It’s about three and a half months into this cultivation cycle. One thing that I’m noticing is that risks don’t seem as risky. They’re still risks of course. But there’s stuff to support the outcome whichever way things go. So I’m not as concerned with second-guessing.
I’m moving to Pasadena this week. There’s risks involved with that for sure. Lots of unknowns. But I know its better for my productivity and development than staying in my Dad’s literal closet-room. I say literal because there’s so many books in there.
I’m actually looking forward to packing. I’ll get some boxes on my way home. The idea of wrapping things up in such a visceral way…it feels good.
A strange thing about the cultivation is that the focus comes in cycles. It seems like everything is a cycle these days. There will be a couple weeks of wanting to read a lot of actual physical book stuff. Then there’s a transition to wanting to exercise a lot. Now I’m in the phase where I want to watch interesting videos. I’m sure when I move it will all just cycle again.
Nauticaboy has been talking about Valuetown all the time. That’s interesting because I feel like I’m getting more “value” out of life. This is from a sheer time-existence point of view. There are days where not a single minute goes by that didn’t have a place. Everything has a spot to go into. It’s obvious that I’m going to take this as far as it goes.
My car is getting maintenance right now. It is going to cost me over 600 dollars to have a 3 year maintenance. That is a lot of money to me. But the cultivation helped me think with some foresight. I saw the letter come in the mail that said I needed to do the 30k maintenance or else 3 years…whichever comes first.
It has been a little less than 3 years so I’m like, “OK whatever dude.”
But a little foresight says that I’ve already had the letter in the back of my mind for the past 3 days. I know getting the maintenance will decrease my stress and keep my focus on work and productivity…but there’s the financial sting.
So here I am…at Starbucks. I’m not at home because I’m getting the maintenance done. I’d rather just do it and not have to think about it, than second guess myself later down the line while commuting between Pasadena and Newport Beach for work. I don’t need to double check to see if it’s the right call. I know it is. That’s what cultivation is doing at this stage in the cycle. Risks aren’t really the same as they used to be. There’s still variables, there’s still unknowns, but the constant is that I’ll have the energy to deal with the future.
Creatively, things are going well. There is a new story I’ve been working on that takes place in Iraq of 2003. It’s exciting but the characters are just about to enter a deep hole in the desert into an unknown area. This entering the unknown has been a barrier because there haven’t been a lot of unknowns from me to draw from. But moving to a new place which is a basement room is kind of like entering the subterranean depths…hopefully it comes across in the writing.
Okay, so I got Starcraft 2 and loaded it. It was so awesome with the music and everything. My computer is a beast now. It is 6-core AMD monster and I have a dedicated hard-drive just for big progs like starcraft 2 etc.
I especially wanted to test it because I wanted to stay on top of the current trends in computer gaming technology. But seriously, it said that I should run the game on ULTRA settings because of my video card and CPU capabilities.
So I’m running this puppy and it is HUGE on the impressive and epic scale. Everything is futuristic and the interface definitely feels like they did years of work perfecting it.
There’s only one problem:
The game is gnarly on my fan. I mean, I was on headphones and I could hear my fan. I was like, “What the heck?” Not even Fallout 3 is this demanding on my computer. It blew me away.
My computer has several fans and enough CPU’s to handle intense video encoding for HD. Running a PC game shouldn’t make me “worried.” But that’s exactly how I felt. I felt like I need to wait till I get my next-gen computer in a few years before trying the run the game again.
This is a serious departure from Warcraft 2 and Starcraft…maybe even Warcraft 3. When you loaded Starcraft on your computer, it didn’t matter if you were top of the line. It pretty much ran on a basic computer. That was because it was 2D sprites happening on a battlefield. But Starcraft 2 is totally 3D with homies talking and throwing Molotov cocktails like it’s going out of style.
I think what’s happening is that Starcraft 2 was meant to be played on “Normal” settings. But, the game is already a year or so old. I don’t get it.
Now that I think about it, Fallout 3 is actually much older than Starcraft 2. So comparing the two doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. Fallout 3 was 2008 and Starcraft just came out in 2010. Even though this is only a two-year gap, it means a tremendous amount when you factor in technology leaps.
Honestly, I doubt I would be as stressed about running this game if I had an extra solid-state drive. But I can’t risk putting this bad boy on one of my solid states because I’m using them for my OS and the other one is for my music video project.
So, what I’m thinking, is that I’ll hold off on Starcraft 2 and wait till my next computer that will pretty much have solid state drives for everything.
