Tag Archives: opinion

Embrace your bored face

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Two things, couldn’t resist. And two, how olds that PC because…to say it in a contemporary sense… 😍 But the real point of this actually stems from some audio I was listening at work to yesterday, and I’ll post a link to that.

We have an entire generation coming up with no or little concept of being bored, special thanks to the thing I’m typing on and you may be reading from.

The irony of this piece is not lost on me.

But it is really worth considering how much of your time is spent, device in hand. Back in the 80s we were concerned about the “tv generation” but this clearly blows that out of the water. This TV comes with you, rewards you with activity and suggests you get more interactive for more rewards.

The apps are designed by companies that vie for your attention, so of course you are being manipulated from the moment you turn one of the main apps on.

I know only too well how hard it is to go the full Network, though it is tempting…

Not from the movie Network, but totally worth it…

One great challenge just to step up is try the first and last hour of your day being offline. I mean, I do this amongst a host of other sm so there is definitely a mix of thoughts which is funny and at the same kind, a little reminiscent for anyone who either smoked or quit. It makes you feel like you “Always had that then, and you can of course quit when you want.”. As if I wasn’t a writer or musician before all this. But it makes you feel as if you will be missing out.

Anyways have a listen to this Ted Radio Hour from NPR. Yes, again, I’m suggesting an online source through probably an app.

Anyway, think of how you can go wandering without bringing your precious with you.

Oh yeah…I said it. Anyways, here’s Guy Ross…

Listen to : Attention Please on NPR

Cheers,

Tom

The time to explore

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I’ve mentioned before about my love of mornings which I know makes me weird straight away.  I actually woke up far too early on this one even for myself but I had set myself this rule of getting out each morning to do some kind of exercise.  I have been struggling with a digestion issues since last October so this is one of the many ways I’ve have found myself fighting back.   I honestly don’t know if it works or not, but I’m just not willing to find out what would happened if I stopped!

One of the great things about getting out there is the exploring side.  This morning I finally, and this is nuts I am, but after going for about a half hour walk I finally took a route 1 bus out to its furthest end.  Some more walking and a different route home and I am completely reading to get out there and start my regular work.  If I hadn’t become so enthused by all this desire to be outside each morning I never would have done such a nonsensical thing.  I admit I felt a bit too self conscious to get on the 1 route home, because I was fully expecting the driver would have looked at me funny. 

I’ll work on that one.

Once home though I started planning out some really nice ideas for some other walks involving quieter bus routes I could do.  A simple one (no pun meant) would be to take the same route to the café at the end, walk the beach to Gonzales Park and then hop a quiet #3 home again.  You can’t beat breakfast with a million dollar view can you?  As someone who already has one of those bus passes the only thing that cost you was some time and maybe whatever you picked up at Delish.  Not a bad deal!

In the theme of exploring, and this is weird too because not only was I thinking about this subject this morning but my friend Kevin Lintern wrote about the same thing so I hope I’m not borrowing that too much, but people should not be afraid to explore possibilities within their own worlds.  This could be anything from boating to model making but naturally my focus is creativity. 

There is a mentality out there which states that only really talented people should even think of walking into a music store…and art supply store……ok, writer’s don’t have the same thing (a pen store?!) but…setting up a blog, and I am here to tell you it’s just not true.  Creativity is a place you can simply explore with whatever fascinates you.  You don’t have to be serious and think you have to play guitar or paint at a certain level with so many hours a day in order to try it.  

I just recently started doing more visual arts thanks to the spurring of a book called “The Trickster’s Hat” by writer Nick Bantock, which I definitely recommend.  One of the ideas he comes up with is the idea of just setting out without big goals or expectations in mind and just freeing yourself to try and make mistakes.  As far as I’m concerned, in creativity, there is no mistakes.  Ready for this…?

There is no bad art.

