I’ve always been a dreamer, filled with a seemingly endless list of one-days I have every intention of fulfilling. By now this should be abundantly clear. In fact, I have at least 43 at any given time, and I have spoken on many occasions about my achievements and ambitions. And since when has having a multitude of passions a bad thing?

However, not all dreams are created equally. I have a number of new years resolution-type goals that lend themselves to the day-to-day — they usually involve hygiene and habit — just as I have slew of professional aspirations that deal more with my “five-year plan” if you will, and I’ve even got a few ends-of-the-earth really out there fantasies that usually require I either sell all my possessions or purchase an entirely new set of narrowly specialised equipment. Placed somewhere between touching my toes and improving my ambidexterity, and perhaps a little closer to moving to Korea, lie a series of very serious dreams you probably didn’t know I harboured but are nonetheless among the more prevalent of my intentions.

I completely understand internet video, I totally get community journalism, and I am continually fascinated by New Media. If this weren’t already out of the ordinary, add to that a desire to be creative, an artist’s hobbies, and a production background and you’ve got a tight fit. More specifically, I’d like to produce multimedia content for new media outlets, partially because I believe in the movement and partially because it’s a growing and exciting field of opportunity, but mostly because I think my contributions could make it better.

Working in the video world (and given my education regarding digital convergence), I am always asked about YouTube. To be honest, my personal and professional opinion is that internet video is a great invention, it offers a superior distribution model for the user, and it presents a number of great opportunities that close the gap between producer and consumer (professional and amateur). But that gap will never close, because no one wants to watch cats on skateboards for more than 30 seconds. But the gap won’t widen either, because no one wants to watch what’s on TV for more than 30 seconds. New Media opens up this wonderful bridge between what the consumer creates and consumes. Yeah, there are 8 billion twitter bots out there trying to get you to click links, but there are also a lot of civilians and journalists out there covering the Iran election story and aftermath literally on the cutting edge, when no one else is. There are a ton of independent artists getting their legitimate and oft-impressive material out there. There are numerous organisations and enterprises that offer services and products simply because they’re good ideas, not solely because they’re profitable.

Essentially our society is content starved, and providing some niche coverage and entertainment that hits the mark but is still quality, content-valuable is where I seriously think media should be going. The average joe doesn’t have to control everything like Wikipedia’s model, but he can have his say. For example, I love what Current TV does, but I also dig what news stations are starting to do by including social input via Twitter and Facebook into their actual coverage. In fact, I’m so moved that I truly want to spend my energy developing multimedia content for the web and integrating new media into existing media outlets.

Related to my movement towards new media, I can already tell that I’m going to become seriously invested in blogging (okay, I already have, fine, I admit it). The motivation is the same; I’ll ready anyone’s blog that’s good, because I’m sick of combing through the New York Times for something I care about. I currently read voraciously, both books from my sister’s bookshelves and from my local library as well as via RSS feeds on just about every topic (personal development, nutrition, photoblogs, social satire, lots and lots of travel blogs, webcomics, book reviews, technology news, football statistics overseas, and just about anything else that tickles my fancy). Why can’t I be one of those blogs that contributes thoughtful posts into the blogworld? Why couldn’t I get paid to do this?

I’ve really only touched on the subject. Right now I run a hodgepodge blogstream of whatever I’m doing, thinking about, reading, listening to, eating, or travelling to next, and I like that I have a forum to indulge in my disparate interests, but I also know that sooner rather than later I will take off on more flashpacking adventures I can cover in depth as I get used to covering my life in such thorough detail. I write for me, for my own personal reasons because I enjoy writing, but I’m also open to the possibility that a flashpacking tour abroad (or even domestically) could become the sole subject here, and that my blogging and filmmaking and podcasting and photographing the events that transpire could very well be what finances such an excursion. I’m actually looking forward to the execution of the idea, a concept so alluring I’d call of it less of an passing fancy and more of a surprisingly realistic dream.

You have to know me pretty well personally to understand why wanting to speak four or more languages is not something to tease me about. You’d also have to know me very well to see why anyone so far past puberty could possibly keep trying to achieve such a difficult dream. While speaking a handful of languages fluently has a large number of benefits — high-profile and highly sought-after skills and global employability among them — my main motivation has more to do with my desire to increase my awareness. Mindfulness is a huge factor in my dreams, I’d say one of my core values really, and speaking several languages would not only help strengthen my self-discipline but would also allow me to communicate and connect with more of the world and to be more involved with where I am at present, which would afford me great travel opportunities and also allow me to travel off the beaten path on such opportunities. Plus, I secretly like learning new things, especially something as hard as a foreign language.

