Cognitive Dissonance

I found this on Geeks are Sexy, I thought it was pretty nifty, but I still plan on buying an iPhone 5 whenever they come out.

Created by MBAonline.com

φιλοσοφία

   When I was in high school I really loved how I was taught philosophy. The curriculum that we had was a style where in we didn’t really stay on one philosopher for too long before we moved on to the next, but enough time was allotted so we could talk about all of most well know ideas that the authors were known for. It was great, we’d read the pre-selected texts and then spend the rest of the class talking about the ideas in an open discussion, the tables were even arranged in a circle so everyone could see who was talking. Yes, class HZB301 was a real turning point in my life. Its interesting to note that philosophy really just means the love of wisdom so instead of sharing 5 songs today I want to share the five wisest things I can think of instead.

Be skeptical of everything, but don’t be a pessimist.

One of my biggest pet peeves is when people say something along the lines of “studies have shown,” or “experts say.” I’m not sure if people realize how useless it is to preface a statement with this, but I hear it all the time and unless their willing to cite actual studies, the statement is useless. I think sometimes we have ideas of authority in our heads that we rarely question but when we don’t sit back and evaluate these kinds of claims we’re more likely to make mistakes in our judgments. The skeptic on the other hand, is less likely to have the wool pulled over their eyes if their willing to question arguments from authority. I think the key is to always keep in mind that anything you know might be false, doing so leaves lots of room for the truth. 

You’re probably your own worst critic (when it comes to how you look)

I really dislike my complexion, the left side of my face is fine because I don’t really have any acne there and my facial hair comes in nice and even but the right side of my face has a spot of acne that I can’t get rid of and my facial hair is still in patchy-bitch mode. The thing is though, I never notice these kinds of things on other people unless I’m trying to focus on the details. I think its very likely that most people are like me in this way, what might seem like a massive red spot on your own face might not even be noticed by anyone else, so don’t worry too much about your looks.

Adopt a DIY attitude

We live in a day and age where we can access almost any kind of information with just a few clicks, so if you break something or don’t know how to use something, just take a look and try to figure it out your self first before you pay someone to do it for you. You can save a buck and you might learn something too. 

Take risks

This is something I have a hard time with, but the safe route in life is more often than not going to be the more boring one. Get your hands dirty and your feet wet, at best you’ll be in a better place when you’re done, at worst you’ll probably have some interesting stories.

Always be nice and give people the benefit of the doubt

I feel like most people are good people at heart, most people aren’t out to harm you or rob you. We’re all to quick to judge people for the decisions they’ve made or how they dress but try to look past that, there’s lots of interesting people out there so don’t let your prejudice rob you of some interesting friendships. 

So, even though this is a list of the top five wisest things I can think of I’m not trying to make my self out to be a wise person. In my dabblings in philosophy I’ve come to realize that the people who often think of them selves as wise are often not very wise at all, instead the wisest people seem to be the most humble. (But I’m not trying to seem humble either, well, I am, but I don’t want to seem humble so I can seem wise.) Anyways, if you have any pearls of wisdom I’m inviting you to share them in the comments below as long as they aren’t ‘get a dictionary’ or ‘proofread your work better,’ I know I’m a terrible writer already :P 

Sometimes I did get bored in class though....

And one more thing...

Mother Nature, you’re a tricky harlot. I get a whole week of nice weather and then as soon as I fix up my bike you slap up with normal weather, damn you mother nature, damn you. I fixed all the rust spots on my bike, I even bought a little bell. Whatever, I suppose the polar ice caps melting are akin to going bald, so... yeah... whatever baldy.

Oh, The Wind Will Blow

Well, today has been a pretty big waste of a day. I woke up after a pretty bad night sleep and felt like garbage until 2pm, then I managed to eat a small piece of toast and drag my arse into the shower so I could go get my lease signed so I could vote in the bye-election. Turns out though that you can only vote in the by-election if you’ve been living in the area for more than a month. I know the liberals aren’t going to win but I feel pretty strongly about voting, everyone should make time to do it. People around the world riot so they can vote and most canadians don’t seem to care too much.

With the exception of today and feeling pretty crappy I’ve had a pretty good week, the weathers great, one of my good friends has been breaking my couch in (he’s in town to work on the by-election,) I went to a fan-effing-tastic kegger on Saturday and I got try a few restaurants on the Danforth as well.

In addition to all these fun things, I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about what I want to do with my life too. I’m happy that I’ve moved out, I love the area and I feel like I’ve broken out of a really big rut but I’m worried that if I don’t keep moving with things I’ll just find my self in another rut before I even realize it. Rogers has apprenticeship programs that they’ll pay for, going back and finishing my degree is an option and college is an option too but all three options have huge lists of pros and cons. I feel confident but I have to try and keep in mind that sitting on the fence is not an option, so I’d really like to figure this out soon. All of the people I know do such interesting things, they either love their jobs (or they seem to at least,) or are going to be making boat-loads of money when they actually get jobs in the professions they studied for. I’m almost embarrassed to tell people I do tech support, I don’t look down on the job at all but I know I can do better than telling people to reboot their iPhones and to RTFM. I also started keeping 5000¥ in my wallet, I might not necessarily go to Japan this year but I’d really like to travel somewhere, the bill makes for a good reminder of that. 

Anyways, I’m feeling a little better now so I think I might go for a walk, its too nice to spend the whole day in my house. I’ll leave you with some music, I have NO idea where I downloaded from but I’m really digging this tune right now. 

Chicken Picard

Today I woke up feeling pretty crappy, I had a dream that my parents sold the house in Pickering and I was stuck doing tech support for voice activated google searches on bread bags, I’m not really sure if I was more upset about my parents selling the house or my apparent insanity. Anyways, after I rolled out of bed I cleaned up my apartment and decided that because it was such a nice day I’d go out and walk around the Danforth for a bit. 

So I showered and set out with my (very ambitious!) goal to get a coffee, buy some chicken for dinner and some beer for after. By the time I actually got moving I kinda wished that I had worn shorts instead of pants but I’m not about to complain about a beautiful warm day, I stopped at a nice coffee place called Crema and got a macchiato. I made it all the way to the DVP before I turned around.

Dinner was interesting today, I turned this:

Into this!

The recipe is supposed to be called chicken piccata but my inability to follow cooking instructions on the fly forced a pretty large departure from what I thought it was going to end up as. No matter! I shall call this recipe; Chicken Picard. 

Anyways, thats all for now. More to come soon. 

And we’re back!

Today one of my fellow Rogers employees came in and hooked up my internet today making it finally possible to upload a small video I’ve been working on over the past few days, (and it took 4 hours to upload to youtube! Yeash) Now that I have my internet hooked up I think I can officially say that I’m settled in.

Thats it. I'm all packed and good to go.

See you all on the other side.