John Ngo

"Imagine life is a game in which you are juggling five balls. The balls are called work, family,..."

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 01:42:49 +1100

“Imagine life is a game in which you are juggling five balls. The balls are called work, family, health, friends, and integrity. And you’re keeping all of them in the air. But one day you finally come to understand that work is a rubber ball. If you drop it, it will bounce back. The other four balls… are made of glass. If you drop one of these, it will be irrevocably scuffed, nicked, perhaps even shattered.”

- James Patterson, Suzanne’s Diary for Nicholas

"The construction of a suit is suffering, it’s pain."

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 21:48:42 +1100

“The construction of a suit is suffering, it’s pain.”

- Antonio Leonelli, O’Mast

"It times of change the learners will inherit the earth, whilst the knowers will be beautifully..."

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 06:04:58 +1100

“It times of change the learners will inherit the earth, whilst the knowers will be beautifully prepared for a world which no longer exists.”

- Eric Hoffer

"Vancouver Sun TO JACK SCOTT, VANCOUVER SUN October 1, 1958 57 Perry Street New York..."

Sun, 15 Jan 2012 21:26:05 +1100

“

Vancouver Sun

TO JACK SCOTT, VANCOUVER SUN

October 1, 1958 57 Perry Street New York City

Sir,

I got a hell of a kick reading the piece Time magazine did this week on The Sun. In addition to wishing you the best of luck, I’d also like to offer my services.

Since I haven’t seen a copy of the “new” Sun yet, I’ll have to make this a tentative offer. I stepped into a dung-hole the last time I took a job with a paper I didn’t know anything about (see enclosed clippings) and I’m not quite ready to go charging up another blind alley.

By the time you get this letter, I’ll have gotten hold of some of the recent issues of The Sun. Unless it looks totally worthless, I’ll let my offer stand. And don’t think that my arrogance is unintentional: it’s just that I’d rather offend you now than after I started working for you.

I didn’t make myself clear to the last man I worked for until after I took the job. It was as if the Marquis de Sade had suddenly found himself working for Billy Graham. The man despised me, of course, and I had nothing but contempt for him and everything he stood for. If you asked him, he’d tell you that I’m “not very likable, (that I) hate people, (that I) just want to be left alone, and (that I) feel too superior to mingle with the average person.” (That’s a direct quote from a memo he sent to the publisher.)

Nothing beats having good references.

Of course if you asked some of the other people I’ve worked for, you’d get a different set of answers. If you’re interested enough to answer this letter, I’ll be glad to furnish you with a list of references — including the lad I work for now.

The enclosed clippings should give you a rough idea of who I am. It’s a year old, however, and I’ve changed a bit since it was written. I’ve taken some writing courses from Columbia in my spare time, learned a hell of a lot about the newspaper business, and developed a healthy contempt for journalism as a profession.

As far as I’m concerned, it’s a damned shame that a field as potentially dynamic and vital as journalism should be overrun with dullards, bums, and hacks, hag-ridden with myopia, apathy, and complacence, and generally stuck in a bog of stagnant mediocrity. If this is what you’re trying to get The Sun away from, then I think I’d like to work for you.

Most of my experience has been in sports writing, but I can write everything from warmongering propaganda to learned book reviews.

I can work 25 hours a day if necessary, live on any reasonable salary, and don’t give a black damn for job security, office politics, or adverse public relations.

I would rather be on the dole than work for a paper I was ashamed of.

It’s a long way from here to British Columbia, but I think I’d enjoy the trip.

If you think you can use me, drop me a line.

If not, good luck anyway.

Sincerely, Hunter S. Thompson

”

- Hunter S. Thompson, The Proud Highway: Saga of a Desperate Southern Gentleman, 1955-1967 (The Fear and Loathing Letters, Vol. 1)

"If you fall, I’ll be there."

Mon, 09 Jan 2012 23:17:50 +1100

“If you fall, I’ll be there.”

- Floor

"I don’t know about Rdio—I’ve never done any looking into it. Spotify, in particular, is just..."

Sat, 31 Dec 2011 21:46:44 +1100

“

I don’t know about Rdio—I’ve never done any looking into it. Spotify, in particular, is just straight-up class warfare. There was this stat about Lady Gaga, who was the biggest selling artist on Spotify, getting $800 in one quarter for having over 8 million plays. People are getting paid from Spotify, but it’s not artists. The amount of money that artists are making on Spotify is ridiculous. The amount of money that Sean Parker and EMI and those types of interests are making of off Spotify is where the real crime is. The question when it happened was, “Who okayed this major transfer of these commodities—hundreds of thousands of songs and records?” No one I knew had anything to do with it—it was all these labels. They got big cash bonuses that are not part of the royalty stream and won’t trickle down to artists.

They’re all shareholders as well so when it IPOs, they’ll make another billion dollars each and the artists will make exactly zero. Spotify, in particular, is very much the story of the 1% and the 99% all over again. It’s particularly rich because it applies to this force culturally [music] that can be cleansing of those heists or injustices so it’s kind of comical.

