Lonesome Cosmonaut

New Look

4 December, 2018

I’ve been playing around with a bunch of the sites I’ve been maintaining recently, and I thought it was time to breathe some fresh life into this site. Calgary is such an important part of my life, and I’d like to make more time writing about it more.

Sol, Playa, y Mar

29 November, 2018

Years ago, I wrote a travelogue about my first trip to Aruba. It was such a fun experience, I decided to finally put it on Amazon as an e-book and paperback. It’s a quick read (a little over 30 pages), but I learned a lot about digital publishing in the process. Now with this work under my belt, it’s time to work on getting my bucket list item of writing a novel done.

But What Is Cyclepalooza?

23 July, 2018

I’ve been participating in and volunteering with Cyclepalooza for years, and… I still can’t tell you exactly what it is.

The Wood Tambourine

4 February, 2018

There are the things we keep to define who we are, and the ones that define who we want to be.

Project Eighties

3 February, 2018

When I was in university, I had a crazy idea of building a database of everything that happened in the 1980’s. I suspect this came about because of playing far too much Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, and being disappointed that at a certain point you hit a wall where you’ve exhausted all the 80’s-ness out of the game. The eventual goal of my “Project Eighties” was that, with a VR headset, you could go to a set point in time in the 80’s, and be in a period-appropriate world.

Some Good Anime

8 May, 2017

One of the hobbies I’ve gotten back into over the past few years has been watching anime. Some of the newer stuff is really good, and it’s a great way to unwind after a long day of work. This page will grow as I find new things to recommend. One-Punch Man A hero so powerful that boredom has set in, and a world that’s barely aware he even exists. Really funny dialogue, solid characters, and great animation.

Book Review - Travels in Hyperreality

16 February, 2015

I’ve been on an Umberto Eco kick recently, dipping through his fiction bestsellers The Name of the Rose and Foucault’s Pendulum. I’ve just finished Travels in Hyperreality, a collection of Eco’s essays from the 1960’s through the 80’s. The centerpiece of the book is his essay on Hyperreality, a concept whose explanation is outside the scope of this short review. Needless to say, it’s another one of those semiological gems that, while hard to express, isn’t hard to recognize and experience.

Lessons Learned to 2014

1 January, 2015

Another year, and another reflection on the bits of wisdom hard-earned and learned. Be your own personal Santa Claus It was after reading the ‘Hedonism Handbook’ I started to realise I didn’t expend much effort in keeping myself happy. I get by with fairly simple needs, all told, but I was making my life unnecessarily hard by making unrealistic demands of myself. Namely, the demands that I fit 27 hours into a 24 hour day, with no downtime to recuperate.

Review: Nick Hornby's Believer book reviews

13 November, 2014

Books: The Polysyllabic Spree by Nick Hornby More Baths Less Talking by Nick Hornby Housekeeping vs. The Dirt by Nick Hornby Shakespeare Wrote For Money by Nick Hornby I read anywhere between 50-200 books a year, and while that might seem a lot, I still purchase and borrow books at a rate greater than my consumption. Part of the problem is that the Calgary Public Library (and the wonderful TAL program that lets me borrow from most public libraries in Alberta) has such a superb collection, that a great deal of the books on my ever-expanding want list rest on their shelves.

Review: Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson

8 November, 2014

Classics of any genre can be unapproachable simply by being deemed ‘classics.’ It’s accidental - because of their (possibly ill-deserved) popularity they are often spoiled by well-meaning readers. Or perhaps someone doesn’t spoil the book exactly, but gives so thorough a synopsis that the urge to read the book is diminished, pushing it to the bottom of a reading pile. But eventually some time passes, and the spoilage is forgotten, or the book happens to be at the top of the pile.