Whoa huh?  Now you might say I’ve crossed a line there as you can probably quote me a list of names of people who you think have no talent and should stop.  I’ve been on some people’s list with that one!  But I stay stand firm on this.  The very doing of creating is wonderful in itself…the simple act of stepping out of the things you have to do to explore what could be and creating from nothing.  The Artist’s Way series is also great for breaking through this.  I still try (and fail sometimes but what the heck?) to do my morning pages first thing every morning along with my other routines.  I’m at the point now where I actually can’t imagine my life without that or the morning exercise.  Also started doing meditation with a great app for the meditationally challenged like myself called “Calm”.  There’s other things I like doing first thing like practice and drinking lots of water but that’s more specific to me.  The process does take a while.  Mornings work for me but whatever you find best for you, that’s the best time.

Thanks for reading!

Happy exploring J

Tom

What do you want to see happen?

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The universe awaits...

     
     What do you want?  You don’t have to tell me or anything but what’s out there off in the fine distant horizon?  What world do you see in your mind’s eye or in you wildest dream?  Don’t discount that. It’s something we do as adults.  We’ve learned to play down our importance and the importance of those thoughts.

     No, it’s not all about you, or me, but can’t you give more to the world from a place of strength?  That strength can come from anything too.  Some of the greatest lives were not lived in opulence.

     I still set goals pretty much yearly.  Some goals have made it and some are still, shall we say, in rotation.  The reason I like them so much is the sense of direction they give.  They don’t have to be big since little reachable targets can build slowly towards the big ones but big glorious ones are lovely to have.  They give you that sense of extra drive, like how amazing it would be to get there.

     Every massive thing started small.  There is the “journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step” cliche, which is true but maybe overheard.  I like the story behind Lord of the Rings.  How did that colossus of books and films start?

     It began with a young soldier in the trenches of World War I and a notebook.  That’s it.  One young Englishman jotting down the next idea, maybe playing off of what he last thought.

      That’s the idea right there.  You get an idea of what you want to see, even from the impossibly of your trench, and each day make those steps towards it.  Anything you do counts for something here.  There’s no real pressure here either because any focus on the goal is better than nothing.  Any screw up just tells you “what isn’t the sculpture” in the rock.  Your focus sharpens.  You start getting the picture clearer.  Even if it’s going out for a catalog at the Ferrari dealership.  You have to know what your buying. 

If you want that, naturally.  What do you see?

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Kindness is magic

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All the difference on earth

How can you make the world a better place?  Ricky Gervais had this trending as a Twitter hashtag a couple years back but it stands repeating.  World peace seems so daunting as do all of those sorts of things.  But what could you change?

I wrote this after a day of trying to think of some material and mostly getting stuff like people arguing about merging on Facebook which got me thinking about how we should find another way since they can’t run forever anyways.  But where do you start with that?  It’s that same level of massive subject that feels too much to even go into.

Thinking about this I went into the food store.  I tried to keep it simple but had even less money than I realized.  I tried asking if the lady could take some things back but it still didn’t go through.  Then a lady behind me in line paid for me.  It wasn’t just a few quarters either it was over a five.  I thanked her profusely and she said she had been there before.

It was just a little moment but I am so grateful to that person.  It gives you that feeling that as one community we can make it all work out.

It doesn’t take much.  Even just stepping forward when someone is having a hard time makes all the difference.  The feeling of things working out can spread.

Have a great day!

🙂

Tom

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If you could not fail…

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Everest

What would you do if you absolutely could not fail?  Would you climb to the heighest high and stand on the top of the world?  Take it further with the international space station?  Do stand up comedy at the Met?  Heavy weight champ?

And does it have to be so grand?  I had this question put to me and really what it questions is goals and dreams.  I don’t personally follow the “you can do it all” thought due to the hurtful nature contained within.  Something tells me that if I try my hardest I’m not going to make the cover of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition for 2016.  Even if I switch my latte to nonfat I’m pretty sure it’s outta my reach.  This is an obvious example but it’s best to stay in those goals, the reachable ones of what you want to do or feel you could if you put in that little extra time.  Mine is full time writer and musician.  I work on top of that but otherwise I’m already doing it. 

