Chris Brooker

Me before hohoTO sporting some lovely holiday gear.

Some photos from the talented Rannie Turingan (@PhotoJunkie )

Do you really need to spend the money on a huge billboard to advertise yourself? Fare hikes, terrible service? Who are you competing against that you need to advertise? Isn’t every bus, bus stop, subway, etc. Already advertising for you?

It’s been a long time since I’ve blogged, in that long amount of time I’ve been up to a bunch of different stuff. Tuesday’s, Thursday’s and Sunday’s I’ve been doing this;



This is from a Kyu Testing to advance levels.

I joined Aikido at the Japanese Canadian Culture Centre (JCCC) on Wynford Dr. JCCC Aikikai Website. I’ve only been at it 2 months now but I’ve found it to be incredibly enjoyable, not necessarily intense excersice but a great way to focus the body and mind, which is what I was looking for.

Maybe give me a few weeks to get “fully ready”

See Slow Carb – 20lbs in 4 weeks? I did lose a bit of muscle though. Shouldn’t be too hard to bulk back up.

If you read some of my previous posts, you know that I sold my condo. Here is the one, I’m moving to. Lease signed, first and last payed, elevator booked. Everything is set.

The view starting in 2010;

Am i the only one that loves change?

Hey,

Recently, I’ve started on a slow-carb, high protein, fat reduction experiment. During the summer it seems that I managed to put on a few pounds. With the eating out, drinking often and generally not really taking care of myself like I have in the past.

I’ve decided to do a little experiment to see if I can more rapidly drop that bit of fluff to bring back a more defined physic.

This experiment is not for the faint of heart and definitely not for someone who cares how food tastes. In this experiment food is not really to be enjoyed, it’s just something you need to do.

If anyone is interested in the meals or the results (pending) let me know and I’ll post the meals I’ve been eating.

So far it’s been 1.5 weeks and I can tell you, lentils suck and beans grow on you.

Here’s last night’s dinner (at 10pm) to get the idea. This is probably the tastiest meal so far.

Baby Spinach, with Black beans, Pinto beans and a Round Eye Steak.

I’m also taking 500gm of Niacin (the flushing is insane) and 200mcg of Chromium.

Let’s see how it goes.

Hey All,

Yup another post. Ya, it’s only been 2 weeks.

As you many know, I’ve decided that I want to live downtown. It came to me one day when I was thinking about “What do I want” and “What would make me happier”. The isolation, I found was the biggest problem. Almost all of the events, discussions, parties, etc. I goto are downtown and I find myself driving down there almost every night. Until recently when the thought of rushing home to change and sit in traffic on the DVP to fight my way downtown, search for a place to park, pay to park, then get a ticket anyway was just not appealing. So I stopped going to so many events. I only make the big ones now. Traffic and parking are just nuts. Especially when most events start so early, 6pm.

All of these reasons and more lead me to decide, f it, I’m selling my condo and moving downtown. Put my condo on the market and sold it in 6 days.

I’ll be moving around Jan 1, 2010. I plan to move right downtown, like King and Spadina. Anyone have any suggestions? 1br.

Hey All,

Yes, It’s been a long time since I’ve posted anything. It’s not because I’ve been sitting in the house and not doing anything. In fact, I’m busy most nights.

The truth is, I just didn’t feel like it.

I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about what I want from life. What things I want to accomplish, what goals I want to complete. What adventures I want to have. Not an easy task.

Here are some things I started to help get my mind in a more receptive mode to hear itself.

- Stopped entirely reading the news. (I used to spend hours everyday reading hundreds of RSS feeds, which added no real value to my life.)(Also no Daily Show or the Colbert Report)

- Stopped Blogging/Producing content with no vision. (Hence the lack of updates and videos)

- Decided to sell my condo. (When I think about it, the place I’d like to most live right now (in this city) is right downtown. Will be moving as soon as my condo sells.)

- Signed up for Aikido at the Japanese Canadian Culture Centre (JCCC) (Something I’ve always wanted to do.)

- Stopped checking email (with the exception of checking work email at 11am and 4pm) Stopped receiving email on my phone entirely.)

- Bought a notebook (paper) – If anyone knows me they know I rail against the use of paper. Getting back to basics has helped me focus. There are no unproductive distractions when it’s just you and paper.

- Try to only watch 1 hour of TV a day (my typical method of procrastination, with Hulu and a Media Centre PC there is never nothing to watch.)

- Everyday write down a list of Accomplishments and a List of Things to Accomplish the next day. (I do this for work too)

- Attend a Zen Buddhist Retreat (I’m not a religious person, but I feel it would be a great new experience to spent a few days in silence in a foreign environment, perhaps the change of perspective will be illuminating. If anything it will be a chance to try something new.)

That’s about it for now. Let me know what you do to keep life interesting and moving forward. Do you have a grand vision? Are you working towards it?

The answer is Cheesy Break Up Line Wednesday!

Sorry it’s been so long since I’ve posted a video, I’ve been sick and on holidays. But I’m back enjoy!

Blogging is all about posting something, anything everyday. Try to make it interesting every few days to keep people checking back.

1)  The best way to do this, IMO; is to be a young attractive girl who frequently posts images of themselves. Often innocent pictures of you from everyday, like you current outfit. But slip in a few of you at the beach or a few of you in your underwear. This will keep people checking just to see if there is a new hot photo. It also helps to have a twitter and Facebook account to promote your blog posts. But you can’t just promote your blog, you need to engage the community. That means telling everyone that you’re just lying around your place naked playing video games, people really like this.

When you’re not lying around naked it’s often fun to go out and party, drink too much and be promiscuous. Then you have more great content to write about on your blog. People love reading stories about drinking, partying and sex. I know I do.

To be honest, this is actually what I want to do. and perhaps I’ll start posting more pics of my work outfits and tales of my shenanigans.

If you do this everyday, I guarantee that you will attract a large audience which can feed your posts going forward, you will get invited to more parties, get free passes, free drinks and be recognized.

2) If you’re not an attractive girl or you’re a geeky guy the road is much steeper. You will need to write, everyday, compelling, interesting, educational, expert content. It will take a long time for people to find, digest and appreciate your blog. There will only be few fancy and fun images amongst pages of text. Unless you write about tech and post images of new products, but then only other geeks will care and you will have a lot of competition.

3) Or you can go the comedy route, post silly videos of yourself, find humorous things around your everyday live, post a photo and write a caption of a funny thing you saw at the grocery store. Post it to Facebook with a cliff-hanger title so people click on it just to see what it is. This can be successful (FailBlog.org, CollegeHumor.com).

Therefore, to be a successful blogger there are 3 routes, one easy and 2 hard. You can all see the route I’ve gone down (Videos, tech, lazy), this is the hard road. It’s my recommendation that you become an attractive women, cuz even online, life is easier.