After hearing a lot about Twitter and realizing that I've been using Facebook's status updates for microblogging anyway, I've decided to sign up for a Twitter account:

http://twitter.com/LukeChao

If you have an account, feel free to add me. And if you understand what Twitter is "for," please let me know....

I'm pretty desperate for somebody to feed my cats from December 24 to January 5. I live at King and Jameson, which is a 15-minute streetcar ride west of downtown Toronto. Unfortunately, most people I know are going away for the holidays.

I tried e-mailing a pet-sitter who advertised on craigslist, but it turned out that she was a minor, so I asked to speak with her mom before handing over the keys to my apartment. Her mom nixed the idea.

So if you can come to my apartment once every two days between December 24 and January 5 to feed my cats and make sure they look healthy, I would love you forever and give you cash to boot. (How much? Not as much as the $300 that a professional pet-sitter would bill, but enough to ensure that my cats don't die.)

Above the dining area of my apartment hangs a five-armed chandelier, which until today held five bare incandescent lightbulbs. When I moved in, I thought it was the most hideous lighting fixture I had ever seen. I couldn't imagine how a functional device could be uglier, more tasteless or, oddly enough, more laugh-out-loud hilarious.

Well, today my superintendent entered all the units in the building and changed the lightbulbs to compact fluorescent bulbs... including the five bulbs in my dining-area chandelier.

( Behold, the ugliest chandelier in the world )

Awww. You're ALL my Valentines.

Is there any glue that will bind silicone rubber to plastic? Even Google doesn't seem to know.

Did you know that if you break a fluorescent light bulb, you're not supposed to vacuum up the little bits of broken glass? That's because they're coated with mercury, and vacuuming up the pieces will turn your vacuum cleaner into a hazardous waste dispenser for the rest of its life.

I just learned this from Wikipedia, after I broke a blacklight bulb and vacuumed up the glass. I'm going to replace the vacuum cleaner, but if I start drooling and go insane because of the mercury exposure I got today, now you know why.

This thing doesn't work very well for me:

Two years after receiving my NGH certification in hypnotherapy, I'm finally going to open a practice. Imagine this headline: "Renowned Self-Development Author Now Makes His Services Available to the Public." Well, renowned or not, there's a prevalent belief that publication gives a person authority (literally, author-ity), and I'm going to leverage that position into a new career.

I've done the math, and the numbers make sense. Just 10 billable hours a week (which means perhaps 20 hours of my time) will result in a good income. I want to reach that goal by the end of the year, then start working full-time after New Year's, when everybody is driven to meet their resolutions.

I'm meeting with a lawyer tomorrow, have a possible business partner who wants to timeshare office space with me, and might be able to secure a small investment from my parents. Love money is the best money; for everything else, there's MasterCard.

Because I've been performing hypnosis free of charge for friends, there's already a network of people in Toronto who can vouch for the work I do. I'm going to set up a formal referral system to take full advantage of this network.

I'm also going to start teaching free lectures to the public, not specifically about hypnosis, but about living consciously and the malleability of beliefs. Public speaking has become one of my biggest passions and it's a good way to develop a reputation and client base.

I want to spend as little money on paid advertising as possible. Any advertising I have would sell the result ("When all your colleagues' eyes are on you, I'll teach you how to speak with confidence") without mentioning the tool I use to achieve it. That's because the result is vitally important, and the tool is not. Clients will find out that I use hypnosis when they phone me.

I guarantee my results, which means that if I can't help somebody quit smoking or overcome their fear of public speaking, I don't get paid. My success rate is high enough that I can absorb the occasional failure.

This is an exciting move for me. I'm going to improve a lot of people's lives, refine my ability to create lasting changes in my clients and, as a natural side effect, make a fascinating study of human nature. It will be good preparation for whatever future career this practice springboards into.

The Voodoo Bone Lady's prediction

The Voodoo Bone Lady of New Orleans had predicted that August 8 would be my lucky day this year. I burned the date into my brain and waited to see what luck would bring me.

As it turns out, August 8 was the sixth day of a 10-day vipassana meditation course that I just completed last weekend. S.N. Goenka, teacher and originator of the course, states that the sixth day is a test day: If a meditator can sit through the sixth day, then he or she will usually be able to complete the entire length of the course.

