Self Improvment, #WinMoFail, and Tea

So, for the past few weeks now, I've been trying to improve myself.

And you know what? I've been more stressed out than usual.

Apparently, quitting smoking, eating healthier, working out, getting more sleep, and dressing nicer actually cause me more stress than it helps.

As far as smoking, yeah, I've kicked it, especially now that I can afford internet at home
(one addiction for another?)

And if I don't eat healthier there's no point in working out, and I gotta get rid of this winter flab.


But you wanna know the most stressful thing lately?

My crappy, slow, #failtastic Windows Mobile 6.1 phone.

It's display doesn't always show up.
It turns off randomly.
It takes forever to retrieve mail.
It randomly denys calls, and un-links it's self from my blue tooth headset.

So, seeing as "free money season" is coming up (tax rebate season) and I'll have some extra cash on hand, who has a good phone recommendation for me?

I need a smart phone, nothing, and I mean NOTHING WinMo (I don't care about 6.5, or 7.0)

It needs to handle multiple Gmail accounts.

Hopefully a decent camera, but not necessary.

I've been eyeing up a G1 Developers model (I'm on AT&T)
Any other recommendations?

And my last point for the night, also whats keeping me up this late (#sleepbetterfail) I need good recommendations for teas. I've been going to Starbucks lately, but its getting tiring, what can you, yes YOU recommend?

That's if for this week, Liz, sorry its so long, if you're not already, follow me on twitter at @Stay_Calm, and please friends, remember to stay calm

So...yeah...

So, I have no idea what to do a post on this week. Any ideas guys?

You tell me, what do you wanna see me write about every week?

Blah blah blah...if youre not already, follow me on Twitter @Stay_Calm, and please friends, remember to stay calm (its not that hard).

Vacations: Couches, Beer, and Hulu

Yup, that's what this past week has consisted of. If you hadn't heard, I've been on vacation for the past week or so now, and before I head back to work tomorrow, I want to recount some of the things I've learned on this week long endeavor.

- Hulu is addictive. Extremely so.

-I <3 my couch.

-When in Phily, drink at Triumph, and breakfast at National Mechanics.

-Opera is very soothing, and conducive to cleaning.

-Even though I look like I'm not doing anything, I'm actually being very productive, especially when I spend all day in my boxers in front of the computer.

-And finally, when I actually have time to sit down and think with a clear mind, I'm more creative that I thought.

So yeah, that sums up my vacation in a nutshell, if you want me to expand on any of these life lessons, you can contact me through Twitter, @stay_calm, and please friends, remember to stay calm.

Freedom of Content

I think we can all agree that in this day and age, there is no greater valued commodity than information, pure and simple.

Google built an empire on it, Sysco moves it, and Facebook recently pissed us all off concerning their want to control it.

Earlier this week Facebook altered their Terms of Service agreement to mean that they have complete control over our content, always and forever, even after we terminate our account.

And your asking, who cares? Its just “25 random things about me” or pictures of you passed out drunk at the party last week, right?

Not so much, it is those things, but its also your age, name, demographic, likes, dislikes, frequency of being in a relationship, whether you drink or smoke, what your religion is, even what your favorite drink is (remember that great pass a drink app?)

Gives me chills just thinking about it, because you know they're saving the information to sell to advertisers.

For this reason, you’ll no longer see me on Facebook, because I feel my personal information, my personal content , is mine alone.

The creator of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, put up a post on his blog about the change in the ToS, stating that the information that you share on Facebook, all of it, right down to contact information, is owned by Facebook because you used them to share it.

Can you think of anything scarier?

I feel we should create a world where our content, our information, is ours, and ours alone. We choose who we share it with, if anyone. And that includes companies, of any kind.

And you know what? When I delete an account in a server somewhere, I want it to forget I was ever there. Simple as that.

If I go so far as to actually delete an account, it means I never want to be there anymore, and I want no one that is there to know I existed.

I plan on getting into this Freedom of Content idea more inn a later article, but for now if you arnet already, follow me on Twitter @stay_calm, and please friends, stay calm.

