Expand that circle

How can you expect to better develop yourself if you don’t have the proper resources at your disposal? It’s like trying to learn a new language without having anybody to speak it with; you can still do quite a bit on your own, but you’ll never really be proficient until you can immerse yourself in whatever it is you’re trying to do.

A strong social circle of friends, family, and associates will help keep your ideas fresh, creative, and ensure that you never get too sidetracked from where you want to go. Most importantly however, they’ll act as a support beacon for whatever destination you have in mind, continually pushing you until you reach such a goal.
This means having the right social circle is important for anyone trying to achieve something in life, but is it always that easy?
For example: I see a lot of people complaining about their weight and eating habits, wanting to change, but feeling like they’re stuck in this continuous rut. They’ll say something like “I don’t know how to change”, or “I don’t know what to do to get in shape.” It’s actually a rather stupid thing to say, because if anything, there’s TOO MUCH information out there rather than not enough. You don’t have to be a dietician to know the basics of eating well or that integrating regular exercise into your life will help you feel more confident and energized. It’s not that these people DON’T KNOW HOW to lose weight, but they don’t have a very supportive group of people behind them. They don’t have anyone to help motivate them or push them in the right direction. Sure, they may have a social circle, but it’s not one that’s very adaptive to their current needs.

Are you friends and family supposed to drop everything they’re doing and help you with every little goal you want to achieve or hobby you want to take up? If I decide I want to take a cooking class at the local University, does that mean all my friends have to sign up as well? Or if I decide to purchase a motorcycle, does that mean all the guys have to drop their Sunday plans so we can go riding every week? The mentality that most people seem to have is that a social circle is a static thing. Something that doesn’t really change and stays the same regardless of what you’re doing. Maybe you have seven really good friends which you consider to be your “social circle,” and anytime those seven friends don’t want to do something, you drop it. “I really want to play golf this weekend, but nobody will go with me!”
A strong social circle should be something that’s dynamic and ever changing. It doesn’t have to be “these are my friends, and we do everything together.” There’s nothing wrong with have a strong core group of friends, but each person is an individual and will have a wide variety of interests that the others don’t have. If you really want to take a cooking class but none of your friends really want to pay the money and go, that shouldn’t stop you from pursuing it anyways. If it’s a class you really want to take with friends, then your first priority should be to MAKE friends once you’re in class. The class doesn’t have to be a dead-end just because none of your existing friends want to get involved; instead it should be an avenue for you to make NEW friends that have a similar interest. If there are thirty other people taking this class, that’s thirty other people with an interest in cooking. Sure, you may not get along with each person in there, but if you push yourself outside of your comfort zone just a little bit, you may be surprised at who you can meet.

