged properly but no proper version control over it. For anyone interested, Evernote is my first choice in writing down notes and ideas for comedy. I used to keep my trusty moleskin but I lost one of them and vowed never ever to let another idea of mine slip away. But as a writing program, it fails. Mainly because it isn't designed for that.

And so began my quest for the perfect writing tool. I've been a very long fan of ommwriter. Yet, I suffered from the same issue where I'd write and then I'd store. But as I kept working on some bits, I'd start to lose the ability to control which version of what I've developed so far was the best. The latest didn't mean the funniest.
I'm a biiiiggg fan of the cloud so I tried online toolsl like 750words.com which being a great too to push and motivate, still lacked what I was looking for. And finally, I came across Ulysses. I'm still enjoying my trial period and so far this is fitting what I'm looking for. It gives me the peaceful environment that Ommwriter gave me, while allowing me to tag and organize my bits and also divide them properly so I know which ones are ready, which ones are still in the ranting stage, which ones are still just concepts. I checked out a few other ones, but so far this seems to be the best. The only drawback? Well it's an offline app, and as much as I can store my files on DropBox, it still lacks that "write once, see everywhere" feeling of things like Evernote. Oh well, let's see how I feel in 20 days when the demo period ends.

On another note, my band, Eve of Sin, had to say goodbye to our good buddy and vocalist who had to leave for personal and work reasons. It sucks because we've been playing together for over a year and it's hard to have that sort of friendship in bands nowadays. Finding a person with the right talent is enough of a challenge, finding someone who is cool to hang out with is even tougher! Oh well :) C'est la vie.

I'm sitting here taking a short break from the hectic workload and life I've been going through, preparing for tonight's comedy show (yay I'm alotted 30minutes!) at Fat Angelo's in Tsim Sha Tsui (enjoy my schedule here). Since I have 1 hour before it's time to get up and get funny, I think it's time to load up Ulysses and work out some magic. Who knows, I may use something tonight that I come up in the next 60 minutes! Tick Tock, chop chop!

Resurrecting the life of a sun ray from an Easter egg

2011-04-25T00:46:00.000+08:00

It's Easter weekend and a very well-needed holiday on my part. The last 10 days have managed to bring me down to my feet again with burn out but much of it for a good cause. I'm filming with RTHK for a new TV program about racial harmony but this time with a twist, where a Chinese person (my girlfriend in the show) is discriminated against by another Chinese person and I'm the cool one trying to bring peace. Interesting twist, and glad to be part of it. But having to be on location at 8am till like 6pm is no joke.

I am literally still burnt out at the moment, 3 days into the holidays but I think 1 more day is what I need and I'll be back in action again. I can only say, these next few weeks are going to be a serious challenge to my endurance but as always, bring it on.

One thing I've finally learnt about myself is that I absolutely love working to RnB music! Been listening to Alicia Keys and Ashanti tracks while working and it definitely keeps the mood up. So I guess I can work to songs with vocals, just as long as those vocals are very musical, rather than too clear. Go figure.

Going to start experimenting with different RnB albums for the next few days, so let's see which artists do it for me and my work. Happy Easter!

Nothing but net

2011-04-14T15:47:00.000+08:00

*swish* goes the basketball as I walk across the basketball courts of this Yuen Long secondary school, on my way to their hall to do a short stand up comedy performance and then have a fun Q&A session with the students. These last few days have been long commutes, lots of music and a hell of a lot of talking for me. It's tiring but very fun going to secondary schools to perform and talk to the kids. Especially since most of their questions are quite silly, like "which do you prefer, Hong Kong curry or Indian curry?" but hey, that's what I'd ask if I were their age!

The only real challenge for me is dealing with this heat in.... pants! I'm ok with the hot spotlights on stage, but man, just being outdoors, roaming around trying to find where I have to go, while melting in the heat is no fun.

But I have to say, the other issue with running around to schools is that it does take up your whole day and when you're done, you're really quite exhausted, mentally. I have to go to places I've never been to so it's quite an adventure for me. My biggest worry most of the time is running late, because it's one thing delaying a performance, it's another thing having to keep 500+ students in a hall quiet while I'm rushing my way to my destination.

And speaking of running around, I'm going to be hosting the very funny Tom Cotter tonight as he starts his week of shows here in Hong Kong. I get excited with these comics because it's always enlightening when I watch these masters at work in person.
I've also started running Chinese stand up comedy workshops in hopes to help inspire and encourage normal people to give stand up comedy a try. Most people I've spoken to often tell me they're interested in stand up comedy, but they have no idea where to start. I'm not sure where I read/heard this but someone told me "the place to start is to start"... it's an interesting concept because it's so true. Very often it's the initial idea of starting that causes the most amount of stress for a person, but once you get going, you often can't stop.
I find myself with that problem at times, especially when I'm doing designs for websites... and when I'm blogging. Tee hee hee. Anyways, on that note I better stop, going to take a short break and get back to work! Big weekend ahead and the next 10 days are going to be challenging (aren't they all?! :P).

Chewy Chicken

2011-03-29T14:53:00.000+08:00

Don't you hate it when you look forward to a meal and after everything, it turns out the ingredients are sub-par so no matter how much love you add or how well you follow the recipe, the dish is going to suck. I'm currently eating some chicken that is extremely chewy which is annoying because I really felt like chicken today and here I am semi-forcing myself to chew through it because I don't want to waste food.

Recently, I've been having to deal with many situations where it wasn't the situation I was in that was irritating, but the people I was dealing with that were pushing my buttons. I've discovered one thing I really dislike is a person without drive. Basically a person who can't be bothered to help him-/herself and expects others to take care of him/her. It's one thing to need help because you're helpless, it's another to need help because you can't be bothered. It's quite a sad state when a person reaches a point where they don't even find themselves useful/able to do something and just give up without even giving themselves a shot.

It reminded me once of someone I spoke to about comedy, who kept denying that they could do stand up comedy and I kept insisting that I am a firm believer that anyone can do stand up comedy, just like anyone can ride a bicycle, you just have to give yourself a chance. Later on I changed my wording and said it's a matter of respecting yourself. To deny yourself a chance to do something because you don't believe you're able to do it is really quite disrespectful to yourself. It's like being denied something because someone thinks you won't be able to do it. I mean, there have been many arguments that were started because of such attitude.

I also spoke to someone else who asked me how often it was someone new came to an open mic night at the comedy club, performed, and decided to return? The truth is, not many. Why? I suppose it's because it is very rare that a person's 1st time on stage is a home run. And most people feel defeated about this immediately. That person then asked me why I didn't try to persuade those people to give it a few more chances before they gave up. It's interesting because at that moment I felt like a person who gave up after the 1st try already wasn't the type of person that stand up comedy is for. I know sometimes people just need encouragement or a push to get passed their comfort zone, but perhaps in my life I've seen far too many people who just can't be bothered and want things handed to them. Sadly, when you sit and wait for someone to hand something to you, chances are you'll be getting leftovers or hand-me-downs.

The more I do what I do, the more I realize a person's self-confidence/respect has such great impact on what they do. I had an interview with a magazine who was doing an article about The Perfect Man and one of the points was sense of humor so they interviewed me and in the end asked me did I think sense of humor was the most important thing in a perfect man, and I had to disagree, I think it's a self-confidence that makes a person perfect. I mean not self-ego, but confidence. I'm re-reading (Well listening to since I got the audio book) Think like DaVinci because it's just such a classic and this book has been a great influence on me because it taught me one thing that I'll never forget, and that is to embrace ambiguity. Life is full of unknowns so you need to accept it. But a confident person can embrace it better because he/she is confident he/she can deal with whatever they're given. Like these last few days have really been a test of my ability to deal with the unknown. I'm sitting here dealing with chewy chicken that should have been moist (at least what I thought this morning) and a schedule that has been completely turned upside down and inside out.Darwin's quote "It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change." rings so true here.

Sick, tired, exhausted, burnt yet happy

2011-03-14T13:21:00.000+08:00

Well, I've done it again. I've managed to push myself too far and now I'm enjoying a state of mental burn out, a bad stomach (I've noticed that when I get too exhausted, my stomach tends to give up on being strong) and general discomfort without the ability to stay awake and alert for more than 30 minutes at a time.

Why enjoy you say? Well, I'm in this condition much like how a boxer manages to push himself to last the extra round and win the match. The past week has been a great one so at least I'm sick for a good cause.

Enjoy your next 10 days. I need my bed again :(

Happy 4th Birthday to this!

2011-03-01T22:35:00.000+08:00

WOW! I actually thought this was only the 3rd anniversary of my blog! Turns out, this is year #4! It's been 4 years since I once sat down and thought "what's the deal with this blog thing anyway?" and figured one day I'd definitely find it fascinating reading things I wrote a few years ago.
With my blog originally intended for me to just share my thoughts of what I've recently read with my future self and anyone interested, it's grown into something much more, a project-tracker where I am the project.

The weirdest thing is that something just don't change. I guess even after 4 years, I still find myself constantly challenged with the lack of time and days where I question myself and what (and most importantly why) I do... like right now, I'm 4 days late for this anniversary entry, I'm sitting in the Central MTR station, listening to some relaxing music because I'm actually quite exhausted. It's been a long day, but a fruitful day. It started with me rushing my projects and squeezing a little bit o f drum practice, before I zoomed out to do a small comedy gig for a school (which may I saw was an awesome show! The audience was fantastic! The youngsters were going nuts with some of my bits that resonated with them about their school life!) Then popped on over to my first radio interview to help promote stand up comedy in Hong Kong as well as upcoming shows, then to another radio interview to do the same. On my way back, while I was coughing on the train (recently developed a sore throat), I was wondering why I was pushing myself this way? Why jump around everywhere like this, and find myself back at home at 11pm trying to catch up on my day's workload.

It brings me back to something I wrote one of my earlier posts:

Process is more important than outcome. When the outcome drives the process we will only ever go to where we've already been. If process drives outcome we may not know where we're going, but we will know we want to be there.

-- Bruce Mau, "An Incompletel Manifesto for Growth"

Today in the radio interview, I was asked "so what are your goals as a comedian?" and even though I've been asked this question many many times, I still find myself goal-less. I mean, this always happens because like I said, 5 years ago, I'd have never dreamed of the goal of being a professional stand up comedian and find myself living this kind of lifestyle. So why bother trying to plan everything? Instead, I focus more on the process, each step of the way rather than the end goal. And like I said in the interview, as long as I improve every day, then I'll be just fine. As long as I'm funnier than yesterday, I'll be fine, as long as I drum better than yesterday, then I'll be fine, as long as I work better than yesterday, then I'll be fine. And this method drives me just like what Bruce Mau says, the process drives my outcome, and this in itself lets me reach places I didn't think possible because I keep my doors open to any opportunity. Had I not wanted to do this gig in the afternoon for this school, I'd never have known how deeply some of my material work with a younger audience. I mean, they do well at the comedy club, but to see some of the students laugh so hard they actually stood up cheering was something unexpected! I've never had someone actually stand up during a show because laughing sitting down didn't cut it.

Recently, I've also shifted my focus in comedy to just wanting more exposure for this small comedy scene. The free comedy workshops, the radio interviews, the performances here and there, all add up to more and more people knowing about this new wave of comedy coming up in Hong Kong.

My daily life no longer works towards trying to achieve this and achieving that. I've slowly learnt to just accept that no day is going to be perfect and as long as I'm getting stuff done, I'm one step towards perfection. Seeing entries in my blog talk about how I'm struggling to stay afloat, then seeing entries that talk about how life is finally working smoothly, things are systematic, to my life today where I've realized things are always going to be fluid and I need to be like that too. As Bruce Lee says, Mind like water. The same way for me. I no longer find myself thinking "oh man, it's 10pm, I was supposed to get this and this and that done!! ARGH!" but I jut focus on trying to make the most effective decisions and accept whatever I can do in whatever circumstances I have. Much like how a beginner drummer might find himself stuck with trying to coordinate his limbs to play grooves, to a seasoned drummer just making sure his body functions like a perfect machine, to the jazz drummer who improvises throughout the whole song because he is above the idea of playing drums and is now playing for the music. He no longer needs to make his limbs make the movements necessary to produce the sounds, he simply makes the sounds, just like we talk without thinking how to make the sound of each letter in the word. Don't get me wrong, life is still hectic, I still burnout very often and things are still not perfect (ie. why this post is 4 days late). But at least, after 4 years, I've finally reached a point of mind like water, the connections between every aspect of my life are finally emerging and things are finally making sense. I no longer feel so much as a slave of my time and my limitations but feel more like these aspects of my life bring a new and refreshing challenge that is welcome because as Bruce Lee said and I quoted in my post before 2011 came to be:

“Defeat is a state of mind; no one is ever defeated until defeat has been accepted as a reality.”

And you know what? I believe I'm (still) winning :).

Slow Bunny Evil Uncle to you too!

2011-02-14T02:51:00.000+08:00

Woah, this weekend has been hectic like mad! I've managed to burn out, recuperate, burn out and recuperate all in 3 days' time! Ahaha So this past Friday, ever since comedy in Hong Kong was featured on local Hong Kong television, TakeOut Comedy and the comedy scene has taken a sharp jump! We had a Chinese comedy show this past Friday on 11 Feb 2011 and it was the first ever FULLY SOLD OUT show! The last time it sold out was at my one-man show back in 2008, but this show was awesome! The best thing is that the whole audience was on fire and ready to laugh from the get go, so in return, every single comedian of the night killed! Even our 2 new debut performers killed! All the comics were still shaking from the joy to the point we hung out till like 5am and I literally couldn't sleep till 7:30am! The funny thing is the next day I had another gig with the Chinese comics over at the New Life Psychiatric Rehabilitation Association where we had a great show too! It was a different show but still very satisfying. After that I was really burnt out... I hung out with a friend for a while and eventually when I got home I just crashed on my bed and watched 2 movies back to back. Black Swan and Scarface. Two very different movies but exactly what I needed because I was totally burnt out.

Then the next day I conducted my 1st ever Stand up comedy workshop at TakeOut comedy. I'd already taught 4 classes before in association with New Life Psychiatric Rehabilitation Association, but this was the first time over at the comedy club. It was exhausting but very satisfying! It was great to see some students approach me after class to give them guidelines and pointers of where they can go from here so fingers crossed that the Chinese crew will grow every stronger! :)

Other than comedy, everything else in my life has had to be on hold. I haven't had a chance to even touch my drum sticks at home nor practice anything. Normally I'd at least try to compensate with a bit of mental practice, but since I've been so mentally burnt out, it's no point. Even today after the class, I could feel my head was exhausted. You've ever felt your brain feel stiff?

And finally, I'm here, my emails still overflowing, my to do list still long and my brain still tired. But I guess I've reached another new milestone (read challenge) in my life where it's all about keeping up the endurance and making sure I don't crack and throw everything down just to walk away for a bit. I'm confident after 10 days in my next entry, things will calm down a lot. And if by then they don't, well I think I'll be very used to it so I'll know how to deal with it better.

All I can say is I'm glad to finally see the seeds I sowed long time ago reaping me rewards now. All the time I spent refining the way I work so as to be efficient is really paying off. Otherwise I'd have lost my mind a long time ago. Now if only I got to the point where I could type with my feet at the same time, then we're really talking!

Nonetheless, I hope the new Year of the Rabbit has got you off to a great start, with wheels turning and gears moving and those dreams slowly (but surely) coming true. I can foresee 2011 as being seriously mad for me, but I sure as hell am looking forward to my entries in Dec 2011 when I look back and just go.... "wow" but with a smile on my face. Good night.

Kung Hei Fat Choi!

2011-02-03T23:27:00.000+08:00

Woah, talk about timing, my Day 10 entry lands on the 1st day of the Chinese New Year! Woah! So let me start by saying I wish everyone fantastic health, a whole bunch of laughter and all those lovely dreams coming true!

It's been an intense last 2 weeks and I'm glad it's this time of the year when I can finally just slow it down and get back on track. I was re-reading a whole bunch of my journal entries from a month ago and man I was all psyched up with the new 2011 year, things were going nice and smoothly and then all hell broke loose (as expected) and now I'm trying to get myself back on track, got a whole pile of to do's lined up so happy new year to me! Ahaha.

So I went out for a bit today and usually all the stores near my place would be closed at least today but oddly many of them were open today. I mean, I realize that most of them have changed into supermarkets and convenient stores, but man it was weird seeing the street seem like the same as any other day. For some odd reason I was in a real big mood to go to the gym today and you guessed it, the gym's closed today, but luckily it's back to normal tomorrow so I'm psyched to get some exercise on. I've been eating so badly lately that I literally have sugar cravings, like last night I just went nuts and got a pint of Ben and Jerry's ice cream, just because.

On the other hand, I finally got my new table all set up and the wires tied up so everything looks neat and tidy. Now I have 2 work stations, one for my web/general work and another for nothing but comedy/creative writing. Speaking of comedy, Hong Kong's Chinese television channel TVB Jade will have a documentary this coming Sunday on Sunday Report (星期日檔案) at 7:30pm, so check it out! :D

So let this Chinese New Year be a great start for everyone and consider the 1st of Jan as your rehearsal and this one as the real deal! Now go out and make the most of it! :D

Seriously inspired

2011-01-24T01:52:00.000+08:00

So this entry is a late entry but for good reason. I won't say much because it's almost 2am and I should be fast asleep already but I just wanted to say you know how sometimes you hear or see something that just clicks in your head and you feel like you've been shown the light? After watching the extremely funny and very humble Butch Bradley, he gave an advanced comedy workshop today. Not only did the things he say make sense and shed so much light towards my comedy career but his passion to share his experiences really inspired me because it matched one thing I believe in.

In comedy, and in life, it's not so much the accomplishments but the things that happen along the journey that really build up your vault of personal experiences and stories you can tell. As I've said before, to me, it's more important for me to be able to sit and share something with someone than to, say, buy them dinner and go "so, good weather eh?"

I was at the MAD 2011 forum on Saturday and I was talking to some of the participants in the afternoon and it was a lot of fun hearing their questions and sharing my experiences in the last few years and how it's shaped my views on my future and hopefully inspiring them. Had I not gone through all the pains and things I'd been through, I'd be like any other boring person and give very text-book answers that everyone knows like "well, you know, no pain no gain! So keep working at it". I mean, everyone knows that, but tell me a story where the idea of no pain no gain really paid off and proved to be the right way of thinking!

Ahh, well this coming week is going to test my endurance as a performer because I have 3 big gigs back to back to back starting with Legend 4, then hosting the Chinese show at TakeOut comedy, and then 2 shows in a day for New Life Mental Health Association. Then I get the Sunday to recover and more work on Monday! I love it!

One thing that Butch said tonight that really touched me was "sometimes I just stand there and absorb the world when I'm in a strange place and nervous and remind myself 'comedy got me here'...". Just that idea, knowing that I'm given the challenges and opportunities in my life now because of the decisions I made and challenges I embraced before, has got me fired up to tackle this crazy week. I was seriously feeling mentally drained thinking about how much I have to get done this week but you know what, I'm glad life is pushing me to my limits and with everything I've done, and heard so far, all these things combined...
...I am....seriously inspired.

There's no better way to be happy than to just smile

2011-01-10T18:59:00.001+08:00

First of all. Stop everything you're doing and listen to Benny Greb's Grebfruit below:

Awesome? I am freaking hooked onto this song right now. I was watching Benny Greb's Language of Drumming DVD (and thanks to my recent drum lessons, I finally understand what he is talking about :P it makes sense but annoys me because his concept is so basic...). So even sitting in the middle of the MTR station, typing away here during rush hour, this song still puts a smile on my face.
And if that song didn't make you want to at least tap your foot, then check out his big band:

Awesome eh? Man, I'd love to see his band live! It's actually been a while since I've listened to big band music, I've been enjoying my Art Blakey and Bossa Nova mixes so much lately, but I've found myself knowing them a bit too well, to the point if I don't put my music on random, I literally know which track follows which ahaha.

Well today marks Day #10 of 2011 and I must say the year has gotten off to a fantastic start, things have started going crazy as usual but I must say I am loving it so far. So far not even 1 day has seen me sleeping 8 hours, I still find myself going to bed past 4am (ahah can you say new years resolution and bye bye?) but the phrase that I left 2010 with from Bruce Lee about how Defeat isn't defeat until you accept it as defeat has kept me going. When I used to find myself frustrated at 3am because I really aimed to sleep at 1am and it didn't matter, if I slept at 4am or 5am, now I find myself reminding myself that I can either get annoyed that I should have been asleep at 1am or I can sleep at 3am and don't let myself feel defeated. Which has kind of propelled me further than usual because now even when things don't go as planned I don't find myself frustrated like I may have been before, it's more a matter of convincing myself I'm not defeated, the game's rules changed and so it's not a matter of winning or losing now.

Interesting. Also, so far my little experiment of Don't Break the Chain has been quite good. At least for the times when I actually broke the chain, I've had a truly valid reason to do so, but it does suck to see a break in a long streak (I had a streak of 7 consecutive days where I properly practiced drums and in comes day 8 and I find myself outdoors the whole day which means bye bye formal drum practice. Man, I wish everything I did was portable, then I could be practicing everywhere ahaha).

Tonight also marks the beginning of madness in January for me, my schedule is literally packed completely, I have days where I wake up and have meeting after meeting after meeting. Which is interesting because I have no one except myself to blame. But at the same time, some of them are experiences that I didn't want to forgo. Like today, Another comedian and myself went to an elderly home to do some stand up comedy in the afternoon. Which was quite an experience because I'd never played to such an audience before, so it really challenged me as a comedian. I had to slow down, articulate and also make sure my wording was suitable for them. Things like digital cameras don't fly because they're not going to think of "take a photo and look at the screen to check", the concept on tagging someone in a photo or even twitter is totally out of their scope. So I went with some good ol' material and even went a little bizarre with my interaction, asking one of the more talkative ones "You ever have trouble dating?" :P It was interesting to see them laugh at that question, and when she said "who am I going to date?" I responded "well I might be single". One thing I learnt about this audience is the duration of concentration. When your audience is relatively low energy, you have to make up for that energy gap by being extra high energy, I tried to over-exaggerate a lot of my stuff. I wouldn't say I killed (although that's not the best of terms to use in this case either heh), but I'd say I definitely made their day :)

And on that note, it's time for me to continue making my day. One of my earlier meetings finished way before than I expected so I have a little extra time before I have to rush to my next appointment, which feels good because I haven't had a chance to just...sit down for a second today. Since the moment I woke up I've been trying to cram in whatever I can in the little bit of time I have today.

So enjoy the next 10 days, I have a feeling in 20 days' time I'm going to be a zombie! Woah in 20 days' time, January will come to an end!! Aiya! :)

Goodbye, Hello and a boundless world

2010-12-31T22:58:00.001+08:00

This morning I came across a wonderful quote by Bruce Lee:

“Defeat is a state of mind; no one is ever defeated until defeat has been accepted as a reality.”

At that moment, something just clicked in my mind. I realized that this is so true! Lately I've been very hard on myself with everything, trying to end 2010 with an extreme bang and getting myself prepared for the greatness that awaits in 2011. I'm excited and nervous at the same time. Excited because I know there's a lot that will happen in 2011 but nervous because I am hoping I can achieve all those things I've set myself up to get to. But upon reading that quote, the nerves calmed and I realized there is no defeat as long as I don't accept it as defeat. And when I look back at this whole year, I realize the times I've felt annoyed because things didn't go as I planned or I get interrupted by small things and my big things end up suffering have been nothing but self-made defeats. If anything, the phrase I used to love mind like water should have kept me calm realizing that every bump along the way doesn't stop my journey, it just side-tracks it but as long as I keep going, I'm doing exactly what I aimed to do -- go towards my targets.

I've been recently doing a little extra reading on great leaders that were great not because they were wise-businessmen but because they were wise people-persons. The first person that comes to mind is Abraham Lincoln. That man, till today inspires me to never forget that everyone around me is as human as myself, no matter what status or skills or wealth or anything I have achieved. He also taught me to reverse that thinking where a person who I consider to be some sort of God is really just as human as myself. I used to consider drummers like Thomas Lang and Marco Minnemann Gods on drum kits. I still admire them as musicians but not to the point I see them as something I could never get to. I've been re-discovering myself as a drummer and going back to my roots. It definitely sucks when I have to go back and look at everything as if I were a beginner and even throw away old techniques in replacement for new, better ones. But it's one of those take 1 step back to go 2 steps forward deals.
I've also been reading the classic How to win friends and influence people. I've read it before but wanted to re-read it and so many things shine extra true now. Especially with my web design work. This year, some of my clients were so kind as to invite me to Christmas lunches with their staff and it really made me happy. Not happy because I get to enjoy a lunch on my client, but the happiness that my relationship with many clients is on the level of friends in business. At the same time, I have great relationships with clients where they actually appreciate my feedback and comments. I guess at some point I thought this was normal but when I talk to many other people who are working in similar fields as me, many of them just complain about how they can't be bothered to give suggestions because people usually aren't interested. Perhaps it's also the way they give suggestions. I guess for me, I usually get very excited about the projects I take on (I don't take on everything for a reason) and maybe that excitement rubs off on to my clients which gets them excited and on board for the fun journey to a website's creation.

And on that note, may I announce the unveiling of my own personal comedy website: www.funnyvivek.com (beta)! Yes that's right! The one thing that has always suffered from being pushed aside on my to do list is my own comedy website. Equipped with show schedules and videos (there are some new videos most people haven't seen before :P) But why beta you ask? Well there are still a few things I would love to modify. For example, notice how there is pretty much no Chinese on the site? Yep, that's an issue but I didn't want to get overwhelmed with this project but wanted to make sure it's up and running on 31 Dec 2010 just in time for the new year! So please feel free to enjoy the site and let me know if you have any comments (or even discover any bugs).

Mind like water. I heard that phrase while I was still a GTD newbie. It explained the concept of how the goal of martial arts is not to avoid getting attacked but to learn how to bounce back after being attacked. The same with life and Bruce Lee's quote. It's a matter of learning to deal with life's surprises more than leading a stable life.

The funny thing is, 3 years ago, my mindset was all about intensity, I wanted to go out, hike in the cold and do something wild to shock sense into me. Today I'd rather sit in peace, and find that sense from within. Not through shock but through calmness. I suppose it's like saying you could use sand paper or water to erode a hard piece of rock.

So it's time to say goodbye to 2010, the year that brought me so many things, to list a few:

I did my first of many Mixed Martial Arts Announcer gig for Legend Fighting Championship
Did my first English one-man show at TakeOut Comedy
Watched Lamb of God LIVE, in the front row!
Learnt about the power of lighting and color to affect your moods
Started taking drum lessons from the great Don Ashley
Performed at MaD and TEDx
Taught my first of many Stand Up Comedy workshops to youngsters, hopefully inspiring the next Funniest Person in Hong Kong
Moved on to the Android Mobile Phone - My lovely Samsung Galaxy S

And hello to 2011 where many things are already lined up already.