It is so funny how PC games work. It’s almost like they are already doomed because the new ones require a computer that isn’t affordable until 2 years later. Also, with patches and bug fixes, there is no real reason to jump out and buy a new game for the PC right when they come out.
Also, with the advent of Console gaming requiring an internet connection, programmers get a free-life. I say this because they can always use the HD-system for console games to require a patch.
This wasn’t possible back in the days of NES and SNES. All bugs had to be worked out before the release date. If that didn’t happen then they would have to live with the bugs in the game. I never heard of recalls of cartridges. I only remember that there were different versions of the battery system for Zelda.
All-in-all I’m actually glad about this. It was extremely satisfying to wait so long for Fallout 3 to come out and then get completely blown away when exiting the vault. I can’t express how huge that felt.
I had a similar pumped feeling when digging into Starcraft 2, but the fan sound really did pull me back. So in a couple years I’ll jump back into it on a more powerful machine with some dedicated solid states and hopefully I’ll be able to do a real review at that time.
3900 E Coast Hwy
Corona Del Mar, CA 92625
(949) 675-7404
Gallo’s subs are made of bread and meat and cheese goodness. The other day I looked on the menu, and it said they sold muenster cheese. And if you are an upstanding citizen, you would know that muenster is actually, “edible lactose gold.”
The first time I had muenster on a sandwich that I would normally have another type on cheese on…was in New York City. I was visiting the city and had the pleasure to see an old friend. She was dressed to impress and wanted to get hamburgers.
“Hamburgers huh? I’m listening…” I said to her as we walked across the street after playing some darts.
Actually, that makes no sense because now that I think of it we ordered over the phone. So in reality the above quote happened before we walked across the street.
What’s important is that the shop was open late. And the cheeseburger had muenster cheese on it. It tasted so delicious and it was excellent after a long night of adventuring around New York.
Well, when I saw that they had Muenster cheese at Gallo’s deli in Corona del Mar, I did not hesitate. They asked me what kind of cheese and I was the most polite cheese asker you’ve ever heard. There was no way they were going to tell me no muenster. I knew what I wanted and I asked for the cheese goodness with such kindness and sensitivity that literally my breath was made of rainbows.
yum meat balls
The gentleman made me the sandwich with muenster. It was a meatball sub and it looked like the picture that you see here.
The reason why it looks like this is because THIS IS IT! This is the sandwhich I ate today. I ate a meatball sub today and one last week.
The bbq beef picture that is depicted at the top of this article was from earlier this week.
I’ve been going there a lot because…I get hungry man.
The cheese is so good when it is hot with the saucy snack-able meats.
AT&T recently announced that it will be discontinuing the $10 for 1,000 text/month plan, leaving only unlimited text plans available as an option.
If you already have the $10 text/month plan, you will be able to keep the plan until you make a change on your account. If you are currently unlimited and don’t use over 1000 texts a month, definitely switch now before that cheaper plan is gone!
This move from AT&T is likely in response to the Apple iOS 5 update that will include iMessage. iMessage will allow iPhone, iPad/iPad 2 and iPod Touch users to text one another for free, using a wi-fi network or through the data plan. Clearly, AT&T foresees their overall text usage to drop and they don’t want those customers to save the cash they would have by downgrading their text plans. My advice is even if you use over 1,000 text messages a month now, find out whether most of the friends you text are using an apple device that supports iOS 5 and weigh that into consideration on whether or not to downgrade plans now, while you still can. Again, you can always upgrade back to unlimited if that’s the best option.
This is typical AT&T trying to milk its users for all the revenue they can. The old 200 text/month plan for $5 was discontinued in January of this year. I have the $10 plan and was dismayed when I found out they discontinued the $5 plan. In checking my usage stats, I averaged only about 150 texts a month for the past year. The basic rate for a text message with no plan is 20 cents for a standard message and 30 cents for a multimedia message. Essentially, if I didn’t have a text plan, I would be paying $30 USD for my usage as opposed to the $10 I am paying now. That’s how AT&T markets their plans to make you think you’re getting a “good deal.”
However, plenty of articles have showed how ridiculous this charge is compared to what it costs the carriers to provide the service. The cost to a carrier, according to Srinivasan Keshav, a professor at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, is roughly .3 cents per text. You would have to send more than 6,000 texts in a month before the carrier would start losing any money on the deal. I don’t know anyone who texts that much, let alone half that much; and unless you are a bored teenager who is actively trying to see how many texts you can get in one month, I just don’t see it happening.
