The Audio Blog of Steven Sirski

Is this what peace is? Is this what a “normal” life is? How could this change? Work has slowed considerably. Elections in Taiwan… maybe that’s why the internet connections are slow. Chinese markets: Mainland vs outside - watching FXI ETF that contains a lot of the big names here on the Mainland (but trade in Hong Kong). Chinese language challenge, another 1.5 hours done or so. Listened to this Cro...

End of an era! No more dog meat in South Korea after 2027 https://www.wsj.com/world/asia/dog-meat-will-be-off-the-menu-in-south-korea-3ec5b05f?mod=itp_wsj,djemITP_h Where are all the babies? https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-population-births-decline-womens-rights-5af9937b? TWO or THREE walks today? Why??? Cause I fell asleep after dinner last night! Woke up at midnight! Workouts in! 7.42km in 47...

GuoBaoRiu for dinner! ShuangJingXuan - but we ordered waaaay too much! Only THREE dishes and the gupbaoriu (which the restaurant is famous for) took half an hour to prepare. By the time it arrived, we weren’t hungry any more! Ended up taking a lot home with us. Tweaked the shoulder, so now I gotta figure out how to rehab that. Lots of old podcasts now posted on YouTube, go subscribe to the new cha...

Spent much of the day working on the big podcast, using Repurpose to make backups and publish to YouTube! Jamuary continues with tracks updated. Trying to set up the Native Instruments Komplete Kontrol board. Thinking of music licensing ideas, airbit.com , audiojungle.com . Creamfields Hong Kong already announcing presale! Should I go again this year?? Workouts in but was a bit slower today. I’m c...

In memory of my Father, Andy Sirski. Вічная пам'ять! WTF is Obsidian?? I’ve come across it before and this seems to be part of the new method of note taking, along with Notion. I know some language learners use it but I never have. Key part of the program is its ability to store everything as text files so you don’t lose them. Workouts in, 6km at lunch complete with pull ups, pushups, squats, and...

Books I can read! Hahaha!… but do I still have the time? Working on Episode 43! Coming together! Jamuary… wow there are a lot of projects going on! How is building everything up going? Learning email marketing, content creation workflow, different tools. I have a target of 140 hours and I’ve only done about 18 hours of research. I’m tracking everything on a spreadsheet so I can also remember what...

How’s that for an intro?! AI tools are making things look cool! Spent some time going through new tools. Botpress… AI chatbots made easy! Haven’t really figured out the costs just yet but it looks very promising. ElevenLabs - AI voice, like Speechify but cheaper. Tried out batch creating with ChatGPT+Canva. Essentially you could create a decent channel for $210: ChatCGPT, Canva and an AI voice gen...

The story of 15 years of travel. South Korea Poland Ukraine Australia Montreal China ESL teacher  Farm hand Warehouse worker Wannabe musician What could possibly be next? Show notes n tracks up on my website stevensirski.com --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/stevensirski/message

Back in the Jing! New Year New Me New You??  Newsletter out! What did we do? I fell asleep!  How was the rest of Guangzhou? Relaxed, search for youtiao, rainy, went to the museum (free). To the airport and wow is travelling with carry on only great. Much better and efficient than Daxing. Looking forward to 2024! What are your plans?? Show notes n tracks up on stevensirski.com Don’t forget to check...

End of December already! New Year’s weekend! Slow day, smoggy day, T-shirt day! Breakfast at TaoTaoJu, another famous name brand here. Had similar foods as yesterday but I think I’d give the edge to Dian Du De. -Youtiao were similar, but we had leftovers so TaoTaoJu’s youtiao was okay to eat later on -shrimp dumplings (XiaJiaoHuang) were better at DianDuDe -HongMiChang were better at DianDuDe -cre...

Breakfast dian du de 点都德, a famous restaurant. Pretty good and we ate our fill for most of the day Ming Ji (Ming Kee) Chang fen 明记 for dinner, another famous place Snacks in between, included several pastry shops and a gelati shop Walk around XiGuan district Bruce Lee’s parent’s home… HE NEVER LIVED THERE! -he had his sweat glands removed! -conspiracy theories about his death but it may be th...

And then we went to Guangzhou! Trying out a bit of a different set up for this recording as I didn’t bring my iPad or big microphone. Daxing airport First impressions - big, air is more damp, LOTS of people, especially at the interchange Tiyu Xilu. The apartment we’re staying in is like the AirBnb version of apartments: private rental done through a company. Used Fliggy to find it. Smoggy, just li...

