Month: July 2009

Something is wrong with the Studio, again, so I stopped in at my Canadian Tire to see the guys.

july 21 2009

I asked them to put it on the hoist and marched underneath with them.  It’s the catalytic converter, the thing attached to the exhaust that reduces the toxins emitted.  It’s making a fiercesome noise, will not result in ‘compensation injury’ should I put off getting it fixed, and apparently if you take the thing off and replace it with a straight pipe you’ll increase the horsepower of your engine by 10%.  Betcha by the time I’m done going cross-country I’ll be a not bad mechanic.

Then my guy said, “are you satisfied?”.  How nice is that?  That’s why I like these guys. And I’m thinking maybe it’s a good thing the converter went because it’ll push me to get myself a car maintenance sponsor, which I’d like to be Canadian Tire.  I do love my guys at Autoshop, but there Canadian Tires all across the country.

Then I walked across to Shoppers Drug Mart and, for the first time ever, had photos printed.

I’m pusing the “I accept these terms and conditions” button but really what’re you going to do, not?  And as I proof read this blog post before hitting the publish button I realized holy crap I’m boring this week. 

Sometimes I choose a photo and ship it around everywhere, like this one and this one.

This time I sent this one and used the text, “I’m inside your phone waving hello!”

july 20 2009

I’m referring to this post, and okay so…

Short answer – I am overwhelmed.

Long answer – I’m overwhelmed and here’s why:

Someone asked me a couple weeks ago what my next 10 blog posts were going to be and I said “I don’t know because I haven’t lived that yet” and see, I’m finding it difficult to find a balance between blogging, making episodes, exploring, learning about Canada, responding and writing to people online, and just like, living.  I’ve caught myself a handful of times thinking, “oh this’ll make a good post” or “this’ll be good footage” but then I don’t do it because it’d be a lie.   

And so I freeze up, deer in the headlights and all of that.  Like, I installed Tweetdeck the a few days ago, opened it, took one look and have since left it closed.  OMG I have trouble keeping on top of my own life, how you keep up with each other is impressive to me.  And Facebook, and other people’s blogs, and and and.  It’s not that I’m not interested, I just can’t seem to get ontop of it all.  

So I’ll work and work and you can kinda tell by my blogs’ up and downs where this has happened… I’ll keep going until I can’t see straight then my blog gets really light for a few days while I recover.  Absolute inefficiency.  I wonder how I’m supposed to learn better time management skills.

I’ve been actively online only since February of this year, so I suppose I need to remember that… like, I used to find it took a real presence of mind to remember to Tweet every day, now it’d feel odd not to.  Everything takes time I guess, and boy do I abhor that expression.

And my Blackberry started malfunctioning last week, my external backup hard drive does weird things when I hook it up, my laptop’s keyboard disables itself at least once a day, I should be using Picassa for all my photos so I can geotag them for “THE Map of Canada” I have started, I should launch that map, I should create a Facebook Fan Page, [insert lame cloning-myself joke here].

Then I get to thinking about how enormous this country is, and HOW am I supposed to document the thing if I’m struggling with getting an episode / week out?  I shoulda started off by being… what’s the smallest country… ‘The Monaco Explorer’.  Or the ‘Vatican City Explorer’, except then there’d be run-ins with those Swiss Guards, who are supposedly the toughest in the world.

And I won’t even talk about my ‘Gold Silver & Bronze Advertising Program’ that I’ve yet to launch.  I am scared, yes scared, for when I start that at how I’m gonna handle all that, too.

Please know I’m not complaining here, I’m just saying, just wanted you to know.  If I didn’t love all this I wouldn’t do it, I do love a challenge, but just needed to get this off my proverbial chest. 

And no, I don’t want a team of people for this project, it’s a solo mission and that’s the best way.  I’ve tried in the past partnering with people and it weighs it down.  A new friend recently wrote to me, “would you really want to risk the magaement of your brand image to a fan?” and the answer was “NO”.  Then he told me to “suck it up” and I liked that part too. 

I’m gonna have to leave to start my cross-country trip sometime, right?  When I made my Manifesto Episode I had in mind the beginning of October.  Then I binned that and thought, “I can’t even get this all together while sleeping in the same spot every night, no way”.  But another new friend recently wrote me this, “Don’t get comfortable in Toronto, and definitely don’t wait for sponsors or a network before you get moving”.  And that had the ring of truth to it, as things you need to hear often do.

I imagine if I looked back a year from now, still living in the same spot, exploring just around Toronto and the surrounding areas, well I’d be kicking myself.  Then I go one step further and think, “well, I have to go sometime, and necessity is the mother of all inventions so yaaaaa”.   

So blah blah blah maybe I just need to bite the bullet and hit the road going west in October.  There are Olympics that need to be covered out there.  And a set of DVDs in my head that need to be made, and ‘Blog Parties’ that must be thrown.  

Any advice please leave it in the comments, and thank you for listening to me vent. 

july 19 2009

Those are the bottom of my pants, so I have to be careful not to get sucked into escalators.  They are very old, very baggy and it looked like I was wearing glorified pyjamas.  And that’s the book I picked up today, to read.

I also went for a 20km ride on my bike but didn’t feel like documenting it, so I didn’t.  It’s a fine line I’ve found, like, “hang on guys, I gotta get a shot of this” can be a buzz kill.  And not gonna lie, it’s been nice in the past two weeks to kinda unplug from it all.

july 18 2009

Top left are my legs in taxi on the way over to The Annex Live where I met the birthday girl (big middle photo) and 4 of her friends for dinner.  It’s not her birth birthday, it’s her Chinese birthday which is based on the lunar calender.  I don’t quite understand, and I also don’t get why everyone thought it was so funny when I asked her what my Chinese name would be.  Still don’t.

Top right was our waitress who was awesome and if ever you go make sure to sit in her section.  And I’m sorry, but I forgot to learn your name, please leave me a note in the comments so I can fix that!

Middle top is me with Luke the DJ who, when I requested Britney, played three of her hits yesss.  This was at Amber, a bar in Yorkville, and should you click on that link to go to their website turn off your volume because I just scared the crap out of myself linking that up.  Why do people still think it’s okay to automatically have music play?  

And bottom right, that photo kinda sums up my whole night :)