Stop Taking those F'n Facebook Quizzes

[embed]youtu.be/FXdYSQ6nu…[/embed] Everyone’s (least) favorite social network has been a very useful tool for bamboozling the US to elect a certified idiot as president. The fact that there’s ties between aggressive pro-Trump advertising and Russia has been written about ad infinitum, but now there’s more. A phony “research center” from “Cambridge” literally took information from millions of Facebook profiles to create voter profiles and serve …

Writing Apps

There’s an endless amount of writing apps and services that try to make our (my) life easier. Spell/grammar check tools, research tools, and hundreds of “organizational” apps for keeping track of your writing, incoming payments, etc. etc. But none of that matters unless you put your words into some word processor. There’s the basic tools like Word, Pages, Google Docs, and plaintext editors. None of those work for me, so here are a few apps and programs that do work for me.

Writing I’ve Been Reading (AKA Feb Favs)

Tom Scocca's War on Smarm Tom Scocca left his job, so that obviously sent me down a rabbit hole of reading his work and seeing what people have to say about him. Honestly, the idea of a goodbye roast is both thrilling and terrifying. I’m not nearly as good a writer or editor as Tom, but I can only hope to one day be the kind of editor who keeps everyone nervous.

24 | Take 2

I turned 24 a month ago. I had something written that I was going to post on my birthday. It was about how this past year was probably the most difficult one in my life; how despite things being “objectively good” I felt lower than I’ve ever felt, mentally. And I feel like there might be something in there that maybe was worth your attention, but I think that talking about mental health is something that’s done best when the difficult part is behind you.

Sziget 2017

I came back from Sziget last week and then proceeded to be sick, celebrate my birthday in bed, and then celebrate my birthday with my family (which was a weekend full of capital D Drama). My nine-to-five has started and university is about to start, but I’ve told too many people that I would write about my festival experience to not do it[1. I turned 24 and decided it’s time to keep most of my promises].

5 Books for Writers (Also 1 Video Series)

Whenever you write, there’s always that mean voice in your head that keeps saying that you need to write much, muchbetter. Shut it up by reading some books and making small tweaks to your writing workflow (this is a 2-part blog post). These books are great, obviously. I’ve read them, I’ve learned a lot from them, and they’ve helped me change and improve the way I think about writing. However, as you can see from what you’re reading, they’re not a magic cure that’s going to turn a mediocre …

The Rabbit Hole: Mary H.K. Choi

I obsess over things for weeks and then ignore them completely for the rest of my life. Here’s what I’ve been obsessing over for the past couple of weeks: Good Writing and Mary H.K. Choi Mary H.K. Choi After going on my street photography binge, I went back to read some more stuff about Daniel Arnold. That’s how I discovered Mary H.K. Choi and her writing. She (and her podcast) led me into my next rabbit hole.

The Rabbit Hole: Street Photography

I obsess over things for weeks and then ignore them completely for the rest of my life. Here’s what I’ve been obsessing over for the past four weeks: Street Photography NSFW: There are some boobs about half way into this post. Daniel Arnold This dive into the Rabbit Hole began with a Vogue video about street photographer Daniel Arnold.     [embed]vimeo.com/206313230[/embed] I’m a sucker for videos that are edited like this (with little illustrations over the film, choppy but easy to follow …

Kendrick Lamar Album Review (Part 1 of 2?)

To say I wasn’t hyped for the release of Damn would be to say nothing at all. I’m not a hardcore fan of Kendrick in the way I’m not a hardcore fan of any artist or band; I love good music, but I don’t go as far as watching every single interview and reading every single thread in their subreddit*. This, though, might have been one of the few exceptions. How could it not be?

10 Tips for Traveling to London

Get an Oyster card right away. It’s £5 and you can top it up for any amount you would like (don’t be fooled by the options that are given in increments of 5 in the machine). Take buses EVERYWHERE. You can generally get from any point in the city to another with a single bus + a 10–15 minute walk. It’s like a hop-on/hop-off tour for a fraction of the cost.

Fantastic Music and Where to Find It

Even though it only applied to several genres, “back in the day” I was the person to go to for music recommendations. Before Spotify Weekly and Apple Music’s “For You” section came about, I was adjusts letterman jacket that guy. That’s changed, and I find myself listening to the same things I was listening to 5 years ago, with just two or three new albums/singles added to the mix. However, whenever I do have the desire to go searching for some new tunes, I …

Art v. Artist and Authorial Intent v. Canon

Kanye West is the best argument both for and against the separation of art and artist. JK Rowling is the best argument both for and against an author’s influence on canon after the original series is officially over. This post was brought to you by this episode of The Last Podcast with Zac Little and this New Yorker cartoon. Let me know what you think in the comment section bellow. Like, comment, and subscribe for more “content”.