Boxing Day, how does it go? I still worked. Spent much of the day rewriting the newsletter, reflecting on Christmas as an expat. Christmas songs, was trying to do a few traditional Ukrainian songs for December Drumming but my keyboard skills are that good. Got a bunch of other tracks done but stuck on 23rd and 24th. -“There are two distinct groups of Ukrainian Christmas music. Koljadky (Ukrainian...

It’s Christmas! Have you ever seen the end of the NORAD Santa tracker? I finally did! Trying out this web-based program called Repurpose, will help distribute content to multiple platforms. This is exactly what I was thinking of trying to build on my own. Looks very useful. Taking a few days off at the end of the week so I can spend some time on a few projects and possibly get out of town for a bi...

What was thaaat??! Working on Episode 43, may have to release it next week. They say work will lighten up next month, we’ll see about that. Keep in mind, Spring Festival begins February 9th.  Workouts in, cold! And barely moving! 5.74km in 41.52, barely got through any pull ups or anything else. Did get through the weights at the end of the day.  I tend to do full body workouts, but I have been th...

Winter Solstice! Shortest day of the year! Did you do anything? I worked! December Drumming tracks coming along, trying out a few things, but staying mostly digital. Santa Claus Rally, what is it and why does it matter? -Joined by First Five Days, January Barometer (aka January Effect) -Careful about the percentages! If it moves 80% of the time, how much does it move? One percent? How much does th...

More cold! Schools closing! “Cities including Jiangsu's Nanjing, Changzhou and Zhenjiang, as well as Anhui's Lu'an, Wuhu and Chuzhou all have suspended classes or implemented flexible school hours” “A 6.2-magnitude earthquake struck Jishishan county in Linxia Hui Autonomous Prefecture of Northwest China’s Gansu Province on Monday midnight” Workouts in! 6.5km at lunch in 43.32. Avg 6min 30 sec pace...

Cold and snow! Longest it’s been like this since I arrived. Babies being born, new China boom? Newsletter in the works. Or is this just a blog by another name? Need to hedge this output. Episode 43 has been tough to get around to cause of all these other projects. How do I make my life easier in 2024? What tools can I use? What plan do I have? And yes, there is a plan behind this. Reading the Powe...

A week till Christmas and three days till Solstice! Half way through the month already? Still cold outside Workouts in: -6.65km in 38.02 -Sunday’s run was 8.98km in 57.17 -After work workout today: mostly 14kg kbells -tomorrow should be mace swings Article on running: can you get faster or at least maintain your speed as you get older? https://www.runnersworld.com/advanced/a20848096/age-matters-fo...

End of the week Workouts in, lunchtime was a bit cold, need to roll out the back December Drumming continues at skrskimuzik.bandcamp.com Would you trust someone who’s trying to do a lot of different things, or would you pref someone be a specialist? Nine, twelve, seventeen income streams , however many it is just how easily is it to generate them? And what is the reality of earning money through Y...

Still snowing! Is this a Beijing blizzard?? Getting a bit cold to be reviewing characters outside. And the Powell pop! Oil, gold n everything bounces on the word that US interest rates will be cut in March! What is the Fed? What are interest rates? What is inflation? Some books to read: William J. O’Neil’s How to Make Money in Stocks Gerald Loeb Battle for Investment Survival  Story time: Reminisc...

More snow! And cold! Workouts in! 5.95km within 36 min 55 sec. Not much time for anything else at lunch so another after work workout with kbells n clubs. Trying out Trello for organizing podcast workflow, probably something I should have done before. I used to do this on paper so I’m not sure how much this will affect things. Watching Billions, a show about a billionaire hedge fund manager. These...

Feeling far better! Newsletter out! All about expats leaving. Thinking, going forward, how else could I change up some things and make them better? Make my life easier? I did not know you could import CSVs into Canva! What else am I doing wrong?! Oil down! Getting trounced! Tax loss selling and oftentimes one of best times to get in. Do your own research! December Drumming continues… keeping it si...

感冒了Sick, like flu but not too serious, down throughout Sunday, Is it the new coov? JN.1 taking over from BA.62.whatever. Newsletter written, will send out tomorrow. Not much of a newsletter, more of an extension of things that are innit? December Drumming tracks are up! http://skrskimuzik.bandcamp.com We got snow! Doesn’t happen often! Keeping motivated: why do you do the things you do? New wee...

More about NAC https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/nac-benefits#TOC_TITLE_HDR_10 Life speeds up over 40? Is it true? Reading recommendations…Chinese books The Wedding Party - Liu Xinwu Strange Beasts of China - Yan Ge China in Ten Words - Yue Hua And of course books by Peter Hessler SMOG causing breathing issues! Come to Beijing! Come to China! Visa free for Singapore and many other countries! No...