As to the failing side, what’s wrong with that?  We want to have experience and we like to receive experience but what is that?  Isn’t experience just the result of making mistakes and learning from that.  If you worked in a place where no one came in, yeah you’d be amazing at it and your work would be failure – proof but it would be 1) extremely boring and 2) over in less than a month. 

Some of the biggest failures have been the gateway to success as well.  Post its came from someone trying to create a superglue that totally failed.  New Order’s bassist just grabbed a bass and joined the band with no idea how to play the correct way so he created a style that became their signature sound.  The list of this goes on and on.

So get out there and try it.  Try it, suck at it and try it again.  Just keep hammering at it 🙂

Cheers,
Tom

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What really changes?

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About to practice. As always.

    Morrissey is someone that even if you don’t like his music you should at least check out his interviews.  It’s the straight sometimes brutally funny honestly that I admire.  His songs actually make me happy despite their somber nature.  Maybe it’s because of that nature.  It doesn’t push me to smile.  It slaps me on the back and I smile at life’s built in absurdity.

I’m literally sitting on my bed about to practice as I write this.  I have the Victoria Highland Games coming up with my band Cookeilidh and as such I’ll keep it short.  But the question is, do we really change over the years?  Morrissey stated that who we are at age twelve is pretty much who we are.  Comedian Dylan Moran states “you’re not an adult…you’re just a tall child holding a beer” and Tracey Thorn of Everything but the Girl sings how “The Heart remains a Child”.  Here’s me sitting on my bed, which is a rumpled mess of course, surrounded by the writing and other stuff I’m working on and have big, big crazy dreams about.  Someone else is all about serving people and making people smile.  Want to bet that person had a little tea set growing up?  Someone’s working on cars.  Definitely grew up around their dad in the garage (or a variation thereof) and had a love of Hot Wheels.

What do you simply do the grown up version of now?  I do think we fine tune our distinctions over the years and I’m with Jax Teller that “what doesn’t kill you doesn’t make you stronger…” since these things that don’t supposedly “kill you” just make you seek inwards from the world that can be hurtful.  I am so at the risk of the inner child discussion here, and I do laugh at some of the thoughts I had back in my early years.  Why even last week…yeah, yeah…

But embrace it.  Reminice.  I still have my old 8 bit Nintendo games.  Nothings more fun that walking around town listening to a remix of the Legend of Zelda theme song.

Zelda remix.  So worth it.

Cheers,
Tom

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Unconventional love

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It took me a bit to come up with an unconventional love for today’s prompt after going through the discussion about love a few days back.  Love for people and pets is considered understandable fair game that no one would question you for and so anything outside that box is naturally going to seem strange.  There was the runner up of the characters I create but as someone who is putting them self out there as a writer that seemed a bit cheesy.  But at the same time so does this as a musician.  I can only suppose that cheese is inherant within this subject.  As a barista a love of coffee…same.  As a man love of women…I probably should just leave that one alone.  You get the idea.

So I chose headphones.  It’s not naughty by any stretch of the imagination.   And no, I’ve never walked around listening to naughty noises.  Though I could see the surreal quality of listening to amore secretly while taking public transport to return bottles.  I think it would get old fast and I would probably prefer podcasts or music in its place.

But with that extreme concept aside it does show the reason I enjoy them so much.  Within those speakers you have total freedom to create a world of enjoyment that is tailored to what you want.  It’s a wonderful chance to explore something new while you are already in transit, feel the comfort of something heard before, or stay dialed in with local radio.  I know when I use to do Janitorial my connection to local talk radio made every bit of difference as I didn’t feel quite as disconnected to the rest of the world.  These recent ones are Bluetooth so I can also make phone calls from them, though this isn’t always best as you do get to look a bit strange talking like that, but people can suppose it is Bluetooth.  I have also used my headphones as I mentioned before to “test drive” music I have created, taking it out of the home studio context and setting it against the world outside.  As a cleaner I have also spent loads of time with, well, what use to be books on tape but is now podcasts, downloads and things that end with “this is Audible.”

