Lets Play A Sugary Tomato Sauce (Katchup)

Hey there interwebs, how you doin? Good? That's good. More and more people using you every single day? Awesome. And me? Well right now i am doing pretty good. Here comes my new blog post, a coles notes version of my life during my first two months at school:

• Currently dating a wonderfully fantastic girl that i am insanely crazy about

• Figuring out slowly what i want to do with my life and finding out that it doesn't actually matter as long as there is something new for me to do every so often
• My older computer died and i have recently bought a new one that sadly still lacks a name
• Turned 21 and feel as much of a little kid as ever
• Slowly started embracing the notion of minimalism thanks to a blog i started reading here is the link
  
• I have gotten to know my room mates much better than i used to
• One of said roomies started a blog which i think you should all check out and encourage her to write more at http://fooduni.blogspot.com/
• I discovered yet again just how important a prof is to the subject matter they teach thanks to philosophy of art
• I have renewed my love of the two areas of knowledge that will be making up my degrees
• I have become completely and utterly broke meaning a job hunt is fast approaching
  
• Met a bunch of new people as is bound to happen at the start of each school year
• Became even more obsessed with cleaning, though mainly dishes and my room
• Reading a lot, and watching a lot of TV shows as is usual
• Looking for more changes in my life
• Thinking about space clearing in all aspects and wondering where to start

Now it is your turn. If you go to the same school as me it is reading week and you now have some more time than you did before, but even if you don't take a few minutes and run over the big important stuff that happened in the last few months. Look at the good, the bad, and the stuff you want to change. Let go of the fear, the worry, the regret, and the sadness. Let go of the happiness too.

That seems like a silly notion, i know. Think about how much time you hurt yourself with past happiness though, whether it be happiness from a past relationship that is over now or a past mark on an assignment that your current work didn't match.

Let go of the past and make some more room for the future, after all if your in uni like me this year still has 6 months to go! (And if your really like me then this year has 9 more months cause you will also be taking classes during the summer!)

R.I.P. Bob

Hey out there loyal readers, hey also to first timers, and of course hey to those who wish i was actually writing this blog on a semi-regular schedule so that they could use it to eat up time better spent doing homework, or reading, or sleeping...

I know, the sheer volume of posts which i have written after a period of about a week pledging that there would be no gap that large again is probably one full third of this blog. Why do i write about that so often? Because i am simply sick of bloggers that i love to read keeping their stories from me. Of course i don't want to do this to anyone who actually enjoys reading this (all two of you, i would say three but i don't count...)

It is interesting to think back on this summer. I forget when but i had a time when i wanted to engage in a "tech detox" by which i mean that i would stop for a period of at least a week, if not longer, using my TV, cell phone, computer, and the internet anywhere. If you wanted to reach me you would have had three options, call my house, stop by, or write me a letter. As you all can guess that never really happened.

What you probably could have figured out is that i did engage in something quite similar relatively recently. See sadly my old computer Bob died after three loyal years of service and a little bit beyond. Yes Bob did go in for service on a semi-regular basis. Yes Bob had so many replacement parts that i could argue Bob would have been the laptop equivalent of a person who has basically all their organs replaced by machines. That's right, i had a computer cyborg.

But yes, during the time Bob passed i was reduced to using either my girlfriend's computer or the computers on campus that were even older than Bob. As well during this time i was too busy to really spend a lot of time watching TV. True, i did play some G O Dubs, and my cell phone was often in use.

But during this time it was interesting to note how i could so easily get along without these pieces of technology. I survived the time without my computer and frequent access to the internet. I didn't die, my social life remained alive, I was not suddenly shunned by everyone everywhere. My suggestion is that you consider doing this, if only for two or three days. Most people check their email more than once or twice a day, some studies suggest that people actually check their email about once an hour! Believe me, unless you are a prof, a psychologist, or someone involved with some kind of armed conflict (be it the police, the military, or a standoff with your little sibling) you really don't need to be checking that often.

I encourage trying to just check your email when you get up in the morning and before you go to bed at night. Give yourself 20 minutes to an hour to do all the stuff online you need to do (and consider what is a need and what is a want, 50 facebook quizzes are NOT something you NEED to do, and none of your friends really care that much that your wedding dress type is simple, especially if you are a guy). Check your emails, respond to people, maybe pound out a blog post, then shut it off and live in the real world.

Believe me, the internet isn't going anywhere, but if we all keep spending so much time on it then neither will we.

Final note, with Bob dead he will soon be sold for parts but i have also gotten a new laptop and it needs a name, suggestions please!

Read em Once

Alright here it is, my second post today, all about the books which you love but only ever really read once instead of reading over and over and over until you can recite them word for word.

Something tells me this may be a painful post to write, i dunno why but it is simply a gut feeling so be warned, there may be real emotion in this thing somewhere.

Have you ever heard a song, looked at a painting, seen a movie, or read a book and it changed your life? Have you ever had one of those lovely moments where the entire universe in all its glory is explained to you? Or perhaps you have experienced the smaller version, where something in one of these pieces of art that offers a view of the world resonates within you and you find yourself suddenly understand yourself a little better.

An example of this i can offer is something that comes up often in the series entitled The Dresden Files which is authored by Jim Butcher. It follows a wizard named Harry Dresden (note the name!) as he has adventures in modern day society and, to quote the book, "Does what he can to hold a torch up to the darkness".

