It was only four or five years ago that I was happy to spend money on albums to find out if I’d like them. Of course, I was single and had extra time to waste then too. I found all kinds of new albums that I liked, and to some degree, I became a little more knowledgeable about music that I liked. Now that I’m a little older and have family commitments, work commitments, and other things that I’d like to accomplish, it’s become difficult to find new music that I like. I’ve got the stuff that I liked five years ago, but I can only think of one or two artists that I’ve gotten to know lately that I’ll listen to for the rest of my life. I don’t hear as much new because I don’t go out of my way to.

So, I’ve started trying to find ways to find music that I like.

Of course, there’s Pandora. But, Pandora mostly plays me stuff I already know. There’s Itunes’ genius (yes, I gave Apple all my music info… they already own the rest of my life between the Iphone I carry and the Macbook Pro I work on)… but the genius so far isn’t such a genius. It hasn’t shown me anyone that I was interested in acquiring.

So, I’ve started in on Ilike. The principle on Ilike is that you tell them who you like and they recommend others you might like. So far, I don’t think I’ve told them enough for them to craft very good suggestions, but I’m hopeful that it might become as useful to me as Netflix’s recommendations have become. I’ll keep you posted. Now, you tell me: 1. How do you find new music? and 2. Who’s your favorite musician that you’ve gotten to know in the last year?

Success does not come easily to many people. It appears to come easily to some, but I tend to presume that some (most) (possibly all) of that comes from being on the outside looking in. The idea of easy success is best confined to late night infomercials and sidebar ads on google.

(As an aside, call or email now to learn how to get rich quick with my new Haitian Fig Juice product. Remember our trademark… It’s not a pyramid scheme, it’s multilevel marketing tm. Just kidding.)

Success is generally the result of hard work. It’s a fight. But it’s a worthy fight. Mondays are a great opportunity to reset yourself for the fight. Are you ready? A new work week, a new chance to fight.

I know, I know, I know. I talked smack all summer about how my Leafs might not be great this year, but they’d be better. I mentioned how we’d at least be better than the Phoenix Coyotes.

So far this season, Phoenix is 3 and 2. Toronto is 0 and 5 with one tie hanging out there.

The guy above at left is Brian Burke, the general manager for the Leafs. I looked all over for his email address, but apparently he hasn’t made it public. Whatev. I’m going to post my plea here.

Brian, you’ve got to show those boys that they have to care about playing hockey. With even the mediocre talent we have, we should be better than we are. Here’s what I propose: take everyone who has a two way contract and send them down to the AHL. Scratch everyone who doesn’t have a two way contract. Let the Toronto Marlies (the farm team) players play our next game. Yep, you heard me, let the farm team play our next game. You don’t have time to mess around with their lines or their defensive schemes. Let them do what they do. Let those boys play a game in the N… teach the “big boys” what it means to value the game.

I might be crazy. But it might just work.

Life is seldom as linear as we writers make it seem. What I mean is we tend to write our character’s days as though nothing unspectacularly random ever happens. Spectacularly random? that’s the stuff fiction is made of. Unspectacular? Too realistic.
Except that I want realistic characters… Characters who have to deal with the wicked combinations that life throws their way… You know, garbage day, dishes to be done, and a baby that doesn’t sleep well at night. Or on garbage day. But, maybe people don’t wan the mundanity of life. Still, every little while think about letting that character wash the dishes and be frustrated with the lack of cupboard space in his kitchen. It’ll add a little three dimensionality. It’ll feel real. I think real was still good last time I checked.

People say trite things about how you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover. In the publishing industry, we talk about how important it is that a cover be well designed so that people will be inclined to buy it. That heavily implies, of course, that people do in fact judge a book by its cover.

Now: a couple of provisos… if they’ve already decided to buy the book — based on your writing ability or some previous relationship they had with you, they probably won’t care too much what your cover looks like.

Similarly, I think cover design is more important in certain genres. History books and text books might not need as much attention as sci-fi and literary fiction.

