Entertainment

Mixed & Ready Moments at Grove Festival

Categories Entertainment, Life, Music2 Comments on Mixed & Ready Moments at Grove Festival


A few weekends ago, I attended The Grove Music Festival. Instead of photographing it, I had the pleasure of taking part in Canadian Club’s Mixed & Ready Moments campaign, along with fashion stylist Chloe Wise. You can watch the result of our adventures in the video above! You can win some cool stuff at mixedandready.com.

goproThe video was filmed with a GoPro. I didn’t realize it was so small and versatile. I totally want to buy one now.

canadianclubWhenever I’m at shows, I am usually photographing or reviewing them. For once it was nice to relax, watch the show and have a couple of drinks!

photo 2We got a bit spoiled with backstage access, which included the catering tent with this snazzy ready-to-order pasta bar thing.

photo 3So, uh, funny story.. I went backstage to find somewhere to charge my phone. Before I knew it, I was on stage dancing with Girl Talk!

meandphoenix

meandphoenix2Also, I met Phoenix. They were very very French and super nice guys!

Hot Chip!
Hot Chip!

This adventure made me realize that I have a damn cool life for an underemployed person and that I should document some of these in video format. It’s an idea that is still on brainstorming mode but hope to have more videos for you guys soon!

The Power of Habit

Categories Books, Business, Inspiration, Life, ThinkingLeave a Comment on The Power of Habit

powerofhabit

In The Power of Habit, Chris Duhigg looks at how the smallest act of habit can have a huge impact on our lives. It also delves into how businesses build marketing plans around our studied human habits. For example, when you walk into a grocery store the first thing you see are fruits and vegetables. They are purposely arranged this way so that we will buy healthy things first and can later convince ourselves to buy junk food.

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He also looked into how Febreeze began from failure to a now conscious habit as well as how Target knows what you want to buy, before you even do.  There’s plenty of unlikely anecdotes from Starbucks to Martin Luther King Jr and the Indianapolis Colts.

 

howtocreateahabit
At the end of the book, there’s an appendix that teaches the reader how to integrate some new habits in their lives. There are 4 overall steps:

  1. Identify the Routine – Look at any bad habits you want to change or a good habit you want to add in your life
  2. Experiment With Rewards – Why did you do the bad habit? Did it give some type of satisfaction? Identify how to gain that sensation another way, or to replace it with another reward.
  3. Isolate the Cue – What makes you keep up the habit? Perhaps a friend? Location or time of day? State of mind (ex bored)?
  4. Have A Plan – figure out exactly how you are going to rid a bad habit or add a good one.  When will you start? 

Tall Ships Hamilton

Categories Entertainment, Photography1 Comment on Tall Ships Hamilton

Since we sort of failed at finding the ships last weekend, we decided to go see them in Hamilton. We saw them this time as they were all settled along Hamilton’s Pier 8.

The area is much smaller than Toronto’s Harbourfront so we found all the booths full of historical 1812 paraphernalia as well. Oh, and delicious ribs.

Tall Ships Hamilton 6/30/2013
Tall Ships Hamilton 6/30/2013
Tall Ships Hamilton 6/30/2013
Tall Ships Hamilton 6/30/2013
Tall Ships Hamilton 6/30/2013

Tall Ships Hamilton 6/30/2013

Tall Ships Hamilton 6/30/2013
Tall Ships Hamilton 6/30/2013
Tall Ships Hamilton 6/30/2013
Tall Ships Hamilton 6/30/2013
Tall Ships Hamilton 6/30/2013
Tall Ships Hamilton 6/30/2013
Tall Ships Hamilton 6/30/2013
Tall Ships Hamilton 6/30/2013
Tall Ships Hamilton 6/30/2013
Tall Ships Hamilton 6/30/2013
Tall Ships Hamilton 6/30/2013
Tall Ships Hamilton 6/30/2013
Tall Ships Hamilton 6/30/2013
Tall Ships Hamilton 6/30/2013
Tall Ships Hamilton 6/30/2013
Tall Ships Hamilton 6/30/2013
Tall Ships Hamilton 6/30/2013
Tall Ships Hamilton 6/30/2013
Tall Ships Hamilton 6/30/2013
Tall Ships Hamilton 6/30/2013
Tall Ships Hamilton 6/30/2013

