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Last Updated: 12 February 2017

I suddenly realized that all people in this world are blessed with incredible talent, but what separates the rich and famous from those not so is often confidence (or the appearance of confidence).  If you can confidently broadcast your talent to a large audience, you're money.  If the audience truly digs your talent, then you're even more money.  Building such confidence takes a lot of practice, and trial and error, however.  It's almost as difficult--if not more so--than acquiring the talent in the first place.

Therefore, my goal is to exchange my hesitation and nervousness for the life-learning experience of it all.  A failure is not a bad thing as it inevitably provides more valuable feedback than success.  I shouldn't label them "failures," but "learning experiences."  To fully do so, I'll have to kill any and all personal interest in what others think of me.  I needn't be bothered with 

Read more: Talent and Building Confidence

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Last Updated: 12 February 2017

A lot of people criticize their parents for everything they did wrong when raising them.  When I look at couples with kids, I think, "Damn.  That doesn't look easy."  Dirty diapers, public temper tantrums, teen pregnancies, and memories of how much of a pain in the ass I must have been don't exactly encourage me to impregnate my wife-to-be any time soon.  I dunno how they did it, but my parents raised 4 kids.  They weren't perfect, and we're far from perfect, but here are some great things they did that have paid off time and time again in my adult life:

Read more: Things My Parents Did Right

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Last Updated: 10 December 2012

I used to make fun of my mommy because of the way she sleeps.  She expertly wraps herself in countless blankets much like ancient Egyptian embalmers going to town on the latest deceased pharaoh.  The only sign there is a living being under all the comforters is a nose poking out for air.  If she could, she would sleep with a snorkel.

Now I find myself doing the exact same thing.  I'm a 31 year-old man, and I've become my mommy.  That's kinda gay.

In my defense I'll say it's cold here—freakin' cold.  It's way colder than Los Angeles ever was.  It's so damn cold, you can see your breath.  Now that's cold.

I don't like to run the heater all night because it messes up my sinuses and runs up quite a power bill.  So yeah...I'm an eco-conscious cheapskate with healthy sinuses.  You've learned something about me today.

And I've learned something about science: A lot of heat escapes out of your head.  The brain is the CPU of the body, so it runs hot.  Wrapping the noggin in blankets when you sleep really makes a difference.   It makes me wonder if I'll be warm wearing nothing but a knit beanie.  Maybe I'll try that someday.  I'll probably end up getting arrested, though.  Damn.

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Last Updated: 12 February 2017

My brother Steve Pavlina is a professional blogger.  He runs a rather popular self-improvement website.
Since our family name is quite unique, I sometimes get traffic via his site; or people looking for his site simply stumble upon mine.  In rare cases, I'll even get email from his readers thinking I give a flying rat's ass about what they have to say.

What follows is an email conversation I had with one of my brother's 

Read more: Religious Freak

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Last Updated: 10 December 2012

In my opinion, "Small Wonder" was one of the greatest TV shows ever.  As you may know, "Small Wonder" was a sitcom about a seemingly normal American family.  However, the family was far from normal.  In fact, the daughter Vicki was a robot.  I have to say that the dialog and acting were cheesy at times, but in general I found the show extremely entertaining.  The family constantly tried to hide Vicki's identity, so it was always funny when someone saw her picking up a car or something.  Another thing I liked was the fun-loving character Reggie.  I was devastated when the show went off the air.  I locked myself in my room and cried for days.

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Last Updated: 20 July 2024

Due to the cheap Japanese yen, I've been doing a lot of shopping recently.  I decided to upgrade my aging Sony Google Assistant speaker to the latest Google Nest Audio.

Nice.  Sounds good.  Upgrade complete.

Wrong.  I'm forever plagued with IT problems.  I must've been cursed by some IT witch or something.

Every once in a while the Google Nest speaker would make a short click / crackle / pop sound while playing streaming audio.  It happened most often with Spotify.  At first I thought it must be a hardware problem with the speaker, but I noticed that it would only do it when playing Spotify or SomaFM.  Youtube music and news podcasts never suffered from the dreaded pop.

So maybe it's a firmware problem.  Well...damn...should I just return this thing?

Read more: How To Fix Google Nest Audio Crackle Pop Sound Problem