June 29, 2010

Fantasy and the City

I finally watched Sex and the City 2 this weekend (with girlfriends, of course).  Totally late, but thinking back, so was my first introduction to the TV series.  I started watching SATC as a freshman at Penn, eight years ago… “and yet, I haven’t aged at all.”  The movie was fine.  Nothing spectacular but definitely an enjoyable time and worth the movie fare.

My biggest qualm is that as refreshing as the TV show was at the beginning, in observing love and romance in an urban environment like NYC, the movie has become just a safe.  I mean Big started as this unobtainable love interest and all of a sudden (somewhat of a spoiler), he’s a complacent wimp.  Yes, I get that this movie is more about Carrie than Big, but really?  When did he go from bachelor to old married guy who just wants to make his woman happy?  I mean saaapppppp… gggaaaaaggggg.

On the other hand, it’s the womanly fantasy, right?

You get the guy, who’s perfect but so involved in his own life that he’s too selfish and egotistic to care about anyone else’s emotion or logic.  A bad boy who gives amazing chemistry, among other things.  But then, he meets you.  And after some (6 years) of struggle, you finally get him… and he says… “You’re the one!”  O.M.G.  Yay!!!

[SPOILER] Sure he has some slip ups (worth $55.7 million during the first weekend of the first movie), but then in the second movie… perfect guy.  He loves you.  And even when you’re jacked up, he gives you a “punishment” that most women would die for as an anniversary present.  What just happened?  What happened to the honesty and cynicism with a tinge of optimism that first attract so many people to the show?

Does everything have to have a happy Disney ending?  How unreal as these expectations?

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I honestly believe that I’m finally ready to move on from this complicated relationship.  It certainly didn’t have a happy ending, actually, quite the opposite.  But I’m happy I went through it.  I’m no longer saddened.  In fact, I’m inspired for new love in the world and all the lessons I get to take with me.

Am I being too cynical when I think there doesn’t have to be a perfect ending?  That I’m happy for the journey but definitely ready to move on?

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June 14, 2010

Sneaker Wars: A Foray in Nerdism

Just put down the book yesterday, and I’m already obsessed with the awesomeness.  It’s history, sports, fashion, and case study.  And as the World Cup is happening now, it’s very appropriate that I just finished.

I’ve noticed that of the 32 World Cup teams, 13 are sponsored by Adidas, 9 by Nike, 6 by Puma, 1 by Umbro, and 2 didn’t have very visible insignias (at least not ones I recognized off-hand).  Adidas still has a lot of cache and got most of the European teams along with some of the strongest Latin and African teams.  But it’s evident that Nike is making huge headway with the US team, Brazil, and a few other heavy hitters.  Puma, other than the Italian team, seems to be hitting smaller third-world countries.

I never thought to look at the brand of football uniforms.  It tells a lot about the sportswear market and maybe a bit about where each company is placing its bets?

We’ll have to check back depending on team standings.  I’d love to see another upset like the Italy-France match of four years ago.  Puma’s team won against the French Adidas team.

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May 4, 2010

“An Ideal Balance of Softness and Strength”

I just watched the most absurd commercial.  It’s for Angel Soft toilet paper.  A guy asks his wife for a roll of toilet paper.  It’s a classic Goldilocks.  First she throws him a roll that’s too hard.  Then, it’s too soft.  Then she throws him the Angel Soft roll followed by a jingle… “Angel Soft… an ideal balance of softness and strength.”

It may not sound so corny on paper as you’re reading this.  But I guarantee you, the jingle… awful.

It brought me to wonder why agencies would write such an awkward line of copy.  Were the other lines rejected after some AB testing? Maybe legally speaking they can’t use certain phrases that other brands have used to express “softness without sacrificing the strength.”

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Whatever reason, I heard that jingle and balked.  So yes, good job ad agency, I remember the commercial.  However, I’m also a brand whore.  Charmin only.  And anything other than Bounty  in my Kitchen, Lysol in my bathroom, or Tide by my laundry basket?  I think not.  So no, the commercial also didn’t change my purchasing decision.  But I’m unique.  I love advertisements and studying them.

