I recently got a second hand PS3 to basically play Call of Duty with my friends.
That thing is a time sucker.
Just like on every good TV show, the last seconds of each game are the most exciting, making you play “just one more”.
You know THAT never happens, and what started as a 30 minute “break” turns into 2 and a half hours of intensive gameplay that literally sucked every minute of your free time.
So here is the plan that I will be following to deal with my mild video game addiction.
1) Put A Measurable Limit To Your Free Time
Take a look at the watch and plan ahead an escape strategy, every time.
Let’s say it’s a crappy rainy day and you are tired from too much work making money so you can spare 3 hours just screwing around doing non-productive stuff.
Before you decide how many hours you want to spend playing, you need to set up a time limit to go back to work or “call it a day” if you are a late night gamer like me.
Then you have to quickly decide how much of that free time you are going to dedicate to play video games.
2) Break Down Your Free Time Before You Start
Because you normally don’t want to just play games, think of all the other thing that you will be doing in those 3 hours and break your spare time in blocks.
Do you consider watching a 2-hour movie or two episodes of your favorite show (80 minutues) more valuable than “leveling up” or trying to beat a new personal record in that same amount of time?
3) Start With The Activities That Have an Implicit Time Limit
If you decide to start watching the movie you will consume two thirds of your free time. Leaving you with only 1h for playing games.
And in most cases you will just want to get off the couch and get some fresh air.
This way you make sure you don’t step into this classic scenario ever again:
“Oh well, I only have 80 minutes left before I go back to work, not enough time to watch a movie so I’ll keep playing…”
Been there, done that.
4) Set A Timer On Your Phone And Keep A Log Of Achievements
Whenever you grab the gamepad set the timer on your iPhone to remind you when to stop.
Then, when the session is over, write down you achievements.
I recommend keeping a simple text file synced in your dropbox, evernote or simplenote.
This way you’ll be able to think about what you are doing with your free time when you are not in the heat of the moment.
It sounds more stupid than you think when you are sober…
“11-10-2011: I killed 68 people in 60 minutes”
Teh lame…
Do you have any other tips for overcoming video game addiction? Share them below.
I need a new DSLR camera, ASAP. I gave my Canon 550d to my sister a week ago and I’m already suffering withdrawal.
I’m not gonna see “them” in 10 months so I guess it’s time to buy a new camera.
Which one? The Canon 600D T3i.
Why? Flip screen and that cool new zoom feature that can turn prime lenses into monsters.
Right now I’m looking for the best place to buy it in Europe. Will probably go with Amazon UK as they offer free shipping to Spain.
Or I could wait until I move to the US and get it for like $200 less there. The problem is that I can NOT wait :D
I’m not going to buy it second hand, that’s for sure.
Reason? Taxes ;)
I’m not sure if the lastest Magic Lantern build works on the 600D (T3i) but at least the AGC is already off in this model, and that’s the main reason I why I hacked my old 550D.
The flip screen will hopefully give me a reason to start shooting some vlogs. Having to hook the 550D to my macbook pro via usb to be able to check if I’m in focus was a pain in the ass.
Do you have the 600D? Let me know if you think it’s worth the few extra bucks. I think so!
I’m gonna keep looking online for the best price and will report as soon as I order it.
If you want to connect with me you can follow me on twitter@aleporte or add me on google++Alejandro Portela where we can hangout. (Or you can just be FRIGGINAWESOME and leave me a comment down below).
I had seen these things before in some random internet marketing blog where a guy was reporting how much money he was making selling Kettlebells (and training courses) to his “small” niche. This was like 2 years ago…
Then, one of my card flourishing friends started posting his kettlebell workout videos on youtube and I thought he could be the perfect 1st guest blogger here.
In this post, David will talk about -almost- everything you need to know to get started with kettlebells.
There are many different exercises you can do but I personally focus on the “Kettlebell Swing“, and the results have been amazing considering that every workout takes me under 5 minutes.
Beyond fat loss, the swing will help build a superhuman posterior chain, which includes all the muscles from the base of your skull to your Achilles tendons.
So, here’s David’s long-asswiki-style guest post on Kettlebells ;)
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Hi, my name is David Pedersen and in this article I will talk about what kettlebells are, what they’re used for, and what they’re NOT used for!
