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A personal reflection on finding unexpected love and joy after embracing solitude, and the liberating effects of letting go of social media and embracing real connections.

2024 - Year of Discipline

2024 - Year of Discipline

Today is Bell Let's Talk Day, a day focused on mental health awareness. For the past few years, I have been using it to talk about a theme for the next year.

Turning 14 Years Old

Another challenging year, but coming out stronger than in the past.

Latest

A Case of Mistaken Identity

> Material from earlier theatre can be brought into a production in the same way as personal material is brought in. Just as the performer refines, distorts, condenses, and selects from his life experiences, so fragments from earlier dramas can be worked into the play at hand. Only since the intrusion of stupid laws and notions regarding originality has this rich vein of creativity been stopped. Shakespeare and Moliere without their plagiarisms would be much poorer playwrights. An art that is in

Tags: art | culture | life

Paul Carr's 'We Will Always Have the Flamingo'

> The biggest draw of hotels, though, is the people you meet in them. In the past three years, by virtue of having no fixed abode (and very little shame), I’ve partied with Hollywood actresses and Icelandic reality show stars; I’ve talked my way into toga parties with eight hundred bedsheet-clad female hairdressing students (and then been invited to lecture at their college on “the business of hair”); I’ve been thrown in jail; narrowly escaped being stabbed by Spanish drug dealers and I’ve learn

Tags: drinking | las vegas | paul carr | travel

A Canadian in Vegas Where Culture Goes to Die

I had a short trip to Las Vegas, which was my first time there and the first time I’ve been in a major US city in the past 7 years. It was a bit jarring for me coming here and I thought it would make an interesting story. 1 Quick warning, as if you didn’t know this was coming: an epic city like Las Vegas deserves an epic post/story to go along with it. Las Vegas: Where Culture Comes to Die and Be Reborn as a Bastard Coming from the hotel industry, there is a concept that

Tags: culture | las vegas | travel

My Problems with Online Reading

> There was too much noise. Even with the relatively small number of feeds to which I was subscribed, almost none of it was interesting to me. I realized that, for some reason I couldn’t quite recall, I felt obligated to stay abreast of new developments in technology and such. – Brett Kelly, Reading Intentionally: Why I Quit Reading RSS [http://nerdgap.com/reading-intentionally-why-i-quit-rss/] When I left for Las Vegas, I knew I would be going without one component that has been with me for

iPad for Work

> It is not a sacrifice to use the iPad as a primary device. — Shawn Blanc, Why the iPad is My New Laptop [http://shawnblanc.net/2012/04/ipad-laptop/] Shawn writes about how he’s using his iPad [http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B009W8YQ6K/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B009W8YQ6K&linkCode=as2&tag=four0b-20&linkId=A6IZHCBNMKAA7KNO] more for regular tasks without missing a beat without using his laptop. I wrote about this earlier when I talked about how I am Changi

Tags: ipad | work | writing

Keys to Success by John Gruber

> John Gruber’s Keys to Success 1. Fussy coffee drinker 2. Clicky keyboard 3. Soda Stream — The Talk Show #87 | 5by5 Network [http://www.5by5.tv/talkshow/87] Few quick notes: * in order to qualify as a fussy coffee drinker, you must grind your beans on a daily basis before making the coffee. * the more popular examples of clicky keyboards that I keep hearing about are the Das keyboard [https://amzn.to/3cTTd4U] and Apple Extended keyboard [https://amzn.to/2zvBylr] * the Soda S

Tags: daring fireball | john gruber | life

Sunday Reading - April 15th, 2012

I consider myself to be a fairly well-read man, and I tend to come across some fairly interesting finds each week. I tweet them as I find them, for the most part, but thought I would share some more links for your Sunday reading. They offer more variety than most sites share. Instagram’s Growth [http://alexisohanian.com/instagram-from-zero-to-a-billion-pretty-visua] – By now, everyone has heard about Facebook’s billion dollar acquisition of Instagram. Here is a visual representation of their gr

Tags: life | reading

Mike Monteiro's New Book, Design is a Job

> There’s a difference between being enjoyable to work with and being “nice.” Being nice means worrying about keeping up the appearance of harmony at the expense of being straightforward and fully engaged. Sometimes you need to tell a client they’re making the wrong call. Part of client services is being able to do that without coming off as a dick. But being afraid to do it because you’re too invested in being “nice” is worse than being a dick. Mike Monteiro, Design Is A Job [http://www.abooka

Tags: design | mike monteiro | work

Sons of Anarchy: Season One = Pure Awesomeness

I just finished watching Sons of Anarchy, Season 1 [http://click.linksynergy.com/fs-bin/stat?id=IfAPAqe/hTs&offerid=162397&type=3&subid=0&tmpid=3664&RD_PARM1=http%3A%2F%2Fitunes.apple.com%2Fus%2Ftv-season%2Fsons-of-anarchy-season-1%2Fid289274652%3Fuo%3D4%26partnerId%3D30] after a strong recommendation from John Bell (Start Your Novel [http://www.startyournovel.com/]). After watching the pilot episode, I was hooked. I honestly couldn’t stop watching it, and it’s rare for a show like that to come

Tags: review | sons of anarchy

Aligning with My Needs

> The more features you add to a product, the more it dilutes the core reason for a product’s existence and confuses people. — Marco Arment [http://www.marco.org], Build and Analyze Show #68 [http://www.5by5.tv/buildanalyze/68] I came across that quote while listening to Marco’s show last week. It inspired me to write a post on my business blog about Aligning with Your Guest’s Needs [http://foursidesconsulting.com/notebook/2012/03/aligning-with-your-guests-needs] , but I’m realizing now that

Tags: design | marco arment | reading

To People Who Complain About Being Tired Without Kids

> If I ever hear you whine about being soooo fatigued from all of your adult socializing and physical activity, I am going to come to your house and _fight you_. But before we fight, can I just ask that you go easy on me? I’m really bagged. In fact, can I take a nap at your house first? And then we’ll get right to fighting as soon as I wake up. Promise. Zzzz. –Geof Harries [http://gdharries.com/journal/text/13465048] This is by far the biggest adjustment to fatherhood that I still struggle wi

Tags: kids | parenting

Spring Renewal and Revamping

There’s something quite liberating when you start from scratch instead of building upon a previous structure. I was thinking about this when I cleaned out the design of this site and installed a new theme, removing the advertisements and most of the other nonsense. I decided to do something that I had only done before with my Windows machines of the past: wipe the drive and start over. It was the first time I had done a clean install of my Mac since I purchased it – over five years ago.1 I sta

Tags: renewl | spring

An Invitation to the Future

> The popular image of the visionary is someone with a clear view of the future, but empirically it may be better to have a blurry one. — Paul Graham, Frighteningly Ambitious Startup Ideas [http://paulgraham.com/ambitious.html] This past week could be deemed the Week of the Future. It’s hosted the launch of the new iPad [http://amzn.to/2r4mS81], the successive launches (and updates) of several popular apps (Highlight [http://highlig.ht/], Sonar [http://www.sonar.me], Path [http://www.path.com

Tags: apple | future | technology

Commitment

> Until one is committed there is a hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation) there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favour all manner of unforeseen incide

Tags: goethe | life

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