You’re probably familiar with how scarcity and abundance mindsets work, even if you’ve never heard it called that before. In other words, do you view the glass as half empty, or half full? People with a scarcity mindset look at what they don’t have, not what they can achieve. On the other side, people with an abundance mindset focus on what they DO have, not what they can’t get. Applying it to our example on the cooking class, someone with a scarcity mindset would look at the class negatively because none of their existing friends wanted to join them. They still know there’s a large opportunity to meet new people and create new friends, but that’s not what they focus their energy on and so it’s not something they consciously pursue. To them, if it happens it happens, but they’re not really putting much hope into it. On the other hand, someone with an abundance mindset doesn’t look at the class with dismay because none of their friends wanted to join them, but instead focuses on who they can potentially meet. Just because none of their friends had an interest in taking this class, that’s certainly not going to hold them back; instead it’s an opportunity for them to interact with other like-minded people.
In creating a dynamic social circle, having an abundance mindset is a must. You can’t view your social circle as a limiting factor, but rather one that you can continually build upon to help you achieve whatever you’re going after. Doing so not only provides all the regular benefits of networking, but it also gives you a much larger group of people to draw upon when it comes to moving forward with your life. Imagine trying to get in shape when you only have seven friends, all of whom are unsupportive of your goals? It’s certainly not going to be easy! That doesn’t mean it can’t be done, but you have to draw all your energy from within yourself and you won’t have the helping hand of others. Now imagine if you had seven friends who were all VERY supportive of your decision to lose weight; not only encouraging you, but also accompanying you to the gym and constantly bouncing ideas around for eating healthier. Achieving your goal would not only be far easier, but probably a lot more enjoyable too.
Of course, I realize (as I’m sure you do too) that not everything happens overnight. You can’t build a strong, dynamic social circle in a day, but you can certainly work at it. In fact, if you’re already thinking “man, this is going to be tough! How am I going to find people with such similar interests as me?” Then you’re already thinking with a scarcity mindset.
You have to understand WHY you want a strong social circle in the first place. For most people, myself included, this is because surrounding yourself with like-minded people helps push you in the right direction. Don’t think of people as just acquaintances, but as resources. If you desire to do something new or better with your life, you need people that can help pull you up the ladder, not people that will be clinging onto you and pulling you back down.
The final mistake that a lot of people make is passing over good opportunities because they don’t see the benefits those opportunities can bring them. In having a dynamic social circle, not everybody is going to think and act in the same manner. You may have a number of friends who help keep you motivated to stay and shape, but may know squat about running a business. At the same time, you may have plenty of friends who are very efficient at running a business, but aren’t the most up to date on diet and exercise. The problem is, a lot of times you’ll mistakenly blow someone off when in reality they could have helped you in a number of ways.
Maybe you meet someone who knows very little about diet and exercise and knows absolutely nothing about starting up a new business. At the time, maybe those are your two big focuses in life and so you think such a person has very little they could offer you. The truth is; maybe this person’s just a lot of fun to be around or is extremely outgoing and energetic. That in itself is a skill, and maybe just interacting with him or her could help you better your social abilities. The point of a dynamic social circle isn’t to be surrounded by a bunch of carbon copies of yourself, but to surround yourself with people that can help you grow and develop into the individual you want to become. It would be like walking into a library where they only carried five different books; what help would that be to you? Instead, you want to walk in and have thousands of different books at your disposal, giving you an abundance of resources to draw upon.
At the very least, have fun with it. Just because you may run into a few bad eggs here and there, don’t shut yourself out from the rest of the world. You don’t have to turn into Mr. or Miss socialite, but creating a dynamic social circle should be enjoyable. You’ll be surprised at just how many people are out there who can help you grow and develop yourself; not to mention providing a lot of memories and a good deal of enjoyment along the way.

Look Familiar?

Consciously, I knew that the early morning hours were my most productive, but actually taking advantage of them was what I found difficult. 10:00pm would roll around and instead of winding down for bed, I’d have this urge to stay up late doing absolutely nothing at all. I’d flip through channels on the television, browse the internet and check pointless emails, listen to music, or if all else failed, I’d make a midnight meal and throw in a movie. Although there’s nothing wrong with doing that here and there, by doing that almost every night I was robbing myself of my ability to wake up early; thus losing the morning hours that gave me my biggest boost in productivity.
Of course, there are only so many hours in a day, so it’s easy to counter this argument by saying “well instead of doing that stuff in the morning, why not do it at night?” and that makes sense. Instead of my busiest work getting accomplished in the morning hours, why not do it at night since I seem to be staying up so late? The problem is, when you wake up in the morning your mind and body are refreshed and ready to start the day (assuming you got enough sleep.) However, at night, even after a day of just lazing around the house, your mind and body aren’t nearly as sharp as they are in the morning. I say mind AND body because it doesn’t matter if the work you have to do is physical or mental, it’s still going to be more difficult to accomplish.

Yes, I know plenty of people who work out at night and I’ve done it plenty of times myself; but I can’t say I know too many people who go jogging at 2:00am or start pumping iron at midnight. Your body is just too tired to give it 100% after being used the entire day. Instead of doing those things late at night, it’s much easier to get in the habit of going to bed at that time and doing it first thing when you wake up. Although physical work at night can be tiring, mental work is even more exhausting. Try writing or doing anything that requires a large degree of mental exertion and it can become extremely difficult.