You can use them before work like audio caffeine to get you going. You can switch to a soft playlist to slow things down again.  Another unconventional love I nearly used was that of public transport actually because when you get a decent spot (which is what failed this title as it is not always possible) you can use headphones to create a insular world of quiet ambience and with another honorable mention, my 300 page notebooks, you can use this world to create while you are already on the go.  I created not only ideas this way but entire characters have come from these moments in the back of a low floor double decker passing Uptown on the way to Craigflower and Tillicum where I use to live.  Longer the ride the better.  With headphones on and my Memo app (yet another) I planned my entire last move while supposedly “stuck” on a BC Ferry returning from Christmas holidays.

If you listen to music this way it actually spurs you to discover more music as you naturally want to expand the range of what you hear.  It is where I discovered Karl Pilkington and the Ricky Gervais Show, headphones on, cleaning my way through a newly renovated office.  I also listened in that same place to Sol Stein on writing, which I can’t praise highly enough.  Between those two gentleman’s work was quite possibly my drive to create comedy because a year later I was on the set of my first film shoot.  That film didn’t work out, but my present project with Cheri Jacobs continues to build towards completion.  It’s called Ollie and Emma and if you haven’t seen that yet, please check us out on one of our social media platforms.

Our WordPress blog
Ollie and Emma on Twitter! 
Ollie and Emma on Facebook!
And Instagram too! 🙂

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Cheri Jacobs and I


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Ollie and Emma - The Series

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Top ten fast food items we miss!

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Those old containers less missed

Some of my posts I like to push for interesting narrative ideas or use of poetic imagery.   Yeah, this isn’t one of those.  But i have though about doing this one for a bit as I was born in the seventies so I’ve seen lots of products come and go. 
Much of this is locally based and as a former employee of Tim’s I naturally tend towards that but I will try my best to think outside the snack pack.
Here’s a countdown of those cheap treats too soon gone..

10 Tim Hortons Stew in a Bread Bowl
Oh there is lots of things to say beyond here since the in house baking stopped but it remember this little idea they had.  The stew was decent and the sourdough bowl was good too.  The leftovers did look really icky though.

9 As show above the Mcdlt by McDonald’s.
It was the fancier one, more an attempt at a proper burger that I remember my parents liked.

8 McDonald’s Pizza

There was preset ones like vegy, meat and Hawaiian but you could custom it and they came in personal and family sized.

7 Subway Horseradish melt.

Sounds like a crazy idea too but it was actually really good.

6 7-11 The Turkey Croissant

I use to live on these back in the early ninties when I looked for work.  Actual croissant with light turkey, lettuce and cheese and it was really light and nice.

5 Sobe drinks

Just that…again, ninties.  They tasted amazing and had a humorous little under the cap saying to do with lizards.  You could get them at (and I’m going locally here…)

4 The Entertainer Victoria, BC

This store was a mix of video store and snacks just behind the TV station across from Wendy’s.  Great spot to load up for a movie at home kind of evening.  It had a drop box in the back of the building that is now covered over.

4 Tim Hortons Chocolate Sour Cream

This one I really liked which also came in timbit form.  Bought freshly baked these and the walnut crunch were especially amazing.

3 KFC downtown location Victoria

Ok, this is another locally spun one.  This use to be on Douglas and Yates and was perfect for when you had to change buses but wanted a bite half way.  Ok it’s KFC but back there I was fine with it.  A popular location but the changing landscape of downtown and the families of Victoria preferring to be outside the downtown core pretty much killed this off.

