Tag: blog

Personal style choices

Taylor BurianLeave a comment

Why do you dress the way that you do?

a reddit thread from a deleted user

My choices of clothing aren’t anything wild, and I don’t dress in any stylish fashion belonging to a specific group like goth, punk, emo, or country (or some mix of two, as I’ve seen before on Instagram). I’m primarily a t-shirts and shorts/jeans kind of guy, with the exception of when I go into the office where I typically wear polo’s and black slacks.

As for WHY I dress the way that I do? Well, I don’t feel the need to put in an exceptional amount of effort into what I wear. I want to be comfortable in what I’m wearing, and I want to be able to just throw something on and go without worrying if it looks good. Again, exception being for work because it is a casual business office environment. However, I still follow a similar philosophy there, because I make sure that when I buy a polo to add to the rotation, I pick a color that will go with the black slacks. I do have some other pants options these days, though, since they backed off the restrictions a bit in our office. I can wear jeans, so I have picked out some polo’s that I can now wear with a couple of my pairs of jeans and a pair of brown/khaki slacks (which I found a hole in the other day, and they are now out of commission until I find a suitable replacement).

So, yeah, nothing crazy in my wardrobe. I just like being comfortable and looking okay enough to not stand out (for better or worse).

Late 2024 Podcast choices

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Daily writing prompt
What podcasts are you listening to?
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The last time this question came around, I had a list of a handful of podcasts that I had been listening to up to that point. Unfortunately, I’ve backed off of that list. I just haven’t made a lot of time to listen to them. I’ll still go through a couple items, though.

First off, the Writing Excuses podcast is something I still occasionally listen to, and I even made my own playlist (click here if you’re interested in learning about what they call the Elemental Genres) for one of the particular years that had structured content. I go back from time to time and listen to this subset of their content because I find it fascinating how they deconstructed stories into easily identifiable themes/genres. Each listen through I’m either learning something new/connecting new dots or I’m being reminded of something that I should go back and check in my own writing.

The other podcasts in the 2023 posts have fallen off substantially in my routine. Instead, I’ve ended up listening to a lot of D&D Live Play content this year. Particularly Legends of Avantris when I’m working on my painting/printing projects. They’re an absolutely hilarious group that I discovered through animated scenes that get shared in Reels or Shorts.

I should probably go back and look through the rest of the podcasts I used to listen to and maybe see about working them into my listening routine again. We’ll see, though, because there is only so much time in the day.

My life post pandemic

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Daily writing prompt
How have you adapted to the changes brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic?
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I’ve talked about it before multiple times but only really as brief mentions for other topics.

The way I adapted to live during and after the pandemic.

During the pandemic, I ordered a LOT of food through DoorDash and Grubhub. An embarrassing amount, considering I was basically confined to the house and could have cooked my meals anytime I wanted. Afterwards, when restrictions lifted and I was going back into the office nearly everyday, I try to avoid that and remind myself of just how much money I could be saving by not using those apps, but I still do use them on occasion. It’s nice to be able to have something delivered to the office (on very rare occasions) when I know I’m going to have a busy day full of meetings. It’s also nice to use those apps purely for reference too! I can pull them up, see nearly every restaurant near me, and check what hours and menus are for each. Then I can either order for pick up or remind myself I’m not really THAT hungry to warrant ordering out. The cost of convenience is not really worth it anymore.

Technology and the home work setup changed during and after the pandemic in a way I never really thought I would feel okay with accepting. I need my separate spaces for work and home. During the pandemic this sucked because I basically lived in my bedroom for 20+ hours a day. Work, eat, play, sleep. At the time, I built a room divider to help separate my bedroom into sleeping area and gaming/working area. (It’s just a 4×8 sheet of wood cut to a 4×7 shape with a cube storage shelf screwed onto it for stability and organization.) After the pandemic was more or less ended, I moved my computer setup back into the basement along with the room divider so that I could kind of shut it off from the rest of the basement for some privacy and to serve as a backdrop for when I was streaming.

Before the pandemic hit and everything shut down, I used to go to Walmart and other late night stores all the time. 2:00AM and can’t sleep? Walk around Walmart and do some light shopping. Although technically I did that a lot anyway because I enjoyed the peace and quiet of shopping when nobody else was around. Now I can’t really do that, unless I wanted to spend time at gas stations that are open 24/7. I’ve had to adapt to the idea that I’ll just have to be quick and methodical about my grocery shopping excursions and plan them as best I can at times of the day when the crowds are lightest. That usually means early mornings are an hour or two before close.

I’m sure there are probably some other ways I’ve adapted to life post-pandemic but if I can’t think of them off the top of my head they probably aren’t as broad or significant as the things I mentioned above. Oh well, life changes all the time and I’m sure I’ll have to adapt to new things again in the near future.

One word of many

Taylor BurianLeave a comment

What is one word that describes you?

I’m glad this prompt doesn’t say “what is the one word that describes you?” One word alone is not enough to describe a person in their entirety, and someone might choose a different word to describe you versus the one you choose for yourself. Which is precisely what happened in a Leader Outing I was part of a long time ago when I worked for the “Big Red Circles” store.