Tall Ships Hamilton 6/30/2013

Tall Ships Hamilton 6/30/2013
Tall Ships Hamilton 6/30/2013
Tall Ships Hamilton 6/30/2013
Tall Ships Hamilton 6/30/2013
Tall Ships Hamilton 6/30/2013
Tall Ships Hamilton 6/30/2013

A Concert For Dogs

Categories Entertainment, Music, Pets1 Comment on A Concert For Dogs

IAMS Concert 6/8/2013
The same day as Woofstock, IAMS SOGOOD hosted a concert for dogs. 45 piece Toronto Concert Orchestra played dog themed songs like “Who Let The Dogs Out” and “How Much is That Doggie in the Window”. They also performed a selection of popular classics including themes from Phantom of the Opera and Westside Story.
IAMS Concert 6/8/2013
Surprisingly, most of the dogs were well behaved and nobody was howling at live music. I expected Teddy to be a fuss because he usually howls at the piano.
IAMS Concert 6/8/2013
There was free goodies and a photobooth adding to a lovely afternoon by the beach.
IAMS Concert 6/8/2013
IAMS Concert 6/8/2013
IAMS Concert 6/8/2013
IAMS Concert 6/8/2013
IAMS Concert 6/8/2013
IAMS Concert 6/8/2013
IAMS Concert 6/8/2013
IAMS Concert 6/8/2013
IAMS Concert 6/8/2013
IAMS Concert 6/8/2013
IAMS Concert 6/8/2013
IAMS Concert 6/8/2013
IAMS Concert 6/8/2013
IAMS Concert 6/8/2013
IAMS Concert 6/8/2013
IAMS Concert 6/8/2013

Anomia, Topple, Carmen Sandiego, Labyrinth Board Games

Categories Board Games, EntertainmentLeave a Comment on Anomia, Topple, Carmen Sandiego, Labyrinth Board Games

game6Another day at Snakes and Lattes led to more board game adventures. This time there was four of us, which opened up more possibilities and challenges.
game7In The aMAZEing Labyrinth players pushed the maze in different directions until they could reach all their treasures. The funny part about this game was that the treasure cards and the ones on the board sometimes looked nothing alike.

Like the TV show, Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? you solved crimes by answering geography questions. I suck at geography but some of the questions were obvious and the board (which was a map) definitely helped.
We couldn’t figure out how to play Pairs in Pears because the instructions were gone. Even after we looked it up on our phones I still think we played wrong because as we chose our 26 tiles none of us had enough vowels to make any words!
game8Topple is pretty self-explanatory and none of us ended up toppling it over. So do we all win?
game3My favourite discovery of the day was Anomia, the card game. Players took turn flipping over cards from the deck. If we had symbols that matched we had to yell a thing related to what the card said. For example if it said “Seafood” the opposing player with the same symbol had to name a seafood. The player who collected the most cards won. It was hilarious when players pointed to the matching card but couldn’t get the right word out!

The Happiness Project

Categories Books, Inspiration, Life1 Comment on The Happiness Project

thehappinessproject
I recently read through Gretchen Rubin’s The Happiness Project and enjoyed her journey in the pursuit for happiness. The different chapters reflected the months of the years and the many challenges she added each month. I read a month a day so that I’d have time for some of it to sink in instead of a marathon read through the entire thing. I enjoyed the way it wasn’t written in a how-to-way but instead chronicled Rubin’s own journey in hopes that someone might find their own inspiration in her examples. Like the author of the book, I am not depressed or anything but it’s always interesting to look at what someone else has done to improve their quality of life and be happier.

Here a few of my favourite points:

  1. “You can choose what you do; you can’t choose what you like to do”
  2. “Act the way you want to feel”
  3. “Be Tiana”

Numbers one and three are most likely to collide with each other. In fact a lot about being happy has to do with understanding your own desires. When I was younger and started blogging, I wanted to be a fashion/make-up blogger turned socialite type deal. But that wasn’t really me. In fact I don’t really care that much about fashion. My passion was music, and that’s where it led me today. Other things I don’t like include history and geography and no matter how hard I try, I’ll never find any joy in being immersed in it. It’s important when you are making decisions to consider if you’re making them for yourself or because you think that’s what you’re supposed to do.