My real question is how did the commercial come about?  The product manager, maybe product marketing manager, the advertising agency, media buyer, and all the third party hands that have touched the commercial from the studios to the channels where the commercial is broadcasted.  They all touched the commercial.  What were their inputs and influences?  How much do you trust the gut instinct of your ad agency versus the pages of spreadsheets with scanner data and consumer perception via focus groups, surveys, etc.?  How do you separate the noise in the numbers from the statistically significant?  If you can’t, what do you rely on?  If you’re a product manager in this situation, how do you make your decision?

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I don’t know.  I want to learn.

I believe there is too much reliance on numbers, even when it means making assumptions that aren’t comparatively significant.  I believe in “an ideal balance of intuition and data.”  My goal is to learn that ideal balance.

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May 3, 2010

Announcement

Fat people rock.

That is all.

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April 27, 2010

An Education

I’ve been blessed with so much in my life.  Friends who deeply care for me.  Parents who would lay there lives on the line (and have) to give me everything that I could possibly need and now that I could possibly want.  (Seriously, it’s impossible for me to come up with a birthday wish list because I’m so freakin’ spoiled.)

Now before you stop reading and completely write me off as some spoiled “rich bitch” (yes, I’ve been called that, and yes, quite frankly, I am), just spare me a moment.

I am spoiled.  I’m blessed to be spoiled.  I’m an only-child and honestly, don’t know any different.

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But I’ve learned.  It’s hard to trust someone when you’re the center of the world… at least that’s my parents’ perspective.

A really close friend of mine blabbed on me.  I got rotten drunk and cried over the poor children around the world and how undeserving I am to be exactly where I am. It seems to silly.  But every single one of us who has a warm place to stay and food in our bellies are absolutely lucky and absolutely blessed… by god or otherwise.

… And I’m beyond that.  I don’t have to share any of myself or life with anyone.

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So why am I writing this?  To rub it in your face?

Actually, no.  Because I’ve learned (several years past college and past due) how to share.  How to be kind and be patient.  It’s really, heart-achingly hard for me. To trust someone not to hurt me.  Or to share something that supposed to be mine and no expect anything in return.

An obviously, almost stupid concept.  Yet, it’s so hard for so many of us to grasp.

I’m not quite there yet.  I still hold dear some objects in my life (like my car) that I would trust just 2 people to drive (that doesn’t even include my mother… sorry mom).  But I am learning.

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Point?  I’m really proud of what I’ve accomplished in the last three years.  You can’t necessarily see it on my resume or my Facebook.  But I’m holistically different. I’m willing to share a bit of myself and open up to my friends and to trust them.  To learn patience.

Perception has made a huge difference in my life.  I’m… dare I say… at the moment… remarkably happy.

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March 30, 2010

Vegans, Carnivores & Shoes

I’ve posted about this lovely pair of crocodile shoes that I want to buy (Just Cavalli- $219 from Gilt.com).  And this is the debate that followed.  Although I’m really happy to have a debate (in fact, it’s been a while, and I’m kinda loving it), I didn’t want to do it on Facebook.  So here’s the entire back and forth, and I’ll post my response at the end.

The link you posted is right: humans aren’t carnivores.  We’re omnivores, and therefore exhibit characteristics that aren’t well defined by a basic comparison btwn “eating meat” and “not eating meat.”  I think it’s fair to say we’re not only evolved to eat meat.

Judgment is good, when it helps you make decisions, but it can also be used as a weapon of the elite and intellectual as a way to look down on the ignorant.  I think it really depends on the context.

Let’s get on the same page in terms of the criteria.  We haven’t actually established the level of veganism that should be appropriate.  Let’s talk about environmental impact, does this mean no bread b/c it has whey?  No beer or alcohol b/c it has yeast?  How far are we going here?  What artificial fertilizers and pesticides in plants?  What are the impact of those?  Are we defining veganism as no animal life of any kind and only organic, local, and seasonal crops?  What about eating corn?  If we’re talking about happiness, ethics, and impact on the earth, how do eating meat, eating rare/exotic meat, vegetarianism, and veganism all compare?