I was a new Team Leader for the overnight shift, and at some point we did a group activity outing to a pottery store where we all got to paint our own mugs. The activity also included us passing our mugs around to have each person write a word or two that comes to mind when thinking about the original owner of each mug.

So, pick a word! Except “Hi”, the gaming controller, and the upside down surprised face for obvious reasons.

I’d like to think that all of these still apply, except for “puppy” because I never had one (it’s my roommates dog.)

Fate and a Universal Destiny

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Daily writing prompt
Do you believe in fate/destiny?
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I’m not a religious individual, so this post won’t be laced with theological philosophy or anything of the sort.

But when it comes to fate and/or destiny, I do have a perspective on it that I feel is worth sharing because I don’t know that many people at all think in this way.

Under the preconceived ideas of Fate and Destiny (with the capital letters) being some grand predetermined order of events that are guaranteed to happen regardless of anyone else’s desires, I don’t believe in that. I’m not fond of the idea of a “higher being” having that kind of absolute control (for reasons I won’t go into just yet.) I DO believe that you could consider there to be some aspect of fate/destiny that is outside of our control on an individual level.

Everything we do every day of our lives has impact or meaning, whether we think so or not. I’m not talking about the scale of something like “the butterfly effect” but it is similar. Every decision you make, conscious or not, changes the world around you, and therefore, the world around everyone else. The same is true in reverse, and so it goes on back and forth like that forever. It’s impossible to know every little detail of what kind of chain reaction you can cause by slamming on your brakes or slicing that golf shot really bad despite knowing you are off your game today. Every choice. Cause and effect.

If you understand the idea behind all of that, then you have some idea of where I’m going with this. There IS some kind of destiny or fate to this world based purely on the fact that SOMETHING happens SOMEWHERE because of something else that happened. It doesn’t matter if you can think one step ahead or twenty on what possible things can happen, but if you can imagine it happening then it likely will happen that way if you follow through on that initial choice.

So, with that in mind, take a moment to think about the things you do. The things that other people around you do every day. Which direction the influence goes. Throw that out the window, because in the grand scheme of the Universe none of it mattered because things “happen for a reason” and you can’t fully control everything in your life.

Don’t think too hard about it, just live your life and be kind in the process. Even if you aren’t thinking about it, whatever small kindness you provide can go a long way and it very likely cost you nothing. You can put that kindness into the world and help change its destiny (or not because something someone else did might cancel it out, but you can live with the knowledge that you did good and put that into the world.)

Just be kind, and fate/destiny will unfold as it will regardless.

One gift of many

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Share one of the best gifts you’ve ever received.

I struggled to come up with a solid example for this prompt. My mind kept thinking “the best” and not “one of the best” which threw me off.

Since it doesn’t have to be the absolute BEST gift I ever received, I think I can manage.

To establish some context, my younger brother and his family have an orange cat named Paul. I am one of Paul’s favorite humans. Over the last several years he has taken to jumping from the ground up to my shoulders where he will perch for a long time, sometimes even just laying across my shoulders and sleeping.

This past Christmas I received a very amusing and thoughtful gift from my older brother. He found one of those neck pillows that was designed to look like an orange cat, and relatively close to looking like Paul.

When I pulled it out of the gift wrapping it only took me a second to realize exactly what it was I was looking at before I burst out laughing. This got everyone else to look at the neck pillow in my hands and they, too, quickly realized what it signified. So I put it around my neck and wore it the rest of the day. 

Suffice to say, Paul was jealous. I tried to put him on the pillow to see what he would do and he didn’t seem too thrilled.

When I came back the next day, he was very happy and possessive of my shoulders.

Truly, one of the best gifts I ever received.

Bloganuary 6th: Billboards?

Taylor BurianLeave a comment
Daily writing prompt
If you had a freeway billboard, what would it say?
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With all of the prompts I’ve been answering the last few months, I can definitely say I had not been expecting this one. Not that it’s a wildly different or shocking prompt, comparatively, but just not something I was completely expecting at this point with the general trend of all the previous prompts.

Driving around my city, going to work, maybe going shopping or just getting something to eat, I’ve seen a wide variety of billboards. Some of them are the old style where it is one massive picture and it could be up there for months or even years, but I’ve seen more and more of the digital ones being put up or replacing the old ones. This is a big deal to me when thinking about today’s prompt because duration could play a part in what I would like to have plastered on a massive wall of pure advertisement for the world to see. Since the question is about a freeway billboard, I imagine the duration would be limited to months unless I had a special contract, so I’ll operate under that pretense. Just a couple months of ad space hanging where tens of thousands of people can see it regularly. But what to put on it?

So many choices! I could make it serious, or funny. I could try to just spread a good message to brighten someone’s day, or call out something important that I think the world should be know. Or I could just make it a shameless plug for my content, although that carries some risks. I could plug my Twitch channel (that I rarely use anymore but might return to someday), but then I have to be cautious of people recognizing my face in public or at work. HR might have a field day. The same could be said for if I were to get a novel published and I wanted to use billboard space as part of an ad campaign. I’d have to be ready for the potential consequences. Maybe I should just opt for something funny or inspiring. Oh! I had an idea. Something to really mess with people.

What if my billboard was one of those “Find X differences” images that I used to see on social media, but instead of putting up two nearly identical images with minor changes they’re just both the same image? I wonder how many people would get pissed off.