James Zhan in real life.
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.
Latest Posts
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
I just finished my first week going into office for three days due to my employer’s RTO (return-to-office) mandate, and it was as pointless and absurd as I had expected. You can read my opinion piece on why RTO is terrible for diversity...
Note: Since this post is about this blog’s design, I recommend reading this post on a desktop browser so you can see the new design. That said, it’s not mandatory as I’ve included screenshots. Thanks to my obsession over design and...
For my entire 20s, I hustled non-stop. Six years of that was studying full-time while working as an audio engineer and being in a metal band. Then, I freelanced full-time as an audio engineer—not only working with bands but also teaching...
Having shared why I quit professional audio engineering after 10 years in the industry, I feel like embarking on a nice nostalgia trip, unearthing some of the memories I hadn’t revisited for a very long time and sharing how I...
When was the last time you typed a quotation mark or an apostrophe? Most likely today, very possibly within the last hour. When was the last time you took a good look at them? I bet never1. I’ve been doing some copy-editing and...
This year (2025) marks my 10th year as a professional audio engineer, and it’s also the year I decided to officially retire from professional audio engineering work. My audio engineering stats, generated in June 2025 It’s been a long and...
When I first chose Bear Blog as my blogging platform, I didn’t realize that it had such a vibrant and wholesome community (discover other Bear Bloggers). I saw a Bear Blog carnival going on for Nov 2025 (hosted by Absurd Pirate) and I’m...
Preamble: The whole affair is Google’s fault and not Bear Blog’s. Huge thanks to Herman—Bear Blog’s founder and dev—for his patience and help. A month after I started my first Bear blog at blog.james-zhan.com, my blog was entirely...
I had been in such a creative rut this year. Last year, I published 11 videos on my YouTube channel. It may not seem like a lot, but I make videos on YouTube for fun as a creative, not for a living—it’s where I channel my creativity (pun...