Two In the Pocket

This weeks topic once again comes to us from my brother.

(It seems his insults provide amazing topic ideas for me.)

He thinks its silly that when I go out, I have a Motorola Q9, as well as a second gen iPod Touch on me.

He points out that my phone has a built in mp3 player, the internet, and basically everything else I could want, on the go, with no hassle, and I'd have an extra pocket free if I only carried my phone with me.

While he’s right, my Motorola does have everything I could possibly need built right into it, those features aren't always the best.

And what if I want to (or need to) search the internet while on the phone? Or I want more than the feeble amount of music the SD card provides me? Or maybe I just want to look that technologically proficient?

On the same hand, what if I’m not in a WiFi area and I need to search something online? Or I need to stream live video to the internet? Or need a reliable source for the date and time? (anybody have any idea why my iPods time keeps changing?)

Or hell, just need to make a phone call or send a text message?


I contend that I know multiple people that carry multiple smartphones. One even carries a Blackberry Bold, a iPhone 3G, and a G1.

Now granted, this in an extreme case, and I think a little bit of it is simply to show off, but he has a point. Each one of these devices does a certain thing better than the other;

He uses the iPhone for the plethora of Apps that he just can’t live with out, the Bold for email, and the G1 to test the applications he builds for Android in the real world.

Me? I just think it’d be cool to have all of those phones. (Although, admittedly, it'd be a pain in the ass to find pocket space for them all)

So, while it is a bit of a pain in the ass to carry multiple devices around at the same time (I dread the come of summer and lack of jacket pockets) I feel that if thought out, it can be totally justifiable to have more than one smart device, hell, even more than one phone, on your person.

If you liked this article, please let me know in the comments section, if you're not already, follow me on Twitter @stay_calm, and please friends, remember to stay calm.

White Boys Blogging

So, while talking with my brother on Monday evening, I ask him if he has any ideas for my next article. He sarcastically replies “White boys who blog”. While he meant this in a tongue-in-cheek, sarcastic way, I thought it was a great idea.

(I didn’t tell him that, of course.)

In research for this article, I tried to find the demographic most typical to create, maintain, and use blogs.

I couldn’t figure it out. After a few hours with Google Trends, some research on the net, and reading various articles, I couldn’t find the one group of people most likely to blog.

Now, you might say it’s the younger, male, more socially awkward, with that greenish tint that comes from long hours at the computer.

Fact is, you’d probably be wrong. I know more middle age moms that blog than I do guys my age.
And of the guys my age I know, none of us have that green tint, and most of us have girlfriends.


Weird, huh?

Thing is, this generation is empowering the rest of the world to put themselves out there on the net, to be seen, to be heard, and to live publicly.

With web services like Twitter, Pownce, Myspace, FaceBook, Qik, Skype, Wordpress, and a multitude of others, we can literally publish every minute of our lives online.

What do you think made iJustine so famous? (Its called lifecasting)

My generation grew up feeling distant and disconnected from their peers, haunted by broken families, and having a difficult time opening up to anyone. Turns out, its easier to open up to the anonymous users on the other side of the screen. We are also the first to grow up with the internet as a common tool, taken for granted, and expected to be there for us.

So…are the masses even qualified to do this? To write articles, make movies, post photos, and share their views with the entire world?

That’s the beauty of it, we don’t have to be. Look at Twitter, the premiere micro-blogging site. It asks the question “What are you doing?”

Who cares?

What does it matter that my muffin from star bucks was stale, or how many cigarettes I’ve smoked that day? Obviously someone does care, or twitter wouldn’t have as many followers as it does.

We publish our daily life on the internet, and we will assuredly find someone that is interested in our lives. That’s the beauty of it, that’s what keeps people doing it.

So, while my brother had no idea what thought processes he triggered with his comment, I think this is one of my best posts yet, and sincerely hope that it changes his, and many others minds, to become more open on the net, and take a bigger part in this wonderful thing that is quickly becoming a major, if not essential, part of our world.