Don’t let AT&T take you to value town any more than they already are!
There’s a cool new-ish feature for Wells Fargo online. It is called, “Money Map” and you can find it in the tabs when you check your Wells Fargo online personal accounts. It is nice because it visually helps a person keep track of budget items.
For example, I noticed that I haven’t been using my Starbucks card because last month money was really tight. So I was using cash and wanted to minimize my latte intake. (YEAH RIGHT, that didn’t workout very well)
But instead I’ve actually been consuming more latte’s than a latte disposal machine. So what’s been happening is that I’ve been using cash to buy lots of latte’s.
One thing that I like about Money Map is that is graphically showed that I was using more cash. This made me think, “Ok, I need to probably start using my Starbucks card again because I’m missing out on the free drink after 15 starbux drinks.”
Times are tough lately, and being able to track spending is a smart thing to do. If you click on the different bar graphs on the right, it will give a detail on the purchases on that category.
Last thing, there is a “My Spending Report” that shows a line that is the monthly average. It shows when you are going way over the normal amount of spending. For me that was March. That was because I was finishing my last couple classes of school and I had to basically pay by check. Even though it was a State University it still cost me over $1,500 for registration/tuition alone. This isn’t counting books or fuel for transportation.
So overall this is a nice addition to Wells Fargo’s online banking interface. Hopefully they can keep useful items like this cooking…without crowding or over-complicating the user interface.
There are several websites that I use to find value town deals. I’m going to share my favorite – slickdeals. The site is created and visited by value towners like myself. If you read the comment posts in some of the threads, that value town mentality becomes very apparent.
Slickdeals is a website I refresh at least 5 times daily. Deals are so hot sometimes, they are often gone shortly after making front page. I’ve memorized my credit card to speed up the purchasing process just because I’ve had a deal in my cart become “no longer available” when trying to finalize a purchase. The site works by using the power of the user community. Users post deals they find to be good and other users rate that deal with either a thumbs up or thumbs down. Posts with enough thumbs up will be flagged for a moderator to review. If the deal is confirmed by a moderator to be an extraordinaire deal, it is moved to the front page. Essentially, only best deals are on the front page. Every thumbs up a user receives for a post is saved on his or her account as “reputation”. Having a high reputation is mainly just bragging rights, but there is a daily giveaway that works like a raffle. Every reputation score you have is how many tickets you have, giving you a better chance to winning that day’s prize. My favorite thing about slickdeals as opposed to other deal websites is that since the deals are found by the community, there is large variety in deal offerings. Some deal sites, like Spoofee seem to be run by a single or small group of moderators that find and post deals. The categories of deals they have tend to cater to a broader audience; so it’s somewhat difficult finding a deal for something particular, like a hotel deal at the Wynn in Las Vegas. Slickdeals also has a search bar you can use to find a specific deal you are looking for. In fact, I’ve been in Hawaii this week for work and I needed some Hawaiian shirts. I saw Macy’s nearby and after a quick slickdeal search for “Macy’s,” I found out they are having a 25% off $100 or more deal this weekend. That worked perfectly as Hawaiian shirts run about $75-125 each.
My recommendation is before buying any deal, read the comments section first. Users are are usually very good about commenting about the product or vendor. Saving cash buying a poor product from an online vendor with a bad reputation is obviously not a slick deal. So next time you’re looking to buy something, check out slickdeals. It’s value town certified!
Reading for Pleasure is optimal for Comprehension as well
Being able to comprehend what one reads is an awesome skill. This technique is simple to do but it works. The trick to it is that it is very counter-intuitive because it seems too easy.
Have you ever noticed that you remember lots of little details on things?
Let’s say you are a sports fan. You can remember RBI’s and touchdown records like a human computer.
Let’s say you are a video or computer gamer. You remember statistics on how characters and items work. You know exactly what realm to go adventuring in for the best EXP and coolest quests.
Let’s say you are an avid comic book reader. You know about every superhero his or her special abilities and their back-stories.
The truth is, you actually have an EXCELLENT memory. It’s just that your memory appears to be selective.
Here’s how it works.
When you get information, your body and mind are doing all sorts of things. There are emotions pumping chemicals through your circulatory and endocrine system. Neurons are firing. And also you may be interacting with friends or family or even co-workers and so there can be social things happening as well.