Anything that causes people to have less of a connection with the artist that they specifically would like to listen to and consume deludes it. The lack of connection that we all have now relative to how things worked 30 years ago as far as community and personal connections is getting more and more diluted. I think that social networking and all that stuff is just another aid in falling out of relationship with one another in any real sense. I think those subscription-based things are just one less commitment that consumers have to make. It’s that much more being removed from committing to a purchase and a decision. In general, I think that that’s an unhealthy way to live—period. The vast amount of choice that we have is meant to be helpful and part of our freedom, but it’s really the most crippling element of modern life.

”

- David Bazan on subscription based music services like Rdio and Spotify.

"Happiness is really just the 15 minutes after you’ve completed one challenge - and before..."

Sun, 18 Dec 2011 19:22:20 +1100

“Happiness is really just the 15 minutes after you’ve completed one challenge - and before you’ve identified a new one.”

- Alain de Botton

"There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of..."

Tue, 06 Dec 2011 04:08:13 +1100

“There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that ‘my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge’.”

- Isaac Asimov

"Most ideas fail for one reason, it’s because they don’t start."

Sat, 03 Dec 2011 12:07:10 +1100

“Most ideas fail for one reason, it’s because they don’t start.”

- David Hieatt, The Do Lectures

"These people who are making a big deal out of gay marriage? I don’t give a fuck about who..."

Tue, 08 Nov 2011 23:48:00 +1100

“

These people who are making a big deal out of gay marriage? I don’t give a fuck about who wants to get married to anybody else! Why not?! We’re making a big deal out of things we shouldn’t be making a deal out of.

They go on and on with all this bullshit about ‘sanctity’—don’t give me that sanctity crap! Just give everybody the chance to have the life they want.

”

- Clint Eastwood, The Leo Tapes

"Reading, after a certain age, diverts the mind too much from its creative pursuits. Any man who..."

Fri, 21 Oct 2011 21:17:34 +1100

“Reading, after a certain age, diverts the mind too much from its creative pursuits. Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking.”

- Albert Einstein

"I was a baseball player in school. I had a good arm, I could catch anything, but I was having..."

Wed, 19 Oct 2011 15:12:14 +1100

“I was a baseball player in school. I had a good arm, I could catch anything, but I was having trouble hitting. I would be like, ‘I wonder if I’ll hit it; just let me hit the ball.’ And then I went away for the fall, learned how to hit, and by my sophomore year I’d come to the plate and think, ‘I wonder where I want to hit the ball, to the left or right?’ Just that little bit of skill and confidence changed everything. Well, I had to treat acting like that. I had to stop going to auditions thinking, ‘Oh, I hope they like me.’ I had to go in thinking I was the answer to their problem. You could feel the difference in the room immediately.”

- George Clooney, What Drives George Clooney

"In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the..."

Fri, 14 Oct 2011 05:35:03 +1100

“In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing.”

- Theodore Roosevelt

"It is more important that innocence be protected than it is that guilt be punished, for guilt and..."

Sun, 09 Oct 2011 07:40:26 +1100

“It is more important that innocence be protected than it is that guilt be punished, for guilt and crimes are so frequent in this world that they cannot all be punished. But if innocence itself is brought to the bar and condemned, perhaps to die, then the citizen will say, “whether I do good or whether I do evil is immaterial, for innocence itself is no protection,” and if such an idea as that were to take hold in the mind of the citizen that would be the end of security whatsoever.”

- John Adams

"Don’t be sad because it’s over. Smile because it happened."

Fri, 07 Oct 2011 10:11:40 +1100

“Don’t be sad because it’s over. Smile because it happened.””

- Dr. Seuss

"I’ll always remember this as the night that Michael Jordan and I combined for 70 points."

Sun, 18 Sep 2011 06:01:35 +1000

““I’ll always remember this as the night that Michael Jordan and I combined for 70 points.””

- Chicago Bulls forward Stacey King, after a game in which Michael Jordan scored 69 points

"You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with."

Wed, 31 Aug 2011 20:14:52 +1000

““You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.””

- Jim Rohn

"It is more important that innocence be protected than it is that guilt be punished, for guilt and..."

Thu, 04 Aug 2011 08:31:01 +1000

““It is more important that innocence be protected than it is that guilt be punished, for guilt and crimes are so frequent in this world that they cannot all be punished. But if innocence itself is brought to the bar and condemned, perhaps to die, then the citizen will say, ‘whether I do good or whether I do evil is immaterial, for innocence itself is no protection,’ and if such an idea as that were to take hold in the mind of the citizen that would be the end of security whatsoever.””

- John Adams

“I close my eyes and think of all the things I...

Sun, 31 Jul 2011 21:19:45 +1000

“I close my eyes and think of all the things I don’t want. And visualise them rolling by, vacuum cleaners, 3D TVs, new hones and cars and hand bags, a near house in the suburbs. I think of how unhappy these things would make me and then I am free. If you don’t want these things they can never truly have you. Then I think of wood and I think of my bones as wood, something slow and put here a long time ago.”

"Why does the President live in the White House if he’s really representing each American out..."

Sat, 14 May 2011 12:08:44 +1000

““Why does the President live in the White House if he’s really representing each American out here? Why don’t he live in the motherfucking crack house and see how fast they clear up this drug epidemic. Or live in a hoe house and see how fast this AIDS shit get cleared up. Feel me? Or live in the motherfucking Section 8 and see how fast this welfare shit clear up.””

- Tupac Shakur