2 Tim Hortons Party Pack

Ok, I worked there back in the day so that helps with me knowing the details but this one surprised me that it went (very possibly to do with the new…um…baking)  this was a huge box, held together partially with tape, that held either fifty donuts or three hundred timbits.  Large functions would actually buy multiples of this but my fondest memory was creating one of these, by myself, with the person choosing them a single donut at a time.  Slow going…

1 Tim Hortons the Cakes

Couldn’t help it.  Not only were these made in house with full baking equipment from scratch (blenders, wood tables and rolling pins…we had it all) but our cake decorators actually were made to take a local cake decorating course to learn to do the roses that garnished the top.  There are rumours as to the reason for there demise but with the upcoming baking methods it is likely that these were eased out.  Rumour is that they were more trouble than they were worth due to the onslaught of complaints about things gone wrong so the company pulled them.

Anyone have any that I missed?  I know there was a burger joint that use to be at Pandora and Blanshard and another out by the Admirals bridge but anything you want to add would be awesome!

Keep your eyes on your fries and have a good one!

Can I take your order?

Tom

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Anything for love

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Valentine’s day is long past but the prompt was discussing the idea of the essence of love across all forms so I also ask what do they share?  You have the obvious romantic love, obvious because it has the greatest story potential and mystique.  There is brotherly love and parental love.  Then there is more simple loves of places and things that can go all the way down to “I love these new socks”.  What is shared across the board here?

There is the simple existence of joy which is shared or perhaps not in the case of the socks.  I feel a little like early Depeche with this song…

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The Meaning of Love

There is the treasuring side of love where you keep something close to you and by that young Martin Gore’s lyric “like wanting a scar” is somewhat poinant.  I think that within that is possibly one part of the heart of love.  We risk our own tragic presence of heartbreak and put our emotions on the line with how we cherish.  It’s the one thing that made the idea of getting a pet to me for the longest time something I wouldn’t do.  As you open your heart to a being, especially in the case of a pet that can not last much past fifteen years, you are inevitably opening yourself to the potential of hurt.  You are willing to take the hurt for the being you love.  That could also come all the way up to the grander forms.  Again you are willing to suffer yourself to be connected.  Being alone is safe and secure but it is cold and removed.  Being connected to that other person has warmth but that potential for all kinds of damage.  Not only do you open yourself up to them, trading your heart for theirs but you also put your needs behind their’s.

Powerful stuff indeed!  With the title I fell to thinking of two songs.  Gordon Lightfoot’s and Meatloaf’s.  You know Mr. Loaf’s so here is a link to a great song by Gord backed by David Foster.
Anything for love

Have a lovely week!

Tom

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Postaday – Online me versus me…me

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Diy U2...think Lemon. ..

How much different our we than our online persona?  One thing I’ve been trying to do more is just have fun with these mediums as opposed to be in sales mode because naturally there is that side to this which is about presenting a sellable something.  In the same way as a pop star of the eighties the whole mystique becomes a different mask than you actually are and feels like it lives a different and very interesting life.  As a musician I’ve yet to be on a hilltop with the long flowing hair I don’t have, playing a screaming bluesy solo through a amplifier that’s never seen but is somehow there.  There’s no patch cord either but it just works.  And the tone is fantastic up there!

The real me is very driven but fairly shy and not super assertive.  I’m probably the hardest on myself and I’m right now waiting for allergy season to kick which it has since I can remember.  For work it’s like Wayne’s World…i have the extensive collection of nametags and hair nets.

Online me is definitely more confident.  I’ve learned to be more prudent with what I say but somehow I’m less afraid to try silly ideas out and I use that to seek ideas throughout the day for things like this.  But yeah there is always that feeling that online me is way more cool that I am.  I find I’m more on here and Twitter than Facebook these days.  Facebook seems more like clutter whereas Twitter gives me the ability to find our about my hometown and other things I wouldn’t have known of.  As Ricky Gervais said though…online me does have more of a swagger.

Cheers,
Tom

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