I'd like to say thank you to everyone who has contributed to my year, whether it be leaving comments on my blog, coming to a comedy show, checking out my band's gigs, emailing me just to talk about life, suggesting books to read and songs to enjoy, or any way you have influenced my year. I really do appreciate it.
And for those who haven't crossed paths with me, our days are numbered because as I said before, one of my many goals is to make the whole world laugh and no one's getting away from the giggles this time! :)

Happy New Year and let me leave you with this quote from Bruce Lee again:

"If you love life, don't waste time, for time is what life is made up of."

Thank you, sir.

2010 Closing Credits - Almost edition

2010-12-19T18:34:00.000+08:00

Ahhh, finally some time to just sit back and tend to my blog. After a hectic week and emails piled up, etc. I can finally sit back and just listen to some Herbie Hancock and type.

It's that time again when the year ends and everyone gets excited for the next one, new year resolutions get thrown around and everything is going to be perfect starting from 1 Jan 2011! At least that's the plan :). I was reviewing my goals and targets for 2010 and I'm proud to say I achieved the ones that remained as goals as of today. Some of the goals I wanted to achieve in the beginning of 2010 slowly lost its priority in my list and eventually got scrapped.

Having re-read my last entry of 2010, I didn't realize some of the things I used to think. Where lighting was my environment was a fresh concept to me. Today it's super normal to me where I literally don't have my room fully lit up unless I'm cleaning. I almost always work in darkness except for the light over the area I'm working at (eg. light over my computer desk).

Last year, music to work by was Lounge music, this year it's Jazz.
Last year, I was still trying to discover the best environment for myself with regards to lighting, this year it's all about ergonomics. I have recently ordered a new Haworth Adflex table just for that. I realized that my current dark brown table had a major flaw, it was a littttlllleeee bit too high for me to be totally relaxed. Yes, I have reached the point where these minor issues bother me. Partly because I'm sitting at the desk for so many hours, I want to be relaxed. Also, one thing I learnt at the Haworth showroom was how a white desk vs a dark brown desk can have such a big impact on your energy levels. When I was talking to the lady helping me with my desk selection, she asked me what color desk surface I'd like and I said "just go with black so it doesn't stain" and the first thing she said was "really? You'll get tired easily" and it never occurred to me that this could very well be a factor as well. I later started looking at furniture differently, asking myself "does this make me relaxed or excited?" not just "do the colors go well?" anymore.

Also, this time last year I was stuck on my painful HP iPAQ 920c PDA phone. Man I used that phone to the max! Everyone who has ever had to use that phone has complained about how crap it is, yet while I had it, I made the most of it. Eventually I upgraded to the uber lovely Samsung Galaxy S and never looked back! I am extremely happy with my investment because just being able to listen to audio books conveniently is already money in my pocket! That's another new thing this year, my passion for audio books!

Drumming wise, my goals last year was all about speed but over time speed has slowly lost its sweetness to me. Sure it sounds awesome but it sounds flat... stuff played fast can't really be enjoyed the same way you would. It's like having a large dose of chocolate vs slowly letting it melt in your mouth. It's a different enjoyment. Not to say I don't want speed, but I've decided that it's time I became a musician at my drum set rather than a machine. I've finally started taking lessons from the wonderful Don Ashley and have decided to start all over again. Going from the foundation up (and boy do I have lots of gaps in my foundation!). The reason for this is also because my band, Eve of Sin, is kind of going through a reborn process ever since we've had to move our band room (and we're aiming to have it up and running before 2010 ends!!! RAH!). Everyone in the band (ie. 4 people, we don't have a bassist) is basically upping their game because we've found that the only way to go is to think big. We don't want to just think of ourselves as a Hong Kong metal band. It's like saying, if you're in the C-grade swimming team and you come 1st, you're just the best of the worst. Don't get me wrong, HK has some serious metal bands that are awesome and have broken out into an International level, but we're hoping to add some extra glory to it :) I guess it was also after watching Chthonic live and realizing they were a neighboring Asian band living our dreams! If they can do it why not us?!

Comedy wise, last year I was still dreaming about doing my own English 1 man show, heck last year I hadn't even ever stepped into a MMA ring to do any sort of announcements! So this year it's really just making this aspect of my life always follows the Japanese word Kaizen. Making sure my current performance upped the game from my last one, whether it's smoothness in my delivery or an upgraded version of an old comedy bit or just controlling my voice better as I growl out excitement before two guys go at it in a ring!

Well I have a good 12 days to get myself sorted out and ready for the new year. January 2011 already has a whole load of stuff lined up for me to tend to and rock out at....awesome. Just the way I like to start my year :)

Ending by beginning

2010-12-05T22:42:00.000+08:00

Woah! 10 days already?! So there are really only 2 more entries for this year! Craziness!
Well some good news! I found my Art Blakey music collection and got inspired to do a random Youtube search of great jazz artists because I was just... feeling really uninspired and now I've got these lovely tunes bouncing off my room walls happily. I've realized that my music requirements during work have changed over the years:

Metal. Loud, crazy, blasting metal spitting fire into my ears and adrenaline in my blood
Buddha Bar, lounge music became the thing I needed to get to work
Phantom of the Opera, I went through a long phase of this
Jazz, any jazz was sufficient
Bebop. Yes, my mind decided to narrow it down to this and only this
Finally, today's (happy) jazz. I realized whenever I worked to say John Coltrane, I'd slowly feel bored with my work (ok except "My Favorite Things"). Stuff like Herbie Hancock's "Cantelope Island" is perfect for what I need nowadays.

Yes, yes, I know, I've become a very coffee-shop-music guy. Or I've just grown older.
I still listen to lots of metal at the gym and when I'm walking and need to be pumped up for something, but metal has slowly been confined to only my band and my work outs.

Speaking of metal, if you haven't heard of Manntis, you really should check them out.Their guitarist was on Ozzy Osbourne's Battle for Ozzfest show on MTV. This show first aired in 2004 and I had to resort to searching for it on the Internet and once I got the whole season, I was hooked, I had to do a complete marathon up till the late hours of the night, I just couldn't stop. Watching metal heads battle it out for their band was like a dream for me. Oddly, that was also the time I used to dream about playing drums.

I've recently been evaluating my drumming skills and realized that I've grown out of the phase of playing for fun. I've started to find the need to play for excellence. I mean, I'd find myself constantly trying new things in my band's songs to see if I could top my last drum idea in hopes of finding something that makes the song even better than how it was.

The band, Eve of Sin, is going through a rough patch now since our landlords have hiked our rent up a huge amount (obviously trying to get rid of us) and we're stuck with a short period of time to find a new practice room. We had considered not rending a place and just using those pay-by-the-hour rooms around Hong Kong but we went there once and that was the worst jamming experience ever. The equipment was so bad that songs we thought were cool sounded horrible, it just lacked everything. The song's soul died along with the equipment in those rooms. I suppose that's partly why many bands in Hong Kong have a tough time finding their sound, they get stuck with half-broken equipment all the time that they just hope they find anything that sounds good.

Oh, and if you haven't heard of Bob Newhart and his comedy material, check it out. Jerry Seinfeld mentioned him in an interview once and I checked out the guy and I was blown away by his material. I mean, if I read it on paper in black and white I'd think this was interesting humorous writing, but listening to him deliver gives it a whole new life!

I guess all these things combined have really switched my mind into another zone in regards to my creativity. I've slowly become more and more aware of how my little personal twist to everything is what matters most, not even the technical abilities, the content or the image. It's that little touch a person adds to something that makes all the difference. Oddly, the more I think of this, the more I realize you have to first have a combination of technical abilities, content and a proper image to be able to discover your personal touch/style that is a signature item. Sure there are times you may stumble upon something by pure luck, but chances are those won't last long and they'll never be in your control.

I recently went to one of the exhibitions by Basil Pao (my client) and after having stared at his photographs for so long in low resolutions, being able to see them blown up was a huge difference. Kind of like watching comedy on your computer screen and seeing it live. There's just something different about it being there in front of you that makes the difference. The most interesting thing was that this man had seen and experienced so much that anything he touched seemed to turn into gold. His photos, in my opinion, are gorgeous. Take, for example, his book called HANDS. I guess I've just had so much time to look at the images that it kind of gives the hands life every time I look at them. It's like how some painters can draw eyes that are full of life while others' will be soulless. It's kind of like having 2 people who can speak English fluently, but one of them can sequence his/her words in such a way it sounds poetic.

I thing what has happened that in the last 10 days, since my workload hasn't been in the oh-my-goodness-I'm-losing-my-mind but more in the okay-this-is-a-good-kind-of-busy, I've had time to absorb things I'm experiencing and my mind's had a chance to actually supply some sort of self-reflection/feedback. The only thing is, having done that I've found so many things I could improve on :P And thus, starts my annual new years' preparation so I start the new year perfectly! :)

Well let's see what other mad thoughts I end up with in the next 10 days! Enjoy them while they last! :D

We're near the end!!!!

2010-11-24T12:03:00.000+08:00

Of the year that is! This is one of my most favorite times of the year when my mind starts saying "time to get stuff done and wrap it up" which is great because the last thing I want to do is have things from 2010 linger on into 2011... this includes bad habits ;)
The first thing I have to confess is that this entry is 1 entry late! Yes, when things finally calmed down and I was going through my list of to do's I noticed a minor blog entry was in the list and at that stressed out moment, I made the executive decision to scrap it to make way for my other to do's that seemed to never, ever end...
The good news is that I'm back on track with my work and things have finally calmed down. And when things calm down I get back on the horse and work on my own stuff, that means I've been having great writing sessions for comedy, some awesome workouts, drumming practice sessions and of course work is back to lasting normal human hours so I can wind down daily at midnight. But how long will this last you ask? Heck how do I know?! :P

Anyway, for all of you who are digging into audio books like I am now, I finished Bob Newhart's I shouldn't even be doing this. May I just say, this guy is hilarious! Holy crap! I was listening to some of his bits and I was giggling as I walked with my headphones plugged in my ears.. the odd thing is when I just re-thought his bits or used my own voice to say them, it just lacked that perfect timing that he has. He has a bit called Abraham Lincoln where he imagines what if back in those days Mr. Lincoln had a PR company that helped take care of his image and refine all his speeches to match his personal brand? Ahaha, and another bit about how a building guard tries to explain to his manager that he really had no way of stopping King Kong from climbing the building :P Gold I tell you, gold!

I've also been watching a lot of stand up comedy recently and if you haven't seen Bill Burr's stuff, you have to check it out, I was watching Bill Burr's Let it Go DVD and I was dying, his stuff was awesome! So raw, so real and just so funny! He has this bit about how old men always look like they're scared and goes about to explain the evolution of this face, it's brilliant the way he delivers it.

The cool thing is this has totally inspired me to work on my comedy even more. And another thing is I re-organized my little window-facing desk and also adjusted the lighting. I realized that I can't focus much if I'm looking out the window and see day time. I feel really trapped. But at night, when my desk is lit up and the outside only has a few dots of lights, it's brilliant, my mind just flows. I really wish we had more open mics here in Hong Kong, I have bits I want to try out now but can't because I'm usually busy on Tuesday nights. I'm working with the New Life Psychiatric Rehabilitation Association and running Cantonese comedy workshops in hopes to get more people interested in stand up comedy. So far, it's still the initial process and you can see everyone is still very raw and punchlines are weak, but ahh well, hopefully over time things will improve :)

My projects are coming along nicely, now that I'm able to manage my time better, I'm able to focus on my work and get it done one step at a time. So far, I'm on target to completing everything by the end of this year. Unless of course I take on anything new in mid-December (usually a rare case since most everyone gets in the holiday mindset). Speaking of work though, I've found that I work better at 35 minute intervals instead of the previous 25minutes. Very often when the alarm hits 25, I feel like I can go on for a bit more, but when it hits 35 minutes now, it feels just right and time for a break. I tried 40 minutes but I could feel the extra 5 minutes would require an extra 5 minutes of rest after that. The thing is, this totally turns my usual routine of work/rest on its head because now I have to either wake up earlier or wake up later to fit everything in well. For example, I like practicing drums before lunch, but if I follow my 35 minutes interval, I either have to cut short my drumming practice or cut out one 35 minute work session...hmmm

Well in a few days' time I'll probably do a full-year review, just to see how much I accomplished this year. It's still really strange to think 1 year ago I hadn't done any mixed martial arts announcement things, never thought I'd be able to do my one-man show in English, wasn't anywhere close to what I can drum today and last but not least, was still barely mobile since I had busted my right knee.... woah.

No time for even 750 words...

2010-11-02T16:34:00.000+08:00

Sigh. In my last entry I talked about the aweomeness that is 750words.com and yet today I shamefully admit that I've only managed to use that site for 1 day. Things have been so hectic and busy lately that I am seriously backlogged with work.
The funny thing is, when I look back and why my October ended with me knee deep in time debt, I realize that there was so much happening! The comedy festival, the Karma Komedians show, for some reason all my new projects became urgent projects and of course, Halloween. I was this close to not making it out this year but figured I can work 365 days a year but celebrate halloween for only at most 3 days. This year I didn't dress up as my traditional evil clown (with a budget of HK$100 at the Salvation Army to see what stuff I can piece together to make my costume), but just went with the Mah Jong tiles with other comedians from the comedy club. I chose the tile with the character 西 which means west and is also a slang term for a woman's special parts down south. What was funny was that many of the other people in tiles didn't make this connection until I started going around to people and yelling "touch my 西!" which would require a pause of 0.5 seconds before they burst into laughter! It soon become my catch phrase and worked every time! Then I'd jokingly add "Ok, you touch my 西 then I touch yours" or even funnier, when people do smack their hands on my box, I go "ooooh!! Very good, I see you practice a lot!". Halloween has to be my favorite festival of each year. Well Chinese New Year is awesome too since it's the only time I get to (well am also forced to) totally shut myself down :)
I didn't manage to get into the lovely alivenotdead.com party even though I won 2 tickets to go in. Partly because I was messing around with people on the streets and the other Mah Jong tiles, and also because when I tried to go in, the party was way too packed and me and my friend were not going to fit anyway. Oh well :) Hope the party was awesome! :)

So for a change today I get to stay at home and just work. I really need to catch up and I'm only able to type here because I'm on a short break between work sessions. And sadly, that break is coming to an end.
All I can say is if you're on an Android, get an app called Tasker, it'll blow your mind! It is freaking awesome and I've got it to automatically do stuff for me on my android so I no longer find myself having to manually turn on Wifi when I'm home and turn if off when I leave, etc. Very awesome!
Well let's see how my quest for 750words.com goes these next few days! Stay tuned!

Oh work thou art sly

2010-10-23T01:47:00.001+08:00

Yikes! Ever been busy for so long that the moment you actually stop, you're kind of lost? I was like that a bit earlier on tonight. I looked at my to do list and my emails and realized nothing that was left to be done could be completed before it was time for me to get into bed and so it was one of those awkward moments when I had to just accept that I couldn't do anything but I wasn't exactly free. Oh work thou art sly!

So tonight there was supposed to be a typhoon hitting HK and a charity dinner that I was supposed to attend and perform at got canceled and well.. turns out tonight was nothing more than a breezy evening...heh go figure. On the other hand I joined the comedians for dinner and even slipped in a quick set at the comedy club before rushing home to deal with work. I've been working so much these last few days I literally felt like it's been a month without a holiday. I think I'm going to have to just pull myself away from work for a while tomorrow, just to get my mental bearings straight..

Well the last 10 days have been crazy with the Annual Comedy Festival and everything. It was kind weird seeing this week so calm comedy-wise :P On the other hand I went jamming with my band on Wednesday and it was great to see everyone having improved and coming in for a tighter session than ever. I guess all those painful hours practicing has paid off well for us as a team. We're still looking for a bassist which means until then we can't do gigs.. but nonetheless it's also a blessing in disguise because now we've been focusing on upping our game and have written 2 brand spanking new songs. We're creating the 3rd one and each song is getting more challenging than the one before, partly because our boundaries have expanded with each song, and I guess it's just that competitive spirit in all of us....

I've recently decided to go back to the foundations in everything I do, from my web design to my fitness routine. It's quite interesting because now when I go back to their roots, even the basics have a different meaning to me. Kind of like going back to work on my handwriting after having written for so many years. You write in a different manner, really noticing the details and also appreciating what it is you're doing in the foundation level. Like even my comedy, I'm gong back to square one where I just watch great comedians perform (when I have the time that is :P), but now I don't just study them, I even spend time analyzing their bits to see if it was their style, the punchline or their delivery that was the most essential ingredient. What I'm saying is that having done comedy for a while now, I have developed the eye to study another comedian at a different level. Perhaps that is what people are really doing when they admire paintings at galleries. I mean I admit, when I see a painting... I stare for a short while and then I just get it. I mean, ok, it's a painting, it's a masterpiece. Am I missing something? I guess I am.

Anyways, woah, got interrupted there so this is actually 1 hour later. Ahaah it's odd how with blogging the time gaps between paragraphs don't really translate to the reader, but literally when I first started writing this blog, I didn't know about this awesome site called 750words.com. For all you writers out there, check it out! I just played around with it for a bit and I think it's gold for writing! I used to try to stick to a minimum of 25 minutes of writing daily but realized sometimes I get stuck with not writing a lot because I just didn't get into that flow.. and after testing out 750words.com, I just realized that was my mistake, it wasn't how long I spent writing, it was the length of my writing. Sometimes you just have to keep at it for a while and good things come about, you don't just wait passively.
So yes, that was my big accomplishment in the previous hour. Darn, now I'm all excited to try it out already but it's bed time.

Oh time thou art sly, too! This is why I could really appreciate an extra hour or 2 each day, where the world is in limbo and everyone around me stops and I'm allowed to live for myself :P I guess that's the 8 hours of sleep I get each day, where the world can burn away but I'm going to be snoozing happily away. The joys of being a deep sleeper mean even if Armageddon is upon us, I'll probably be searching for the snooze button rather than the fire exit :P

Happy next 10 days everyone and let's see how my 750words.com trial goes :)

English one man show - check!

2010-10-12T23:58:00.000+08:00

Yes! Finally, I can proudly add to my list of comedy accomplishments: "English One Man Show"!

This time must have been one of the most chaotic days to have a one man show. I wasn't as nervous as I was when I was doing my Chinese one man show in 2008, but it was still madness in my mind before going on stage. My biggest fear did happen, and I did forget around 3 goo bits I had, but nonetheless, crowdwork saved the day. The comedy Gods blessed me with some great audience members who wanted to play and were basically feeding me material :P! To the point I even joked with the audience that there was no point in my material being on a cheat sheet on the stool (For these big shows, I always go on prepared with a water and cheat sheets but till today I have never actually peeked at my cheat sheet, and doubt I can even remember the last time I sipped water while performing on stage). It's one of those weird things where while I'm on stage I have this weird idea that people didn't pay for me to peek at my notes or stop and sip water.... heh.

On a side note, now that I've begun reading The Musician's Way, my drumming has improved in a different way. I no longer find myself sometimes practicing endlessly at an exercise, I have taken steps back to really focus on quality practice now. It's quite exciting because now whenever I practice, when I reach a point I feel confident in what I've practiced, I record it down, the play it back and pray that I got it right. It actually is good because it builds confidence when you hear yourself play the music. I can feel that problem I used to face where I found I could play a beat but I lacked that little groove to it is getting better.
The downside however is that I don't practice as many exercises at a time. I used to manage around 3 exercises per session. However now, I rarely get passed 1 :P But 3 days later I've not just passed, I've perfected the exercise. It's quite interesting to listen to myself playing and being a critic, I get really harsh to the point I don't want to stop till I've perfected it (ahahah that's an annoying thing, I don't like doing things half way....).

I've also switched up my work out routine, I've figured now that my free time is getting less, I'm not going to allow myself to have any workouts longer than 1 hour. In fact, my goal now is to be freaking done after 45 minutes. Freaking done you ask? I mean at 45 minutes it's not a matter of wanting to go on but I'm exhausted in a good way. So now I do nothing but full body circuit weight/cardio workouts. Basically those crazy workouts that force you to work for a certain time period rather than reps. Like instead of aiming to hit 10 reps, now I aim to repeat something for 30 seconds. It sounds easy, but trust me, when you're combining a plank with a dumb bell row, 30 seconds can tear you apart. I was dripping sweat by my 2nd cycle. I was aiming to do around 4 cycle.
Oddly, in just 2 days I already feel stronger, like my muscles are pumped and ready to rock!

On the downside, my comedy writing has suffered. I had a total brain shut down on Sunday after my one man show on Saturday and a week long of hosting/performing, etc. at the 4th Annual International Comedy Festival. But I just did one of my good ol' everything random, just follow your gut things and it was a great day. Just followed wherever I ended up, whichever bus appeared and ended up having a really refreshing day :) Plus the weather is getting nicer now without the intense heat burning through my back like before.

Well I'm still backlogged on emails and to do list items, but I guess it'll take me a few more days before I can get back on track fully... far too many things to tend to all at the same time... ahah that crazy feeling of me losing control of my life is slowly setting in, but then again, as I always remind myself been there done that so it's just a passing storm to me now. I deal with it as it comes.

Well so far so good, Sunday being a "you're allowed to slack off day" is quite good really :) Although out of no choice, I'm going to have to meet some people this Sunday for a future gig. Ahh well, guess nothing's perfect! :)

October means 2010 is almost done

2010-10-01T12:13:00.000+08:00

Woooo! 1 October 2010! That means we're nearing the end of 2010! It's so weird because I can still remember the beginning of 2010! Heck, I still remember excited about being the announcer at Legend Fighting Championship 1! And now I have done 3 of those gigs already! Woah!

Well September was an awesome and fruitful month. Lots of things happened during that time, of course, I turned 28 ;) And I got to enjoy the lovely sounds of Jun Kung's concert that night and I was quite inspired really! After that night, I realized one thing lacking with my drumming was that fluency. It's kind of like a local Hong Kong person speaking english vs. an American. Sure the HK person may have perfect grammar and most of his accent may have been cleaned up, but it's the little "ya' know" and other slang terms that make the American's English sound more fluent and smooth. This is the problem I'm struggling with. When I speak drums, I know the rules of nouns and present tense, etc. but it doesn't flow the way people like Jun Kung can just flow at a drum set. I'm currently interested in taking lessons with a master (one of the reasons I didn't get a teacher was because I wanted to make sure either I'm learning with the best or I learn on my own). So far, I've contacted 1 guy who a lot of people consider to be a very harsh but awesome drum teacher but no response yet about whether he's interested in adding another student to his gang. I'll probably message him again today to see.

But if anyone knows a good (and harsh, I like teachers who are strict and require extreme discipline) drummer in Hong Kong, please let me know :)

On another note, my one-man English comedy show is going to be on in a week's time! Excited and nervous at the same time! I'm confident it'll go well but I guess maybe I'm just hoping to exceed my own expectations :P
Life has become a bit more stable for me, I've found my groove on many things and I've learnt to better accept failure to achieve a bit better. Like now as I said before, I'm going to keep Sunday as my sacred day to just chill out. I realized the reason I worked my ass off even on Sunday was because I often felt like I hadn't made the most of the week so Sunday was my compensation day. However, last week since the birthday landed on a Saturday and I had just finished Legend 3 on Friday, I literally switched my brain off on Saturday to the point for the first time in ages, I went out with nothing but a cap :P No bag, no water, no laptop. Ok so I had my phone and stuff, but not the general things I'd lug around with me. It was an awesome experience, very relaxing because I was just "flowing" with the moment, I wasn't pre-planning everything (I'd usually literally pre-plan my food and water so when I go out I don't find myself going "shit, Im hungry, I need to find a restaurant" but more like "I'm going to be hungry in 15 minutes, it's better I stay near restaurants for now"

I watched Derren Brown's HERO at 30,000 feet and man I loved it! So inspiring! I mean a lot of the things he talked about were things I'd read about in books and stuff, but just watching it and seeing what he was going made me so refreshed about life. My favorite part was when he said we're not defined by our past but rather our current decisions and I remembered, that is so true. I mean, I'm a firm believer that we need to know our history to help define ourselves today, to realize how we got to where we are, but at the same time, we can't be stuck with the past and limit our futures due to that. Sure it's easier said than done, but it's worth remembering. I remember when I first started reading his book Tricks of the Mind, he talked about how magicians worked and the mentality behind that and I have to say, it really excited me! I guess the concept of deception is one I'm very fascinated by. The Art of War, The Art of Deception, Tricks of the Mind, etc. are all some of my favorite books, mostly because it talks about using deception (not lying) to fool someone into creating a fake reality for a moment that seems so justified the person getting fooled doesn't realize they're being fooled and thinks all is well and they were doing the right thing!

I remember some of the stories in The Art of Deception talked about how many humans are willing to disclose partial information, thinking that there is nothing you can do with a piece of incomplete information, but we forget that if you disclose partial information and your friend discloses the other partial bit of information, I now have the full piece of information and neither you nor your friend would have guessed what they did could have got them in big trouble..

Anyway, so today being a public holiday, I now have to face the reality of do I also take a holiday or stick to my guns and work it out, only holiday-ing as I promised on Sunday? Hmmm, let's see what happens in the next few hours ;)

A long hard day, out of debt

2010-09-21T01:36:00.000+08:00

Well, the lovely sound of rain is hitting my window and I've got a bit of time before I arrive at snooze land.

Today's been a long, but good day. Very focused unlike the last 2 days really. I've been struggling with a few days of semi-burnout where I kind of could feel a burn out coming but I wasn't to the point I couldn't focus. I think, however, I felt like I was stuck in a rut. I did notice that I was bored. Not the I don't know what to do now kind of bored but the not this again kind of bored :(.

I've also been thinking of changing the way I organize my workloads. I've been using the lovely Pomdoro Technique for my work and it sure works wonders to prevent me from being too drained at one go, and it also keeps me getting stuff done. However, I've noticed that sometimes when my to do list has like 10 items on it, I just feel overwhelmed and defeated, only to realize those 10 items could have been finished in 10 minutes (example item: "Check if I have any wet clothes leftover in my bag" which really takes a minute). So the new mission is to organize my tasks based on the estimated time it'll take me to do. Hopefully knowing that each task should take no longer than 2 minutes will keep me burning through the items even if there are like 50 of them!

And speaking of timing, it's that time again for Legend Fighting Championship! Yep! Very excited about that (excited and nervous as usual) and check this out, it's on 24th! And guess what's 25th! Wahoo my birthday!
But on a serious note, birthdays aren't my thing. Like I literally don't celebrate them and don't really see the need to celebrate them really :P I mean I get it, I was born on that day, but so what? So it marks another milestone in my life... and? I guess since I'm a milestone/log freak things like birthdays aren't really anything special to me.... hmm.

On top of that, I'm finally doing it, I'm doing my own one-man English stand up comedy show so that's going down in the log book of accomplishments too! I've always wanted to do it and well why not now? I was upset with myself that I didn't do it last year, but then again, I think I'm way better prepared this year.

