James Zhan in real life.
James Zhan
Hi, I’m James, a full-time videographer and video editor at University of Toronto, a YouTuber, a former audio engineer of 10 years, and someone who majored in English and writing, loaded with opinions. This is my personal blog where I write opinion pieces, personal reflections and articles about rabbit holes I’ve gone down, and share what I’m currently up to.
August 2026
October 2026
Top Words
- coffee
- weeknotes
- august
- bear
- list
- signal
- same
- dash
- audio
- redesign
- apple
- display
All posts (39)
This post is part of Robert Birming’s JulyReply, a blog connecting event. I recently came across this post by Michael Harley: “Bloggers, can we make better titles for our posts?” I started writing a reply in the post’s comment section but it quickly became way longer than I’d thought it would, and I’d be too...
main ul.no-multiline > li, main ol.no-multiline > li { margin-bottom: 0; } My blog has a ton of lists, some of which contain only 1 line per item while others can have more than 1 line per item. I find that for the latter, the list quickly becomes a dense block of text and lacks a visual separation between each...
I published “Thank You, Canada” yesterday morning, on Canada Day, listing a bunch of things I appreciate Canada for, and the first thing on the list was universal healthcare. Well, 6 hours later—thanks to the forces unbeknownst to us—I certainly put this Canadian perk to the test as I found myself and my wife...
Last year, my citizenship ceremony just missed July 1 by a couple of weeks, so today is my first Canada Day as a Canadian citizen. I moved to Canada in 2013 and have since completed two postsecondary degrees, had three different careers, met and married the love of my life, and had many, many great life experiences....
To those reading this on an RSS reader: Since this post is about this blog’s design, I recommend reading it on a desktop browser so you can see the new design. That said, it’s not mandatory as I’ve included screenshots where I can. Blog post URL: https://journal.james-zhan.com/redesign-v4/ The tinkering never stops,...
Recently, a clip of a father berating his young son for not being able to speak Cantonese has been making rounds on the internet. Based on the video, both are native residents of Canton (Guangzhou), China—the origin of the Cantonese language, where Cantonese used to be the most commonly spoken language. A bit of...
One lesson I learned from the trip my wife and I made to Halifax, Canada, was that I absolutely didn’t enjoy having a huge, 41L backpack on me while walking around all day: It was heavy, hard to handle and very warm. So in preparation for our upcoming trip to Portugal, I went down a rabbit hole to find a sling bag...
When people discuss computer displays, they always talk about the refresh rate and LCD vs OLED. I understand that high refresh rates and true blacks are appealing for gaming and media consumption, but when it comes to colour grading for video and photo, those are irrelevant. Instead, things like colour accuracy and...
It’s been five years since I first got into specialty coffee, and I had just learned that you can have two different coffee grinders of equal calibre but produce drastically different flavour profiles in the cup (while all the other variables stay the same). It’s not a simple matter of grind size consistency as I...
Last week, I saw my boss use the Nespresso Inissia she kindly brought to the office to share, and let’s just say that before I even had a chance to feel stunned, she already had her steamy espresso in a cup. 30 seconds—that was how long it took from start to finish. Zero cleanup required, and you don’t even need to...
I discovered a coffee questionnaire on Online Goddess (originally from Syl’s blog), and I knew I had to participate! How can I not talk about coffee on my personal blog? I love coffee and I’m what some consider a “coffee snob”—I only brew light roast beans from high-end roasters, I make my own special coffee water...
It’s with a heavy heart that I’m writing this post. Yes, I’m just talking about app icons and yes, I’m being dramatic, but you have to understand that I care a great deal about design. I’ve always loved Apple’s design and that’s one of the main reasons I use Apple products. I even find macOS Tahoe’s Liquid...
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