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March 30, 2010

Alice in Wonderland

I guess the way I feel about Alice is similar to what most people feel towards Avatar.  The costumes, background, and characters were so vivid, and I actually like the classic themes of Alice (especially the jabberwocky).  While most of my friends said a mere “meh,” I fell right in and can’t WAIT to wear Alice’s ruby red card dress from the movie. Per the movie posters below, it’s obvious that Tim Burton has fantastical visual chords that play off each other in the film.

Note: This dress looked somewhat different in the movie: more strapless and slightly shorter and puffier in the skirt.

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Yay!

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March 19, 2010

Happiness Lies in the Absence of Choice ii

I really wrote the first one to write this entry.

I’m 25, single, and contemplating the notion of marriage.  Is it something I really want or just another thing I should be doing at my age?  Do I really want want it or is it just because so many of my immediate friends are coupled?  If I meet that super-lucky someone, do I mean forever forever?  Or we’ll try our best but really we live like 50% longer than back in the olden days (what era am I referring to?  no idea), and we may end up growing into two completely different individuals who have nothing in common and at that point, we may mutually agree that we’ve loved and it was awesome, but now I really want to do something else?

And that got me to thinking about 2 things: 1) I’m Chinese, so it’s highly likely that even 50 years ago, I might be suited for an arranged marriage, and 2) even pre-airline/pre-personal car/heck, even pre-online dating era, it would be hard to get around, so even with choice, I’d be limited in who I date.

But is that necessarily a bad thing?  The lack of choice that is.

Sure, steamy 3 hours, your boyfriend’s bored to tears Victorian era movies wax of forbidden romance and the unhappy arranged marriage birthed from business deals.  Those aren’t reliable, are they?  It hasn’t been until recently that art really started to capture the lives of normal, non-elite/rich folk.  When I say ‘recently,’ I mean late 1800s?

I bet most people were happy in their marriages.  Different criteria; I’m sure women back then didn’t always assume that their husbands would be the end-all, be-all of friendship, love, companionship, & passion.  The divorce rate, due to religion & social stigma, was much lower.  This is completely a wild guess, but arranged marriages don’t sound that awful to me.  If you’re stuck in a situation, you’re going to make it work.

Isn’t the prospect of too much choice in marriage bad?  You’ll almost never find someone who’s exactly perfect for you.  And with 400 million people on Facebook, that’s at least 400 million people with internet connections and at most a 20 hour flight from you.

But if you’re forced to settled (that has an awful connotation but is it really that bad?), you’d probably be ok with Dick, James, or Bob.

In our way of thinking, perfection and good are nowhere close.  The big differentiating factor is not the relationship of perfect to good but expectation to reality.  We want perfect, and we’re likely to get pretty awesome but not quite there (I mean even Mary Poppins was ‘only’ “almost perfect in every way”).  Back in the day, the expectations were more likely pretty decent guy, who’s responsible, non-abusive, and gave you some damned space, and that’s probably what you got.

So maybe I should just lower my expectations?  Is Dan Gilbert really just trying to get laid?  Lol I’m not sure and no respectively.

Interesting exercise in paradigm shifts though.

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March 19, 2010

Happiness Lies in the Absence of Choice

Every once in a while, I find myself going back to lectures on YouTube and Ted.com, remind myself that I should do this more often, and then completely forget about doing so.  Tonight is one of those nights.

This is a 20 min (21:20) by Dan Gilbert called “Why are we happy?” based on his book Stumbling on Happiness.  [Given how we waste so much of our time, this is a precious 20 minutes indeed.]

Dan talks about choice and the concept of synthetic happiness.  Synthetic happiness is when we didn’t get what we want.  Here’s an example I just made up:

You’re at a ice cream parlor and ask the server which ice cream to get (let’s pretend you can’t try them).  The guy recommends peach or pecan.  You pick the pecan but are wondering what the peach tasted like.  You’re happiness level is influx because you’re doubting your choice.  On the other hand, you ask the guy the same question, and he says peach or pecan but we’re out of peach.  Well, you say, get me the pecan then, you eat the ice cream, and you think, hmmmm… that was pretty darn good.