Because of this, I developed what I like to call the 2 Hour Rule. It’s a system that allows you to make the most of your morning hours, getting more accomplished by lunchtime than most people do in an entire day. You can wake up, get your most important tasks wrapped up, get your workout completed, and STILL have time to kill before it’s even noon. It allows you to take advantage of the more productive morning hours and then gives you the rest of the day to enjoy. There are few things better than eating lunch and realizing that you have the rest of the day to do WHATEVER YOU WANT. You don’t have to feel guilty about it either because you’ve already taken care of your work for the day, so it’s not that feeling you get from procrastinating where it looms over everything you do. It’s like going out for the day to play golf, but then realizing that as soon as you’re finished, you have to race home and take care of a project for class or work. What fun is that? Sure, playing golf may take your mind off it temporarily, but it’s hard to fully enjoy things when you know what’s waiting for you at the end of the light. Wouldn’t it be much more enjoyable to instead play golf and then go out with your buddies for dinner afterwards? You can just enjoy the day at a leisurely pace and not have to worry about anything when you get back.
The 2 Hour Rule makes that a reality and it doesn’t follow some complex algorithm or set of rules. It simply states that when you wake up, AFTER eating breakfast, work on your most important piece of work for the next 2 hours straight. I know quite a few people that like to wake up at 5:00am, but for me I find 6:30am to be the most balanced. After I wake up, I go make a nice breakfast and usually by 7:00am I’m ready to get started on whatever it is that I need to do. Using this website as an example, maybe I’ve decided that I want to work on a particular article or brainstorm a list of topics. From 7:00am – 9:00am I would do nothing but write and brainstorm, taking no breaks and not letting any distractions get in front of me. No internet, no television, no cell phone, no radio, no CD’s, nothing. During these morning hours my mind is refreshed, so writing comes much quicker to me than if it were late at night. Once 9:00am rolls around, I take a 30 minute break to go grab a bite to eat or maybe listen to music, and as soon as 9:30am hits I repeat the process until 11:30am.
Let’s assume that I finished writing my article in that first 2 hour block, and so now I’m going to go workout. I start my workout at 9:30am, but it only takes me an hour, meaning I’m finished at 10:30am….now what? If I don’t have anything else to do, then I can call it a day and begin enjoying myself. I’d probably go get a shower and be all ready by 11:00am, meaning that it’s not even lunchtime and I’ve not only worked out, but I’ve also gotten my most important work finished for the day. If I decide to catch a movie with a friend afterwards, I don’t have to think “man, when am I going to find time to get that article written? And will I even be able to get a workout in today?” They’re both already out of the way, and I can spend the rest of the day doing what *I* want to do, not having my schedule dictated by a pile of work waiting for me.

