A-D-D On Paper (Sort Of)

Change in #LowCarDiet Plans

2011-08-02T11:37:00.004-04:00

The other day I posted my first blog post about the #LowCarDiet challenge I'm doing through the month of August. I was planning on doing a bunch of subsequent posts here in my blog for the rest of the month as well. However, I'm making a slight change in plans...

Instead of doing a lot of updates about my #LowCarDiet here, I've decided to start a Tumblr blog dedicated to following my progress. I figure that way I can also do a lot of smaller posts, post the odd picture and video and some other things and have it all in one easy to find place.

I'll still do some larger blog posts about the #LowCarDiet here and then cross-link them over to my new Tumblr, but if you want to follow along with all the action please follow 40deuce's #LowCarDiet.

Also, please like and share anything I post there. As well, I think it will help me to win if you like the YouTube videos I post there as well. And don't forget to tweet at me using the hashtag #LowCarDiet.

Anyways, you can find this video on my new Tumblr, but here's the first #LowCarDiet video I made, because I promised I'd share it here as well. (This was also my first time EVER editing a video)

I'm Going On A #LowCarDiet

2011-07-30T13:01:00.003-04:00

A few weeks ago a buddy of mine pointed me towards a really cool contest being put on by Zipcar called the #LowCarDiet. The contest was looking for people who were willing to walk, ride their bike, use public transit, go to the gym and occasionally use a Zipcar. The point is promote a lifestyle where people don't drive everywhere all the time, and it sounded perfect for me. Luckily, I was one of the people chosen to represent Toronto!

The whole thing is a contest where 12 cities from across North America are competing to see which city can live this lifestyle best. Being someone who live in downtown Toronto I think that this kind of lifestyle is totally fitted for this city and I intend to win.

Over the next month I'm going to taking part in this #LowCarDiet by being more active in how I get around. I'm also going to be making videos of some of the awesome things I do with my Zipcar and other aspects of the contest. I hope you all follow my progress and support me and Team Toronto. We win just by being active; both in life and with the contest.

There are also some really awesome sponsors for the contest that have hooked me up with some cool stuff. First, I got a free membership to Zipcar so that I can use the cars when I need. I also received a bunch of Zip Car gear, a pair of New Balance shoes (which I still have to actually go and get), two tickets to The Second City here in Toronto, $200 in VIA Rail travel, a giant gift box of Pop Chips (which I was kind enough to share with some of my work colleagues even though I like them myself), a nice bag and free membership to LogMeIn, Jabra sports headphones, a whole bunch of Zevia Natural Soda (which I haven't tried yet, but it says it's no calories or sugar, so that's good) and apparently we're getting even more stuff soon. Pretty crazy for something I would have done without any of the stuff.

So please follow along with me. Check out my #LowCarDiet profile. Follow the contest progress. Tweet me about it and use the hashtag #LowCarDiet. Watch out for my blog posts and videos (I'll post them all here for you to see) and leave comments and/or like the videos. Essentially the more I participate and get other people to help me participate in the contest, the more of a chance I have to help Toronto win.

Anyways, I just wanted to tell everyone about this and ask for your help. I just booked my first Zipcar rental so I can run some errands this afternoon I haven't been able to without a car and I'll make a video to share.

Thanks again to Zipcar for choosing me to do this and a thanks in advance to anyone who helps me in my effort to win!

Happy Accidents

2011-06-22T11:48:00.003-04:00

Have you ever set out to do something awesome one night only to have the night go a completely opposite direction? That happened to me this past Saturday, but it was definitely for the better.

Last week (and weekend) was NXNE (North by North East) here in Toronto, which is a huge music festival. The festival toutes 650 bands playing at over 40 venues across the city over six days. Every year I look forward to this week because... well, because I love music. I'm always on the look out for cool new music and NXNE is a great way to find some. Finding new music was actually my happy accident on Saturday night.

On Saturday I was wandering all over the city seeing a ton of different bands. One band that I specifically wanted to check out was Handsome Furs. I've never seen them live, but heard they put on a wicked show. I showed up at the venue just before 1am (when they were supposed to be going on) only to find that the venue was packed to capacity. There was even a crazy line up for people who had "priority passes" which had worked to get me into a bunch of other packed shows last week.

Anyways, not one to be discouraged, my cousin and I decided to stop by another bar in the area that was also part of the NXNE venue list just to check out what was going on there. We wandered over to The Dakota Tavern and walked in to find the best new band I found throughout the entire festival. We got in to catch the second half of a band called New Country Rehab. I can only describe them as country/bluegrass/good-ol-fashioned-rock-n-roll. While it's not my usual type of music they were really awesome and definitely the best find of the festival (for myself anyways).

I managed to grab the last two minutes of one of their songs on video. Check them out bellow:

New Country Rehab @ The Dakota Tavern from 40deuce on Vimeo.

I wish I got to see more of them and got more of their stuff on video to share with you. Luckily, they're a local Toronto band, so I'll have my eye out to see them again.

In the meantime, here's another (full) song of theirs I found on YouTube so you can get a better idea of the band.

Can't wait for another happy accident at next year's NXNE!

I'm Starting A Collection... Of People

2011-05-16T13:30:00.003-04:00

A wise person (I have no idea who) once said to surround yourself with people whom you'd like to be more like.

I hope that my current roster of friends don't take any offense by this, but I need to listen to that wise dude's advice.

My current friends are fantastic people and each of them has brought something awesome into my life and made me who I am today. That said, I'm also always looking to constantly improve myself and my life and I need to start surrounding myself with more awesome people that I'd like to learn from and be more like.

So, I'm starting a new on-going series that will appear here on my blog that I'm calling Collecting People. In this series I'll be highlighting people (hopefully mostly through interviews) that I think I could stand to be more like. Each individual I feature will have some characteristic that I think I could use (and hopefully you can too) in my life. Sometimes it will be people who I admire as business people, sometimes it will be interesting thinkers or interesting people, sometimes it will just be people I really admire. Think of it as a mentorship program with many mentors. That's how I'm going to think about it anyways.

I already have a first candidate to "collect" in mind, but I'd love to hear from you (all 3 of my readers ;)) about what are some areas of your life you think you could stand to be better at or more like someone else at? Also, who are some of your personal mentors (whether they know they are or not)?

The Striking Truth Contest Winner Is....

2011-02-23T10:12:00.006-05:00

Before I start, I just want to thank everyone that entered into my The Striking Truth contest. As well, everyone who helped spread the word of the contest was a great help as well. I really liked doing my first ever contest on the blog and I hope I can do more in the future. BUT, now for the real news....

Late last night we (and by we I mean me, but we sounds much more formal) closed the entries for the contest and took all the entries and ran them through Random.org. That way I had no influence over who won the pair of tickets since I did have a couple of friends enter the contest. Here's what we came up with:

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So, congrats to Heada Cooper!! You won a pair of tickets to see the world premiere of The Striking Truth on Friday night!!!

For those of you that didn't win, I'm sorry, but I have some good news for you. If you still want to attend the screening there are tickets on sale, and I have a promo code for you to get a 20% discount! Just head over to Ticketmaster (use that link) and enter the promo code: TWITST

Congrats again to Heada and I hope to see you all (and GSP) there as well!!

I'm Giving Away Tickets to the World Premiere of The Striking Truth

2011-02-15T00:09:00.003-05:00

I grew up a huge fan of wrestling. Yes, the WWE kind (although, while I was growing up it was the WWF). I loved watching these athletes do crazy things all in the name of putting on a great show. I know that wrestling isn't all real, but there was still that satisfaction I got of watching someone get dropkicked from the top ropes. It was like an action movie, but done live where the people involved had to get it right every time.

As I grew up I moved a bit away from wrestling. I still like to watch it on occasion, but I just don't see it as often as I used to. I still like watching people get beat up though. Especially when it's done right. Like wrestling, there's a real art to knowing how to properly beat someone up (now that I've written that I realize how weird it sounds, but it's true at the same time). I think that's why I became a fan of MMA.

If you know anything about MMA, especially if you're from Canada like me, then I'm sure you know the name GSP. George St-Pierre is the current welterweight champion in the UFC and in my opinion, one of the best mixed martial arts fighters EVER. I'm probably not the only person to think so. In fact, someone else who thought so made a documentary about him called The Striking Truth. Check out the trailer here:

If that trailer got you as pumped up as it did for me, then I have great news for you: I'm giving away tickets to the world premiere of The Striking Truth here in Toronto!! That's right, I have tickets to give away to see the world premiere of this documentary on Friday February 25th at 9pm at The Sony Center For Performing Arts.

So here's the deal; I thought I'd have a little fun with this contest. Let me know why you're the biggest GSP fan and the tickets are yours. Leave me a story in the comments section. Make a video and leave a link in the comments. Do something awesome to prove to me that you're the biggest GSP fan and you could be on your way to see the GSP documentary before anyone else.

Oh ya, did I mention that GSP himself will be there? Cause he will! And he'll be doing a Q&A session with his fans.

Soooooo, what are you waiting for? Start submitting your entries for this contest!!

I'll announce the winners one week from today (the evening of Tuesday, February 22nd).

Good Luck!!

PS- If you don't win, you can always buy tickets here.

Time to Move Forward

2010-12-31T14:40:00.005-05:00

Well, it's the last day of the year 2010. How was your year?

Mine was pretty awesome. I got an awesome new job that I love. I moved to new apartment that I really like. I made a ton of new amazing friends. I generally had a pretty decent year if I do say so myself.

BUT, I think next year is going to be even awesomer (that is a word because I said it is). I have a lot of things planned that I'd like to do next year. Now we just need to cross our fingers that everything goes according to plan.

One of the big things I have planned I'm going to tell you now as it involves this blog:

For the past few months I've been taking a beginners web design class. I've been learning how to build my own site because I've finally decided I'm ready to take the plunge and buy myself my own domain to host a 40deuce web page. This blog will be one of the things to move over to that new site.

I had been thinking of learning web design for a little while. Not because I want to change careers or anything, but I just thought it would be helpful to know since I work in the online space. I always tell people, "I can use the hell out of a computer, but when it comes to anything backend related I don't know jack." Luckily, one day a random tweet caught my eye...

The tweet said that Bnotions (a web design and strategy company here in Toronto) was offering a free 9 week course that they call The Yorkville Media Center. I looked a bit into it, and frankly the price was right, so I signed up.

We spent the next 9 weeks learning how to build a site from beginning to end. We started with planning and went through design, html, CSS, Javascript, Wordpress, uploading the site to a server and a whole bunch of other stuff. It was kind of a lot to take in and moved quickly, but I think I have enough to do this thing on my own.

If I can't though, I know I can always go back to the Bnotions guys for some help. Before I started the classes I knew one person who had just started working with Bnotions, but now I know most of the guys that work there and they're all really awesome people who are really dedicated to what they do. I think it's safe to say I made friends with almost everyone that works in that office and I'm really happy about it. While everyone who was there and taught and spoke were awesome people I just want to give a special shout out to Mark Reale who taught us most of the design stuff and will be helping me work on my new site's theme.

So, if all goes according to plan, I'm hoping to get this new site up and running sometime in January. However, I may be lying to you since I'm going to try to tackle this thing on my own.

Happy New Years to all who read this!!

Leave me a comment and let me know how your 2010 was or some of the awesome stuff you have planned for 2011.

Oh ya, and have fun but be safe tonight!

Lo-Fi Decision

2010-11-16T23:34:00.009-05:00

A few months ago I downloaded the Hipstamatic app for my iPhone. I absolutely love it! It takes the most amazing looking pics (as you'll see throughout this post).

It takes the pictures digitally in my phone, but adds filters to them to make them look much more analog.
The best part is that you can play around with how the pictures are going to turn out by (fake) changing around the camera lenses, flashes and film. Each have their own unique properties and it's really fun to mix and match them and see what you get.
One of my favourite things to do is actually randomize the settings and then just see what kind of picture I get afterwards.
As much as I love being able to just whip my phone out of my pocket and take these awesome pics, I always thought it would be fun to be able to do it with a real camera as well. Well lucky me, because a Lomography store opened just around the corner from my house.
Lomography cameras are modled after very old school cameras, but are new and made of plastic. They are almost as analog as you can get in terms of a camera. I wouldn't want it for everyday use, but I think it would be fun to bring one out on occasions.
The first day I saw the store I walked in right away and started looking around. My eye was immediately drawn towards a big box on the wall. The box was Diana F+ kit. It caught my eye because the kit came with the Diana camera plus a whole bunch of accessories. I was most excited about the multiple lenses it came with. But I didn't buy it.
I decided to go home and think about it. And I thought about it and I still want it. I was pretty much prepared to go and buy the kit this week, until yesterday.
Yesterday a friend said to me that maybe the Diana isn't the place to start, but rather I should start with a Holga (another type of lomography camera). He said that this camera has less options to play around with and would probably be better for a beginner.
Never the one to let me hold myself back I decided to do a little research on the subject. I started looking up comparisons of the Diana F+ and the Holga. The problem is, people who love lomography seem to love both the cameras. It was no help to me.