We learn in marketing that there is a balance between giving people choices & giving people too many choices, and there is an optimal number of choices but we can’t always control the market… or platforms.  What immediately came to mind, especially because I work in the social gaming industry is this:

Compared to the number of games on the iPhone, there are far less choices on Facebook, both in terms of genres & choices in each genre.  Giving people a select number of choices, it’s easier for them to choose.  Facebook has the top 20 games (you can go down by genre if you like, but I’m guessing most people don’t).  However, iPhone gives users top 25 and 50 in each genre.  That’s 19 subcategories under gaming and 20 if you count the “all games” category.  Holy smokes.

Is there a correlation between the limitation of choice and how much game developers are making/users are spending?  Zynga was valued at over $3 billion this year.  Playfish was bought for ~$400 million.  Playdom’s last valuation (in November, aka eons ago in interweb time) $260 million.  Top iPhone developers?  Confession: I don’t know.  I’m taking an educated guess in that none of the iPhone devs are getting such an astonishing valuation.

Yes, lots of factors play into this analogy, and I’m completely over-simplifying things.  But that doesn’t mean that I’m wrong.  The influx of choice is a major determining factor in how popular a game stays, how well it monetizes, and how many downloads.  [It's one of the reasons, the majority of iPhone games have such a short shelf life; they're constantly being replaced.]

Okay, we’ve looked at ice cream.  We’ve looked at gaming.  Let’s zoom out.  To life.

This thought leads to my bold statement: if a poll was taken of the self-described happiness level of people in China and people in the US, I bet more China would have a higher happiness rating (and as it continues to expand, that rating will slowly drop down to meet that the United States).

Why?  There are fewer choices in China (well, not in current Chinese cities but on average).  In types of food.  Politics.  Parking spots, if you’re one of the rising middle class with a car (horrible idea).

Because, in sum, there are less choices to be made, there’s also less buyer’s remorse.  The absence of this increases the overall happiness quotient.

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So. Without physical limitations to our choices, is there a way to artificially create boundaries in our lives that will help increase our ability to control our own happiness?  Do you believe choice is the evil villain in the pursuit of happiness?

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March 18, 2010

Fruit and Vegetables

I’m completely spoiled in that my company provides pretty much three square meals a day plus snacks and all the beverages that the local 7 Eleven can offer.  But what really bugs me (not that I have an excuse to complain ) is anything to do with the food at work specifically; it’s the traditional sense of what food should be.

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Veggies aren’t meant to be boiled

I love veggies, but the only type that I’ve been seeing lately is raw lettuce of boiled/charred veggies.  They have no flavor.  Instead, why don’t we have sauteed veggies seasoned with salt, which brings out the veggie’s natural flavor? Also, I enjoy purees sometimes, but I don’t really like eating my 8 servings a day of fruits and veggies by ingesting baby food along with my side of <insert meat> stew/pasta/generally weird saucy thing.

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Substituting meat with <insert name of veggie> will not make the dish taste good

Why are vegetarian dishes simply meat dishes with tofu or ‘hearty’ vegetables replacing the meat?  The reason meat is good is because it’s a delicious food that gives it’s own flavor.  Substitute it with tofu, which is a lovely bland food meant to take on and enhance the flavor of the food around it, and the dish becomes pretty nasty.

No flavor + no flavor = yuck!

Instead, tofu fried and seasoned with black bean sauce is amazing!

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Meat is not the epitome of food

And veggies can be the main dish.  Just because I eat meat doesn’t mean that I want meat as a main dish every single day.  It also doesn’t mean that to sneak nutrients into my meal you need to hide grapes in my stew (ew!).  Stop doing that!

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I guess I’ve just been spoiled on Chinese food growing up.  Generally, my mom would cook sprouts, bok choy, tofu, dried tofu, etc. separately in a wok with only oil and salt.  Both enhance and bring out the taste of the veggie.  Then, we’d have one meat dish to accompany the 3-5 veggies.

I enjoy complicated food every once in a while, but complicate doesn’t not automatically mean better.

In fact, everything’s too over processed.  Just give me some fruit, some sauteed veggies, and I’d be totally happy. :)

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