Category: GENERAL

Line by Line

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So, after years away from it (though I used to be not bad) I am teaching myself to sketch, draw, and ink images again. Inking’s new to me, so I decided to start with that. But of course, I figure,it’s a digital era, and Wacom tablets aren’t so expensive now… why not do it on my computer? So I got myself a nice little (not super-expensive) tablet and started off. I’ve got a set going on Flickr, not that there’s much point in going an looking there now. But I think this picture isn’t too bad: And no, I didn’t …

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The Mathematics of Happiness

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Over on Huffington Post, a recent piece got a lot of attention–at least, if the number of times it came up on my Facebook feed is any indication. The piece, originally posted at wait but why, titled “Why Generation Y Yuppies Are Unhappy,” analyzes a very simple idea: The members of Generation Y (defined as people born anytime from the 1970s to the 1990s)–or at least a subset of them–are not happy. Why? They’re “GYPSYs”: Generation Y Protagonists & Special Yuppies. They are “a unique brand of yuppie, one who thinks they are the main character of a very special …

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My Secret?

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Got a funny tweet this morning: @GordSellar Just received your memoir from @HonestTea. #location pic.twitter.com/kGxqOYeVKS — Derek Brown (@derekbrown) September 6, 2013 Ha, funnily enough, I submitted this a long, long time ago, and forgot all about it. But for all that, the principle seems to hold. In the past couple of weeks, since relocating to our new apartment, I’ve: started exercising regularly (that is, swimming daily, and tracking it on Fitocracy, because gamification = motivation boost; I’ll be adding a regimen of bodyweight exercises next week, too), drafted close to 10% of the novel I’m working on (I should …

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Back to Our Regularly Scheduled…. Er? Happy Birthday and Anniversary, Mrs. Jiwaku!

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There’s been a lull around here. That’s been for a combination of reasons, some of which are personal and which I won’t go into, but also because Mrs. Jiwaku and I have been rather busy lately. This week, we: found the apartment we’ll be living in for the next six months,  celebrated our anniversary, and celebrated Mrs. Jiwaku’s birthday For her birthday, I got her a portable black metal easel for painting, because she’s really gotten into that hobby. I figured a metal easel would be easier to move around than a wooden one–to stick into a trunk and bring …

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Easy Recipes to Blow Your Mind, #1: Omija Bacon

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A post in response to the request of a friend. Omija is an interesting berry: its Latin nomenclature is Schisandra chinensis, the latter portion of the name being a hint that it is native to Asia–particularly Northeast Asia. Back in Korea, I first experienced the stuff as tea, but got curious about what it would do to a beer. The one experiment I managed before leaving, I didn’t add enough berries, so it was nice, but a very restrained effect. But I had some berries left over, and decided on a very different experiment: adding them to so bacon cure. …

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Music From a Vietnamese Funeral

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Back in June, a funeral was held in our alley here in Saigon. At least, we think  it was a funeral. It involved tables and chairs out in the alley, and a band that was playing music from early in the morning until very late at night. I recorded some of the music, because it was pretty interesting. I most enjoyed the guitar solos, and the semi-atonal lines played by the double-reed player. (I’m not sure of the name of that oboe-like instrument, but I call it “shawm”–the old European name for it–in the track titles.) I posted this to my own …

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Culinary Madness…

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I’m too busy for a proper post, but I thought I’d update on last time with more pictures of all the nice stuff we’ve been cooking up here in Saigon. The nice thing about having a fair amount of time, and about food being relatively inexpensive, is that you can experiment with cooking. Mrs. Jiwaku’s been mostly baking, while I’ve mostly been making new foods… well, new to me, I mean. The range is pretty wide. Here’s a look at (almost) everything we’ve done so far: It’s not a complete log — I’ve made a lot of pasta, especially with …

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The Stuff I’ve Been Doing of Late

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This is just a quick update for those wondering why I haven’t posted anything in a while. There’s snaps of food I’ve cooked, a rare recording of the current state of my sax playing as of right now (and a discussion of an online course in jazz improvisation I’m taking with Gary Burton, yes, that Gary Burton), and a little discussion of my writing.

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No Access, They Said

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They being my ISP. They didn’t say it, though, except through an error code. I can’t access this site, my own website, except via Tor. (Not Tor.com, I mean this Tor.) I can’t imagine my site has actually been added to any watch or block lists, since I’ve written practically nothing there about this country I’m now in… but I still have to use Tor to get through and post. It’s been hectic and busy the last couple of days, with lots to do, and lots to explore. My friends just flew back from the States and we were busy …

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New Series Plugin

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Well, earlier this month I noticed that my last WordPress update finally killed the functionality of the plugin I’d been using to arrange posts in series, and I resolved to find something else. I finally have, but it took me a good chunk of time getting the posts into the series (which means it’s pretty late at night, since we accompanied our friend Nick to a few places today as part of his birthday celebrations, most notably a visit up to the bar in the Bitexaco tower, which is this gigantic building a few blocks from our home with a …

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