I'm going to go back to the store this week and talk to the people who work there to help me make a decision, but I figured I could also ask you sweet people of the interweb.
If you've ever played around with any of the lomography cameras I'd love to get your opinion. Please leave me a comment and let me know what you think.
Now, take a look at some more pictures that were taken from my iPhone (as were the ones above):

So, what do you think? Should I go with the Holga or the Diana F+?? Let me know.

Mo' Money Mo'staches

2010-11-11T00:36:00.006-05:00

Dearest friends and family and random strangers that read my blog,

I never really ask much of you, especially through my blog, but this month is different. This month I have donated my beautiful face to help raise money for charity. That's right, I've donated the part of my face between my upper lip and my nose to grow a moustache in hopes of raising a little bit of money for prostate cancer research.

The whole idea of moustache fund raising is called Movember and was started in Australia a couple of years ago. It has since spread into a worldwide month long fund raising campaign. For the month of November men try to grow moustaches (no matter how ridiculous it makes me look) in hopes that people donate to show their support (and to hopefully help us feel like we're not looking like this for nothing).

BUT WAIT! Before I ask you donate, there's more.

So you know that I'm not cheating on this and that I actually look as ridiculous as I think I do, I've set up an account on Dailybooth where I will be taking a picture everyday to document my moustache's progression. You can watch it grow by clicking here. Feel free to leave hilarious comments on the pictures so you really feel like you're getting your money's worth.

Now comes the hard part for both you and I. This is where I ask you to please donate and support me and where you part with a couple of bucks. You can donate any amount you want, from $5 to $5,000,000. Any amount can help and is appreciated.

Please click here to help me out and donate. Thank you!

And, if you need another little laugh; a friend was kind enough to point out that my new moustache has made me into a celebrity look-alike:

Thanks again!

BEST.HALLOWEEN.COSTUMES.EVER!!

2010-11-01T20:52:00.001-04:00

Halloween is my favourite holiday of the year. Everyone likes to go out and have a good time. Even better though, everyone dresses up to have a good time. This year I saw the best costumes I have ever seen!!

If you're wondering, that's me at the top of this post in my Wolverine/Logan costume. I was pretty happy with it.

I was supposed to spend the night at a friend's house party, but I got a last minute invite to roll with Sean Ward, Michael Nuss and some other folks to the Silver Snail Halloween party. For those of you that don't know, the Silver Snail is huge famous comic shop here in Toronto, so I knew the costumes at their party were going to be awesome. So, I went by the party before heading to my friend's house party.

Here are some of the awesome costumes I saw on Saturday night (and this is just Saturday night):

Obi Juan Kenobi

Jango Fett

Bender

Me & X-23

The movie X-Men

The cartoon X-Men

old skool Captain America

Mega Man

A Star Trek Red Shirt with a target on his chest (geeks will understand)

Steam Punk Ghostbuster (this had moving parts and everything)

The Sorceress (from He-Man)

Bed Sheet Ghost (no one really does this costume, that's why it was so awesome)

Roxy (from Scott Pilgrim)

Barf (from Space Balls)

Freakazoid!

Deadpool

Scott Pilgrim & Ramona Flowers

Ganesh

Robin

Orko (from He-Man)

Reverse sex Joker and Harley Quinn

Noheart (from Care Bears)

Han Solo & Chewy

Death? (iduno, but looked awesome)

Dexter

Daft Punk

Green Arrow

Sheldon meets Sheldon (best pic ever!)

Super Girl & Evil Super Girl?

Cobra

Muppets dressed as super heroes

Mario

Lelu (from The 5th Element)

Hit Girl

Kick Ass

I think this guy is getting raped by death

Captain Spaulding (from The Devil's Rejects)

Beavis

Butthead

Beavis & Butthead

Jack Skellington & Sally

Candy buffet (not a costume, but worth noting)

Ace Ventura

Jem

Dom-Ballerina (or something like that)

And that's it bub!!

Actually, I'll close this post out with Sean Ward's vlog of the Silver Snail party:

Tell me in the comments what you were for Halloween. Better yet, leave a pic (if that's even possible).

Gorillaz & N.E.R.D.

2010-10-30T13:45:00.009-04:00

Two weeks ago I went to see the Gorillaz and N.E.R.D. at the ACC here in Toronto, but it was just yesterday that I finally remembered to take my pics and videos off my phone, so I thought I'd put some up here to share.

N.E.R.D. is one of my favourite bands. They make awesome music, but despite being known previously as the producers The Neptunes, they haven't gained much headway in the mainstream. But take my word for it, they're awesome. This was my 4th or 5th time seeing them, but I will see them again any chance I get.

I was also pretty excited about seeing The Gorillaz. I had always wondered what a Gorillaz live show would be like because technically, their cartoons. I had heard on their last tour that they had a giant screen covering the stage and the cartoon characters walked around and played (kind of). This tour was different though. This tour they showed the cartoon characters up on the screen, but they had a real giant band playing for the crowd, and more importantly, Damon Albam and guests.

The show was better than I even thought it was gonna be. They had Snoop make an appearance via video on the big screen (because he's on the new album). There was a 6 piece string band and 8 piece brass band on top of the regular band. They also had De La Soul and a bunch of other guests there to help perform.

I don't want to talk to much about it other than say the show was amazing. Check out some more pics and another a video I took.

ps- How much more awesome do my pics look now that I've upgraded to an iPhone 4 from my 3G? This will be much better for blogging. Also, thanks to my new phone make sure you watch the videos in the post in 720p HD.

Speaking Of....

2010-09-26T20:08:00.003-04:00

It's hard to believe, but even awesome people like me get a little nervous about things.

This week I'm going to be speaking to some groups for the first time since I finished doing presentations for school. Not just one speaking gig, but two in one week.

I'm not that nervous about speaking in front of crowd. I actually love doing that. I thrive off of public attention. The thing I'm nervous about is making myself look like an idiot.

Usually I don't mind looking like an idiot (if you know me, you know that's more than true), but tomorrow I'm speaking at a conference with some very smart people that I really respect. That's what makes me a bit nervous.

On top of that, I'm going for dinner with all of these smart people tonight. I'm almost positive that I'm going to be the youngest and newest to the game at the table. I'm going to be surrounded by a bunch of people who are well known people in the fields of social media, PR, and measurement and analytics. While I like to think that I know what I'm talking about in these areas, these are the people that I've learned from.

It's a bit nerve racking but I'm sure I'll get through it.

If you're interested in knowing where I'm going to speaking at, the first gig (tomorrow) is for Joseph Thornley's Third Tuesday Measurement Matters Conference. This one is going to be a great day full of great info and smart people (myself hopefully included). If you want to check out the full line up for the event just click here.

The second gig is a private one for provincial government workers. If I had more info to give you I would.

Anyways, this should prove to be an interesting and cool week for myself.

Wish me luck.

#ThisIsWhyImFat

2010-08-04T23:11:00.003-04:00

I'm fat. (Note: that is not my belly pictured above... but it probably could be)

I'm not super "wow that guy's fat" fat, but I think I may be near the fattest I've been since I was a kid. Yes, I was a chubby kid. No, I don't want to show you pictures. I also was never skinny, but I've definitely been skinnier. Anyways, I was looking in the mirror yesterday and realized that I really let myself go. The worst part is it's my own fault.

I haven't been to the gym in almost 4 months, since I moved away from my old neighborhood. I used to go almost every day and now I NEVER go. It's the worst. I've been half-assed looking for a new one in my new hood, but have yet to come across something good. I really liked my other gym, it's just too far. I used to go all the time because it was around the corner from my pad. I need something like that again.

I also eat a lot these days (I think). I don't eat really terribly. I'm not really a big chocolate bars and chips kind of guy. I'm also not claiming to be the best eater though. For some reason though I find myself being hungrier than I usually am. Not sure why that is, but I'm sure that it's not helping my stomach.

On top of that, I'm sometimes too lazy to go grocery shopping and there's so many good places to eat just around the corner from my place. And when I say good places, I mean they're good in the "this food is probably bad for you but too delicious to care" kind of way.

Anyways, it's my fault and I need to do something about it.

After talking to a few friends (because if you know me, you know I like to joke about my fatness) I was given a few good ideas that are easy to do that can help me start. Of course, I'm going to start smaller than they suggested, but at least it's a start.

First is the easiest and most obvious ones for me. Puleen said that I should exercise and walk more. Well, I'm trying to find a new gym already, I just need to really do it already. (If anyone knows a good and affordable gym near King and Bathurst in Toronto please let me know in the comments). Also, I already do walk a lot. Usually if I can and have the time I walk everywhere. I even got my bike I've had since I was 14 fixed up a few weeks ago and I've started riding it around the city a lot too.

Sammie suggested a few quick and easy exercise I could do around the house. Sammie is the creator and owner of Booty Camp Fitness, so she probably knows what she's talking about. I'll also probably tap her for ideas once I get into a gym. Anyways, in case you're wondering, this is what Sammie recommends in Tweet form:

"just do a circuit in your living room, full body exercises. 4 sets each of body squats, jump squats, pushups and bicycle abs"

"10-20 reps each, 30 for the abs tho! Rest 1 minute between circuits. Better than nothing at all!"

While I can't guarantee I'll do them all the time, I'm going to make a conscious effort to try to do them when I can.

The last piece of advice I was given will be the hardest to do. Christine tells me that your metabolism slows down after 7pm (if you wake up around 7am) so you digest slower. She says I shouldn't eat after 7, but that's not going to happen. If I'm lucky on a good day I eat dinner before 830-9pm. So, what I'm going to try to do is not eat after 10pm. Maybe even earlier if I can. I'm usually awake for at least three hours after that anyways. At least it's a start.

Anyways, I thought if I wrote these things out and put them out there for people to see I'll feel more compelled to stick to these goals (even if no one reads this blog). And if anyone is reading and you're also feeling like me, I say try to do these easy things too.

Anyways, this came out a lot longer than I thought it was going to so I'm going to shut up now.

If you have any other REALLY easy to follow tips, by all means please leave them in the comments.

Gentrification the Game

2010-07-27T00:03:00.007-04:00

Big games in public spaces seems to be a new cool trend these days and yesterday I participated in an awesome one.

Yesterday I went to Kensington Market to play a game called Gentrification. The best way I can describe it is as a giant game of real life Monopoly with extra stuff. The object of the game is to improve a neighborhood. There's five rounds in the game. Each round your team gets assigned a random property (which is a real space in real life). You can also purchase two more properties per round by taking a picture in front of a property with a sign for that round before a next team does. Once you have properties you can start building on them. The more properties in a row you own the larger of a store/business you can build. As well, each round your team has to do a task to win over the neighborhood such as advertising (chalk art on the sidewalk), a PR campaign (giving out candy to strangers), beautification (picking up recycling) a parade (this one's for real. we had an impromptu parade) and other things. You win points for completing tasks, and more if you do them well.

All and all, the game was a ton of fun to play, but my team also made it more fun. I played with Lucia, who was our team captain and recruited us all. I knew her before, but the rest of my team I just met the night before. The rest of my team was Mike, Jon, Khaleed and Meghan, who were all awesome people and brought something to the team.

Check out some of the pics:

Of course, our team won!!

And then we got free hugs!

Thanks for the people at Atmosphere Industries for putting this on. I would totally play this or any other game they do again.

Sorry, but it just has to be played now:

Flaming Lips are Awesome!

2010-07-13T18:57:00.006-04:00

Last week I went to go see Spoon and The Flaming Lips at the Molson Amphitheatre here in Toronto. While I always liked The Flaming Lips it was Spoon that really sold the show to me, so off I went.

Spoon went on around 8:30, which isn't too late for a show at the Amphitheatre since they have a curfew. The sun was still out and I was digging their set. Problem was, only 7 other people seemed to feel the same way. The crowd was kind of lame, but Spoon was stil amazing playing a setlist of mostly older stuff from Ga Ga Ga and Gimmie Fiction.

Sorry for the crappy looking pics, but I can't find my camera so I'm still confined to the iPhone for pics.

Anyways, The Flaming Lips were on next. Like I said, I liked them, but I was just at the show for the fun of it. I quickly changed my mind.

Right from the start, the Lips went hard. Coming out of giant vaginas. Walking on the crowd in a space ball. Giant confetti cannons. Giant bouncing balls been tossed around by the crowd. And that was just the first song!

They played amazingly and they put on one hell of a show. I didn't know what to expect, but that show is now somewhere in my top 10 shows list. Not sure where yet though.

I will 100% go see The Flaming Lips any and every time they come to Toronto again.

Here's some footage taken by people I don't know that were kind enough to upload to YouTube:

#G20 From My iPhone

2010-06-27T23:08:00.002-04:00

So this weekend the G20 rolled into Toronto. Our usually peaceful city got a little bit crazy.

On Saturday, my roommate and I headed out to MEC to pick up a few things, but had heard a protest parade was headed near our neighbourhood so we thought we'd check it out on the way there. We expected to see a parade of people with a few cops interspersed in-between. What we found was much more insane.