And so, that's how my "lucky day" came to be the day I figured out how to endure long periods of intense pain.

A monk for 10 days

Let me explain. The meditation retreat was nothing like a holiday or vacation. It was more like like a bootcamp. To stay at the retreat, I had to give up:

• all of my personal items (cell phone, keys, wallet, etc.)
  
• the freedom to move around at will (the course boundaries delimited an area perhaps 100 m in diameter)
  
• the freedom to set my own schedule
  
• the freedom to choose my own food
  
• any kind of social contact with the other meditators (including speech, eye contact and gestures)
  
• physical contact with anybody
  
• any kind of contact with the outside world
  
• reading and writing (except for administrative purposes)
  
• killing (which would be easy, if it weren't for the fact that meat is made of killed animals)
  
• telling lies (which is easy when you can't speak)
  
• stealing
  
• proximity to women (who were kept segregated from the men)
  
• all sexual activity
  
• intoxicants
  
• all other spiritual or healing practices
  
• playing or listening to music

Of these sacrifices, I thought that information withdrawal would agitate me the most. I've used e-mail since 1994 and I've kept some kind of blog since 1998. Since those early days, I had never been away from the Internet for more than three days at a time. Yet it rarely bothered me that I knew nothing about what was going on in the outside world. Sometimes I wondered how many hundred e-mails were piling up in my inbox, or if Cindy was taking good care of my cats, or if World War III had started in the Middle East. But my strongest desires were much more basic.

First, my carnivore instincts rebelled against the limited, vegetarian menu that was served at mealtimes. I needed animal protein, something with muscle fibres for my teeth to sink into. I craved a big, greasy bucket of KFC chicken, or filet mignon cooked bloody rare. For one full hour on the fourth day, the only thing I could think of was crawfish dipped in melted butter.

Second, my libido shot through the roof. A feminine cough from the other side of the meditation hall captivated me with the mental image of a woman's neck. Then I started noticing how much certain tree trunks looked like smooth, slim thighs protruding from the ground. Everything turned me on.

Life at the retreat

The retreat is situated on a 141-acre wooded lot that used to belong to the Boy Scouts, but only a small portion of the property is used for the meditation course. It's approximately 1.5 hours north of Toronto, near Cookstown. Nighttime in the countryside became very cold, even in August, and I quickly became accustomed to the sweet, chemical fragrance of insect repellant.

Every morning, the wakeup gong sounded at 4 a.m. We ate breakfast at 6:30 a.m. and lunch at 11 a.m., but we didn't get dinner because we weren't allowed to eat after noon. Bedtime was at 9:30 p.m.

We spent over 10 hours meditating every day.

The teachings of S.N. Goenka

S.N. Goenka was a Burmese industrialist when he learned vipassana meditation—the technique that Gautama Buddha used to attain enlightenment—from a teacher in Burma (Myanmar). Since becoming a master of the practice, Goenka has been spreading vipassana throughout the world; there are now more than 50 permanent vipassana centres throughout the world. Each centre is supported completely by volunteers and student donations.

Every 10-day vipassana course in the world is taught by a series of audiotapes of Goenka giving instructions and chanting. Every evening, there is a videotaped discourse by Goenka. Although there are Assistant Teachers available to answer student questions, their primary job is to press "play" on the tape player.

Goenka teaches four practices in sequence:

Sila, the moral code (no killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, lying or inbibing of intoxicants)
Samadhi, or concentration meditation
Panna, or insight meditation
Metta, or loving-kindness

We spent the first four days practicing samadhi by becoming aware of our breath, which sharpened our minds and concentration enough to progress to the field of panna.

We started vipassana, the technique used for panna, at the end of the fourth day. The nutshell explanation of vipassana meditation is that it involves being aware of, yet not reacting to, bodily sensations, whether pleasant or unpleasant. My understanding of the technique is that is that it severs stimulus-response conditioning at a deep, unconscious level.

The last day, we learned metta, or compassion and goodwill to all living beings.

Goenka claims that the technique is nonsectarian, scientific and universal, but he makes many unverifiable statements, like that some sort of life continues after death through a continual process of reincarnation. He's also quite dogmatic about the idea that vipassana meditation is the One True Way to experiencing Reality As It Is. The entire experience of the 10-day course invites numerous comparisons with cult brainwashing, but I'd stop short of calling it a cult, because it's not commercial or abusive.

