This Guy Loves To Party

If you don’t plan right, eating on a road trip is expensive and nasty.  Restaurants are way too costly and not very good on your stomach or your health.  Both my opening sentence and the sentence that follow it are almost literally the same thing.

I’d love to write a detailed article on this, but there are really only two tips I need to give you:

1. Buy snacks that don’t expire easily at the supermarket before you leave.  Protein powder, mixed nuts, fruits, and dried meats like beef jerky are the best.  Don’t argue with me on this.  That’s a mistake.
2. Buy pre-prepared meals at supermarkets instead of eating at restaurants whenever possible, since meals at supermarkets are always cheaper.  Again, you’re making a mistake if you argue this.

If you take anything from this article, it’s that you don’t fucking argue with me.

I got a hot deal on a rental car that I’m keeping for two weeks.  In New Jersey, after taxes, I’m paying roughly $27 a day to have a fire-hot, sought-after Chevy Cobalt.  The pussy I pull with this bad boy doesn’t cost any extra.

Even the guy at the rental pick-up place seemed surprised at the deal I got on the car.  So, by popular demand (my mom suggested I write a blog post), here is how I got it.

1. First check expedia.com or kayak.com and do a search in your local area for deals on car rentals.  I went for a compact car because I don’t need anything more than that.  Find the cheapest and best deal and take note with which rental agency you’d get it.
2. Next, go to this thread over at the FatWallet Travel Deals forum.  Locate the “overall top five” portion for your rental agency.
3. Enter a few of the listed codes into the appropriate field at Expedia, Kayak, or directly at the dealer’s web site (this will likely be halfway through the checkout process).  See which one gets you the best deal.

I rented my car with Hertz, and one of the listed codes ended up giving me 20% off in the New Jersey area.

The other hurdle I ran into was at the actual rental location.  I haven’t driven a car for about 10 months, and for that reason, am not insured.  Insurance from Hertz cost more than the car itself every day.  However, I found out that if you rent your car using an American Express credit card, you get insurance from American Express themselves and it’s free.  If you don’t have an American Express credit card, this will still work if you rent the car under someone else’s name and list yourself as a secondary driver, as verified by a charming American Express phone rep.  Just find someone nice enough to rent the car on their credit card.  A family member is usually a good choice, and what I opted for.

If anyone has any tips on getting bullet holes out of rental cars or if this is covered by my insurance, hit me up on the comments.  It was my fault, if that’s relevant at all.

All my life, I’ve had a physically oversized head.

When I was 3 years old, I had the receding hair line of a malnourished 75 year old Filipino field worker.  (Google it.  You’ll get it.)  This was because my head was so large, my hair line didn’t begin in the right spot.

I’ve always joked that I don’t have a forehead, but instead I have a fivehead.  People always laugh at that because it’s true.  I swear to god a severely retarded guy in a wheelchair once overhead me say that one, took a look at me, and even started laughing.  It kills.

I have a set of veins on the side of my head that jump out when I get excited, laugh, or exercise.  They’ve always been there, and they’re not going anywhere.  People often point them out to me like I didn’t know they were there.  I usually respond by rubbing on them vigorously as I start panicking and yelling.  I think this is the response they expect, but I’m not sure.

But I’m not one to just accept my shortcomings.  If you also have an oversized head, then there are a few visual tricks you can use to make it look smaller.

Trick #1: Develop Your Shoulder Muscles

The best trick for making your head appear smaller is to build your deltoid muscles, which are the muscles surrounding your shoulders.  Specifically, you want to work the lateral head of the deltoid, which is the portion responsible for your shoulder width.

Wider shoulders give the illusion that you don’t have the head of a freak.  Narrow shoulders accentuate your bulbous cranium.

The lateral portion of your deltoids usually respond best to higher repetitions.  When you’re in the gym, try to throw in 3 sets of 15 reps of the following two exercises.  (Do this two times a week, preferably spread as far apart from each other as possible.)

