Blogosis

How would you like to spend a few nights locked in a hotel made of Ice… 4,000 tons of it. Apparently there are some people that do like it, as this hotel has been around since the early 1990s. Get your lips wet at the vodka ice bar, married in a chappel made of… ice, and watch a movie in a movie theater with ice walls. I though theaters were already cold enough. If you fancy staying here, you can make reservations for only a couple hundred dollars a night.

The ice hotel gives you a different way to holiday. It’s an interesting place to stay for those that love the snow. Rooms start around $300 a night and the hotel is open from December through April. Temperatures range from -5 C to -8 C. That’s pretty cold but considering temperatures can get -37 C below out, it’s not too bad. Guests sleep on Reindeer skin and sleeping bags making for a nice comfortable, and cozy, sleep.

Since the hotel melts and has to be rebuilt each year, no two years feature the same design. Every year they reshape and redesign the whole hotel giving returning visitors a new place. Last year’s theme was the milky way.

[via hotelclub]

I couldn’t think of any other table to fit a modern household. This just looks amazing.

Unfortunately, it looks like this table is just a concept, but I’d love to see it when it’s complete. It’s the designers like these that will end up taking some simple idea and making millions of dollars out of it.

[via qbn]

There really should be no limit on the amount of friends you make. The more friends you make, the more opportunities you can open for yourself. You will be invited to go out more often, you’ll meet more potential life mates, you could open opportunities and and chances of getting yourself to a better position job-wise. You don’t need to know someone very long to befriend them, and most of it is in the first impression. Impress someone when you first meet them with the following advice, and you should be on your way to a better social life in no time.

1. Make yourself generally interested in someone else. Even if this person is the most boring person you’ve ever met, and wants to talk about the mating process of Galapagos tortoises, take it as a chance to learn and listen to something you may not know. Start by shaking their hand instead of asking someone else to introduce you.

2. Spread those lips and bring your cheeks up. Greet those new people with a big, real smile. Walking around with a frown on your face gives the first impression that you aren’t a very happy camper. No one likes talking to the crabby guy.

3. Remember their name. Write it down, take a picture and save the name of them in your phone, or say it over 10 times until you remember their name. A person’s name is held onto within their central nervous system, as well as a person’s heart. When you call a person by their name, you grow a spot in their heart right next to their name. It sounds a lot better than, “Hey, Dude!”

4. Open them ears, sonny. People love letting you listen to their rants. Instead of blocking out what another person is saying, encourage them to talk about what they are passionate for. This goes hand in hand with being interested in someone else. If you can learn to listen attentively, no matter the subject, you can learn a lot about what a person is like, as well as gain a bit of knowledge.

5. When a person finishes their rant, why don’t you persuade them to talk more about that topic. Talk in favor of what they were talking about. Even if you hate tortoises, talk about them like you love them. A little fib like this never hurt anyone. Talk about their interests with favoritism towards their point of view, and you should lock in their liking of you.

6. Talk highly of the other person. Make them feel important. Don’t make it cheesy though. Speak honestly and sincerely. By making another person feel important, you are building a link between the two of you. People love it when you look up to them, and they will want more attention from you. If the person has some modesty, they’ll want to share the feeling with you.

Remember to stay positive and actively interested in the other person. Following these basic hints, you should be able to build a portfolio of friends that will benefit you like a work portfolio. Look forward to the increased opportunities you open yourself to with new acquaintances and friends.

It’s nice to have a little help guide you through your life, but life only gets better when you can learn to be self-relient. Self-relience leads to a better sense of self, increase confidence and the ability to be more productive. While specialization is nice for a job and money, you will be the entreprenuer and CEO of your own life with more skills. Being a jack of all trades is far more productive for the real world.

Therefor, we are ready to give you the insight you need to do 10 different things throughout your life.

1. Start a Fire - We all need heat and light, two things obtainable by fire. While most modern homes use modern heating stystems, there may be some random day where you are stuck in the wilderness with nothing but your two hands, no matches, no light and no warmth.

2. How to Take a Job Interview - A job interview takes suave speaking skills and simplicity. Stressing yourself out and lacking confidence won’t get you through it.

