Purpose

I am on a quest to find out my ultimate purpose in life...

why is it so difficult?

It seems like once I choose my direction in my life it will be so much easier to go forward and continue on my path. While I am uncertain, everything is full of resistance, and nothing is certain. So then what the hell is my path?

....

I love music.

so perhaps this is my path.

....

Tekkonkinkreet

One of the best anime's ever! Please note the dvd comes in english and also japanese with subtitles.

Tekkonkinkreet will take you into the world of treasure town, and into the lives of the street kids named prophetically black and white. With stunning animation and artwork that could make this a masterpiece by it's self, you will be pleasantly surprised to find an intense and thought provoking story-line intertwined into the film. If you are a fan of princess mononoke, a lover of anime, or just want to see one of the best anime's ever, check out tekkonkinkreet.

Click here for the DVD

Tekkon Kinkreet

P.S. Tekkonkinkreet means reinforced concrete in japanese

Only Organic

I thought I could skimp on the quality of my food and save some money, only to find that eating non-organic food gave me the worst energy ever. I was really tired all the time, my stomach was upset and I just didn't feel "right." Eating non-organic meats and canned food was a bad idea, if you are currently on a similar diet, see what investing a few extra dollars in quality food will do to your energy level. I think it's worth the extra dollars. 

Cool Grandaddy Album

The Sophtware slump is a wild ride through the strange mind of singer Jason Lytle and is bound to take you on a journey. Whether or not this journey contains a canoe in the city or just a wild ride into the high tech yet dysfunctional society we live in, you will be taken to new locations of the mid 2000 tech boom and following the software crash, spelled sophtware in jason's iconic and unique style. 

Heres a link for The Sophtware Slump

Kittens in a Barrel

The one on the left is named jeremy

enjoy

If you like electronic music, you might like this

If you enjoy electronic music, you might like this

Enjoy this Math Rock song I made and remade on the Monome

http://monome.org/

Have you ever had a grand idea?

What about a million dollar one?

How about one that would make you billions upon billions while you sat back and watched it?

All it needs is to be implemented. 

"Think and Grow Rich" by Napoleon hill

Multiple Streams Of Blake

Here are my four largest streams excluding blogger, 

How big is your stream?

Facebook

Myspace

Linked in

Elance

How to live off $100 a month

Ever wonder if it's possible to live off only $100 of food a month?

I am undertaking this challenge this month, and I will be updating regularly on my progress. 

Think about it, $100 isn't that much. At 3 meals a day, thats 84 meals a month. 

$100 / 84 = $1.19 a meal. 

Do you think you could eat off $1.19 a meal?

I may be able to show you how.

FAVICON FAIL

The first way not to make a favicon is do what I did below...

dear readers, there seems to be something missing, 

I think you can do ico, or png files. 

Hmmm... I'll keep you posted. 

FAVICON

Did you know you can add a custom Favicon to your blog?

Favicon? Look to the left of the website address, and you will see my personal favicon, a red B. Before it was bloggers Orange B.


Why would you want a Favicon? A Favicon adds a personal brand to your Blog, instead of that little B to the left of the link.


What is a Favicon? A Favicon is really just any pic 16x16 pixels that you can add to your blog/


How to make a FAVICON, Your ready to dominate the world and you are ready to make your own Favicon

Step 1. open up illustrator, photoshop, paint, or whatever mac has and make your brand


(ideas)

KEEP IT SIMPLE, try 2 colors and a LETTER, that would be professional, and people will be able to read it.


Step 2. Upload your favicon to your blog.

Heres mine:

heres it bigger

Question on this step?
http://help.blogger.com/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=41641


Step 3. press Preview, and right click on your Favicon and copy shortcut, (I am literally clicking on the favicon above.

Step 4. go to Layout in your blogger dashboard, click edit html

add the shortcut to your pic above this "head tag" near the bottom of your html code:

It should look like this:

And publish your template

Voila, Let me know below in the comments section if you need any further assistance

also check out this site, where I learned about this

LATER BLOGGERS

Feelings are Things

When you feel it. 

