What Do I Like?

Off for the holidays, I have a bit of time to think about stuff that I enjoy.

I think the content I consume the most is podcasts. I think there are 60 podcast series on my phone right now (some of them are limited series or I'm not subscribed to). There on variety of subjects, but I've gotten away from the comedian-host interview podcasts. They get boring after a while.

So here's the list as it appears on my pod-catcher app.

1. This American Life
2. Planet Money
3. Canadaland
4. Canadaland Commons
5. Oppo
6. pop culture happy hour
7. Switched on Pop
8. Hit Parade
9. Cocaine & Rhinestones
10. Still Processing
11. The Watch
12. Channel 33
13. Molly's Sleazy Friends
14. Night Call
15. House of Carbs
16. Steve Dangle Podcast
17. The Hockey PDOcast
18. The Leafs Geeks Podcast
19. The Leafs Report
20. The Lowe Post
21. Jalen & Jacoby
22. How Did This Get Made?
23. Hello From The Magic Tavern
24. Mission to Zyxx
25. Not Another D&D Podcast
26. Getting Curious with Jonathan Van Ness
27. Hannibal Buress: Handsome Rambler
28. Anna Faris is Unqualified
29. Reply All
30. Darknet Diaries
31. Late Night Linux
32. Linux Action News
33. My Dad Wrote a Porno
34. Revisionist History
35. Yo, Is This Racist?
36. Who? Weekly
37. Cool Playlist
38. The Daily
39. The Rewatchables
40. The Rapcast by Raptors Republic
41. The Starters
42. The Ringer NBA Show
43. The Bill Simmons Podcast
44. 31 Thoughts
45. Borken Record
46. Thunder Bay
47. Serial 
48. Mystery Show
49. Wag the Doug
50. Critical Role

2 years later

I forgotten this blog existed. Might be time to retire it. I've had this blog since I was a teenager and while nothing on here is terribly embarrassing, everything from your youth is a little embarrassing.

Hell, I might have already written a version of that last paragraph before.

Anyway, a quick of hits:

• started a new job that takes up all my time
• going to fewer the movies
• running almost no outdoor events around the city
• for the most part stopped reading comic books
• exploring new restaurants across the city
• watching more sports - the local teams are suddenly good
• still finding good TV to watch, but being selective in what I watch. Current favourites
• Mr Robot
• Better Call Saul
• Killing Eve
• The Good Place
• Game of Thrones
• Atlanta
• Twin Peaks - The Return

A Love of Hip Hop

This evening, with my partner out with a friend who recently broke up with her boyfriend of ten years, I find myself trying to create a list of my favourite hip hop albums. I don't pretend to be an expert or even have good taste in hip hop music. I just listen to what's consider the best and see what I like. This being said, here's what I've decided are my favourite hip hop records

1. Public Enemy - Fear of a Black Planet
2. The Roots - Things Fall Apart
3. Mos Def - Black on Both Sides
4. Killer Mike - R.A.P. Music
5. Madvillian - Madvilliany 
6. Kendrick Lamar - good kid, m.A.A.d. city
7. Kanye West - The College Dropout

I could probably include Wu-Tang Clan, T.I., and some other stuff but these are the ones when I put them on I'm in love with them. 

We try and we fail

It's Sunday morning.

I'm at work updating desktops to Windows 10 after unsuccessful trying yesterday. Today it's been going much better. Half the computers will done by tomorrow morning, which is nice.

While the computers go through the automatic process, I'm updating my other website, writing some content. I'm trying to take control of my work and being able to market myself has an educator with skills that fit the current marketplace. My position at work is pretty stable at the moment, but I want to always be trying to get a little better.

Jump Around

Late night writing.

That's what blogs are for. 

In the mid-2000s (I started to write, "a decade ago" but couldn't bring myself to do that because it made me feel old), when I was seriously using this blog as a platform for expressing my thoughts into the void, I wrote primarily at night, after a day of doing "stuff". Since I've been working full-time, I've been going to bed earlier, not spending an hour or so trying to craft something worthwhile.

2015

What happened this year?

At the moment, all I can think of how spraining my ankle in the spring screwed up my summer, how taking advantage of short term job fucked me over, and how my partner's new job leaves her with little energy to do much else in the evening or on weekends. These are all negatives but they're what comes to mind first.

So, let's go through some positives.

I went on a trip this summer, which was nice, but I took other stresses (individual and work-related) with me so it wasn't as awesome as it could have been.

I wasn't as strap for money this summer as I thought I would be, which was nice.

I don't know. I guess 2015 wasn't my best year, which is fine. I just need to learn from it and work on getting my head in the right space to be a better version of myself.