Woah! The sky just lit the hell up?! WTF?!

Well these last 10 days have been madness really and I'm expecting the next 10 days to be no saner. What I do expect is to be way more calm after these next 10 days because the weather will have cooled down and that means another accomplishment to add -- "Didn't turn on the air-conditioner ever this whole year!" Ahaha, the stupid things I do to myself to feel like I've accomplished something :P

Alright, time to sleep and get that rest!

The good timing, the bad stomach and the ugly ring girl

2010-09-10T14:31:00.001+08:00

I really just wanted to start this post with "the bad stomach" but felt I needed something positive there and well you know me, stupid is as stupid does :P

So it's the afternoon of a very hot Friday (yes, I don't turn on my air conditioner, and so far 2010 has been a 0-days with a/c in my room year :P Insane eh?) and my stomach's feeling a bit better. I was really worried yesterday when I woke up with an uneasy feeling and pretty much spent the rest of the day working from my bed (I actually can do this even when I'm feeling alright, but I don't want to associate my bed with work... mentally at least). I do have some work to get done but I think I'm going to allow myself some rest for another 30 minutes before I get down to it.

So last night was the Legend Fighting Championship Ring Girls Audition. I was MC-ing the event and it was awesome! The ladies were hot hot hot and from what I remember, in round 2 of the competition, I made a boo boo calling out "group no. 5!" when there were only 4 groups. So I joking told the crowd "Oh I guess maybe it's my turn to walk" and BAM! Suddenly everyone started cheering, wanting me to do a ring girl walk :P I was like "!?!?!? Seriously people? We just had hot hot hot women do it and you want me? A man in jeans and black t-shirt to be the headliner?!" But what the heck, I did it and it was fun! Ahaha, I did the whole strut your stuff and when you get to the corner, strike a pose thing. Ahaha yes, I am the title's ugly ring girl (Here's the picture from Gloriana Wong's facebook page. I guess NSFW? :P) But I guess I could say that it was good timing? At least no one remembered my little "group 5" boo boo :P

So September has already been a fruitful month for me work-wise even though we're only really 1/3 of the way into it. I've been messing around with my uber-sexy android phone and now that I'm more and more comfortable with it, it's fitting better and better into my personal work flow. It definitely is a great help and improvement and adds some peace to my mind work-wise! I'm still working out a way of deciding what I will exclusively use it for. Like my macbook is the tool I use when I want to read my RSS feeds, update my blog and do more relaxing things (also because I can use it while on my bed), but now there's a conflict, I can read my e-books, RSS feeds on my phone but I also have my macbook with me wherever I go, and my kindle, so now I've got a conflict of devices :P I know I can easily do all of them on each device, but I'd rather have set up workstations for each thing on my list.

I also reached my 1 year end to my PRO subscription of Remember the Milk. Oh what a great year it has been and I'm proud to say RTM is definitely the to do list for me!

I've finished reading the book Sun Tzu For Success! Definitely a very easy read, a lot of it I already knew from my studying of The Art of War from before but it had a few good pointers I felt was good for me to "revise" :). It talks about kicking the ladder away where basically once you've climbed enough, kick the ladder underneath you away so there's no turning back. I guess that's really life, like now that I'm running my own web design business, there's really no turning back. I won't see myself working in an office or a full time job, I just won't be able to do it. Just the idea of now being able to work at my own time would drive me nuts! And oddly the "monthly salary" is absolutely not attractive to me in comparison to the freedom I enjoy now :P
It also talks about how many great leaders make decisions not fully on information, like 1/3 of the time it's a leap into the dark. Again, that's life, you can't expect greatness without the chance of extreme failure.
And of course, the lesson that is my favorite is the one where it says integrity is a key factor in a great leader. Integrity doesn't necessarily equal success, but lack of it is instructions for disaster in the long run. As I've said before, the saying from Guy Kawasaki where it is more important to make meaning than to make money, has had a great impact on the way I think. That also is probably why I like to live the lifestyle I live now. Sure I know people my age who probably easily make lots more money than me, but I guess everyone has their preferences. I'd rather have a diary full of cool things and experiences for the month than just a big fat pay check in exchange:)

Well now it's back to work, because as much as I've been going on about loving freedom, I still need to get paid something ;)

Enjoy the next 10 days!

The quick one, it's too sunny to write :P

2010-08-31T16:01:00.000+08:00

So it's a minor blog entry and well it's going to be a quick one.

I just did a guest performance at TEDx Hong Kong and woah, it was awesome! TED! Well TEDx (an independently organized TED event). I had to go tend to my own things later on during the day so I couldn't stay longer but the few speakers I heard were interesting. One talked about using Bamboo to replace timber, another talked about how climate change is affecting people near the arctic and finally another spoke of camera technology on phones... lots of interesting ideas.

And the best of it all is that today is a really lovely day and seeing as it is, I'm not going to lock myself up at my computer blogging :P See ya! It's time to enjoy the sun! :)

Major Blog Entry: 3.5 years into this blog!

2010-08-25T12:40:00.000+08:00

Hello everyone! Woah, 3.5 years already! So much has changed I don't even know where to start!
I just read my previous Major Blog entry (FYI, I do a major blog entry every 6 months to kind of evaluate my life and just talk about what I think of things...), and it's interesting to note that back then I was struggling with the idea of not letting time slip out of my hands. Like I'd often find myself engrossed in my work to the point it'd be 3 hours and it's only when my stomach starts growling do I realize all this time has passed by!
But with my recent discovery of the pomodoro technique I have learned to be more focused without the worry that I'd end up being so focused I burn out. The idea of working on one thing for 25 minutes straight is great! It lets me stay focused without the worry that I'd neglect other important tasks. Also, now that I plan the next day the night before, it makes a big difference because I don't find myself wasting time thinking what next (well not as much). The only issue is sometimes when I'm in the zone, 25 minutes isn't enough and it's hard to pull myself away from what I'm doing because of a mandatory 5 minutes break. In fact, 5 minutes is often not enough for me after 25 minutes, I need a good 10 minutes before I feel rested.
Another major change is the setting up of my Phillips LivingColors system. I used to have it at a constant color transition but I never really enjoyed it then. Now I set it at a certain color (anything except green) during the day while I'm working (usually purple or pink) and green is reserved for the nights. The lovely sounds provided by naturesoundsfor.me is great when I'm lying in bed winding down after a long hard day, reading my RSS feeds, e-books or even books. I'm currently nearing the end of 59 Seconds: Think a Little, Change a Lot. I hope to finish it in the next few days then move on to the lovely Sun Tzu For Success!!
Speaking of reading, check this out, I ordered another Kindle for my mother so she no longer needs to use mine which means I can finally start enjoying my kindle without having to worry about sharing it and stuff... and of course, *drum roll*
I got a Samsung Galaxy S Android Phone. Yes ladies and gentlemen, I finally did it, I finally got myself a new phone and with that, I have the enjoyment of Kindle and Paperdroid on the device! Woohoo!! Reading galore! Not to mention it's got swype and of course lovely Gmail access that will actually allow me to deal with emails even better. I'm still working out the best way to work with ActiveInbox labeling with my phone.
But nonetheless, I've only been using the phone for a day and I'm already in love with it, I see why so many productivity geeks are into it! :D Not to mention it'll save me time in the long run really.

I can't say tooo much about the phone because I have yet to use it much more, perhaps in the next entry? :P
I've also gone nuts with my workouts and drumming. Nuts in the sense I used to have a pre-planned routine but now I've realized the power of mixing things up to keep it fresh and always forcing myself to learn, adapt and thus improv. I am working on the famous George Kollias 16 week speed+control workouts and so far so good. There are days when I feel my ankles are just tired but currently I'm clocking a stable 160bpm and hitting 170bpm on good days (feet). I've been combining that with exercises from The Evolution of the Blast Beat By Derek Roddy and so far so good. Of course there are other books as well but these 2 are the major contributors to my drum workouts.
My gym workout on the other hand has just been a whole load of balanced randomness. Basically I know what the workout needs to include but I don't know what exercises I will do till I get to the gym. In other words, for example, I know I will need to do some full-leg workouts today, will it be the front squat, back squat, lunges, step box, leg press, etc.? Who knows, the decision is made partly based on what is available and partly based on what I can do. It's no point trying to hit a lunch when I can barely walk from fatigue leftover by the previous set.

My band's been doing good also. We had to let our old bassist go because the band's direction was starting to not match his and it was no point keeping someone who didn't have the same view on the band as the rest of us. However, things have picked up really well ever since that. We've grown as a more focused band with everyone working well on their own things rather than "er, I don't know, I just was following you" attitudes. We've already got 2 new songs that I'm really proud of and hopefully after a while, when we have enough new tracks, and find a proper bassist, we'll be hitting out on gigs like before. I do miss playing live, it's a whole different game! :p

My comedy career has grown yet even more, with the recent Karma Komedians show, I confidently hit 37 minutes straight in English! :D I was quite happy with that, especially since most of the audience members were Indians, I could whip out some only-Indians-will-get-this-joke material :P I can't say my writing has been super stable, but I can say that at least I've got a proper system to work with rather than just writing ideas here and there. Evernote, you are awesome. There are still a few things to iron out but hopefully once I get my groove of daily writing back, I'll be able to keep up the new material like before...

My web stuff has also grown with new technologies and new clients. I've been trying to upgrade my skills and currently am re-learning Dreamweaver CS5 and oh my goodness, there is so much stuff I missed out!! In fact, I'm really happy to see myself move away from working with Flash so much and preferring HTML and javascript over Flash. Yes, javascript but in the form of jQuery really.

Well, so 3.5 years into this and things are stable. I feel like when I first started this blog, I was a teenager struggling and now I've grown into a man who knows what's going on. Sure there are still goals to achieve and stuff, but I feel like now I can see the even bigger picture of realizing that a goal not achieved isn't the end of the world, it's just a goal that has yet to be achieved! I guess in 6 months I'll hopefully have yet another perspective on this matter.

Now I'm off to go smile a bit, because you know what, just doing that can improve your mood. Go figure? :P

Karma in the jungle

2010-08-21T15:12:00.000+08:00

And here we are, 10 days after my last entry. Today's a big day for me, because we have a big All Indian Comedy Show tonight called Karma Komedians. I'm excited and nervous about it. Not stressfully nervous but just excited nervous. I don't know what to expect and I have to do a whopping 40 minutes tonight. I'm really not sure how that's going to happen but it just will.

So I've been reading the book 59 Seconds: Think a Little, Change a Lot and I am loving this book! Sure last entry I said I wasn't blown away but now I am! Some of the things it talks about are really fascinating, comparing things like does Mozart's music have long term effects on your intelligence? And many other interesting thoughts that popular culture has us believe in a certain way..... I'm almost done with it. I read about decision making yesterday and it talks about concepts of letting your sub-conscious make the decisions and how to work with that. If you haven't read that book, I recommend you check it out, it's quite an easy read, especially since it touches on so many topics and basically tells you what you need to hear, not a long lecture that you'll probably forget.

The next book that's on my list is the newly bought (also with gift vouchers heheheeh) Sun Tzu For Success: How to Use the Art of War to Master Challenges and Accomplish the Important Goals in Your Life. I couldn't help it, it looked too tempting and the amazon reviews seemed quite good about it. And heck, it's Art of War people!!!!
This month's been a real shopaholic month for me, with a new Kindle on its way for my mother (she uses my Kindle DX which means I don't get to use it while it's with her). I was also (once again) this close to buying a new phone for myself because I am just so freaking fed up with my current one but the sad thing is, it still works, I'm just fed up with it. Kind of like saying I could use a makeover but it's not something I need :P

I also indulged in a new Hallmark bamboo scented diffuser and it really is awesome! My room smells like..well the jungle! Ahaha but the cool thing is, every night I combine it with the lovely sounds generated by naturesoundsfor.me and voila! I enjoy the sound of the beach, owls, etc. in the middle of this concrete jungle I live in... and my Phillips living color set to green combined with the bamboo fragrance sure does wonders after a loooonnnggg hard day!

The thing is, work has been quite wild for me lately, I've been helping out the guys over at 8five2.com set up some blogs. Things are still work-in-progress but the cool thing is, they've been very helpful with suggestions and enhancements (like ideas for better display on the iPhone). Man it's getting to the point I feel like I need to get an iPhone just to test out apps and websites on it... this is insane!! I got to find an emulator to use.....

Things have been awesome with the band lately and we've worked on 2 brand spanking new songs with one of them really challenging my endurance (at least my ankle speed) but not so much that I'm out of control. I'm glad things are working smoothly again and we've all matured as a team. Things are so much more fun now, I really do look forward to jamming ever week. And speaking of the band, we're heading over the Macau tomorrow. Ahaha talk about a packed weekend!

Anyways, the next 10 days are going to drive me mad but at least I know no matter how crazy it gets, I can always hide out in my humble little jungle, close my eyes and enjoy it :)

Time to get ready for tonight's show!! Rock on!

59 seconds

2010-08-11T18:57:00.003+08:00

Yep, I'm currently reading the book 59 Seconds: Think a little, change a lot. I wanted to get it when I went to the UK last year but didn't and now, with my lovely gift vouchers I figured this would justify my purchase.
So far, I won't say it's a mind-blowing good read, but there are a lot of ideas and beliefs that are being re-enforced with scientific studies, so that's quite interesting. I liked the chapter that talked about a likable personality is more powerful than a resume packed with great grades and work experience. I totally agree with that, no matter how perfect you are for a job, if you're not fun to work with, no one will want you by their side..

These past 10 days have been a very.. productive but not innovative time for me because I've been able to get what I need to done but at the same time, life's been the same ol' same ol' really. Nothing innovative and oddly that makes me feel like there is some sort of emptiness or lacking. When I really think back, I managed to write lots of comedy (still not fully perfected nor tested), practiced my drums, got my projects done and have maintained my workspace as 80% clean. Yet these past 10 days have seemed like the least... impactful to me. Perhaps it's because things haven't been going wild as usual? But speaking of wild, I finished watching all 6 episodes of the movie SAW. Yes, I love that movie! It's gory, but it's not the gore that attracts me, it's the deep meaning (as I said in my last entry).

I went for a hike yesterday before Sunset up the usual morning trail that leads up to the Peak, but this time I took a way different route, direction I am almost certain I've never ever taken and it was awesome! I think it's not a route many people take because along the way I only encountered 1 other person and I kept getting spider webs on me so that means there hasn't been much human activity around that area... the only bummer was that halfway through I had to turn back because I had a meeting later on.. otherwise I'd love to have seen where that path leads. There aren't any lights so I have to make sure I get there in time to go and come back before the sun goes down. Man this reminds me of that new years where I took a torch and went up that trail with no lights other than my own in the blazing cold! Woah, that was an awesome experience!

Speaking of experience, as I knew and has been reminded now by the 59 seconds book, using your money to buy experiences completely trumps buying material objects. I think for me, I've been seeing things as more than experiences but more like stories I can one day recall or tell. I mean when I re-read some of my old entries it really inspires me to know I went through those times. I mean good or bad, just to know I went through that is great! Thinking about the 14+ hours I had to sit on a plane just to experience New York for a couple of weeks completely smashes the idea of owning a new mobile phone or anything of that sort. Heck, the idea of being in New York smashes a lot of other things according to me :P

I've been watching a lot of stand up comedy lately partly because I'm in the comedy-study mode and also partly because I'm trying to improve my own skills at writing, delivering and just stage presence. I'm also excited because I have all these new bits I want to try out, refine and perfect. There are English open mics at the comedy club every tuesday night, but the bummer is that due to popular demand, each comic only gets 5 minutes to try material :\... that really bummed me out the last time I was there because I was only halfway through all my new ideas when i got the light signaling my time was up... darn. The odd thing I was actually quite upset that night, not really because of the time limit, but because I was so freaking excited to try my new bits out, it was like a kid who had rehearsed all week to sing a song and suddenly got told his performance got canceled... it's one of those disappointing feelings. Ah well, on a brighter note, this Friday's English show is going to be the comedy club's 500th show and you can bet your every dollar my new bits are going to be done that night! I they bomb though, woah that'd suck :P

Anyway, so here we go another 25 minutes up and another 10 days ahead to make the most of. I think since it's summer I'm going to go easy on myself and just enjoy it rather than expect to have a mind-blowing 10 days. Or maybe it's just the heat talking :P

Slashed into pieces

2010-08-01T12:43:00.002+08:00

Howdy! For everyone who was at the Slash concert, may I just say I felt like a young kid when he played the good ol' Guns N Roses songs? Oh man, I think I was probably 10 years old and things like "Tower Records" still existed in Hong Kong when I came across GNR...!

At the same time, it was awesome just being there and watching such a legend play! Just knowing that I'm a musician just like Slash is really motivating. Heck, it's inspired me to push myself even harder with my drummer (and so far things are working out, woohoo!).

On the other hand, having watched Tim Young doing stand up the week before also got my creative juices flowing and heck, I've got some new bits that have worked out nicely! I just came off a fantastic Chinese stand up comedy show last night at Champs Bar and even though the crowd was smaller than usual, they were a great crowd! Really responsive and smart! They were up for a good bout of wits and well, everyone killed and the audience loved it! :)

We're in the beginning of August which also means I'm all warmed up for the 2nd half of 2010! Lots of stuff to look forward to like the upcoming Karma Komedians show, then the crazy comedy festival and well the list goes on. The cool thing is, my comedy-writing flow has finally kicked off well with me getting that itch of "oh I don't feel right not having been writing today" :) That's a good sign of a healthy habit or deadly addiction. I'll take the first choice please!

So I recently watched the movie SAW and boy did I love it! It wasn't so much the gore that interested me, but more like the story behind all that stuff, when that drug addict woman admitted that after all the torture she went through, she actually got helped, it really rang bells and one of my top quotes that I live by "What doesn't kill you only makes you stronger" was flying everywhere! I've got the whole saw series and I plan on goring it out and burning my eyes with it. But today's far too good a day to be wasting it sitting at home staring at the same screen I look at most of the week.

On another note, I've also started a re-marathon (yes, re as in I've done this marathon before....) of the good ol' Indiana Jones movies. Ever since Lucasarts decided to remake the Monkey Island games (yes! This is the #1 game I've ever played in my life!) I've had to jog myself down memory lane everything lucasarts related! I am this close to re-installing games like Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis (which was my first adventure game I ever played and ever since then, I was hooked, I needed every single Lucasarts game in my blood!!!), but I know once that's on my computer, it's bye bye productivity! :P But the interesting thing is, I think having played all these puzzling adventure games really helped shape my thinking. Heck, if you expect to play Sam n Max hit the road, you better twist every sense of logic in your brain because the solutions to that game's problems was oh so bizarre!! Ahhh I loved it though, the 100+ hours I probably spent on each game was so worth it. Oh my goodness, not to mention the Alone in the Dark series!! Ok I better stop.

August also marks the month in which I screwed up my right knee on a junk trip last year and on a positive note, 1 year later it's all good. Well ok not all good, I still feel it's got some sense of weakness in it, but at least muscle-wise I'm back baby! No more super thin right leg because I can't put pressure on it! Squats, I love you so much more now! :) On a different note, I tried wake-boarding and boy did I suck. But now that I've had time to think about what I was doing, I realized that I was trying to control the board too much, to the point I was fighting it like I was saying "look I know what I'm doing! Just let me deal with you alright" when clearly I had no clue :P I guess that's a habit you develop after having to run a business that runs into problems you probably never encountered but at least know that you will somehow figure it out. Heck, that's like everyday to me, somehow things just work out one way or another. I was reading on Zenhabits that sometimes, the best goal is no goal. In some ways I agree, and some ways I don't. There's a fine line between being adventurous and being lazy. I guess the key point is to know that as long as you're doing, it doesn't matter too much if it's something you had planned to do or not. Much like when people ask me where I see myself and my life in 5 years, I often admit that I don't know, not because I haven't planned ahead but because there are far too many variables that planning 5 years ahead is like trying to predict the lottery numbers, it's possible but really unlikely. As long as I have general goals like "I want to be a great comedian", whether it means in 5 years I have my own TV show, or DVD or whatever doesn't matter, as long as each day I'm becoming a better comedian than I was yesterday, I am in some ways moving towards being a "great" comedian. Heck, my goal for today may not apply tomorrow! Who knows!

And in some ways that idea of no real goals is liberating. And speaking of liberating, it's time to get out and enjoy the blue sky! Wahoo!! :) Have a great 10 days!

'

Accepting free time

2010-07-21T11:25:00.002+08:00

This post is for all the workaholics out there. I've come to realize my biggest flaw before was that "free time" was associate with fear and guilt for me which was why I tried to keep myself busy at all times and the idea of "sit back and watch a movie" would seem like overkill to me. I mean, I'd watch movies but rarely all at one go, I'd be thinking "ok, I know usually after 40 minutes of relaxing, I'm recharged enough to get some stuff done" and so I pause the film and get back to getting things done....

But in came Sunday and boy was I burnt out, to the point I literally couldn't focus properly, the idea of having to focus while trying to drift in games like Need for Speed was already too much for me to handle, let alone take care of my projects. I didn't take me 40 minutes but more like 40 hours to get out of that funk! It wasn't until Monday night when I finally felt charged up again and ready to rock it out. I took some time that evening to kind of wonder if my life drastically got ruined because I had technically taken 40 hours of my potential work time and basically burnt them all away. In fact, I was quite happy because I had kind of done something -- watch movies that I always wanted to watch!

I think I finally realized it wasn't the free time that was bothering me and making me feel bad, it was the time I had when I had to "what shall I do?". That idea of sitting around wasting time not doing anything was what was getting to me. So instead, I re-organized my lovely to do list a bit more and now I'm even more ready for my work to-do's, my personal to-do's and my freetime to-do's. Of course freetime to-do's are kind of like personal to-do's except that they don't have any real deadline and are relaxing tasks rather than something I need to concentrate too hard on. Yes, if you've been following my blog, you'll know I like to schedule my rest periods :P.

So here I am on a Wednesday morning, while most of Hong Kong is at work, I'm here on my bed, enjoying a bit of me-time with this entry :). Speaking of me time, I've begun a new trend of hiking up to the peak (well half-way really) like I used to do around 1-2 years ago. It's really mentally clearing because whenever I go for that walk, I get to enjoy the peace, freshness and of course rejuvenation that comes along being in the greenery. Oh and I get my exercise on! :) It also helps me just walk away from all this crap around me for just 1 hour. I literally can go from my room to halfway to the peak and back home in just an hour! Yes, I kept track of this because it's better than me leaving the house, realizing I'm running short of time and rushing back home. Unlike the lovely treadmill at the gym, I can't just stop whenever I want to....

Speaking of the gym, I've been having quite an awesome workout lately, I've just gone nuts and adjusted my weights workouts according to how much I can take that day, each time trying to squeeze out that 1 extra rep. Heck, after the last 2 workouts, I've literally had 2 days of DOMS (delayed onset muscle soreness)! It's been a while since that happened to this point.

My comedy writing has improved as I've learned the power of the pomodoro technique and what you can do in 25 minutes. Not to mention having a better organization system for my comedy bits really helps!

Back to some thoughts I've had this week. I was reading a bunch of blog articles and many of them talked about simplifying your life and this has inspired me to kind of simplify my life and also add a few rituals to it. For example, my work desk is now strictly kept clear of all things not-work related. I don't care if it means throwing things on the floor but I don't want to see anything but my work stuff there. This also kind of forces me to keep my energy focused on work. Also, I've created a new ritual that once the sky is dark, I light one of my old scented candles from before (yes it hasn't finished) and turn on my lavalamp. I'm hoping to create one of those brain switches where your mind thinks you're in a different place, so I don't feel so stressed if I can't get everything done, to me, I'm home and there's no more rush like I have during the day. So far so good, but I'm lacking in music, the music I listen to during the day is the same music at night (yes I don't know what to listen to because I already listen to lounge music while I work)... so there's a little gap there in my plan, but hopefully I'll have solved that in 10 days before my next entry!

Well we're hitting the 25 minute mark of this entry and so far so good. I'm relaxed and my lovely inbox is at a Zero count (any gtd person's goal) so today seems like a day I can focus on a few things I've always wanted to take care of but never had the time and energy to do. Here's to 10 days of lots of freetime and no guilt! :D

Training Concubines

2010-07-11T21:40:00.003+08:00

Howdy! Woah 10 days already?! WTF?! Where did they zoom by!?
How are things with everyone. Today has been an up and down day for me, it's already 10pm and yet the many things I was all fired up to do today when I first woke up have zoomed past me :\. I think I'm getting more and more greedy day by day to the point sometimes when it's Sunday my laziness and greed start becoming good friends to attack me with wanting to do so much but constantly feeling like I deserve to take it easy and do it later. Ahaha then again, isn't that everyday for everyone?

So the interesting thing is that I finally got a chance to re-organize my room and workspace. I now enjoy much more space on my desk now that my monitors are pushed further back, my chair has been set to recline nicely backward so I can finally enjoy a lazy-boy like seating arrangement even when working (because some tasks need me to relax and do rather than be uber focused). The problem with this is obviously I now have a clutter of stuff that needs to fit into my currently lovely room. I got posters from a recent Chthonic show I was at and I really want to hang them up, but at the same time the big white virgin wall near my bed really shouldn't be messed with... once I ruin that wall it's all over, I'll start my obsession of filling it up completely...
For anyone who was at that show and was anywhere near me I apologize on behalf of my crazy sweating. It was hot like you won't believe but I was determined to keep my front spot right next to the guitar and in clear view of the drummer! Rah! Last time when I was at the Metal Safari show, I stood in the back (was having a really bad day that day so I was in no mood to mosh nor head bang) and boy did that suck...

Well, things are going wild as usual and now that I've worked out a better way of organizing myself and my daily routines, it sure as hell has improved in my staying consistent to my routines if not my work as well.

On the other hand, I've recently got myself hooked onto the show Hell's Kitchen. Let me just say, Gordon Ramsay is my kind of mentor/teacher. His brutally honest attitude is something I can so appreciate! But the sad truth is not a lot of people are used to that style. I've had many encounters where my straightforwardness with people have often driven them away or up the wall :P. I guess everyone has their own style really, but I'm a firm believer that the greatest students come from the harshest teachers. Heck, it's even something you read about in (my #1 favorite book!) Art of War! The story of the king telling Sun Tzu to train his concubines was one I really loved! That level of seriousness Sun Tzu took when spending his energy in training someone is exactly what I'm talking about. For many, this is far too extreme, but for me, this is the way to success. Sometimes you have to feel that sharp blade of a master's sword poking into you for you to wake up and realizing that achieving greatness is no joke. I recently had a chat with a friend who was thinking of starting a business. We chatted as usual but when it came down to real business, my mind switched gears and I kept asking her questions about her "business". The truth was she was still in the "what business should I start?" phase. This is fine, but it's the phase that many dream about, much like saying "what musical instrument shall I master?". It's a step everyone needs to take before they can ever dream of any musical abilities. But it's also the stage many people already give up or have no idea what they're getting into.