Pain tolerance as a path to spiritual enlightenment

This brings us to pain. Let me describe what it's like to sit through one hour of vipassana meditation. Three times daily, I had a "Sitting of Strong Determination," which meant that I was instructed not to open my eyes or move my arms or legs during the hour. Sitting cross-legged for more than 20 minutes, when I wasn't used to it, hurt like hell. After 30 minutes, I thought my legs had turned gangrenous and would soon fall off. At first I thought that there were something wrong with my posture, but then Goenka and the Assistant Teacher explained that meditators are expected to feel pain. So I endured it.

After one day of torture, I learned how to dissociate myself from the pain. This means I learned how to observe the pain objectively rather than feeling it directly. In Goenka's words, I was "aware but equanimous to the bodily sensations."

I think the reason I made it to that stage, rather than asking for a chair or leaving the course like many students did, was that I knew from my work with hypnosis that trance states can easily produce kinesthetic dissociation, even anaesthesia, spontaneously. And I knew that pain is a component of many spiritual practices—never mind the fact that many people who cut themselves or modify their bodies describe pain as a spiritual experience.

So I think that the greatest benefit I received from the meditation retreat was that I learned how to endure pain. But after this breakthrough on day six, I felt that my progressed plateaued. Sure, I was a zombie by day nine like everybody else, but I don't think I made any major breakthroughs. I guess my path to enlightenment will take a while longer than this.

The cruise to St John and Halifax was the first time I've been east of Quebec City, but because I took the seafaring route from New York, I was totally dissociated from any feeling of being east of Quebec. It was like I was a space alien and my interstellar travel pod had crash landed in Sleepytown, Canada. Twice.

In St John, I went to a place called the Reversing Falls, though it should more accurately be called the Reversing River. At regular intervals in the day, the world's highest tides in the Bay of Fundy push the water in the St John River upstream. But I didn't have the patience to wait around and watch the river reverse direction, so I went to the market and read my e-mail on an open wireless connection.

In Halifax, I toured the Alexander Keith's brewery and sampled an amber beer and a honey brown that they don't export out of the province. Then I wandered around downtown Halifax. I ended up climbing a hill and finding myself inside a stone fortress called The Citadel. It has cannons pointing into Halifax Harbour—for the defence of Canada!

Oh my god, I met the sweetest girl. Her name is Toffler (yes, as in Alvin Toffler), she just graduated from university, and I think she has an Asian man fetish. Case in point: She moved to Shanghai this month, and ALL the white people I know who move to China are only there to get laid. Anyway, I tried to convince her to conceal herself inside a shipping container and make her way to Toronto... but she wouldn't do it.

After the cruise, I spent two days wandering around New York City. Most memorable were the afternoon I spent inside the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the evening wandering around the Lower East Side in a torrential downpour. I was soaked, but it was a warm rain, and I didn't catch pneumonia like my mother said I would.

I went to Montreal during the Canada Day weekend for a top-secret mission with a couple of friends. I stayed with notofthisworld, who took me to a gay dance club, a leather bar, a bear bar, a gay karaoke bar, and a 24-hour poutine shop. I ate the "Poutine T-Rex," which was a monstrous dish topped with bacon, sausage and ground beef as well as the customary gravy and cheese curds. And I didn't get my ass grabbed once! Should that be a blow to my self-esteem?

I also went to the Montreal International Jazz Festival a few times, spent an afternoon with xopods and his friend, saw the Brian Jungen exhibit at the Museum of Contemporary Art, and rode a Segway inside a warehouse.

Next month, I'm going to a Vipassana meditation retreat near Barrie. I know several people who have been to the retreat before, and they all say it's an amazing experience. I'm going to spend ten days completely cut off from the outside world, eating vegetarian food and meditating for nearly all of my waking hours.

I've heard that, partway through the retreat, some of the students won't be able to continue facing the naked revelation of their own innermost thoughts. When that happens, the women will go to their teacher in tears, while the men will just slip away quietly in the night.

Tags: travel

I recently met an entrepreneur who sells and repairs printers, photocopiers and scanners. For 40 bucks, he sold me a 1992-era LaserJet 4Si printer with network and duplexer options, and delivered it to my bedroom. The LaserJet 4Si is intended to serve a small office and weighs over 120 pounds fully loaded. That's a big hunk of printer.

