Ten movies of the 2000s

I recently wrote up a best movies of the decade list for Crab Town.

You can read it here.

Feel free to undermine my opinions.

I'm going to be out of town for the next week.

Cities from this year

Because I traveled more this year than I ever have before (in terms of number of destinations), I figured I'd run off a list of places I went in 2009. Why? Because I'm a showoff.

-Edmonton, AB
-Vancouver, BC
-Toronto, ON
-Montreal, QC
-Oslo, Norway
-Berlin, Germany
-Prague, Czech Republic
-Cologne, Germany
-Bruges, Belgium
-Paris, France
-Barcelona, Spain
-London, England

Really I just wanted to list this because I feel like I'm not going anywhere outside of Toronto in 2010.

How to put your book together and hopefully not fail out of advertising school

I'm just finishing up my first portfolio for school, it's due on Thursday. We've been told in our class that the first portfolio is always garbage, and when I look at mine I sort of feel that way.

I feel good about the fact that I can see that some of my ads aren't very good, but I'm troubled by the fact that I can't quite make them work. It hasn't quite clicked yet.

My semester's over on Friday. I might put up some of what ends up in my portfolio then.

Thoughts

"The thing is, I really like saying yes. I like new things, projects, plans, getting people together and doing something, trying something, even when it's corny or stupid. I am not good at saying no. And I do not get along with people who say no. When you die, and it really could be this afternoon, under the same bus wheels I'll stick my head if need be, you will not be happy about having said no. You will be kicking your ass about all the no's you've said. No to that opportunity, or no to that trip to Nova Scotia or no to that night out, or no to that project or no to that person who wants to be naked with you but you worry about what your friends will say."

"Do not be critics, you people, I beg you. I was a critic and I wish I could take it all back because it came from a smelly and ignorant place in me, and spoke with a voice that was all rage and envy."

--Dave Eggers, from an interview.


About the second quote, that is not how I personally feel about music/movie/art/theatre/et cetera critics in general, it is only a perfect description of my own reasons for not wanting to be a critic anymore.

For very good examples of intelligent, thoughtful criticism, I suggest you read my friend Michael Hingston's reviews.

Haas Radio

Preoccupied

We're entering our last two and a half weeks of the first semester, so I've been pretty busy for a while now. Yeah. Don't have much more to say about that. Clearly I should be a copywriter.

Here's an old photo instead of a yarn about advertising.