We were at the corner of Spadina and Richmond trying to see the protest that was a block north of us at Spadina and Queen. We were met by police officers trying to keep us bystanders back from the protest. It started off with one single line of officers, but it quickly escalated into about 100 cops just around a bunch of people trying to see what was going on.

While we weren't actually in the protest, it was pretty intense at times. Especially when all the cops near us started to put their gas masks on and aim gas grenade guns in our direction.

I snapped a lot of pics over the hour and a half I was standing there. Here's a few of them:

(Sorry about the quality, I was ill prepared and only had my iPhone camera)

Thankfully nothing happened where we were. Too bad the same couldn't be said for the rest of the city. Windows were smashed in buildings all over the city. Police cars were set on fire. Other crazy shit went down. Thankfully no one was really hurt.

If you want to see the rest of my photos from saturday you can see the set here.

Also, on sunday there was another big to-do at Queen and Spadina where cops held a bunch of people in the middle of the road for some unknown reason. A lot of those people were just bystanders as well. I was watching the tweets from a friend of mine trapped in the middle of it. It seemed very eerie.

Now the G20 is done and hopefully my city gets back to normal. It was way too strange seeing the Toronro like this.

There was also a huge

I'm Getting New Eyes Tomorrow

2010-04-28T12:31:00.004-04:00

... Well, kind of.

I suffer from a hereditary disease known as Karatoconus. What it basically means is that instead of my eyeballs staying round like most people's, my eyes are coning and becoming more the shape of a football. If you want to know more about it click here for the Wikipedia entry about it.

This is a degenerative disease meaning that it's just going to continue to get worse as time goes on. I already wear glasses (although barely), but as my eyes change shape the prescription needs to also change. While there is no full cure for Karatoconus they have come up with a procedure that can help stop it from worsening.

I'm getting this procedure done tomorrow morning.

Before I go any further, I need to tell you that stuff pertaining to my eyeballs really freaks me out. I've never been able to do eye-drops without someone (like a nurse in the eye doctors office) holding my eyes open and lots of nervous eye twitching. Also, I've never even looked into contacts (even though I was told to numerous times) because the idea of touching my eyeball creeps me right out.

So this is how the procedure I'm getting tomorrow goes:
They prop my eyes open with some sort of machine that in my head I picture as looking like the things they use to hold Malcom McDowell's eye's open when he's getting brainwashed in A Clockwork Orange. They then put these special drops in my eyes for 30 frigin' minutes straight. These drops are all fancy chemicals I don't know anything about, but the main active ingredient in them is riboflavin. Yes, riboflavin like in your morning cereal. After the 30 mins of drops, I then have to expose my eye to a special UV light for another 30 mins. Then we repeat the procedure for the other eye because they can't do both at once for some god awful reason.

What this will do is harden the linkages of my corneas so they stop changing shape. It's not going to fix my eye sight, but it will help to stop it from getting worse. There is also a slight chance (and I'm hoping this happens) that when my eyeballs harden they will slightly retract a bit too, making my eyesight slightly better. Also, 6 months down the road there are some other things I can look into to help improve my site, but not laser surgery. Apparently laser surgery weakens/thins your corneas meaning it would just reverse what I'm having done tomorrow.

I've been ok and even semi-excited about the whole thing for a while. Until last night. I was reading about what could happen after the procedure is done, and now I'm a little freaked. First, I'm going to have to use drops while my eyes heal. Not looking forward to that at all. Also, they said some people will experience blurry vision for the first week or so, but some may experience it for a few months. I'm really hoping I'm the first week type of person.

I don't think any long term harm can come from having this procedure done, but it's still freaking me out. I mean, these are my eyes!! Hopefully though this will prevent me from needing full corneal transplants later in life.

Anyways, I'm freaked, but excited at the same time.

Wish me luck.

Now, here's a song (kinda) about eyes that I haven't heard in a while:

Social Spring Cleaning

2010-04-19T00:34:00.004-04:00

Not to brag, but I have too many friends.

There's just too many people I've acquired over the years in places like facebook that I'm not really friends with, or they have no value to me (no offense if you're one of those people). It's just time to go.

Have you ever logged into facebook and seen a person come down your news feed and just think "who the hell is that person?" or "really, why do I have that person on facebook?" I get that thought a lot, so I decided to do something about it. It's called Social Spring Cleaning.

Here's the concept, every time you get one of those thoughts, remove that person as a friend. Take a look at their profile, and if you don't see a reason for having them, don't have them anymore.

I try to reserve my facebook for real friends. I'll add strangers in other networks no problem, but facebook is where I like to keep just my friends and/or people I used to be friends with. No total strangers though. However, I've added people that I may have met once, say at a party, but have never spoken to again since. They gotta go.

The best part of this concept is that it works for everywhere you've added friends online!! I'm also doing it in my Twitter. Anytime I see a person whom I know I'm not into what they tweet about and we never ever speak, I'm deleting them.

Granted, there are some networks where you're going to want to keep strangers for one reason or another and that's fine. I do the same. I just think that some areas and places could use a bit of tidying up. A little bit of a dusting. A little Social Spring Cleaning.

I suggest you try it too.

Do Some Good, Have Some Fun, Attend a #Twestival

2010-03-22T10:41:00.004-04:00

Last year around this time I attended a fantastic even known as #Twestival. This is a world-wide event that brings together the Twitter community in local parties for a global cause.

Parties are thrown in hundreds of cities around the globe to raise money for charity. Last year the charity of choice was Charity:Water and the global Twitter community helped to raise over $250,000 which assisted in the building of 55 water wells in Uganda, Ethiopia and India.

This year the #Twestival will be raising money for Concern Worldwide. A little bit about Concern Worldwide not in my own words:

"Concern is a non-governmental, international, humanitarian organization dedicated to the reduction of suffering and working towards the ultimate elimination of poverty. Their mission is to help people living in extreme poverty achieve major improvements in their lives - improvements they can sustain without ongoing support."

Not only does #Twestival help to raise money for good causes, but it's also a really fun time. Last year I attended the local Toronto party, aptly dubbed #TwestivalTO. The party was at Circa Nightclub and featured great tunes, good times and lots of Twitter friends. In fact, it was at this party I met a lot of my online friends in real life for the first time.

If you don't believe me it's fun, just click here and check out the Flickr set of photo's from the past event for yourself.

Anyways. I hope that where ever in the world you're reading this from you can find a #Twestival near you to attend, and if not, you can always donate and watch and follow the parties online.

And if you're going to be at the Toronto party, make sure you come say hi to me.

For more info and to find a #Twestival near you check out the official #Twestival site. Through there you can usually get tickets to your local event.

So, do some good, have some fun, attend a #Twestival!

Apartment Shopping is Hard

2010-03-15T00:15:00.003-04:00

Like I said in my last post, I need to move at the end of this month... and I still have no idea where I'm going to live. That means in two weeks I could be homeless.

Hopefully, that's not going to happen. I have a good feeling it won't.

The worst part about the whole thing is, I don't want to move! I love the apartment that I live in now. I've lived here for over 3 years (minus the time I was in Oz). It's the perfect location. It's a great size. It fits all my stuff perfectly. Best of all the price is amazing.

Prices for places have gone up since I found this place. Everywhere I'm looking that's semi-decent is at least $1200 for a one bedroom or $2000 for a two. It's a bit more than I'd like to be paying, but for a good place I think it's just what I'm going to have to do.

Another thing is that my current place has character. It's got an exposed brick wall and a great rooftop patio. A lot of the places I've seen are condos. THEY ALL LOOK THE SAME!! It's actually a little creepy.

Really, I think I'm just a bit weirded out by the idea of living in a condo. I've never lived in a building with more than six units in it, and even those ones were weird. I don't know why I think it's so weird, I just kind of do.

I am trying to warm up to the idea of one though. There could be a few good trade offs with living in one. The best one for me is a gym in the building. My current gym is very close to my apartment and I'll probably have to quit it at the end of the month. The idea of trading off a little bit more money in lieu of a gym membership is kind of good. Plus the gym would be right underneath me, which will make timing not always such an issue.

Anyways, I have no idea what's going to happen, but I had to write some of this down to get out of my head. I'm kind of going nuts and starting to freak out about it. I really don't want to be homeless. I have too much stuff to be homeless with.

I'll let you know what happens.

Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

2010-03-07T00:13:00.002-05:00

Hi!

It's been a while since I wrote something in here. My sincere apologies. But that's about to change, along with a bunch of other things.

March is a good time to start making some big changes all around. Why? Because at the end of this month I need to move into a new apartment, so it'll be like a fresh start. I plan on using this fresh start in a whole bunch of areas in my life.

For one, this blog. This blog used to be my only blog so I used to write about everything in here from personal stuff, to work related stuff, to whatever else I wrote about. Now I have a few blogs that I'm running and writing at the same time, so I'm going to try and keep them all a bit separate. This blog is now going to stay a little bit truer to it's title and become a bit more personal and about whatever I happen to be thinking about or doing when I write it. I'm also going to try to write here a lot more often. I know I've said that before, but this time I really mean it. Changes are happening.

For my more work related writings, such as PR, Social media and my quest to find myself the perfect job that combines the two check out (if you haven't already) the blog I started for a class in my Masters program but decided to keep going with, A Geek In PR.

Speaking of work related stuff, that's another thing I'm changing. I spent the last year and half in school and other ways learning and preparing for a job doing PR and social media work, but when I got back from Australia I fell into a job that is completely unrelated. I think I've become a little too comfortable there. While I have been looking for a job PR and social media, I haven't been going at it full force. Well, I'm going to step up my game there. Keep tuned here or on A Geek In PR for good things happening in this area soon.

I also have a few other changes to make in mind. There's some health related things I need to change in my life. I also need to actually figure out where it is I will be moving to at the end of this month. I'm going to save these things for some future posts here though. That'll make for content in the future and keep this post short. Always thinking I am.

Anyways, watch out for these changes, right here.

PS - I'm also making sure that every post in this blog has a song to go with it, cause I think that I let slip in a few posts in the past.

The Ultimate iPhone Project

2009-10-16T04:38:00.009-04:00

Anyone who knows me knows I love my iPhone. It's my baby. I ordered a special case for it off the internet because I couldn't find one in stores that would protect my baby enough. I don't know what I'd do with out it.

I'm also always searching for things to make my baby better. New apps. Themes. Plug-ins. Whatever.

Yesterday, Robert Scoble tweeted this link to AppsFire's blog that shows (what I assume can only be some of) the apps that he is using on his iPhone. I thought it was interesting to see what apps he uses. That inspired me to come up with this recent harebrained scheme entitled "The Ultimate iPhone Project".

I want to know what apps you're using and loving in order to make my iPhone (and hopefully yours too) into The Ultimate iPhone.

This is a really simple and easy project that I'm hoping a lot of people will be interested in helping out with. All you need to do is leave a comment with what you're using and think is the best thing for your iPhone. This can be apps, themes (for jailbroken iPhones), games, whatever you think is the best of the best on your iPhone.

Now my phone is only a 3G, which means I can't use apps that require the compass on the 3GS, but that doesn't mean you can't post any of them here.

Also, free and/or cheap apps are preferred (as I'm still a broke student), but if something is really worth the money you paid for it, put it up.

I thought I'd start with listing some of the apps on my 1st iPhone page and what I think of them to get the ball rolling.

My theme - right now I'm using the illumine theme. I like (and am looking for) themes that are cool and sleek, don't require a lot of changing things around to make them look good and ones that don't have app icons that are so crazy that they make my apps whose icons don't change look very out of place
Battery percentage - through SB Settings (must be jailbroken to use) so I can see how much battery I actually have left
Score Mobile - I use this for my sports updates. I like the easy to use and read interface, but am willing to try something else
Weather Eye - I use this one because they're the weather channel I watch at home in Toronto and it gives me more details than the one that comes with the phone
TwitterFon - this is the current mobile Twitter client I'm using. (I also haven't updated it since they changed the free one to have ads. I think they now call it echofon) Always willing to try a new one. I use tweetdeck on my laptop, so wouldn't mind trying their iPhone app one day
Evernote - I used to use this app a lot both on my computer and iPhone (they sync with each other) to remember everything, but now can't remember the last time I used it. Willing to take this off the front page
Shazam - great for finding out the name of a song that's playing, but I don't really use it a lot
NetNewsWire - I got this because I use their RSS reader on my desktop so I liked that they synced. Now that the desktop version uses Google Reader to sync, I'm willing to try any app that will sync with my google rss
Icy & Cydia - I use Cydia for finding jailbroken apps and themes, but can't say I've opened Icy more than once. Should take that one off the first page as well.
Categories - (available through Cydia on jailbroken iPhones) you can't see it on my homepage there, but I use Categories to make folders on my second page so that I don't have 1,000 pages worth of apps. The folders I made are "games", "useful stuff" and "fun stuff"

Ok, now that I've got the ball rolling, it's your turn! Leave a comment and let me know what your iPhone favs are. Also, please share this and tell your friends to join in as well. Hopefully we can collaboratively put together The Ultimate iPhone.