Pitcher raise (lateral raise where, at the end of the movement, you “pour” the dumbbell downward so that your pinky is higher)

Pitcher Raise (Photo: t-nation.com)

Gironda dumbbell swing (ends the same as pitcher raise, but with a swinging motion on both arms)

Gironda Swings (Photo: t-nation.com)

The most important part of these exercises is that you’re turning your hands during the movement so that, by the end, your pinky is sitting higher than the rest of your fingers on the dumbbell.

Trick #2: Cut Your Hair, Hippy

I always get an urge to grow my hair out.  I think every guy does.  We always reach that one golden week where our haircut is absolutely perfect, and we get cocky and think to ourselves, “Why not just grow it out?”

I’ve done this many times before, and it’s a mistake for anyone with a huge head, especially if your hair just turns into a giant poofball like mine.  Cut your hair at least once a month, and keep it short.

Trick #3: Lose Weight

When you’re fatter, a lot of weight goes to your face, and since you don’t get proportionally bigger when you put on fat (your shoulders don’t suddenly get wider because you’re fatter, for example), it’ll make your head look like a giant balloon.

Trick #4: Wear a Poofy Jacket or Sweater

If all else fails, just wear a big poofy jacket or sweater at all times.  It worked for Diddy in 1996.

Join me in the war against big heads

I follow all these tips (except for the poofy jacket thing, I’m not black enough to do that) and have moved the attention away from my oversized head instead to my poor taste in clothing.

Good luck in your quest.

If you use a Mac and want to be more productive, then this tip will help you a lot.

The biggest problem with working for yourself and attempting to make money online are all the distractions you have.  Instead of focused working, I catch myself every 15 minutes checking to see which of my friends has updated their Facebook status, or to find out more about a random celebrity on Wikipedia, or to see if I have any new e-mail.  Sometimes my eyes get stuck on all the junk I have sitting on my desktop, or I zone out while listening to music.

Eventually, my mind is focused on anything but the work I have to get done.

I’ve fixed that problem, for the most part, by taking advantage of OS X’s multiple user accounts feature.  (This exists in Windows, too, but Windows is for shit heads, so I don’t know how to do it.)

What does this do?

A lot of people don’t realize you can create a second “user” on your computer.  This sets aside a small space on your computer with no personal documents, no messy desktop, nothing.  You go into it, and it’s almost like you have a brand new computer, aside from the existing applications you have.

I set up a new user — I named it “Work” — and whenever it’s time to get down to business, I simply log out of my main user, where all my personal documents are, and log into my “Work” user, where the only documents are those that are associated with my Internet business.

While in there, Facebook doesn’t automatically log me in, I have no e-mail accounts set up, and there’s no digital clutter to keep my mind distracted.  I’m a lot more focused on the task at hand.

How do you do it?

A patient-sounding man with a very robotic voice has saved me the trouble and already prepared an excellent tutorial on creating new user accounts.  Watch it below.

You simply need to select “log out” from the Apple menu when you want to switch between accounts.

Use this for any kind of project you have

I’ll be using this technique with all future projects I have.  The main advantage it provides is that the new user account has no data in it.  This decluttering will clear your mind and help you focus.  With a clear mind, you’ll find you get a lot more done.  When you’ve completed your work, just hop back over to your “main” account and spend as much time as you want on Wikipedia finding out what Stephanie from Full House is up to these days.

In case you missed it, part 1 of this series dealt with what kind of picture to use and how to fill out your personal description.

Welcome to part 2 of my guide to designing the perfect CouchSurfing profile.  Follow my advice and you’ll always have a couch to sleep on, guaranteed.

In this guide, we’re going to cover what you should write to your prospective hosts to land a killer couch.

Step 1: You’ve Got To Grab Their Attention

I want you to try a little experiment for me.

I want you to put yourself into the mind of a prospective CouchSurfing host.

You’re receiving hundreds, maybe thousands of requests a day from people all over the globe who want to stay on your couch.

How are you going to select just one person?  There are so many messages in your inbox, your head starts to hurt.  You don’t even know where to begin.

But what if your eye catches a subject so compelling, so breath-taking, you have to open that message?  Do you think the writer of that message is going to be the lucky recipient of your couch?  You better believe it.

