Google has been posting “Search Stories” videos on its YouTube channel since November 2009 and they’re really quite touching. The original search story was “Parisian Love“, about a man who apparently finds love in Paris while studying abroad.
Although I’ve seen Parisian Love before, some of the newer search stories are just as moving.
“High School” – a girl works to fit in
“Father and Daughter” – a hardworking father makes time to be a good dad to his little girl
I never thought the day would come when I would acknowledge that I like modern music.
A year and a bit ago, in December of 2008, I decided that I would solicit music suggestions. A week afterwards, I acknowledged that I appreciated Viva la Vida and soundtrack music.
In the time since then, I have become an aficionado of Taylor Swift’s country pop music, among other artists. (I’ve also developed a liking for Owl City’s Fireflies and Vanilla Twilight.)
Swift’s award-winning You Belong with Me deserved its prize.
It is worth acknowledging that her songs, with few exceptions, are almost exclusively about rosy romance (think Love Story, You Belong with Me) or broken hearts (e.g. Picture to Burn, White Horse). Which means that they’re about the same thing.
Love Story is quite overplayed, so I’ll leave you with Fifteen.
Watch more Taylor Swift music videos at VEVO or track my taste in music.
This is one of the most humorous videos I’ve seen in a while.
“…introducing Bing: the better way to Google”; also known as “the easiest way to Google since Yahoo!”
Please enable Javascript and Flash to view this Flash video.via TechCrunch
It’s very difficult to live life entirely without stress. No matter how calm and peaceful one wishes to be, there will always be events in one’s life that test the limits of psychological endurance.
I experience stress on a daily basis, and perhaps much more so this month. As for my methods of dealing with stress, I enjoy music, knowledge, and technology.
Music
Classical and soundtrack music are especially enjoyable for me. I find that they contribute to a calmer emotional state, especially with beautiful orchestral pieces. (See what kind of music I like at Music to Hear.) Listening to the Brandenburg Concertos by Bach, for instance, Ennio Morricone film score, Planet Earth incidental music, or Hans Zimmer’s remarkable compositions, or Karajan’s amazing interpretations, probably bring my mood from stressed out at 8/10 to 3/10. This is one of the reasons that I listen to music while I’m doing work.
Take a look at a video of one of my favourite pieces, conducted by the composer Ennio Morricone at the United Nations Headquarters in New York.
Learning
TED videos are really inspiring to watch. Whether it’s Al Gore or someone talking about the importance of bread, I find TED to be an absolutely amazing source of inspiration.
Developing knowledge helps to take my mind off pressing matters, at least temporarily. And that’s one of the reasons that I like reading news, reading design blogs and so on.
Humour
FAIL Blog, NotAlwaysRight and FMyLife are all amazing sources of humour. Laughing is probably the easiest way to enjoy oneself for a while.
Today, I got a cross-country job promotion. I decided to plan my Going-Away-Forever party, and bought a pack of 100 invitations. After mailing them out to all my friends, I have 92 left. FML (source)
This keeps me amused, but is by no means as effective as music — after all, I can listen to music while working, and this humour stuff takes away from time I could be putting towards resolving causes of stress.
Et vous?
What do you do to keep your stress at an acceptable level? (You can select multiple answers. Choose any item if it has a soothing / stress-relieving effect for you.)
The 11th movie in the Star Trek franchise is being released in theatres on May 8, 2009. If there is a single film in this year that I definitely wish to see, it is this one.
High definition trailers may be found on Apple’s Web site (requires QuickTime).
At some point, I am going to learn computer programming — as in C/C++ and/or Java. I’ve never thought about serious programming, but some basic knowledge of the field would be useful for many professions.
If anyone wants to offer any help or tutorials or documentation resources, I’d be very thankful.
Here’s a video about Java by Sun to promote its uses beyond merely desktop applications.
Hey, guys. It’s the end of 2008. This post is surely the last I will make this year, given that it is scheduled to be published on the 31st of December.
At this point in time, we can look back and we can look forwards. We can reflect on all of the things we did right (and the things we did wrong), and think about how we can improve in the future. I’ve said this in some of the holiday-wishes messages that were sent out, and I’ll say it again: there’s always room for self-improvement.
It can’t be fun to end the year on that note. So I’ll leave you, instead, with this amazing video. (I was originally going to use a streaming QuickTime embed, but I realize that many people don’t like QuickTime or don’t have it installed. Instead, here’s the YouTube video — and you can find the video in HD format here.)
An Uncluttered World on Vimeo.
As always, you can find other videos to watch on Videos to Watch, the blog where all I do is embed great videos.