Others can feel it too. 

Our feelings are like clouds

And it affects us

Lose Hope, Gain Ground

How many people do you know who never try because they are afraid of failure?

I can think of a-lot, in fact I often find myself caught in the sticky web of avoiding action in order to delay any risk. But in our society the risk has been greatly removed. In fact I would even bet that the risk is almost non-existent. 

What's the worst that could happen if you go to a job and drop a resume? So what if there is a stack of Resume's 200 high, what's the worst that could happen.... not getting hired? Think back a few thousand years when the risks of doing what you needed usually ended in a battle with a wild animal and usually ended in death. Luckily our survival isn't as brutal. Unfortunately the part of our brain that is hard wired for us to avoid this savage death is still very alive, acting upon our every decision. 

Thats why we get so anxious moving in a direction we may even KNOW is good for us. Why do you think people get so anxious when approaching women they might like to date, or going in for a job interview? These feelings are long remnants from a time when living in the wild was full of danger, and acting in the wrong way could have easily caused maiming and death. 

Good thing we live in the year 2009, now all we have to do is get over our negative programming and move ahead no matter the forecast. Essentially lose hope, it's a numbers game, you are always competing with hundreds of people for select positions in any market, the best you can do is get your word out to as many people. 

The Freelancer Solution

I imagine where I'll be in 5 years, and I won't be tied down to a job.... that's too risky! 

I'll be traveling the world with my laptop, my hand held phone that will practically be a computer of it's own, and I will be working remotely across the world while experiencing the amazing oddities of the planet earth. 

With the price of living in America Rising, and only going up, I think living where it costs a fraction of the price, yet can pay the same wages remotely, is an excellent solution. 

Lets see if I can do it.

Timothy Ferris can. 

New Website

Check out my personal info site:

www.blakedallen.com

Thanks

Cello Breakthrough!

I am happy to report after picking up the cello a year ago, and devoting hard practice, time and energy I have reached a breakthrough. I have just played Bach's prelude in G major, from start to finish. Mind you this professional piece is being played all over the world, with critical fame from since it was written. I started being barely able to play one measure, and now a year later I can play the entire piece. 

For an example of this song being played by Rostropovich, one of the best players of all time, click here. 

Slow and steady wins the race. Also having a clear goal helps a ton. I knew I wanted to play this song the second I heard it, the arpegiations are exquisite. I couldn't have kept on without creating these goals for myself, and to any aspiring musician picking up a new instrument like I was, start with what you really WANT to learn, I don't care if you don't think your good enough, and the fact is your not... YET. But bit by bit you'll carve away at the piece and you'll end up with so much more than if you had just done exercises.

While I was studying under a Cello Teacher, I noticed we we're focusing on primarily excercises, in fact during the two years I spent at UCSC the "bulk" of what I learned in the music department consisted of various excercises. 

When I left my Cello teacher I had the bare fundamentals necessary to grow my talent, basic bowing technique and scale fingering. But what kept me going was the fact I was working on an actual Song, and I knew the rewards would be great once I mastered the suite I prelude. 

Now I want to master all of the suites! 

----

Thanks for reading

Thanks for supporting my cello habit!

Your Job is Your Most Valuable Asset.

Recently on the cover of Time Magazine, the title was "Your job is your most valuable asset."

And with the value of Real Estate dropping I can understand why. 

However this isn't exactly true. Your job may be your most valuable asset, because most people dont have any assets! 

Most people's source of income is only their job. And if you ask me there is a big problem there, since all it takes is one boss to pull the plug and bam, you've just lost your source of income. 

Your job may be your most valuable asset, however it should become your least. 

For more information check out Steve Pavlina's 10 reasons you should never get a job.

THE LOVE WORD IS A BURDEN

What? Love, the thing we're all looking for right? Well actually only probably 95% of us really want it, but that's still the majority. Almost everyone I talk to would rather have a stable and steady relationship with someone they thought was excellent, than a short fling no matter how fun it was. 

Lets face it people, we want security with our happiness. Even us men would rather have a great girlfriend they could love than another notch on their bedpost. 