Heck, take my drumming for instance. Before I started playing, my observation of drummers was whoever was faster and louder was a better drummer. Now that I've actually played in front of a kit, I've learned to appreciate so much more, even those that may not be the fastest and loudest, I've learned that there is so much more to drumming that meets the layman's eye. Sure sometimes this makes you overcomplicate things when in the end no one really wants the complication, a simple groove would have done, but it also makes you realize there's so much more to drumming that just keeping a simple beat, you can make and break a song just through drumming!

I also recently did my monthly review of my personal goals and was happy to see that my drumming has improved significantly in the last 30 days! I'm on track with many of my other goals but on the other hand, there are a few that I am far from where I should be, now being July already! An interesting fact I've discovered is that I've recently developed a new value for time. For free time or basically time that has potential. If I knew I was on my way home and I'd probably just plop into bed with a snack and watch comedy then sleep, I'd probably not rush home because I won't be saving myself any significant productive time. Sure it's feel good time but if I were to, say, take a taxi to gain more feel-good time, I'd probably not do it. But if I knew that by getting home sooner, I could prepare myself better for tomorrow, when I wake up, then chances are I'd zoom back and make sure it was worth it! The more I've done this, the more I've realized that my time is getting more and more precious. Perhaps also because my time is getting less and less now that I'm reaching higher levels in many things I'm doing (I used to be able to practice for 1 hour at my drums and cover a wide range of things, but now 1 hour really means absolutely no more than 3 exercises if I really, really crammed).

Perhaps this is also why I've realized my patience has reduced when it comes to time-wasting people. I used to convince myself that sometimes, you have to let go and let someone work the way they work at the pace they like and you just follow. But recently, if someone is wasting my time, I usually tell them to leave and end up wasting my time to do the task instead. This sparked when I was watching Hell's Kitchen where Gordon had a no mercy attitude towards the Chefs because you either do things at 100% of get out of his way. Many chefs crumbled under that pressure while others cracked but realized what doesn't kill you only makes you stronger and ended up learning a very good lesson through all that torment. As they say, no pain no gain.

I guess after these crazy 10 days, and even writing this blog for so long, every time I re-read even just myself from 10 days ago, it makes me feel good about the paths I took and the sacrifices I made. I'm sure a lot of people reading this can relate and I can only say, there are always going to be people around you who mock you for your passion, your methods of achieving your goals and straight tell you you won't succeed. But you know what? With that attitude, neither will they. So trust yourself, failure is not an option and go for it! Consider yourself as your own concubine, and don't end up slitting your own throat! :D

Let's rock these next 10 days out! :D

1 July 2010 = 1st day of calm

2010-07-01T16:41:00.003+08:00

Howdy. Today's a public holiday and finally a sense of calmness has arrived. I'm at a coffee shop typing this because I just had a meeting and well got a little time on my hand. I could have gone and gotten more stuff done but heck, it's not everyday I find myself in a coffee shop...

So how has everyone been doing? I've been great, well quite great as I've spent a heck of a lot of time refining (yet again) my Remember the Milk system and now, after the addition of a little tweak to my lovely A Bit Better RTM greasemonkey plugin, I now feel even better when I get my stuff because I have a clean list of to do's. Now it's really out of sight, out of mind for me :)

So this last month has seen a mixture of craziness and more craziness for me. Heck the last 10 days has included my 2nd experience at announcing for Legend Fighting Championship! Check it out, this is an awesome photo of me in a tux! The show was great, even grander than the first one! And for all of you interested, check it out on KIX on 17 July 2010 in the evening! I'm not exactly sure what time, but let's see :)

On the other hand, Bernadette Pauley was here in Hong Kong, it was great seeing her again and I got to host one of her shows :) Good stuff there, I loved one of her bits complaining about how the bank was the stupid one to even issue her a Credit Card now that they're chasing her to pay her minimum payment. Anyways, you had to be there to enjoy it!

Well I have to say I'm in quite a good mood because I've managed to allow myself to take today off (well kind of off) and focus on rest and relaxation. After reading 53043204924024 articles about the importance of rest, I felt it was time I really genuinely allowed myself that. Also, today being the 1st, I do a review-of-the-last-month and I was quite content with my performance so I figured today I really deserved a day off :) Then again, I can compensate this weekend....

Also, we're into the 50% of 2010! Wahoo!! On a brighter note, a lot of my goals have been working well, my comedy has been picking up with new bits flowing well and I am looking forward to all the crazy events coming up soon. I'm currently working on my comedian website, so stay tuned! As for my drumming, things are good, I've had to cut down my practice to at most 40minutes a day because of work but heck, I've come to accepting that 40mins is better than 0mins! :) I read an article about how we're so easily discouraged if we are partially satisfied with our goals that really can do with partial satisfaction. In other words, if I only have 30 minutes when I should take 1 hour to practice drums, it's better that I enjoy the 30 minutes than whine that I couldn't complete the hour. The same goes for comedy. I no longer try to schedule 1 hour and if I can't spare 1 hour, I still work on it as much as I can :) So there, that's a lesson I learned, digested and have added to my life in the first 50% of 2010 :)

Anyways, going to get out of this coffeeshop now, it's too good a day to waste indoors only :)

The toughest nears its end

2010-06-21T10:39:00.002+08:00

Howdy! Here I am on a bright Monday morning, enjoying my pomodoro technique counter and good music. It's been a crazy last few days and the madness continues in more exciting as I am announcing Legend Fighting Championship 2 this Thursday! Boy I am nervous and excited. Nervous because this is getting to be a bigger and bigger deal! Excited because, dude, announcer, mixed martial arts, need I say more?!
So check this out, you know how I love productivity and I'm going to refine, refine, refine my systems/process till it's perfect (ie. never) and guess what, in some ways I'm getting there. Right now, when I get a simple thought of something, I've made it dead easy for me to add it to my to do list inbox. Now that sounds great right? Wait till 9pm when I have to clear my inbox. Now one may think oh some of your ideas may not seem so interesting by then. To avoid myself from easily discarding ideas that may be a diamond in the rough, when processing my inbox, I tell myself I do not need to do any of these, even if it's a less-than-2-minutes task so I can at least process my inbox first. Now, after processing, I'm down with more new to do's in my list of things to achieve each day. The biggest issue is that this process has become so efficient that I out produce myself very often. Because many of my sudden ideas (eg. buy bananas) are good ideas that can be achieved, I end up never ever having an empty to do list! Not to mention my daily recurring tasks (eg. updating rootein.com) :P Sometimes, oddly, I look forward to 9pm just so I can do my daily routine work and get it out of the way heh.
So I've been having a tough time finding good background music to work with, I'm sick of Buddha Bar and have been trying all sorts of other stuff, from white noise, to rain water, to percussion music. They're good but none last as long as Buddha Bar did because after a couple of hours, the songs start to repeat and I notice and that's when I get bored of it :P Yes, I'm fussy.
So I went to go watch Chicago last week. Good stuff! Reminded me of my broadway experience while I was in New York. But I have to say Phantom of the Opera still wins for me. Hmm, actually, that'd be a good choice of songs to listen to while working *changes tracks*. Ahhh good stuff, love this sound track.
So the last 10 days has seen me go from having to wake up at 6:30am for an MC gig to stressing the crap out of myself for a recent one because it was to be a very formal gig. I realize the more and more I do it, the better I get at certain phrases one would say. Also, the gap between my English and Chinese MC is quite big really. I guess with English because I know how to be very formal, it comes easy, but with Chinese, some of the formal terms are so new to me, I literally just memorize the sound of the words and say it.... heh. Guess improve formal cantonese has to go on my to do list? :P
Alright, hitting the last 5 minutes of my focus session and I just want to say hey everyone we're hitting 50% of 2010! It's a good time to stop and go hmmmmmm? I know I did and it sure as hell helped a lot, at least I wake up every morning knowing what I need to do with myself and charge through my day immediately, I don't like sitting there while I'm refreshed going hmm? I've come to realize the best time to assign (and only assign) tasks is when your day is pretty much over and you're just assigning tasks for the next day. The reason is because I know I'm not going to do it now and I'm going to bed soon so I'll get some rest, so I'm happily to honestly assign a set of things to get done the next day. When I wake up, boom do do do do done! You should try that too, before we hit July, it's a good time to write out all the things you wanted to get done this year and tell yourself "I only need to start in July" and what may happen is that you want to give yourself a headstart and so you may start working at them at the end of June! Technically you're already late since we're in June! Not January! But this psychological trick does work, you feel ahead of the game. That ahead of the game feeling makes a biiiiiiiiiiig difference to your chance of achieving. I read an article about waking up early and how that ahead of the game feeling forces you to keep achieving because you want to stay ahead rather than just catch up. Sure I used to wake up at 6am and really feel that, but now my ahead of the game comes from simply being on task with my own schedule and workload :)
In 10 days, it'll be 1 July 2010! Let's rock it out!

The Italian Tomato

2010-06-11T11:33:00.002+08:00

I'm baaacckk!!! Woah, and on time for a day 10 entry!
So this week has been the usual, busy, hectic, high-pressure, high-stress and the always positive productive.
Yep, productive because I think I've finally found something that is working very well for my personal style. It's called the Pomodoro Technique. For those of you who are not familiar with this, it's basically the concept of focusing, really focusing for short burts of time rather than try to do everything, all the time. The idea is that for 25 minutes, you have a timer on and within those 25 mins you do only one task. The best thing is that the idea of 25 minutes doesn't sound a lot even though it's really almost half an hour! Usually when I do stuff, I look at the clock and go "here goes the hours" and the next time I look it's 2 hours only... but now with this 25 minutes idea, I know that time won't fly and there's a little rest/reward waiting for me very soon. Not to mention, the idea of "I'll deal with that stuff in 25 minutes" is really re-assuring since you no longer feel the pressure of things just piling up constantly while you're trying to accomplish one task.
On the other hand, to avoid even more distractions, I'm currently enjoying email notifications using Scott's Gmail Alert Notifier for Windows. I've set it to check emails every 20 minutes (used to be 15 minutes) and things are going smoothly. Combine that with the extremely awesome ActiveInbox and I've got me a great set up.
Back to the pomodoro technique. The best thing about this is that you're supposed to hear the ticking sound of the timer as it ticks away every second. Sometimes this can get annoying because it requires that I turn off all my music in the background, but sometimes, it's like a hypnotizing sound that keeps me extremely focused!
Now speaking of the reward, after 25 minutes, you're supposed to take a short 5 minutes break, then get back to the task on hand. To be honest, 5 minutes isn't enough for me so I usually push it to 10 minutes. But the idea that 25+5 = 30 minutes means you can have 2 really focused blocks of time within just 1 hour! And you're less burnt out than working 1 hour straight and requiring 20 - 30 minutes to recover!
So far so good, although I'm really only on day 3 of this technique, it's helped me get a lot of stuff done.
I've also realized that I need to work on my out of sight, out of mind thinking. When I don't see stuff on my to do list, I really shouldn't be thinking about it. There's a reason it doesn't show up there because it's not something I should/need to deal with right now and I can relax for a while. I'm getting better at this because I'm growing more and more confident in my organization skills that I trust the me who decided something could be tended to later had a reason to make that decision back then.
On the other hand, my comedy writing is back on track but I feel I've gotten rusty with my creative writing skills. The bright side is that I've worked out a better organization system for my notes and ideas.
The key is to make sure gathering random ideas should be extremely easy to do. I should not feel like I'm putting much effort into noting down funny ideas. Of course, this will mean a lot of rubbish ideas get added to my system too. But that's where the filtering day comes in. During the filter process, I usually look at my random ideas after a few days and harshly judge if I think there's something there or it just is not funny to me anymore. Delete the bad ideas? Never. Anyone who knows me realizes that my need to log everything down extends to my ideas, I couldn't live with myself throwing away an idea, be it good or bad! So I just mark it as a bad idea and keep it elsewhere in the system out of my sight. Who knows it may be funny again one day!
My fitness routine has taken an upgrade because I've worked out some better nutritional habits that have helped me better recover from workouts. I still have to figure out a way to minimize the fatigue I feel near the last 10 minutes of my workouts. May I also say I have become a real addict to Promax Double Fudge Brownie bars. Partly also because I've been on the run this whole last 10 days so I've consumed, literally 1 a day while running from here to there. At least it gives me a smile when I stop and eat one of these :) mmm
And finally, we're reaching the 2:30 mark of my 25 minutes session, so I'm going to wrap things up. I've been re-thinking about a lot of my personal systems that I've been using and have found areas where I really could use an improvement, chances are I'm not alone or someone has found a similar solution. But what I've found what Abraham Lincoln said “Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.” to be extremely true. I mean I always believed it, but boy does it pay to better prepare and plan. Now that I plan the next day before I go to bed religiously, I feel like after a good night's rest, all I have to do is...well... focus on doing! The same with my systems, with proper systems in place, I no longer need to worry about the administration side of things, all I need to do is, do things! Be productive, not organized!
Separately organization with productivity has been a blessing in disguise! :)
Time's up! Have a fun 10 days!

The shakiness begins again

2010-06-01T13:37:00.002+08:00

Woah, it's been a while since I've felt this overwhelmed with...stuff. I mean seriously, I haven't seen my to do list empty in the last 10 days no matter how hard I try! I was supposed to re-think my daily 24 hour schedule so I could better slot in my Chinese comedy writing, but I have literally written 0% comedy in the last 10 days.... damnit.

Well, on a brighter note, today is the first day in a while since I didn't need to have a packed day of meetings, so I'm at least able to focus on my own things today (well by own I mean actually sit and clear my 58353853028042 to do's!). So far no good. Ahaha, my inbox has been growing all morning so for every 1 thing I get done, suddenly 2 creep up :\.

And here we are in June, the 6th month of the year. In 30 days we'll have reached the 50% mark of 2010. Woah. That's really quite intimidating. Heck, today's already the 152nd day of the year! 152 days already! Woah!

So after a year and a half use of my lovely iRiver E100 mp3, I've finally caved and decided it needs to be replaced. The slot where I insert my headphone jack was loose and I could barely listen to 10seconds of a song without crackling and other noise. Yes I want clarity in my heavy metal music. Ironic but true. So I was looking around at mp3's yesterday and came across the Samsung YP-CP3 and it was this close to going into my pocket (and adding itself to my lovely monthly expenses) before I realized, a HK$600 investment here may not be worth it. Especially since I so badly want to change my extremely shitty Windows Mobile phone. But the only awesome Android based phone I am totally in love with is the Motorola Milestone which is going to set me back almost HK$4000! I've been eyeing this device for a while already but I can't justify the spending of that amount of money just to put a smile on my face. I mean, my current phone as shitty as it is, still is functional and I get what I need to do done on it. Even things that don't work well, I've found ways to hack around and make it do what I need it to do for me. So why the upgrade right? I mean, seeing as the Milestone can also be an mp3 player is an extremely attractive thing and instead of buying a separate mp3 player for HK$600 I could use this, but then what about the other HK$3400 I'd have to add to it? Ok so if I sell my current phone as second hand I can get HK$500 for it. OK, so we need to justify HK$2900. Ahaha and that just ended all my fantasies.

On a better note, at least I've promised myself that this coming christmas I'm getting rid of my current phone, it'll be 2 years old and I'll finally be able to accept it as insufficient and done what it could do for me in the last 2 years.

So here I am back at square one. No new phone, no new mp3 player, no progress in comedy writing, busy as hell and basically where I was 10 days ago. Sure a lot happened during this time but from a personal level, I don't feel like I've progressed at all....damnit. So I really don't have much to share here other than keeping my fingers crossed and well hoping for the best in the next 10 days. I can feel a major blog entry (every 6 months) right round the corner so I sure as hell want to make sure I have stuff to celebrate by then :)

Enjoy the 10 days of (hopefully) peace and good times :)

The bad sleep begins

2010-05-21T11:51:00.002+08:00

This is really strange. I've been sleeping quite badly lately, waking up feeling tired and my eyes hot. I don't know if it's because of the hot hot hot weather and the fact that I will not turn on the air-conditioner (well partly because there's a nest of birds on the a/c and if I turn it on, it'll disturb them. Actually these birds come here every time, this is like their home now. Even after a storm or typhoon, they come back here to rebuild their nest...heh

Well I have officially not practiced drums for 4 days (today being day 5) and I feel horrible about it. However, I am actually mentally quite tired from the whole week and if I were to practice anything today, it'd be a joke really. I think I've reached a point of Central Nervous System exhaustion where I am just... tired form inside. The good thing is today is Friday and it's Buddha's birthday so I can kind of get away with really resting a bit. Although I have a comedy show tonight, at least it'll give me the day to get some relax time.

I started re-watching the Killswitch Engage: Set This World Ablaze DVD. It's interesting to see that even bands like that have gone through what every small and unknown band goes through. Playing shows for 2 - 10 people in the audience. I remember some of our shows have had literally 4 - 5 people standing there cringing and they try to understand how we're calling ourselves musicians.

I have to say, it brings me great motivation when I just watch the progress of my band, well most of my bandmates. We're all taking this band more seriously than ever and it has been showing. Last night some of us met up to discuss plans for the future and also work on our new band image/logo/font. We got tired of the old style because too many people were using that font, from barber shops to even movie titles! Yikes! Well at least it forced us to really think about our logo this time because we're not going to change it. On another note, it has also forced us to better understand the roots of Eve of Sin, both the meaning of each word, the meaning to us as a band and the meaning behind how it has grown and matured.

Damn, the more I think about my band, the more I just want to go practice some drums even if I'm not feeling physically up to it! Ahaha I'll give myself 30 mins of rest and then see if the food I just ate has digested and filled up my muscles :)

Well, this entry is more like a step backwards as I've been realizing more and more that I need to learn to stop and rethink if my strategies are working. For example, my comedy writing idea of changing writing time to 9:30pm has completely failed me. Like completely, not only have I not written as much as before, now when it's 9:30pm, my creative juices are completely non-existent and all I want to do is finish what I have on hand, not add anymore to it :P

I guess it's understandable. I've also read about how different people have different time cycles for different things. Some are more creative in the morning, others at night and so on. I've got my drum and workout times right, my work time is also clear now, but my comedy writing time is the one that gets sacrificed right after rest time :P...I guess somehow my brain feels it's too relaxing and can be given up??! Anyways, so here's to the long weekend and a chance for me to step back and re-work the way I perfect the 24 hours I have each day. I have 240hours to perfect this before I come back here and share my results with the world!!

Wahoo!

Walk

2010-05-11T01:06:00.003+08:00

I've come to realize it's been quite a while since I decided to take myself and go for my lovely random walks to nowhere. I really miss that peaceful time I often spent with myself, where I'd follow no schedule other than my mood and as long as what I wanted was within budget (my bank account has no feelings) I'd go for it. I'd randomly see the next movie in the cinema nearest to me, or even eat a frozen yogurt provided I kept walking while munching it away. Heck, I remember once even taking a bus, getting off in the most dead area where I could almost see no signs of anything to do or enjoy, and just keep walking until I get somewhere.

Walk. I was reminded by this when I checked out this song:

Yes, for all of you who didn't realize, that's Walk by Pantera. I've been doing a lot of studying of the band and their style titled "groove" metal is very obvious now that I've actually put a conscious effort into figuring out the drum beats. There's so much to learn there.
I would really enjoy just listening to their songs and going for a walk, heck it sure as hell felt good listening to Walk while working out at the gym! :)

Tomorrow's Tuesday and my schedule is quite empty. Wait, I mean my calendar, as in I don't have any meetings lined up, but my to do list is massive. Holy crap, it's actually really overwhelming. I think the fact that I've gotten more and more organized is actually draining me faster because it has all become such a functional system that it no longer used to go "out of order" every now and then but has become a very efficient (and thus energy-consuming) system. Problem is, I'm finding it harder and harder to replenish that energy in time to keep things going smoothly. Who would have thought over-productivity would not be good either.

The cool thing is over the years I have learnt so much about myself (like how long a certain type of food keeps me full or how long it takes me to mentally be relaxed enough to work again), I am able to plan my days better than ever now. In fact, every night before sleeping, I have to plan the next day, which really kicks start so many things. I know I mentioned this before, but it deserves a reminder. Just going to bed knowing you have tomorrow down to the hour, you sleep so much better and know you're going to kick start your day!

But it also tells you what you cannot do. I know I'm not going to be able to just go for a random walk tomorrow because honestly, my schedule is packed as hell! I've got projects I have to tend to that really should have been dealt with a few days ago.

So the last 10 days have been awesome. I have to say awesome because I finally expired doing 4 comedy sets around Hong Kong all in less than 10 hours! Ahaha 5 sets if you make it 20 hours! It was awesome, do a set, pack up, travel, do a set, pack up, travel, do a set, pack up, travel, do a set, pack up, burn out. Ahaha the more I do this the more I realize I really enjoy performing. Especially since 2 of those 4 sets was for a fund-raising comedython, the joy of knowing people were giving to a good cause thanks to my (and others') performance was so satisfying. Kind of like instead of me just taking out my wallet and donating on my own, I created something that caused 10 other people to donate instead. I guess it's that satisfying feeling to know that something I created made a difference. What may have seemed like an innocent piece of humor had such great impact. I'm slowly understanding a true artist's mentality of making a difference to the world. I mean, heck I bet when Pantera was still a bunch of youngsters back in their glam rock days, none of them would have thought how they'd influence someone like me! The more I listen to their music and really study it, the more I feel like I missed out before when I used to just listen to it blindly. I mean, it's not wrong to freely listen to music, but to really study it takes you to a whole new level, the details, the creativity, woah.

I guess in some ways it even trains you to realize that everything in life is deeper than you realize. Heck, when I first started drumming, it confused me how someone could practice for 8 hours a day and still feel it wasn't enough. Heck, my practicing just 1 hour a day feels like I'm barely scraping the surface of what I want to learn....

Speaking of 1 hour a day, my comedy writing has taken a turn for the worse, partly because I'm struggling to find a way to get back into the routine of writing daily. With drumming and my exercise, I have a great functional plan. However, with comedy, what's happening is that things are everywhere, messy and I often don't get to review where I was, what I wrote, etc. properly which is slowly killing my process. I've been spending a bit of time reading about how other writers work their stuff out but none of their methods/processes are what works for me :\

Anyway, it's like 2:30am and I got to wake up in time tomorrow so my schedule doesn't get thrown out the window, so I shall stop here, and only hope that in 10 days my comedy career will be taking off again in terms of new material.

10 days of insane

2010-04-29T22:54:00.003+08:00

Hello! How is everyone doing?
So the past 10 (well 12 really) days have been a killer for me, ranging from an awesome English comedy show to the CD Release Party for the Underground Compilation CD#3 (yes, my band Eve of Sin is featured on that disc! Wahoo!). I spent time getting interviewed by students for projects, checking out Chris Brien at a drum clinic and even had my band go on RadioDaDa!
Poof! Here I am tonight, I'm supposed to be making some modifications to a few of my projects but I'm seriously at a point of mental exhaustion that deserves a bit of R&R.

Ever had those weeks that zoom by you so fast but you just know you did a lot, yet feel like holding on to every ounce of time you can get your hands on because you don't want the day to end just yet? I'm feeling like that because it's 11:25pm yet I'm itching to do more and more and more tonight! I'm glad I got my must-do-this-today-or-else-I'll-feel-guilty stuff out of the way, but I really wish I was a bit less drained because I'm really itching to write some new comedy or at least work on some stuff I've got that is a bit raw. My comedy manager has given me a new challenge where I need to host a night's worth of comedy but I'm literally not allowed to fall back on my material. That means 100% riffing. Woah, I am stoked about this challenge but it's quite scary really. I mean, it's going to be hard to convince myself that I'm going to have to hope for the best during the moment, not just during my set, but the whole night! Yikes! But I guess, it brings me peace when I remember the lovely chapter in one of my top favorite books How to Think like Leonardo DaVinci titled Sfumato which talks about the ability to embrace ambiguity and the unknown. Boy has that chapter influenced me big time! I guess at times it's hard to live a life where you don't know what to expect in the next 24 hours, but then again, when you really think about it, we're doing this all the time!

On a brighter note, I've got some good routines down that I've followed well and have worked out for me. If you've been following my blog, you'll know I always like to superset my mental work with physical work and I've managed to do so quite well for my freelance web work, my drum practice sessions and my fitness exercise. I've been struggling a bit for my comedy writing because that actually requires me to be both physically and mentally rested to do it. It involves me thinking of ideas and then working them out through words and body language combined! It's hard because I usually have to rest for around 40 minutes before I am ready to write comedy, but to find 40 minutes, then another hour in the middle of the day before I'm burnt out like I am now is a real challenge. Anyone have any suggestions. I've combined the use of comedy to relaxing music and so far I've found that 40 minutes it the minimum for me to be excited about writing comedy. If I just watch, say, a 20 minute sitcom, I'm usually rested but not motivated... hmm. Guess I have work to do in that department.

I've also developed an improved workflow for my projects using a combination of Remember the Milk (I love it!) and GTD inbox. Actually, the main enhancement that GTD Inbox does for me is give me easy to use buttons to label mail posts. Other than that, I don't fully utilize its other functions. I've come to realize I've got a division of next actions:

Urgent and important (ie. DO IT NOW!)
Urgent but not important (ie. Do it by today)
Not urgent but important (ie. Reply people about something or deal with something that involves someone else because I'm holding them up...)
Not urgent and not important (ie. someday/maybe)

Going back to my comedy, now that I've gotten in the habit of writing more and more I need to figure out a better way of organizing my stuff, I've got Evernote, Google Documents, Ommwriter, plain notes, freaking everything with ideas/bits! Raahh!!
I think I might spend some time this weekend to just sort out a proper system for myself, it's driving me nuts as I go back and find I have like 3 versions of the same bit that all have something different to them and then notes on what people's feedback was, etc. Ahaha again, people like Albert Einstein and Leonardo DaVinci had the same problem. But that is no excuse :)

A cool thing that I have got organized is my drumming practice. Boy did that take me some time to figure out, I had to go back and look at all my drum books and resources and figure out what combination of exercises would benefit me the most. I now realize why the great drummers spend up to 8 hours a day practicing, sheesh, there's so much to practice! Heck, I spent an hour just doing a range of 35bpm(ie. 110bpm -> 145bpm eight notes) worth of single strokes (R L R L R L, etc.)!!! This RMP-5 is a blessing and curse! Ahaha setting it on Stroke Balance and Coach totally rips you apart with timing! Especially when you're at slow tempos! I love it nonetheless! It was a fantastic upgrade from my old Boss DR.Beat 90 which had a similar function.

Anyway, let's see, I've got 10 days to sort myself out and get my comedy writing up to par! Let's see how it goes! :D

Lamb of God Live!