3. Park it in Parallel Style - You learned it before you got your driver’s license, but since then, you probably haven’t done it much if at all. It is an necessity if you want to park close to a major event, rather than pay 20 dollars for a parking spot two miles away.

4. Know your Basic Geography - If you still think the capitol of Alaska is Anchorage, you need a few more lessons in geography. Knowing a little about your countries geography and cities may make you look more intelligent and traveled.

5. Put Together a TV and Sound System - I just purchased a TV and a sound system. Rather than pay the store guys a couple hundred more to set it up for me, I put in the research and hooked it up myself.

6. Use a Computer - If you are reading this, you are using a computer. If you don’t know how the hell you got to this page, what a mouse is, and where you stick your USB storage device, then you need some help… serious, serious help.

7. Use your Time - Time management just makes things more possible. Free up the time you have on your hands by planning ahead and carrying out task efficiently.

8. Separate the Good Produce from the Bad - It always amazed me how my mother knew what fruits were good and which weren’t. I didn’t know, I just ate what she gave me. Living on my own, now, I need to know what fruits and veggies to pick out if I want to live a healthy life.

9. Paint your House - Paying someone else to paint your house can be expensive. The paint can come cheap, but if you pay someone else, your budget may soar by thousands of dollars. Do it yourself, and with patience and planning, you will get it done for hundreds to thousands less.

10. End a Bad Date… Nicely - I’ve been through my fair share of bad dates. I actually had one this night. If I would have had these tips, maybe she wouldn’t have sworn halfway across the restaurant at me. Oops.

There are plenty of other things you can do to increase your life skills and productivity. Blogosis will be sure to share them with you. If you liked this post, subscribe to get more! And don’t forget to Digg or Stumble this post!

Food, the real drive of life. Don’t deny that no matter how much you would like to get away from it, you could never get away from your favorite snack foods and cravings. Sometimes, you just got to healthy it up, though. There are several foods we could try to replace our favorites, but here are some of the healthiest and most nutritious foods you could eat. You probably haven’t tried them yet…

Kale

We all loved it when Moma would tell us to eat our vegetables. Moma was right, and you should have listened to her. One green, leafy vegetable she never fed you, though, was kale. Boil up a cup of kale and consume. You just got your daily value of vitamin A times two! On top of this, you’ll take in a little bit of the B-complex vitamins, some vitamin C, as well as a bountiful amount of calcium. Kale takes a conisuer’s tongue, so the taste may not be for everyone. Check out other similar greens like Swiss chard, collards, and mustard greens if you just can’t swallow Kale.

Avocado

I, for one, love avocado! To bad it costs 5 dollars for a small dip-bowl of guaccamole in Thailand, otherwise I’d be eating it everyday, especially after knowing this information. It contains pockets of monosaturated, cholesterol lowering nutrients making it extremely healthy for your heart. It also contains proteins, vitamins A, B, and E, potassium, as well as copper (a nutrient not normally found in non-meat foods).

Barley

Barley seems to be a long lost and forgotten food source. Used in a plentiful amount in our history, it is all but lost unless you are getting it from your alcohol, beers, and wines (which is good in small amounts, occasionally…) Barley’s can provide one with 25% of a person’s daily value of fiber in just one cup. It also contains high fields of potassium, protein, and iron. Other grains in barley’s family can only help it’s benefits, too.

Lentils

The lentil is a popular ingredient of thick stews, soups and chili, but outside of that scope, many people just don’t eat them. You should consider it though, because of its high protein and fiber aspects. A cup of lentil will provide your body with nearly 50 percent of your necessary daily intake of protein; it will give you a 65% boost in your fiber consumption. Lentils are also high in iron, calcium, B vitamins, copper, phosphorus, and potassium. I forgot to mention one more thing, though. There is no fat.

Soybeans

One cup of soybeans can take 40% of your daily value of protein off your list of things to do for the day. You will also find it fulfilling some fiber, calcium, iron, phosphorus, magnesium, and potassium needs. The FDA loves soybeans so much that they added to a list of foods that can help reduce the chances of forming heart harming illnesses. Menopausal women make claims that consuming soybeans can lower the heat from hot flashes, but the estrogen in it may increase the risk of breast cancer.