As you get information, how you get that information directly affects your comprehension. If you are feeling pleasure or excitement, perhaps even a burst of adrenaline…then the chances for comprehension go way up.
Think about those sports stats, if you see your favorite baseball player hit a foul-ball and you happen to catch the ball in your hand…do you think you’ll remember that game or the player or even the run breakdown per inning? Of course you will. This is because you are both consciously and subconsciously attached to the information.
So let’s apply this to reading.
Many people read books and have completely different reading styles. My father likes to skim books. He does this especially for historical fiction. He reads them and enjoys them. But his comprehension is hit-or-miss. Sometimes he even borrows the same books over again because he forgot about them entirely. This is happening because of the motivation for reading the book. For his case, he reads the book as a way to relax after a long day of work.
But if you’re reading this, you want to improve your comprehension for all things that you read. This includes books, online information, blogs, manuals, non-fiction books, histories…everything.
The key is to read everything…I mean EVERYTHING, as if you are reading it for maximum pleasure. This may seem really strange. How can reading a book for school be maximum pleasure?
The most important thing to think about is not the book you’re reading, but the state your mind is in when you read it. You need to figure out your favorite places to read. Do you like reading with music or without? Do you like being alone when you read? Are coffee shops fun places to get reading done for you, or is home better?
When you think about the above questions, don’t imagine that you’re reading something for work or school. Imagine you’re reading something that is a piece of information that you really WANT to read. Something that will bring either happiness or excitement in your life.
Let’s say you don’t read all too often. But you’re a businessman or businesswoman, and you just got some interesting statistics for a business opportunity. This could be extremely profitable for you and it could make your retirement run much more smoothly if you play your cards right. Visualize how you’d read every word and savor the information so you can talk to the potential investor or client in detail about the opportunity. The more you comprehend, the smarter and more capable you’ll appear to both your client and yourself. But since you’re sincerely interested in this information, you savor each line and diagram and are truly enjoying yourself.
Would you read a document like that while trying to drive cross-country with your angry kids who just got from soccer practice? Probably not. It’s too important.
You’d probably take that document and go to your personal study and relax. Maybe put on some music or bring some tea or chill water with you. Maybe you’d bring the document to a coffee shop and order your favorite drink…so what if it’s expensive and fattening…this document is worth it. “I can always go to the gym later…this is important.”
As you read this document, you’re not just reading letters on a page. Your whole body and mind is engaging the information. Consciously, your eyes are reading the words and your mind may be hearing them internally. But subconsciously, the entire setting, your mood, and the vibes of the whole experience is sticking to you.
What people don’t realize, is that the subconscious side of comprehension is just as important as actually reading the words.
Here’s where things start to get even more strange. You don’t even need to understand everything you read.
Actually, it can be better for your comprehension if you consciously are completely dumbfounded by what you’re reading. Subconsciously, what is happening is that your mind puts the information in a little box.
Imagine the box as an, “I don’t quite get this info yet” labeled box. Your subconscious mind LOVES this stuff. Everyday life is completely mundane and even the most complicated things these days are lined out to such scrutiny that there’s little mystery anymore. But it isn’t this way for your subconscious. The part of your mind that doesn’t get to directly participate in the day gets a tremendous amount of entertainment by NOT knowing things. And the more it doesn’t know something, the more it will tinker with those ideas during the day and during sleep.
So here’s the most important part of this Subconscious Reading Comprehension technique. When you get to something in an article or book that you don’t understand. Don’t trip up on it. Don’t even mark it. Just read it a couple time over. And then when you realize that you don’t understand the information on that page…say to yourself, “Hmm! That’s interesting. I haven’t the foggiest about that.” (you can add whatever dialect or accent you choose here)
Then after you have correctly identified something that you are 100% sure that you do not know, then continue reading. Your subconscious mind will store everything and will probably thank you for the extra puzzles to play with.
What will happen is that when you re-visit the information at a later time, you will recall things that you didn’t think you actually understood. Books and articles from other sources will help to fill in the gaps. Then when you pick that book up again, it will not seem remotely as complicated or arcane at all.
Highlighters, pens, notes, are all great…but the best knowledge is the one that is comprehended without external tools. You shouldn’t need a mnemonic for memorizing answers for a test. You should have mastery of the subject matter that flows comfortably from the mind to the pen.
The truth is, scientists have good ideas about memory. They know what parts of the brain control memories and how damage to those centers can affect things. But we actually have just started to scratch the surface of how memory works. Any reputable scientist on this subject matter would say human memory requires much more research before we master the subject in a similar way to how we’ve mastered Newtonian Physics.