However why then is it such a burden when someone says the words I love you?

I remember one time a girl said those words to me, and I immediately froze up, got anxiety and thought about what that "meant" and how it was going to alter the relationship. I was going through all the thoughts of, oh shit, is she obsessed with me, is this going to turn into a life sapping thing where our personalities turn into a gray mesh and both of us are dependent clinging to an idea of what love is. 

No, in actuality she just loved me, plain and simple. 

But the problem wasn't the love... IT'S THE WORD> when you hear someone say "I love you" its like a bomb drops in your stomach, and you think what the hell does that mean, and do I have to change what i'm doing in order to keep this "love" around?

Well never change yourself for someone else... period. Its not good for you, and they don't get to experience the real you... which is not good for them. The more you alter your course, or compensate for what you think other people want, the more your going to build resentment over time. 

If you really love, or like someone... don't tell them with words. Words are so insignificant. Show them through actions, thats the best way to love someone. A word wont hold a match up to a picture... how could it even begin to communicate an emotion as powerful and refreshing as love. Nope give up on your proposals and long winded explanations of your feelings, and get into the full effect of the moment. Thats where it really happens. 

BOREDOM - Anger + Impatience

Boredom, its universal, we all feel it from time to time. But maybe we feel more than we think.

Its most likely your bored... your probably bored right now. A-lot of people wake up bored, and go to sleep bored, they live their lives in a state of planned and predictable boredom. 

Thats why Unpredictability is king. Break free from bored by doing something different, unexpected and down right fun. I decided to skateboard the other day... something I haven't done for years. I fell once or twice but I scraped myself back up and left buzzing with a new love for skating. 

There's more to life than work, exercise, food, bills. 

No wonder we're bored... we've been duped into thinking the necessities are all there is.

And that's just it, the necessities are necessary, necessary for the cream of the cream in life. 

Go out try it, do something wild, you'll be glad you left your dark cave once, and you might even do it again. 

Emotions The Most Addictive Chemicals Known to Man

Emotions are the most addictive chemicals known to man.

Since anything is capabable of creating a strong emotional surge, it is possible everything is addictive.

Recently I watched a podcast about video game addiction on Current.

Check out the link at the bottom of the page.

What I think could be more important is these people applying their love of games in a positive way. If these people play games for 40-60 hours a week, why not become a play tester? Or even a new in game content creating level designer? By converting the "wasted" time into useful time, both video game companies and gamers can prosper.

http://current.com/items/89038857/i_m_a_video_game_junky.htm

BECOME YOUR OWN AGENT

It seems today that there is not only a lack of job security, there is also a lack of industry security. There are entire systems of business that are falling on their face, for instance the newspaper industry is crumbling to internet media, and the recording industry is being replaced by home studios and itunes. 

A time is coming when you cannot rely on external jobs and industries, and the most desirable workers will be those with a wide variety of skills that can add value to many different areas. 

Therefore learning how to become your own agent is the best alternative that I can think of. Come up with your own home based business that can run itself and you become the employer. By becoming the employer, you gain leverage in todays strange and ever changing economy.

I am entering the world of internet based business today, I just started research on building and creating my own internet based system. I plan to launch sometime in July, and if your reading this, you will probably hear about it. 

If you are interested in staying current, and want to keep yourself in an industry that might last another 50 or so years. then look into

-Video Games

-Internet Marketing

-Motion Graphics and Advertising

-Virtual Assistants

-Information Technology

oh and if you want to become rich

-Become one of the top 10% of Lawyers

-Become one of the top 10% of Doctors

-Become one of the top 10% of Business owners CEO's

or (my favorite) 

-Invest in Real Estate

More on real estate to come next post!

ROBOTS

I heard recently that japan has the lowest birthrate of any country, in the next 50 years the population of japan will be 1/4 of what it is now. But the japanese are looking for a new workforce to keep their bustling economy alive... Robots. 

In fact Japan has some of the most cutting edge technology devoted to robots, robots that can tell the difference between a coke and water and know how to bring it to you in bed without spilling it. 