Just a little disclaimer! I am not a medical professional nor am I a certified kettlebell instructor. I’m just a person who happens to love kettlebell lifting! What that means is that maybe not everything within this article is 100% true. All this information is something I have gathered by reading lots of articles, watching lots of videos, and lifting lots of kettlebells of course!
What The Hell Are Kettlebells?
A kettlebell is basically a bowling ball with a handle on it and it is used for different types of physical development.
The kettlebell dates back quite a few years and was first seen in Russia (or maybe Greece?).
They were originally used as weights on markets and such. However some crazy russian people discovered that these weights could actually be used to perform various weightlifting exercises. It was quickly discovered that these exercises had a very positive influence on the human body.
The kind of exercises that a kettlebell is used for is typically swinging movements and pressing movements. These kinds of exercises are very dynamic and can have major positive benefits on your overall health and well being. That is something we will get back to!
Kettlebells come in many different sizes that goes incrementally in kilograms. They normally start at 4 kgs and go up in 2 or 4 kg increments all the way up to 60 kgs (or even higher).
Kettlebells have been used in Russia and Eastern Europe for a long time but its only in the last few years that they have started to gain popularity in the rest of the world, namely the US.
People are starting to discover why the kettlebell is such an amazing workout tool! Actually it’s not so much about the kettlebells themselves, its more about the moves that can be done with them.
Kettlebell lifting focuses on full body integration. What that means is that you’re working your whole body at once when you’re working out with kettlebells. That is very different from the way we normally workout.
Many people are used to exercises that trains one or only a few muscles at a time. Such exercises are called isolation exercises. Well there is none of that with kettlebells!
No more “back day”, “leg day”, or “arm day”. The kettlebell is all about making your muscles more integrated and work better together.
That means that the kind of strength you develop with kettlebells is something that is better transferable to your daily life than the strength you build through isolation exercises.
What Are Kettlebells Used For?
Kettlebells are mostly used for two things. Development of strength and cardiovascular capacity. That means that any workout with kettlebells isn’t just a strength workout or a cardio workout, its actually both at the same time!
This has many benefits but the most obvious one is that you can complete your workout in much less time! I would say that you can get one hell of a workout in 15-20 mins, not counting warmup or cool down. Keep in mind that in those 15-20 mins you will develop lots of strength, get more endurance and burn a lot of calories!
All at the same time!
As I mentioned above kettlebells are great for developing strength. I have to be honest with you though, kettlebells are NOT gonna give you big manly bodybuilder type muscles. Instead they’re gonna give you strength without the bulk!
A common misconception is that strength equals size. In actual fact the strength of the muscles has very little to do with their size! Its more about how well your nervous system can make all your muscles work together and work more effectively!
Look at this video of Sergey Rudnev performing the clean and jerk kettlebell exercise.
In this clip Sergey is lifting two 32 kg (approx. 70 lbs) kettlebells for a combined weight of 64 kg. Sergey himself weighs just around 65 kg. As you saw he was able to lift his own bodyweight 52 times in 10 minutes! Thats 65 kg lifting 3328 kg in just 10 minutes! Thats the kind of strength kettlebells will give you!
What Are Kettlebells NOT Used For?
As far as I understand there are three types of strength (and one bonus). There is the “how much can you lift” strength. This is the kind of strength best developed doing powerlifting. Then there is explosive strength. Which is best developed by doing olympic lifting. Then there is strength endurance. That is how much weight can you lift over an extended period of time. And lastly there is how big your muscles are. Remember that size doesn’t mean strength though. Size is best developed doing bodybuilding.
In case you haven’t guessed it, kettlebells are used to develop strength endurance! That means when we workout with kettlebells we don’t wanna pick a weight that allows us to only do something like 8 reps or lower. We wanna pick a submaximal load and work for 50 reps, or 100 reps, or 200 reps, or 6000 reps (thats actually been done!).
Even though kettlebells are not the optimal tools for conventional weightlifting, because they don’t focus on making you lift as heavy as possible, or making you as big as possible, they still have tremendous benefits for your overall health and well being!
Videos Demonstrating Different Kettlebell Movements
Swing:
Jerk:
Snatch:
Long cycle (clean and jerk):
My Advice For People Who Wanna Give Them A Try
For people who wanna try lifting kettlebells my advice would be to do one of two things:
1- Join a gym that has some kettlebells and people who can give you professional instructions on how to use them.
