Long Nguyen

Sep 15 / 4:30pm

Anger made me create my own iPhone stand

I love anger. It's a great feeling, because it makes me creative and productive. No other feelings can make me as creative and productive as anger.

Today, I discovered the iPhone paper stand dock made by Julien Madérou and I got angry. I got angry because I didn't think of it. I originally wanted to reproduce it to use it myself, because I find his design very practical and simple, but I was too lazy to look for a knife to cut the paper properly. I'm also out of ink, so I can't print it.

Instead, I looked at objects around me to see if I could make my own iPhone stand without cutting anything. I saw some bookends that I wasn't using and I tried to somehow match them with my iPhone. I ended up folding two curves as you can see on the photo and my iPhone fits perfectly. What's great about this iPhone stand, in comparison with the paper version and even the real thing, is that I don't have to fear that it will fall off. I can lift it up violently and move it away without worrying that my phone would fall. I don't know why anyone would do that violently, but who knows what people do in this world.

This stand is also very cheap, you can buy bookends at the dollar store. As for folding, no precision is required, you can just fold using your bare hands.

Beware of anger. It can make you creative and productive, but it can also destroy. It's like alcohol, you can't let it control you.

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Filed under // Design Gadgets

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Sep 14 / 4:51pm

Which movies made you cry?

10 Movies Guys Should Admit Made Them Cry is an article that lists a bunch of movies in which... Well, you read the title. I just don't get it. For most of the movies in the list, I don't even think the most sensitive girl in the world would cry. In fact, I can't remember any American movie that ever made me cry. Wait, this isn't true, there's The Lord of the Rings when Frodo and Sam realized that they might never go home. Seriously, "home" is important. Think of what you consider your home, the place that is better than any other. Now, imagine you could never go back there.

Another movie that did make me cry way more that any other was Journey From the Fall.

This is a movie that made me realize that our lives have begun long before we were even born. It's all about history. It's all about where we come from. It's all about what and who we are willing to suffer for. It's about what we want to share with the world. There are only two movies that ever hit my heart and Journey From the Fall is one of them.

We can't really know where we're going until we know where we've been.

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Filed under // Movies

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Sep 7 / 6:13am

Birthday wishes on Facebook

You just wished your Facebook friend "Happy Birthday". Is it because a notice appeared on the front page or do you really care? If it's just because a notice appeared, why did you put the effort to click and type? It's meaningless.

If you really do care, again, why did you put the effort to click and type? I would think that if you really care about someone's birthday, you would put more effort into it. What's the matter? You don't have time to call? You don't have time to see them? However, you have time to put into Facebook? Ok... I've just identified you as the first one who will scream if Facebook blows up.

Just so you know, I have discovered gold mines, diamond mines and rainbows, simply by calling people to wish them happy birthday. It's easy, it's free (you already paid for it or will anyway), it's personal and it matters.

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Filed under // Life

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Aug 29 / 5:01am

Dream followed by nostalgia

I just woke up and the last dream I had was a terrible one. Actually, it was a beautiful dream full of beauty and happiness. What's terrible about it is that it wasn't real. It's a dream that reminded me of some great things that I can't have yet. It's not a fantasy dream, so it's one that has the potential of being real and like pretty much everything, hard work can very well bring a very desirable result and even more.

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Aug 18 / 10:43am

Movie: World's Greatest Dad (2009)

I watched this mainly for Robin Williams who plays Lance Clayton, a single father who dreams of being a famous writer and he gets his shot in a very unlikely manner.

If you are looking to take a break from all the special effects of recent movies, World's Greatest Dad is the right movie. It's almost like a teen movie, except the focus is on a father/teacher and it's also much smarter.

During the entire movie, I found myself thinking "This is messed up". My final thoughts were "Finally, he did it" and "Holy crap". The story is predictable, but I wanted to see it all play out.

On the acting level, Robin Williams has his usual charisma. He's as good in comedy as in drama. As for the other actors, they are just average.

Overall, I recommend this movie if you are looking for a nice mixture of comedy and drama.

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Filed under // Movies

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Jun 12 / 7:49am

La Nuit de la grenouille

La Nuit de la grenouille took place last week on June 4, 2009. The event served as a way to promote the French TV show in development, L'Année de la grenouille.

About two or three weeks before the event, Matchstick, a word-of-mouth marketing agency, approached me and offered me free Carlsberg beer. Who am I to say no to that? That's great beer and the timing was perfect. Carlsberg's tagline is "Probably the best beer in the world". I won't argue that.

I have never been part of an event like La Nuit de la grenouille. The show mixed the screening of four trailers, a popping dance show, a fashion show and a wushu demonstration. Photography and contemporary art were also exposed. A mixture like this has never been done before. How could it all blend together and create an entire show that is unified and makes sense? That's where the TV show comes in.

L'Année de la grenouille gathers all those type of arts through each unique character who had their own teaser and piece of the show adapted to their personality.

In the audience, there were dancers, photographers, producers, people who worked on the project as well as friends and family, and more. The room was full. The public response was insanely great.

The most popular comment was "I want more". The most negative comment was "That's it?" Ironically, I would consider that the most positive comment as well.

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Filed under // Life Montreal

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Jun 3 / 4:13am

I didn't see Long coming

I have been credited on a photo as Long. The first thought that came to my mind was "Oh crap, people will never find me with Long. It should be Longzero." It turns out that when you search for long on the .com version of Google, I'm only second at the time of this writing. There are 1,490,000,000 results for long and I'm second! I don't drop my jaw a lot, but it definitely dropped for this one. This is incredible! I can see myself becoming arrogant. Arrogance is such a natural response.

I should mention that it's still better to search for longzero on Google, since that will not only bring up my website, but also a list of social networks to which I have subscribed.

Now, my only question is what could possibly prompt people to search for long...

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May 21 / 6:12am

My to-do list

We all know what to-do lists look like. I was looking for an application that would synchronize on the web, on my computer and my iPhone. It turned out that stickies are what works for me. Orange is for project titles. Green is for tasks related to projects. Pink for life related insights.

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Filed under // Life

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May 6 / 10:02am

The most inspiring people on Flickr

When I saw the title of this article, The 5 Most Inspiring People on Flickr , I was only interested in one thing: Is Rebekka Guðleifsdóttir in the list? Why that name? Because I created her website, of course! I am totally biased. Not only is she in the list, but her name is the first one to appear.

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May 5 / 8:48am

You shouldn't care to call me at 3 A.M.

Some people don't call me late or early for fear that they will wake me up, but that fear is inapplicable since my sleep behavior is highly irregular. Sometimes, I sleep in the middle of the afternoon or the evening, so if you try to call then, you would be waking me up. I pretty much sleep at any hour of the day. Indeed, I usually sleep between 0:00 and 6:00, but it doesn't mean that I won't sleep again at 10:00 and again at 18:00. Irregularity keeps me functioning at any hour of the day. My sleep behavior is probably a reason why I don't get jet lagged.

The bottom line is that nobody should care about when they call me. I am more annoyed by people's hesitation than their calls.

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Filed under // Life

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