After I start to get a bunch of suggestions I can try out I'll update everyone with how I change my iPhone.

I'm Not Rude, I Just Don't See The Point

2009-09-21T11:26:00.003-04:00

Just wanted to say this:

I don't understand why some people feel the need to thank everyone that retweets something they said or shared on twitter.

The other day someone said thank you for retweeting a link they posted. The thing was, it wasn't a link to something they had wrote, it was just something they had shared because it was interesting. This wasn't the first time this has happened either and I just don't see the point.

I post links on twitter because I thought something was interesting and I wanted others to see it. If someone retweets it than that's awesome, more people will see it and probably think it's interesting too. That's what I put it there for.

I'll thank someone if I put up a personal request like "I'm looking for info on ...." and someone on my list who may not know the answer will retweet it. They just did me a personal favour and I'll thank them for that. I just don't (usually) see retweeting a link I posted as a real favour.

Some people will say it helps to build relationships, but if you want to do that with me I'd rather we engaged and talked about whatever it was I just posted. That would help build a relationship with me.

But thank you to anyone who ever has or will retweet something I post.

That's just my personal thought on that.

Not The Brand I Was Looking For, But Maybe For You

2009-09-21T10:47:00.003-04:00

Before I left for my trip I said that I was going to read Dan Schawbel's Me 2.0. Well, I finally did and here's my thoughts.

I would recommend this book to a lot of people, but it wasn't what I was looking for.

I bought this book looking for some new ideas on how I can expand my 40deuce name, my personal brand. This book was more for recent graduates who are looking to explore new ways to try and make them stand out in a job search. Most of the ideas revolved around using web 2.0/ social media to their advantage.

Most of the things the book recommended were ways to use social media, which I think I'm kind of on top of already. I would however recommend this book to people who are coming out of school and aren't as involved in using social media. If that's you, I would highly suggest you take a look at this book and try at least some of the ideas Schawble presents.

Now don't get me wrong, I don't think it was a total waste of my time. The book did give me a few new ideas and even a few ideas to fix up some of my old ideas. Schawbel definitely knows what he's talking about and holds quite an impressive resume (which kind of makes me mad, cause I think he's younger than me).

Anyways, I think that aybe I should have looked more into a book on branding for my whole 40deuce life, but since I'm going to finishing my schooling days in the next 2 months and will be on the job hunt, I'm glad I read the book. BUT, if you're already have a job and are really into social media, you may not want to bother reading it.

I think this song goes with the get a job theme (plus it's funny because the drummer was my manager at the bar I worked at back home):

40deuce

I Have Something Else For You To Read

2009-08-12T10:18:00.002-04:00

Just in case anybody actually reads this blog... AND, just in case you actually enjoy my writing... I have news for you.

I had to start yet another blog as a class assignment. This one will soley be focused on looking at how communications professionals use Web 2.0.

If you care to read it, check it out @ A GEEK IN PR

They Don't Believe Me That I'm Me

2009-08-10T02:43:00.004-04:00

If you follow any celebrities on Twitter you may have noticed that the site has started to verify some celeb's pages. For example, check out Quest Love of the Roots or Oprah's twitter page and notice right above their name the little checkmark and "verified account" badge. If you click the badge it takes you to a page that explains the how and why they're doing it (see here).

I have nothing against this idea. I actually think it's a good idea. Big businesses and well known celebrity names carry heavy influence over people, and an impostor can screw up their public image very quickly. If I owned a large company I wouldn't want people who have nothing to do with me saying things and claiming they've come from me. Doesn't even matter if it's positive or negative, it's still not really me. I'm sure you can all relate to the feeling.

However, since I'm not a big company or a big celebrity (yet) I was kind of weirded out to be asked to verify myself. I wasn't asked by Twitter either. I was asked by a regular everyday person whom I had added to my list earlier in the day.

I was adding some people in my industry for networking purposes while in my new home down under when I received a DM saying "[username] uses TrueTwit validation service. Please follow this link to validate your profile." Check out the service for yourself here.

Esentially, it's a service that asks anyone who follows the person using it to go to a website and enter a captcha to prove they're a real person. The service then sends the user an email that says I'm a real person, you can now check to see if you want to follow them back.

This is kind of crazy if you ask me. As I've mentioned in other posts, I don't believe in auto-follow-backs of people that add me. I like to check peoples profiles before I add them to my Twitter list. You can usually tell within 10 seconds if the page is a real person or a spam page. Heck, I don't follow everyone that follows me even if they are a real person.

Besides the laziness of the service, because we all know how much effort it takes to click a few links and look at a twitter page for 10 seconds, there was something else that got me about this service.

I could have signed myself up for the service which would have made me one of those auto-DMers that I hate, but it also would have automatically verified my "realness" to anyone else using the service that may have wanted to add me.

If I could create a spam page and then sign it up for the service so that my spam page is automatically verified... doesn't that defeat the whole point of the service??

Just a thought.

40deuce

Guess Who's Back, Back Again

2009-08-10T02:24:00.002-04:00

So I'm done the main travel portion of my time in Australia. I'm now settled into a place in the Sydney area and have started school again working on my MPC (Masters of Professional Communication).

Most importantly, I have a proper internet connection now and will be blogging here once again.

If you want to see what I've been up to for the past 2 months, click here.

40deuce

Been Rockin' the Suburbs

2009-06-13T21:39:00.002-04:00

I know that I haven't posted here in a while, and here's why:

Tomorrow I leave to go to Australia for 6 months. I'm going over there to attended the University of Western Sydney for a semester to get my MA in Professional Communication. Before I start school though, I'm going to be traveling the east coast of Oz. I'm pretty freakin' excited.

For the past 2 weeks I've been living up in the suburbs with my mom (yes, like high school again) because I subleased my apartment for the first of the month until I come back. I've been pretty busy getting ready to go and that's why I haven't posted in a while.

Sad news is, I probably won't be posting on this blog again for at least another month when I'm settled into a place in Sydney. That's not a forsure on no posting for a month, but probability.

While you're waiting anxiously for my return I'll be updating a travel blog as often as possible. Feel free to check out my adventure @ http://mytb.org/40deuce

Till next time friends...

40deuce

Epic Publicity #WIN!

2009-06-04T13:06:00.004-04:00

I've always been a fan of music artists doing cool new things. One of my favorites is DJ's who find new cool ways to mix, sample or change other artists music. That's why I was excited about a year and a bit ago when I heard that DJ AM was teaming up with Travis Barker (of Blink-182), whom I think is one of the best drummers around right now, to do an album.

The result was a great mix tape called "Fix Your Face" where DJ AM did the mixing and scratching and Travis played his awesome style of what I refer to as "ninja drumming" over the whole thing.

I got really excited the other day when I saw that the duo had released their set from Cochella 2009 as an album "Fix Your Face 2".

My friend gave me a link for the free download, which I'll give to you all shortly. The thing about this download was it was done in a manner I've never seen before, but I think was a genius idea for publicity on their part.

When you click on the link it will take to you to a website that says you can get a free download of this new album in exchange for one tweet (that's a twitter message for all of you not on the bandwagon yet). If you continue to click through, the site logs you onto twitter and then asks if you will allow it to tweet a message that says:

"Download the new #trvsdjam mixtape "Fix Your Face Vol. 2 - Coachella 09" in exchange for one tweet!"

GENIUS!!!

This message spread over a persons Twitter network allows everyone to see the name "TRVSDJAM", let's them know they have a new album and even makes a hashtag for the guys so that if enough people get the album through this method #trvsdjam will become a hot trending twitter topic.

I don't know about you, but I think this a great way for some free and great publicity. I wouldn't be surprised if you start to see other artists or even companies all trying things like this in the near future.

Now for those of you dying for the link to get the album in exchange for a tweet, here it is: http://twitter.trvsdjam.com

Now here's a track from their first album:

40deuce

#LOSTCHAT

2009-05-19T13:18:00.003-04:00

Have you ever been on Twitter on a Monday night and seen the hashtag for #journchat go by a zillion times?? How about a Thursday and seen #smallbizchat?

What these are are large groups of people all talking about a single topic. #journchat is a bunch of journalists and people who interact with journalists (such as PR folk) talking. #smallbizchat is for... you guessed it, small business people.

I had an idea the other day to start a chat of my own. Perhaps it will be a one time thing, perhaps it will be ongoing. We'll have to wait and see how it goes.

So, here's my idea...

Because this Wednesday (May 20th) will be the first without a new LOST since the season is over, I thought it would be fun to have a #LOSTCHAT. This will be a forum on Twitter where everyone across the world can come together and discuss just WTF is going on. There's millions of theories out there about what's happening in LOST, and I'm sure your theories are different from mine, so let's discuss them together.

Please pass this on to all of your Twitter friends who also enjoy LOST.

We will start at @ 9pm EST on Wednesday May 20th (the time when LOST should be on for the east coast), and using the hashtag #LOSTCHAT.

This should be fun. See you there!

40deuce

Trying Something New & Interesting

2009-05-14T15:00:00.003-04:00

Weird looking picture above, right??

If you follow me on Twitter than you would have seen that this picture is also my avatar there.

I changed it to try out something. The picture above is actually called a QR Code, and basically it's a super fancy barcode. You need to get a special application to be able to read the code, and then something will happen. I use an app for my iPhone called 2D Sense to read the codes.

My code will automatically take you too my other blog once the program has decoded the code, but companies are starting to use these codes to get content to their customers such as websites, coupons, plain text, whatever.

I just thought it would be something fun to try, so go download a QR Code reader and try it out for yourself.

A special shout-out to @doctorjones for giving me the idea.

40deuce

I Think I understand the Hipster Trend

2009-05-08T17:13:00.003-04:00

So, today I was on a walk around Toronto and as usual, saw a lot of hipsters along my journey. While looking at a semi-cute hipster girl I had an epiphany; I finally understood this hipster trend thing.

A little while ago the hot trend was to look like you just came out of a pop video. Girls dressed like pop princesses and guys looked like they wanted to be in N'Sync. The problem with this was you actually had to be a semi-good looking person to really pull off the look. Girls could buy the clothes, cut and dye their hair the right way, wear a lot of make up, but if you weren't a good looking person anyways it wouldn't help.

Hipster style is different though. It's kind of about looking frumpy and like you're not trying even though you are. I think it's caught on though because it's leveled the playing field. Hot girls can wear the style and still be hot. But, on the flip side the not-as-attractive people can also wear the style and the "I'm not trying to look good" look helps bump them up a bit. Like I see girls who are only semi-cute but the look they have going sometimes helps to bump them up a bit.

However, for the record, I still don't support the hipster movement.

Now, here's some hipster music I can stand:

40deuce

Building My Personal Brand

2009-05-04T16:54:00.006-04:00

In my last post I mentioned that I was starting a new book called "Me 2.0: Build a Powerful Brand to Achieve Career Success", and I'd like to explain why.

As you may have deduced with your superior intellect, my real name isn't "40deuce", although it's a possibility for my child (kidding). I came up with the name a long time ago. It comes from my lucky number 42 (and yes, it was my lucky number before I read "The Hitch-Hikers Guide to the Galaxy" although that was a fantastic stroke of fate), and I just though changing the 2 to "deuce" made it sound cooler.

At first, I was just going to use it as a business name. I was going to have a 40deuce empire! 40deuce Media, 40deuce Records, 40deuce Films, 40deuce Clothing, 40deuce whatever, etc. A little while after that I decided to use it in an email address just because I couldn't think of anything else and didn't want to go with just my real name (how boring). Later it just became a screen name for me so I could log into all kinds of websites and not really worry about forgetting what name I came up with for this site.

At first I never really considered anything about using the alias, but then people on Twitter (where of course it's my handle) started addressing me with lines like "hey deuce" as if it was my real name. I thought it was a little strange, but I understood why they were doing it. It didn't quite click in my head yet that I had started building a personal brand.

A little while after that I decided to get some business cards made up for networking purposes. I put all the usual title, contact and website info on one side, but had to think of something to put on the other side. I decided that I should just put a big 40deuce on the back side. That way I could also tell people that they can find me on Twitter with that name, but I also figured it worked since I plan on calling any business I start 40deuce.

While at a networking party for young business minded people here in Toronto known as #GenYTO, I was mingling around and introducing myself to the people there with my real name. We would chat for a while and eventually the person I was talking with and me would exchange business cards. It was at this point when a few people throughout the night would look at my card and say, "Oh! You're 40deuce?? I've seen/follow you on Twitter." This is when I started to realize that I was becoming this 40deuce brand.

The next week in school one of my classmates asked to see my business card. When I showed it to her she asked, "What's with the 40deuce?" I didn't even think about my response and somehow the words "I'm building a personal brand" came out of my mouth.