I hope you enjoyed this article and it was fun to read for you.
It was late last night. I saw a spider working really hard on making her web. She was crafting it extra detailed, so I think that it means that the spider is probably poisonous. Harvest was supposed to be the cinemadirector (that’s a new position in the industry that I just made up for her). But she was making too much noise. So I had to quiet the set.
One of the cool things about spiders, is that they seem to show a great deal of precision when they make their webs. Her little legs would all work in unison as she would put the silk in the proper position.
It must have been fun for the spider to make her web near the lamp. She likes to work at night, but then she gets the best of both worlds. The spider gets the benefit of a quiet and relaxing night…but then she also has a little working light. The light also doubles as a showcase spotlight when she finished her work.
Sometimes it gets emotional to see spiders. They do such hard work, but since they are so little, only a few notice their craftsmanship. That’s why I wanted to share this video. So maybe a few of us can appreciate.
Her name is Mochi-Faliaxia III and she is new to America. She came in a basket of oranges from Romania. Her favorite movies are Speed 2, The Last Picture Show and Unforgiven.
If you’d like to know more about her then watch the video below. That’s because everything you need to know is for show in her work. It is her living auto-biography.
This cycle is turning into a monster one. It’s almost two and a half months into this one. I haven’t gotten sick or even had a cold in over two months. I can’t remember the last time I experienced any serious discomfort. Work is manageable and I’ve been hitting my work goals.
One of the strange benefits to the energy cultivation has been reading. I’ve been reading, “Thus Spoke Zarathustra” and also Euclid’s, “Elements Book I and II.” These books have been great and normally I would have a tough time with them. But Zarathustra has been casual reading on my phone.
The comprehension is phenomenal and my memory is without a doubt improving as a result of the cultivation.
The over-the-head back exercises used to be my bottleneck barometer for strength at the gym. I seemed to be capped at 125 lbs which was going in an out with 110 lbs in conjunction with each energy cycle. But the last few days, 125lbs has been the norm and it doesn’t feel like a barrier anymore. Maybe the tendons are getting stronger, I’m not really sure.
The stupid part about all this is that the deeper into the celibate cultivation, the easier it’s been talking to girls. Maybe it’s because I’m not worried about the physical side of things anymore.
I’m considering saving up some money and eventually going back to school in 5 years. But this time I want to get a hardcore science degree in Math. My International Relations degree is great and it’s gotten me some work. But now that I’m reading Euclid, I’m realizing that this geometry and math stuff is a ton of fun.
Who would have thought that there’d be jokes in the introduction of a geometry book? Some of them involving Epicurean ideas were hilarious.
The one thing I learned from going back to school and finishing my degree, was that walking into a class already prepared makes the whole process much more enjoyable. That’s why I don’t want to do the math degree for five years or so. I want to have all the books already partially assimilated so that I’m not running into the class blind.
I was talking with my Dad and I said that some people are gifted with a photographic memory, but everyone is built in with a holographic one.
When we look at the sidewalk and see the walkway get more narrow a block or so away…that is an illusion. It is an illusion of depth perception that our brains decode from sensory information in order to increase our chances for survival. When we walk a block further into the next area, we do not see the a more narrow piece of sidewalk. We see it in a normal size. The world is an illusion and our perception of the world is an illusion that helps to make sense of an illusion.
Honestly, I have little confidence that the world is the same after deep sleep.
I think that deep sleep is a form of teleportation/nexus-traveling between illusory worlds. When I say illusory worlds, I’m including myself in that as well. I think I am an illusion just as much as anyone or anything else is. That doesn’t mean that there can’t be fun and enjoyable relationships between friends and family. It just means that I’m comfortable with the idea. That’s all.
Anyways, back to sleeping. I’ve been able to identify two different types of sleep. There’s the kind of sleep where my mind gets to rest and my body somewhat rests. And there’s a type of sleep where something serious is going on. I had a dream the other night that I’m not going to talk about or write down in any journal. I think it may have been a pocket somewhere. A form of communication if you will. It didn’t seem like I was sleeping and having a dream. I was actually in a place, that even in the dream, I knew the place was totally unreal and could not exist. But even in knowing that, I did not exit the dream in any way. It actually got more interesting and strange at that point.