Listen to this: Bo Burnham on You Made it Weird

You Made It Weird with Pete Holmes: Bo Burnham #3 https://overcast.fm/+HGWMiEc It’s a three hour conversation, which is about 6 times longer than the average podcast episode I listen to, but it’s such a great conversation. It’s the type of conversation that seems to cover everything, even though it’s not really focused on anything at all. But it works. It’s great. It covers all the things, all the conversational topics that I would like to talk about with someone, …

Stranger Things

I came back from my vacation in London on Saturday, slept, ate, slept again, and then on Sunday I binge watched Stranger Things. We didn’t have WiFi in our AirBNB in London, so watching something, anything at all, was going to be good, but Stranger Things was great. Now Stranger Things has a solid place in my list of “Amazing Netflix Shows” along with Master of None, Gilmore Girls, and BoJack Horseman.

Movies I'm looking forward to in 2016

Below is a list of movies I’m really excited to see in 2016. There are many indie films and smaller releases that I’m looking forward to, but these are the big ones — these are the ones that have been on my radar for awhile. Deadpool The marketing for this movie is just crazy good. I haven’t read the comic books, but I’ve seen pictures on tumblr and around the web that have introduced me to the character.

The Martian by Andy Weir | Book Review (With Insignificant Spoilers)

I don't think I've read a sci-fi book since I, Robot back in Middle School, but DAMN The Martian was the perfect "Welcome Back to the Genre" book. It's exciting, it seems like just enough fact-checking happened to make this story plausible, and it appeals to every kid who's ever wanted to be an astronaut just so they could mess around with a bunch of cool space gadgets. The story is about Mark Watney, who gets left behind by his team during a Mars exploration mission.

FFS Watch This: Mr. Robot

I’ve been binge watching Mr. Robot this past weekend. It’s a great show, and even though I haven’t watched many of the other new shows that came out this summer (Sense 8, OITNB, True Detective, etc.) I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be exaggerating if I said that this is one of the best. The show follows Eliot, an experienced and skilled cyber-security engineer, who spends his free time being a hacker vigilante.

(Where to) Discover New Music

Music has always been an important part of my life. I grew up in a household where music was always playing on the stereo. I was encouraged to pursue a musical instrument at an early age (I play drums, and how I started is a topic for a whole other blog post). If there was ever a CD or cassette that I wanted, I would inevitably get it. Music, like books, was one of the few things in my childhood that was completely uncensored.

Growing up, I obviously went through all the stages of “appreciating …

My Top 6 Action Movies (Mad Max: Fury Road Review)

My love for action movies has steadily been decreasing since the age of 10, but every once in a while a new action film will come out that will rekindle my love for the genre. Action movies seldom captivate the audience with amazing plots or themes, but what they lack in this regard they try to make up for by having amazing action sequences. Below are my Top 6 Action Films (in no particular order).

Becky Grows Up.

This is a post about Becky. Becky thinks she’s figured out what “growing up” means. It makes sense to her now, why most “adults” describe it as an increase in the amount of responsibility and shit. It’s not just about that, though, there’s more.

One minute seems like a very long time

It’s been a year since the first 100 deaths occurred during the revolution at Maidan. Feels wrong calling it an “anniversary”, but I guess that’s what it is. I knew there was an event at Maidan to commemorate this day and the events that happened a year ago, but I wasn’t inclined to go. A little less than a year ago, when the revolution itself was all but over, Hellen and I went to Maidan to walk up the street where most of the deaths occurred, where people were shot down by snipers whose …

Top Songs of 2014

It’s been a long year. Somewhere between the start of the revolution in Ukraine and now, 2014 started and passed. It feels like I was just a passenger travelling through time. Save for my trip to Paris and Amsterdam, I wouldn’t be able to tell you what I did this year, how I felt, and what’s changed in my life in these 365 days. My iPod, however, keeps track of what I listened to throughout the year.

On Writing or "First!"

My experience with writing outside of school is very limited. Come to think of it, my experience of writing in school ends with a 10-page research paper I wrote in Paris about the catastrophic consequences of decreasing bee populations around the world, and that was 3 years ago. In those days I would need to write numerous essays and research papers, and would also, occasionally, start a blog here-and-there, out of boredom, looking for any source of procrastination activities.