Tonight.

Image taken from 1up via. Google Image search

Update: Also, this is why I'll never do crack.

The future of the Nintendo Wii (hopefully)...

The greatest optical illusion EVER.

This must be mania...

I had a breakthrough today on one of my business ideas. It is so viable, that even my father had a really positive reaction to it (so maybe that means there were two breakthroughs today haha). This is something that would get done in the evenings, meaning it could bring in anywhere from $500 to $1000 in additional income a week if we really manage to pull it off.

So I may have found myself a really exciting project for the summer! :D

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In other news... I cannot get over the amazing weather we've been having. I have been enjoying it as much as I can and it has kept me in great spirits throughout! I am riding such a high right now I can't even express it! I fucking LOVE spring time!

I am looking forward to May so much! April, as fast as it has gone, has been so great! I know it will carry into May. And I really, really can't wait for the Matthew Good BAND show at the end of it. I am sure that night is going to be absolutely ridiculous! I am looking forward to it more than anything else right now! (except, of course, going back to Vancouver in June)

I hope you all are doing as well as I am!

Cheers!

Holy shit he can get freakin high!

Silverchair - Emotion Sickness (Live @ Sao Paulo 2003)

Not my favourite version of this song (though it is definitely still great), but the vocal harmonies towards the end are fantastic, and I don't think I've ever heard anyone sing as high as he gets around 8:30. Damn it sounds almost unnatural.

I love this band!

Exciting news!

My beautiful and wonderful eldest sister just got engaged! :D

She's the first in my family of our generation! And we all like her new fiancé very very much! This is very welcomed and exciting news!!

Encouraging latent creativity...

I have a friend, who I'm convinced has a latent creativity and will to be creative, but either doesn't know it, or doesn't know how to embrace it (or worse, doesn't think it should be embraced). He's an analytical thinker, and his job involves pretty much zero creativity. And we, as a crew (though I am trying hard to change it these days) also largely play down the arts and whatnot, so there's no real positive encouragement there if he did want to explore it further.

He loves to take pictures with his little point-and-shoot digital though. You can hear the pride and excitement in his voice when he's showing you the pictures he took and isolating which aspects of each of them he thinks came out well vs. those that didn't.

This is my favourite shot that he took during Matt Good's last Massey Hall show.

He tracks his finances in Microsoft Excel and colourizes/stylizes it to both make it more functional and appealing to the eye.

He loves music, though he doesn't play an instrument - I keep telling him he should.

Anyway, his birthday is in about a month and a half and I'm thinking of buying him a nice digital SLR to try to spark further interest in photography. I know pretty much nothing about photography or cameras, but this guy seems keen on them and he's the best photographer I know.

Since I've started this blog and really picked up the guitar, I've really come to appreciate having these creative outlets. I'm pretty sure this guy won't start blogging (no matter how much I may encourage it) and so far he hasn't taken to picking up an instrument, so I figure if there's a latent interest in photography there, that's probably the best way to go. I only wish I was more into myself so I could point him more in the right direction.

We'll see how it goes. Hopefully the money I spend won't end up being a waste. :)

I can't think of a good title, so for better or for worse, this is it.

The worst part about a really bad cold is the muscle weakness; towards the end of it, leaving me barely able to stand on my own two feet.

I've never had a cold that got so bad so quickly as the day went on. Usually it goes the other way. I was so killed by like 9/10 o'clock that even a call with some great news that normally would've had me drop everything to go out, couldn't move me from my uncomfortable position on the couch.

Thankfully, I'm feeling much better today!

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Being sick sort of puts you out of your head a little. It adds a little extra spin or twist to things... usually negative, but sometimes positive. Yesterday I decided that I'm just about done with my neuroticism. It's time to start taking real steps to deal with it. It's right up there with the stopping of the smoking and the starting of the real exercising (both of which so far are making great progress).

I do not have complete control over my thoughts and my attitudes, as some people claim they do (and subsequently, that everyone does). But I have been learning how to identify and isolate certain patterns of thought, and with practice, I'm finding that I'm able to "redirect" my thoughts into other, more productive places.