Sweet Potato

Need a little vitamin A in your diet. This Thanksgiving favorite can fill it for a week! A cup of our favorite potato can fill five times the daily value of vitamin A. There are also featured as high resources of vitamin C and numerous other minerals such as calcium, potassium, iron, magnesium, and phosphorus. As with lentils, sweet potatos are a fat-free miracle.

Dried Figs

You will not find figs in Fig Newtons (Dissappointing, I know), but you will find them in any grocery store! I highly recommend you go pick some up as they are extremely high in calcium. Eat just 10, and you’ve matched the calcium percentages of a cup of milk. You’ll also get plenty of fiber, Bi-complex vitamins, a little potassium, and iron to sprinkle the top.

Why is it that we always crave for that crappy food that is unhealthy and full of calories that make our weight explode? Sure, the taste of chocolate is overly scrumptious, but why you think you crave it and why your body craves it aren’t the same. You may think you crave that chocolate because of the taste. Your body craves it because it is linked to chemicals in your body. The fact of the matter is, you can take care of these cravings with some more simple, healthier food choices.

Take that chocolate for example. Yummy says tummy, tongue and mind, but what your body really craves is a little magnesium. For the cure to this deadly itch, try some fresh nuts. Sunflower seeds and several fruits may seize that chocolate sweet tooth from you.

Other types of sweet snacks like candies and other sugar packed junk foods make your body crave for several types of nutrients. Chromium cravings can be taken by bchicken, cheeses, grapes, broccoli, beans (dried) and for the brave ones, liver. Sweet cravings are linked to carbon which can be found many types of your favorite fresh fruits. Your body may need a little sulfer soothing from cranberries, cabbage, or horseradish. For a phosphorus problem you have a wide selection of choices to cover you - from meats, dairy, seafood, nuts and grains.

When your body crazes something oily and fat, that burger from the big M or that greasy pizza, your body is saying it needs to be fed some calcium. Find it in dairy products, broccoli, kale, a variety of cheeses, or take that burger off the sesame bun and try that.

These are just 3 of the many cravings one might be searching to fix. Here is a website that will let you know how to sooth the rest of your bad food cravings. Check it out at: http://www.naturopathyworks.com/pages/cravings.php

Ever since I started this whole online business and wanting to blog for money back in Early December, I didn’t know too far ahead of what I was doing. Well, the blogging thing has fallen through, but not all my online endeavors. They have since grown and expanded, and I am becoming a self-made entrepreneur. Just off of my freelance writing, if I were writing 8 hours a day, 40 hours a week, I would be making about 1500 - 2000 dollars a week. Of course, I wouldn’t dare work that much on writing, because I am just far too lazy. Haha. Thats one of the great things about being at the head of a company, or being self employed. It’s all about you! Be your own boss! Let me show you why I love it!

I get to make my own work schedule

I don’t have a paper schedule pinned to my wall telling me what days I need to be in the office and what time in the morning I need to get there. No bell goes off to tell me its break time, and I am not limited to just 2 breaks every 4 hours or however you people with an office job are suffering.

Instead, it is my watch and a very loose schedule. Most of my clients know this about me. They work with me, providing a very loose schedule, sometimes only telling me “No rush to get these articles, but whenever you have the time could you please write about _____ for me?” I can schedule 2 seconds before I am going to start writing. I can spend a sleepless night pumping out articles and working on developing graphics and other websites. I can take as many bathroom breaks, lunch and snack times, and nights out with my friends as I want without having to worry (too much) about a developed work schedule.

If I only want to work 1 hour a day (and that is about the average as of now), then I only have to work one hour a day. No more tedious 8 hour (or 14… yup I have had one of those) days for me. I take on as much work as I can handle for an hour a day and churn out the articles that need to get done the soonest (talking about my freelancing). Then I am done. I can go out, I can visit the beach or my supermodel girlfriend’s latest photo-shoot set, and enjoy the other 23 hours of the day.