If youre not already, follow me on Twitter @stay_calm, and please friends, remember to stay calm.

(And keep telling your friends about this site!!)

HD Video Capture and Editing

Alright guys, looking for some help/advice on a new project im getting into, need lots of info on whats the best/industry standard to do HD video for the internet.

I need camera ideas, editing ideas, as well as any people that have industry experience

i wanna learn people!! lets hope the #empathyday kindness of twitter bleeds over to here

Follow me on twitter at @stay_calm, and like always friends, stay calm

Pork Fried Tshirts

Alright guys, so it looks like its going to be Pork Fried Tshirts, unless someone writes in at the last minute and proposes something even better than our awesomely awesome name.

So we're hoping to have the first tshirts up for sale in select locations in the next few months, stay tuned here for up to the minute updates and all the news you can handle about this super exciting new company.

By the way, if you are interested in being a vendor or investor for Pork Fried Tshirts, or have any other questions or comments, please let us know!!

...And as always, if your not already, follow me on Twitter @stay_calm, and please friends, remember, stay calm.

Update!!

Ok, so as my sister so kindly pointed out, Dead Bird Studios and Six Shot Studios have already been taken...looks like Pork Fried Tshirts is winning...do you really want my new company to be called that?

Start ups and Tshirts

Alright guys, so as some of you may know, i'm starting a new company partnered with my friend Rissa. Currently, we are trying (desperatly) to figure out a name for this venture!!

You, yes you my friend, can help us out, by going to the survey to the right of this post, and choosing which name YOU want on the back of your tshirts!!

if you have any better ideas than the half baked, inspired by things around my apartment, names we came up with, PLEASE, leave them as comments on this post!!

We are counting on the kindness and generosity of the internets to finally give us some direction for this business!!

If youre not already, follow me on Twitter @stay_calm, and please friends, stay calm.

Review of Valkyrie, and an update on my Bonsai tree

Last night my friend Alex and I went to see Valkyrie the local Rave Theater.

We went to a 9:50 showing, and surprisingly, we were the only people in the theater.

It was actually really nice, we talked, we lounged, we texted, it was a great time.

And we weren't disappointed with the movie, either.

Valkyrie is based on the final assassination attempt on Hitler, about 9 months before he committed suicide in his bunker.

It was a great movie, I feel that the cinematography and filming techniques were top notch, defiantly happy with that section.

All the acting was great as well, simply wonderful performances delivered from everyone. I was very happy with the actors chosen, they were all perfectly suited for their roles.

The only problem i have with the entire movie, was that non of them, not one, had a German accent. They tried to pull off the "Hunt for Red October" style start-in-a-foreign-language-and-fade-to-english, but it just wasn't working for me.

Over all though, I was very happy on spending 9 dollars to see this. The plot flowed perfectly, it was accurate, and the drama was approching Hitchcock levels.

In other new, my bonsai tree still hasn't sprouted, I'm getting kinda worried, and yes, I am watering it

If your not already, follow me on twitter @stay_calm, and as always remember my friends, stay calm.

A Scary World: The Cons

The Collective. Borg. The Fat People from Wall-e.

It has a lot of names, but what happens when technology takes over our lives?

The idea of advanced technology heavily integrated in our lives has many scary implications. We’ve all seen 2001: A Space Odyssey, and hence all have the same dreams and nightmares about a computer losing it and trying to eradicate our presence from its world.

What’s scary is most of us don’t know that Google’s goal is to be able to answer any question about our lives we may have, going so far as to be able to answer “what should I do tomorrow?”

Then of course there’s the ever classic Terminator idea, which especially hits home with my generation, growing up with the movies on TV. With the ridiculous amounts of weapons at almost any countries disposal, (just the ones we know about, too) what if a computer program was made smart enough to control all of them and decide whether or not they should be deployed? Non of these weapons have any physical overrides anymore, at least non that a intelligent computer program couldn’t circumvent.

But what about us? If, you know, we aren’t concerned about the world.