Interesting quote isn't it? This is the point where my ego screams that in a way this is what i am trying to do with this blog. Offer up my little nuggets of whatever wisdom i have had the chance to piece together in my relatively short life. It isn't anywhere near the most i could do, but it is what i am prepared to do now as i work towards being a better person.

Anywho away from that tangent. The thing with the Dresden Files is the one thing which gets pounded into the reader over and over is essentially that the choices you make shape the person you are. That is the main idea which spoke to me. So i read those books over and over, i tend to go through at least the first 3 books at some point during a year and remind myself of that.

But there are other books i have read, after all i always need to be reading something or i feel incomplete. I have read books from the library, read books from stores, borrowed books from friends. I have devoured them ever single chance i get. And in doing so i have learned from them.

But something else happens when i read (and i know it happens to at least most if not all of you too but this space is, as i said before, about me!), i get emotionally involved with what happens. I worry about the characters the same way i worry about people in my real life. I care about them the same way i do in real life.

Hell one of the things that bugged me the most about the Harry Potter books was that if Harry had been a real person after the 5th book i wouldn't have talked to him. Not cause of the stupid slander that rained down on his head but rather because of the fact that he was such a prick to the people who actually cared. It was the sudden shift that was the first thing that started fucking with my love of those books.

And yet again i find myself on a tangent! Back to the point dude! To use a better example just this past week i finished reading the book Little Brother by Cory Doctorow, and i gotta say it was brilliant. It works to display the way that freedoms can be removed in modern society because of the fear of terrorists, and shows of way to resit. It most importantly though showed that there really was no point in the defenses that were offered, instead there would need to be better thought out plans which were not being adopted.

Yes, i recommend this book to all of you to read, though there are a few people i know that i specifically have told that they should read it because i think it will appeal to them more than most others.

Despite how much i loved this book i will never buy it. Why? Because i buy books i will read again and again. This one i don't know if i will. It was brilliant and moving and appealed to so much of who i am. The problem was it also made me feel a kind of rage throughout most of it. An anger directed towards ignorance.

A different book which i also loved and bought is called Sacrament and was written by Clive Barker. A truly well written book that offers up a notion of a world that we think we understand but then realize all we currently see is the surface. It really was a wonderfully moving book that i own and maintains an important place on my bookshelf but i doubt i will ever read it more than perhaps 3 times in my lifetime.

Why? Simply that it was too moving, and though it taught me about myself it taught lessons that were painful enough i don't really want to relive them. It captured me the first time, i don't know if it could manage it the second time through and i don't want to try. I still recommend it to people but i find that i can't read it myself again.

This brings me to the point of this post. If you have ever talked to me or read anything that i have posted here before you know i hold both Harry Potter and Twilight in disdain because of the quaility of their writing, well this is me saying that i am going to try and maintain the "if you have nothing nice to say, then say nothing at all."

That is correct, i am going to try and stop insulting those books. You all have no idea how painful this will be for me. Still, they have become a source of negativity for me and so it is time to remove them and move on.

Besides, maybe someone else will read them and learn something that otherwise they wouldn't have, and who am i to stop that? I can't even drink in Vegas yet...

What are books that you have read and never will again? What lessons did they teach you?

Product Placement, Calling All Wannabe Authors!

Time for a new blog post, after all it is August, and not only that but i have gone home for a couple days which naturally means that the urge to write is something that is nearly devouring my mind. Well the urge to write and a couple other urges... including the urge to bloody well finish a series of books that i started recently when i was killing time in a Chapters in Toronto.

The series of books is called the Night Angel Trilogy (and unlike the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy there are only 3 books). Now i know that sounds like some kind of incredibly cheesy product placement, well that's because it is.

Time for some honesty here without the sarcastic quips. I read quite a lot, but i used to read more. I used to read 2 or 3 books a week, just devour them. The problem being that in reading so many books i developed a taste for them. I decided which ones i would like to read and which i would not. Hardly sounds like a problem, everyone has what they like to read and what they don't, just like they have what they like to eat and they don't.

The problem with gaining such a clear choice on what i liked and what i disliked is that i figured out why i dislike certain things. Due to that dislike i don't read as many books now because i tend to want to savor them and enjoy reading them. I tend to judge other books harsher, and i find less books that i want to read.

This leads to my product placement. Remember how i said i try to savor books? Recently i have been taking weeks to read 300 page books so that i can enjoy every second, and figure out every nuance in the plot. With the Night Angel Trilogy? I am on the third book and it takes me a maximum of three days to finish one of them. Oh, and they are above 700 pages each.

So yes, i am devouring these books at a pace that makes me kind of sad, because they are complex, they are (in my experience so far) unique. And i have never even heard of the author Brent Weeks before. So yes, i am sticking some product placement in here for an author of books that i think are brilliant but i have never heard of before.

And this is my challenge to however many people actually read this blog, tell people you know about books you like, not just the ones like Harry Potter that everyone reads, or War and Peace that scares everyone away and gives you bragging rights. Share the names of authors and books that aren't known that well, and help those writers find their way into the light.

For the comments of this post i would like you all to leaves some names of books that you truly love, books that you can go back and read over and over.

For me those books are:
-The Name of The Wind
-Anything by Mike Gayle
-The Dresden Files series by Jim Butcher
-Anything by Rob Thurman
-The Night Angel Trilogy

Give some of them a try. Next Post? Books that you love but only read once.

Me?

Ok, so this is an uber quick post that i am sending out because i want to know your thoughts. What does sitting in a Starbucks, writing a blog post and drinking a green tea make me?