2- If you’re more like me and prefer learning by yourself, buy some instructional material and a pair of kettlebells! I would recommend Steve Cotter’s “The Complete Guide to Kettlebell Lifting”. As far as which kettlebell to buy here are the standard recommendations…
Which Size Of Kettlebell Is Right For You?
- Men who are used to some form of physical activity starts with a 16 kg.
- Untrained men starts with 12 kg. You will quickly find the 12 kg to be too light but its important to start out a little light to get comfortable with the exercises.
- Most women starts with 8 kg.
- Women who are stronger then average can start out with a 12 kg, but be cautious.
If you feel like you’re prepared to spend a little more money and get more than one, here are a few options I would suggest:
- If you’re a trained man you should buy two 16 kgs and one 20 kg.
- If you’re an untrained man buy two 12 kgs and one 16 kg.
- If a women buy an 8 kg, a 12 kg, and a 16 kg.
And one last recommendation would be to only buy “pro grade kettlebells” or “competition” style bells.
Pro Grades are more expensive but they’re also MUCH better. Not just for people who are interested in competing but also for people who wanna maximize the benefits!
The progrades make training with kettlebells much more comfortable!
If you want to connect with me you can follow me on twitter@aleporte or add me on google++Alejandro Portela where we can hangout. (Or you can just be FRIGGINAWESOME and leave me a comment down below).
I got the bad habit of checking my email inbox and twitter timeline every five minutes from too many -long and boring- accounting classes back at the university.
After learning the hard way that my productivity would go down dramatically due to the lack of continuous focus, I knew I had to implement some kind of system to help me “get my head out of the twutter”.
Here are four different things that I did to instantly reduce social media and email distractions, increase my concentration and get more important things done:
Disable Push Notifications
When I made the switch from the official Twitter app to Tweetbot, the fact that I’d lose notifications got me kinda worried in the first place. But then I discovered that I could live with it.
I manage five different twitter accounts on my iPhone so you can imagine how big of a deal this was.
Most of the time you are not required to instantly reply to a tweet. In fact, I don’t know anyone who saved a friend’s life with a fast @ reply, do you?
If they really need to reach you, they can probably do it with a phone call, whatsapp, or a regular text message.
Put Your Social iOs Apps in a Stinky “Hermit” Folder
One of the things that I’ve tried is to put the most distracting apps far away from the main screen. This way I have to take some extra steps in order to get to them, which makes it less likely to happen being the lazy-ass person that I am, sometimes.
Enable Lockscreen Passcode
I’ve been trying this one for two weeks and the results have been truly… surprising.
Just by adding another security layer to the famous “slide to unlock” I turned checking twitter, facebook and google+ into a “pain in the ass” kind of task.
Now I have to reach into my pocket, grab my phone, take it out, wake it up, slide to unlock, remember a lame four digit passcode, enter it, swipe a few screens to the right, open a folder, click on the app icon…
See?
so.not.worthy. (and that’s the beauty of it)
Go Offline
I’ve never been a fan of the airplane mode but I try to stay offline as much as I can to reduce distractions and increase battery life.
If you have a jailbroken iPhone, I recommend SBSettings (on Cydia) to quickly switch your data and wifi ON an OFF, from anywhere you are, just by swiping your finger across the status bar.
You don’t need to implement all these tweaks at once, start with the passcode one and you’ll be surprised, it’s one of my favorites now!
I want to try to disable push emails for 30 days and see if I can do fine with just checking it once in the mornings (or once a week ala 4HWW).
Last week I finally had the chance to spend some serious time playing around with my DSLR camera, something I had wanted to do ever since I got it.
I never found a good reason to actually “go out” just to take photos of random stuff, but a) my sister told me she wanted to upgrade from her point-and-shoot and b) we were on a cruise around the mediterranean with nothing else to do…
So I decided to move the dial back to Manual mode (from video mode, of course) and hand her the camera.
After the initial seven minutes explaining the basics (shutter speed, aperture, ISO…) and how to operate the buttons on the canon 550d (canon t2i) we thought she was ready to start shooting.
I’m just as noob photographer as her (only with a bit more experience with the camera) but in this short time experimenting “in the field” we both learned and improved our photography skills.