Some people complain about this schedule because they have too much work to be completed in a 4 hour block. They have projects so large that it may take days of straight working to get it accomplished on time, and getting done before noon just isn’t a realistic expectation. I completely understand this, but to make the most of the 2 Hour Rule, you have to integrate it on a daily basis or else you get a huge back-log of work waiting for you. If someone tells me something like that, my first question is “well why are you waiting until now to finally get started on it? If you had starting working on this weeks ago when you got it, putting in 4 hours every morning, it would have been done a long time ago.” You can’t go into this system with a huge pile of work and expect it to miraculously take care of itself. Most of the people I hear complaining about how much work they have to do have waited until the 11’th hour before getting started, meaning their running around franticly trying to finish things up.
The other major point is that you don’t HAVE to stop working after those 2 hour blocks are up. Maybe you procrastinated on a project or maybe you just have a ton of errands to run; but you can still work as long as you’d like. Even if you have finished up all your work, that doesn’t mean you have to lie on the couch and watch television all day. A lot of days I’ll still brainstorm and outline topics for this website, or if I have a huge list of errands to run, I’ll start taking care of those. Just because you CAN be lazy afterwards doesn’t mean you should; and who wants to live a boring life in front of the television all day anyways? The purpose of following the 2 Hour Rule is to give you time to do the things that matter to YOU during the bulk of your day, and not be tied down due to other obligations. Take that class you’ve wanted to take but have never had time to do so, or meet up with an old friend over coffee. The world is at your fingertips, and you can do all of these things without the guilt of having other projects waiting for you when you get home.
I also realize that for most people with full time jobs, this isn’t a system you can implement on a daily basis. Your morning hours are either spent sitting in traffic or working in the office, and that’s perfectly understandable. Even if it’s not something you do on a daily basis, get in the habit of implementing it on the weekends if possible, allowing you to spend most of the day doing what interests you and not being held up by other work.
To summarize what’s been said:
• 6:30am – Wake up, eat breakfast
• 7:00 – 9:00am – Work for 2 hours
• 9:00 – 9:30am – 30 minute break
• 9:30 – 11:30am – Work for 2 more hours
Keep in mind that you don’t always have to finish up your work during these 2 hour blocks. You’ll probably notice you work much more efficiently during these morning hours, and so that’s why the most effort is concentrated at that time. If I’m writing an article for this site and it’s particularly long, I may very well not finish it during the morning, in which case I just wait until the next day to pick things up again. I make sure to take care of any immediate work and to get started on projects early, that way I’m never in a rush to get things done. Why is it so effective for me? Because I practice it EVERY DAY. 7 days a week I wake up early and get started on what needs to be done, so I’m always ahead of the game and never forced to play catch up. Keep in mind too that different time frames may work better for different people. The morning hours are almost always the most productive, but some people may wish to start at 5:00am, while others may wish to start at 8:00am. The choice is up to you, but I’d recommend playing around with it for a little while before settling into one specific time. Even though there are probably a few days here and there where you’ll be out and about late at night, you can still easily follow this system. If you’re out until 2:00am and don’t get to bed until 3:00am, you may not wake up until 10:00am that morning; but it doesn’t mean you can’t be productive. Since your morning hours are mostly spent sleeping instead of working, you may notice it’s not as easy to get things done as it was on other days where you woke up earlier, but you can still get things moving.
So put your morning hours to use so you can enjoy yourself once in a while; stop complaining about having so much work to do and be proactive in how you manage your time. While nothing is ever foolproof, getting into this kind of work habit if you aren’t already will tremendously boost your productivity levels AND leave you with more free time. You’ll notice your days feel much richer and more fulfilling (because they are) and that you’re able to spend a lot more time doing what you want instead of dreading what you don’t want.

The picture jumps out at you

With technology, there is always something else right around the corner that is poised to ruin the market and absolutely dominate whatever it has been created to replace.  Customers will flock to it and all of the other companies who are producing inferior products will crumble and burn.  Whether or not this is true, it is certainly the case that we as consumers are increasingly interested in the newest technological innovations.  We love to see what’s on the horizon in technology and what we can get our hands on for the holiday season.  It seems like just as you buy the top of the line model of any kind of product, within just a few short months it’s outdated and a new product is king of the market.

 
The best recent example of this has been the invention of 3d TVs.  Ever since the boom in three dimensional movies happened people have been clamoring for the day that they could get the same technology and impeccable viewing experience in their own homes.  Three dimensional movies captured the imaginations and pocketbooks of audiences worldwide to such an effect that major electronics companies decided to move forward with the 3d TVs project and try to put them out in time for the 2011 holiday season.
And put them out they have.  There is now a wide array of choices in the 3d television market and after Black Friday and Cyber Monday the public has shown that they are attracted to this new piece of technology.

At first, many were skeptical because of the requirement of the viewing glasses to see in three dimensions.  Many wondered if they would be cost-effective.  Others worried that they would be uncomfortable to wear.  Still more worried that they would break easily or get lost, rendering the television completely useless for normal viewing and wasting a lot of their money and time.