That was the first time I even thought about it in those terms. I didn't mean to say that, it's just what came out. It did howevr make me realize that it's true. 40deuce is now my brand. My personal brand, and I think that I've started to establish it enough that it's now time to build that brand and really make it known.

And that my friends is what lead me to pick up this new book. I'll let you know how it goes when I finish reading it.

40deuce

Learning "The New Rules"

2009-05-01T11:58:00.006-04:00

I know, I know. I've fallen off the posting wagon again. In my defense, my last month of school was hectic, but I'M DONE NOW!!!

During my last couple months of school though, I managed to read this great book in little 45min increments on my public transit commutes.

The book is David Meerman Scott's "The New Rules of Marketing and PR" and is a fantastic read. I highly recommend this book to not just anyone in marketing or public relations, but to anyone that does any kind of business now or wants to in the future.

This book takes a look at how the world of business has shifted thanks to the internet and how people are staying connected to their consumers through it. The best part about it is how Meerman writes the book like he does his blog. It's very easy to read and simple to understand. As well, there are tons of real life examples (or case studies) that make all the material he writes about easy to understand through actual stories.

The book is broken up into three distinct sections. The first talks about why the internet has changed how marketing and PR is done. The second section then talks about different tactics that are currently being implemented on the web and gives a nice overview of each. The final section then helps readers to make an action plan to harness all these new techniques and use them for their benefit.

The section I got the most out of (possibly because I was supposed to, as he reiterated it throughout the book) was about creating buyer personas. The chapter talks about how every business has to know their audience, and sometimes that could be more than one audience at a time, and make sure that you think like those people when creating your content. For example, words are very important. You need to make sure that the content on your website or blog is written in words that your target demographics would use in their everyday speech. It also talks about moving past just the basic demographics like age, sex, location, etc., and breaking it down even further into micro categories like "males in northern Canada from 14-30 years old that ride bikes, are heavy into music, love chocolate ice cream and walk their dogs without leashes" (that example isn't actually from the book).

This book was a great extension to "The Cluetrain Manifesto" which I blogged about earlier in the year.

Again, if you do business of any sort now or plan on it in the future, I highly recommend you read this book.

Next on my reading list: "Me 2.0: Build a Powerful Brand to Achieve Career Success" by Dan Schwable and I'll explain why I chose this one in my next blog post which I'll hopefully have up in the next couple days.

Till then, enjoy this tune:

40deuce

The Glitz, The Glamour & The Grind

2009-04-10T20:04:00.006-04:00

On Monday April 6th, as part of a school class, I had to hold an event. All of my class was split up into groups and each group had to put on a seminar type of event with a theme. My group decided to focus our seminar on entertainment PR.

We put together an event that we cleverly titled The Glitz, The Glamour & The Grind: The Skinny on Entertainment PR. We held the seminar down at Toronto's Second City Theatre. The whole thing was a great success.

We had three speakers come to talk to the students that attended. Anna Von Frances of Pink Mafia, a full service PR firm in Toronto that specializes in entertainment events. Daniel Shehori who does PR for The Second City on top of other live comedy shows, and Nick Poireir who is a recent graduate of my program and currently is doing communications for LuminaTO: Toronto's Festival of Arts and Creativity. The speakers spoke about their experiences in entertainment PR, gave the students advice on what to do, what not to do, trends in the business and then answered questions from the audience.

On top of that, to add some entertainment value to tie in with our entertainment theme, The Second City kindly donated us some of their cast to do some improv for us. They went over as a hit, and we got to make an ass of our teacher on stage.

Overall, I think the whole thing was a success.

Here's some pics from the day:

Lot's of pics today so no music video.

I'm out.

40deuce

Irony At Its Finest

2009-04-07T11:08:00.004-04:00

Last night was opening night for the Blue Jays 2009 season. I was lucky enough to be one of the 48,000 people in attendance. The game was amazing with the Jays blowing Detroit out of the water 12-5, but something was wrong.

I couldn't get any service for my cell phone during the game. No phone calls. No text messages. No internet for surfing, emails or twitter. That didn't just happen with my phone. Everyone around me seemed to be having the same no service issues.

Does anyone else find it kind of ironic that I was in the ROGERS center and my ROGERS cell phone wouldn't get service??

Just a thought.

That is all.

40deuce

THE NUMBERS DON'T MEAN JACK (NOT A LOST POST)

2009-04-01T11:15:00.004-04:00

For the past couple of weeks (aside from not writing any blog posts here) I have been lucky enough been taking part in the beta trial of an online app that has a connection to Twitter. Now, I'm not at liberty to speak the name of said app, but that's not the important part.

What I want to talk about is a certain feature this app I'm beta testing has. Technically, I am not giving anything away about this specific app because this function is not native to just this application.

A lot of websites are popping up these days to help people build up their Twitter communities. Some of these allow you to look for people who may be tweeting about things you're interested in. These sites usually allow users to categorize themselves and then be sought out. Some sites I use for this for this are We Follow and Just Tweet It.

On the other side are sites or apps that do what my beta test app does; they will automatically do a mass follow of people for you. All you have to do is click a button and and the program will grab hundreds of of random people and add them to your Twitter follow list.

Here's my beef; I just can't figure out why anyone would want to do this????

Sure some people out there may be playing the numbers game in Twitter, but to me that defeats the whole point. Sure, I'm not the most popular person in the Twitterverse, but I'm ok with that, because most of the people I follow I followed for a reason. I follow people who I'm interested in. People who I think I can have a good conversation with. People who I won't ever talk to, but still like to hear what they have to say. I follow a few different news aggregating accounts on different subjects. Sometimes even a celeb or two because they can be cool or funny (I highly recommend checking out Kenny Powers from Eastbound and Down. F'n hilarious!). But, I never follow someone just in hopes that they will follow me back.

I'm not interested in becoming the guy with the most followers on Twitter (although I probably wouldn't be upset about it if it happened). I'd rather connect with people and have meaningful conversations and start friendships.

Social media should be about actually being social, not looking the coolest. And that's all I have to say about that.

40deuce

Is Twitter the Next Great Search Engine??

2009-03-03T20:01:00.004-05:00

I'm going to start this post off with a little story.

Today I was doing some research for ideas for an Online PR class that I'm helping my course director put together. While looking for some informative links to show him I came across a problem. I was looking for SMRs (Social Media Releases) to show my prof how different they are from old skool regular news releases. When I googled (do you capitalize that if it's being used as a verb?) "social media release" the top four hits were blogs and articles of peoples advice on how they think a social media release should look. Semi-helpful, but not what I was looking for.

I decided to try a different approach. Since I know that a lot of my Twitter friends work in and around marketing and PR, I decided to throw my query out to them. Within five minutes of me posting my question on Twitter I recieved six responses. Four of them were people on my list of friends with links and/or recommendations of people to talk to. The other two responses were from professionals who deal specifically with SMRs. One from Canadian News Wire (CNW) and the other from Marketwire, who each directed me to examples on their sites.

I don't know about you, but I find stuff like that incredible.

It also made me start thinking, is Twitter the next great search engine? Let's think about it for a minute...

- I was looking for useful information, and people I actually know were able to make recommendations on where to find this info. If you can't trust your friends, who can you trust?

- Professionals from all kinds of companies monitor sites like Twitter to see when people mention them. I'm sure that both the representatives from Marketwire and CNW had real time searches going for key words like "SMR" or "news release" so they could respond quickly. Other companies do the same thing. They search for mentions of their companies or products and respond to the people talking about them. I remember one time a friend had a problem with UPS, tweeted about it, and a few minutes later a UPS representative asked her via twitter how he could help make the problem right. Meaning, you can get any kind of info directly from companies themselves.

- You can see what everyone around the world has to say about a topic. There is now a plethora (I like that word) of Twitter search engines such as Twitter Search, TweetGrid, Twitscoop, and many more. On these search engines you can type in a key word or phrase and see what anyone in the "twitterverse" is saying or linking to about that topic. This is great for finding reviews and what people are saying about products and services, or even things like movies.

These are just a few reasons off the top of my head as to why Twitter is sometimes more useful than Google for finding things.

I'd love to hear what you all think about this, but I just added a new theme to my blog and the comments section doesn't seem to be working properly. I'm trying to fix that so please be patient. You can always tweet me your thoughts at @40deuce.

*UPDATE* comments seem to be working again, so please leave one.

40deuce

2 Posts In 1 - Both About Geeks Having Fun

2009-02-27T19:17:00.010-05:00

The title rhymes. You like that? Thought so.

So first, I'd like to start off by admitting that I'm a terrible person.I made a promise at the beginning of the year to both you, my readers (if you actually exist), and myself that I would try to post more often here, and I have failed. All I can say is I will try harder. You can believe me or not, that's your call (I wouldn't), but I will try harder.

Now on to the real stuff....

I'm going to try something a little different in this post. First, I have two things to talk about in one post because of my slacking. And second, this will be a very photo heavy post. I borrowed a few pics from some people and want to share them with you.

On February 12th I took place in a really awesome event called the Twestival. This was a global fund raising party that happened in 180 cities. All 180 cities had a party where people, most of whom are Twitter people, got together to meet their Twitter friends in real life and raise money for Charity: Water, a charity that helps those in the world that don't have access to clean water.

I went to the party in Toronto, also known as #TwestivalTO. Toronto's party was held at Circa night club and was a fantastic party. I got to meet a lot of local people that I speak to on Twitter for the first time beyond my computer screen, and it was just a generally fun party. These geeks knew how to party!

Overall the entire Twestival was a success. The Toronto party alone raised over $10,000, and worldwide $250,000USD was raised for Charity: Water.

On a side note, I also made the news while at the party. Check it out here.

The second geek oriented event I attended this month was PodCampTO. PodCamp is what's known as an "unconference." It was an event where a whole bunch of geeks got together at Ryerson University for a weekend to discuss all sorts of topics revolving around online media. The entire event was put together and run by volunteers and was free to attend.

This was a great event where I again met a bunch of local people that I only knew online previously, but more than that I learned a lot. For two days straight I attended half hour sessions about all kinds of different topics ranging from how to build a brand on Twitter to the future of social media in Canada. I also got to see a live taping of the Inside PR podcast which I listen to all the time.

If you happened to miss the event, most of the sessions were recorded and should be up on the PodCampTO website in the next few days.

Here's some pics of the weekend in no particular order:

One last note before I finish this gianormous post: This will be the last time you see my blog with this look as I'm currently on the hunt for a new theme. See you next time with a different look.

Twestival Pics Courtesy Of:

Rannie Turingan aka @Photojunkie (http://www.rannieturingan.com/)

& Shawn Hawaii

PodCampTO Pics Courtesy Of:

Dave Fleet (http://davefleet.com)

40deuce

2009 = The Summer to Re-Live My Childhood

2009-02-04T17:28:00.005-05:00

This weekend the Super Bowl had me on the edge of my seat. Which is unusual, since I'm not really a huge football fan.

For one, the game was awesome. Even as a guy that only watches football when he's with other people that want to watch it, I have to admit it was a really exciting game.

The second reason though, was because someone had shown me something the night before the game. They showed me leaked Super Bowl commercials for two movies I've been waiting for, and I wanted to see them in hi-def, not the digitally looking blurry versions I saw the night before. Unfortunately, they didn't show either of them in Canada. Thank god I saw them already.

Two of my favorite cartoons from my childhood will both be making comebacks as live action movies this summer.

First, since we've seen them before, is Transformers 2: Revenge Of The Fallen:

Second, for the first time ever in live action, G.I. Joe!!

(I hope Sgt. Slaughter makes a guest appearance in that one)

And just to finish off this post, for anyone who cares, this was my favorite Super Bowl ad this year:

40deuce

When Will the UFC Meet the ACC?

2009-02-01T13:24:00.003-05:00

I'm a big fan of watching guys beat the shit out of each other. It's even better when it's a sanctioned fight and not just two dudes outside a bar (although I enjoy watching that as well). I even considered going to Montreal last year to watch UFC's first ever fight in Canada.

Unfortunately, it was really hard to get tickets to that, and I didn't go. But not for a lack of trying.

We wanted to go to Montreal because they allow fights there, while here in Ontario, the sport is not allowed.

Anyways, last night while I was watching Georges St. Pierre fight BJ Penn, I heard Joe Rogan mention something interesting. He said that GSP was named the Canadian Athlete of the Year for 2008.

After a quick google search I found out that it's true. Don't believe me? Check here.

With that said, it made me want to know when the Ontario government will change their mind and allow the UFC to come and hold events here? If GSP is the Canadian athlete of the year, that must mean that ALL of Canada voted him in, not just Montreal.

There's obviously a market for the sport all across the country. The sport has gained so much popularity over the past few years, and other markets across North America are starting to see that MMA is a real sport and not just dudes beating the crap out of each other (although technically it's both). I want the Ontario government to realize this as well.

Dana White, owner of the UFC, said that he will be making a big campaign on Ontario to sanction the sport this year.

Let's just keep our fingers crossed.

40deuce

All Aboard the Cluetrain (I wonder how many other blogs already have that title?)