While the idea of living with robots may be frightening for some, the japanese tend to have a higher level of comfortability with the machines. In fact in Japanese culture inanimate objects are believed to still posses souls. 

See more on the futuristic, 2nd largest economy in the world, and one of the most renowned cultural mecca's, Japan, at current.com

http://current.com/items/89610631/japan_robot_nation.htm

GDC

The Game Developers Conference brings the best the game industry has to offer to San Francisco.

And Every year people come from around the planet to experience the mind blowing games and technology that are just on the cutting edge. 

An all access pass goes for $2200, for 5 days of conference.

YOUCH! 

Luckily I go For Free, and You Can too! 

As a CA, or Conference Associate, I work the entire week helping 

gaming executives and other high profile people get to their seminars and events,

meanwhile in my free time I get to go to the most exclusive gaming sessions on the planet.

I love it! : ) 

The first year I was put on the waiting list, and recieved an email a week or two before the conference saying they had a spot, but I had to respond before 12:00AM in order to secure the spot... The Kicker, the email was in my inbox at 11:00 PM, and I just "happened" to check my email at 11:50PM.... WOW so lucky... and the rest is a blissful gaming history.

Hope to See you at GDC 2009

and if not

Hope to see you at GDC 2010!

The Sweetest Sound a Person Can Hear.

What's something you could say to someone that could immediately make them open up?

Something that would make them happy, and feel better their whole day?

Is it I love you? Is it Your an important person?

It's even simpler than that, and yet it elludes so many of us...

The Sweetest Sound a Person Can Hear is their Name.

Thats right, and then if you need to give a bit extra work to this, It's

going to be worth its weight in gold. 

Here are some tricks to remembering names

-Say their name 2-3 times during your conversation

-Write their name on a piece of paper after talking to them

-Take a moment to mentally connect their face with their name

I'm going to challenge you to remember the name of everyone you meet for 1 week.

and if that's too easy, then try and remember 3 things about their personality, hobbies, political beliefs or anything else they are interested in.

-----

go and make yourself important

Never Criticize Again, and make 2x the Friends

Al Capone, one of the most cutthroat drug dealers throughout history

said he was only doing society a service... what can we learn from this?

People will rarely ever blame themselves for anything...

Therefore your best bet is going to be through encouragement...

The more you can go with the grain the better results your going to get.

So instead of criticizing someone for smoking, encourage them to quit so they could save money

or have better skin; this is the mentality that will skyrocket you towards success with people.

And can you think of something of importance in your life that doesn't involve people?

I can't think of many... Many great things that is. 

: )

Would you like Fries with that?

In today's consumer oriented society

a company with poor customer service wont last very long.

Yet, there is so much of it out there.

Take for instance AT&T, after my fifth attempt at closing my

account with them, I was redirected through 8 countries

and sent through nearly 10 different people... It was like

playing where in the world is Carmen Sandiego, except for 

my prize was being able to talk to Zed and Jane and plenty of

other clueless and incapable employees. 

What's going on here? Is AT&T trying to make their customer

service extremely unintelligible and god awful?

Notice I was calling to cancel... not renew or upgrade my services.

But Alas, companies like this should be cast into the fiery pits of 

mount doom, and geuss what that translates to in the year 2009?

Blogging... yes yes, it's true, now you know how bad their service is, 

and it can only spread further. 

The internet is the best way to get back at a poor company,

next time your making a company

consider the attitude... Would you like fries with that?

It's also just a funny thing to say when someone asks you to do something

try it!

Mark Your Territory! OR ELSE

What's your territory>? Is it your house? Is it your room? 

Essentially Your territory is going to be the space you feel most comfortable in. 

Now let's get on to marking it, 

Start by placing things of value in your space, it could be comfortable pillows, cool art

anything that lifts you up and re-affirms the parts of you that you want to keep. 

OK, then PROTECT YOUR SPACE

this is the biggest one, if someone comes into your space and does something you

do not vibe with, try this, "wait, why don't you stop... I think its best if you leave now, You see I just don't like it when people do _____ (negative behavior) in my space, Just leave and we can pick this up at another time."

