Speaking Of....

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

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

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!

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

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

... 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

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.