That’s it for the experiment.  You can snap out of your trance-like state now.

What I want you to get from this is the idea that you’ve got to grab your prospective host’s attention with a compelling subject.

I personally suggest you greet them in the subject, and then insult them.  It’s the ol’ push-pull technique, and works like a charm.  Something along the lines of…

“Hello and good day, shit head”

I know I would open a message with that subject, fascinated and compelled to learn more about its sender.

Bonus points if it’s an insult in their own language, since many lazy foreigners don’t take the time to learn the finer details of English swearing.  Pisses me off.

Step 2: Appeal To Their Senses With The Perfect Message

Now that the prospective host has opened your message, you have to prove to him how cool you are.

I have never failed opening with, “What’s up, dude.”  Don’t be an idiot and try anything else.  This line is gold.

Through rigorous split testing, I’ve found that the body of the message works best when it is short, sweet, and a little bit threatening.  Something along the lines of…

“Hey, I’m looking for the perfect couch to sleep on.  Yours looks great, and I would be a great guest.  Don’t make a fucking mistake by choosing someone else.”

Finally, your signature is vitally important.  This is the final impression that the prospective host will have of you, so you have to make it count.  I’ve found that being bubbly and fun is killer.

“Hehe, well I’ll see you!  Clay”

This clearly shows you’re a fun person, which is very important.

This is what the final request should look like.

And That’s It!

By having the perfect profile as covered in part 1, along with the perfect CouchSurfing request as covered here, you’ll never have to face online rejection again.

Good luck!

One of my goals upon quitting real life was to learn another language.

Most of the world speaks more than one language.  I felt like it was my responsibility to pick up a second one myself.

But let’s be honest: what really triggered it for me was a joke I heard.  It goes something like this…

Q: What do you call someone who speaks three languages?

A: Tri-lingual.

 

Q: What do you call someone who speaks two languages?

A: Bi-lingual.

 

Q: What do you call someone who speaks one language?

A: American.

I was essentially the butt of that joke.  That sucks.  So, I set about to change that around…

I made a lot of mistakes learning a second language, so learn from them and don’t waste your time like I did at first.

How NOT to learn another language

You need formal instruction to really learn a language.  There’s really no way around this.

Simply put, avoid any kind of formal instruction in the language and you likely won’t learn much of it.  Or, you’ll learn to speak the language like a caveman, forming incomplete, grammatically-challenged sentences, and failing to really express yourself.

I am not a big fan of self-guided learning, and feel that a private instructor is really the only route to go.  Self-guided learning — listening to audio tapes, using ineffective programs like the Rosetta Stone, and so on — will teach you some things, but has no way of really correcting you when you make mistakes.

A private instructor, on the other hand, will find all the faults in your speech and work with you to eliminate them.

There’s also a number of people who preach immersion as the only way to learn a language.  Immersion — sticking yourself in the middle of an environment that only speaks your desired language — is a tool and not a means to an end.  I am a big proponent of using immersion to learn a language — in conjunction with private lessons.

If you don’t have much knowledge of a language, sticking yourself in the middle of it will only confuse you.  The locals speak fast and use a lot of vocabulary that you won’t know (and won’t have time to look up).  If you are studying the language and have a certain level of comfort in it, then immersion will skyrocket your results.

Also, if you really want to screw up your language learning efforts, then spend 99% of your time hanging out with people who only speak your native language.  If you don’t practice your new language, and practice it a lot, you won’t become very proficient in it.

So, to sum up what not to do to learn a language:

• Avoid private lessons.
• Use self-guided courses, like the Rosetta Stone or Pimsleur.
• Immerse yourself before having any knowledge of the language.
• Spend most of your time with people who only speak your native language.

What you SHOULD do to learn a new language

If you reread my previous section, you’ll catch a couple subtle hints about what I recommend you should do to learn a new language.

If you missed it, here it is:

Take lessons with a private instructor.  These can be very cheap if done outside the USA.  Even private lessons in universities in Europe are relatively cheap.

If you want to learn really fast, then live with a native family for a month or more, speaking only the new language.  If this isn’t possible, then arrange for a “language exchange,” where you speak with someone with the specific goal of refining and correcting your conversational skills in the new language.