Being my own boss has me freer than ever, giving me the time I need to do whatever I want while still gaining enough money to pay well more than the expenses I incur for daily life. That’s another great thing about being your own boss: It’s your prices and your terms. I think that will be a future post. Yeah, I think I just turned this into a series post.

Lately, I’ve been sleeping horribly. This week, I would say I’ve gotten maybe 20 hours of sleep. About 10 of those were from one day. The effect this is having on me is taking tolls on everything I am doing, including my blogging and freelancing. On top of this, my mood is haughty and I come off as a really bad person to other people. I’ve sure they see me and ask their friends, “What is he addicted to?” I’m about as much a panda as it gets.

My lack of sleep made me miss the bus to school this week. I had to take a taxi for about 10 dollars, which for my budget is more than I was willing to give up in one day. I’ve been slacking on my blog posts. I haven’t had anything grand come up this weekend. I get too lazy to do my freelance, so I’m seeing much less income come in. I don’t feel like I am having any fun with my life. I’m a computer addict, and this is my story.

Instead of spending those 8 hours I need to sleep on sleeping, I check my stats, chat with friends, look at my email, view my newest messages on social networks, and read and comment on blogs. Instead of checking the stats of my blog, I should be checking the stats of myself. I’m feeling a bit light-headed or have a headache that is reoccurring, I’m extremely skinny because I put off eating for more chatting, my social skills are extremely lacking (I can come off like a very personable guy behind a computer screen, but in person it may take a day or so to really open me up), my work is unfinished, and my blog posts are messy. So, this has to change, obviously.

I’ll be implementing a lot of steps to do this. I think the most important thing for me is to just get away from my computer, something I hardly ever do. In the past, if I was working on a game or writing a blog post, and they invited me out, I would usually say I was too busy with work or other things. I would even put off family meetings. I was bad. This weekend I am changing that. I will be going out to a party, a big change for me. I have never been fond of them and have gone to very few. The effects it will have though will make my life ten times better. I always complain that I have no friends here in Thailand, and I really do only have a few. This is my chance to make friends that will help me get away from my monitor.

I’m going to stop checking stats. I completely took them off my bookmark lists so I would have to individually key them in. The same goes for my social networking sites. I’ll go on once in the morning and once at night, and that is it.

I will keep my email open with alerts from my clients for my freelance work, but if I don’t get those alerts, then I cannot open my email. Once again I will briefly check twice a day, but that is as important as my email can be.

After school and my teaching, I’m going to hit the books as soon as I can. I usually never do homework, but it’s time to. I haven’t been putting much work into college, but I keep hearing what you put in is what you get out. I really want to test this. I aced my finals last semester with little work, but how much better will I feel when I ace them with hard work and accurate essays. I will also write out my teaching plans ahead of time. Before I would go in with just an hour of prep time, and in some cases I wouldn’t prep at all. I sound like a great professor, right?

The biggest thing will be seen on this blog. I know I listed on my goals I wanted to post every day, but I am realizing this is very inefficient. I will go for 1 new blog post every other day. I still expect to be writing 6 – 7 times a week, but if I don’t I just want my readers it is time to change my lifestyle up a bit. To do this, I have to involve all parts of my life and blogging is a major one. I expect this to improve the blog though. When I sleep better, I dream better. When I dream, I pick topics for new blogs. Interesting stuff I have planned for this blog, like I said.

Other steps to wean myself off of the computer and sleep better will include turning it all off. The TV, iPod, and the monitor. Hey! That means you too, Mr. Hard Drive. I expect I will be able to sleep a few years more because of this.

Any tips I can get from my readers? Did you go through this yourself? Share your story.

Bloggers can get under a lot of stress. I get stressed when something I try to put in my blog doesn’t transform like it should. I get stressed when I just can’t find the right word. I get stressed when I lose 5 subscribers in one day. Bloggers get stressed when they can’t meet a goal. Bloggers are people, so we get stressed from the daily occurrences that happen in life. This stress gets in the way of our writing, and may interfere with our subscriber numbers.

