October 7, 2007

  • Thought

    I just finished Douglas Coupland’s latest novel “The Gum Thief”. The novel was a light, likeable read but the ending left me rather unsatisfied. Those new to Coupland’s funny but heavily stylized prose might do better to start with “Jpod” or “Microserfs”.

October 1, 2007

  • A Young Person’s Guide To Punk Rock — The Clash

    Dear Young Person:

    If you’re going to understand Punk, there is no better spot to start than “White Riot” by The Clash.

    The Clash didn’t invent Punk but to many they are “The Only Matter That Matters”.

    It was tradition at Clash concerts in the early days that they would end shows with White Riot. Fans would storm the stage, all hell would break lose. While I think you can find better video of The Clash in action, this footage gives you a sense of the frenzy and chaos that was a Clash gig.

    https://www.youtube.com/v/7BYYdcuoj2Y

    It’s amazing watching Joe Strummer just barely holding things together — at least for a little while.

  • A Young Person’s Guide To Punk Rock

    A few weeks ago Lucy and I were in the car when she asked if I had The Clash on my iPod. Turns out she’s really getting into punk these days. We went from The Clash to The Ramones to Iggy Pop in about 10 minutes (all hail the three minute pop song) with both of us bopping in our seats with the windows down in the parking lot at the mall. We must have looked like demented bobbleheads.

    Her interest got me thinking about Punk and what a profound influence it has had on my life. Punk Rock absolutely changed my life. It is surely one of the all time top five things that shaped me into who I am.

    I’m not sure “the kids these days” know much about Punk though. Green Day seems to pass as Punk and I guess from 2007 that make some sense. But there was Punk. There was the Punk that shaped me. And I feel like sharing it with any of you who might be interested.

    Welcome to “A Young Person’s Guide To Punk Rock”.

September 29, 2007

  • Mathematics and Social Networks

    That title is entirely aimed at getting my geekier readers to see this joke Zoe and I came up with.

    Zoe: “I can’t believe Dylan would rather hang out with one sixth grader than three 8th graders.”

    Dad: “I guess that means that he thinks you’re in Grade Two.”

    Zoe: “Wah?”

    Dad: “Well, do the math.”

    1. 3 x Grade8 = 1 x Grade6
    2. Grade8 = 1/3 x Grade6
    3. Grade8 = Grade2

    Zoe: “Great Dad, why don’t you just blog about it instead of teasing me.”

September 27, 2007

  • Thought

    EVERY morning when I wake up, Aerosmith’s “Dream On” is playing in my head. That CANNOT be good.

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September 23, 2007

September 14, 2007

September 9, 2007

  • Thought

    Every now and then you stumble across an entire sub-culture you had no idea existed.

    Today’s example is care of YouTube where a quick search on “Misheard Lyrics” gets you about 1200 very juvenile (and often very funny) animations of entire songs worth of misheard lyrics.

    Interestingly enough, you don’t really have to know the original song to find these funny.

    Here’s one I particularly liked:

    https://www.youtube.com/v/TKEz4OvgWZo

September 8, 2007

  • Thought

    When I started healthyken.com I didn’t think that anyone would really read it, let alone want to comment on the details of my eating habits. Turns out though that folks are reading it and quite a few have commented on the fact that they want to comment. Unfortunately tumblr doesn’t allow for comments and I’m still not sure I want to move my health posts to this “official” blog.

    Therefore I’m opening up a comment thread below for anyone who wants to comment on anything they read over at healthyken.com.

    Enjoy!

    Update 2007–12–26: I changed my blogging platform at the end of 2007 and unfortunately one of the things lost in the move were the 23 wonderful comments people had left on this post. Thanks for all the encouragement folks! You know who you are!

September 7, 2007

September 6, 2007

  • Thought

    I just finished the third in my series of “why I was right to never believe in god in the first place” books, namely “god is not Great”. I listened to Christopher Hitchens’ audiobook version which I highly recommend. Hitchens is a total character and his fearlessness shows through in his reading.

September 5, 2007

August 29, 2007

  • Thought

    I decided not to clutter up this (ahem) “official” Ken Schafer Blog with details of my progress on going from Fat F__k to Healthy Ken, but if you are interested in my plan and how I’m doing on it, you can find all the details at healthyken.com.

July 24, 2007

  • Thought

    This song it totally stuck in my head right now…

     

    Sorry if I did the same to you!

July 23, 2007

  • Back In Blog

    Well, that took much longer than I thought!

    Since I sold One Degree a few months ago I’ve been on a blogging sabbatical. My goal has been to reboot the blog I ran at schafer.com from 2001 until 2005 and at the same time bring together a lot of the scraps I’ve left littered around various other blogging outposts since then.

    With a little help from James, I’ve managed to get settled in here pretty nicely — once I put my mind to it.

    So consider this a “Hello Again World” post!

July 13, 2007

July 6, 2007

  • Thought

    In May the AVERAGE Facebook user spent 3 HOURS on the site. I remember when it was the average user spent 3 hours on the WEB in a month!

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  • Thought

    Debating whether to go for it and give Facebook my address book and invite everyone I know.

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July 5, 2007

July 4, 2007

July 3, 2007

June 29, 2007

June 28, 2007

  • Thought

    I learn something every day. Photobooth can “Auto Flip New Photos” which stops your pics from looking like they were taken in a mirror.

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June 27, 2007