Farrago

Month of Living Without: Alcohol

For the past month I haven’t touched a drop of alcohol. I realize for many this is no big thing, and if this is you, bear with me. I’ve never been a heavy drinker, but I’ve also never been known to shy away from a few beers or a bottle of wine. And after living …

December 2, 2013
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Hainan’s Red Detachment of Women Ballet

While later today Canada will be celebrating its own anniversary with fireworks, BBQ and a whole lot of drinking; in China it’s all about the Communist Party of China’s 90th anniversary. Not one to shy away from the spirit of things, I figured it was an excellent time to showcase one of Hainan’s most well …

July 1, 2011
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Rick’s Web cam of the Japan Quake

My friend Rick, who lives in Tokyo, switched on his Web cam when things started to shake in Japan two days ago. Here’s the resultant video. There are quite a few videos floating around that show much more stunning imagery than Rick’s apartment wall and chair moving around, but for me at least it really …

March 13, 2011
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Ryan and the Rubik’s Cube

Back in 2003, while backpacking through the UK and Ireland, I ended up at a party in Dublin where I met a guy who claimed he could complete the Rubik’s Cube in under 5 minutes. After having me scramble it for him, he did as advertised. I was suitably impressed and asked how he did …

March 5, 2011
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A surreal Google Alert

I have been using Google Alerts to keep tabs on my various projects for a couple years now. Mostly it just tells me when splogs scrape my content, but every once in a while it has proven quite useful in alerting me to a cool linkback or someone talking about one of my sites. As …

February 18, 2011
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Retiring The Humanaught

It’s been a long time coming, but I’m finally retiring “The Humanaught” moniker. It’s been a good run, but time to hang up the handle and start publishing under a domain I’ve been sitting on for a couple years now — ryan-mclaughlin.com (that’s the cue to update your bookmarks). I started using “The Humanaught” back …

December 31, 2010
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Party of One

A life of extremes folks, that’s me. One minute I’m whinging about the non-stop craziness of being a new parent and the next I’m sitting quietly on a Wednesday night trying to remember the last time I ate vegetables (are mushrooms a vegetable?). Yep, I’m home alone. Button and I have been keeping each other …

October 27, 2010
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If you eat food, you should watch this movie

I just finished watching Food, Inc. — a sobering, yet hopeful, documentary about the modern industrial food machine. It’s an incredible film and I don’t think anyone should take another bite before they watch it. It makes me appreciate that a lot of my food happens to come from small “farmers/wet” markets. Cheers to Ben …

June 6, 2010
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