Anyway, I was talking with Ioan and I found out that he's losing money on his business. He has low self esteem and underprices himself to a level where people start to believe that there's something wrong with his product or service. And yet, he has a lot to offer.

Here's my point. I present to you a gentleman who will perform the following services cheaper than anybody else in the GTA, guaranteed:

• Repair of printers, photocopiers, plotters, scanners and fax machines.
  
• Sales of refurbished printers, etc.
  
• Refilling of inkjet and toner cartridges.
  
• Printing of full-colour posters and banners (54" wide x any length, on paper, vinyl or canvas).
  

I spent a few hours trying to open his eyes as to how much money he could be making with his skill set and equipment, but he wouldn't believe me. Finally, he said: "Why don't you bring me customers, and I'll give you a commission?"

I said, "Okay."

So if you need any of the above services, or if you know anybody who does, please let me know. I only do deals where everybody wins. You get the best prices in the city, Ioan gets a satisfied, paying customer, and I get a percentage of the transaction.

My friend Ike and I are meeting with him tomorrow to brainstorm ideas for how to market his business. There's a lot we could do with it, even if it's as simple as setting up a table at a university to recycle empty inkjet cartridges, or targeting the masses to sell photo enlargements as gifts. Ioan can compete on price alone. We just have to convince him to stop undercutting his competition by as much as 75 percent. If he undercuts them by only 2 percent, he's still the cheapest in the city.

Like interdictor in New Orleans last September, cedarseed is blogging from Beirut.

Josh - Audri's friend - Audri - Nelson being a big womanizer
I have a lot more photos, but you wouldn't recognize anybody in them except for me, and I looked like a big dork. But it was a fun party.

I'm going on a cruise next month from New York to Halifax, then staying in New York for a couple of nights. It should be a good week. I've never been east of Quebec City, so this is going to be my first exposure to the Maritime provinces, albeit from the sea looking landward. In New York, I'm going to visit some sites I missed last year, like the Met and the infamous Toys 'R' Us in Times Square, maybe catch a show, and drink a lot.

I wrote this elsewhere, but I thought I'd repost it here:

I'm looking to share ideas on how to make money outside a salaried job. In particular, I'm looking for ideas that have low barriers of entry and which don't require any money to invest.

Here are a few things that either I or my friends have done before:

Freelancing: If your career lends itself well to freelance work (like writing, graphic design or programming), you could market yourself as a freelancer or contractor. For many types of work, you can set up a profile on elance.com or guru.com, which are basically eBay for labour. When doing business on the Internet, keep in mind that because you're competing in a global marketplace, you will usually be underbid by people in third-world countries who are just as skilled as you are. If you want to keep afloat above the bidding war, your proposal, portfolio and past feedback have to convince the buyer that you're the best person for the project. I once made US$250 writing a quick two-page article because I had once co-written a book on the topic. Other buyers expect an 80-page e-book for US$250, and will receive several bids for that amount.

Being a human guinea pig: I have an actor friend from England who paid the rent while living in Toronto by selling his body into medical experimentation. He says that Biovail is the best-paying company and that Apotex has the best food and facilities. Other research companies in the GTA are Pharma Medica and Allied Research. The downside is the needles and the medical risks; recently, six men in England were hospitalized with massive organ failure after receiving an experimental drug during a clinical trial. The typical pay rate at Biovail is $1500 for two weekends, and in case you're collecting EI, it doesn't count as employment income.

Participating in marketing studies and focus groups: I signed up for a marketing study a few years ago and, since then, they've called me every few months to do a new study. The typical pay rate is $40 for a computerized study or $75 for a two-hour focus group. Send me a private message if you want contact information for the recruiters.

Seminars and workshops: I had a job last summer that opened my eyes to how profitable seminars are. My employer sold 1000 seats at $2000 each, which equalled $2 million in revenue. On a more managable scale, if you sell 50 seats at $500, that's still more money than I made last year. And you can sell books, t-shirts and mugs at the back.

Waiting tables: This is on the list because it's an easy job to get, the hours are flexible, and you can abandon it easily when you need to. Sure, it's menial work, but you get to meet a lot of people, make good tips (depending on the restaurant), and can eat the food that would otherwise be thrown away.

Feel free to add your own suggestions.

Tags: work