2010-04-18T15:31:00.002+08:00

No, you clearly don't get the magnitude of how this event has affected me. Why do I say that because it's been a week and I have yet to fully register and digest that I was watching Lamb of God live! Not just live, but my bandmates and I managed to power our way to the middle of the first row. So what? Check out how close I was to Randy and the rest of the performers...

Do you get what I mean now? Not only did I secure pretty much the best damn position of the night, the band played every freaking song we all wanted. We managed to get a partially torn run-down from the event and after double-checking, they literally played every single song I was hoping for and more. Heck, they even played ruin! Ruin!

That was pretty much what I was watching live in front of me!
After the show, my bandmates and I were so psyched and inspired we literally walked for 20 minutes without a clue where we were heading but just talking about how freaking satisfied we were. The price of flying to Taiwan just to watch Lamb of God was so worth it!
Ever since then, I have been completely re-inspired drum-wise and also about my band. We had deep talks about what we wanted to do as a band and it's great to see everyone kind of got a wake up call to really make this band, this thing we call Eve of Sin, happen. I'm not just talking about gigs in HK and around the city, I'm talking touring and going places. If Lamb of God can do it, there's no reason we can't.

Speaking of being inspired, the great Butch Bradley has been performing the last 3 days in Hong Kong and I watched 2 of his shows as well. Last night's show, I got to sit in the front because there were 2 empty seats that were supposed to be taken but for some reason, the people moved to another seat so I got to fill up the seat! It was the first time for me to enjoy a professional comic from that seat. As a fellow comic, we usually don't sit that close nor interact with the performer, but woah, talk about a whole different situation sitting up there. It has a certain fear and excitement associated with it. Kind of like walking home on your birthday not knowing what to expect, a surprise, or just a cake, or what?

But the last 10 days have honestly been a really, really hectic one for me. I have to say it's been quite tough on me as well because I've had to stay in tip top focus throughout. I remember Monday being all re-energized after my Taiwan trip, but here we are a week later, I can feel the exhaustion, partly also because I've been struggling to try to maintain everything I want, work, drumming, comedy writing, working out, etc. and it really is tiring. Poof! I wrote down a break down of my day and it turns out that if I wanted to achieve everything I wanted, I'd only have 6 hours left for my actual freelance work. This is not including the usual loss of time in general work, sometimes needing to take an extra 20 minutes of rest, etc.! Yikes! Heck, today I was supposed to write comedy from 2:45 - 3:45pm and it's 3:45pm and here I am blogging instead. Why? Well, at 2:45pm, I was still mentally exhausted and it felt like I had so many other things to think about, I couldn't be relaxed and write comedy. On top of that, I was supposed to go to the gym later on but now I don't think I will because my right ankle is a bit sore from all the walking and standing yesterday. Heh.

It's tough forcing myself to not do something when I have so many other things I want to do and I can't do them yet, just makes me feel like I'm going against my principle of getting things done.. heh.

On a brighter note, I upgraded my drumming practice pad to the lovely Roland RMP-5 which forces me to be even cleaner with my drum strokes because it has a meter that checks how close your strokes were to the beat and I've realized my left hand is a tad off when I go above 260bpm hitting eighth notes :(. Darn. At least this is a good benchmark and as long as I keep at it I should see improvements in the upcoming weeks :)

My comedy writing has been slacking because I'm finding it so hard to get to a point I'm relaxed enough to write stupidly at times, there are too many things I need to tend to that writing creatively is getting tough. Especially in my own room because wherever I look, something needs to be done. I'm still in the process of figuring out a way to perhaps have a fixed outing where I go and sit with my laptop and write for an hour. There's a park down my house and perhaps I could do that, but I'll have to give it a shot and see. At least that way I have no distractions other than myself to blame for getting nothing done :P

Darn, I feel like I was 2 years ago, when I was struggling to maintain my freelance work because I didn't have a proper system to keep track of everything going on and now I've got that, which makes me better realize what is going on and further stress me out about how I should be dealing with that instead. Ahh ignorance is bliss.

Speaking of ignorance, Adobe CS5 has come out and boy am I psyched! It's the perfect opportunity for me to re-visit from the ground up, everything I missed out in my favorite digital media applications. I'm still in the process of organizing a study schedule for them and will probably slip in 30 mins a day before I go to bed just so that I don't interrupt the rest of my day and feel there's yet another thing to do....

Anyway, I got 10 more days to figure out a good system and get myself back in my good ol' routine (at least I'm tired of getting you're slacking off emails from rootein.com...) Have fun! Lamb of God LIVE! OMFG!

Earliest + Shorted Blog Entry Yet

2010-04-08T05:25:00.002+08:00

Good morning everyone! It's 5:25am and here I am getting ready to go... go off to Taiwan... go off to Taiwan to watch Lamb of God live... go off to Taiwan to watch Lamb of God live with my band mates!

Every time I go on a trip, somehow things just have to get hectic on the last day here. I'm running on a little under 4 hours of sleep and it's freezing cold here. But no matter what I make it to the trip and it is awesome.

So here's to the next 4 days in Taiwan and enjoying some time without my phone ringing constantly combined with a little sinful pleasure that I allow myself on every trip overseas -- eating anything and everything! Let the fattening up and satisfaction of my taste buds begin! :D

Take care of Hong Kong while I'm away! :)

The truth about the better ones

2010-03-29T11:28:00.002+08:00

“It's not that I'm so smart; it's just that I stay with problems longer.”

This is one of Albert Einstein's famous quotes. As many of you know, I'm a big fan of his and this one quote always sticks in my head every time I'm edging on failure and hopelessness. The more I read about great people the more I realize the reason their quotes are so...inspiring is because they themselves were very inspiring people. The more I enhance myself, the more I appreciate what they do. A true leader is one who makes his/her followers find a better part of themselves they would have never discovered on their own. Isaac Newton's confession that the reason he could see further was because he was standing on the shoulder of giants is a perfect example for this.

The more I study comedians, drummers, fitness trainers, designers and just people in general, the more I realize it's not so much the set of cards you were dealt with, it's what you do with it. How many possible combinations or strategies did you really think of before you decided to fold and let destiny decide your future? I have yet to find a successful person I admire who said the only reason they achieved what they did was because they had a head start with good fortune growing up. At the end of the day, it's your effort that really counts. Even if Michael Phelps was gifted with the perfect body for swimming, he still had to put in that time and effort of training to get the gold medals he got. The more I play drums, the more I realize it's not a matter of physical fitness but personal technique that counts. As my technique improves, I realize the reason I couldn't get to where I wanted was simply bad technique. It's like using a blunt saw to cut logs. You could be super strong but you're wasting your time and effort nonetheless. As Abe Lincoln said in his productivity tip about sharpening your saw before trying to cut a tree.

It's quite a shame to be honest because the more people I meet, the more I realize that people are giving up too easily because they classify themselves as "not great" and have accepted the reality of that. When I hear people say "I'm not good at computers!" and get frustrated, I used to sit and explain to them that just like getting fit, getting good at the computer requires constant effort which will pay you back in time saved from using better technique. To be honest, sometimes it even frustrates me to the point I walk away when I see people wasting their own time whining about something in their life. The world has honestly fallen into the pits of quick fixes and faster results. The issue is that people have forgotten the joys of a journey.

Hiking isn't about the destination, it's the path of getting there that is fun. No one would watch sports if all they cared about was the final score. If you took a pill that could make you go from flabby to fit in 24 hours, you're missing out on that great feeling you have after a month when you find out your body fat went down 2%. You're losing that great "It took a lot of work, but I did it" confidence booster because now you can't thank yourself for getting you there. I mean, it's like getting on a bus, waiting for the bus to get you to your destination and getting off. Yay... or something. But had you walked all the way, you'd be impressed "woah, I can't believe I walked all this way!"

Anyway, on a more positive note, I recently did another comedy gig for the promotion of mental health and happiness and after the gig, this kid who's nickname was "bus" came up to me while I was leaving the venue and told me he was a biiiggg fan of mine, to the point he'd watched the shows I hosted on TV and even noticed that the TakeOut Comedy website was done by me! :P He had a stutter but was so passionate about wanting to meet me :) It felt great to know that I had in some way touched someone's life that way, but it also felt good because he was brave enough to pursue his goal of meeting me :) I told him to add me on facebook and we could be email/pen pals :) I really hope he adds me, it'd be great to share stories with him.

This really makes me stop and wonder, as much as we know the end product of people like Albert Einstein, how many people did they interact with throughout their lives who just knew Einstein as a normal person? I'm really curious to know.... maybe I'll find out within the next 10 days? :)

What? 10 days already?!

2010-03-17T15:37:00.003+08:00

Ahaha to be honest, it felt like 10 days today and when I woke up to see my GTD say it was time for an entry, it felt so...right :P
I guess this has finally become a part of me, kind of like how you feel like it's time for a smoke or even a break... the interesting thing is that I'm currently going through what is technically the calm after the storm. Last week was stress stress stress! But this week has been a bit more positive for me... except for one little incident.

I suddenly got an email from the lovely inland revenue department that I had overdue taxes! Overdue!!! First of all, I had paid my taxes already and then submitted some adjustments later, which were given the green light of not having to pay anything more (in black and white) and then out of nowhere, I get an email today saying I got a 5% penalty slapped on to some taxes I never paid....WTF?! You know what the oddest thing is, it's not the fact that I have to now slap down some money to the government or that they are charging me extra, but the fact that they accused me for being late on my payment.

Anyway, so I actually wrote the above 2 paragraphs yesterday and here I am here a day later.. so technically I'm on time and late for my entry :P Oh well, the joy of self-discipline, you get to slack off by trying and not completing ;P and considering incompletion as progress :P

It's been a crazy last 10 days giving me a very stressful time in my life to a very relaxed time in my life. In the last 10 days I have literally stressed, starved, sweated my ass off, rested, smiled, enjoyed and experienced everything. Oh and let's not forget the number of interruptions I've had to deal with as well. Heck, just writing these last 2 paragraphs has taken me over an hour because of all the phone calls from clients being thrown at me. Don't get me wrong, I'm happy to get calls from clients, I'd be worried if the phone never rang for days...

Speaking of phones, my trusty HP iPaq 912 is starting to give me problems... it's really strange, it's like how Windows gets after a while of using it, it just.. slows down.. for some reason it's getting unstable and slower and slower... I'm probably going to give it a hard reset soon and restore everything on it, but darn it!
And for some odd reason I've started growing interested in the iPhone, I've come across a lot of nifty gadgets that I think would be useful to me, but I guess I'm just a kid at a candy store holding a lollipop but distracted by all the other sweets around him.

Going back to my original topic. March has truly been a month of madness so far. The main issue is also because I've realized I'm literally 1/4 through 2010! 1/4!!! WTF!? I remember the post where I mentioned we had past the 21 days mark so we should be all new-years-resolutions-turned-into-habits...today is day 77 of 2010...week #11... woah. 41 more weeks left to live up to everything I expected from 2010... :P

The cool thing though is I have a set of goals I'd written down before the end of 2009 and every month on the 10th I re-read them to remind myself and see my progress. I've come to realize this is an absolutely fantastic thing to do to make sure I stay on track so when Dec 2010 comes I don't feel like I've accomplished a lot (which is what I felt for 2009) but I feel like I've achieved my goals (what I did lack a bit in 2009). I strongly recommend this.

Another thing I've come to realize is to learn to trust your gut instinct. Sometimes, there's a reason things don't feel right. I mean I'm not saying that if it doesn't feel right, don't do it. Heck, having to be polite to an annoying client doesn't feel right but I have to do that, there's no point in starting a war with someone not on your level (kind of like stooping down to a heckler and fighting with him/her while on stage). Recently, with my comedy writing I've grown closer to realizing what "works" and what doesn't. I'm still sometimes off (I guess my sense of humor is still a bit.... weird) but watching my tapes at shows and open mics are extremely useful and re-enforces some of the bits I thought were good while making me realize things sound so different on stage or in my head than when heard by the audience.

Finally, I'll keep this entry short because I've actually planned out my day and right now I'm on the verge of going behind schedule (hard to plan client phone calls really) but the cool thing I can say is the last 10 days have been continual progress for me and I'm starting to reap the benefits of some seeds I'd sown before... mmmm let's see if I can nurture them into healthy flowers rather than wees :P

10 days after reflecting

2010-03-07T12:43:00.002+08:00

Ah, Sunday, finally it's Sunday. Unlike most people TGI Friday isn't a good thing for me, it's TGI Sunday and more like "please Time, stop, stop for a moment, I need a day off but don't let that day be Sunday, make it like a Sub-Sunday?" :P
So here I am, 10 days after my big self-reflection after 3 years of blogging. The coolest thing is seeing that Rain workout video again and then realizing that my new workout (thanks to the Power Training book) is awesome! My goal was to reduce my workout times from 1 hour to 45 minutes, but the workouts in this book take me 1:20 minutes to complete! Yikes! But in it's own way they're good and at least I'm not completely burnt out at the end of them like before. I have a bad feeling my old workouts I created were over-training me somehow.

Anyways, on with the next love of my life, comedy! I did 2 gigs on the last 2 weekends where I tried out some new material and so far things are looking good. I was a big upset last night after my short set because I had this new bit I forgot to do while on stage!!! I just realized that is in fact more frustrating than having a bad set because a bad set allows me to watch my tapes and review where things went wrong! When I forgot a bit, there's only potential, potential I wish I could turn into actual footage I could review! ARGH!!! I was thinking about this my whole trip over to the Radio Station for my midnight guest appearance on a show called 我得你都得 (if you can, so can I) where I shared some life stories and ways I faced challenges in life, etc. It was really fun to talk about this and I've come to realize I really do enjoy sharing this stuff with people, I guess also because many times I enjoy hearing about other people's journeys.

For example, I was at the MaD Reunion and we were reviewing the whole MaD conference that happened in Hong Kong. It was great to share views on the whole event with everyone and hope to improve it even more. The cool thing is when we were asked to give our idea of what MaD would be like in 5 years and I felt it was definitely going to be a necessity! I mean, stuff like this helps people broaden their mind and hopefully inspire them for the rest of their lives. I'm a firm believer of how little things today can have a great impact in the future for you without you realizing at that moment. Things some teachers told me 10 - 15 years ago back at secondary school, are having their greatest impact on me now!

I guess I've also come to realize that the term "get the ball rolling" is very true. I'm not talking about stuff like "oh, if you will yourself into success, you will succeed", I'm talking about just getting things started. Often times in any productivity book, it'll say the hardest part of anything are the first 5 minutes of the task. Once you get your flow going, you're not going to want to stop. The same happens with me and writing comedy, drumming, designing and also procrastinating. Once I sit back and say "later, after I watch some comedy" it'll be another hour before I guilt myself back to work mode. Heck it's even worse when the end of a 20 minute episode says "to be continued..." yikes! :P

So here's to keeping your ball rolling and if not, get it rolling damnit! :D Time to make things happen for the next 10 days! :D

3rd year anniversary!

2010-02-26T12:30:00.002+08:00

Woooooooooo!!! 3 years into this blog!!
It's been a loooooong ride but sure worth it! I'm finally reaping the benefits of writing this blog consistently and being able to look back at my life 3 years ago and enjoy the journey.

Today's the day I do a big evaluation of my life so far and to be honest, it's good :) I mean, I still have a lot of goals to achieve but in a way I don't feel like it's filling in holes that are like eye-sores but more like journey's I'm excited to take. My mental shift from feeling inadequate to feeling challenged has been the biggest difference. Before, in my early entries, you'd read about my struggles trying to stay afloat, but now it's a matter of what can I do while on top of things?

In fact, not achieving goals doesn't bum me out like it used to because I've come to realize, if I've failed at one thing, chances are I've succeeded in something else of the same caliber.

I suffered from food poisoning a few days ago and it was one of those bad ones where you just feel dead and don't want to move from bed deals. I was truly annoyed at first because I had everything planned out for the day, things were supposed to move smoothly and nothing seemed like it could get in my way..... except myself.

So a couple of days letting myself rest and now being day 3 since I enjoyed myself some extra special time with the toilet bowl, I'm trying to get back on track as before. So there are a few things I'm trying to get done today, one of them is obviously this entry, then the rest is listed out in my trusty Remember the Milk list of to do's.

I've finally got myself into proper routines that have turned into habits and thanks to rootein.com constantly bitching at me when I slack off, I've managed to use self-expectation to keep myself on track. Speaking of self-expectation, I don't know how many people believe in affirmations but unlike the typical new age way of thinking your way to change, I wake up and promise myself certain things and what happens in it kind of becomes a self-trust thing where I don't want to let myself down. Kind of like how even though you know someone doesn't deserve your help but you still help them because you can't get past yourself as a person if you just stand there watching them fail. In it's own way it's like I subconsciously promise myself certain things and over the day when I feel lazy or lose that motivation, I keep reminding myself "man, but you promised yourself you'd do it" and the idea of that promise keeps it going. It's kind of what David Allen said in Getting Things Done. The reason you feel bad when you don't do the things you always wanted to do is because it's kind of like you promised yourself to do them and ended up breaking that promise. It also helps when you have things reminding you of your promises every now and then. Say this blog, and I have my GTD system remind me of stuff like "Write comedy!" and mark down my calendar which days I should be hitting the gym.

I'll admit, sometimes you mentally lose that focus and want to just give up, but speaking of wanting to just give up, I was randomly searching some youtube clips and came across the training for the movie Ninja Assassin for the actor/singer Rain. Woah, the training he went through puts the seemingly brutal workout I have for myself to shame. Seriously, check this out:

There are a bunch of other clips but it was impressive to watch and realize that sometimes when you have that person watching you, you push yourself that extra mile. Sometimes I try to do this at the gym, like I pretend people are watching me and pretend I want to show off to them. I even get angry at barbells and stuff and pretend they are laughing at me :P It's quite bizarre really.

But my point is, watching people like this push to envelope really reminds me that this is one of my promises to myself. As one of my earliest posts quoted from Albert Einstein:

Imagination is more important than knowledge.

And an even better one by Bruce Mau that really explains a lot of what I think now:

Process is more important than outcome. When the outcome drives the process we will only ever go to where we've already been. If process drives outcome we may not know where we're going, but we will know we want to be there.

Ahh to know that this is what I thought 3 years ago is encouraging. It's great to see how the same things can mean something different over time.

The most interesting thing is, 3 years ago I'd never have my current state of life in mind, I didn't know the outcome but I knew the process I needed to take for the sake of progress. Much like I won't ever know if I will ever win the lottery, but I do know the process of getting there. Along the way I might end up winning or doing something else, but if I never went through the process, I'd only know that winning the lottery would be impossible.

I was speaking to one of the Chinese comics last night about my goals this year and at one point he told me I was really crazy for trying to accomplish so much, but he was more surprised at the fact that I wasn't going nuts about it. Like I wasn't allowing myself to get obsessed about stuff and sacrifice other things. Now I have to admit this is not 100% true, sometimes I do get obsessed and it's hard for me to realize that other things in my life need attention too. For example, everyone knows that I could go on and on and on with blog entries, but I keep trying to keep things simple and set a maximum time for everything. It's quite hard because many things are out of my control to be honest, but whatever I can fix myself, I don't let it slip by my hands without a time stamp of some sort.

So the final verdict, 3 years into this blog is, I've finally come to enjoy the journey more than just achieving the goal and ending my trip. Instead of seeing only 1 light at the end of the tunnel, I'm setting milestones and celebrating everytime they're done :) Heck, at least it gives me more reasons to feel good about everything rather than "be patient" all the time.

And here's to another 6 months of great journeying before my next blog milestone and see you in 10 days!

Happy New Year! (again!)

2010-02-13T13:34:00.004+08:00

And here we are! One day away from the Chinese New Year! I very much enjoy this time of the year because it really allows me to stop. Well it doesn't allow, it kind of forces me to stop. Heck, I can stand in front of shops and other things all I want, they're going to stay closed for a few days no matter how hard I try!

It's interesting how Hong Kong kind of gets 2 new years because the whole 31 Dec/1 Jan thing is kind of like a dress rehearsal at times and it gives you a few weeks to refine things and then Chinese New Year comes and boom! This is the real deal! Then again, it's really hard to get into the "let's things with a bang this year" if everything around you is closed :P But I guess everyone needs a break after all.

So we're hitting the year of the tiger and well, to be honest, whatever year it is, in my opinion doesn't make much of a difference really. It's all in our minds if you ask me. I was watching George Carlin's It's Bad for Ya HBO special. I can't say it's his best work but for a guy who's 70 and to be doing stand up comedy is definitely something worth applauding. At least while watching it it was good to know that when I'm 70, this is still definitely possible! I also rewatched Bill Cosby's Himself and boy did I laugh. Seriously, I'm not a big loud laugh-er at stuff but this one got me good :) Pure genius. Now that I've done stand up comedy, I've learned to appreciate it at such a different level! The way he presents everything, to a certain extent is nothing but a story being told, a story about himself, but the way he presents it you cannot help but laugh. And the fact that there was absolutely no cursing deserves an extra star. Seriously, I've learned to appreciate the lack of cursing so much more now. Especially after watching Wali Collins live and also speaking to him in person. Did you know he plays drums too!? :) Seeing these great comics perform perfectly without having to resort to cursing really re-enforced my love for clean comedy.

It definitely inspired me to take my stand up comedy to a whole new level. Now I use my best efforts to dedicate 2pm - 3pm daily as comedy writing time. Every now and then I allow myself a day of rest to let the information I have digest before I try squeeze our every ounce of the funnies I can find in all the silly things I think of. Not to mention the application Ommwriter is freaking awesome. It totally switches my mind from any other mode to "ok, let's write some magic" once I use that!

I was talking to my building's youngest security guard and we were talking about how many people kind of frown upon our lifestyles. He's 26 but he's a building security guard. A job usually left for old folk but the more I spoke to him, the more I learned he was thinking like me. He was using this job as a period of time to allow him to think of bigger plans. His argument is that instead of sitting at home alone with no pay, he might as well come here, get paid to sit but use his brain for thinking instead. Brilliant! Exactly what I thought of as well! People always get confused when he tells them he's a security guard because they all feel he's just lazy, but after looking at it from his perspective, you'd realize he's being smarter than you think! :D I was talking to him about how greedy I am with my passions that sometimes it's hard to keep up with it, for example, I'm trying to maintain writing everyday while alternating days of going for a work out and practicing drums. Not to mention I still have to fit in my freelance web design work and also balance comedy shows. That is tougher than I thought! But it's a rewarding feeling when you end your day and can check of everything on your to do list. It's fun adding a tick to my calendar on rootein.com :)

So here's to a new year with new fortune and fun times awaiting everyone who has worked their butts off and deserve it! And for those who don't deserve it, well I hope you get lucky and still get rewarded :) As the saying goes, if you turn off someone else's light so that your light shines a bit brighter, you just made the whole world a dimmer place, so let's all be happy! :D

Before I let you go, if you've never heard of this, check out ynevano.com, it's a motivational site created by Wali Collins. I have a wrist band to keep reminding me that You Never Know unless you give it a shot :)

1 month later...

2010-02-03T11:26:00.002+08:00

Woah, check it out, we're in February! And that means Chinese New Year is just round the corner! Wow, time flies!

Well, I lie since time has been fast and slow for me recently. I just registered in my head that it's February and I realize it's already the 3rd of the month! Woah! I guess when you keep yourself busy time zooms by but if you always remind yourself to realize what day it is, it slows down. As I've said before, my Google Calendar now shows me the week number as well as the number of days into the year, which really puts things into perspective for me. At least the idea that it's only week #5 of 2010 lets me realize I'm almost 10% into the year even though February feels like it's still the beginning.

I came across this kick ass thing called Aquanotes and my eyes almost exploded as I saw the video demonstrating how all my whining about great ideas being lost in the shower can now be a thing of the past. I went and ordered a 5-pack so now's the painful part of waiting with excitement! Of course, provided this company doesn't screw me over somehow in the mail. For some reason, there was no extra shipping charges for Hong Kong...hmm?

Speaking of note taking, I've been trying my hardest to have a daily comedy writing habit and I am here to conclude that that has totally failed. Every day, at 2pm, I get a reminder telling me I should stop and write some comedy, but I've come to realize, instead of forcing myself to write comedy, it reminds me to keep my mind open for any humorous ideas that my drop by. Sometimes, I get a bunch of ideas just before I'm about to cross the road and it's just a matter of jotting them down before I forget them. However, from reading the lovely Brain Book I'm still not finished with, I've realized that sometimes when you tell yourself to remember something, you end up......remembering it :P I no longer find myself standing in the middle of the road tapping words into my PDA for fear I'd forget that brilliant idea and risk my life in the process.

I have, however, made progress with my personal fitness. Well, my right knee is getting stronger and stronger, I'm able to climb 2 steps at a time when walking up so that's a very good thing in both saving time and making me feel like I'm getting back to where I was before the injury. Seriously, I hurt my knee in August 2009 and here we are in February 2010 and I'm still paying the price for that injury :\. On a brighter note, it's forced me to evaluate a lot of my other exercises to make sure I have extra good form with whatever I do. Any clicking of joints and I stop to evaluate what is going on. It's made me realize how my whole body seems...crooked. Ahah, I always knew my face was slanted/crooked but now when I really study myself in the mirror in the gym, every little detail is taken into consideration and well I've realized my left arm rotates a little bit more than my right arm, the distance between my left elbow and my kidney is closer than my right elbow and right kidney...hmm?

On another note, I'm going to go to Taiwan in April to go see Lamb of God with my bandmates. I don't think you got that, Lamb of God, me, there, same room! Seriously, this is the first time I'm ever flying anywhere to go see something and come back. Well we're going to be there for a few extra nights just to soak in Taiwan, but I have to say, I'm super excited because I just feel Lamb of God is a band that I must at least experience live before I die. Kind of like stand up comedy :P And see where that took me :) We even got VIP tickets which means we can go meet the band and yes, I know, I know, that's so lame and chances are the band won't ever know who I am nor remember me, but it's something I just have to do. Kind of like seeing a photo of the Mona Lisa and actually experiencing it. You just have to do it to know it.