Since my time in Australia I have valued interpersonal relationships much more than I did prior, and am now driven by a whole new set of motives that encourage a shared process. It’s hard, no doubt, but learning languages forces you to interact with others, to commiserate as you try to overcome the language barrier, and step outside your comfort zone totally unsure if someone on the other side will meet you halfway. It’s daunting, but when you do connect, even just for a simple “thank you” or “it’s hot today” the experience is profoundly rewarding. You also gain insight into foreign cultures and garner a new perspective on your own life without having to get on an aeroplane to anywhere.

In the same vein, I would like to improve my musicianship and spend more time creating the kind of music I want to make. I have recently discovered I don’t want to go at it alone anymore because it deprives me of what a pleasure it is to collaborate. Playing bass is a good example of my musical sentiments; it’s fun to play the instrument, and even more enjoyable when you successfully master a new skillset, but that joy pales in comparison to playing the bass with others. It’s the harmony, the community, the balance, the ebb and flow; I’ve always found creativity to be a flow experience and while I’ve never had a problem making that magic happen by my lonesome, the experience is exponentially richer when others are involved. The dynamic changes and suddenly the result constitutes something much greater than the sum of its parts.

So not only do I want to share in making music (and to make more of it), but I also want to have a product I’m proud enough to share to the world. I’m currently stuck in this terrible gap where my output is far inferior to my tastes, but with some patience I can certainly make the instances coincide. I am so passionate about music, it is often difficult to hold it in and not shout it from the rooftops. Those of you close to me will know I make mixtapes more because have to and less because you want them, but since the conclusion of my radio show I’ve been desperate to share my tastes and discoveries with the general listening public again. What form this will take, even I cannot say, but I intend for it to happen in one way or another.

I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to satisfactorily explain my affinity for experiencing the root and the origin of all things, especially when it comes to eatables. I feel fairly grounded, that is to say well connected and aware of the surrounding world, especially of the natural order, and I have yet to satisfy the part of me that wants to be self-sufficient enough to grow my own vegetables, make my own cheese, and can my own pasta sauce.

It’s more than that. I want to spend at least one season being close to the earth, toiling in both the idyllic now-that-tastes-like-a-tomatoe romantic AND the dream-shattering back-pain realistic senses, seeing where coffee, or olives, or maple syrup, or whatever comes from, all the way from seed to snack, from till to table. Unfortunately, it is this desire that also moves me to fantasise about dropping everything for a five-year career-intensive apprenticeship to, I don’t know, forge a sword or make artisan cheese or perfect archery, for a variety of subjects I have next to no interest in turning into a career. Problematic, to say the least., but indulging my organic-obsession and culinary elitism by harvesting some precious good somewhere and throwing myself into manual labour would undoubtedly be a worthwhile experience.

On my plate: uncomplicated spaghetti and marinara sauce with fresh curly basil from the garden and hand-grated parmesan cheese

On my plate: to-die-for huevos rancheros from Rx in Philadelphia, PA

RIYL: New Young Pony Club, CSS, Yelle, The Lovemakers

Tempting as it is to recommend every track on the album, I’ll refrain simply because I’d hate for anyone to make light of how surprising Ladyhawke (aka: Pip Brown’s) debut album is. Much like the Michelle Pfeiffer classic of the same name, Ladyhawke is very ’80s-inspired, filled with all kinds of Phil Collins-approved beats and Alan Parsons-esque synths. Hell, “Another Runaway” could be a Buggle’s hit from a previous era.

Even more impressive is the standalone New Zealander’s multi-instrumental talents; Brown is at the true centre of the album, writing, arranging, and performing all songs on four different instruments in a series of incredibly consistent tracks. To be honest, I’m surprised it’s a debut, since Ladyhawke’s sound strikes me as well beyond solid, into the territory of actually well-established.

My only complaint is the lack of experimentation. Each song is steadfast and within whatever expectations Brown sets up with the first four tracks, but for someone so obviously talented I hoped to have my mind blown by the end of the album. Still, even I cannot deny I was left speechless by this find, and being a first stab released only a few short months ago, there’s plenty of room for improvement. Two surprised but willing thumbs up.

Recommended Tracks:

“Magic,” “Manipulating Woman,” and “Paris Is Burning”

On my plate: my sister decided to bake, so she made a brown sugar spice bundt cake with maple glaze

On my plate: oatmeal and dark chocolate cookies with dried cherries. Mmm…midnight baking

I get a lot of email. I get a lot of boring email (”let me explain the situation”), my inbox seems to attract daunting email (5-page calls to action), I regularly acquire worthless email (”improve your manhood by 4 inches!”), and I receive a fair amount of depressing email (generally bills). With all these unfortunate email types crowding my inbox, there isn’t much room for fun emails, or entertaining emails, or my favourite of all time, witty emails.