I have a feeling that dreams like that are when serious transportation between realities takes place. The interesting thing, is that I don’t know if my body is what is traveling…or if it is my consciousness/mind/soul. But that actually is a moot point because regardless of if it is the body or mind that travels, if the receptacle is the mind or the body, it will always appear that the body has traveled. That is because the body is what remains in front of the mirror after traveling.
Meditation to music has been excellent. It is like take a mini-wormhole by just sitting in my chair. I’ve been listening to Steve Hillage’s album called Rainbow Dome Musick. It is phenomenal. I picked it up at random when I was at Amoeba last time. It wasn’t completely random because I was on a budget and wanted a new Steve Hillage album. But I had never heard of it before, so it was at least impromptu.
I’ve found that losing consciousness during music is actually quite beneficial. It’s strange, because the Zen masters I’ve been reading seem to talk about drowsiness and say that in meditation one should not lose consciousness. But then I’ve read about other Zen masters who do a sort of lucid dreaming. I’m not sure how what I’m doing fits into any of this but I don’t really care either.
Medano Beach - The best place to sun bathe and go for a swim in Cabo San Lucas.
I just got back from a one week trip to Cabo San Lucas. It was my first time in Mexico and I’m more than thrilled to be back in America. I wish I did more research before booking my flight/hotel through expedia.com. I think my experience would have been much better if I did. I’m going to share with you all the knowledge I’ve gained from my first visit in case you were ever thinking of going there.
I’ll start off with my perception of Cabo first. I imagined the entire place to look like the picture to my left. Coconut drinks would be free flowing and it would be an inexpensive paradise. If you’ve never been there and lived in the USA, you probably have the same image in your head. I was in for a rude awakening.
Cabo Highway - Look both ways when you cross
The funny thing is there are no Coconuts grown in Cabo. I did have a few pina colada’s, but what my girlfriend and I really wanted was to drink real coconut fruit. They do grow mangoes so the mango-on-a-stick sold by beach vendors is a pleasant treat. And boy, it isn’t cheap at all in Cabo. The prices for everything was as or more expensive than the United States! I paid $5 USD for a bottle of water and the average lunch or dinner bill was around $50-$60. Oh, and try to stay away from American food there. I suggest sticking with Mexican food, as not surprisingly, my girlfriend and I found that Mexican food tasted the best. To really get any value on prices, you need to get away from the tourist areas, but to do that you need to travel with someone who speaks Spanish fluently and knows the area. If you are dealing with a street vendor, remember to always haggle. You can always get it cheaper than what they ask. My advice on haggling is to have a set maximum price you’d pay for the item and walk away when they don’t agree. 90% of the time they relent when you start to walk.
Cabo is really a desert. I realized this once we landed. It looks like you are flying into Las Vegas. There’s nice buildings along the beach, but sand is everywhere else. There are two parts – Cabo San Lucas and San Jose de Cabo. These two parts are connected by a highway. There are no crosswalks or overpasses on the highway so you need to carefully walk across while cars zoom by at 70+ mph. As you can see on the image on the right, there are bus stops along the highway. The bus system is probably the nicest surprise I had on my entire trip.
There are 2 types of buses. As shown in the picture below, there is a ghetto white looking one and a nicer big city bus. The coolest thing is all buses will stop for you on the road if you wave at them, regardless of if you’re near a bus stop. That’s something that never happens in San Francisco. They also drop you off at the exact spot you tell them. The smaller bus only travels locally while the bigger bus goes all the way from Cabo San Lucas through San Jose de Cabo and to the airport. It’s really a cheap way to travel. It’s 80 pesos or about 70 cents to travel locally and it only costs 29 pesos or about $2.50 to get all the way to the airport. Compare that to the flat $50 the cabs charge you to get to the airport. It’s about 30 miles from Cabo San Lucas to the airport and it took me about an hour and a half to get to the airport via bus. We took the taxi when we first landed because we didn’t know any better and it cost $50 and took about half an hour.
If you don’t speak English and aren’t staying at a nice hotel (which I didn’t), stick to hanging out in Cabo San Lucas. It’s pretty much the only tourist area. My girlfriend and I took the bus to San Jose de Cabo thinking there was tourist stuff to do there, but we spent an hour lost and no one spoke a word of English. It was also pretty sketchy looking and I’m glad we weren’t there at night.
If you plan on going to Cabo, 4-5 days is plenty. Spending a week there is overkill. As mentioned previously, it is basically one tourist area called the Marina Fiesta that has a mall, movie theater and restaurants. By the end of the trip, my girlfriend and I probably walked that strip 15 times and were missing home by the third or fourth day.