Why am I writing about stress? Today, I went through a lot of it. I went to go eat pizza, and as I was sitting down looking at my empty plate a couple of girls snuck in and sat behind me. They started saying what sounded like “Bun!.. Bun, Bun! Bun Bun Bun Bun!” I thought at first they were calling for me because my nickname is Bud (Justin comes out sounding like Jut-din because Thais can’t end words with an “s” sound so I just use Bud to make it easy), and sometimes ending consonants sounds come out short in Thai (n and d can sound the same). I figured they weren’t calling me so I went back to my focused stare to the blank plate at my table.

The food came to my table, and then came a tap on my back. ‘Oh, it must be one of my Windows Live friends,’ I thought. I was in for a surprise though. It was one of my ex-girlfriends and her friend. Oh man, that is stress right there. They came and sat at my table where I went into a lot of staring into the spaghetti and pizza in front of me. Then her friend decides to ask a bomb of a question:

“Why did you break up with her?”

Oh my god! I wanted to throw up. That is an extremely stressful question. I couldn’t take it. I wanted to throw up. They sensed I was really uneasy (I’m really shy and not too confident for some unknown reason), so they moved back to their table. I got some boxes to go and got out of there. That was a smart decision, because I instantly felt relieved of a lot of “baggage” hanging on my shoulders. That’s my first tip of this post. If you are in a stressful situation or place, do whatever the hell you can do to get out of it.

I got home, but still being phased I almost missed today’s blog post. I couldn’t think of what to blog about. I was just empty.

Stress is a big cause of “Blogger’s Block,” so I made an attempt to get over that stress. I practice several forms of stress relief that help me ignore things happening and let me focus on my blog writing.

Do anything you can to get your head to push out the stress

I basically tried to get all those thoughts out of my head. I went in some chat rooms, called some friends, read some blogs, and did research for my work. I overloaded my brain until I just couldn’t think about anything else. That overload pushed unnecessary things out of my mind, and negative stress is unnecessary.

Do something you love

If you are dedicated to something, or you find something that you can really focus on, do it! I love writing, so I decided to start a story I need to do for one of my classes. I started writing a research paper for another. I thought about those other things so I wouldn’t think about my ex.

Get that stress out in alternative forms

Talk about what is stressing you out. I told friends what happened. I am so grateful to have some of the most amazing friends in Thailand (You will never find people more willing to be your friend anywhere in the world. Meet a new person and they will literally be asking to be your friend and want to take you everywhere in 5 minutes). They were extremely supportive. Now I am getting my stress out again. I am writing about it for you.

Do something that will calm you

I don’t meditate much, but for those that like to experiment with the idea, I hear it is one of the most mind-freeing things you can do. For me, I might take a nap. I wake up unaware of my surroundings, and sometimes groggy, but that grogginess keeps me from remembering things that stress me out.

Take your stress out with violence

Call your neighbor over and punch him in the gut. Kick his dog. Steal his car and crash it into a concrete barrier. Okay, just kidding. Don’t do that. (I hope PETA doesn’t read this) Get a pillow, get a hated stuffed doll, or get your sister (just kidding again. Love you sis) and beat the stuffing out of it. This is a great release for those times when you just can’t take it anymore.

Give a good cry

Ah, crying. I’m not going to lie, for a guy, I’m a girl when it comes to crying. I can cry a lot if I want to, but who cares. It’s a good stress reliever. Any guy claiming that he never cries is a liar. If he insists he has never cried though, there’s a spot in between his legs that will test if that’s true or not. I don’t condone this kind of action though, ladies.

Eat some food

The number one stress reliever in my book. I took that pizza home and got some bites in before it got cold. A tub of ice cream is great for this. Any other fatty foods are highly recommended. Remember, you will need to adjust the rest of your daily diets if this happens though.

Exercise

If you do eat that ice cream, you probably need this anyways. Run some laps around a track (or your house if you have no other options. Who cares what the neighbors think. The crazier you come off the less likely you will have to ever talk to them. I never liked my neighbors anyways.) Lift some weights or do some pull-ups. The intensity of it will get your heart pumping and sweat flowing, leaving other things for you to focus on.