 
Fortunately the response has been good for these TVs.  This, of course, is with a major thanks to the companies who create 3d TVs for anticipating the concerns of consumers in this unproven market.  I don’t own one of these televisions personally, but I have heard that the glasses that are used in most of them are very comfortable to wear, even after hours and hours of continuous use.  That’s a good thing to hear, especially because most people who are going to be buying 3d TVs are probably the type to marathon television shows and in general watch more television.  Wearing uncomfortable glasses would just completely ruin the experience in my opinion.  It is these sorts of considerations that are going to make or break the three dimensional television.  Without all of the creases ironed out of a product release like this, it’s likely that it will fail just as hard as some of the most notable product flops in history.   Thankfully, it seems as if manufacturers have avoided this tragedy and put a great product in the hands of people around the world.

That monthly bill grind

Tangling with the month-to-month monster is about as much fun as hugging a porcupine.

There are ways to manage the month-to-month grind, and to even get out of it. One of the most interesting (and after I sat down and thought about it myself, obvious) ways was something I came across while I subscribed to the YNAB (You Need a Budget)10-day course.

Live on last month’s income.

The founders of YNAB were married college students, struggling to make it from month to month, just like us and many of you out there. They say,

“When my wife and I first married (it’s been a few years now), we worked part-time at the university where we were attending school full-time. Part-time work on a university campus equals, well, not a lot. I wasn’t TOO worried about things, but the fact that our finances would be tight did inspire me to construct a spreadsheet to help us track our spending. Eventually I built it so it would also track our income.

The income was where the problems started arising though. Julie would work anywhere from 15-22 hours per week, depending on exams and homework. I would do my best to get between 18 and 24, but again, that could changed based on other uncontrollable factors. We were living on a variable income.”

Sound familiar? Not knowing exactly how much your next paycheck is worth makes it near impossible to budget accurately, unless you can see the future.

Of course, the answer is to live on the money you made last month. This allows you to save more, set up a fixed budget, and have adequate time to monitor your finances and prepare for upcoming things. Things get more complicated when you rely on payday loans to meet monthly needs in emergencies,

But, I don’t have last month’s money – I already spent all of it!

Now, the YNAB guys were recently married and withdrew wedding money to get them through a month. While using their wedding money, they saved every penny they made, and then when the next month began, they were ready.

I didn’t happen onto this gem of financial knowledge until we’d been married for a while, so we decided to save all of our ‘unplanned’ income (money we were, ironically, planning on getting, but wasn’t directly from work so we didn’t include it in our budget) until we had one month’s expenses, and then work from there. So far we’re halfway there, and adding more every time. Tax returns, birthday presents, and money from side jobs and hobbies is a great way to get started saving one month’s expenses. They even offer 18 money saving tips to get your fund started.

So are you one of those people who is always spending money they havent even earned yet? Using payday loans online more than once or twice just for genuine emergencies? Start planning better, live off the money you have already earned and find ways to put more of it aside for the future. You will be less stressed – guaranteed!

the classic angry bird!