Here are seven interesting things I discovered in this trip:
1- My interest in photography suddenly increased due to the fact that I had to share what I knew with someone else. I even found myself “fighting” to get the camera back from her sometimes :P
Teaching is the best way of learning.
2- Once she got the technical aspects down (aka how to get the “right” exposure on every shot) I told her to switch back to AV mode (easier) and focus on the composition, lights and colors.
I took out my iPhone 4 loaded with Camera+ and Instagram and didn’t have to ask for the 550d until we got back to the ship. It was more than enough.
3- My fast, expensive lenses are capable of creating amazing photos with very shallow depth of field (blurry background) but so does Instagram with its tilt-shift feature.
iPhoneography is a great way to get started in photography as it requires very little equipment and will force you to pay attention to what really matters.
4- Shoulder strap > neck strap. Hands down. Get one now.
5- If there is nothing interesting to shoot, ask your brother to do some planking. It will -hopefully- spark some creative photography in you.
Planking = fun.
6- Shoot RAW only if you plan to do post-production in photoshop or lightroom or whatever. Otherwise go with good ol’ JPG. You’ll save space in your sd card and it will be faster to transfer/upload to the internets.
You ain’t a pro yet, are you? Me neither.
7- After three days carrying the Canon 550d + Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 lens on my shoulder with the battery grip (6 to 7 hours each day), I decided to leave it in the ship and carry a couple extra batteries in my pockets.
Best decision ever.
If you are going to bear the weight of the camera (as well as other random tech in your backpack) for more than 4-5 hours in a row, I suggest you sacrifice “ergonomics” and “looking like a pro”.
Your shoulders and back will thank me, just as much as Mr. Neck when he read #4 in this post.
Now, be as cool as Mr. Neck and retweet, +1, like and share this post with your peeps or leave a comment below and convince me to start shooting RAW.
I like reading in bed. In fact, I spent most of my hardcore university days studying inside it.
I never had a fancy Herman Miller’s SAYL chair anyway so I guess that’s why I chose to lay horizontally…
Well, that, and the fact that I’m a lazy motherf***er.
A few months ago I saw a cool infographic on the dangers of sitting down and then read about the “miraculous” benefits of standing desks.
I’ve always been a fan of watching other people’s clever IKEA hacks, mods and DIY projects.
Especially those kinds of “featured workstation setup” photo-posts where all you see is Apple gadgets meticulously organized by their OCD owners, who, by the way, need three 30″ cinema displays just to show off their minimalist panoramic wallpaper.
Such a GREAT source of inspiration…
Anyway, right when I was about to saw off the legs of an innocent LACK coffee table I saw my sister’s green Mammut stool sitting on a corner of her room, collecting dust.
I put it on my desk and, to my surprise, it didn’t only have the perfect height but it could also be moved around the house with ease.
This portable standing desk now follows me, and my macbook air, everywhere I go (inside the house, don’t think I am THAT geek)
I recently put a deck on top of it so I can use my magic mouse and wireless keyboard. I want to raise the macbook higher so it’s at eye level but that will require a little tweaking.
For now, I just tilt the screen back a bit. It works for me.
Back pain is gone and my feet are adapting pretty nicely. I’m sure the fact that I’m using barefoot shoes helps with this.
Some people use yoga mats to eliminate foot pain but I don’t think it’s needed. One of the points of working standing up is to make your feet stronger. And for that you’ll need to find the right balance point on the balls of your feet (never rest on your talons!)
But Why Use a Standing Desk?
Simple: Higher calorie burn and better posture. My last years in college studying in bed (deckchair, in summer days), and other un-healthy habits didn’t particularly contribute to any of that so why not try it now?
Doing this kind of “stupid little things” like walking barefoot, waking up earlier or drinking more water somehow “adds up”.
The best way to eliminate a bad habit is to start small.
Set an easy, sustainable goal wherever you think there’s room for change and go for it. Then, set another one. It will “add up”.
I will be working with this kind of setup for at least for a few more weeks and will report back with my thoughts.
Here is a nice TED talk by Google’s Matt Cutts talking about how to change your habits by sticking to doing little things for at least 30 days.
If you want to try this little standing desk challenge with me, find a way to rise your laptop so that your arms rest at a 90 degree angle while you are standing up and let me know how you are doing on google++Alejandro Portela.
If you have any standing desk tips or interesting links to share leave a comment down below :)
You can read more good reasons why you should work standing up in this great post by Gina Trapani at LifeHacker.