What happens when we can get all we need from our computer, netbook, phone, or even watch?
As the prominence of social networking sites increases, it is less and less necessary to actually have to meet a person to be friends with them. Personally I have many friendships all over the US that I have never met in person.

Same with the news, I get everything I need from Twitter, and I generally get it faster and more accurately that if I listened to the news on TV. God forbid I have to wait for the paper Sunday edition.

I’m even able to order anything I need, from clothing to electronics to groceries, on my phone. Scary, huh?

As a society the world is getting to the point where we don’t have to leave the comfort of our apartment to interact is a “personal” way with whole communities.

And if technology keeps advancing in the same way it does, soon we won’t even have to think. We’ll be able to ask a website what we should wear that day, what kind of date we should go on, and what kind of food we should eat that day. Then we’ll be able to order those clothes, have them sent to us, go on a virtual date, and have the food delivered to us, ready to heat up.

The fact that many companies are independently developing very intuitive devices to control applications and programs with our minds means we wont even have to use a mouse, keyboard, or touchpad. And what’s the next step after a wearable mind control device? That’s right, implanted ones.

In my next piece I plan on taking a look at what technology will help us avoid these problems, and what I feel the human race needs to do to walk as one into the new electronic world, in a healthy way.

If you’re not already, follow me on Twitter @stay_calm, and as always friends, please stay calm.

A Brave New Wonderful World

Alright guys, lets start this multipost piece off with the Pros, shall we?

Picture living in a world where no matter where you are in the physical realm, you have every single thing you need right with you.
The Apple iPhone is making huge leaps and bounds with this. Through their App Store you can get almost anything you need, as long as your connected. The Android OS is bringing a whole new realm to this, and I feel will effectively separate the technically skilled from the plain and simple consumers. But that's a subject for another post.

You understand every language as its spoken to you.
There are already multiple sites, including Google Translator that let you translate almost anything instantly as you need it. I can even have this blog translated as i post it into any language i want. (Even Hindi)

You have no need for physical money, and there's no such thing as a "national currency"
There are pioneering bussiness professionals in Africa and other developing nations that are developing ways to transfer large amounts of money, securely via text message. Revolutionary.

Seems like a utopia, right? all because of a magical world that's even more advanced that the internet is today.

The New Country

So, last night, sitting on my couch drunk with my friend Glenn, we started talking about how Web 2.0 is revolutionizing the world.

Now, it may have been the large amounts of Guinness flowing through me, or the vodka for him, but we both envisioned a world where Web 2.0 essentially becomes its own country. Having is own economy, population, companies, even laws.

We called it Web 3.0 (I know, unimaginative, but we were drunk)

Think about it, there are already web only television networks, radio broadcasts, and a whole myriad of social platforms to go and “hang out”.

Not to mention entire companies that exist only on the web, services that wouldn’t exist if it wasn’t for this amazing time.

While we are in the midst of Web 2.0, where the vast majority of the public is just finding out how much the internet can really do, I believe we are setting the stage for the future, where we will live our lives plugged into the net, where we will be able to live two lives, one on the net, and one in the real world.


My next few posts are going to explore the pros and cons of these ideas, how it could help our world immensely, but also take away that which makes us human.

If you’re not already, follow me on Twitter @stay_calm, and please friends, remember to stay calm.

This year, for once, I am actually going to make some resolutions, and resolve to keep them, unlike years past. I always saw this tradition as interesting, because people will wait for the new year to do something, when in reality its just another day. Anyway, here are some of my resolutions:

1. Cut back on smoking.

2. Get in shape.

3. Manage my money even better.

4. Get at least two start up ideas into revenue generating businesses.

5. Get more tattoos.

So, in the end, while 3 of them are actually good for me, one is a bit unrealistic, and the last I would be doing anyway, I guess it’s actually more of a to-do list, than things I want to change about myself…but that’s ok, right?

Tell me some of your resolutions, and let me know what you think of mine…if you’re not already, follow me on Twitter @Stay_Calm, and remember my friends, please just stay calm.