Today's a crazy wednesday and as much as I don't have 5739537530530 meetings scheduled, I do have 5739425850 tasks to get completed today. The minor blog entry was one of them so I figured do what David Allen always said, go by your list and crank them one by one. No skipping because the next task is easier! It really does make a difference because if you do all the small easy tasks first, you're left with the same big task you wanted to avoid, but now with less energy :\ Then again, sometimes I still do the small tasks first because psychologically it makes me feel better to know I only have 3 big tasks than 58305385035 small tasks + 2 big tasks :P

Oh and one last thing I'd like to share, one big accomplishment for Jan 2010, on top of all the things I did, was that I finally completed and launched the new TakeOut Comedy website. I hope I can say the same when March comes around and I look back at all the great things I did in Feb 2010 :) So here we go!! :D

21+ days = habits formed or failed

2010-01-24T20:35:00.004+08:00

First of all, if you haven't heard the song called Empire State of Mind II by Alicia Keys, stop everything and check it out. I heard it for the first time while watching an episode of The Colbert Report and have become addicted to that song. Very inspiring rhythm and lyrics. Even though I'm not in New York right now, I can relate to a certain extent :P

Now back to my late blog post. So we've hit past the 21 days of 2010 so that means any new years' resolutions that haven't been forgotten have probably become habits by now. Sadly, a few of my goals have been really, really tough to keep up with and achieve. My little chain of writing comedy every day and practicing my drums hasn't happened. It's really the 4th week of the year and it feels like the 4th month to me. Seriously. I feel energized and drained at the same time. Energized when I think of all the 5735302492402 things that have happened in the last few weeks but drained when I realize that some things still feel incomplete. For starters, this entry is 4 days late! Argh! But I've honestly been so busy I haven't had a chance to gather my thoughts and write them here. Seriously, in the last few weeks have included everything in my life, from announcing matches and results at Legend Fighting Championship (Photo by Terrence Yam):
To playing with my band on that Friday, to performing comedy at Dada lounge, doing comedy for a charity gig, giving a speech at a secondary school at the uber far Tai Wor to performing at M-a-D! Heck I was even asked to be a hand model for a watch because they needed a hairy arm :P Ahahah finally, my body hair is useful! :D

So I write this post because here I am on a Sunday night, half mentally exhausted because my mind really needs a break, half physically exhausted, running around all day and being put to the stress test with performing, working and basically staying alive does take its toll on you. I've got a sore throat and it seriously sucks because coughing like this cannot be good for the lungs and heck just coughing tires me out! I've been watching a lot of MMA recently because it's just so freaking fascinating! I can't seem to get enough. Speaking of MMA, if you haven't, go check out the photos from Hong Kong's first MMA experience by Legend Fighting Championship they got new photos up. Good stuff!

I was planning on getting back on track today with my work and stuff but I can feel my mind is seriously begging for a break so I'm going to do that and try to get some early zz's tonight.... let Monday come and I'll be rested and ready to blow the world away with productivity. And if I'm not... well that's not an option with the amount of stuff I got to tend to.

Woah, now I don't know what to do to rest myself most productively..... I need help :P

The cutting edge of being late

2010-01-09T23:51:00.002+08:00

Woah, 11:53pm! I was this close to being late for 2010's first day 10 entry! Yikes! Ahahah this is the last thing I have on my to do's for tonight.

Well that's not really true, I was supposed to finish off a few mock ups for a project I'm working on and well I got a bit delayed today with everything and now my brain has decided it's had enough. I've been intoxicating it with constantly repeating the lines I'll have to say during my announcements at Legend Fighting Championship in a couple of days. I'm as much excited as I am nervous to be honest. It's a good kind of nervous though, you know the kind you get when say you have a surprise you can't wait to tell someone but you have to hold it inside of you because you know it's not the right time to do anything. That's what's going through my mind at the moment.

So 2010 eh? The toughest thing on new years is getting used to writing 2010 instead of 2009. To be frank, it hasn't registered that it's 2010, it feels like 2009 still. Oddly I felt like it was a new year on 1 - 3 Jan, but once the 4th came and my usual work/life poured back in, things didn't feel all that different anymore. Well for one, my room's a mess again now because I have seriously had absolutely no chance to actually clear it! Can you believe it? It's been basically wake up, do stuff, run around, deal with this, deal with that, come back, do more stuff, feel totally exhausted mentally, sleep. Wake up, repeat, for me. I mean, it's no surprise but seriously, woah.

The cool thing though is that when January is done, I'll be able to look back and smile at how much stuff I've managed to accomplish in 1 month :P This month I have comedy gigs, band gigs, freaking announcer gigs and well, my usual web projects :) Woah, talk about covering all bases!

Anyway, on a more positive note, I've been spending a lot of time fine-tuning my systems, especially my GTD system so that I'm mentally prepared for dealing with day-to-day tasks (eg. recording my sleeping hours, etc.) Now, I no longer find myself wasting precious time re-reading my to do list because to a certain extent, a lot of the daily tasks are habits now and I know the typical routine. My mind has also learnt the priorities of these tasks (eg. reading my RSS feeds in the morning is not important and thus is only done should I have extra time in the 1st hour of my day, otherwise it waits till before I sleep or the next morning). I've also finally figured out a proper way to store all my comedy ideas/notes in one place because my bad habit of writing ideas anywhere and everywhere was getting out of hand to the point I would sometimes lose sheets of paper I wrote ideas on, or even throw them away when I retrieved them simply because I was in a foul non-comedy/idea mood when I found it.

I've also gone lava lamp mad and have been spending a bad amount of time staring at it while I should be working instead. The combo of my constantly changing light with the movement of the lavalamp has some psychedelic thing to it, like while I'm staring at it, I go into some sort of trance or something.

Maybe it's also the awesome tunes Grooveshark is spitting out at for me. Maybe I'm just so tired my mind is playing tricks on me.

My brain's also quitting on me now and I should head off into the ZZ land. I got to go on the radio and talk to the press from the morning to the afternoon :P Sunday sleep in? What's that? :P

Enjoy 2010! :D

Switching off the light of 2009

2009-12-30T13:49:00.005+08:00

And here we are. A couple of days away from the end of 2009. What a lovely year it has been, I'm looking through my calendar and just seeing all the appointments I had already blows me away. I mean, did you know that 2009 was the first time I ever went to the US? And to top things off I went twice! Once on my own with my manager, the other sponsored by the US Consulate!

2009 was also the year I went to Singapore and performed comedy there, went to Shanghai for some business, given lectures at universities and secondary schools about how I coped with being a local foreigner, the same year I screwed up my knee by dislocating my knee cap and also hit the lowest body fat % I've ever reached in my life. It's also been the year where I met many new and interesting people as well as the year I realized that when I look back at some of my older blog entries, I understand the importance of the process of success.

There was a video I made on 23 April 2007 (see this entry) in which it was pouring with rain and I hiked my way up the Morning Trail near home. I remember constantly mumbling to myself "greatness awaits" as I tried my very best to psych some self confidence back into myself. Till today that day lingers in my memory because it truly was a low point in my life. Things didn't seem to be working out at all for me and I just felt lost as a person, with no direction nor hope. The only thing I had was myself and that was the turning point of my life. In a couple of years look where I've gotten to!

This year has also been the year I've learned to realize that life is much more than what meets the eye. I'm not talking about God or anything like that, but things like the human touch, how body language can make or break a person, how just smiling can affect a person's day and how the environment you surround yourself in can energize you or tear you apart. For a long time I used to wake up and feel mentally bored with my work environment. It just didn't have that vibe I was looking for. I'd flip through tonnes of interior design books at bookstores and libraries and get inspired by other people's offices, yet once I got into my room it felt dead. I tried re-organizing my stuff, playing with placement and adjusting everything but somehow it just felt dead. I used to spend a long time at different stores and wonder why it was that somehow anything in a particular store just felt so cool while perhaps the same item in another store felt so bland. I started subscribing to a lot of photography websites before it finally hit me. Lighting. It's all about lighting. Great photography must be assisted with great lighting, great restaurants don't just server nice food, they serve nice atmospheres. Why is it that everytime you see photos of geniuses at work they only have a table lamp and surround themselves in darkness? It's about lighting and how it can help you focus.

Much like how make up is nothing more than creating the illusion of perfection, lighting helps me create the illusion that I'm in a different room. If I can't see something, it seems like it doesn't exist. So what I did was re-think the way I lit my room up. For a long time I used to have a flat white light shining over my desk which would basically move my focus to this area while keeping the rest of the room dark. That worked great, it got my mind into work-mode, however, the light made my desk very... flat. Lit up, but flat. While working, I'd be focused but uninspired... which caused me to rethink how I wanted to work on the lighting while I was at my desk. So check it out while it's boring and flat.

Booorrriinnngg! Sure things are organized but do you feel creative sitting here?
So after some adjustments, this is what I look at while working:

For those of you wondering what that purple light at the back is, it's the uber lovely Philips Living Colors LED lamp. When I added it to my room, it totally blew my mind at how it has got me inspired.. alongside the lively lava lamp, I finally don't feel like I'm alone and rotting to die in my room anymore, it feelsl like I'm in a hip lounge and I've got the company of bouncing goo in my lamp :)

I also adjusted my bedside reading area so now it has a lamp from Leitmotiv and my plant. This is what it really is:
This is what it is like with the lights off and just the lamp on:
Yummy eh? Would you want to sit there and read for a bit? I know I would, and I've been doing so before sleeping. A great way to end my day.

Which really brings me to what I want to say, the one thing I learnt from this whole experience is that it's not so much just about shifting your focus, it's creating the environment to suit what you're trying to accomplish. I've always been a big stresser about satisfying your 5 senses and I'm currently doing so with these lights, my scented candle, great lounge beats, a comfortable Microsoft ergonomic keyboard and comfy Logitech mouse and my Aeron chair. I've given up the idea of having tasty snacks nearby because I honestly don't have the need to snack while working, just my trusted bottle of water will suffice.

The 6th sense that no one can identify, in my opinion is that overall feeling when you've touched upon all 5 senses. Right now, I feel at ease. I'm in no way stress free because I still have a pile of to do's to take care of, but I think I've finally reached a point where I don't feel like I need to keep making adjustments to get comfortable...I'm finally working in harmony where the only stressful factor is work and that should be how it is really.

So this is why I say I'm ready to switch off the lights of 2009 and step into the dark world of 2010 and enjoy it as my path gets illuminated by my surroundings. I've already got a lot lined up for the coming year and I've got a bunch of personal goals to achieve. I'm fairly confident this is the year where these dreams of mine are going to be realized. I've built and worked with enough systems to keep my personal growth on track. All these logs I use to keep track of everything has finally paid off allowing me to better understand my life and accordingly make adjustments to better suit it.

And now, I can begin starting up all the things I've planned for 2010, so I'm one step ahead of my expectations... and so should you! Enjoy the last few days of 2009 and I wish you all the success, laughter and happiness that is in store for 2010. Write down how you feel today and compare it after 365 days. You'll be amazed at how far you've gotten from this moment. I know I have :)

The big GTD leftover sweep up

2009-12-20T19:00:00.004+08:00

Woah, I have so much stuff leftover in my GTD I don't know where to start! I've been so busy with projects and gigs that I have literally neglected almost a week's worth of to do's.
And to add insult to injury, I got hit with some stomach flu a couple of days ago which kind of wasted one of my off days with me lying in bed recovering and gulping down a marathon of comedy shows that have been waiting for my attention. If you haven't watched it, check out The Cleveland Show. If you're a Family Guy fan, you should enjoy this as well.

So this is is, my annual last few weeks of the year clean up of all the leftover dreams I had for the year. Oddly, I've accomplished quite a lot of what I had set out to achieve in 2009! Although with my newly recognized OCD issue that RottenDoubt says I have, somehow my to do list never ends and it feels like 31 Dec is approaching too quickly. So instead of focusing on all the 57395739753 things I have yet to do, here's what I've accomplished so far that I can recall:

Down to my last comedy show of the year :) The big TakeOut Comedy Jam at Hitec! If you're interested, please call 6220 4436 to get your tickets! :D Wahoo! After that, I'm temporarily shutting down my comedy cells and letting them run loose in the most boring way of...well... doing nothing :P
Re-decorated my room/workspace and adjusted all my lighting so now I have work mode, relax mode, read mode, sleep mode and the good ol' super-bright so I can see everything and clean appropriately mode.
Um. And a whole lot more :P

The point is, this year has kept me busy in a good way where I've constantly been challenged and pushed to my limit. I have to admit, it has caused me quite a lot of stress as well, with nights where I'm dreaming about how I'm going to present myself the next day, or what technical solution I need to solve a client's problem. However, it has also been a damn good process that has forced me to better gel all my strengths together. For example, my work outs have become more intense than ever because I realize I can no longer dedicate more than 3 days a week to the gym and so I squeeze the crap out of myself within that 1 hour. Sometimes I do end up overdoing it though because the next morning when I wake up I can feel a new found soreness run through me. However, once I get passed that I'm stronger and fitter the next time I go through the same routine :)

Speaking of going through the same routine, I started off this year with hopes that I'd hit 200bpm at double peddles on drums. Sadly that is kinda not happening. I can hit that speed but not 100% stable though. But 160bpm is no problemo :). So hopefully 2010 will be the year 200bpm gets added to my list of DONE things :). Oh, my band is going to perform on 15 Jan 2010 as an opening act for First Blood alongside some of HK's top metal/hardcore bands so woohooo to that! Actually January 2010 is going to be a heck of a wild ride for me! I'm the official bi-lingual announcer for Legend Fighting Championship! I've been watching a bunch of UFC and K1 videos to catch up on the atmosphere as well as study how the announcers do their things. A lot of people will have noticed people like Bruce Buffer with his fantastic and unique take on fight announcements. The energy he brings to the show is great and I hope to do that on 11 January 2010! As he says, leeeeeeeeeeet's get ready to ruuuuuuuuuuuuuuumble!!!!!!!!!!

I've also got a gig with New Life Psychiatric Rehabilitation Association at the end of January which just had its press conference today. I was at a small little cafe in Tsim Sha Tsui East and boy they make one of the best bitter chocolate mousses! I had it and was pleasantly surprised that a humble little restaurant like this could make something this fascinating! I mean, I'd have expected this quality from fancy hotels or something. Perhaps I'm just biased towards bitter chocolate puddings and mousses :P Oh well the bottom line it was yummy! I really enjoy working with the team there because everyone is extra friendly and they really think things through so there is minimum stress on people like myself, after all, performing is its own stress and relief in its own way :P

Then comes February, the lovely Chinese New Year which coincides with Valentine's day which really leaves a big question mark for many store owners....do they stay open for the business of v-day or close to spend quality time with family? Hmm.... let's see how things turn out.

And much the same for 2010. I've realized resolutions are useless and only goals are achievable. I've got a list of goals already for the new year, I'm positive I'll get there! As long as I don't get bombarded with no silly stomach flu :P

Have a merry christmas and enjoy the new year!

PS. For some reason, the past few 1 January's have all been beautiful blue skies :) I hope it stays that way this year too :)

The shut down

2009-12-05T15:34:00.001+08:00

Here I am, lying on my bed, sick.

Well not sick like oh-my-God-I-can't-stop-puking, but sick like I-don't-seem-to-have-the-energy-to-move-because-my-brain-has-shut-down sick. I'm officially burned out today :). Why smile you ask? Because I finally feel guilt-free at doing nothing. Well not really nothing. I've been playing Tales of Monkey Island and boy was that refreshing and catching up a lot on my reading. I've come to realize that everytime I speed myself up productivity-wise, I find myself stuck in the same depths of "oh I don't have enough time". For example, I've recently adjusted the way I organize my to-do list so that I receive SMS messages reminding me at certain time to do something, that way, I don't have to care about constantly checking my to-do list while I'm out just to make sure I don't forget one item in my outdoor list. However, with this new found "relief", I've found myself filling up that "relief" space with some other thing I want to get done. OCD? Aaha maybe.

So for today's Day 10 entry, I'm going to give myself a vacation and lie here and watch some comedy instead. So, see you in 10 days! Get some rest if you need it (you probably do :P)

Macbook pro!

2009-11-25T14:19:00.003+08:00

Yes!!!!!! I am the proud owner of a brand spanking new Macbook Pro! I had a big debate in my head between the 15" and the 13" and eventually settled for the 13" which acted as a great upgrade from my old (but classic) white Macbook. It was time it retired.

With the new Macbook Pro comes new ways of working and a lot of "new" lifestyles for me. I've re-arranged all my toys in my room (I love action figures from mcFarlane Toys) and adjusted the way my room is lit. After doing a lot of research, I discovered in interior design, lighting, to my, is king. You can have the worst furniture in the world with a layer of dust on it, but add some good lighting and you can visually add so much to anything. It kind of explains why restaurants and bars are so dim and why clothes look better in the store but suddenly are disappointing when you wear it at home. It's not the mirror, it's the lighting! Speaking of mirrors and lighting, I saw a really cool hanging light from Tom Dixon called the Mirror Ball. It would be perfect for one of the corners in my room because it'll give me a great fish-eye view of my whole room. Heck, one of M. C. Escher's famous drawings was thanks to a mirror ball.

I've also rethought how I follow the advice I got when reading Think like DaVinci about satisfying the 5 senses.

Smell
Scented candles have become a new addition to my room. Now that it's winter, I don't have to worry about the fan blowing out my candle. I'm also going scented candle shopping later tonight because I've come to realize scented candles from Ikea just don't cut it anymore.

Sound
I've become an avid fan of both Sky.fm and Somafm.com with my lovely Foobar 2000 keeping my ears satisfied with grooves ranging from Smooth Jazz to zen-like Indian beats.

Sight
As I said, I've re-arranged my toys so now my desk is actually clean! Also, I've tied up all my wires in a little black tubing so, even though I can't hide them completely and look like I'm wireless, I can still keep them less distracting.
I've also decided that I'm probably going to repaint the wall which I face while working a neutral grey (RGB 128, 128, 128) and get myself some Idea Paint for one of my walls. I've learnt the power of having a plain wall and adding simple decals to it.
Oh and have I told you my recent fascination with Bonzai plants? I'm still in the process of deciding where I will keep it in my room. Hmm.

Touch
My lovely Herman Miller Aeron chair is more than perfect although it needed a little tightening, after all, I sit on this like every single day! Also, for my new Macbook Pro, I went with an Incase hardshell cover. It has a rough surface so there's extra friction/grip which is good because sometimes when I'm on the go, I have the Macbook Pro out by my side, under my armpits.

Taste
Here's where I'm still kind of lacking. I've set up charts with suggested snacks that are quick and easy to make such as Cheese toast. I've even got its calorific values as well as the amount of time it takes to make so I know if I only have 5 minute, certain snacks are out of the question. I considered getting some green tea ready so I could sip at that while working, but I realized, I'm still more of a water person. I consume so much water, I actually find myself spending quite some time refilling my bottles and jars every day! To the point I even tried to fill up 3 - 4 bottles in the morning and have them next to me before I start work, so I'd always be nice and hydrated. Otherwise, I don't snack on anything tasty like Chocolates or candy. I don't like to.

What do you do for your 5 senses?
So now I have 10 days to give this "setting" a work out to iron out all the teething problems. I already encountered one, that is the high-level of work it take to keep my desk clean! Yikes, I have never had one night, before bed, where I had an empty desk. Somehow things just creep on here! But on a brighter note, I've recently ordered a new bed-frame which'll give me 2 extra draws on the floor that will allow me to use them as spaces to just shove everything I want to deal with later there. Kind of like a GTD inbox, but for real objects that I don't want to see when I wake up.

Speaking of waking up, the people upstairs are still renovating which means I wake up to crazy drilling every morning!! I must admit, at first I thought I could ignore it, weeks into it though, I've found it's really, really irritating. Oddly, when I leave and go out, the normal noise of the roads, vehicles, people talking, sounds like silence to me. Hmm :P Which makes me wonder, if I make my room too nice for myself, will the outside world look like shit? I hope not.

See you in 10 days!

Update:
I got inspired by Kimmy_ to take pictures of my desk and share it with everyone. So here it is in all its glory :)

Late night snack edition

2009-11-15T02:49:00.003+08:00

Hello, hello! So you may be wondering "woah? You're awake at 2:50am?! I thought you wake up at 6am!" well, I'm about to go to sleep and no I'm not planning on waking up at 6am tomorrow, it's not going to happen, sad but true. I've been totally thrown off the 6am principle because of work and comedy. I guess it's a constant fluctuation for me and I can only remember that great feeling I used to have, waking up at 6am to the freshness of a new day.

On a brighter note, the weather's gotten cooler and I'm able to use my right leg to walk up (single) stairs! YAY! You have no idea how happy I was when I could go up stairs like that, it's all finally coming back! I feel like I'm able to conquer the world again! :)

On another brighter note, Paul Ogata is in town and I got to open for him this past Wednesday and hosted the show on Thursday. It's always great to watch the master at his best as he works the room and pretty much unoffensively mocks anyone :) I have to say, I admire his attitude that you don't feel like he's belittling you, but instead make fun but in a good, positive way. It kind of motivates me to push myself a bit more whenever I'm performing in front of professional comics in a show because I feel like I want to reach their level or something and sometimes I throw myself into pits while on stage and hope for dear life I don't sink into my own hole.

So we had black Friday and usually that's one the luckiest days for me but so far this black Friday did nothing for me, other than dealing with work I suppose. I did have a phase of burnt out running through me that day though. I mean, I literally didn't want to do anything, not just work, but I mean anything! I get that every now and then, oddly, when I get it, I know what it is, but mentally I just can't pull myself out of it. After some sleep and stuff, I'm back to normal. Like tonight, I'm quite pumped. I'm pumped because I just returned from my 10-year high-school re-union. It was really a pleasure to meet all my old classmates, at first I thought it'd be just....we... boring small talk but oddly, everyone just got right into it, no "ohh it's so long! How's the family" yadda yadda yadda, but it was like we all just met last week and were meeting again 7 days later! Then they even showed some photos of the old times and that really got to me. I mean just watching all that, brought back so many happy memories. I did miss those old days but it was not a missing that I wanted it back, but just it reminded me that there were some really good times with these guys and I was happy to be there and meet all of them. After all, I spent so many years of my life with them, day in and day out! :)

I guess this day 10 entry is about how things from 10 years ago felt so normal, but 10 years later, they were treasures. Those photos really became treasures to me and when we took a group photo, I was really quite happy to be in it because I knew, in a few years, this'll be something worth remembering. I also made sure to film down the humble little 10 minute comedy set I did during the gathering so I could always check it out years and years down the line.

So this has actually re-enforced me about my logging habits and that I know in some time, I'll be happy that I did with all this effort. I mean, stuff like my blog, when I started it over 2 years ago, it was just a simple sharing of my thoughts, but now it has become a great resource for motivating myself and reminding me of where I was and where I am. So here, I'll say it, log people log!

It's 3am now and I really should hit the sack, I got myself all excited for tomorrow because I'm going to give a new online logging tool called Disciplanner a try and see how it goes. I'm also throwing myself in the deep end of learning advanced things with Sonar and boy, it may seem simple at first but as you go deeper, the power behind this piece of software is amazing!

And speaking of sounds, I've been reading my brain book and it covered a chapter about music and about the differences for genders and the mind. Kind of explains a lot about why we have the typical "guys do and girls talk" idea, it roots to the typical male vs female brain design and how things are wired. It even explains stuff like why certain things are inherited by the guys but not by girls, etc. Freaking mind-blowing really!

Woah, come to think of it, these last 10 days have been quite......packed for me. Not wonder I hit a low point of near-burn-out this week.

Oh well, we got a lovely cool Sunday awaiting tomorrow when I wake up so I'm going to head out to the sack and hit some zzz's! Speak to you in 10 days! :D

Over-logging? Am I killing my forest of free time?

2009-11-04T10:58:00.002+08:00

Hi there, we've hit another Day 10 entry and I figured instead of keeping this on my to-do list all day, I'd clear this out of the way before I head into the deep end of all my work for the day.

I've recently discovered that my love for logging things has grown a bit more. Now I even log how much I sleep using YawnLog. Why you ask? Just because I'm curious. I'm curious as to how my sleeping, eating, exercise, work habits affect my mood. I mean sure, it's going to be a rare occasion I actually take all my logs and put them together and go "hmm, so why was I tired last night at 7pm? Oh, it's because I ate 300 calories worth of carbs at 5pm, was working on 6 hours of sleep and had been up since 7am, so it was time to take a nap because it was 12 hours from the mid-point of my sleep. Not to mention I had worked out over 60 minutes which probably brought my cortisol levels a bit too high and that unnecessary cup of coffee during the client meeting at 4pm probably gave me a caffeine crash at 5pm." Sure.

But I guess it's because I'd rather have the chance of that analysis ever happening than to be happy with the response of "I don't know, I'm just tired because I am!"

However, I've recently noticed that the amount of time I spend on logging things has gotten more and more and even though I've made everything quicker, it still requires that same amount of time as before. Hmm.

I log my sleeping habits using Yawn Log
I log all my things to do using Remember the Milk
I log my eating and exercising using Fitness Assistant (online tools just didn't cut it)
I log my expenses using Buxfer
I log my expenses on the go using Easy Expenses on my PDA
I log all my appointments using Google Calendar
I log people visiting my site using Google Analytics
I record almost all my comedy performances (sometimes I don't have my camera handy :(..) for studying and you guessed it, logging
I log my comedy ideas on a notebook that I carry with myself everywhere
I log my other ideas using Evernote
I log my thoughts....here

The reasoning behind all this, for me at least, is because I'd rather have that thought/idea/information somewhere than in my past only. Another reason is because the #1 idol of Yours Truly, ol' Leonardo Da Vinci wrote everything down. He externalized his thoughts and well, being one of his fans, I've learned to do the same.

I really wish I could ask Leonardo if he felt the same way that sometimes he was spending so much time writing things, he didn't have much time to just... relax. I guess life was different back then, at least he wouldn't be bombarded with phone calls, emails, drilling from the people upstairs, etc. during the day, so all the other time he had that didn't involve him writing everything down was free time. Hmm.

On another note, I sometimes do feel logging things also drag me down because I can't just let things slip by. And in turn, it annoys me when people forget things you expect they'd remember to do. I have this problem sometimes with my band mates where we'd discuss about something and a week later, they'd come back and tell me "oops, I forgot!" In fact, I've found that if you tell someone to do something and if they didn't write it down somewhere at that moment, chances are they're not going to do it. I'm not doubting everyone's memory, but it's just something I've grown to accept as reality. So whenever I see someone isn't writing down what I told them, and if I really wanted them to do it, I'd tell them again via email or SMS or some black-and-white form which acts as them having written it down somewhere that doesn't require their memory for it to remind them. I don't trust the human memory enough. As I've said many, many times before, I feel the brain's main task is not to remember, but to think. In the process of thinking, we have to use recollection, but not as a means to think. We should not think because we remembered something, we should remember something because we were thinking of something.

Any thoughts on that (if you suddenly remember something while pondering about that, you're welcome ;P)?

One confession, my 6am's have gotten worse recently with today being the ultimate worst of the worst with me waking up at 9:34am! Yikes! I woke up and within minutes the drilling from upstairs began and my peaceful awake time was ruined. I've grown to really appreciate that 1 - 2 hours of peace I get before the phone calls, emails, drilling, interruptions begin. I've learnt to accept that interruptions are part of a freelancer's life and so I've tried to find ways to push that to later. I mean, many people would wake up, go to work and then after work tend to their own interests. I've found that it's better to reverse it because once I've tended to myself in the morning, say practiced my drums or gone for a work out, I'm able to concentrate on my work better because work seems to be the only things left on my list. So I don't feel drained halfway through the day and feel too frustrated to practice the drums or something. Which is why the 6ams were so perfect. I'd wake up, I'd have 1 good hour to log and plan my day, I'd have another hour to practice my stuff, and 1 hour before people even considered waking up let alone contact me :)

Guess tonight will be the night where I force myself back into bed by 10pm. Fingers crossed! Let's see if I fall off the 6am wagon again in the next 10 days! Hmm...