Good Stuff

• Ms. Marvel (comics)
• Lazarus (comics)
• Courtney Barnett - Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit (music)
• Kendrick Lamar - To Pimp a Butterfly (music)
• Mad Max: Fury Road (movies)
• Pitch Perfect 2 (movies)
• Spy (movies)
• Creed (movies)
• Star Wars - The Force Awakens (movies)

Listening to Records

First day of my unofficial month long vacation. I'm currently listening to The Smiths' The Queen is Dead (it's great). This is one of the records I've had sitting in my apartment for a year and haven't listened to yet. I'm going through them (there are hundreds) and deciding which should be kept, which I should give away, and sell/donate the rest.

The headphones I'm using only work if they stay in one spot. I borrowed my father's soldering gun to fix it but haven't gotten my act together to get the electronic store to pick up a new 1/8" connector.

I moved my old recorder player to my desk so I could listening to records while I "work".

During this month off, I will apply to jobs, apply for graduate school, and finish writing up for my flashy new "professional" website.

End of an Era

So I think this blog is done. For a while this was my main creative outlet. I don't think this is the first time I've written that. I think I'm going to a final statement a bit later to sum everything up.

UPDATE (1/13/2016): Seems like it isn't dead yet. It's a good way to write things that are semi-private (but not really at all).

Reflections on a Cold Winter's Day

I've just gone and updated a bunch of little things on this site. Seems like I had been lazy. No posts since October. Oops. It's -25 right now and I wish I was back in Las Vegas (or California). We had a good time but Vegas is a little too expensive for my tastes. Most likely go back.

 Not as impressive with Christmas music

 All over the hotel was stuff like this. Too much black and purple.

 Driving in the desert 

 Made it all the way to the Pacific

 Have no clue what this is

 Pinball Hall of Fame was one of the highlights of the trip for me

Need at least one picture of Old Vegas

Identity

If you were to ask me what my interests were a decade ago I could easily list them. If you asked today, my first instinct would be rely on that old list; a list that was carefully crafted by twenty-something me to fully encapsulate who I was in short eight to ten point list. But I'm not so sure it would be a good reflection of me today.

So I think I should make a new list. Why? Simply as an exercise in self-reflection. I figure that the list was more important when I was single and dating because you're meeting tons of new people and you're trying to seem as attractive and interesting as possible. I don't have that issues anymore but I think it's still a good idea to reflect on who you are as now rather than relying on previous creating personas.

Here are the main three points from the old list (mid-twenties):

• Reading. I used to read lots of novels and non-fiction books. Today, not so much. I read probably just as much but it's online articles, opinion pieces, and such. Still read comic books, but don't spend hours or days just re-reading them (I've actually been thinking about what to do with my collection since it seems to be just sitting there. There's no real monetary value in them). I will say I'm probably more informed about current events than I was previously, but that's probably because of the Internet. 
• Music. I was OBSESSED with popular music. I still have opinions and like/dislike things but I don't spend nearly as much time listening to music. Two main causes - podcasts and communing. My listening habits have shifted to podcasts instead of music. Making dinner, doing laundry, etc now have a soundtrack of people talking rather musical instruments. Also I don't a long commune anymore so the 1-2 hours a day I'd spend in transit don't happen anymore. Also my job isn't headphone friendly (meaning I don't have hours in front of screen doing work that I can put background music on for). Add to the fact I don't spend all my free time seeking out new music means it's less of a factor in my life now. 
• Camping. I don't camp as much as I used to but I'm spending more time outdoors these days. Thought I was an indoor kid (re-writing personal history to delete all the time I spent outside in my childhood) but it seems I'm a hybrid indoor/outdoor kid. While in school (high school & university), I spent a lot of time camping. After that it was less and less. 
• Education. It was all I had known. Didn't have a career so academic status and culture were very important to me. Saw education as a sign of intelligence. Now, I know it isn't that. 

Ok, enough with the past. Let's see what my new list would look like.

1. Using Technology
2. Exploration (trying new foods, visiting new places, seeing what's around the corner)
3. Comic Book Culture (not general nerd culture; I'm focused on comic-related stuff)
4. Sharing Interests (telling stories, explaining a topic/subject)

I'm going to leave this as is right now. I'm need some more time to consider exactly what I'm saying with these points. 

Temp Work

I'm sitting on the 14th floor, surfing the Internet at my temp job covering someone's vacation. It's total nepotism because my aunt got me this gig. I used to work in this department years ago as causal employee, so it wasn't like I was unfamiliar with place. It's a research institution studying astrophysics, similar field as seen on the mega-popular sitcom The Big Bang Theory. I used to tape their seminars, and it was interesting up to a point. The ideas, like thinking about how stars or the universe were formed, were easy to understand but the math and models weren't. It was a good job that kept me busy enough for a part-time job.