I’ve always hated running. Probably because it was that boring warm-up thing we had to do before playing sports, and also the punishment for “behaving nuts” during training. Ah… good times.
I picked up running about a month ago when I received my first pair of Vibram FiveFingers Classic (Europe). I read about them in the 4 Hour Body book by Tim Ferriss and then discovered this whole “barefoot running” online community, Nicholas Romanov’s POSE method of running and all that jazz.
I never thought there was an actual “technique” behind such a lame sport, but once I found out, I knew I had to try it.
I’m not gonna lie, I’ve gone out running just a handful of times in this last month (maybe 9?) but for someone who “hates it”, I think it’s pretty decent.
I haven’t taken my Vibrams off since. I wear them 24/7, seriously, they are THAT awesome. Even though they could stink a bit… But that can be fixed.
I got a second pair of FiveFingers KSO (black) a couple of weeks ago, mainly to be able to cycle them with the Classics and to use them with jeans, for a more everyday casual look.
I only wear the Classics with shorts. And yeah, I know they look like girly ballerina shoes with frog toes and WILL -trust me- turn heads around every time you go out, but the feeling of the ground underneath your feet makes it totally worthy.
They also have this powerful ice-breaking “peacock effect” ;)
Walking barefoot on this kind of shoes is awesome, I’m sure you’ll fall in love if you ever try them for a couple of days.
It takes a while to “break them in” but once you’ve used them for a few hours you will not want to take them out again.
I ordered a new pair of Terraplana Vivobarefoot Dylan shoes from Amazon UK and they should arrive in a couple of days.
These don’t have the toes though :D
I highly recommend you try the barefoot experience, specially if you suffer lower back pain from standing for long periods of time (they fixed my back!) or simply want the PUA looks ;)
If you want to connect with me you can follow me on twitter@aleporte or add me on google++Alejandro Portela where we can hangout. (Or you can just be FRIGGINAWESOME and leave me a comment down below).
I created my first blog in late 2006. It was an ugly blogspot, with a long-ass url and everything… but it did the job.
I used it to post my videos and some other lame stuff. I was getting pretty popular on YouTube so I thought having a blog could be a good asset that I could leverage in the future.
I started to run out of content because I wasn’t learning card flourishes fast enough to post a new tutorial every week.
“So I decided to turn my blog into the go-to resource for all things card flourishing”
The blog got popular and I decided to switch to a self hosted wordpress blog where I would have more control over the content and customization.
I also got a cheap dot info domain (that’s an example of how little I knew about branding and SEO back then)
I also didn’t know anything about building email lists, traffic strategies, monetization, JVs, etc…
It really didn’t matter in the beginning, in fact, it took me a couple of years to make a hundred bucks on adsense…
“People came back to consume my content. Every single day.”
I was subscribed to ALL the good card guys on youtube and my job was to select -or curate- the crème de la crème for people to easily digest the best cardistry videos, all in one place.
I started using feedburner to sindicate my blog posts via RSS and email. I soon discovered that my audience wasn’t familiar with feed readers at all so I guess a big chunk of my first thousand blog subscribers were indeed, email subscribers.
Pretty cool huh?
I think so.
Then I kept buying domains (dot com domains) and building small niche blogs. I experimented with different types of monetization methods -mainly affiliate marketing- and before I had time to finish college, I found myself making enough money to live “comfortably” for a while.
It got better.
Why I Decided To Start Blogging… Again
So, I thought I should create this new blog as a way to give back to all the people who contributed to my “little success”, and also because I want to show my friends a behind-the-scenes look at how I work and who I really am.
Welcome to my new blog :)
If you want to connect with me you can follow me on twitter@aleporte or add me on google++Alejandro Portela where we can hangout. (Or you can just be FRIGGINAWESOME and leave me a comment down below).
I recently got a second hand PS3 to basically play Call of Duty with my friends. 
I got the bad habit of checking my email inbox and twitter timeline every five minutes from too many -long and boring- accounting classes back at the university.
anyway so I guess that’s why I chose to lay horizontally…
I’ve always hated running. Probably because it was that boring warm-up thing we had to do before playing sports, and also the punishment for “behaving nuts” during training. Ah… good times.
I created my first blog in late 2006. It was an ugly blogspot, with a long-ass url and everything… but it did the job.
