Why why why I drank that wine last night? It seemed like a good idea at the time and I tried to be optimistic. It is another 4am wakeup – it will never change!
I am walking with eyes half closed and a brain in low power mode. There is a conference call in four hours, at the time most people consider early morning. I’ll have to be ON then somehow.
Thinking of tonight’s coop shift till midnight and especially tomorrow morning when I will also have to go to work after another 4 am wakeup is filling me with dread

Every morning some time between 5:30 and 7am somewhere randomly in the park I run into a guy doing the same thing as me.
He’s got his kid in a backpack, and a dog, and a giant sun umbrella.
We always have a 3 min conversation until L get restless.
He works from home, for himself, tending his little portfolio, low key value-equity, and doing consulting side gigs. Unlike me, he has the stomach for bitcoin and other high-vol stuff. Like me, he seems to have walked away, but unlike me, he had stomach to not walkback. Unlike me, he is an obvious extrovert and he is not even pretending.

lovinghk:

this is no news to hongkongers, but it is worth reviewing how bad this is from others’ point of view. 

(photo: lam yik for new york times @ 9 jul 2017)

Crackdown Chills Hong Kong’s Indie Music Scene

(source: new york times @ 9 jul 2017)  … Few indie musicians in Hong Kong were surprised by the raid. Hidden Agenda, for example, has shuttered three previous locations because of regulatory problems since 2009.

Policy experts say that Mr. Hui’s troubles at Hidden Agenda, the beating heart of Hong Kong’s “live house” indie music scene, illustrate how zoning and performance rules in this city of 7.4 million are so restrictive that they impede artistic expression and cultural development.

Hong Kong has fewer than 13 small-scale live houses, mainly in industrial buildings, and seven others, including Hidden Agenda, that would be considered midsize or large, said Adrian Chow, a composer and producer who supervises the music group at the Hong Kong Arts Development Council.

Many of those venues would struggle to survive even without onerous regulations because the property market is among the world’s most expensive. What’s more, a recent industrial “revitalization” program gave landlords financial incentives to convert industrial buildings into offices, but it also drove up the value of such space in districts like East Kowloon, a popular area for live houses.

Jan Curious, the stage name for the singer in the band Chochukmo, called it ironic that restrictions on live music in this semiautonomous Chinese city were harsher than those on the mainland, where political speech is far more restricted.

The authorities there do not care about policing concerts, he said. “Maybe they’ll come and ask you for money. But they won’t tell you to stop.”

If anyone thinks living under Trump is bad, imagine this.

My heart goes to Hongkongers.