Do not confuse a witty email with a funny email, or with an interesting and engaging email, for the witty email exists in a world of its own. An email filled with wit exemplifies intelligence, humour, ease of life, and either endearing curmudgeonry or a level of sardonic skepticism I can entertain. A witty email contains no pictures and no links and does not begin with the characters “Fwd:” but nonetheless makes you stifle your laughter so as not to disturb your neighbours as you peruse the email text for every last morsel worth chuckling over. A witty email is something you show a good friend because it was too witty to keep to yourself. That’s a good witty email.

I doubt I’d like witty email senders if I didn’t already enjoy witty conversationalists, but I have so much more respect for ye who pens a cheeky email for a few reasons.

ONE it’s casually pithy, which says to me “I’m funny enough to be witty in passing” and I immediately want to make a coffee date with someone who is consistently comic enough to be free with their wit.

TWO a witty email instantly proves the sender has the long sought-after characteristic of banterability and a top-notch sense of humour, which also tells me they are an awesome human being. Don’t you wish every time you sent an email the recipient decided you were cool instead of micro-managing, or irritating, or even heart-felt?

THREE making someone laugh in person with a good story is one thing, but making comedy translate without intonation, gestures, or context is a much more difficult task. Someone who successfully writes a witty email is not only smart enough to use language so fitting it cannot be misconstrued, but is also truly and at their core witty. They are not just a witty presenter of information, but a witty synthesiser. And I have a lot of respect for witty synethesis.

FOUR a witty email is a tiny reminder that things can and sometimes do shake down right. Sometimes our fellows say the perfect thing at the optimal time, and hearing a refined funnybone on the other end of the line can be a highly reassuring thing that is as rare as it is rewarding.

FIVE a witty email is refreshing. It’s smart, it’s funny, it’s good. I don’t know about you, but amidst all that spam, items I now have to add to my calendar or to-do list, and endless chains of replies to a mass email, it’s nice to find something succinct, perfectly timed, and…well…witty.

Related Things I Hate: email forwards that make ridiculous requests such as, “email this to 14 people or…”

Not all of us can be early risers. My inability to function this side of sunrise has been attributed to laziness, anemia, and any number of cultural ills by many of my peers, but to preference by no one but those of us that can be found pounding away at laptops in 24-hour coffee shops. Am I any less of a person because I prefer darkness, stillness, the complete absence of the normal hubbub usually found at common locales such as supermarket queues, post office queues, bus queues, and all the other institutions without neon marquees? Certainly not. To claim so would be presumptuous, for while you early birds are catching your worms, we night owls are romping in a playground of our very own.

There’s something alluring about the wee hours of the night and subsequent morning, and while I’m not sure whether I can attribute my affinity for this in-between space to the rarity with which I get to witness it, or to the contrast it provides to the normal daytime spectrum, but one thing is for certain: I am a night person. I’m more than happy to explain to you why 23:00-03:00 are my most productive hours, or why I feel most creative after being out in an empty world, but I don’t think I could paint a picture detailed enough to encompass all the night has to offer. My nighttime adventures in Los Angeles were more of an above-the-table dealmaking I took head on with the metropolis, while my escapades in Tokyo were of an entirely embracing nature. Maybe it is a mark of my urbanity, of the youth culture that still defines my generation, but maybe every place really is different by night.

For example, It is no secret I was at odds with Los Angeles for the entirety of my life there, but it was during my last six months that I came to peace with the city. How did I abate my biggest frustrations (traffic, lack of cultural density, difficulty of life)? I only went out at night. To my surprise, while I despised LA by day, I found I loved it by night. Tons of streets open to my whims, beautiful vistas at Griffith Park and Downtown and Topaga Canyon for me and seemingly me alone, and a few hard-fought late-night spots that, though were not nearly enough to hold me in the long-term, made the short-term more than enjoyable. Sure I couldn’t have gone to the mall, but I ate more late-night noodles than I can remember and I had the most engaging of conversations over coffee and pie, and I did not once miss the masses of cars and movie posters and sign spinners. I did not once miss someone telling me “you don’t like ???” or “get out of the way!” and instead spent my early mornings relaxing at one of the many 24-hour Korean spas the city had to offer, or reading in my hammock while the evening breeze rocked me back and forth.

Even in Houston I always opted to walk home late at night, and to order that second cup of coffee since there was no rush, and to spend my hours being creative until my alarm went off and it was time to resume a conventional life. In Brisbane I always waited for the last bus before sprinting from the panorama at South Bank so I could ride across the river, where the reflection gave me double the lights and even at home, enjoying my felafel I could not shake the image from my brain. And in all the cities I have made my home, I did not once miss normal business hours.

