…unless travel, or snowboarding, or fine food and drink, or mountain biking, or vehicles, or scuba diving, or electronics, or a nice place to live, or peace of mind makes you happy.

I’ve been thinking about money a lot lately, which is unusual for me, unless it has to do with how I plan to be rid of it.

At the beginning of last year, I was more in debt than I’d ever been. I’d just finished my degree, spent a semester in Austria, moved to a new city, and filled my new apartment with furniture. I had planned on the debt, though, and I was making great headway on it by the end of the year.

I guess I got cocky with that little taste of success, and I started to loosen my already fairly slack grip on the credit card. Unfortunately, right after buying a few rather ridiculous toys, some unexpected expenses came up (such as a dentist’s bill reaching into the thousands), and I’ve now found myself nearly back to where I was.

When I moved here, the plan was to spend two or three years paying everything off and then moving on. After making more progress than I thought I would last year, it’s a little depressing to be pretty much back at the beginning now.

So to get back on track I’ve started to keep a budget, or at least a tally of what I’m spending my money on, and I’ve been looking at what expenses are hurting me the most. There is the obvious toy expense that I’ll have to keep a handle on, but another big money sink I have is food. I’ve mentioned this before, but I spend a ridiculous amount on food, so I guess this is where I should start trying to save. I’m not going to revert to eating like a university student, but am going to try and be smarter about what I buy and prepare. I’ve started bringing breakfast and lunch to work most days, I’ve been freezing more, and I’m trying to not let anything go to waste. I don’t know the average food costs for a single guy, but I’m willing to guess it’s under $750 a month.

It’s important not to dwell on debt, but it’s dangerous to ignore it as well. I guess a middleground has to be found.

Maybe I should start busking downtown. I can rock out to When the Saints Go Marching In on my keyboard now. On my expensive keyboard that I probably shouldn’t have purchased…

Why'd Baarle-Hertog have to go and make things so complicated?

An interesting town on the Belgium-Netherlands border, where random bits of the town belong to, and follow the law of, one country and random bits to the other. Some restaurants and houses are divided between the two countries.

Last year I killed a man

The conductor of a train that hit a man committing suicide tells his story.

GOG.com Teaser

Buy old PC games for $5.99 and $9.99 that are DRM free and XP/Vista compatible.

The Website Is Down

Looks like it's up to me…

Here’s an interesting look at the beginning of hip hop culture.

Martha Cooper was a photo-journalist living in New York City when she first began documenting the origins of B-boy (short for break-boys) and hip hop culture. While other New Yorkers at the time saw this movement as a trite, uninspired or even offensive fad, Martha found a new form of expressing art. Through her camera lens we recount the infancy of hip-hop culture, from the alleys and subways of New York to the masses beyond the boroughs.

Last weekend a couple of friends and I drove up to Mount Washington for some mountain biking. I’d only been once before, and this was my first time on a hill with chair lifts.

I have to say, those lifts really make a difference. It was great to start out fresh on my first run. We went down about seven times throughout the day, and I had a blast. I find mountain biking a lot more daunting than most other sports I’ve tried, because it sucks to fall on rocks, but it’s such a great feeling when you’re flying down a path and around corners.

Here’s a video of me riding. I still suck, and I really messed up that first corner, and I have some really obnoxious sounding brakes that I was riding all day, but it’s still fun to see. One of the guys I went riding with has an HD camera we can bring up next time, so you’ll be able to see every detail of my slow, slow riding.

It’s a really expensive sport that I can’t really afford right now, but in the next couple of years I think I’d like to get more into it. It’s great fun, and good exercise too. Plus the body armour looks bad ass.

 

A trailer has been released for Watchmen, a 2009 movie based on what many consider to be the greatest comic of all time. I actually still haven’t read it, but it’s on my shelf and waiting.

A while back I posted the MP3 of M. Ward’s great “Poor Boy, Minor Key”. Here’s someone’s cover of the opening piano piece, which I liked a lot.

Turn down your speakers or stop the video at 1:33, though, as the guy screams into the camera. I nearly fell out of my chair when watching it the first time.

I’ve been in a bit of a reading slump the last few months, but I’m slowly getting back into it.

April … May … June

Casino Royale by Ian Fleming

I’ve been meaning to read the James Bond series for ages, so I finally picked up the first book, and I have to say I really enjoyed it. Fleming’s Bond is a little more vulnerable and real than the movie Bonds, although the latest movie has taken a step towards trying to stay truer to the books. I’m looking forward to making my way through the rest of the series, eventually.

Squee’s Wonderful Big Giant Book of Unspeakable Horrors by Jhonen Vasquez

I read this graphic novel for the first time while in high school, at a friend’s house, I believe. I love it back then, and it was a lot of fun to revisit. It was interesting reading this after having watched Invader Zim a few years back. I knew he wrote both, but I hadn’t noticed just how much of that cartoon was pulled from this comic.

Long Way Down by Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman

I tore through the Long Way Round when it came out a few years ago, so I was really excited when I heard they had done another trip. This time it was from John o’ Groats, in northern Scotland, down to Cape Town, South Africa. It’s a fantastic trip, and while it didn’t capture my imagination quite as much as Long Way Round did, I still really enjoyed it. I’ve always wanted to travel through Africa, as I’m sure many people do, and reading this really strengthened my resolve to do that one day.

Can-cans, Cats & Cities of Ash by Mark Twain

Part of Penguin’s Great Journey’s collection, this is Twain’s account of his sailing travels through the Mediterranean, specifically Portugal, Morocco, France, and Italy. I love travelogues, and there’s something incredibly romantic about traveling before the time of Lonely Planet, audio-guided tour buses, and planes. Twain is hilarious, politically incorrect, and a joy to read.

This was my first day back after a week off work, and after being here for 12 hours, I’m about ready for the weekend.

My friend Tanya had a baby girl, so I drove down to Kamloops for a visit. I stupidly forgot my camera, but I took a shaky phone video that I’ll be able to show her when she’s 20 and the world communicates via digitally-enabled telepathy, when cellular phones are a thing of ancient history.

I bought some scuba equipment while I was in Kamloops from a good friend of mine. She gave me a great deal. I’m planning on taking lessons in the next few months and then heading to the Bahamas with her for a week on a live-aboard dive ship, so that should be a lot of fun.

I then drove to Vancouver to visit some more friends of mine. It was around 38 degrees Celsius (100.5 Fahrenheit) and my air conditioning was broken, so the trip was a little painful, but we made it alive. Once there, I had a fantastic time. The friends I was staying with had a Canada Day party with great food, drink, and Rock Band, so it was a fun night.

I hope to make it out to Vancouver more often this next year. Living on an island with oppressive ferry rates to get to the mainland can really make you feel trapped at times, but it’s worth the cost for the occasional weekend trip.