2009-01-30T19:53:00.003-05:00

I just finished reading a book that I want to recommend to anyone and everyone that uses the internet. That's right, EVERYONE.

This book is called the Cluetrain Manifesto: The End of Business As Usual.

I first learned of this book a month ago when I was reading infamous blogger Chris Brogan's recommended reading list for things to take on vacation with me. (Unfortunately, I can't find that list to link to, but I did find another link for helping people to understand social media, which also has the two books I bought from his list. I also figured I bought the books for that purpose, so this link works just fine)

This book talks about how businesses can't operate the way they have for the past 100 years with the cold stone face hidden behind cute and fuzzy marketing. That just doesn't work anymore. People don't want to be told anymore. They want to talk. They want to be heard. But, they're also willing to listen.

This book is about how there's a new revolution (already started), and if companies want to survive, they're going to have to change and adapt.

It's written before the renaissance known as Web 2.0, but you would never know it except for the lack of mention of Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.

Because I could probably write for a day on the things I think about what this book said, I'm going to point out to two great things and then let you read it yourselves.

The first thing I loved that was brought up throughout the book is how the web has transformed the world into a giant ancient marketplace. People can enter and leave when they like. They can walk around and shop around for things. They can also ask others what they think about things. The marketplace becomes a place where conversations happen, instead of advertising being thrown at you. You can talk to people around the world on their thoughts about companies and products, or you can talk to companies themselves and let them know what you think. It also gives them (companies) a chance to respond, and it's their loss if they don't, not ours.

The other part I loved is a chapter that speaks about how on the web, everything is hyperlinked. Another way the Internet puts power in the everyman. The web isn't like a half hour TV show where you know the order goes intro, lead up, commercial, climax, commercial, resolution, commercial. Hyperlinks allow people on the web to move around freely from topic to topic, spending as much time on any one thing as they like. The people are back in control.

GO READ THIS BOOK!

If you don't want to buy it, you can actually read the entire book for free at cluetrain.com.

I actually finished the book yesterday morning and had brought it with me to give to a friend that evening. We were going to a Social Media conference/seminar thingy. It put a little smile on my face when one of the guest speakers, Toronto blogger and teacher Boyd Neil, recommended several times that everyone in the audience read this book.

It's not just me.

Seriously, go read this book.

40deuce

My new way to stay connected on the go

2009-01-27T12:09:00.004-05:00

Once I start to like something I get hooked.

Once I started being an avid Twitter user, I needed to find ways to stay connected at all times.

On my home computer I'm using the Twhirl desktop client. I like it. It keeps me fully connected to Twitter without me having to keep checking the actual website and continuously refreshing the page while waiting for replies. But what about when I don't have my computer with me, or when there's no wifi to jack into?

Enter my glorious baby and best friend; my iPhone.

For the past few months I've been using the free edition of Twitterific. It seemed like a great iPhone app for a while. It was free, and I was able to stay connected to my Twitter list. There are ads on it, which can be avoided by buying the premium version, but they weren't all that annoying. I thought the interface was pretty simple and easy to use. It would highlight my @replies in a different colour so they stood out to me, but only if I viewed it within 10-30 mins of someone sending it to me. I was always getting home and finding that people were talking to me when I wasn't online and I was unaware of it. I needed to find a better way to stay connected.

After asking some other Twitter users what they were using, I was tipped on to the TwitterFon app. This one has a much better user interface. It actually has sections where it holds all my @ replies and direct messages until I view them. It didn't matter if I was online or not. It just updated me when I logged on. The colours are a bit annoying, but I'm sure I'll figure out a way to change them eventually.

It's a much better way to stay connected to all my Twitter friends (not to mention it's free), and I highly recommend it to anyone with an iPhone that tweets.

Now here's a good song...

40deuce

I'm ready to get LOST

2009-01-19T19:36:00.003-05:00

I'm a geek!

I know it. I can admit it. I'm even kind of proud of it.

Especially when it comes to LOST. I love that show.

I'm the kind of guy that every Thursday would be on Lostpedia because LOST was on Wednesday night. I had to check it. I had to know if I missed anything, and what other people thought was going to happen next. I even subscribe to The Doc Artz Blog which talks about theories of the happenings in the LOST world.

Last week CTV and ABC showed all three hours of last seasons finale. It got me all excited.

This week LOST premiers with another three hours of LOST. There's only really two hours of new episodes, but still. THREE HOURS OF LOST ON WEDNESDAY!!!

LOST!!!

40deuce

The Straw That Broke Me on the York U Strike

2009-01-16T12:41:00.004-05:00

Technically, I don't go to York University.

However, I still have been affected by the strike, I just tried not to let it get to me. Until yesterday, when I finally had it.

A little background first. I go to Seneca College. My campus just happens to be a building on the York University campus grounds. Sometime in November the TA's and other support staff at York University decided to go on strike.

This really only affected me because I take public transit to school and the TTC (Toronto Transit Commission), being a union themselves, will not cross another unions picket lines. That means that I have to get dropped off outside the campus and take a 7-10 min. trek into my school everyday instead of getting dropped of right in front of the doors.

Sure it pissed me off a bit with it being winter and all, but I sucked it up and took the walk.

Yesterday I snapped though.

On my long walk in from off campus, across a big field where the wind picks up and blows hard, on the coldest day of the winter (it was something like -30C), I get to where the picketers should be, and there's no one there!

They decided that maybe it's too cold to picket?? That's bullshit. I still had to walk into the school because they're on strike, and they're not even out there picketing cause it's a little chilly outside???

If they wanted to be inside and warm, they should stop crying, suck it up and go back to work. But instead, I had to suffer getting frost bitten on the tip of my nose, and they stayed home and drank hot chocolate????

Now, I've never been much of a union supporter, but I never said anything bad against these guys either, until now. Yesterday made me sick, and so do the York TA's. It's been over 2 months of striking for ridiculous reasons. People are losing their educations. I'm freezing my ass off.

It's enough already!!

New Year, New Goals

2009-01-12T23:48:00.004-05:00

Happy New Years Everyone!

Now I know that it's a little bit late to be making new years resolutions, seeing as most people did it 12 days ago. In my defense, I worked 'till 4:30 am New Years Eve,and then I went on a little vacation to visit some friends and attend a wedding in Los Angeles.

The extra time did however give me time to think, and I came up with a list of goals, or new years resolutions, for my 2009.

So, without further adieu, here they are:

1. QUIT SMOKING - I've been smoking for about 12 years. That's a long time considering the fact that I'm still relatively young. I did quit for one year a few years ago, but the one cigarette slip I made sent me into a downward spiral that eventually took me back to being a regular smoker. I know that smoking is bad for me, but I just love smoking. I know it sounds dumb, but the smokers understand what I mean. Anyways, as much as I love smoking, I do want to quit because I know it's the smart thing to do. In the summer, my dad bought me a book called "Allen Carr's Easy Way to Quit Smoking" that I started a few months ago, but stopped reading. I'm going to pick it back up again. Very soon. I swear.

2. UP MY PROFESSIONAL GAME - Yes, I'm currently a student. Yes, I might be extending that stint for almost another year if I go to get my MA in Australia. But, none of those are reasons as to why I can't start being a professional at the same time. I try to go to networking events to meet people in my future industry, I add all sorts of people on Twitter, but aside from initial contact with some of these people, nothing else happens. I need to be more professional and meet more people and keep in contact with them for all sorts of reasons. I got some business cards made near the end of last year, and I plan on running out of them soon.

3. BECOME MORE HEALTHY AND FIT - I know lots of people say this, and then they say that plus, "but I mean it." I joined a gym around the corner from my place in August and on average I go at least 3 or 4 times a week. I want to do a harder routine there and get more fit. On top of that I'd just like to try to not eat things that are terrible for me. Of course I'm gonna splurge every once and a while, but that's ok, as long as I make a conscious decision most of the time. Also, I'm thinking about maybe yoga.

4. READ MORE - This means everything. Fiction. Non-fiction. Blogs. Magazines. Newspapers. Comics. Everything.

5. BLOG MORE AND BETTER - When I started this blog a few months ago I said I was going to keep it updated as much as I could. And I did. For a little while. Then I got side-tracked. No more though! I will keep this blog and/or any other one I do updated. As well, I'm going to try and better and more concise, both for my readers and for PR practice writing.

Feel free to leave a comment if you have any advice or tips or comments for me.

All this starts after now, or after this appropriate video:

40deuce

YARRRR! Be A Pirate With Me

2008-12-13T13:35:00.006-05:00

Word on the street is that this has been around since September 19th, but I just discovered it a few days ago.

According to the inter-web, every September 19th is International Talk Like A Pirate Day (who knew?) and this year Facebook decided to join in on the festivities, and everyone else can too!!!

Do you want your facebook to talk like a pirate rather than plain old boring english? It's really easy.

All you have to do is go into you facebook settings, and under language there should be an option for "English (Pirate)" like this:

And that, me hearties, is all you need to do, and then your facebook will be as cool as mine and look something like this:

And that's it. Come be a Pirate with me.

Happy Plunderin'

40deuce

Listen Once, Wait, Listen Again

2008-12-01T21:40:00.000-05:00

*Quick Note* For those of you that check my blog on a daily basis (I know you do) you may notice that this blog I wrote yesterday is completely different today. This is because I had a few conversations today about this topic and feel like I should have given a little more effort to the post, so here goes the second try:

I've been a fan of Kanye since before I even knew who he was. When Jay-Z's Blueprint album came out, it had a new sound to it that rung in my earbuds. Tracks like "Heart of the City" and "Take Over" were a great throwback to when samples in hip-hop were all that was basically done. I didn't know who the producer of those tracks was, but I knew he knew what he was doing. In the years before this album hip-hop had gone the way of funk synthesizers and digital music thanks to people like the good Dr. Dre.

A few years later I heard Kanye's first single "Through the Wire" for his (then) upcoming debut album The College Dropout. From then on I was a huge Kanye fan. I rocked The College Dropout for almost six months straight (there was other thing I also listened to, but was always drawn back into that album).

I followed him and greatly anticipated all of his releases, from his major ones, Late Registration and Graduation, to his mixtapes like Get Well Soon...

Through these albums Kanye was always evolving while also keeping things very Kanye-ish. On Late Registration he moved from soul samples to more jazz influenced ones, and then to electronic samples on Graduation.

However, his latest album, is completely different from anything he has previously done.

The first single "Love Lockdown" came out a few months ago and had me completely baffled. This was track with Kanye singing, not rapping, through the biggest trend in urban music today, the vocoder. As well, Kanye was accompanied musically by basic piano and tribal sounding drums. This was a very different path from all of his previous endeavors.

Still, being a Kanye fan, I went out this weekend and picked up the new album 808s and Heartbreak.

I gave the album it's first listening to while I was doing some school work, and kept thinking "what the hell is this?" The new album is almost all singing, no rapping, and all the music was made from a Rolland TR-808 drum machine. Not at all what I was expecting.

I consider myself to be a real music fan, so I know that sometimes it takes two or three listenings before an album sinks in. So on my way to a friends house later that same night, I popped 808s and Heartbreak onto my iPod and went on my way.

This second listening session on public transit allowed me to pay a bit more attention to the album. It was this second album I was able to feel what Kanye was going for.

He's said while talking about the new album that this was an experimental album for himself. Something for him to breach out of just the hip-hop genre. Some of the experiment worked and others didn't.

On my second listening I was able to pay more attention to the music than the first time. The music on the album is very minimal and digitally sounding, but don't be fooled. It's this minimalist sound that brings out the genius in it. The music is so simple that when you pay close attention to it, it becomes a complex symphony. I know that sounds weird, but you're going to have to take my word for it. Once I heard the symphony come out I haven't been able to put the record down.

That was the working part of the experiment. The failure part comes from Kanye's vocals. I've always admired that Kanye has a quick wit in most of his rhymes, but none of that is present on this album. He sings, a lot, about heartbreak on this album, and the singing just doesn't work. There are a few amazing hooks on some of the tracks, but the verses just didn't do it for me.

Overall I still have to say I love this album. The music from the 808s and the hooks for tracks greatly out power the weakness for most of the verses on the album.

My recommendation: Get this album. Listen to it. Hate it. Wait a while. Listen to it again. Love it.

40deuce

Hoodie Update

2008-11-27T01:01:00.000-05:00

I managed to get the hoodie ordered thanks to a good buddy of mine in the states. Never heard a thing from ECKO.

Maybe they don't do stuff like that?

Maybe my social media footprint needs to be larger before they would have seen it?

Maybe they don't care and just think I'm a whinny bitch?

Anyways, none of that matters cause I'm getting my Boba Fet hoodie. Oh ya!

This Is A Test of the Power of Social Media

2008-11-21T19:53:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I made a post about some Star Wars ECKO gear I wanted.

Today I decided that I wanted the hoodie so badly that I would order it. Probably one of the biggest factors pushing me into it was finding an order code that is part of their "friends and family" sale, thanks to another blogger, that will get me 30% off. So I set about ordering the Boba Fet hoodie and a cool Star Wars T-shirt (yes, Star Wars is cool).