Speak with anyone who has learned a second language at a proficient level and they’ll tell you the same things I’m telling you now.  A private instructor, preferably five days a week for a few hours each day, will give you a nice level of proficiency in a very short period of time.

To supplement your private lessons, you’ll need to study on your own to build your vocabulary.  I wrote an article on the best way to quickly memorize anything, which I used to learn Spanish vocabulary.

Whenever you encounter a word you don’t know, write it down.  Then, every night, use the method in the linked article to internalize your day’s vocabulary list.  By the end of a month, you’ll have nearly 1,000 new words.  You only need about 2,000 to be conversational in any language.

So, to go over again what you should do to learn a new language:

• Take lessons with a private tutor.
• Live with a native family, or participate in a language exchange.
• Study vocabulary lists on your own for an hour every night.

My Story: Learning Spanish

I left for Panama in August of 2008 speaking absolutely no Spanish.

I fumbled around with Pimsleur courses, and even took a shot at the Rosetta Stone.  Both programs moved at a snail’s pace, were frustrating to use, and resulted in me knowing very little functional Spanish.

I also tried using some of the “free” Spanish learning sites scattered all over the web.  All were pretty much worthless for someone who doesn’t already have knowledge of the language.

I thought that being immersed in the Panamanian culture would quickly rub off and teach me Spanish.  In three months I was able to pick up enough to order food and survive, but that was about it.  I couldn’t hold a reasonable conversation with anyone.  I didn’t understand a word anyone said to me.

I took some private classes in Colombia, and within about two weeks of three-times-a-week two hour classes, I had practically tripled what I had learned in the previous three months.

I then headed off to Argentina, planning to criss-cross my way through the country by myself, speaking only Spanish with the locals.  I had no plans of taking private classes.  After one week of doing this, though, my head hurt.  I didn’t understand anything anyone told me, and it became frustrating to ask everyone to slow down and explain to me, in detail, what they just said so I could write down new vocabulary.

I was frustrated and had had enough.  After 5 months in Latin America, I could speak Spanish like a baby Neanderthal.  I was doing something wrong.  After a bit of searching, I found a private teacher in Ecuador who also had a room available in her house.

For $220 a week, I had room, food, and 20 hours of private lessons.

And after only 5 weeks, I was comfortably speaking conversational Spanish with the locals.  I was, for the first time, able to express myself instead of just grunting out one-word commands.  (One of those 5 weeks was dedicated solely to cleaning up all the “bad” Spanish I had taught myself along my journey.)

I have a feeling my time in Latin America would have been completely different had I dedicated five weeks to studying Spanish with a private tutor in the very beginning of the trip, instead of wasting my time trying to teach myself with inefficient methods.

What I’m trying to get at is…

If you want to quickly learn just about any language, you’ll be best off following the advice I give on this page.

In fact, ask just about anyone who has a strong grasp of a foreign language and they’ll give you the exact same advice.

Put down a little bit of money, take private lessons, and enjoy your new language.  It’ll be worth it in avoided frustration.

The giant red "X" suggests this is not smart.

Everything I own fits in one 35 liter backpack that I lug with me around the world.

One reason everything fits is simply because I don’t own a lot of stuff. But that’s not all there is to it; the real reason I can cram everything in my backpack is because I figured out the best method of folding and packing my clothes.

Folding Clothes To Minimize Space

Travel nerds all over the web are having a heated debate over the subject of how to fold clothes to minimize space in a bag.

The Methods That Fail

Bundle Wrapping
One popular folding method in the travel community is the Bundle Wrapping method. This one is popular simply because it seems exotic. In reality, it’s retarded, and I doubt many people use it successfully. That doesn’t stop them from blogging about it, though.

The problem with the Bundle Wrapping method: the entire idea is that you wrap items of clothing within eachother. This supposedly saves space. On paper, this seems great. In reality, you end up with a giant bundled ball of clothes that’s impossible to fit in any standard-sized bag.

