October 2011
1 post
2 tags
On motion
Lights and lanes, ticking by. Thoughts and dreams walking by. Body at ease, mind at the ready. Driving…
So much of life in the West is devoted to the pursuit of wealth and status, with personal happiness seemingly related to both but really a different idea altogether. I say idea because although 10,000 can pack a comedy theatre and enjoy a few laughs, true happiness is personal and exclusive to...
September 2011
5 posts
2 tags
After Future's
Note: Something I wrote back in 2009.
A deep breath won’t help shaking, or goosebumps. Depression, self-loathing, runaway thoughts, too, aren’t curable; not from breathing, at least.
Her nostrils gathered, embraced, and slid the night air into her chest. It took her at least ten steps to overcome the moment, feel her winter-wreaked fingers, and slide her exposed hands inside wool...
1 tag
M&Ms
Red, brown, orange, yellow, blue, green is the order in which I eat M&Ms. I’m not sure why. It just happens that way.
It may seem absurd, but there are far stranger things in the world worthy of your interest.
Child soldiers. Malaria. The widening gap between rich and poor. Tar sands. Religious fundamentalism. Etc.
The way I eat M&Ms, like a thousand other things you’ll experience...
2 tags
Headwind
I was fighting a headwind on the way to work yesterday. It reminded me of the first time I experienced blustery weather on the way into work. It was horrible.
I was on my heavy Batavus city bicycle, loaded down with a laptop, change of clothes, lunch, and things for work. The whole ensemble—including me, obviously—weighed close to 300 lbs, I’m sure.
No matter what gear I was in, no matter how...
3 tags
Steppin' out
I used to make mix tapes all the time. I’d still do it, if it wasn’t for DRM and the gigantic pain in the ass music sharing has become.
What I love about custom playlists is the possibility of making the listener feel something they wouldn’t necessarily feel.
I love art and writing for the same reason. They’re quick and easy ways to have people consider a different point of view.
Video...
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I'd rather…
What I’ve realized, in a fit of wonderment at how people like Seth Godin and Gary Vaynerchuk and Jason Fried can get so much done in a day, is that there’s enough time.
There is always enough time. An abundance, actually.
At first, it’s hard to believe. With nearly everything we use hard-wired to leave the echo of time—date stamps, cable TV schedules, expiry dates—life is reassuringly simple.
...
July 2011
5 posts
2 tags
Society of stuff
“A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone.”
– Henry David Thoreau
From the Google generation comes one of my pet peeves: WIYB, aka, “What’s In Your Bag?” syndrome.
Something so personal just 10 years ago has become an explosive growth area for restless amateur creatives trying to fit in by sharing that, they too, use Field...
2 tags
“People travel to faraway places to watch, in fascination, the kind of people...”
– Dagobert Runes, historian
1 tag
Fear, doubt, and opting out
Fear, doubt, and opting out
Fear and doubt are the same, with varying degrees. They’re cruel sisters, really: when you see a bear, you’re afraid because you doubt your abilities to survive.
See a beautiful person and you fear being alone, doubting in your capacity as a person to interest someone else.
Fear death because you doubt in the life you’ve lived.
It doesn’t have to be like this....
1 tag
Rituals
I enjoy doing the dishes. That is not a lie.
I can’t stand making time to do them, or interrupting what I’m doing to throw them in a sink filled with soapy water, but once I’m there…
I often laugh at the breathless intensity with which my friend Derek shares when he writes about karting.
The furrowed brow, sweaty forehead, clenched knuckles. I’m sure it’s all very exciting.
But it’s only a...
3 tags
What are the worst cars in the world?
…and why? I’m thinking of starting a project that may consume my free time, but I’d like to crowdsource a healthy list of the worst cars in the world. Here are some of the suggestions so far:
Cadillac Cimmaron
Pontiac Aztek
1982 Chevrolet Camaro
Chevrolet Aveo
Chevrolet Cavalier
“90s Buick anything”
1987 Chevrolet Nova
Chrysler PT Cruiser
Chery QQ
Geely CK
Fiat Palio
Iran...
June 2011
1 post
3 tags
Static and spray
What I didn’t expect was the spray hitting the front of my ankles. Ankles are such a forgettable body part, especially during work hours. But there they were, getting wet.
Minutes earlier I had been standing among other white collars, waiting for the rain to pass. You know the one: a short summer shower just enough to make prima donnas cower in fear; just enough to give the city back its scent.
...
April 2011
1 post
3 tags
“It does seem a bit odd that while the government bans texting while driving, its...”
– Very, very true. In Ontario you can’t operate a hand-held device, yet: @OPP_GTAtraffic… via the ever-amazing Tom Vanderbilt
March 2011
2 posts
2 tags
“In an information-rich world, the wealth of information means a dearth of...”
– True. via the99percent
3 tags
“Sometimes, however, I think we lose sight of the purpose of the poster itself...”
– Brilliant. via The Best Part
February 2011
1 post
3 tags
How to fix Scion
Scion is barely four months into its tenure in Canada, and already seems destined to live out its days ordering pizza, waking up at noon, and watching That 70’s Show in Toyota’s basement.
Sales? Well, despite Toyota saying that—contrary to every other vehicle line on the planet—Scion isn’t really “about sales,” I’d bet that more single-speed bicycles have been...