If you haven’t downloaded Angry Birds for the iPhone or Android platform yet then I have just one question for you: what have you been doing for the last one and a half years?  This game has taken the world by storm, spawning copycats the world over and selling merchandise at every country fair in the country.  It’s truly a revolutionary game in the sense that it has breached the mobile application market and become a part of the current technology culture.  I hear that they’re even talking about doing an Angry Birds movie!
The game is so unbelievably fun and addicting I can barely believe it.  I haven’t encountered a game that is this simple yet simultaneously so addicting in quite a long time.  In fact, the last time I can remember being so engaged by a game was when the first puzzle style games started to come out in the early 90s!  Of course, games like World of Warcraft and League of Legends are in a different league as they’re made for the computer and can have many more layers of functionality, but for its market space Angry Birds is the best-performing game I have ever seen.
They say that good artists borrow and great artists steal.  Angry Birds has certainly stolen some gameplay mechanics from the games of old that I used to love, like the classic cannon wars or any kind of physics based game.  I simply can’t get enough of those geeky types of games and it’s more than awesome to have a game like Angry Birds come out and give me that feeling that I’m back on my old Macintosh playing some of the first computer games to ever be developed.  It really was something then and it’s something greater now.
The mechanics that Angry Birds has taken shouldn’t be considered outright theft.  Any good artist takes something he likes and then puts it in the context of his own experience and artwork.  In the case of Angry Birds, the company decided to mess around with the physics and add in some cool birds that made the entire game more enticing and fun.  Instead of just shooting every bird in an arc, now you had the ability to boomerang them or have them act as mini battering rams that blasted through anything in their sight.  It was a truly creative way to breathe new life into a type of game that has been played to death, since these types of games were some of the first to ever be created on computers.
If you’re looking for a modern throwback to a simpler era, then I would highly recommend Angry Birds.  There’s really not a better choice out there especially because Rovio is so dedicated to making this one of the best games that has ever existed for the iPhone and Android markets.  You can’t beat a company with dedication like that which is why I think you should just pony up the $0.99 and buy the game.

Education - many people have heard what a blog is, but might not be able to tell a static website from a blog. They need to understand things like:

• reverse-chronological sequence of publishing, which is the reverse of the structure of a lot of other documents
• tags/categories
• searching
• pages
• comments
• RSS and news aggregators

What powers your tech blog?

These things are second nature to the vast majority of the current blogging audience, but some people don’t get it yet. Maybe a lot of people don’t get it yet. Anecdotal evidence also shows that people preferred static documents (e.g. Adobe .PDF files) over blog posts at a ratio of 8:1 or more. There must still be a significant population of people who don’t, won’t, or can’t read online, although I don’t have any statistics to back this up. Even in my own case, there are many times when I’ll print out a blog post in order to read it later.

This brings up another good point: trust and reliability. Many people will put more faith in a professional-looking document than an amateur-looking blog, even if the blog happens to have better content. Old programming dies hard, sometimes.

Promotion of all kinds – create demand: virtually everyone in the world needs a telephone or access to one in order to conduct their business. By contrast, virtually everyone in the civilized world wants an iPod or other portable media player, but few actually need the device. However, the precedent started with the Walkman and Discman players evolved with the introduction of the digital media formats (particularly .MP3 and .MP4 files), creating desire that was satisfied with a revolutionary product both in design and capabilities. The growing number of media files, both professional and amateur, helped create demand for a new portable media player.

Blogs are like the “player” and good content will create demand for the “player”. However, we need to keep emphasizing things like portals, indexes, and search engines.

Cross-promotion between bloggers, even those in the same niche, needs to continue to maximize eyeball exposure.

Value - put simply, bloggers need to provide content that other people would want to read or find useful eg blogs like Knowledge Revolution. We don’t need spam, we don’t need a lot of echoes, we need new, fresh, and useful material. This material needs to appeal to beginners, intermediates, and experts.

Unfortunately, the blogosphere could also be called the spamosphere due to a lot of content which is designed as platforms for online advertising sales instead of valuable content. Give people material that they both want and need!

Diversity - related to value, we need to broaden the subject matter, or at least provide more valuable content across a wider range of topics. We may be digging deep into the fabled Long Tail into increasingly smaller and specialized niches, but we need more good (hopefully original) content suitable to an increasingly wider audience. Fortunately, ongoing innovation and new product launches offer a continual supply of blogging source material. We also need more material about everyday items that affect broad groups people, both within and outside the tech realms.

Opportunity - more high speed Internet and wireless access; cheaper hardware and software; ease of use. As Steven Hodson recently pointed out, what may be seen as inexpensive to some may be a prohibitive cost to others. There’s talk of $100 or $200 laptops for developing countries… maybe there’s a lot of opportunity for these in the Americas and Europe as well. In addition, inexpensive high speed Internet access is not ubiquitous, even within the Americas. My parents have only had access to medium speed Internet during the past two years and they live about 10 KM from my home. Mobile phone Web use is predicted to drive demand and may be a cheap alternative; however, this could remove any incentive to produce cheaper desktop PCs and laptop PCs.