Finally, eat before you go to the airport!! The airport in Cabo is very small and there’s only 2 places to eat. One food stand is Sbarro and the other is kitchen that serves burgers/fries. Sbarro closed early and the food at the kitchen looked so unappealing that we didn’t eat until we got back at 10PM last night.
Here’s a quick recap of what you need to do in Cabo:
WATCH OUT FOR TIMESHARES!! These timeshare people have booths at the airport and almost convinced me to go to their presentation. They offer all these free activities for attending, but if you google Mexican timeshare, you’ll know it’s a total scam and you can waste an entire day telling them you don’t want to buy. On eBay, there are people trying to get rid of their timeshares for $1 just so they don’t have to pay the maintenance fees anymore. The timeshare are only for their “target markets” so they typically go after people over the age of 30 or couples that look married. I just got used to saying I was only 25 to get them to go away.
Learn to take the bus or stay at a resort in Cabo San Lucas or cab rides will add up
There’s a Walmart along the highway that you can go to stock up on water and other supplies. If you tell the bus Walmart, they will drop you off right in front of it.
Bring SUNSCREEN and reapply it every 4 hours – I didn’t re-apply and got sunburned twice.
If you are with a significant other, do the Margarita Cruise on the Cabo Rey. You can haggle down to $35 each at an activity vendor and it’s a romantic 2.5 hour ride. Make sure it’s the Cabo Rey ship. There are various types of “sunset cruises” offered with different boats. All the other ships look ghetto in comparison. $45 each is the retail price. I heard the dinner cruise on the Cabo Rey wasn’t worth it as it retails for $89 and the food isn’t very tasty. Most people stay on the top of the ship with the Margarita cruise people since that has the best view anyway.
If you want to try the Waverunners, you can haggle down to $30 for 30 minutes or $60 for an hour. They normally ask for $40 for half an hour and $80 for an hour. I suggest only doing it for 30 minutes as I bought one hour and ended up getting somewhat bored after 45 minutes. Also be sure to take pictures of your Waverunner before you take it out. They make you sign a liability waiver because they don’t carry insurance on it and they will charge you for any dings. Some of the charges are exorbitant and there are some horror stories I found on google where they people were hit with a big fee.
Try out ATVing, it’s fun riding along the coast if you’ve never done it before. I have confirmed you can haggle this down to $70 a person and it’s about 2.5 hours. Unlike for the waverunners, they offer $10 insurance on these so you don’t have to worry about damages. Retail is $85 to $100, depending on vendor.
For nightlife, we went to Cabo Wabo, the Pink Kitty and Squid Roe. Cabo Wabo was generally an older crowd with rock music, Pinky Kitty was a younger crowd with a more modern Vegas club feel and Squid Roe was a younger crowd with top 40′s music. Out of the three, I would recommend going to Squid Roe as it’s the most unique. There’s 3 levels you can see all the action from. They have a guy in the center of the place with a microphone who’s sole job is to keep the energy alive.
I never got to go Snorkeling or Ziplining, but I heard both were a good experience from people who have done it. My girlfriend can’t swim and didn’t want to zipline so we didn’t do either.
My Mexican experience, as you can probably tell, wasn’t the greatest. I missed being able to walk the street without being harassed with offers for a massage, taxi or weed every 5 minutes. I’m going to Hawaii in a couple of weeks so I’ll be sure to share my experience there as well. Til’ next time.
In the Stargate film that came out in 1994, there was the primary villain character named, Ra. This article is not about the Real Life Mythological Being named Ra. This article is only about the fictional character in the Stargate film. Anyways, the movie always stuck out in my mind as an excellent one. But after seeing all of Stargate SG-1 and then recently re-watching the 1994 film…I noticed something. There was a scene where Ra was laying down in what I’m guessing was a sarcophagus. But when he was laying there, chilling, I realized he looked familiar.
In fact, he looked strikingly similar to an Asgard from Stargate SG-1.
Then it all hit me. We know that Ra was a Goa’uld because he could use the naquadah technology. So that means he must have definitely been the parasite inside the host. But what I’m guessing is that Ra, being the most powerful of the system lords, must have had an extremely powerful host body. And that host body was an Asgard. That would make sense why Ra was the most powerful, an Asgard host body and mental capabilities would give Ra access to tremendous technology and knowledge. It would make him the most likely candidate for being the strongest of the system lords. But of course the only catch is that Asgard bodies are generally weaker and harder to repair than human bodies.
