While I produce two podcasts, have a blog, am on twitter, Facebook etc., I cannot accept the Orthodoxy of Social Media in full; in particular, every time I hear the phrase “Personal Branding” I grit my teeth.

To me, the phrase smacks of artifice and insincerity, as if one’s personal brand is a virtual mask to be donned, a persona to be foisted on unsuspecting members of the social cloud the Internet is becoming. I don’t care about my brand, if I am forced to put it in these terms. I’m more concerned with being genuine, and honest with myself, and I am not going to second-guess every step I take online, worrying if it is consistent with my brand.

I see branding as the creation of a burn scar via the application of hot metal. No thanks.

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I have just posted Episode 15 of On The Log. This week’s episode show is called The Collective Shopper, and features an interview with Eden Spodek of bargainsta.ca.

Tags: OnTheLog, Podcast, EdenSpodek, Shopping

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I took the photo below around midday today on the subway in Toronto. What appears to be a large pile of dirt in the photo is actually the remnants of snow dumped by the road clearing crew this winter.

remember the days of my youth when snow was white …

I

Tags: Snow, Toronto

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I missed my subway stop on the way home today. Not because I had fallen asleep, but because I was listening, spellbound, to the latest episode of CBC’s Ideas podcast: Canada, Nation or Notion. In this episode, two expatriate Canadians, Adam Gopnik and Malcolm Gladwell, both writers for The New Yorker. In this debate, they tackle a thorny issue — just what is Canada?

It’s always difficult for me to define the essence of Canada, although I firmly believe that it exists. One of the speakers (I won’t say which one – you can guess) in this debate finally crystalized it for me. If you are a Canadian, I urge you to listen!

Two other things struck me – the first was how clearly and well-spoken the two speakers were; these are people who think for a living. Secondly, the tone of the debate was civil and cordial; the speakers proved that one can debate ideas without it turning into an ad hominem slugfest, which is so prevelant in public discourse today.

Finally, a note of despair on my part — why can’t people like this run for public office in Canada? Politics has become the refuge of hacks and second-rate opportunists; politics is an anus, and the results are inevitable.

We have never faced a time when we need stronger, more visionary leaders; if either Adam or Malcolm ran for office, they would have my vote, automatically.

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On Sundays, my family and I tend to have McDonald’s for lunch, and we tend to go through the drive-through. We ordered food for 4 people, but when we got home, we found nineteen ketchup packets had been included. That’s almost a soup course. It certainly is a waste.

When my wife was a teenager, she had a part-time job at a McDonland’s. She was once criticized for handing out two packets of ketchup instead of one; how times have changed.

It seems that the era of plenty (for us lucky ones) breeds contempt for food resources. Given recent food riots, and the rapidly increasing price of food, we may have to change our thinking sooner rather than later.

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Episode 14 of On the Log has been posted.

In this episode, the topic is astronomy today vs. six to eight hundred years ago. My guest is Randall Rosenfield, medieval scholar, amateur astronomer and member of the Sine Nomine Ensemble for Medieval Music, who will be presenting their astronomy-themed concert
Heaven Sounding on Earth: Music of the Spheres, on Friday, April 25th, at St. Thomas’s Church, 383 Huron St., Toronto

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Here is some funny graffiti on a mailbox in my neighborhood in east-central Toronto:

It’s a bit faint, but underneath “Question everything” someone else wrote “why?” It points out a fundamental contradiction in the original comment; to question everything, we also need to question the need to question everything ….

Well I thought it was funny

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