Rolling
God I wish everyone would stop fellating the rolling method. It’s awful, awful, awful. It takes up unnecessary amounts of space, saves nothing, and wrinkles your clothes like no other. Essentially you just roll your clothes up into little cylinders and hope for the best.

The problem with the rolling method: for one, your clothes end up taking up too much space vertically. The rolling method also leaves small, unused pockets of space between your clothes on either end, since your rolled clothes are naturally thicker in the middle.

The Method That Works

After failing with the other popular packing methods, I found one that worked, still works after seven months of traveling, and will continue to work into the future.

It’s not special at all, but I’m going to give it a special name anyway. It’s the Rational Packing Method.

How The Rational Packing Method Works

Along with your clothes, you’re going to need rubber bands and (optional but very handy) ziplock bags.

• For jeans, pants, and other thicker items: fold them completely normally as tight as you can. Wrap a thick rubber band around them to keep them from unfolding. Put them at the bottom of your bag.
• For underwear, socks, and thinner items: fold them as tightly as possible, putting a double-wrapped rubber band around each one, and put them in the small available creases to the sides of your pants in your bag. Put any extras wrapped together into a ziplocked bag.
• For shirts: fold them normally, folding them over into as tight a square as you can. Put a double-wrapped rubber band around each one. Pack the shirts together into a large ziplock bag, which will keep them fresh and help keep them from sliding around in your bag, taking up more space.
• All other items (scarves, jackets, etc): wrap them completely normally, as tight as you can with rubber bands around them. Fit them in on top of the other items in your bag.

Step 1. HOW WILL THAT GIANT SHIRT EVER FIT IN MY BAG?

Step 2. Keep folding the shirt into smaller and smaller squares, completely normally.

Step 3. Once you can't fold the shirt over anymore, wrap it tightly with a rubber band.

Step 4. Take a picture with your folded shirt and write a blog post about it.

Essentially, you’re just folding your clothes into tight squares (with the exception of pants, which go somewhat flat at the bottom of your bag) and keeping those squares tight with rubber bands and ziplock bags.  When you pack everything into your bag, it’ll all fit together like one giant, satisfying puzzle, and not into a bunch of nasty clumps like with the other popular methods.

This method is very space-efficient and makes packing light very simple.  I have no problems fitting a full wardrobe of clothes inside a 35 liter (school-sized) backpack.  A nice bonus is that, surprisingly, your clothes won’t wrinkle.

The biggest draw-back, though, is that you won’t be able to blog about how great the Bundle Wrapping method is, and how you’re a revolutionary backpack packer because you pack your bag like a futuristic spaceman.  Sorry.

"Well, I think you're a cunt." (Photo: enggul)

I was sitting in a restaurant with two of my buddies in Colombia.  Somehow the subject of DUIs and drinking and driving in general came up.

One of my buddies started arguing that the intoxication level to signal a DUI should be raised.  Understanding that his argument was absolutely retarded, I countered what he said.

“People shouldn’t drink anything at all and drive, period,” I argued.  “No one’s greediness should risk my personal safety.”

He sputtered out a disconnected response, which eventually led to me suggesting that most people refuse to take personal responsibility for their actions.  He said he disagreed.

I love arguments, and this one was on.

I immediately provided an example to show him how wrong he was.  “When I worked as a computer technician, people came in all the time with broken screens on their laptops, claiming they weren’t responsible and that it ‘just happened’, wanting the screen replaced for free under warranty.  Even after we pointed out the clear impact point on the screen, making it absolutely obvious that it was from an external source and not something random, these people still refused to fess up that they had punctured and damaged their own screens.  We got a few of these people in our store every day.”

He shook his head and said, “Yeah, but that doesn’t really matter…”  I had no idea what he was trying to get at.  He made a point, got it refuted, and simply tried to pass it all off as unimportant and beside the point.

I was already upset enough that he had defended drunk driving.  I was getting pissed that he was providing no real intelligent evidence for his arguments.  And this was the last straw for me.

“Are you kidding me?” I yelled.  “You aren’t arguing anything!  You’re just changing the subject and refusing to recognize any other viewpoints!”  I continued like this for a while.

