The Audio Blog of Steven Sirski

It’s the 30th! Did you know this year is a leap year? We get an extra day in February. Chinese stonks stalled, or simply falling? New restrictions on short selling. Jamuary wrapping up February filming- maybe I could do something else? STVSKRSKI looking to branch this out. Offer sample packs with every purchase?? Newsletter never did finish as I got looking into live DJing. Show notes n tracks up...

Cookies pies and payday! Sore throat, hope it’s not serious! Lunchtime run on the treadmill cause it’s too smoggy. Four kilometres in about 40 min. Did do some light weights after work but was also busy creating a… …Notion Calendar! Neat little program. Free, with a paid version too. Already I can see how it’s a useful tool. All can be done on Google online apps too, but I’ve heard a lot of people...

Last Friday of January! Still work tomorrow. Eeesh, a little uninspired with the Jamuary tracks as of late. But looking forward to the next challenge. Workouts in! 6.5km with all the dipsie doodads as per usual: every round included 10 pull ups, 20 push ups, 30 squats and 20 lunges. Of course, some heavy kbell lifts after work as well. COVID and flu, is it coming back? Not likely. Though my throat...

Looks like I’m at least a little bit right on the Chinese market moves. But don’t take my word for it, do your own due diligence and talk to your own financial advisor before doing anything! Automation in the works! Spent the evening trying out a few things and made some progress. It’s becoming more comfortable but I certainly have a long way to go. When does it end? Spent some time going through...

And they came through! SkyRemit with the remittance to the Canada! $84 deposited… roughly how much I lost on the conversion. So what happened? Account number was a mix of the transit number, leading zero, and the account number. I had never seen that before NOR was it on the bank transfer info I had sent them. NOWHERE! Chinese stonks! Where will they go this year?? 宁德时代 (300750) looks like it’...

Newsletter out! https://stevensirski.substack.com/p/a-banking-fiasco Automation - is it worth it or is it just a distraction? Automator, Keyboard Maestro, Shortcuts. Am I just distracting myself?? Chinese listening continues. Two hours is getting easier to fit in, but there is always a battle between extensive listening for language learning purposes and informational listening from English podcas...

Hot pot and cycling A theatre play 故宫博物院大型沉浸式家 角端 庭音乐剧《甪端》 - The Forbidden City Large Scale Immersive Family Spectacle “Lu Duan” - A story about the end caps and other figurines on display at the Forbidden City. (In today's episode I say "Jue Duan" but that is incorrect. The name of the play is Luduan which is a mythical creature that is able to detect the truth....

Money is back! Count your blessings! Whatever did go wrong? Would you try again?!  But be careful how you treat people online, they may just live in your building! Or was that just the neighbour’s son who I’ve met before? I think I need a plumber… sink is plugged again.  Workouts in! 7kms in 1hr 10 min, cause I was running slow and doing all the other add ins I do. Push ups, pull ups, lunges, squa...

Finally time to think! Automation! Got more working… though not exactly the way I want it to. Cleaning downloads. Still using Automator though I know there are other programs that can do this, ie Hazel and Keyboard Maestro. And finally setting up a Time Machine… backup. Organized coins! Have you ever done this?? Collected a bunch of old coins from the travels and finally put them into a binder. Sa...

That’s what it feels like to have a few days off… GUILT-FREE! Workouts in! Lunch time run on the treadmill 5.17km in 45 min, followed by an after work workout of some light and slow lifts. End of one booklet, the beginning of another… how to choose which new booklet to start? More automation! Pixelmator and Shortcuts APP on Apple products. Want to add text to photos as that would simplify my workf...

Go to your happy place. Nifty Notes export script for Mac users: https://macmost.com/export-all-of-the-notes-on-your-mac-using-a-script.html Also looking to build up a method to email my posts to my website.  How is your Chinese listening going? More of CyberPink, 不明白, Stochastic Volatility. Jamuary continues! More tracks uploaded. Will have a couple of days off this week so hopefully can get a...

New week new me!? No, not at all! Whisky tasting! Aiyamaya, do NOT need to do that too often! -Ardbeg Wee Beastie -Ardbeg An Oa -Ardbeg Ten Year -The Balvenie 15 year (Madeira Cask) -Laphroaig Four Oak -Jura 14 tear -Talisker Fort Ruighe -Islay Mist -Aberfeldy -Johnnie Walker Red Label (mixed with Stone’s Original Ginger) Managed to get a 7km run in beforehand, today too ran 6.5km in 39 minutes. S...

Must be getting close to remitting money to Canada because…. fkg lost it today! Confirm your account they say! Canada bank says we can provide you with the account info in a PDF doc please provide an email! And back and forth it goes and where my money is… everybody knows: not in either my monetary deposit banks. Must’ve taken something out of me cause lunch time run was sloooooow. Also in pain. F...

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,...

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

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...