Boot camp

2009-10-25T11:24:00.002+08:00

Howdy! How has everyone been in the last 10 days?
I've been reading a lot about the brain with my lovely book The Owner's Manual for the Brain, it's so fascinating when a lot of things you used to take as being the power of nature can be explained. Things like how caffeine causes you stress, which released the cortisol hormone which then gives you a double whammy when you try to drink coffee to relax when you're worried, or how smoking really doesn't relax you much other than satisfying the stress from your addiction not being satisfied. A lot of things that people would end at "it's just not good for you" are explained in this book from a brain point of view. After all, everything starts from the brain, your food cravings, your moods, etc.

Currently, I'm reading a lot about sleeping and it helps make sense of my sleeping habits and why I feel so refreshed when I wake up at 6am. Oddly, according to the book, people who have adjusted themselves to adapting to the "light bulb" lifestyle in which they take advantage of light available at night are technically the superior ones of the species. After all, if you don't learn to adapt to new environments you will soon go extinct. Yet, the times when I used to stay up at night and work, I'd often get stuff done but my mood would go down the drains. Then I read things about moods and things started to make sense when I connected the dots. So I guess in the end, it's back to square one of "do what makes you feel best" :), just this time I can kind of understand why I feel good about something :).

This brings me back to the fantastic book Think like Da Vinci. It tells you how Leonardo Da Vinci often asked the questions not of how something worked, but why something worked the way it did. Lucky for me, I often have this same curiosity, especially when it comes to myself psychologically and physically. Being told "drinking a glass of warm milk before bed helps you sleep" doesn't cut it for me, but being told that the milk stimulates melatonin (something that we naturally produce in the lack of light and which improves sleep) production and when we drink it warm, gets absorbed faster in our system than a cold variation, which is why warm milk is suggested, not cold is what I'm looking for.

As I've said before though, this curiosity sometimes does kill me. Sometimes I feel so drained from why, why, why, why, why and wanting to constantly learn more about everything because my brain sometimes works faster than my ability to absorb. Oh speaking of absorbing, another interesting I learnt is the importance of sleep when trying to properly learn something, especially when it involves motor co-ordination (ie. using your body). This kind of also explains to me why sometimes I feel so exhausted mentally by the end of the day if I did everything I wished I could do:

Practice Drums
Work Out
Write new comedy
Do my web design work
Learn a new skill or read up on current technology

By the end of that, I just feel burnt. This could be because of the way the brain works in learning and by the end of the day, you've exhausted your store of you could say learning quota. A good night's sleep help restore this balance and you're good to go the next day. I could go on and on and on. I'm only 1/5 through the book! Yikes!

I really wish they had this book in an electronic format, would make it so much easier with my Kindle DX.

So I've recently been trying to optimize my workflow even more and came across a kick-ass money management tool online called Buxfer. It has helped me keep track of everything I spend and one great feature I absolutely adore is its ability to upload receipts and store them in the transaction item I enter. Perfect! I used to use a combination of Xpenser and Outright but after a while it just felt so.... broken apart, not to mention the interface wasn't the most pleasant to look at.
I sent my HP iPaq 912 PDA for repair and after some checking, they found that my USB slot and keypad was not working and they gave me a brand new one! Wahoo! So now it works perfectly and this good thing is, I have a lot of experience with this phone, I know exactly what tools I want and how to use it properly. My productivity has shot back up to where it was before because I'm able to keep my PDA comfortably in sync with everything I use. The only thing I'm missing is to see if I could connect my PDA to my Macbook and share the Internet via a USB cable, so that way if I'm traveling, I don't have to try to connect to the Internet directly with my PDA. On top of that, when I get PCCW Wifi later on, I'll be able to use the cheaper plan of only 1 device going online and connect my PDA to my Macbook and keep it in sync. Voila!

Yes, yes, I know, I'm going on and on about this stuff, but it's exciting to see how over time and experience, my needs are getting discovered and slowly properly satisfied without compromise.

On a different note, I went to Shenzhen yesterday to do some Chinese stand up comedy (in Cantonese for me) and it was a blast! The audience loved it! There was an MC and 3 other comics (mandarin speakers) and I was the special guest. I was pretty nervous because I was worried a lot of the audience wouldn't understand Cantonese but it turns out even if they didn't speak it, most people understood Cantonese! So that was good! :D

One of the organizers called Angela was even kind enough to drive me around the city afterwards for a quick tour of the place before dropping me off at the train station. I got home and felt all the love I had for Hong Kong rush back into me. Don't get me wrong, Shenzhen is a nice place, but Hong Kong has still won my heart over.

So here I am back, on my fantastic Herman Miller Aeron chair, typing you this entry, excited about the next 10 days and what it has in store for me. For one, we have a public holiday tomorrow (Monday 26 October 2009) so I'm even happier about that :).

One confession before I go, my 6am waking up has been affected greatly due to unforseen late nights and I'm hoping today will be the last day I wake up at 9am. The 2 hours of peace I get between 6am and 8am does wonders for me in every way. I can't afford to lose that. So let's see if I make it before the next Day 10 entry. Have a great 10 days!

The Hong Kong foo-e!

2009-10-15T11:48:00.003+08:00

I'm back home! Lovely, lovely ol' Hong Kong!
I must say, my jet lag has kind of worked to my advantage. Ever since I've returned, I've been waking up at 6am and loving it! I'm not feeling sleepy or anything, just feeling... alive! It's 11:50am and I've gotten so much stuff done! Sure it's been almost 6 hours into my day but it's only 11:50am! Mentally I feel like I've still got the whole day ahead of me!

So one lesson I've definitely learned to enjoy is that waking at the break of dawn is awesome. Not only do you make the most of sunlight, you feel ahead of everyone. Now, when I have stuff to do but want to go to bed, I just sleep, knowing that I can wake up at 6am and tackle it and still be ahead of all my clients. Not to mention I can throw in my drum practice/gym session before I even start work, getting that out of the way is fantastic!

As you can see, I'm kind of boiling with excitement because there is so much happening and I'm trying to stay calm. First things first, I'd like to share with everyone my lovely addition to my life: My Kindle DX! May I just say, as pricey as it is, it's definitely worth it. I've got my ebooks on it and can't wait to rock out and read everything! I finally can separate my reading hobby from work (because everytime I'm at my laptop, I always get distractions here and there). Now I can read all my books I've been longing to read but didn't want to lug around with myself.

Speaking of kick ass books, I'm currently reading (in paper version though) The Owner's Manual for the Brain. I saw it on my last day in the US before going to the airport at Barnes and Noble and fell in love with it after skimming through a few pages. This is exactly what I wanted to read and learn about! Currently, putting aside the fact that the book is super thick, it's super worth it! I'd have loved to have it on my Kindle but they don't have it in that edition. To prove to you how much I wanted this book, I even paid the full retail price of US$29.96 (+taxes, making it a bit over US$32) when I could have ordered it via Amazon for US$20 (but then I wouldn't have the book with me now, it'd have to get sent to me). I couldn't help it, I just had to the read the book.

Another killer thing is that after coming back to Hong Kong, a lot of my "plans" I had thought up while in the US is working out. Now that my knee is pretty much back to normal, I'm able to practice drums and work out again. In fact, I already went to the gym this morning and may I just say 8:30am at the gym is awesome! It's practically empty! Everyone's left to go to work! :) I really hope I maintain this 6am habit of mine, though it's going to be a bit tough during the weekends with my stand up comedy gigs at night that usually last until midnight at least. I need to be in bed by 10pm!

Another new addition to my family of gadgets is the Shure SRH440 headphones. I finally couldn't accept my AKG K81DJ headphones anymore because the wire kept screwing up! After searching and trying a whole bunch of headphones, I came across these Shure headphones and it blew me away with its clarity (though I kind of need to add a bit of equalizer to my music to give it that extra kick sometimes). I didn't know the price but thought to myself there's no way in hell I could afford these but it only cost US$100 (ie HK$780)! Woah! Nice! And then I thought to myself, something's got to give, they're not going to have stock! And sure enough they didn't. But after a bit of snooping around at other stores, I found someone else selling it for the same price and now I'm listening to lovely SOMA Space Station with these.

So now I'm happy but worried about my credit card bills :P Yikes. Well that means it's time to work and make me some dough! So here I am, refreshed after my trip and energized and ready to go. I've got a whole long list of to do's ready to tackle and around 6 hours before I have to head down to the Comedy Club for this week's Comedy Festival Events.

One thing I'd like to share with everyone that I learned on my 3 week trip away from Hong Kong was the power of saying "hey man, let it go". While I was there, sometimes I'd be in my hotel room, all charged up because I'd gotten that great idea that would help my work a lot but I wasn't physically in Hong Kong so I couldn't do it and after a while I just learned to let it go. I used to have that problem before where I'd get frustrated internally and often got disappointed in myself but now I just try my best to tell myself "hey man, let it go". It's quite interesting to realize that almost anything in life can be somehow ignored and eventually it'll fade away (not necessarily in a good way, but it will fade away). Of course, the only thing that you can't really ignore are bills. Damn.

Have a great 10 days and stay charged up and relaxed at the same time! That's how I feel right now!! RAH!

Last day in Salt Lake City

2009-10-05T10:07:00.001+08:00

Howdy! Woah, I'd never have thought I'd be writing a blog entry from Salt Lake City, Utah!
How is Hong Kong? It's been 2 weeks since I've been home that I've forgotten what humidity even feels like!
I've been travelling around the US and we went to:

Washington DC
Baltimore
Philadelphia
New York City
Albany
Salt Lake City

and our next stop is Pasadena! I'm still trying to register that I've been to all these places! I've met so many people and eaten so much (seriously, my pants are tight, I don't need to use a belt anymore lol) but the best highlight so far is that I got to touch snow! Like proper snow! Now just sleet, but snow that can be made into snowballs and snowmen!

My right knee is 98% back to normal but I still wear my brace when walking on the streets just to play safe. I still have uneven legs where my right leg is thinner than my left due to muscle wasting from all these days of not using my right leg. Sigh. My fitness level has returned to what it was a year ago so I've done a full circle. I started seriously working out in November 2008 and we're in October 2009 and I've had my high times when my fitness was at its peak but now I'm back to (if not worse than) what I was this time last year. Ahh well, at least I got to enjoy a lot of super, duper yummy food!!

So what have I learnt from this whole trip? Well one main thing is that humans are humans after all. Even in America, there are the same problems you face anywhere in the world. You've got the rich, you've got the poor, you've got the dull, you've got the creative. As much as the States is indeed a place of opportunity, it is also a place of many failures. I guess the main interesting thing is the amount the US focuses on arts. In Hong Kong, the arts is often under-rated and overpowered by more practical things like maths. In fact, the arts has an underlying power that most people don't realize. How many times have you watched a movie and felt motivated like never before to do something? How often have you listened to a song that touched you deeper than anything you felt from a text book? The way the arts can affect you at a deeper level, can easily influence you without you knowing.

It's quite similar to marketing. Through smart marketing, companies can manipulate your thought process by making you relate to certain things. In the same way, so can art. In many ways, people can use the arts to convey a message much better than they could ever do with plain words. Watching Basketball Diaries can drill the harm of drug-use into a child's brain much better than any father-son talk if you ask me.

This is the one main thing I'll be taking back home with me. Oh and a few pairs of Van shoes (Yum and a blue pair!) I bought along the way. Mmmm vans shoes. I'm a happy soul. Off to pack my suitcase and get ready for bed! Speak to you again in 10 days, from ol' HK!:D

The special day in a special place

2009-09-25T14:54:00.002+08:00

Hi there! Guess what, I'm typing you this from the Hudson Hotel in New York! Yes! I'm over here on this side of the planet, about to sleep before a looooong day tomorrow exploring the world of art in NY! To top this off, it's my birthday today! Oddly enough, those who know me well know that I rarely do anything big on my birthday, mostly because I don't see the point in celebrating it really. But if I did want to celebrate, then this birthday really tops them all, being here in NY! :D

I walked around a bit down broadway tonight and to be honest, my leg got exhausted from that because we went from 58th street down to 30th street..... normally, I'm a-ok with this, but this damn leg brace I'm still stuck with is really irritating me now :(. Partly because it's not fitting me right, partly because I'm starting to be able to walk without the brace. But I don't want to risk walking the streets without my brace, it's not worth the injury since I still have like 2 weeks on this trip!

So far, Washington DC was quite peaceful but a little bit too dull for my liking. We got to see the great monuments and buildings and let me just say, I really appreciate how everything there is symbolic. It was quit inspiring, especially seeing Lincoln's memorial site. I'm beginning to like that guy a lot. Of course, Da Vinci still holds my #1 spot, but Lincoln is pretty damn interesting.

We passed through Philadelphia and I got to munch on a Philly Cheese Steak. Boy oh boy is that deadly but tasty! We passed Baltimore before reaching the big apple. Man, it is so awesome that I still remember so much of NY! It feels like I had just recently visited this place! The only thing I noticed that has changed is the Virgin store at Times Square is gone :P

I've got a little under 5 hours of sleep ahead of me and I really wish I could have one full day here in NY to just soak it all in, but no matter what, I'm looking forward to whatever little time I have here before we move on to Albany.

It's interesting to see some of the people in my group change over time on this trip. Impatient people become impatient, fussy people become fussy. All the real personalities are popping out. I'm just happy to be here, I don't find myself complaining that my time here in NY is so short, after all, I'm technically being compensated for being here, so why complain? I would have been in Hong Kong instead if it wasn't for my being selected for the International Visitors Leadershp Program.

I guess it's always good to stop and check if your complaints are valid. Personally, when you're given a free meal, to complain that it's cold is plain unacceptable. Then again, time is money so we're just getting compensated for our time here... ahh well, I better hit the sack :) Hello new york!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Brace yourself: the after-heal edition

2009-09-15T13:09:00.002+08:00

So it's been a little over 2 weeks since I injured my knee and right now, I'm still in a brace but walking 95% normal. There's a very, very slight limp in my steps but I'm working on it by walking around more. I was told to do exercises to strengthen my muscles but I find walking itself to be pretty damn good (enough). :)

With all this (sit) down time, I've been banging away at my computer getting projects out of my to do list. By the way, I'm seriously loving my Remember the milk Pro account. The downside is that the USB port of my phone has screwed up so it can only charge the battery but not transfer data and having this silly knee of mine means it's hard for me to take care of its warranty. Not to mention I'm off to the US on 19th morning so if they take my mobile phone in for repair or checking, I'm quite screwed. So it'll have to wait till I return. Sigh. That's the one downer of my injured knee, a lot of things are "do it when I can...... later". As you may know, I really like to get things done and I'm not one to procrastinate. Not because I'm a disciplined guy, but my to do list system is like a mean woman always nagging at me to finish what I wanted to get done.

I formatted my macbook and cleaned it up. Inside and outside. I researched online and found that many people had good experiences wiping their laptop with rubbing alcohol and soft cloth, so I went and did it and boy does it feel different. I took it one step further and cleaned my super dirty mouse and keyboard on my desktop. Boy, my keyboard feels so smooth now it's crazy! Not to mention my mouse is no longer sticky (no, no dirty thoughts :P).

I've also been tweaking my macbook a lot and came across some cool tools like GeekTools and DateLine. I also went and installed Litestep on my PC and so far things are working great! Sure it takes a little getting used to it, but it sure makes my system feel.... well cleaner.

On a different note, Hong Kong got hit by a typhoon last night, it was pretty intense and people got to miss a bit of work this morning due to the conditions but everything seems to be back on track now. So I'm hoping nothing happened to my appointment with the physiotherapist today. It's 1:21pm now and I got an hour before my appointment so I'll ring them up at 2pm to double check. Getting a bit hungry, could use some food. Hm.

The few benefits I got from having an injured knee is that it forces me to stay in one place for a while. I get to focus on what I'm doing because the distractions are only on-screen. Sure I still have a lot of interruptions but I've figured out a better way to do things so I avoid the "Oh my goodness, I've got new email, I'm so curious I have to stop everything I'm doing to check it out" problem I used to have because with the Better Gmail extension for Firefox, my Favicon used to tell me if there were any new emails in my inbox. Whenever I saw that update, I'd get excited and stop what I'm doing to check it out. This used to totally screw me up because sometimes I'd get some long email that I'd end up taking care of, then afterwards wonder what I was doing before this! Yikes. So now I have an email notifier that checks my email every 15 minutes and informs me of any new messages. It gives me a short snippet of the email which allows me to skim through them quickly. I finally can sit and do my work. Interruption-less. Not free, just less.

As much as I feel my inability to do a lot of things now an annoyance, in some ways, being disabled has its benefits, it makes you enjoy the world slowly, like forcing yourself to walk slower and just notice things. One thing I noticed, not surprisingly, was how fast I actually walk normally. It sure has hell is humbling when you can't do that simple task. So the next time you get fed up with say traffic jams, at least remind yourself, you have the option of walking fast to beat this jam. It really sucks having to take taxis everywhere here. I'm used to getting there myself. And so is my wallet. Oh well. See you in 10 days from the US (fingers crossed I get some Internet connectivity while I'm there!).

Brace yourself!

2009-09-05T18:02:00.002+08:00

So check this out, I've managed to hurt my right knee from swimming in HK waters. Yes, while swimming. Ok so that's the short story, I really injured it when trying to swim/jump across a metal tube in the water that held the shark nets of the beach and while confusing myself for a dolphin, my right knee hit the bar and hyper-extended, pulling the tendons and damaging the soft tissue. Ever since, I've been in a leg brace that doesn't allow me to do anything other than stand up (har har, I'm a stand up comic, har har) or lie down.

So for the past few days, life has been moving very, very slowly for me. To the point, I've decided to just sit at home today and take the day off. Literally. This is going to be the shortest blog entry, ever. Because it ends here :).

It's the major entry again! 2.5 years into this blog thang!

2009-08-26T00:12:00.002+08:00

Holy cow! 2.5 years since I started this lovely blog!

Well it's come at a good time, seeing as I recently returned to Hong Kong from my 3-week trip for my cousin's wedding in Tenerife. It was a lovely wedding I must say, simple but sweet. I get tired of over-the-top events where most parts of the event are really useless eye-candy that is burning through people's pockets because they have to keep up their status. It's a funny thing when you see people buy their way into people's hearts and minds.

I must say though, it's good to be home. I find after being in Hong Kong for so long, I've grown accustomed to its habits and in a way I've become stubborn. I like the fast pace lifestyle, I enjoy the fact that everything you want is almost always near you, I appreciate that you really can't get bored here if you know how to play the game right. And that brings me to something I've been thinking about during my trip.

I met a lot of people, family, friends, strangers. That means I met a lot of different personalities. It's interesting when you first meet people because often you can sense their personality right away. You have the people who seem to be overly-cheerful and always try to say something nice/funny but after a while it feels a bit trying-to-hard, then you meet the people who are obviously insecure about themselves because they try to politely one-up you on everything you say/do. There are people who talk really big but eventually shoot themselves in the foot by saying something near impossible. I also met people who knew when to open their mouths, but just sat and quietly watched the show. These were people I admired, seeing them only give advise when asked for and contributing when they see a need for extra help. It occurred to me that:
The way to help is to do so only when necessary.
After all, we all know the saying too many cooks signifying that too many people are trying to help by making decisions or leading in different directions.

I guess help, like anything else in life, is best in moderation. You actually can help too much, much like a teacher spoon-feeding children in class does nothing more than spoil their appetite for knowledge.

But going back to the main aim of a major blog entry -- a time for self-evaluation.
Ever since being away from Hong Kong, I've had to put my ability to work on the go to the test. It was a good experience because it allowed me to find all the flaws in my workflow system that still forces me to cling onto my workstation. One thing I'd always been using is Microsoft Outlook to keep track of my to do's, contacts and calendar events. The reason I use this dates back to when I got my very first PDA. That was a real mind-blowing experience, knowing that my calendar, tasks and contacts could be synced to my computer so I had all my information on the go. Ever since then I stuck with this solution and was really happy with it.
It was when I was away that I realized that Microsoft Outlook is still dependent on being able to plug to your workstation to stay updated. Sure there's Microsoft's Exchange and all that, but that's a whole different game.
I'd also grown used to Outlook's limitations. However, I'd also grown numb to some ways. The fact that everytime I input a task in my PDA, it'd automatically be set as a task that is not started really upset me, because I'd often not see it in my task list in Outlook because to avoid myself from being overwhelmed by tasks, all my not started tasks are hidden by default (these are tasks that usually have a due date or I can only start doing them after a certain day, such as calling a client when they return from a vacation). I eventually developed the habit of making sure when I input my tasks in my PDA that I manually set it to due today so I'd see it on my computer and tend to it asap. A very bad habit, but I got used to it.

Eventually, I started getting overwhelmed because when I looked at my @pc list, I'd have everything mixed up, personal, work-related and anything computer related would be thrown in my face, making it seem like my list never ended. At the same time I'd see a mixture of overdue tasks (big yikes in my mind), tasks due today (stress in my mind) and tasks due later (I don't have to know about this if I have overdue tasks and tasks due today to tend to do I?). I started growing numb to the repetitive list of overdue tasks and eventually got frustrated.

The search for a better to do/GTD system began. I went back to my roots, to my first ever GTD-related tool I used, Remember the Milk. Yes I know, I spoke of this before, but, well, this is my blog :P After some research, I stuck with this tool and till today, I'm happily using it. It's solved all my psychological frustrations I had with Outlook. Now I can create my own lists with my own set of rules such as "show only tasks that are @PC and overdue or due today" so if I see that list as being empty, I can happily go over to my "whenever I can, do this @PC" list and work from there. Not only that, I've happily divided my list of "personal" and "work" related tasks. That way when it's day time, my focus is on everything "work" and when the sun goes down, I tend to my personal stuff. Guilt free :). Do I still have over-due tasks? Sure, but the good thing is, it feels like I only have a few tasks to tend to, rather than feel like even if I did all my work for today, I still have a load of stuff waiting, so don't get so happy.

The added benefit of Remember the Milk is its ability to sync just like Microsoft Outlook to my PDA's native task list. Wahoo! MilkSync for the win!

To do list - Mobilized!

Now the next thing was mobilizing my calendar and contacts. This was an easy one because I'd always been an avid fan of Google Calendar. The issue here was to see if I could sync it to my PDA just like before. I though to myself, it's google, surely they've thought of this, and I'm sure people have requested for this service. In comes Google Sync. It can happily synchronize Google Calendars and Contacts! Talk about 2 birds 1 stone! :D I tested it out and after a while, it worked perfectly! Not only that, to the normal user, they'd never know that anything changed because it uses Microsoft's Activesync just like Microsoft Outlook did.

Calendar, Contacts - Mobilized!

There's one thing I know about myself and that is that I have a need to be greedy with perfection. As much as my goal was to mobilize my to do's, calendar and contacts, I started asking questions. For example, Having used Outlook for so long, I actually grew accustomed to its calendar. I thought it'd be great if I could sync my outlook calendar to my google calendar. Turns out, you can. Even though technically not automatically, Google has created a nifty little program that allows you to do so behind the scenes. In comes Google Calendar Sync! Sweetness!

I'm still trying to find a way to sync my Ms Outlook contact list to my Google contacts, but so far I've had no luck. Why not just use Google contacts? Because it requires that little bit of loading time, after all, it's off the Internet.

But what if you don't have Internet connection? Bye bye everything?

Nope. The lovely little tool that I've been using for a while, Google Gears, is available for all the tools I've selected. This means that when I don't have Internet connectivity, I can still use these tools, but it'll be on my computer only and any updates will have to wait till I go online to sync with the online version of my tools. Wahoo! Best of both online and offline worlds!

So after 2.5 years, I've come to a very happy point where I love my to do list, calendar and contact systems.

Is that it? Do you just... stop now?

Nope, as I said before, I'm greedy with perfection. I'm evaluating the way I work now and trying to find any repetitive patterns I have and automate them. For example, when I get emails from people asking about hiring me for some private stand-up comedy gig, I have a canned response somewhere within my reply (I don't like to use a reply template because I always feel if someone took the time out to contact me, they deserve a little bit of my time in their reply). In comes Gmail's Canned Responses. Yes, now I have things that I typically reply to people in my canned response tool. I thought about the idea of making it an Autohotkey shortcut, but that'd limit me to this computer only. OK, so I did make it an Autohotkey shortcut, but the point is to make it mobile so when I'm away, I can still have the same, or near-same functionality. If you didn't know, every time in my email when you see:
Regards,
Vivek
It's actually the autohotkey shortcut of "rv" which gets changed into that text. Nifty eh?
But why don't you make it a signature? you ask? Well because Gmail allows you to have only 1 signature per account. Sometimes I respond wearing different hats, so the signature also has to change.

Typically used text - mobilized!

In terms of being mobile, I'm mobile in my management end. However, I'm still not 100% mobile when it comes to working on my projects. I'm still figuring that part out so hopefully in the next few blog posts, I'll have that sorted out.

I went to the gym yesterday and today and boy does it feel horrible to see my strength level drop to what I was back in the beginning of July. It's the end of August, so my 3 week trip has pushed me 4 weeks back in my training routine. I could feel myself both physically and mentally exhaust faster than before. By the 45 minute mark, I could feel a big crack in my concentration, those arm curls felt like a drag and I just couldn't get myself to push my muscle to contract anywhere close to what it was before. I never experienced any pump where you feel your muscles hit a point of maximum swelling and you know your body's at peak condition and ready to destroy anything in its path. I guess it'll take me a couple of weeks to get back that mind-muscle connection.

Fitness levels - fallen back to what it was in July 2009. 2 months ago! Darn!

Speaking of mind-muscle connection, I haven't practiced my drums in a month! Yikes! I haven't had a chance since I returned from my trip so that's double yikes. I have a bad feeling I may not get much of a chance before I go off to the US in end of September again. I suppose I could perhaps practice during my trip there? We'll have to see. But I do look forward to returning to Hong Kong in early October and taking on the world! Rah!

Drumming skills - lacking practice! Darn!

On a brighter note, my trip has given me a lot of new ideas and comedic material to work with. I'm still refining a lot of it, but it sure is welcome after finding myself stuck a lot of the times while I was in Hong Kong. OK, so trying to write comedy when my brain is at 50% isn't a wise decision, but it's better than not doing it all!

Comedy - got new material wahoo!

I guess as they say, you can't have everything. Though that is my goal :) I can't say I've failed in any of this, I just have to find a better balance in everything and find the optimum amount of effort I need to dedicate to each thing I adore.

So I guess after 2.5 years, I still haven't really changed, I'm still striving for more than I can bite and constantly searching for better ways to live more. In other words, I'm still staying true to my blog -- I'm still finding connections between drumming, art, getting things done (GTD), creativity and generally life.