That being said, there were some difference in physique between my alleged Ra in Asgard form and the Asgards from the TV series. The most note-able differences are that Ra has small teeth and no visible nose. But I think that maybe Ra got some plastic surgery before entering his flying pyramid.
Welcome to the new section dedicated to all things value town related. Value town is originally a term coined from Poker. It’s when a player knows he has the best hand, but still makes a bet hoping for a call. If the bet is called by a losing player, that player was taken to value town. The perfect bet is the largest bet the losing player would have called. It’s a term that encompasses the idea of maximizing value.
Maximizing value is something I find extremely rewarding, especially in today’s weakened global economy. I am here to share with you Overidon.com readers my insights on every day valuetowning. This section will be dedicated to giving you the biggest bang for your buck. If you see the official seal in any post, you know it’s been verified to be a value proposition.
A little history about myself will reveal a little about my psyche and perhaps the reason behind my obsession with all things value town.
When I was in elementary school, I was given $2 every day to buy lunch. Lunch was $1.75 so I was able to keep a quarter. Each day, I put that quarter away into a yellow lunchbox. By the 5th grade I saved so many quarters that I started having trouble lifting the lunchbox. Even still, I considered it a good problem to have. I always carried it around with me. I counted my coins every weekend on the couch, beside my dad watching TV. It was tedious, but always satisfying.
Well one, day Street Fighter II came out for the SNES. I played the game several times in arcades and simply fell in love with it. Comboing hadoukens into shoryuken’s was addicting. I had to have the game! But of course, it was $70 USD and what 9 year old can afford that? I asked my parents to buy it for me, but I wasn’t getting the grades they wanted me to get to justify the purchase. Fortunately for me, I had my yellow lunchbox with exactly $94.75 in it.
I remember the exact day I was able to go into Toys”R”Us and pay for the game entirely in quarters. At first, the lady at the cash register gave me a look of disbelief. After she saw the smile I had on my face once the game was placed in a bag and handed to me, she smiled and said, “Congratulations.” She knew I saved a long time to buy the game. Years of saving and I was finally able to buy something the average 9 year old could never afford.
To this day, nothing to me is more satisfying than saving here and there on small things to buy the big things I really want. Instead of Street Fighter II, I’m looking to buy a home now. I’ve consciously saved during my six year working career for that “American dream.” I’m pleased to say I’m fairly certain I will accomplish that goal within the next couple of years.
It is a sad poem indeed. The one that showers dim light upon a fiery sky. The thoughts, the words, the warmth from billions of light years away, how did it get here? And why?
As I look at the night, I see not stars that are illuminated by our sun. Nay, they shine of their own light. Or do they? For isn’t their light shared between the giants in the sky? Unlike candle or bulb that radiates from a source alone, the stars burn of their own accord, and they also absorb due to their immense size and gravity.
If our small earth collects light, then so must the sun himself. And due to his undeniable size and station, he must absorb much light from others like him. For when I look into the night sky, I see light that took time to soar, time to travel.
So our sun collects light, and sends it back to us. Is it a gift? Is it a randomizing process to make each new day truly new, truly unique. With even if the same food eaten, the same paths walked, the same water drank, the same people discussed to and discussed with and discussed about…the rays are different. And different as much every time.
Like a powerful and generous king who redistributes the wealth of the land among the land, so doth the sun share the photons and cosmic rays collected from other stars upon our tiny world.
But the night is raw. Raw yet dim. The stars can only send small messages, small whispers from their cosmic relay. But to discount their effort would be like shunning a messenger who walked ninety-thousand miles to deliver a tattered note. Of course his boots have been worn to shreds. Of course his tears have been caked with sand. Of course his cloak is nothing but a collar and belt. But his message, his tiny note of a old tongue…that has value.
So not only do I accept the note, and read it. But I keep the note. I keep a thing that has such little value and little discernible significance, not because it is part of some strange and cumbersome collection.
It is kept because it has travelled far enough.
As I burn my candle late tonight. I do it so the stars have an ally, a friend of sorts. Like a dog that follows a pack of wolves, I wait to see what mountain they will stop at. What vista will catch the eye.
So I send this small note to a few, a few that are burning their candle. So perhaps they too enjoy the night. Not in an attempt to steal the joy of solitude or smother the emotions of tranquility. But to leave a frayed note, at the doorstep, at the threshold.
