Personal

One of the best pieces of art I have ever seen/heard/experienced. By RenMakesMusic.co.uk Thanks to Phil for sharing this with me.

Not much to say for this one… simply watch and enjoy.

Every now and then, I encounter something that’s the perfect combination of brilliant and ridiculous – this is one of those cases. Check the video below and you’ll understand the brilliant marketing at play. And it’s not fake!

Hi! Welcome to the new MattRefghi.com. To understand the significance behind this re-launch, I need to go back a bit into the past to explain how I got to this point.  Back in 2008, I discovered Jeff Atwood’s blog titled Coding Horror, a blog focused largely about software development. I was working as a web developer at the time, so naturally the topic was quite pertinent and interesting to me, as I was living the subject matter day to day. After following Jeff’s blog and being inspired by the quality of what he offered, in January 2009, I decided that I too would launch a blog. It started with technical posts, but since then, the content has diversified and I’ve … Read more

It’s been a while now that I’ve been observing the news, especially those written by Canadians outlets. And one thing that gets on my nerves from time to time is when I see articles written with a heavy Canadian bias in relation to world affairs. Consider a CBC article from today, as an example: “Canadians living in Florida are bracing for Hurricane Dorian as the monster storm pummels the Bahamas with catastrophic force.” Yes, let’s focus on the minority of Canadians bracing for impact rather than the massive numbers of Bahamians and Americans facing that same danger – that’s a great idea. The news of Hurricane Dorian makes me immediately concerned for everyone affected…. whether they are from the United … Read more

It’s fascinating how you start to see people differently when you have kids. And I say that loosely, as I haven’t exactly spawned minions of my own – my experience stems from fulfilling a stepfather role, years ago, which came quicker than I expected. I mean sure, I had certainly thought of a hypothetical future that might involve kids, but there’s no way I thought that would happen in my 20s. In my mind, I wasn’t yet good enough at managing multiple aspects of my life, such as my finances, certain aspects of my business, etc. It wasn’t that I was bad at these things, but more so, I didn’t feel I was good enough. It thus felt ridiculous to … Read more

So I’ll cut right to the chase on this one. On Friday the 10th of November, at 6:15 PM EST, I received an odd Facebook message from a friend, one that I’ll call Jane for the sake of this article. At first glance, just from the thumbnail, her message seemed like a risky thing to click on. Here’s what I saw: UPDATE December 7, 2022: I blurred the image quite a bit more. Now, I knew Jane pretty well, so I knew that she often said and did things that weren’t particularly appropriate – but it wasn’t a constant thing, it happened from time to time. So, even though the preview to this video concerned me, I reasoned that perhaps … Read more

On a particularly normal morning a few weeks ago, I was preparing to leave for work. I had a small pizza cooking in the oven, one that I planned to eat for lunch – it was not a standard small pizza, more reasonably-sized. When the timer rang, I opened the oven, took the platter out, and placed it on the top of the stove. I then tried to do my usual next step: lifting the pizza from the aluminum foil. To my surprise, on this day, the pizza was very much stuck to the aluminum foil, making for a complicated task – I had to separate the pizza from the foil without comprising the structural integrity of the crust underneath. Now, … Read more

Note: The following is a reading response that I wrote for my Mass Communications class, earlier this year. I’ve added photos, links, and formatting to make the content a little more readable online, but other than that, it is identical to the version I submitted. In “Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origins and Spread of Nationalism,” author Anderson (1991) explores the idea of a nation being both a political and sociological construct. In the first three chapters, he starts by defining nationalism in abstract terms, then proceeds to analyze its cultural roots, and finally, he reviews the changes in society that made a national consciousness possible. While reading the text, the concept of nationalism being “imagined” interested me. “It is imagined because the members of … Read more

One of the clients that I work for, Champlain College Saint-Lambert, recently posted the following notice on their blog (emphasis added): Champlain College Saint-Lambert will become a smoke and tobacco-free campus for all for employees, students, and visitors effective July 1st 2017. The use of all tobacco products is prohibited on campus properties, both indoor and outdoor, of the College including all buildings and grounds owned by the College. This policy applies to the parking lot as well as the front and side walkways. Tobacco is defined as any type of tobacco product including, but not limited to cigarettes, cigars, cigarillos, electronic cigarettes, smokeless or spit tobacco or snuff. For those who are interested in stopping their use of tobacco products please … Read more