I found that besides the typical gold and silver, one of the best decisions is to buy a ring made out of platinum.  That is because platinum rings are not only gorgeous but platinum is a metal that is durable and guaranteed to last a lifetime on your finger.  It has long been popular for its durability and strength, but also because platinum has the power to transform even the most simple of rings into something majestic.

 
The hue of platinum is so pure that it is almost white in color.  The quality of the color of platinum allows for it to be easily paired with almost any stone and any skin tone and it will still look beautiful.  This fact alone for me was very crucial because I have always felt with my skin tone that gold just flat out looks weird on me.  I won’t have to worry about that with platinum.

Another thing is the sheer strength of the metal.  It is almost impossible for platinum to corrode because it is thirty times stronger than gold.  For those of you looking for a metal to use for wedding rings, keep this fact in mind because you will be wearing that ring for decades to come.

 
I also found that a great idea is to buy tungsten wedding bands. Tungsten is similar to platinum for its durability and strength.  It too is quite resistant to damage, corrosion, and wear.  There are other things though, that make tungsten a very attractive material to use.
First of all, tungsten is on the cheaper end of the spectrum, especially compared with platinum and white gold.  During the tough times we are all facing due to the economy, saving a little money here and there is not such a bad idea.

 
Secondly, tungsten is quite a popular metal, especially among men.  It is a heavy metal, especially when compared with its titanium counterpart.  Men like feeling the heftiness and the weight of the ring on their hands.

 
To be honest with you I don’t love the idea of women wearing as heavy a ring as tungsten would require.  However, for those of you who are looking at wedding bands and engagement rings, a good compromise would be for the woman to get a sparkly and spectacular ring made out of platinum, whereas the groom would receive a heftier and more “manly” ring from tungsten.  Don’t be plain and simple by keeping with the tradition of silver and gold.  With the help of science making advancements on alloys, as well as the market being more open, there are a wide selection of alternative materials out there.  Tungsten and platinum are just two I listed, but there are plenty more.

Calculate how much you need to eat.

Weight loss is something that always weighs heavy on our minds (pardon the pun).  Western cultures seem to have some sort of mild obsession with beauty, health, and fitness, and going along with those themes is the idea that being thin is beautiful. Even though I don’t necessarily agree that beauty is directly correlated with the size of your jeans, the important thing is to be healthy and maintain an active lifestyle.

Maybe you dont need quite this many...

When looping, you not only need a solid effects pedal but you need one that can be easily manipulated while you play.  Unlike a distortion pedal which you can just stomp on and off as needed, a loop pedal needs to be stomped when you start and stop recording each track.  Beyond that, you need to be able to throw on tracks and layer your performance as you’re adding more music to it – all live.  This makes a loop pedal a little bit more complicated than any other type of pedal and I hadn’t been satisfied with a lot of the options.
When I plugged into the Boss pedals RC-30 loop station it was like I had arrived home after a three year hiatus.  It’s got two pedals so you can rock two tracks on top of your performance and they are synchronized to avoid timing issues.  I immediately started laying down some stuff that was reminiscent of one of my favorite bands – Pinback.  They have a lot of that layered sound that I’d been trying to emulate for a while and just hadn’t had any success.  I wasn’t able to hit it quite right, but I got a hell of a lot closer with the RC-30 than I ever had using any other loop station.  The synchronicity of the pedals really helped my timing, which is something I have had a problem with every since I started playing guitar.
I ended up grabbing one for me and one for my friend because I was so grateful to him for giving me the recommendation.  He was ecstatic and with two pedals we spent most of the night over a few beers just looping to our heart’s content and actually came up with a track that we put on one of our latest records!