Of course if all services were to switch their posted hours of operation that would go and ruin half the fun, for while yes the allure of night is to me tranquil, night can take on a number of other adjectives that suggest something other than peace and quiet — raucous, rowdy, wild, dangerous, terrifying, inconvenient, eerie — in fact living in the witching hours is often associated with the faced-paced, nonstop, semi-gritty life of the ultra-urban, when even in acclaimed “never sleeping” cities the majority of people active at 3:00 are lone wolves, content to journal, embark on late night bicycle jaunts, and explore convenience stores and ethnic restaurants alike. Yes, shocking though it may be, being a night person does not mean you are a raving partygoer. More often than not, it means you like your independence, you like your space, you like your freedom.

Of course that freedom is limited, and not by your roommate’s confusion as to why anyone would think midnight is a perfect hour to take a walk that isn’t doing a drug deal, let alone someone they get on with. The best part of the solo-pilot philosophy is also the most difficult to get around edgewise; it’s tricky when every normal institution mandates you to be present during waking hours: any job that isn’t dead-end, anything that requires and appointment, and most places with a teller. There have been many a person who has opted to give up sleep entirely, whether by choice, as part of some Tesla-esque experiment, or by an unfortunate turn of fate. They will be the first to inform you of the perils of not sleeping: the unbridled stretches of boredom, the inability to normally communicate with the general populous, the free floating chemicals produced by a significant offset in your circadian rhythms, and the occasionally strongly disheartening isolation. But before you decide you can never see the light (or rather, give up the light), don’t forget to look at the other side of the coin.

At the same time the freedom afforded by living off the punch-clock is limitless. The experimenters and insomnia afflicted will also be the first to tell you of late-night’s joys: time that is never crunched, a restructuring of social norms (things like deadlines and identity are completely different), finally getting that moment of perfect harmony, the previously undiscovered and untainted beauty of a skyline lit up at night, of a silent park, of discovering sunlight never leaves the sky altogether, of newfound friendships, of that perfect rooftop sunrise, of a hot bowl of noodles putting the punctuation on an endless string of diner options, of intensely bonding revelry, of transient writing, of successful tinkering, of feeling like you are no one and everyone in the world all at once.

And if you are lucky enough to live in a Sydney, a London, a New York, a Tokyo, somewhere the day is 8 hours longer than 24, somewhere with a night bus or an all-night F train, somewhere you can get more than a kebab at 4am, you will discover that glorious habit the sun has, where it will always rise again. For those of us more nocturnal than diurnal, we are no different. We simply trade our sunsets for sunrises, and spend the last hours of our day people watching, witnessing the worker bees come out of the woodwork and do their duties well before the early morning joggers take to the streets. We get to see the clouds clear and the tops of the trees lit, and though we may fall asleep to the sounds of the morning birds, we wake up to the light of fireflies. Perhaps we are trapped by our instance on said hours of consciousness, but then again, so are you.

RIYL: Obi Best, Belle & Sebastian, Feist, Frou Frou, Lilly Allen

The Bird and the Bee have to be some of the most prolific musicians I’ve ever encountered. For a super group with two successful and independent careers (Greg Kurstin is a widely renowned multi-instrumentalist in the California area while Inara George has an Imogen Heap-size, seriously loyal following including the likes of big name backers like Sia), it’s downright astounding they have two full-length albums and two four-track EPs since their first release in January 2007. Four albums in a two year period and I have yet to be disappointed with the quality of anything The Bird and the Bee has written, covered, or revised.

There’s something terribly addictive about George’s breathy, mature voice that is both haunting and refreshing. She’s mastered the slow song, carrying you through “Ray Gun” with heartbreaking tones just as she did with “I’m A Broken Heart” way back in their first album. Ray Guns Are Not Just the Future will give you just the same sort of flavours the duo are famous for, but with an added level of maturity. Their sound has been coined, reaching its full potential in this latest release, and even managing that same tongue-in-cheek touch and throwback fetish with songs like “Diamond Dave” (which, according to Eric Ambler, “might be the world’s sweetest ode to the famously lecherous Van Halen frontman”) and the old-timey “You’re a Cad.”

Of course there’s a little less anger in Ray Guns Are Not Just the Future (instead of “would you be my fucking boyfriend” you get “would you please clap your hands”), but then again, The Bird and the Bee work best as a twosome in spats and flowery dresses covering “The Way to San Jose,” not a sweaty, mosh-worthy hair band. The song structures are the same — upbeat and pleasant backgrounds with lilting vocals that can really only be described as fun and just plain nice — but Kurstin manages to beef up the backgrounds from catchy synth melodies to full blown orchestrations that take tracks like “Love Letter to Japan” to entirely new territory. So, in short, if you aren’t already behind The Bird and the Bee, let Ray Guns Are Not Just the Future be the album that gets you there.

Recommended Tracks:

“Diamond Dave,” “Ray Gun,” “Love Letter to Japan,” and “Witch”

On my plate: kitchen shelves in my new apartment