Half way through my ordering process I get to the address section and it won't let me change the country from US to Canada. ECKO's online store won't ship outside of the US!! The horror. It's not even over seas, we're connected for gods sake!

Anyways, I've heard a few good stories over the past year about people talking about their problems with companies over social media and the companies sometimes respond. Usually positively. So I decided to give it a try.

I've mentioned my problem several times on Twitter. I made a small post about it on my Tumblr mini-blog, and now I'm writing about it here.

I'm hoping that if I mention it enough, something will get done. That's why I'm asking anyone who reads this to pass it on. Especially Canadians like me who also like ECKO gear, because maybe one day you won't be able to get something you really want shipped to you. Maybe you even know someone who is connected to ECKO in some way. You should pass this on to them.

Help me!

Help me get my amazingly cool hoodie!!

Help give me faith that social media really works!!!

keep the faith - michael jackson

40deuce

I WANT IT

2008-11-20T19:37:00.000-05:00

Here's my next installment of I WANT IT, just in case anyone wants to get me a holiday present of any sort. *wink wink* *nudge nudge*

This time though it's not one thing, it's a whole collection of things. Hoodies to be exact.

Anyone who knows me in real life knows that I love hoodies. I also love star wars.

While clicking through another site I was taken to the Ecko clothing site, where I found a whole collection of limited edition Star Wars clothes. Everything there is cool, but the hoodies are awesome. Check out the Boba Fet one I have posted here in the blog, or click through to the page and check out the awesome Storm Trooper hoodie.

I WANT IT!!

Tumblr-ing Down the Rabbit Hole

2008-11-20T11:06:00.000-05:00

I should be an archaeologist, cause I love making new discoveries. And yesterday I made two amazing ones.

First of all, do you notice anything different here today? Perhaps something new in the side bar?

That's right, there seems to be some sort of a mini-blog feed in the sidebar. This is the result of both my awesome discoveries. Let me tell you all about them...

The other day I got an email from Twitter telling me that some new person is following my feed. As I usually do, I proceeded to check out this new person. And again, as I usually do, I clicked on this persons webpage just to see what they're all about. This is where I found something different. Instead of being taken to this persons company page or traditional blog, it took me to their Tumblr blog. What's a Tumblr blog you may ask (I know, because that's what I did)?

I can only describe Tumblr as a mirco-blogging site. It's not mirco-blogging like Twitter, but more of an actual scaled down blog to put up quick, random, small posts. It seems to interact very easily with mediums like audio, links, pictures and videos. It make's them easy to link to or upload, and then gives you space to write a caption to go along with whatever you just posted. This will come in really handy for when I want to share a link I just found, or a video or whatever, without having to make a full big blog post for it. I'm also fairly sure people can subscribe to Tumblr sites using RSS too.

Check out my full Tumblr page here.

The second thing I discovered, is what allowed me to feed my Tumblr blog into my sidebar here. I found something called a Blidget. My basic understanding of this device is that you can essentially make a mini-feed for any of your blogs that you can then embed into another blog or website. All I had to do was type my Tumblr blogs URL into a box, then it made the widget for me. I got to customize how I wanted it to look and what I wanted it to show, and four mins after I found it, I had a mini-blog stream ready to be placed inside my larger blog.

Now it's like two-blogs-in-one!

Enjoy. I know I will.

PS- here's a good song:

40deuce

Total Audio Freak Out!

2008-11-20T00:59:00.000-05:00

It's a well known fact that I may love my iPhone more than a mother loves her first born child. It's also a well known fact that I'm a broke cheap student. However, on the recommendation of my buddy Dave Senior, I purchased my first iPhone app. Everything up till now has been free programs.

I bought a program called RJDJ which stands for Reality Jockey DJ. It's a super cool program that remixes real life to totally trip you out.

The program uses the phones microphone from the earphones (that means it only works for the iPhone, and not the touch) and grabs pieces of sound and plays them back in different manners depending on which track you're using. I know that was a bad explanation, but you really need to try it to see how cool it really is. For instance, one of the tracks takes everything it hears and makes it echo back and forth between your ears at different pitches each time. Another track adds ambient noises to the noise it's already picking up.

I'll let the guy who designed it give you a better explanation:

I highly recommend everyone gets this program, then goes walking through a supermarket, or sit on a busy subway, or walk around the business district around lunch, or start walking around talking to yourself. It's highly worth the $2.99 I paid for the RJDJ Album with all the tracks, but it also comes in a RJDJ Single with only one track.

Random Thoughts on Twitter

2008-11-16T23:36:00.000-05:00

A few weeks ago I wrote a blog about how it's hard at times to get involved in social media when none of your "real life" friends are into it. Aside from facebook, most of my friends don't belong to other social mediums. I'm pretty sure, out of all the people I follow and who follow me on Twitter, only three of them are friends in real life. And one of them never uses Twitter, she just has an account.

I just wanted to say that not all of my experiences in discovering and learning and interacting in social mediums have been hard efforts. Specifically, Twitter.

When I first joined Twitter, which was late in the game already, I did an email search for my friends and only came up with two people. So what was I going to do?

I started using Twitter's search section and looking for people in Toronto and things I'm interested in, like; PR, marketing, social media, etc. I quickly built up a list of just under 100 people The problem was..., they were complete strangers. I didn't know where to start either, so I just started posting stupid shit that popped into my head. A few people would write the random comment back @ me, but mostly I would just read what other people were talking about.

After a little while I started to get a feel for some of the people I was following, and would write something to them if I felt strongly about something they had said. The more comfortable I was becoming with this new online world, the easier it became for me to be myself and not just be some online guy. I was me, just online.

I was thinking about that the other day, and it reminded me of something I get told a lot in my PR classes: allow yourself to be fully visible and people will appreciate it. Sure, when my teachers say it they're mainly talking about companies and organizations, but it seems to work everywhere. People always tell you when you're going to meet new people "just be yourself." Apparently it also works online.

Once I started just being myself I've made a lot of friends via Twitter. I'm not just talking about how I've picked up more followers, but more that they're actual friend-type characters. People who know about things going on in my life. People whose lives I know about. People who just say "what up". But I consider them friends. I've learned about all sorts of new things from people on Twitter, and I'm also not afraid to ask people questions about anything. In fact, I've even been looking to get some experience in the PR and social media field and advertising it on Twitter. Some people who could, have been very helpful, and I've even had people who weren't on my list contact me about it.

So now I've totally lost where I was completely going with this post, but I feel better about saying what I did. So if anyone is reading this, I guess my message is if you can be a real person on social mediums people will see the genuineness (I'm pretty sure that's a real word) and you can make some real friends. Some of them may even come in handy to know one day.

Also, since Twitter's search has been down forever now, here's a good site for finding some people on Twitter with similar interests. Just Tweet It allows you to search for tweeters with similar interests, as well as post your Twitter profile under your interests for other people to find you. Check out Just Tweet It here.

40deuce

Who Watches the Watchmen?...... I Will

2008-11-16T23:13:00.000-05:00

In anticipation of next years movie, I read the Watchmen comic book a couple of months ago.

I now understand how a comic book (ahem, graphic novel) made TIME magazines top 100 novels of all time list.

It's an amazing story, and I'm really excited to see the movie, because I know they tried to keep it true to the comic.

Anyways, regardless of if you've read the comic or not (but I recommend you do), if you weren't excited for this movie before, the new trailer released this week should get you in the mood. It looks amazing!!!!

Check it out here:

No Excuse is a Good Excuse

2008-11-16T23:05:00.000-05:00

I know I've been missing for a while, and I'm sure you've all missed me.

I could blame it on all the school work I've had in the past couple of weeks.

I could blame it on the virus I had that made me sick last week.

I could even blame it on the fact that my good friend just moved out as my roommate, and I've been dealing with getting used to a stranger as my new roommate.

But I won't. It's totally my fault, and I apologize.

I do have a few things to write about that have been kicking around in my head over my absence, so the next week may be a good one for this blog.

But I'm back, and I won't stay away for long ever again (he says hopefully), because I love you all. Boom-de-ada, boom-de-ada, boom-de-ada, boom.

I Want It

2008-11-05T01:06:00.000-05:00

So, I've been a little busy with school lately and haven't had time to write anything else, but I'm back and I'll try not to stay away for long periods of time.

Anyways, I've decided to add something to my blog.

I love gadgets. Gadgets of all sorts. Problem is, being a student I can't afford most slash all of them. From now on, every once and a while I'll post a blog titled "I Want It" where I can show something I want, but can't afford, in hopes that someone else will find a way to get it for me. Wishful thinking, I know.

First up is the Motorola Audex jacket.

This jacket is awesome. I'm a snowboarder in the winter, and I love when I can hear music while I'm boarding. Problem is, having earphones on/in your ears can be somewhat "unsafe."

This jacket has bluetooth technology that gets music from your phone and plays it through speakers in the hood. And if that's not cool enough, there's an awesome cyborg-like controller built into the arm so you can control the music without taking your phone out of your pocket. It also works for making calls with your phone through the bluetooth, which is just an added bonus since I was sold on the music part alone.

Anyways, I WANT THIS

40deuce

Jay-Z vs Coldplay

2008-10-29T19:20:00.000-04:00

My buddy tipped me to this yesterday. Thanks J!

Viva La Hova. I highly recommend you download this album. It's Jay-Z mixed in with beats made from Coldplay songs. Highly Worth it.

Check it out here.

Who Brought the New Guy??

2008-10-27T18:17:00.001-04:00

I've mentioned a few times before, but haven't written to much about, that I'm currently in school taking a post-grad program in PR and Corporate Communication. On top of this, I've recently taken it upon myself to also start learning about social media. I think that social media will continue to dominate technology for years to come, even more than it does now. I also think that being able to understand and adapt to social media will be an asset to anyone who deals with PR and/or Corporate Communications. Social media will become the way most people communicate both to and about companies and organizations. As well, companies will adapt to ways in which they can use forms of social media to promote community within.

I think that by learning as much as I can about social media I will be giving myself an edge next summer when my course is done and I begin the ever feared job hunt. The problem with my goal is that there is so much out there and I sometimes feel like I'm almost lost.

I read a lot of blogs to try and find out what's new and what's cool in the world of social media. One of my favorites is Mashable, as they are constantly looking for new social media products,services, sites, etc. and giving fairly good reviews of what they find (which sometimes include video's of the service they are showing). The problem with this method is that I never know which ones people will use and which ones are useless.

Now, I'm not completely new to the idea's of social media. I even consider myself to be the early adapter of such things with in my group of friends. I was one of the first people I knew to have a myspace (which I have since forgotten about). I had a facebook account before they opened it up to the general public and you needed a university email to sign up. Aside from the big FB though, I kind of lose my group of friends and am forced to try these things out myself.

One of the best features of social media is creating your own little community, but my community is little over one. Not to say that I don't have friends who use some forms of social media, but in most cases I find myself exploring them on my own.

For instance; I finally got myself a twitter account a few months ago, but when I did the initial "search for your email contacts" I came up with a list of three people and one of them was a person I emailed once I think to send a resume to. I've slowly started to build my list of twitter friends though by searching for terms in twitter like "Toronto PR" and such. Some people have been nice and have become people I speak with via twitter, but I would still say the contact is very minimal.

It's very hard to try and build a social media community when your community truly doesn't know you, or about you. However, I'm going to continue to push myself into more online communities so I can use the social web for it's full potential and learn as much as I can. So, if you ever get a request on a social community from a member named 40deuce, chances are it's me.

Also, if you are interested in getting to know me more via a social network, here's a few places you can find me:

(On a side note before I post my outro music, I had an idea while writing this post. What do you think about the idea of me starting a new blog that just deals with introducing, reviewing and learning about social media? It would be a process where I would learn but as well help other people learn about and use social media. Maybe I'd even invest in a domain name and everything. If anyone is actually reading this, let me know what you think either in a comment or email or any other way you find to get a hold me.)

REALLY? 17 Years for this??

2008-10-23T14:06:00.001-04:00

So, while doing my morning internet surf this morning I came along the new Guns N' Roses song. Take a listen here.

I'm so disappointed right now.

You would think that there would be something amazing to come out of an album over 10 years in the making, wouldn't you? You would think that if Axel took over 10 years to put something together while still using the name Guns N' Roses, even though it's really just him, better sound like Use Your Illusions III (which should sound like Use Your Illusions I + II + Appetite for Destruction).

I can't even think of the words to describe my disappointment right now. Especially because there was one other track I heard years ago (maybe 2002) that had a bit of potential. It's not a good G'n'R song really, but a decent rock song. I also think that Buckethead was playing guitar for Axel at this time. He's since gone through about 4 others.

Let's hope this one makes Chinese Democracy, the album that people were waiting 10 years for, and then stopped giving a crap for the last 7.

Better - G'n'R

40deuce

The World Loves Social Media

2008-10-22T02:21:00.001-04:00

Now, if we could only get them all to love one together.