Swear a lot

I love to swear when things don’t go the way I want. I say it loud and proud like I don’t care, and I really don’t. Screaming “FIRETRUCK” helps me have a certain kind of power, like if I say it, it will go my way. And it does! Haha. Try it. If you don’t swear, say JEEBUS or something like that. A nice “AHHHHHH!” will probably be in order as well.

Using these methods, I can push out a blog post no matter how stressed I really am. So relax yourself and put yourself in a blogging mood. Ignore that stress and keep your blog posts in order and up to date. If all the above doesn’t work, it is probably time to take a rest. Your blog may actually be the cause of your stress. In these cases, announce on your blog that you are taking a personal break. You probably deserve it, and if your subscribers love your content they will probably stick around.

As a fairly new blogger, I gain massive amounts of experience every day. I am starting to learn how to use my blog more effectively to make it promote itself as well as me. I am becoming an extraordinary writer while doing it as well. Take a look at my first posts, and compare it to my newer blog entries. The difference is astounding to me. So basically this is a giant learning experience for me.

Unfortunately, I have a lot to learn, not just about blogging, but everything else. Today, I made a crucial mistake that is related to a mistake I made a few days ago when I missed my classes. I was able to make it to my 9 o’ clock class, which is my media production class. Today’s class was a continuation of Tuesday’s. It was mostly about the elements of art, which I mastered in high school, so I didn’t listen anyways. It is hard to listen to a teacher that says “Uhhhhhhh ummm uhhhhh” after every other word (I should give him some leniency though. He is Thai, but that does not make him a stupid person. In fact, he makes a lot of money from media production.)

When we got to the actual production session in the course, we were assigned an element. I was assigned “Line.” Simple enough. I just had to draw images that were made of lines. The kicker was we had to provide art to a specific audience. This reminds me off a post on how selfish your audience is, which I know see is applicable in art. Anyways, I was assigned “Generation X.”

Oh, this is where it goes downhill for me. Remembering those old, old, old Pepsi commercials from 13 years ago (1995) that had the slogan and something about Generation X in it? Well, I was 7 at the time and all I could remember was that phrase. So I thought it was like, a kids thing. You know? Emos, Goths, and Punks. Oh, if you are from this “generation x” you are either laughing your ass off, or unsubscribing from my blog. I hope it is just the first.

It was not until after I had turned in the assignment that I realized that Generation X was made up of hippies. I looked up Pepsi Generation X in Google Image search, and this is what I find:

Britney Spears in a hippie outfit. Generation X is a term coined for those hippies born in the 1960s to the 1970s. Yeah. Whoops. Way to know your audience, Justin. I am hoping my professor is confused as to what the difference are between Generation X in Thailand and that of Americas. Chances are, he is not, and I just failed an assignment. Big oops, but something that should have been completely avoidable.

If you don’t know, do some research. Research is definable by any type of way you can gain information. Had I gotten over my confidence and my other personal issues (I am a bit shy, and I didn’t want to come off as an idiot to the class) I would have done some research and asked the teacher what Generation X is classified. Instead of “Emo hair”, smeared make-up and writing LOVE IS PAIN with a black heart, I would have been drawing flowers and swirls with psychedelic colors, dude. LOVE IS PEACE would have been a more appropriate answer to the subtitle.

This applies even if you do “know.” As shown by my example, you may think you know, but you could be wrong. Look up some facts before you take a wild guess and post them on your blog. Provide your readers with real content, or they will prove you wrong and leave you. Ask for the facts if you can’t find them through traditional sources of research. Had I done this I wouldn’t feel like such a dip-head.

I’ve learned my mistake, and I will be applying this to just about every part of my life, school, work, and of course you will be seeing much more accuracy on this blog. Ever make an embarrassing mistake like this in school, at your job, or on your blog!? Step up and let it out. I sure feel a little better now that I have shared this.

Hints and News: The giveaway winner will be announced in about 12 hours! Also, Blogosis is one of the top 500,000 websites according to Alexa! Yay!