This week's job isn't as exciting. I'm doing office work, but since I'm super temporary, I'm just manning the phone and accepting deliveries. That's about it. It's really boring, like supply teaching. I guess I want to challenged a bit by my work (I also want to gain mastery at it so it gets easier over time).

But this fills a gap in my employment, means I won't be super broke by the end of the summer. Things worked out pretty well.

Visiting Detroit, then Pittsburgh

My partner and I have been to Detroit several times over the last couple of years. This is the first time we've had more than a day and a half in the city. We usually stick to similar places, throwing in some random new new ones each time. We start each visit at Slows, my partners favourite restaurant. Yes, she's a vegetarian and yes, this is a barbecue restaurant but they've always had a good veggie option (or two).

We also always go to the downtown location of John K King Used Books, the best (and probably largest) used bookstore I've ever been to. I mean there's a good used/new bookstore in Cleveland but this is four floors of only used books and great prices. The last couple of times I've purchased old genre novels for a couple of bucks and haven't been disappointed.

While my partners combing through designer discount stores, I went to a record store in a suburb north of the city. Got some records.

Saturday was almost all new stuff. First we started the day at the Eastern Market. It's awesome. Just so big and tons of local produce. Someone had a milk crate full of puppies they were trying to sell. It took all of her power to ONLY pet them (they were pretty cute). We wandered all around, just taking everything in. I don't think I've seen anything like that. After the Eastern Market, we were off to more random locations around Detroit. One of my favourite record stores didn't have any interesting wares so we went north, finding a "retro" store that was having an absolutely fantastic back issue sale, letting buy tons of stuff without spending too much. Ended the night by seeing a bad film and eating excellent El Salvadorian food.

Sunday was our travel day. Got up early and started driving across Ohio. Stop at a Chili's for lunch (my partner absolutely LOVES Chili's. Me, not so much). Got to Pittsburgh a little early, which meant a trek to local mall for my better half and record/comic shops for me. Comic book shop was great (again with relatively cheap back issues meant that I was able to complete my run of Uncanny X-Men). Suburban Pittsburgh is interesting because it's so hilly it doesn't have a very suburban feel to it. One quirky fact - there were TONS of ice cream places everywhere. Like one almost every block in some places.

Started Monday with a short hike (3 miles) through the Panther Hallow Run. Didn't exactly get lost but definitely made my own trail in some parts. It was pretty nice park in the middle of the city and great way to start the day after two days of driving and eating. Finally saw the Roberto Clemente statue, which was really nice. Also took full advantage of having a GPS unit in the car. Went to see a movie and right before it started the fire alarm went off. Ended the night at a student dive bar whose deals made me question how they made money. We ate dinner, had a pitcher of beer, two pints of cider, and another pint of beer for $24. Seriously, how was that even possible? (The was pretty bad).

Tuesday was driving back to the city via Buffalo where stopped for dinner at the home of the Buffalo wing. While stuck in traffic in Toronto, after driving almost five hours, a bolt broke off and caused the car to make this awful rattling noise. At the time I didn't know exactly what went wrong (thought it was something minor because the car drove fine just sounded bad) but it stressed me out. Thank god my partner was able to be the calm one in that situation.

If I had my way, next time we'd go further and spend only a day in city, picking one thing to do so we could see more. I think, however, our next trip will be overseas somewhere.

Caravan

I'm listening to the Juan Tizol composition as I write the beginning of this post. The version I'm listening to is from Monkey Jungle, an album that featured Duke Ellington playing piano with bassist Charles Mingus and drummer Max Roach. It's probably my favourite jazz record. I like how chaotic is sounds, with the musicians' different styles playing off each other.

Anyway....

End of the academic year (June) was not unexpectedly a busy time for me. Aside from the usual testing and administrative tasks, I was also tasked with creating a "celebrating success" booklet and an end of year video. Got both done, but it meant that at the end of the day I had little focus left to write a follow-up June's blog post.

So I'm here now, twelve days into the new month. Applied for a job, went through three rounds of interviews and didn't get it. Silver lining - don't think I would have been terribly good at it.

So now I've got the summer to focus on "me" projects (as promised in my last post). Here's my public list:

1. Continue with my current regiment of two hikes a week, averaging between 22 & 25 kilometers a week. So far I've been doing good, not injuring myself or doing anything terribly silly. This needs to continue for the next month and a half.
2. Cooking at home more often, even if this means going to the grocery store two to three times a week. The last couple of weeks have been bad, and it's affected my budget. 
3. Listen to some new music. Been better about it lately but need more new music. 
4. Create new ideas for next year (including getting learners to create audio podcasts).
5. Buy and create my personal website (maybe even business cards). This will be an area where I can write and create documents, tasks, and resources for my portfolio.