The blog from across the globe

2009-08-14T06:02:00.004+08:00

Hello there, how is everything? I'm writing this from Tenerife in Spain as I'm attending my cousin's wedding. Haven't been to this part of the planet in almost 15 years! Woah, I have barely any recollection of visiting this place and oddly, I'm here now.... blogging! Lots has happened and I've got a nice tan from all the time in the sun. I visited my sister in Cambridge, England then my cousins in Gran Canarie and now here in Tenerife. It is so bright my eyes are actually tired from squinting. I haven't seen so much sun in my whole life! The sun sets at around 9pm daily! It's quite bizarre because this is exactly what I always dreamed about. Having the sun stay up and go down just when it's time to sleep, not when it's time to eat dinner.

So why am I here blogging?! Well it is 11pm now after all, we've spent the whole day doing wedding-stuff and I'm trying to stay up-to-date with my to do list. Speaking of to do lists, now that I've been on the road I've been noticing my holes in my be a mobile warrior mentality. First of all, I've been exploring the importance of trying to find the perfect balance between having your tools on you and having them accessible from anywhere (as long as you have an Internet connection). I'd always been an avid Drop Box user, but the one downside to it is the lack of Windows Mobile access. So I did some research and discovered Sugar Sync. I must say, so far so good, I'm liking it more than Drop Box. The one thing that sold me is its Windows Mobile support. One thing I know I almost always have with me is my PDA. So this worked great, some tools that you'd normally carry on a USB thumb drive now get stored on my Sugar Sync account and anytime I need it, connect to my account via my mobile phone (PDA) and voila, I'm all set!

Another thing I'd notice being problematic for me was my to do lists. I'd always relied on my windows mobile device and Microsoft Outlook 2003 on my home computer to take care of everything. The problem is, being on a trip of 3 weeks means you're going to have to use your mobile device as your primary to do list manager. As much as it's convenient to have on you, having to poke away at it all the time gets quite frustrating. After a while, I just got tired of working with its tiny screen and felt like giving up. I went back to my roots (the days when I first began my GTD lifestyle) and found my good ol' Remember The Milk website (the first to do service I used!). I signed up for a new account just to start things fresh and have been spending a little bit of my down time re-familiarizing myself with the interface and trying to find ways to make it even easier to use (and also faster) than with Outlook. The major issue I was having with Outlook is its inability to allow me to be truly mobile. With Remember the Milk, I now can enjoy its services anywhere and should the day come I have no Internet access, well, thanks to Google Gears, I can still use the application offline. Fantastic. When I return to Hong Kong and have gone through using this service for a month, I'll probably pay the upgrade price and get the extra services (namely MilkSync) which allows me to use my mobile device just like I do now, but instead of syncing to Outlook, it syncs to my Remember the Milk account.

On the offline end, I've been reading the book DaVinci Decoded. It's by the same author as How to Think like Leonardo DaVinci, a book I love (read my earlier posts in this blog, you'll see how long ago it was when I read that book!). So far so good, it's not as good as the one about how to think like him, but it's a good refresher course. I bought my own copy of Art of War and also came across another book called The Back of the Napkin. It's about using drawings/images to solve problems, I was quite fascinated by this concept and also figured this'd be useful for me. I know a lot about this technique, but I figured it wouldn't hurt to learn a few extra tips/tricks through this book. I've been giving myself a refresher course on the classic How to Win Friends and Influence People, but I'm leaving that reading for the plane. I've got a loooongg trip out of here :P. I was reading The DaVinci Method on my way here but halfway through the book I felt it was constantly repeating itself. I really don't like books that just keep going on and on and on about the same thing (ahah yes, I know you're pointing at my blog as nothing better).

So I return to Hong Kong at the end of August and it's back to putting the nose to the grindstone, but hopefully I'll have a fresh mind to see everything. The world awaits (when I return of course :P)

Enjoy the next 10 days!

Doing it the Spanish Way...

2009-07-29T02:43:00.002+08:00

And here we are. Day 10 entry. I was actually thinking today in the show man it seems like it's been quite a while since I wrote in my blog? Have I missed a date or something? And sure enough, my trusty GTD system reminds me that today is the big day.

So I'm heading off to Europe for my cousin's wedding in August. So this week's going to be a really hectic week for me with all my work that I want to get done before I head out. I must say, it feels like I've got this intangible deadline when I leave Hong Kong and that if I don't finish all my work, all hell breaks loose in my world. At the same time, I guess it's good incentive as well.

So I've recently started on The DaVinci Method and I must say, had I read this a few years ago, I'd be lost with all the mumbo-jumbo about brainwaves and stuff. This is definitely not a book for a beginner davinci type to use to better get to know him/herself. It's fascinating reading about how there are these so called DaVinci types that stand out from the crowd and as long as they go with their gut feeling and trust there's a reason they're different, they can excel, but if they force themselves to fit in, soon they'll run into a wall and crash emotionally if not physically or spiritually. I also managed to find Da Vinci Decoded at the library today. I remember reading another book by this author called How to think like Leonardo Da Vinci and let me just say that book is freaking awesome! Oh man, it's totally kicked me back into the days when I was so darn fascinated with Leonardo DaVinci! Heck, this blog's subtitle of finding connections is because of him! :)

On a brighter note, my trip to Spain will allow me a lot of reading time hopefully, so I'm planning on scanning the pages of my books and reading them on my laptop one by one, I don't want to lug around books and paper because chances are I'll need to do a heck of a lot of shopping or just carry stuff from different countries back and forth... this is the deal of being Indian, you can't leave a country with your suitcase being underweight, it feels like you didn't make the most of the money you paid for your ticket :P.

Any speaking of making the most of things, I'm off to bed to make the most of the next few hours, I need my Delta wave conciousness combined with my Growth Hormone excretions alongside my REM sleep and well, most importantly -- rest. Yes, I realize I've been reading too much into the art of "rest" :P But heck, it makes me know I'm resting correctly at least!

The typhoon 9 entry

2009-07-19T10:37:00.002+08:00

So Hong Kong got hit with a T9 typhoon signal which makes it a pretty bad-ass typhoon. But now we're back to a mediocre T3 signal which makes it a lame one again. It's good to enjoy the peace of your own room when it's going wild outside. I usually like to go out during typhoons and enjoy the craziness. It's a different feeling when you go out wanting to get wet, you're carefree and fearless and face the hard rain head on.

Speaking of being fearless, I recently went to Singapore to help out at a Comedy workshop as well as be a guest performer at that first and only open mic in Singapore! It was a great experience to see how some of my A-grade bits turned into C-grade bits and also great to meet all the comics there! Man I really want to learn Singlish (Singapore accent English) now :P I must say, everyone there has such a good heart and is willing to take out their spare time to help towards creating a comedy scene there. It's also great to see how people are fearless to go on stage and take advantage of this rare opportunity. Sure, not everyone was hilarious but you could see the sincerity in their speech, their willingness to embrace failure to seek the path of success. Motivating.

I also recently gave a speech at the Employees Retraining Board (ERB) in Hong Kong to a group of ethnic minorities and shared my challenges with getting work and income in Hong Kong, being a foreigner. I suppose I took a different approach, I kept reminding them that being different is a good thing. It's like saying everyone sells hamburgers, why compete on that level of who has the best hamburger? Go a whole new route and sell fishburgers! It was interesting to meet a lot of people, some of them were there writing notes about things such as books I suggested they read, others sat there with hopes I'd give them a job offer. There was a wide range of personalities. When it came to the Questions and Answers session, I must admit it was sad to see that a lot of the audience were so stuck in the box of "I need to find a job" that they forgot about stepping out and looking at the big picture instead. I mean, if you took a little time out and thought about why you didn't have a job, it may trigger a lot of responses and answers such as "perhaps I need to have a skill that differentiates me from the rest?". In many ways that triggered a thinking process in my mind as well. I realized recently, I've been so swamped with my own work that I had lost site of all the goals I had before. Goals such as improving my drumming, writing new comedy bits, enjoying life, rewarding myself, etc. All I'd been doing is get stuff done. Sure I got a lot of stuff done, but at the same time I only got that stuff done, I didn't improve much as a person. My skills haven't been upgraded and my comedy vault has grown stagnant. Having watched Ted Alexandro last week perform woke my comedy side up and really made me realize there's so much more I can do with the opportunity I've got. For one, I could use a comedian website so people interested in me and read about my upcoming shows, my personality and even get to enjoy some new stuff :) The good news is I've added it to my GTD, the bad news is it's at the bottom of a list of 53958304242 things to do.

So all I can say is today's the day I get these wheels rolling and rolling fast. I need to clear this stuff out, and step out of my box, look at the bigger picture and re-consider a lot of stuff. I just hope I don't burn out halfway through it all. But if I do, well maybe I'll just go for a walk in whatever's left of the typhoon. Have a great 10 days and step out of your box!

The lock up

2009-07-09T12:06:00.003+08:00

Woah, that took a while to do my Day 10 entry! I'm only4 days late. But for a very valid reason. I've been busy. Whoever didn't guess that needs to wake up and smell the coffee of life and the fine line between excuses and reality.

I've finally got some time today to catch up on all the 530538068042042853058350369018539 things I have to do because I've locked myself up in my room and I'm not allowed to leave this apartment until 8pm tonight when I go jamming with my band. This weekend is a big test of me sacrificing for my interests. So Ted Alexandro is in Hong Kong and he's performing at TakeOut Comedy from today (9 July 2009) to Saturday (11 July 2009). I opened for him last night at a show at the Hong Kong Football Club and it was awesome! As much as I want to go watch him again tonight, I have to practice with my band because we're scheduled for a recording session at the end of this month for Underground Compilation CD #3! And on top of that, a metal band called Rudra is performing on Saturday 11 July 2009! The kicker is that my band was invited to be an opening act for Rudra and due to the clash with my comedy, we couldn't make it. So I guess it's one of those "you can't have it all" deals.

I've been doing some thinking recently on the idea of when it is ok to not do something because you couldn't do it even if you tried (eg. no electricity) vs. not doing it because you're can't do it (eg. brain dead) vs. not doing it because you just don't want to do it (eg. frustrated and don't care anymore). I've reached all 3 moments in a lot of things and it's like I keep bouncing from one to the other until the job is done. Usually when I hit the point of frustration, I'm propelled back to why I can't do it and what's stopping me and if that's not the case, chances are I'm brain dead which frustates me because I want to get stuff done. In some ways, this mentality of getting things done is a blessing and a curse to me. It's great because I have achieved oh so much more than I ever did, but a curse because it's like a nagging boss never letting you go. I was talking to someone today about how it's already July and I heard the typical sense of unhappiness that the year has gone by so fast and it feels like nothing has been accomplished. I guess for me, it doesn't really happen anymore like that, I no longer feel like my months are getting wasted away, but more like did I maximize my time? I know I accomplished stuff, but could I have accomplished more?

I had begun on the 4-hour workweek but stopped it because it felt like it was going nowhere. Instead of going with my usual attitude of "get it done" by finishing it, I just stopped and moved on. I'm currently toying with a book called Train Your Brain More because I'm a firm believer that the brain is a muscle that needs to be worked out as much as the body to stay in shape and sharp and healthy. On top of that, proper nutrition is essential which is why I've been getting into the habit of eating almonds and nuts which contains good sources of essential fatty acids at least 1 serving a day. Usually at night before I sleep alongside my casein shake. Speaking of training your brain, I recently read an article by Jerry Seinfeld on Lifehacker talking about his productivity tip/technique which was interesting. I can't say it's uber-original or really special, but it makes sense. He basically says to have a big calendar that is stuck on your wall and for everyday you accomplish your goal (in his case, write comedy), you put a bit red X on that date. Over time you'd have this chain of X's which you'd grow fond of and you would not want to break the chain. In doing so, you build the habit of working towards your goal daily and also have the pressure of not ever breaking the chain. I've been using an online tool called Joe's Goals which is similar except it's not a whole calendar long but still lets you keep track of what goals you achieved in a day. I've been using it for a while and the main things I keep track of are:

Practiced Drums
Went to the Gym
Ate well

I used to have a longer list of things to check but it didn't work because if I had 10 things and I only missed 1, it'd seem like I still did 90% of what I set out daily. The problem was that I'd slowly lose that "oh my God I need to work at it!" mentality because 10% was such a small amount. Whereas now, every item is 33%! Fail at one and I've screwed up 1/3 of my daily goals! It's a different mental-effect. Interesting how our minds can whip us into shape when given the right stimulus.

The interesting thing about all this is that at the end it's a matter of just taking the step and doing it, which is often the hardest thing for someone who doesn't have a whipper/boss standing behind them at all times. You're your worst enemy and best friend really. And speaking of friends, my friend Bun is back to Hong Kong! After almost 2 years of photography work in Germany he's here! Wahoo!

Well, I'm off to continue my lock-up and crank out all these tasks and widgets I want to get through before I go mental at my drums tonight! Have a great next 10 days!

The end of a chapter

2009-06-25T00:15:00.003+08:00

Finally, I have finally satisfied one of my curiosities enough to move on to another. I have read enough books on fitness to proudly say I know enough about this topic to achieve my goals. Now just a matter of executing the knowledge and realizing my dreams. I've read tonnes of books and each book has its own point of view as well as new information to either completely throw me off my path or renew my faith in believing in what I'm doing.

So this begs the new question, which other curiosity do I satisfy? Much like what I read in my fitness books, at the end of the day, we get fit to survive and this leads me to functionality. I know it's always cool to get all buffed up and ripped, but at the end of the day, having huge arms does nothing but intimidate people and potential threats. From a usability point of view, they're quite useless unless you're trying to be a paper weight :P I have nothing against buff dudes, heck I admit I'm working on adding mass too but I guess at the end of the day, you got to do stuff for he bigger picture.

So, seeing as how I've progressed so much in both my fitness knowledge and physical being, it would lead me to pursue my drumming life and work on improving that. In fact, today while I was practicing drums, I realized I'd been spending far too much time on isolation exercises and my ability to just play the drums had gone down. So I decided it's time I got back to playing the drums and just followed the musical exercises in my books and kept at it. I'll do more research about the best way to advance my drumming later, because if my drumming never improved any more, I'd still be able to live.

What I won't be able to live without is my web design skills. I've recently been looking at improving my skills and got introduced BluePrintCSS. When I took the time to understand this framework, it took me back to a while ago when I used to read book after book about the best ways to make HTML websites and boy has that come in handy. All the neat little tips and tricks have helped not only save me time, but made me a living. All those cool frameworks I used to dab and learn about, stuff like jQuery used to make me all hot and excited because of all the cool things I could do with it! And then it all stopped, I got so caught up in the actual work, I got a bit out of touch with the new tide of the web. The funny thing is, I can still do my job, just there are better ways of achieving the same/better thing. Kind of like saying you can still get your message across via snail mail, but email just makes it soooooooooo much faster/better/easier.

This begs the 1st question of any quest: Where do I start?
Well, to be honest, I don't know. I'm ready to run back all the way to the basics, but that's not what I'm worried about, it's the source of this knowledge/refresher that I need to be certain about. I am a big fan of Friend of Ed (heck I'm a moderator on their forums, that's how much I love them) but I've been so out of touch I don't even know where to start with their books! But fear not for the web I have....the web! Yes, the mighty Internet to the rescue! I guess with any project of mine, it all begins with research. So here we go, for the next 10 days, my quest will be to find the best first step to re-invent myself as a new media designer/developer. Oh and a kick-ass drummer and comedian and you know the rest :P.

Oh and I've recently started on the book 4 hour work week. Long live audio-books! I'm only in the beginning and well so far I'm still not 100% sure what the book is going to be about but I do know that a lot of people are raving about it, so let's see what's the big fuss :P If anything, at least it'll make those mundane trips on the train a bit more productive. Sigh, I love and hate productivity. It's like a drug to me. Kind of like that addicted feeling you get when you work out and suddenly stop? Oddly recently I've managed to mentally avoid that weird feeling because I've finally convinced myself the importance of rest from exercise and I have results to prove its usefulness! Now if only I could convince myself of the importance of some "do whatever" time :\... oh well maybe this book'll be the magic pill!

Stretched beyond driven

2009-06-15T12:42:00.002+08:00

Ever get those times when you feel like you have been going at it for a little bit too long? I've realized that if I don't allow myself a day off or a long break faster working continuously for 10 days, I start to lose focus, motivation and the drive. From what I can tell, even though I'm 2 days late for my entry (which explains how busy I've been!), I'm not feeling it today. I didn't sleep well, I haven't got that great appetite I usually have, I'm not looking forward to achieving anything today. Yet I'm in a bind because I know I have stuff that must get done today or at least asap.

How do you normally solve these moments? It's worse since I'm even alone here so I don't have the "energy bounced off from hard working colleagues" to rely on or "you'll work hard when the boss is watching" happen. All I have is my to-do list to constantly remind me of all the 953058258302 things (or at least that's how it feels like) I have outstanding.

I guess it all started when I'd been so tied up (been doing back-to-back comedy 4 out of the last 5 days) that I'd missed out a lot of my things and it all piled up to the point my to-do list had over 10 items that were overdue. I've found that once items are overdue for more than a day for me, I grow numb to them, it's like "well now what do I do first? Stuff that's needed today? Or stuff that was needed yesterday?" Either way I feel overwhelmed and the frustration sets in. Especially when I see my inbox cluttered up with new emails and tasks, I just feel lost as to where to even begin! The only thing I can think of doing is ignoring it and going out.

Which brings me to another issue, my legs are exhausted! Ahah, yikes. I've been standing so much for the last few days that my legs are literally too tired to push me up and walk around. I can feel a certain level of soreness as well creeping up all over my lower body. Heh, ok yesterday's lower-body workout didn't really help in easing the pain either. I just hope I didn't overtrain my muscles.

On a brighter note, I'm very, very motivated to drink a lot of water. Why? Because I'm thirsty. I guess hunger and thirst are 2 things you'll never been "not motviated to do" when you are hungry and thirsty. It's quite interesting to see how your sub-concious/body can push you past your "too tired to care" attitude. Too bad my mind knows how to get lazy voluntarily. I guess I really should learn from it.

Speaking of learning stuff, I learnt a hard lesson recently. I learnt that sometimes, even when you're trying to be as positive as possible, things can still suck. I recently watched the movie I'd been waiting for years and years for -- Terminator Salvation, and I went in, super duper excited, thinking "I don't care, just give me cyborgs, guns, crazy music, awesome-ness!!" and the movie was so bad, even my super positive attitude and excitement was crushed. When the movie ended, I felt so upset because it totally ruined the whole Terminator series of movies. Completely. Not only did the movie not deserve the money I spent on my ticket, it was a waste on a big screen, it made me ashamed to say Terminator 2: Judgement Day was my all-time favorite movie. Well I guess now I realized, no matter what, expect the worst, and when you're expecting the worst, don't assume anything or that things cant get that bad, literally expect the worst. Interesting.

Alright, enjoy your next 10 days, let's see if I can get my butt-kicked into gear to get stuff done!

The end of near

2009-06-03T13:25:00.002+08:00

And here we are, the mighty month of June, hinting the arrival of the mid-way point of 2009. It's fascinating how these "dates" act as some sort of miracle turning point for a lot of people. Like new years suddenly empowers thousands to change their ways, all in a day. I admit, I'm one of them, but I often use it as an excuse to make changes. Kind of like I tell myself "alright man, it's a new year, a new mind-set and a new level of success" rather than "ok ok I'm going to do this starting 1 Jan!" the thing is, and if you read my previous posts near the new years' time, I often like to do a new years test run of all my resolutions for a few weeks to work out the kinks of everything before I really go with the "ok starting 1st Jan, I want to..." chant.

Speaking of chanting and repetitions, I've been continuously doing a lot of research about fitness and healthy eating and it feels good to get to a point a lot of the books seem to be repeating themselves. That means I've fully got the concept behind a lot of this. Of course, there's still a lot to learn, but the point is, I can now confidently plan out my meals, my workouts, etc. knowing exactly why I have to do everything. I mean, I've been studying factors such as how fast/slow you should lift a weight as well as let it down. In fact, after knowing all this, a lot of things make sense. I can even feel differences in my body and it no longer is "oh I feel sore", but it's a different type of sore. It's like I've better understood the different types/levels of soreness through understanding the reason behind this soreness. Like now, I'm in a phase of "slow tempo lifting" where I'm working my slow-twitch fibers and this often depletes the glycogen stored in your muscles much more, requiring your body to refuel with more glycogen, thus filling up your muscles more and making them bigger. I wake up feeling sore because I feel like my muscles are empty. After a hearty breakfast, I'm back to normal. The funny thing is, I realize now the benefits of this workout and to be honest, from a strength point of view, this isn't the best choice because I'm neglecting my fast-twitch fibers and eventually I'll be weaker than before. Partly because I'm lifting lighter weights and doing it slower. As they say, lift slow and become slow. But aren't your muscles getting bigger? Yes, that's true, but they're getting less efficient, in other words, my mind-muscle connection isn't being trained. Tell me to punch a guy, and I'll probably not be too forceful. It's a funny reality we live in.

I've found the best way I can improve is to understanding why I improve. Much like how I spent time learning about muscle-memory, I've seen my drumming skills improve a lot ever since I conciously understood why I was practicing a certain way. Sure I wish I had more than 30mins to an hour a day (at most) to practice, but it's still good enough. Oddly, drumming is all about the mind-muscle connection so training my muscles to get bigger helps my drumming in almost no way if you ask me, however, it does help boost my self-confidence, which in turn will boost my on-stage image/vibe and thus probably help my drumming in the end. However, it still comes down to plain ol' practicing in this field.

For comedy, this is yet another thing, body language, voice, tone, expression, etc. all combined! I'm hoping to do a one-man English show this year and it'll probably be at the end of August. I'm not sure if I can make it by then, but that's the goal for now. I've got 10 days to confirm this with myself and get to it. I've been constantly gathering ideas and stuff but haven't had a chance to refine any of them, but it's alright, an idea-gathering phase is very important in itself anyway. So I'll let you know what's going on there in my next post.

And this brings me to my point of being in the middle of 2009. I can see where I was on 1 Jan and where I am on 2 June. It's a good progress, kind of like this year has been a time for me to answer all my "why is it like this" questions, and hopefully the rest of 2009 will be for me to fulfill the "do it like this" part. :) So here's to another 10 days of achievements and successes to everyone :) Enjoy!

Periodization

2009-05-24T13:01:00.003+08:00

Periodization has been a very interesting concept to me recently. Mostly because it's been something I've been reading about a lot in fitness training manuals and books. I recently finished reading a book by Ori Hofmekler called Maximum Muscle, Minimum Fat and I must say I'm really beginning to dig this biological stuff! He goes into the deeper details of fitness to the level of hormones and how our bodies are actually pretty damn balanced. I mean, it's very hard to get it out of whack unless you keep it that way chronically. It was quite interesting to finally really understand the biological processes that your body goes through that explains the reasoning for a zig-zag diet and how many extreme diets, like the low-carb diet are eventually going to come back and bite you in the ass. I've never been a fan of taking information at face value, I want to know why this information works before I'll truly believe it. I mean, learning about the mitochondria size of different muscle fibres and how they affect the ways your body burns fat is really interesting and brings a whole new level of insight into the ways I can design my own workout routines. Too often you see people say stuff like "oh I just follow this workout because it works", sure that's great, but eventually you're going to run into a brick wall because there are only so many generic workouts that'll work for you. Eventually you're going to get more and more specific with your goals and you'll have to work that way as well. Learning how different muscle fibres work and how they get trained has taught me to better understand why there are times when I'd feel like I had a blast working out and times when I'd feel fatigued at the gym. Woah :) Knowledge is awesome! I'm currently reading The Poliquin Principles and it goes into the finer details of things such as the science behind different speeds of lifting weights. It's awesome! I knew there was a lot to this point but most people are so focused on the exercise, they ignore the form!

I respect a movement's form because it ties into a lot of other things I do. My comedy requires a lot of body language and as they say, majority of your message gets communicated through your body, and only through a mind-muscle connection can you properly execute a smooth expression with your arms, legs, face, etc. The key here is to be as relaxed as possible so that you are in full control of everything. When you're under tension, it's harder to control things. It also ties into my drumming which always, always, always emphasizes on the idea of staying relaxed. Even at high speeds, the more tense you make your muscles, the harder it is for you to progress. Only through relaxation are you able to execute each movement properly and smoothly. At the same time, slow movements allow you to conciously notice the details of inbetweens. Just like when you watch a slowed down instant replay of a sports event, you get to see things you conciously missed (even if you subconciously noticed) and then really absorb everything.

I've slowly been noticing how my body isn't balanced physically. I'm not talking about the typical right arm stronger than left arm issue a lot of right-handed people suffer from, I'm referring to my level of flexibility. My left side is actually tighter than my right which in turn affects my posture as well as daily life. For example, for anyone who's bumped into me, you'll notice I almost always have a back-pack with me. I rarely ever leave the house without it because it contains my laptop and maybe a book, some snacks, my music (yay for big headphones!) and in the summer, a spare t-shirt and of course, my very, very vital water. Everytime I look into the mirror, I see my left-side strap lower than my right. As much as I balance the strap lengths, my shoulders seem lipsided. Yet when I'm standing straight without anything on my back, my shoulders are balanced. Then I started noticing my posture from different directions, most notably from the sides. It seems that due to the tighter chest muscles on my left side, my left shoulder leans a bit more forward than my right, thus causing an imbalance in my bag's weight. And so here I am constantly conciously reminding myself to force my left shoulder back a bit more so as to make it into a normal habit of mine. Muscle memory at work once again.

The more I dig into this, the more I'm noticing how my forearms are different too. I've recently been studying my left and right hand movements during drumming and my left hand is definitely a lot less flexible than my right and so I have to conciously force it to turn a bit more so as to stay in balance with my right hand. The joys of perfection. Sigh.

Going back to my title, periodization to many is the period of certain things happen, but to me it's a block that signals an expected time of a goal being achieved. It's like a period of time of going to work before you get your paycheck, I'm focusing on the paycheck so as to make each day seem worth treading through. Honestly, it's barely any fun watching your left hand do single strokes but I know as long as I work at it, by the end of a certain period, I should have matered the technique properly. And to be honest, my hand drumming speed has improved a lot recently through my single stroke practicing. Though I'm slowly feeling that I can't keep neglecting everything else :( Much like any training, the key is good for combined with holistic training that works everything. My biggest challenge is to better understand how long it takes for the Central Nervous System to usually recover from a tiresom training session before when I can train it again productively. So here goes another 10 days. By then, I should hopefully have moved onto the lovely double stroke rolls which my feet are dreading but have to master. Speaking of which, I think I'm going to hit the drums for a bit of practice. Especially since it's so darn gloomy and rainy outside, I don't want to think about the rest of the day :(.

So let's see how the next 10 days unfold, and how many of my goals I achieve! :D Charge!