.me

Author: Tommy Leung | 06.23.2009 | Category: Internet

Other people with my name have long since bought up the .com domains with my name. In my neverending effort to make Googling my name show my internet presence first, I have bought tommyleung.me and thomasleung.me.

I’m not super sure what I intend to do with those domains yet. They just point to here now. More options for self-branding!

Hello Summer!

Author: Tommy Leung | 06.09.2009 | Category: Life

I haven’t written anything since the end of April. Part of it has to do with me being lazy and getting “tied up” taking Facebook quizzes–those things are addictive! The main culprit is how busy I’ve been at work. It only looks like its going to get even busier as we enter the second half of the year.

Since I wrote about my near death experience via bench press, I have joined Planet Fitness. I was making do with make shift workouts for a while–body weight exercises and the such. I can create a pretty good workout anywhere but, there isn’t a real substitute in the modern world for good old iron. I don’t spend my day hunting for my food. Most of my day consists of being seated in an office.

Planet Fitness isn’t the bodybuilder’s gym or the gym for the serious athlete–they just don’t have enough free weights. I’m not a bodybuilder or professional athelete so it’ll do. They are cheap at $20 a month for their premium plan and they are running a deal now for $199 for two years.

I usually have a whole plan of exercises and all that stuff. I decided to forgo all of that this time and aim to accomplish two things while I’m at the gym: work my entire body and be dead tired when I’m done. Of course, I also limit my workouts to around 60 minutes–the shorter the better. Some people swear by split routines and spend hours at the gym. I need the greatest gains in the shortest amount of time–efficient.

My main motivation to go back to the gym was when my good friend who saved me from my bench press death said my arms were bigger back in high school. What?! I was online that night researching gyms! I’m a little vain. It was good motivation at a good time. Doesn’t hurt to be in better shape when summer really rolls around.

The majority of my weekends of late has been filled with looking for a new apartment so that has taken away time from writing. I’m likely going to be a residence of Queens, NY soon. Moving is going to be a pain in the ass–it always is.

Image via Wikipedia

Aside from apartment searching, I also saw some of my friends on Pace University’s Advertising Team compete in the NASC. They were amazing and put together a fantastic plan. I’m going to write about it on my marketing blog, it’s just going take some time. Any ad agency or marketing department would do well to have any one of them working for them–the economy is making hiring scarce but, they are good and persistence will win out.

In other news, I’ve also “officially”  graduated from Pace University. I’ve had the degree for months but, I went to the ceremony and all that. They really need to not do graduation ceremonies so early, I’m not awake yet. I was almost a zombie going through the whole thing and then seriously just went to sleep after it was all said and done.

I will definitely write a little something about this Dora the Explorer game I’m working on once its finished and available on Nickelodeon’s website. This game is supposed to be on sale at retailers too–fancy. Now hopefully, I can find more time to write while work is keeping is busy. I’ve been restructuring my life a little recently as well so that hasn’t helped keep my entries consistent!

An Almost Death

Author: Tommy Leung | 04.29.2009 | Category: Life

I had almost died once. This wasn’t in a car accident or anything you’d expect to have a near death experience. I’ve had a pretty scary car experience too but, it never crossed my mind that I could have died. I’ve also never been in a war or been a police officer or firefighter. I grew up in a semi-dangerous neighborhood–to some people, the entire city of New York is dangerous.

This near death experience happened to me a long time ago. Back in high school, I often took Coed Advanced Weight Training. The other option involved a lot of mindless running around a track–they called that class Track. I don’t really like running and I do like weight lifting so that was a no-brainer. Did I mention it was coed?

So one day, it was after class and people had left. A friend and I stayed behind to do some more lifts. We had competitions in this class for max bench press, number of push ups, pull ups, dips, etc. Now this was a class near the day of the competitions so we wanted to work on the bench press.

I was never a monster bench presser. I was only about 155lbs and my max bench was at 185lbs. However, on this day, at this particular moment, I was not able to bench 185.

We did some warm ups and it was fine. We then proceeded to just do max lifts. I’m lying on the bench and have my hands on the barbell. My spotter is a good friend who has become more of a gym person than me. We pick up the weight and I proceed to do the lift. All of a sudden my arms just give and 185lbs of iron complied with the forces of gravity.