That's the short list. There are other things like organize my comics but I'm less sure I'll get that done with my three weeks of scattered "vacation" time. 

Oh, saw two acts during NXNE - St. Vincent & Run the Jewels. Both were excellent, but St. Vincent was on another level. She's fantastic and it made me love her newest record even more. 

Prepaid for the movie

I've had a tons of random ideas recently. Can't remember any of them, mainly because I didn't write anything down. I believe they most revolved around the ideas of what I should be doing with my time. Need to focus my spare time, especially with the summer coming up. Small goals. In the next couple of weeks I'll put together a list and then I'll publish it to keep me honest.

Interaction

How do you interact with people online? Short and sweet. I'd publish this on tumblr but that's where I'm having difficult navigating the etiquette. You can follow people, like things, and such BUT like in real life, how can you do so without it being awkward. That's the question. I don't expect an answer or anything. Just wondering. I'm taking the approach of being overly cautious and polite, which is my standard approach.

Drafts

I'm considering creating a professional website to beef up my presence online. I mean, I'm on all the social networks using various aliases mainly so that isn't the first thing that comes up about me online. It wouldn't be terribly difficult for someone to figure out who I am. So, I need something with my legal name on it beyond a LinkedIn and Twitter account. A website sounds great but I don't know what I'd do with it. Can't just have a website without a purpose.

Manic Pixie Dream Girl Revisited

So... Here's a poorly written blog post from 2005 where I doing a poor job of expressing what would later become the manic pixie dream girl theory. Re-reading myself, I come off  at the very least problematic and at the worst incredibly sexist. I was a naive and a little off with the "girl's don't make mix tapes like that" point. What I was trying to get at was the scenario seemed... unlikely? No, that's not right. Elizabethtown went against everything I had experienced as a young person dealing with others in those semi-romantic/more-than-platonic-friends situations. There was a lot about Clair (Kirsten Dunst's character) that seemed unrealistic to me, but specifically the commanding taste in music. I realize now I lacked the necessary language to express my thoughts without sounding like a jackass. I think it's the "... and she's pretty to boot" part that makes me cringe the most. What does how she looks like have to with anything relevant? Or is it relevant to everything since it's in the context of a Hollywood movie that exploits her femininity? I'm unsure. If I'm being kind to my younger self, I saw some part of this and just filtered it through the lens of the music selection. If I'm not, I was just another sexist 20-something boy who couldn't imagine a woman applying a vast knowledge of music and history to create what in my mind was a work of genius.

Maybe I'm making things worse. I don't know if I have all the tools necessary to express myself properly without coming off like an ass. I fully admit that I have under examined my privilege concerning gender issues. I've been called out about this in the past. It's difficult to confront but I'm trying.

Lie to me, I promise to believe

Love, however, has its own dialectic. There was a young girl I was once in love with. Last summer at the theatre in Dresden I saw an actress who bore a deceptive resemblance to her. Because of this I wanted to make her acquaintance, and succeeded, and then convinced myself that there was a quite considerable difference all the same. Today I met a lady on the street who reminded me of that actress. This story can go on as long as you like. 

Soren Kierkegaard, Either/Or, pg 344-345 (Penguin Classics)

I picked the title because I found a clip of Lorde and Haim doing a cover of the Sheryl Crow song "Strong Enough". 

I then randomly opened up to a page in Either/Or. That's the first bit I saw. Not sure if they relate to each other but it's certainly interesting. 

Give me a couple of days to think about this. 

Soda, Pop, Cola, & Soft Drinks

In an effort to be healthier person I'm giving up soft drinks. It was something I had been meaning to do for a while but always found some reason not to. It was never a good reason, but there was always a reason. So for my birthday last week I decided to go cold turkey and I haven't had one since. So far it's been going well. My goal is to avoid drinking any soft drinks for two months but I'd settle for a couple of weeks.

I was inspired by my partner who has been making lots of lifestyle changes recently (last year or two). She's given up caffeine, going to yoga class two to three times a week, and incorporated more vegan dishes into our diet. None of these changes has really affect my quality of life so they've been easy changes. I think when I finally try to tackle meat consumption and dinning out that I'll really feel these health choices.

Double Digits

Quick trip down lane.

11, 1992 - 5th grade. Wasn't my best year. Picked last for everything, not doing terribly well in school and basically super nerdy. Things changed but I don't recall being very happy for my 11th birthday.

22, 2003 - Third year of undergrad. Went to dive bar. One of our friend's birthday was the 16th (or maybe the 18th... I don't remember) so we did a dual party. It was a good time surrounded by all of my university friends. 

33, 2014 - Had to work. Didn't sleep well the night before. Best part was being taken to a surprise restaurant for dinner. Also made a resolution to stop drinking carbonated drinks.