A Life Untold

I’m coming close to the end of my university career. I’ve got only two exams remaining, one on Saturday and then on Wednesday. Unfortunately (fortunately?) my exams have been spread out this year, with an average of 4.25 days between each.

This is the reason I haven’t been posting for any of April. I promise though that come May, my posting will resume. Maybe not to the same extent as before, but more then now.

P.S. This is not a picture of any exam room I’ve ever had. Rooms I write in are not that nice.

Tomorrow, Tuesday April 22nd, will be the first tweetup in London. This will be a chance to meet in real life people you may follow through Twitter in London or area.  The tweetup will start around 7:30.

The event will be held at Coffee Culture on Richmond St (map) in the back area of the coffee house.

I’d encourage anyone in the area to come out and help build the social media community in London.  Follow me, or blogldn on Twitter for more information.

To finish up my Musical Grab Bag post from yesterday.

The record player bit the dust. As in it no longer spins right round (like a record) when I pick up the arm.

This happened before. Mostly because I accidentally left it spinning for a day or two. I could get it to play by kinda coaxing it along and starting the spinning by hand. But now that won’t even work.

So if anyone wants to see more random musical journies, please send me money for a new one. Thanks.

Despite yesterday’s post full of musical errors and grammatical mistakes, I’m going to attempt another post today on music.

I’m spending the day at my desk, finishing up a couple of presentations, papers and assignments. I enjoy having some background music, both to engage with and to cover up any other noises.

I’ve also got a small record, vinyl record , collection that I don’t listen to nearly enough. So for today I created a bit of a game. I select out a record at random for the milk crates and then play the whole thing, sides A & B. This is going to be interesting because I have some very unusual records. Albums I would have never paid more the $0.25 for but found at Goodwilll for cheap.

First pick was Herman’s Hermits - 15 Greatest Hits. Including such gems as “Mrs. Brown You’ve Got A Lovely Daughter” and I’m Into Something Good”

Next up; Queen - Greatest Hits. Everyone knows what would be on this record right?  “Bohemian Rapsody”, “We Will Rock You” and “Under Pressure” to name a few.

Number three: Michael Jackson - Thriller. This is one album that I would have paid more money for. Fortunately I found a decent copy of it used for under 50 cents. I am by no means a Jackson fan, how could anyone be after the last 10 years he’s had? I think that everyone can appreciate this album though.

 My brother popped in and made his selection; Styx - Cornerstone. Not suprisingly I have never listened to this album. In fact the only Styx song I even know is “Come Sail Away”. However I’ve just finished listening to the first track and its not bad. Not great, but I don’t feel like ripping my ears off.

I’ll keep updating throughout the day!

Today’s title comes from Belle And Sebastian, a power-pop group from edit: Glasgow, Scotland off of their 2006 stellar album, “The Life Pursuit” It fits today’s weather beautifully. Its a perfect spring day in London today, a bit chilly still, but bound to warm up by this afternoon.

My 10:30 class was cancelled today, so I’m spending the hour on some errands around campus. First I grabbed a Tim Hortons coffee. Honestly, their coffee is horrible. Underly bland with no strong coffee flavour. I drink a regular, its not diluted with too much cream or sugar. So why do I drink it, when their are Starbucks all over campus also?It reminds me of my time framing houses this summer. Coffee breaks were always Timmies, so sipping back at cup takes me right back to sitting on the subfloor of a home, in the summer sun, and just shooting the shit.(Its also roll-up-the-rim and despite astronomical odds, I still dream of winning big) 

Since its so nice out today, I’ve begun playing albums that I usually reserve for summer listening. Two albums that express summer to me are Coldplay’s XY and The White Stripes ”Get Behind Me Satan” Both albums came out in the summer of 2005 and got a lot of play on my iPod that year. There really is nothing is the albums to suggest a summer theme, but anytime I hear them I feel summery.

So what about you guys? Do you have music that reminds you of a specific season, or time in your life? How about a food or drink that evokes strong memories?

I’m listening to TWiT episode 138, which incidentally is one of the best episodes in a while, and they are talking about Twitter addictions and information addictions in general. I’m surprised that its taken these people this long to realize that moderation is important. Laporte “There is an old way of thinking that you have to somehow keep up, that is really getting in your way. You can’t. Give Up. Release. Let go. However, if you bathe in the stream of information you get plenty. [] The key is not worrying about missing something.”I’ve been saying this for a while. The information is power, but only in moderation. Or else like so many others, you’ll get burned out.

This Saturday is the 3rd annual London Indie Media Fair from 1 to 5 pm. The event is taking place at the Central library in downtown London at 251 Dundas Street.

There is both an exhibit hall in Stevenson and Hunt and a presentation room in the Lerner’s and Tonda Rooms.

Myself, Bill Deys, and Greg Fowler will be heading down to promote blogging and podcasting, as well as our monthly geek dinners. I’d encourage anyone in the London area to come down and say hello. Hopefully there will be some other bloggers there and we can help the online community in London grow.

For more information on the event:

London Commons
Facebook

I was checking out my statistics using Google Analytics and I came across this map of the United States. Apart from my abysmal readership south of the border, what else do you think is wrong with it?

For some odd reason the Great Lakes region states (Michigan. Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio) are completely out of perspective. I’m not sure if this is so the map of Canada and the map of the United States will fit together without a gap for the Great Lakes. Or if the engineers working on Google Maps don’t talk to the engineers working on Google Analytics. Either way, it kinda threw me off when I first saw it.

Its the Monday after a long weekend and I think its time for a more personal post, discussing how my weekend went.

It was nice to take a break from blogging, feeds and twitter over the weekend. I think that almost everyone needs to just unplug every once and a while. Connecting with friends and family outside of the interweb is refreshing and helps maintain a balance.

Friday morning was brich at my Aunt’s. It was a much more low-key affair compared to Boxing Day. Good food though, there is always a lot fo brie cheese, which is fine by me!

Friday night, my girlfriend and I were at her sister’s fiance apartment for dinner. There was a bit of panic once we remembered that all the grocery stores were closed. Thankfully we were able to scrounge up enough ingredients. We played a game of settlers and watched a movie. I’d reommend that anyone who hasn’t seen it yet go rent Renditio

Saturday was spent studying during the day. In the evening we had an amazing fondue dinner with a group of friends. Its always fun to spent time preparing and then eating food.

Sunday was Easter lunch at my girlfriends with her extended family. The traditional and always good turkey and ham.

So now its Monday and I’m just starting to catch up on the internet world. I enjoyed taking a break but I’m looking forward to find out whats been going on.

There are a few changes that I would love to see Twitter implement. Keeping in mind their simple design philosophy and ease of use.

1. Better Searching - something like advanced searching options. Both for users and for past tweets.
2. Followers/Following Organization - I’d like to see who I’m following that is not following me.
3. Groups -I’d love to organize who I follow into groups and turn on or off SMS for packs of people.

These are the top 3 things that I think if Twitter implemented they would destroy any competitors.

They also have to capitalize on the number of internet users who love to update their Facebook status but who aren’t on Twitter.