I know that as unfocused as I can be at times, I can also be very focused. Typically this happens with issues I'm passionate about, seemingly as an almost automated response. But I believe that I can learn how to focus myself; be it simply as a means to ensure that I don't forget things (as I so often do), or as a means to compartmentalize one set of feelings or another in order to stay focused on getting work done.

Historically, I have shied away from (or flat out rejected) trying to change certain aspects of my psychology, because the line between self-improvement and self-indoctrination (or brainwashing) is very thin (possibly non-existent, in fact). I've believed that my thinking has developed and evolved in the way that it has, as it has, simply as a reflection of my circumstances in life and the things that I have done/experiences that I have had. But lately I've been questioning and wondering just what exactly have caused things to be the way they are [inside my head] and if these are things that I did to myself in the first place, then perhaps some of these things deserve to be undone by me as well.

So in the end I guess we're calling the next few weeks an experiment in self and thought-control. I find it kind of funny that I'm writing about it here, but what the hell eh? I haven't been blogging very much about other things anyway.

Cheers!

Happy Monday!

"Amazing how two fuck ups like us could have turned out so well isn't it?"

Had a nice chat with my good friend Dan (who's in Australia (actually, Tazmania)) this morning... it was his birthday a couple of days ago. He's decided to stay where he is for the time being as things have turned around and are going very well for him. I'm a little sad that he won't be coming home any time soon, but happier to hear that things are moving in a positive direction with lots of potential.

In other positive news, Jennie is starting at a new position at her job today. I'm sure she's very excited about it! This is another change in a great direction, hopefully further reminding her of Her great potential!

I'm feeling overcome with nothing but positive energy this morning! Today is going to be a great day :)

Cheers everyone!

Works in progress

I've decided that it's okay to plan to get things done but not get them done right away. One good example is the re-working of this blog. It's currently being re-designed and will be re-launched when it's ready. I haven't been blogging because I've been waiting for the re-design to be finished; but since it's taking so long, I've decided that writing and working can happen at the same time, and so... here I am writing again.

I've started to maintain a list of "Projects on the Go." Up until recently, I've had this habit of jumping head first into a project, going "deep in development" on it for a few days and then when I back off it for a couple days, I lose interest in it entirely and it gets pushed to the back burner (almost certainly never to be worked on again).

My mentality in regards to these "dead in the water" projects need to change. I need to get it in my head that just because my initial motivation and drive for these things may be gone for a few days, that doesn't necessarily mean that I have to forget about these projects all together. I can put work into them when I have time and when it feels right; especially when there are no hard deadlines set.

So while some projects may go up or down in terms of priority, I'll try not to feel like I'm ignoring or forgetting one when something else is being worked on.

Projects on the Go:

-[personal] Blog Re-Design
-[personal] Media Library Aggregate/Statistics generator
-[personal/work] Active Task List (call it a to-do list)
-[personal/work] Survey System Documentation (for the primary system we use at my work; I'm trying to put together a technical manual of sorts)
- [work] Survey Report Generator/Controller (in order to automate a custom reporting process I do for clients at work)
- [personal/work] Learn Macromedia Flash (...just cause I haven't really learned any new technologies in a while)

There's something in the air...

This feeling is embraceable.
Its springtime energy;
It's the perfect fitting glove.
You can use it to accomplish things.
It can be what you need it to be,
To drive the changes you so will.

Yesterday's Revelations explored

I want to continue to write, and be connected to the people that this blog connects me with. But without a unique voice, direction, or recurring theme, I have such trouble staying motivated. I have never been one to do something simply because everyone else is doing it, and as much as some of you may enjoy reading about me, personally, I find it difficult to write about myself.

And I'm censoring myself.

I feel that there is a lot to talk about and think about and write about. It just isn't happening in the format in which I am trying to make it happen.

This was a good starting point, but I feel like it can be so much more useful and satisfying.

This weekend I am going to try to re-invent this thing. Call it Towards Utopia 2.0 (to borrow a tired label). Will it be something grand? Probably not. But at least it will be heading in the right direction!

Today's Revelation:

This blog needs to change...

...into what though, I'm not yet sure. The idea factory is currently being consulted.