In reading this book, I began thinking a lot of my own happiness. Appreciating the joys in life rather than the terrible moments is ideal for a good quality of life. I know this simply from observing my dog running around the yard in circles. Something stupid, that is bound to make me laugh. Laughing out loud is important and in this fast-moving world, it’s easy to forget that and let life past by in a flash.

The Future of Virtual Worlds

Categories Books, Entertainment, Technology1 Comment on The Future of Virtual Worlds

readyplayerone
What would it be like if we were more obsessed with a virtual reality than our own? This is what Ernest Cline explores in his novel Ready Player One.

Presently we have small virtual worlds in the form of MMORPGS such as Warcraft, Everquest and Minecraft but Cline takes it further with OASIS (Ontologicaly Anthropocentric Sensory Immersive Simulation), an online world that encompasses new worlds and the fictitious ones we know from movies, games and memories. The year is 2044 and the world has run out of oil supply and faced with poverty. The world inside OASIS, where one could be who or what they wanted, became more appealing than the everyday world.

I wonder what the future of virtual worlds will be like for us. There are already people where Warcraft or Second Life takes up most of their lives. In the OASIS, making money online was synonymous with making money in real life. There was even the option to go to school online and students forced through software to pay attention. In 2010, Woodbury University in California tried to do something similar in Second Life but was banned by Linden Labs.

The OASIS Cline created was more than a game. It was a place to chat, browse the web, read books, explore and interact with many worlds without ever leaving your house. All you needed was a pair of gloves, the visor and the console. It may seem like it will be quite some time before we reach that type of technology but Google Glasses will soon be a reality.

As our world becomes increasingly more plugged in, I can only wonder what life will be like 30 years from now.

How To Create A Mind

Categories Books, Entertainment, TechnologyLeave a Comment on How To Create A Mind

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Fascination in the mind led me to read Kurzweil’s How to Create a Mind: The Secret of Human Though Revealed. The first part of the book goes into compelling detail about how the human brain stores and analyzes information.

The later half philosophises artificial intelligence. It questions and eloquently investigates the ethics behind the artificial mind. If a computer had the same power as human brain, should it be considered conscious? Kurzweil thinks it should be and makes many references to the Jeopardy winning robot, Watson.

He also questions free will, making allusions to the fact that not all human decisions are done of free will. Often we confabulate to make it seem like something was done on our free will. For example, our decisions are often made based on our past experiences. Therefore our past is influencing our decision and free will is one devoid of influences. It thought this was a quite perplexing thought.

Kurzweil explained that Watson (and even iPhone’s) Siri is able to learn from the environment and as technology grows they will be able to learn things the same ways as humans do. If that happens, would we treat computers like humans? Only in time can we truly answer that question.

For anybody who’s interested, here is a lecture Kurzweil did at Google on the topic:

We Remember The Sound Of Our Keys

Categories Books, Inspiration, Life, MusicLeave a Comment on We Remember The Sound Of Our Keys

keys

People are able to distinguish between songs through earworms. However, there’s also a whole world of sounds and soundscapes we are exposed to on a daily basis. In Murray Schafer’s A Sound Education, he explores these every day sounds through 100 exploratory exercises.

asoundeducation

I had the pleasure of meeting Schafer in my third year of University. Our class delved into a few of these personally with Schafer. The most memorable was this particular exercise involving keys. A group of five people put their keys into a pile. Schafer then jingled all of the keys behind their backs and asked the participants to identify their own. Everybody had the right keys.

The sound of our keys is not something we really think about but we hold them every day, listen to them jingle in our bags and pockets as we look for them and open our doors. Personally, my keys are pretty boring. I don’t own a car or a bike so I only have one key on my chain with a Dine Alone beer opener and a Johnny Cupcakes oven mitt. Instead of nice jingling, I hear simple clanking.

What do your keys sound like? I dare you to try this exercise with a few of your friends and I’m sure they will guess the right keys!

Side note: This book  seems to be hard to find, so if any of my Toronto friends want to borrow this I have a hard copy!