5 Cheap Ways To Cope In A New City

Let’s recap: It’s my first day in France and I’ve finally met up with my CouchSurfing host, Raphael. He graciously took me to his apartment to drop off my bags, and now I’ve been kicked out and must entertain myself until tonight when we meet up again.

1. Walk around until you are lost, and then find your way back

This serves a few purposes—you’ll better acquaint yourself with the neighborhood and you will develop more of a sense of direction for the future. Also, you’ll find numerous useful things: metro stops, bars/cafes/tobacco shops, cool stores, parks… If the place you spy is open, go in and check it out! If not, just take note of where it is and come back later.

Design Bookstore!

This was an awesome store that I found in Paris, right by the Canal. The name was exactly what it was—a store devoted exclusively to design books! If I lived near here, I’m sure that place would become a very expensive habit; all the books they stocked were awesome! There was an entire section devoted to books on typography and another exclusively about color. I browsed this tiny store for about an hour.

When you get tired of walking and browsing, it’s time to take a break. Continue reading “5 Cheap Ways To Cope In A New City”

12 Sites I Use to Get More Awesomeness From Life

(also: My Quest for Maximum Awesome)

Note: This is a post from my old blog! I’ve resurrected it through the magic of Archive.org. Be aware that some links and things may be broken, and I hope you enjoy reading it.

“League of Awesomeness” graphic stolen from ZeFrank.com

So, I’ve embarked on what I like to call my “Quest for Awesomeness”. I think it started a few years ago when I was nicknamed “Awesomer Alex” by my friend Boxy… but that’s another story.

Since then there have been many developments in this Quest. One notable point was when I found out about GTD. My friends and family thought it weird that I was reading books on personal productivity… them thinking this would become a running theme which still exists.

Okay, before I get ahead of myself, here’s the list:

  1. The Blog of Tim Ferriss — Tim wrote “The 4-Hour Work Week” which is one of the best books I’ve read in a long while. In fact, I was so impressed after reading a friend’s copy that I actually went out and bought it. He posts here strategies for designing your lifestyle in order to achieve maximum enjoyment.
  2. Steve Pavlina.com “Personal Development for Smart People” — I’m pretty sure I found this site through Lifehacker. Steve has a lot of awesome articles here which center around personal development. I highly recommend checking out some of the value-assessment exercises he has, they’re great for finding out what is really important to you.
  3. Lifehacker — No way could I ignore this behemoth of life-hackery. A multi-author blog, Lifehacker focuses on tips and tweaks that help you get through the day. They also review and create software, and thoroughly categorize everything. If you want to subscribe to their RSS feed, I highly recommend using their RSS feed filters
  4. 43 Folders — One of the original GTD-centric sites, 43 Folders has gotten an overhaul and is now a multi-user project. Anyone can join and contribute, but only the best make it to the front page. Great tips and great community started by Merlin Mann.

Each one of these sites is a treasure trove of valuable materials—exercises, strategies, challenges, and inspiration. I’m subscribed to all of their RSS feeds and read them all.

Another important moment in my development was when I read The Game by Neil Strauss. People seem to have mixed opinions about the material he presents in this book, and with good reason. Understanding social dynamics and using them to your advantage is controversial in itself, and Strauss presents a cross-section of this subject.

I can understand why people don’t like it: lots of guys in this Community are sketchy and have less-than savory motives. However, if you read Strauss’ excellent narrative, it ends on a very good note—that the purpose of “The Game” in the first place is to better yourself and get what you want from life. That said, here are my favorite 4 pickup-related sites: Continue reading “12 Sites I Use to Get More Awesomeness From Life”

Huge Zombie Botnet Threatens the Internet!

Holy crap, This is the scariest article I’ve read in months! Apparently, there is an enormous botnet created by a worm/malware called Storm. This one is particularly interesting because it’s actually attacking the researchers trying to figure it out! Attacking, in this case, is overloading their computers with so much spam and network traffic that they SHUT DOWN. Crazy!
Link to article.