The bar dropped in line with my neck and at one moment I felt the cold metal of the bar touch my neck. At this same moment, my spotter grabs the bar and saves me from a beheading.

I don’ t know for sure if I would have died but, it was certainly not going to be pretty. There is no shortage of bench press accidents online and none of them look fun. To this day, I am still very cautious about doing bench presses.

I did lift 185lbs on the day of the bench press competition. That was not a winning lift–I believe it was closer to 215. I was happy that I did 185 that day. It was more about overcoming the fear than how much weight it was. You never really lose the slight dread that overcomes you when you lie under the bar to do a bench press.

I certainly do not try to do max bench presses anymore. The last highest weight I’ve benched was 215lbs a few times. I increase the weight of my bench at very small increments. I like to stay alive more than I like to have a high bench weight!

Here Comes Spring

Author: Tommy Leung | 04.16.2009 | Category: Life

I’ve been super busy as of late. It has mostly to do with work. I’m doing two projects and one of them is a much bigger pain in the ass than I would like. Updates across all my blogs are pretty few and far in between as of late. I just haven’t had the time to write something useful in my off time. When I have time to relax I want to actually relax.

My Twitter activity was low for a while too but, I still managed to have some updates. Updating in 140 characters or less is a much easier task than writing a blog post. Especially since I try not to write about the mundane on a blog–who really wants to read that?

On Twitter and Facebook, I’ll update with the mundane–random thoughts that come to mind during the day. My last tweet was about the dentist–not exciting.

Technically, this is a random to useless blog post but, I’m writing more than 140 characters. I felt like my blog was getting stale so instead of trying to write something big, I’m writing something small. I do have another blog entry in mind and I’ve started a draft but, it is going to take a lot more work than this.

In good news, the weather is finally looking like it is going to turn warm and stay that way. It has been a tease in recent weeks. Spring is awesome-not too hot, not too cold, just right!

Follow me on Twitter for more frequent updates whether I’m drowning in work or just being lazy. I’m at least a little interesting!

Lost Generation

Author: Tommy Leung | 03.26.2009 | Category: Videos

I thought this video was amazing. AARP U@50 second place winner.

Live in the Now

Author: Tommy Leung | 03.25.2009 | Category: Life

Image by muscapix via Flickr

Many people like to dwell in the past. Past failures or past accomplishments. Past good times or past bad times. What we really need is to live in the now. It is not about who we were with or what we did. It is about who we are with and what we are doing.

Nostalgia is a funny emotion. It makes us feel good and puts the past on a pedestal. However, our memory of the past is always better than what it really was. Trying to relive those moments is never the same. The sad truth is that the past is not coming back. It’s done. What we have is now and tomorrow.

On the flip side, some pasts are terrible. They create phobias. We never want to relive them again. Yet, we still keep them in mind. In fact, we become so deathly afraid of them that we panic at the thought of repeating them! While nostalgic moments are not really as good as we remember, bad moments aren’t as bad as we remember either.

It doesn’t matter which side of the coin the past that you are dwelling on resides. They are both fundamentally the same and lead to the same conclusion: live in the now.

Past achievements do not give us an excuse to do poorly now. Past failures do not give us an excuse to give up before we’ve even tried. What happened in the past is no guarantee of what will happen in the future. The only way you can influence the future is by what you do now.

Don’t scramble and put great energy into reviving the past. Put that energy and focus into creating something new. The past is gone, the now is here.

Stop worrying about what people did in the past. Recognize and celebrate the good, forgive and forget the past, and get to know who they are today.

Live in the now.

omfg!marketing

Author: Tommy Leung | 03.24.2009 | Category: Marketing

I started a marketing blog a while ago but, I didn’t bother announcing it here. I did put a link to it in the menu under “Marketing”. I’ve been pretty busy with work and sometimes just plain lazy! However, I do find the time to debate people about politics and economics on Facebook.

So my marketing blog is called omfg!marketing. This is where I talk about social media, online, interactive, word of mouth, new marketing. I am a believer in this “new” era of marketing where it isn’t about shouting at your consumers but, conversing with them.

So check it out! I only have a few posts as I try to not reiterate the news–there are plenty of other outlets for that. Trying to actually provide useful and possibly unique things! I’m on Twitter a lot these days–can’t imagine living without it now! A little scary.