Done and done, 

Nurture the inner Creature

SETH GODIN

If you go check out Seth Godin's blog right now, you're going to see a bit about parallel processing and serial processing. (link below)

What Seth is riffing on is that if you want to increase productivity make it possible for many people to be working on a project at the same time. Rather than needing the oversight of one person, which would cause A Bottleneck> 

Bottlenecks happen in your daily life when you're waiting in line for the one coffeehouse bathroom,

Thank the wonders of parallel processing,

....for the invention of Bathroom Stalls. 

Next time your waiting in line at a stadium, just be glad there's 20 stalls, not 1.

But if this is such a great idea, why don't we apply it to our daily life... 

Could it be possible, Process more than one task at a time...? ie: Multitask>

Sadly, the answer is NO. 

Unfortunately for us, the human brain can only function efficiently on one task at a time... If your a doubter, please let me know why at my Facebook (link below)

But every time you start a task and then get interrupted or multitask, it can take anywhere from 20-40 minutes to just regain your focus....

That means every single interruption you get... costs you 20-40 minutes to regain focus. 

average that with 10 interuptions a day at 20 min, thats 2 hours frustratingly spent trying to regain focus. Thats over 700 hours wasted a year. Now how much is your time worth? some people work for $10, some for $5000, let's say your time is worth a good $50, thats $35,000, you lost because of myspace this year.... Ouch!

---------

More on focus to come

:)  

MLM

Multi Level Marketing

also known as MLM

Is it good or bad? 

Robert Kiyosaki (rich dad poor dad) seems to think its okay

Also the FTC (federal trade commission) says it's not illegal per se

Under one condition: 

One cannot receive a commission for a startup fee. 

MLM is a system where a business automates is selling by giving the 

consumers an incentive to sell. Because the consumers of the product receive the product

they can recoup or even possibly make more money on their investment by referring new customers who buy the product. 

MLM .... hmmm its interesting, because most companies dont offer this incentive. 

Think about if mcdonalds gave you half the profit of the next guy you brought into their franchise. Or what about your college, what if you received 50% of the tuition for bringing in your little brother?

Tons of people give praise to their favorite college, or their favorite brands. But do they ever get anything in return?

The only problem I could see is if someone we're solely relying on the commission to come from the MLM. IF that's all your getting is a business to sell, I wouldn't do it. But if you believe in the product, then I think its a great way to recoup your investment. 

Binary Space Partition

BSP stands for a square matrix of ones and zeroes explaining space. 

by using two numbers a whole 3d world is born.

The video game.

-------------

El Binary Space Partition

a way to see space

Welcome to age of non-privacy

I know alot of people who were worried when they heard about the wire tapping that the Bush administration was using, but I want to pose another important point... the internet.

You don't even need to wire tap these days. In fact the other day I had someone read my blog, (i seriously thought there weren't any readers, : )) and because of that we're going to end our relationship... 

google never forgets

Not to say that it's a bad thing, actually quite on the contrary I think we are both heading in similar but different directions and after a very smooth and easy conversation we both decided it would be better to be friends. 

Although this does point to a very important question...

If your reading my blog, why don't you become a fan?

: )

Lack of Time, Money and other Society Programming

Do you ever feel like there's not enough time in a day?

Your right there isn't... but Why?

There isn't because we have too much, too much being demanded of ourselves, 

too much being bombarded on our doors, too much. In the world of interruption marketing 

there is little time to breathe or think.

Lack of time, lack of money and lack of energy. These three will get you if you don't choose to live by uncommon means. 

Timothy Ferris suggests a media fast

for one week, don't even read a paper, let alone touch the internet. 

sit in silence, and take some time for nothing. 

you might be suprised what inner demons come up to haunt you. 

The scary thing is they have always been there... your just clearing away enough of the noise to start hearing what you've got going on in your head. 

Why is there this sinking feeling?

I have this sinking feeling when I was with her 

and it wouldn't really go away. It's strange how things that we Think will make us feel better, often never do.... its only the things we feel that will be better. 