Check this out. It's a map of the world showing which areas use which social media the most:

New Fav

2008-10-21T12:40:00.000-04:00

I'm sure I'm not the only one who love's mac vs. pc ads. They're very entertaining.

And for anyone who watches as much TV as I do, I'm sure you've seen that Mircosoft has been coming out recently with a whole bunch of ads to combat Apple's amazing ads.

This lead Apple to make my new favorite ad. It's relevant and funny. What more could you want from a commercial?

There's just no good way to do it

2008-10-21T12:14:00.000-04:00

Last night I went to a networking event put on by the CPRS (Canadian Public Relations Society), of which I am a recent member of. There was a few people from my class there, a few other's I recognized from my school and a bunch of people I'd never seen before in my life. All and all, it was a nice little event for people to get to know the board of the CPRS.

Here's the problem I had however:

We were supposed to be going around and meeting all the board members, but it was in a very informal setting. Everyone was just kind of standing around with a drink in hand. The board members were primarily talking amongst themselves, and we the students had to kindly interup all of their conversations just to say hello and introduce ourselves.

Now, I'm usually pretty good about budding into other people's conversations. I usually don't care if I interrupt people in the middle of their thoughts or sentences, but it seems like a whole different ball game at an event like this. These aren't my friends talking about last night's hockey game and I can just jump in. This is the President of the society looking like he's having an intense conversation with the chairman in charge of sponsorships, and I'm just this lowly student who wants to say hello for the one in a million chance that they'd even remember me in the future. I don't usually intimidate very easily, but there's something weird when you're put in a situation like that.

All and all, I wound up interrupting a lot of conversations last night, and although it felt awkward at times, I think it was worth it in the long run, and hopefully I stood out in a crowd of my peers.

F the FCC

2008-10-20T12:55:00.000-04:00

I live in Canada, which apparently means my government is a lot cooler than the government just a bit south of me. For anyone who knows what I mean, you know that swearing on channels higher than 25 happens all day long. It also means that after 9pm, even the lower channels let the cusssing roll through into your living room.

I've noticed for a long time that Canada's law's regarding what can and can't be said on TV are very different than our south of the border friends. One of the first times I noticed how tight they are about things like this in the states was when I was on vacation and caught Weezer's video for "Hash Pipe" except the version of the song I was hearing was about a "Half Pipe."

Anyways, yesterday I saw something else that "got my goat."

As any good geek such as myself knows, very soon the new Kevin Smith movie staring Seth Rogan is coming out (and it looks f'n hilarious). It's also a well known fact that the movie is called "Zack and Miri Make a Porno." There's posters all over Toronto with the name of the movie up, and there's even a slight bit of oral innuendo on it. However, yesterday, I saw the American FCC strike again.

My roommate is a huge football fan, so he spends Sunday afternoons flipping between every American station watching all the football games. During a break in the Bears game we saw a commercial for "Zack and Miri."

No, I didn't leave out the "Make a Porno" part, the commercial did, and it really pissed me off. People with dirty minds, who always make movies with dirty thought's in them (eg. my boy Kevin Smith minus that one he did with JLo) have to bend to the will of the people who said "you can't say porno on TV." I know it's really not a big deal and I could even see why parents wouldn't want their little 5 year olds to be saying "mommy, what's a porno?", but it still really pissed me off.

Check out the real trailer, porno and all, here:

40deuce

New Bond Theme to Die For (Pun Intended)

2008-10-18T14:13:00.000-04:00

I'm not sure how long ago this song actually got released, but I just heard/saw it for the first time when I was flipping channels at 4am this morning when I got home from work. And yes, I work at night.

Anyways, check out Another Way to Die by Jack White and Alicia Keys, cause I think they make a pretty cool duet combo.

The video's ok, but the song is stuck in my head.

Poor Animals

2008-10-15T21:21:00.000-04:00

Just saw this video. It's for an environmental group that doesn't speak english, so if anyone can translate the end for me, I'd appreciate it.

The rest of the video is kinda sad though.

Unimpressed

2008-10-15T11:56:00.000-04:00

This surprises even me.....

So yesterday, Apple had it's big notebook event. I'm a big mac geek. I love shit like that. The music event they had in September got me so excited.

Last night I watched the notebook keynote and aside from few things, was not too impressed. Not to say that the new notebooks aren't good, cause I'm sure they are, but I don't care as much about owning one as I thought I would. All day I thought that I'd watch the keynote and then crave a new macbook pro for the next two months. It would've been especially bad because the macbook pro I have now is only 4 or 5 months old.

They did make the new notebooks cool. There are some things that I would like, like the thinner size, lighter weight, LED backlight (not for the no warm-up time, but just because it's supposed to look better) and better graphics, but really, I can live without them for now. I don't even care about the black keys like I said in an earlier post. I also don't think I'm a fan of the new trackpad. Sure it's bigger, but having the whole thing a button???? iduno.

The only thing I'm REALLY jealous of is the four finger gesture they had for the new trackpad that brought up expose and app switcher. Maybe they can add those to my macbook in a OS upgrade though? I mean mine already supports gestures, it's just an extra finger.

All and all, I give them kudos for really emphasizing how they concentrated more on being environmentally friendly. I also enjoyed when they said that Apple sales are doing great, and one of the reasons was because of vista.

The new notebooks look great, and I'd recommend to anyone who doesn't use a mac yet. The new one's look good for someone who needs a new computer, but I'm in no rush to get one.

As Jobs loves to say "one more thing...."

I had this great idea that I was going to play Cake's "I Want to Love You Madly" after I raved about how much I loved the new macbooks and would kill your mom to get one (yes YOUR mom). Since I didn't do that I'm gonna play another fitting Cake song...

40deuce

Say It Ain't So Hiro!

2008-10-14T20:17:00.000-04:00

So I decided I should write about something different before I write more about my mac obsession. I also haven't had a chance to watch the actual key note from Jobs to get all the info on the new Mac notebooks, so I'll do that while I watch election coverage and then tell you (if anyone actually reads this) all about the new toy I want.

But, first I want to say WTF happened at the end of Heroes lat night???

By the way, if you didn't see last night's Heroes, STOP READING NOW.

So Heroes is one of my favorite TV shows (again). The first season was amazing. Second season almost lost me, but the third has brought me back. Which brings me to last nights episode...

All seemed normal in the Heroes-verse. Some people are dealing with their powers, some people are doing something bad, someone's trying to kill Sylar, Hiro's on a quest, blah, blah, blah. But then, the last 15 mins hits.

First, Hiro killed Ando!!!! What the fuck is up with that?? He just straight up stabbed him through the heart. He didn't even whisper to Ando something like "don't worry, I know what I'm doing." He just said "I have to do this to save the world" (that's my own paraphrasing) and stabbed the poor SOB. I know there's going to be some sort of thing next week where Hiro uses his abilities to control time and space to save him (I hope), but still, WTF! They can't kill Ando, him and Hiro are an amazing team and sometimes make the show.

The second thing that made my mouth drop was when they revealed the "real" bad guy for this season. For the first few episodes you might think it's Linderman (Malcom McDowell). Then, near the end of the episode you see that Parkman's dad is putting the visions of Linderman into people's heads, so for about 4 mins I though he was the bad guy. Cut to the last scene when we find out that the real villian for this season is some guy in a bed that's too weak to even talk. But he's just not any guy in a bed, HE'S PETER AND NATHAN'S (and now Sylar's) DEAD DAD. WTF!!!!

Season 3, you've won me back.

Sneak Peek?

2008-10-14T12:03:00.000-04:00

found this on the interweb.

It's a spy shot of what may be the new macbook pro. If it's true, I'm jealous already. I like the black keys. The two-tone colour is cool.

we'll see if it's true in an hour.

Anticipation for no real reason

2008-10-12T16:50:00.000-04:00

I'll be the first person to admit how big of a geek I am. Especially when it comes to Apple products. On this coming Tuesday (Oct. 14th), Apple is having one of their famous "events" where they release and show off new products. This one looks to be focused on their laptops.

If you remember last month, Apple had an event that had a music theme. They showed off iTunes 8, the new nano's, new ipod touch's, and my personal favorite, they released the iPhone OS 2.1. I didn't care too much about the new ipods because I have an 80gig classic already that works fine and I still have a bit of room on it to fill with more music. I was however excited about iTunes 8, for the genius feature (which doesn't work as well as I hoped it would, but is still cool) and even more for iPhone 2.1 because it really did fix a lot of bugs on my precious. In case you missed it, here's a brief rundown of that event:

I was looking forward to hearing most of that information for so long, that I was actually in class during the event, but was reading live blog updates as it happened. Yes, I'm that geeky that I wanted the info as it happened.

Looks like I'm going to be doing this live blog reading again this coming Tuesday. I get really excited about new releases like this. From the rumors I've been hearing floating around the internet this is what we can expect Mr. Jobs to be announcing:

- new aluminum shells for notebooks

- smaller design (thickness, not screen size)

- and possibly the release of a mac notebook for under $1,000, which is pretty good considering I paid over $2,000 for my macbook pro

- one more rumor is that there's talk of a mac touch tablet (but I highly doubt that one for now)

The worst part about all this is that it has my geeky spidey-sense tingling, but I'm not going to be able to do anything about it because I just bought myself a macbook pro in April. That means my computer is only 5 months old, and it's already going to be out of date! DAMN YOU FAST MOVING TECHNOLOGY!!!!!! I know I'm going to be craving the new notebooks no matter what's new about them, but there's no way I'm going to be able to afford one. Ah well, it'll still be fun, and hopefully I don't get busted for watching the updates in class (I was almost caught last time).

I'm sure I'll have a post Tuesday night telling you about all the new things I'm jealous of, but till then, here's my ending song. I figure Digital Love by Daft Punk would be appropriate for this post:

FIRST BLOG EVER! (sounds cool if you say it like comic book guy)

2008-10-10T20:24:00.000-04:00

So, it's been a long time coming, but I finally decided to start my own blog.

We'll just call this my starter blog, or blog with training wheels, to get me going in the blogging game. Also, if you're wondering what this blog will be about, well you're looking at it (if you're looking at the title). I don't have a specific topic, so I figure I'm just gonna blog about anything I find interesting, or stuff thats on my mind, completely random shit.

For this first post, I figured I should tell you all (if anyone's reading this) a bit about myself so you can have some idea of what to expect.

I'm a 26 year old student (sad, i know) in Toronto. I recently went back to school to do a post-grad in Corporate Communication and Public Relations at Seneca College. That's one of the main reasons I decided to start this blog, I figure it will be good writing practice for myself. The excuse of good writing practice is also a good excuse to not have an overall theme for my blog.

I'm a bit of a recent tech-geek. I've always been into computers and tech gadgets, but a few months ago I bought my first mac, and that was the end of everything. I've joined the cult of mac. I'm in love with my mac and love reading blogs and all things apple related. I of course had to get an iPhone 3g to go with that, so that upped my game a bit. ALL HAIL JOBS

I've also recently started to get into learning as much as I can about social media and web 2.0. I figure that's going to be the future of both PR and marketing, so I might as well try to get in on the 2nd floor (I figured I missed the ground floor). Hopefully by next week sometime I'll figure out how to put one of those boxes on the side of this blog that links to my twitter, digg, and other such accounts so you can follow my A.D.D. there as well.

I'm a huge music person. I don't play any instruments, although I did buy an acoustic guitar a little while ago and am teaching myself to play (I can play four whole chords now!). I love listening to music, and I've held many jobs related to music from working in a record store to DJing to working for a small concert promotions company. Music has been, and most likely always will be, my first love. I love finding new music and sharing it with other people. I'll listen to anything as long as it makes my ear drums dance, so please feel free to send me anything cool. Hopefully one day I will find a way to marry my PR/marketing and music loves together.

I'm a pop-culture whore. When I started university I was actually in a program called Popular Culture Studies. I love movies, TV, books, comics, everything pop culture, but I can't stand celebrity gossip. I'm a crazy LOST fan. If I could only watch one show ever it would be LOST, so don't be surprised in the new year when the premire gets closer if I have a lot of LOST related blog posts. I've also gotten back into reading graphic novels lately. I just finished reading Marvel Zombies, which was a cool idea, but not the best thing I've ever read.

I think that's a good start for now. It gives you (and me) a fairly rough idea of what you'll find in this blog in the near future. If you're still reading, thanks, and I'll quit boring you for now, but come back and check me out every now and again, and I'll try my best to at least make one post every couple days.

Also, feel free to leave me a comment and make me feel loved.

ONE LAST THING!!! Since I love music so much I'm gonna try to put a song or a video at the end of every post, just for fun. I was going to put up something significant here for this first post, since it should be a big deal, but I just had way too many songs pop into my head, so instead I decided to put up this video I saw earlier today, cause it just rocked and it's stuck in my head.

Watch the whole thing, it's worth it, cause you don't even see Prince for the first 4 mins of the song, but then he comes out and steals the show with an amazing solo. enjoy!

40deuce