5 tags
Information and mobility
Information and mobility may well be the two lenses we need in order to reexamine humanity.
Through our industrial revolutions, we’ve devised ways to augment our bodies, mostly our minds through easy-to-consume information and our limbs through easy-to-produce motion. It’s time we learn how to empower our mental and physical selves without using intensive natural resource-based...
January 2011
4 posts
4 tags
A look at my day job
3 tags
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Textbooks
However, Donna Quan, the TDSB’s academic deputy director, cautioned that while schools will be equipped with wireless Internet by 2015, students will likely have to wait several more years before digital textbooks become reality.
I read my friend Jenny Yuen’s piece on how kids in Toronto are using outdated text books (see above quote) and thought, “We can do better.”
Friends in...
December 2010
2 posts
3 tags
4 tags
Dont Mix 'Em →
Drinking and driving poster, c.1937
November 2010
2 posts
2 tags
2 tags
Anonymous
Consciousness is anonymous. The states that define our existence: thoughts, memories, dreams, etc. can never be communicated in their entirety.
Those things, and the consciousness we believe to prove our selves, is always a fleeting mental state. We can never fully know or recollect our consciousness; the dark areas of our minds are, in every sense, dead to our current thought.
In our own...
October 2010
3 posts
2 tags
iPad…
…I’ve been playing around with an iPad and Apple wireless keyboard paired via Bluetooth. Not sure why I *didn’t* expect things like the keyboard volume keys, brightness keys, and shortcuts like command+c to not work.
But they do. Of course they do. This is Apple — play by their rules, don’t get too pissed you can’t do certain things, and you’ll be happy. Option+;...
3 tags
Questions: Halloween
I’m not a big fan of Halloween. Something in me says, “No matter how great the skirt is, you’ll never be a convincing Little Bo Peep.” That’s probably true. But there are other things I wonder about, concerning Halloween candy:
How many additional calories, on average, do children consume in Halloween candy?
How much additional waste is created when packaging candy...
3 tags
“Jesus is like the monster truck of love and you are an old Geo Metro which he...”
– (via The Oatmeal)
September 2010
5 posts
4 tags
Shoplifting vs digital downloads
Does anyone know if theft from physical music stores has been reduced since the widespread adoption of broadband and/or torrent downloads?
I’d almost imagine lost sales would be less than the amount lost from physical record stores due to property theft…
3 tags
Being
“–but he never tried to write thoughts,—no, he could not tell what to put first, it would kill him, and then there was spelling to be attended to at the same time!” — Thoreau, Walden
Lately I’ve been trying to think. Well, think then write. I say things all the time, but writing—writing in the best sense—is far more difficult than it once was.
I used to believe that self...
4 tags
8-bit Trololo →
Spectacular. via doobybrain
2 tags
“It seems possible that language is just a higher level organization system for...”
– If this is the case, “I am, therefore I think.” via Dustin Curtis
“About how I’d go to one site to look for things, then to a second and a third...”
– I spent one and a half to two years in a state of depression and insomnia, never sleeping more than a few hours per night. This is exactly how it felt. Do you know how hard it is to get out of your own head? via Frank Chimero
August 2010
8 posts
The Real Estate Collapse →
Great post by Lehrer. via wired.com
2 tags
“Most of the luxuries and many of the so-called comforts of life are not only not...”
– Henry David Thoreau
3 tags
“You already have enough.”
– via :mnmlist
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“We have no choices in life when money is our motivational force.”
– Erica Goldson via swiftkickonline
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The Suburbs
I’ve been listening to the latest Arcade Fire album, The Suburbs, for a week. It’s absolutely spectacular. It’s difficult enough to produce one amazing album…or two…three is next to impossible.
Yet they’ve done it. Each song inspires, incites in me soaring emotion. I’m proud that the best artists on the planet are Canadian. Many others, too; Ohbijou, Kathryn Calder,...
3 tags
About time
How drowning and insignificant we are in the annals of time.
When I read about scientists discovering a new newt, black hole or positing an idea of another universe, I immediately think: “Well, how are we discovering something now if this thing probably existed before calendars and clocks?”
It’s “now” I’d like to talk about.
If something is really important...
2 tags
“Everything written symbols can say has already passed by. They are like tracks...”
– Kimura Kyuho, Kenjutsu Fushigi Hen, via kyle steed
July 2010
8 posts
6 tags
2 tags
#carchat
After much soul-searching, I’ve decided to get off my ass and do #carchat again. Help me make it not suck. Comments welcome.
4 tags
WatchGreat film. Wish Canada was more like this.
4 tags
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An open letter to automotive writing associations...
“We need to make accountability, integrity—excellence—cool again.”
I’m pretty positive you (and your members) have been getting the wrong advice when it comes to social media and the Internet in general.
It makes my blood boil when I read half-baked strategies for success online. I cringe when experts talk about personal branding.
I have three questions for automotive...
4 tags
Ten points on a little something that got me...
So here we go:
First, read this, from “The Future of Journalism” on.
Second, I had no idea Phoenix was large enough to have its own “automotive media” association.
Third, why would McGuire speak informally about “historic changes now affecting journalists;” it’s pretty serious, no? Surely serious enough to have a formal discussion…
Fourth, buzzwords...
June 2010
10 posts
2 tags
“Do you begin to see, then, what kind of world we are creating? It is the exact...”
– via alternativereel.com