And right then, I immediately lost every aspect of that argument, although my opponent was an idiot.  (I’ve already lost the argument, so I might as well call him an idiot now.)

How To Lose Any Argument

As soon as you result to questioning your opponent’s intelligence or ability to reason, you’re done.  You’ve lost it.

Arguments are fun, if done right.  They provide insight into another person’s point of view.  I’ve changed my mind on many subjects because someone else was able to intelligently refute my established point of view.

You likely get engaged in arguments because you want to change your opponent’s point of view.  That should be your only goal, no matter what happens.

But the second you stray from your clear-cut, well-thought-out argument, you’re done.  Your opponent’s ability to form a thought has nothing to do with health care reform, so don’t question it.  Your opponent’s stupid circular reasoning doesn’t have much to do with eating a vegan diet, so leave it out.  “Are you seriously arguing that?” is a phrase that doesn’t have much in common with abortion rights.

So if you want to lose any argument, question your opponent’s ability to argue.  If you want to win an argument, just stay level-headed and stick to your guns.

What I Would Have Done Differently In My First Situation

Nah, I wouldn’t have done anything differently.

The guy was impossible to have a rational argument with, I soon learned.  Some people are better left alone.

In my quest to learn Spanish in South America, I looked into every memorization and learning method published on the web.  If I could find a method to quickly internalize lots of Spanish vocabulary, then I would be able to learn the language very rapidly, I reasoned to myself.  The learning systems I found, unfortunately, didn’t prove to be of much use.

I did end up reading a brief blurb somewhere, though, about a method called “space repetition learning”.  Interestingly, this phrase ended up giving me two very different memorization methods that both work astonishingly well, and that I use in unison to retain my vocabulary.

The “Spaced Learning” System

Spaced learning is a simple system developed by memory researcher R. Douglas Fields, and is in use at Monkseaton High School in England.  It’s a relatively little-known system, but has worked very well for me.  It involves three eight-to-ten-minute sessions learning lots of information with ten minute breaks of unrelated material inbetween.

The “Spaced Repetition” System

A more well-known system, spaced repetition requires a computer program that uses an algorithm that calculates approximately when you’re going to forget a memorized item.  It presents the item to you right before you forget, which has been shown to be the best time to reinforce a learned item.

Here’s how I use the two systems on my computer to learn Spanish vocabulary.

1. I use a flash card program in conjunction with the Spaced Learning system to internalize 25 words. I’ll fill the program with 25 new words and their definitions, and have it test me on both directions of the translation.  I do one 8 minute session, then watch a movie or do something unrelated for 10 minutes, then repeat two more times, for three 8 minute sessions in total.
2. I enter all 25 words, afterward, into a program designed for Spaced Repetition, and then review my previous days’ vocabulary. I spend about 10 to 20 minutes every night with my Spaced Repetition program.  The way the system works is that you’ll only see a limited set of vocabulary any given day — the words that your mind is just about ready to discard.  Therefore, even if you’ve filled the program with thousands of words, you’ll likely only be presented with a few on any given day.

Internalizing the words with the flash card program requires about an hour of work (ten minutes to fill in the words and their definitions, and then 50 minutes to do the actual studying) and is actually extremely effective by itself to learn new items.  For vocabulary, I’ve found 25 words to be the sweet spot, although I’ve had success going up to 40 words at a time (although my retention wasn’t as good).  If you have the time, the system also works if you do 25 words in two 50-minute sessions, spread throughout the day.

The Spaced Repetition software needs to be used every night to be truly effective.  It is timed to present words right before the moment your mind forgets them, so if you skip a day or more, you ruin the effect of the program.  This method helps you to remember the new vocabulary long-term.

Using this system, I was able to internalize about 700 new Spanish words in the course of 5 weeks of study.  At the end of the 5 weeks, my retention was tested and sat right around 90% of the words studied.

The programs I used, both for Mac OS X, were:

• Genius for flash card/Spaced Learning
• Anki for Spaced Repetition

Anki is available for Windows and Linux.

If you have any other suggestions for effective learning methods, please leave them in the comments.  I would like to update this article in the future to include more resources.