That intuition sure knows.

Recession Proof?

The Gaming industry has held it's head high among the growing concerns of the recession. And Why? Everything else seems to be taking a hit, and yet video games are still growing. Is there something to be said about the most immersive entertainment, combining sight and sound and many different arts into one entertaining experience>?

Some people think that entertainment isn't important, or very lucrative. 

For instance most people look for psychology, or biology degrees. It takes a very brave, or crazy, artist to major in something like poetry. 

Yet maybe the game industry is throwing that old standard on it's face.

Long live the artists!

Title

I think that it's strange there's a bird chirping really loud outside my window at 9:43 pm. In the dark it takes a special bird to keep making it's magical noises. Just like a human, it takes someone very special to be able to keep trying, singing, painting, drawing, playing... even when the lights go out. 

What does it take for you to become someone unshakable?

Changing 1:1 to 1:100

When you work for an hour, you get an hour's pay... right? The pay-off is 1:1, you put in an hour and get $10 or maybe $100, and it's simple and you go home at the end of a long night and wake up in the morning to do it again.

But let's tip the scale. If I am a teacher and instead of teaching for one hour, I make a dvd for one hour and sell that DVD on line. I could possibly put 1 hour of work, and get paid 100 times, imagining 100 people buy it. 

Which balance seems best to you?

Move slow

How does someone forgive?

move slow, it takes time. 

I had a terrible experience last night, There was a guy who was sitting across from me and some friends at a bar. I happened to stumble into a debate with him. I was talking about how I want to be an entrepreneur and make my own living. And he was disagreeing, saying I was overly idealistic. The problem wasn't what he was saying... I've heard it all before, It was how he was saying it. He was consistantly be-littling me, taking my ideas and throwing them back in my face. His face was getting red with anger and he was just constantly disagreeing. There was no listening going on in his corner of the table. I eventually decided, this isn't going anywhere, and so I said, "we're just disagreeing, I am going to leave now." and his response was to call me a dick and an asshole just because I wouldn't sit there and take his abuse. 

I left with good composure that night, but the negativity stayed with me. I have had maybe one or two experiences like this recently and I am shocked there can be people this mentally fucked up, so willing to just attack another person. I felt drained all day, I felt angry, like there was a black hole in my chest sucking my energy out from my inside. I have looked into some EFT, emotional freeing techniques, and their lesson is forgive, or it will haunt you.

I agree. But forgiveness is a process, not a thought. 

move slow,

I will heal in due time. 

Oh by the way people will try and drag you down. Take this guy for example, he has never tried to be an entrepreneur, and yet... he could criticise me till the sun came up about how it wouldn't work... what can say but don't let people imprisoned in their own doubt drag you down.

move slow

Why I passed the certification!

I recently passed a Logic Pro certification, 

a fairly difficult test that complicated the very essence of a software program. 

Many can use the program, yet so few pass the test... Why?

It's because if the test we're easy then everyone would be certified, and being

certified would be useless...

So why did I pass the test when others in my class who had done better on previous 

tests did not?

Because I affirmed the belief in my mind that I would pass.

I told myself, I am going to pass, I am going to pass.

After telling myself I implanted the seed of success into my subconscious.

and the rest was a piece of cake...

how are you programming your mind?

The Sub-conscious

The Sub-Conscious, the under conscious part of us, which is actually quite conscious, we are the only ones who are unconscious of it, plays a huge role in who we are. 

Not only is our subconscious our dreams, but it is a huge part of our self esteem and our hidden identities. 

When you say something like, I don't want to smoke, or don't smoke. 

Your subconscious hears, smoke, smoke. 

Essentially your subconscious doesn't understand negatives. So instead I'm re-framing

how I say things, instead of I don't want to smoke cigarettes I will say:

I want to be clear

or sober

or clean 

or have fresh lungs

or free

or soft broccolli lungs

or pink fleshy insides

or I want relief

All of these things are clear indications of healthy living, and they all are independent of any negative sub-conscious flagging. It's a challenge to learn new ways of thinking, but I am confident this one just might pay off.