Anyway, over at Well Medicated, there are 45 nicely designed covers. It’s kind of fun. Some I’m not as crazy about as they were, but some of them are incredibly great. I liked the one to the left particularly. The cover for Breakfast at Tiffany’s was great, too. I think I have a tendency to like the simpler designs. It’s certainly partly personal preference, but there are some things that make for good design. Did you have a favorite?

I have an 18-month-old son. I love him. He’s a heck of a lot of fun to hang out with. He’s learning in leaps and bounds lately, and it seems like everything you say to him gets repeated back to you.

Repeating is a funny thing, isn’t it? Ask me to do one thing over and over again for even a half hour and you’ll hear complaints and whining. Yet, my little boy can sit and do the same thing over and over again and find it fresh and hilarious every time. Patch the Pirate’s Worry Wart song? Absolutely hilarious the first, fifteenth and fifty-second time. You can snort right along with the singers. We’re good at snorting.

I think there’s a lesson for me to learn there. If you can enjoy something and see it in a fresh way, you’ll be much more apt to do it again and again. This may hold true for various things… writing, exercise, music practice… the sky is the limit. So maybe we all need a little childlikeness… especially when it comes to repetitive tasks.

My friend, fellow writer, and college roommate Matt recently posted beautifully about Pakistan and his love for it. A couple of excerpts:

Things I’ve learned from living in Pakistan:
• Traveler’s diarrhea is a temporary affliction.
• Urdu language books and Urdu speakers do not necessarily agree.
• Gvaar, tinday and bindi are not cities in Asia, but vegetables.
• Malaria is a perfect weight-loss system.

Continuing on:

I also want to add something that may not have been obvious to me when I first wrote this. Pakistan is a good place. It really is a good, nice place… But it’s a good place. And I love it. I love it so much that I get angry when I see the problems it is forced to endure. I love it so much that I’d be willing to rock the boat to see those problems solved. So I’m going to move back there and do my part, whatever that part may be. Because I love it. Do you love anything so much that you’d be willing to hurt it to make it better?

It was a beautiful post, and one that made me think. I’m not sure what I’m passionate about in that way. I’m passionate about caring for my family and I’m passionate about learning to tell stories that reflect truth. Somehow that doesn’t feel as geo-political as Matt’s love for Pakistan. Maybe that’s okay–or maybe this is an opportunity for me to re-evaluate the things I’m passionate about.

this post made entirely for technical purposes. You may ignore it.

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David Wells is one of the smarter people I’ve ever read.

“In our postmodern culture which is TV dominated, image sensitive, and morally vacuous, personality is everything and character is increasingly irrelevant.”
— David F. Wells

G’day, eh. It’s Saturday in the middle of October. The Leafs are on the ice tonight, playing those bums from Pittsburgh (right… bums because my wife loves them and our teams only play two or three times a year, so I’ve got to take my shots when I can.)

It will actually be (I think) a good game to learn a little something about hockey from. You see, the Toronto Maple Leafs and Pittsburgh Penguins both resemble famous individual athletes.

The Pittsburgh Penguins resemble Tiger Woods. Incredibly talented, lots of finesse, able to pull off things that seem impossible. Prone to be streaky, because occasionally they get injured or struggle with overcoming brute force, but… if you’re going to lay money down on someone, they’re the ones to bet in favor of.

The Toronto Maple Leafs, on the other hand, resemble Hulk Hogan. Hulkamania. The Hulkster. Hulkmeister. Hulkaroni. Seriously… they’ll make up a reason to fight, they’ll brute force everything they can, and talent… well, talent is for people who have it. Talent is for the people we beat up. We don’t need no stinking talent.

Of course, there’s a chance that the hulkster will beat Tiger tomorrow night. If Hulk gets him in the corner and Tiger can’t use his abilities to do what he does best, the body slam will be thorough.

Chances are, though, that Tiger outwits and outplays hulkster and walks away with all Hulkster’s money in his pockets.

Bad metaphor? You bet!