Life Tips Daily

As a video game music composer myself, one of the things that I’ve learned about the profession is that you will go nowhere if you’re not versatile. You could be the most fantastic composer since Mozart, but if you can’t write a rock song then you’re lost.

This applies to all aspects of anyone’s life though, not just my composing. This is because, no matter what you do, without the ability to adapt to new circumstances, the changing world will leave you behind in the dust wondering what hit you.

This is important to keep in mind because no matter what you do and what you like, it’s always good to have alternatives. If one thing fails, you’ve got something to fall back on. Likewise, within your field, you need to make sure that you can keep up with any advances and, more importantly, be an active thinker.

What I mean by that is that you should strive to be a person who doesn’t just KNOW all the stuff and have the amazing ability to spew it out, you need to be the kind of person who can know the stuff and then analyze and synthesize it. That way, you’re not just knowledgeable; you’re innovative! If you can take the existing content and make something new out of it, then you’re an active thinker and you’re going places.

As an example, being a pianist myself, I know a lot of pianists who have been classically trained and who can play back any (and I mean ANY, it’s incredible) piece of music that you put in front of them. It doesn’t matter how complicated or how insanely challenging the piece is, they can sight read it perfectly. Now, for many that is the ultimate in what one can achieve as a pianist and so they are completely content as such. But then there are people like me who come along and mess them up - it’s remarkably easy. All I do is take the sheet music from in front of them and tell them to improvise. Nine times out of ten, they don’t even know where to start, let alone where to go from there.

For me, it is more important to be able to USE what you’ve learned in order to make something your own as opposed to just regurgitating it again like a machine. We’ve got machines for that, after all, and they’re a lot more efficient than any person could ever hope to be.

So leave that to the machines and use your talents and creative abilities to take what you know and apply it one step further; it could mean the difference between getting or missing a job.

For those of you who are not yet aware of this entertaining little internet gem, I will have to introduce you to a very neat little site called leekspin, or “Loituma Girl”.

Go ahead and click HERE to open it so that it’s running while you read this. Got it? Cool. So what you’re listening to is a funny little song while watching an anime character spin a leek. Immediately, you will notice that this song is extremely catchy and that there’s a little timer at the bottom of the page to help you tell all your friends about just HOW addictive it is.

Since I know that some of my readers will be curious, I have done a little searching and discovered the origins of this cute little apparition. Apparently, it popped onto the internet in April of 2006 and almost immediately became among the most popular videos on the net, drawing over a million viewers.

The melody is a Finnish polka called the “Ievan Polkka”, written by Eino Kettunen in the early 1930s. Specifically, it’s the arranged a capella performance of it by the popular Finnish quartet known as “Loituma”. The section used in this animation is the second half of the fifth stanza and the sixth stanza. Obviously, this section features gibberish as the text, as opposed to the rest of the piece which is sung in Finnish. It’s actually a fairly nice story, for those of you who know Finnish, so you may want to also watch the video HERE where you can see the entire performance.

Also, just to prove that some people have far too much time on their hands, you can find a link to a Flash clock which features the song and the familiar leek theme HERE, where you can conceivably set it to full screen and use it as an extremely aggravating time telling device.

Anyways, enjoy and try not to stay up all night!

Hello again, here are some more humorous and occasionally philosophical quotations from the works of acclaimed fantasy/comedy author Terry Pratchett:

People came to Ankh-Morpork to seek their fortune. Unfortunately, other
people sought it too.

– (Terry Pratchett, Soul Music)

The hippo of recollection stirred in the muddy waters of the mind.

– (Terry Pratchett, Soul Music)

The Patrician was a pragmatist. He never tried to fix things that worked.
Things that didn’t work, however, got broken.

– (Terry Pratchett, Soul Music)

“Yes,” said the skull. “Quit while you’re a head, that’s what I say.”

– (Terry Pratchett, Soul Music)

Rincewind could scream for mercy in nineteen languages, and just scream in
another forty-four.

– (Terry Pratchett, Interesting Times)

“Luck is my middle name,” said Rincewind, indistinctly. “Mind you, my first
name is Bad.”

– (Terry Pratchett, Interesting Times)

Natural selection saw to it that professional heroes who at a crucial
moment tended to ask themselves questions like “What is my purpose in
life?” very quickly lacked both.

– (Terry Pratchett, Interesting Times)

The person on the other side was a young woman. Very obviously a young
woman. There was no possible way that she could have been mistaken for a
young man in any language, especially Braille.

– The goddess with the nice earrings
(Terry Pratchett, Maskerade)

He had a unique stride: it looked as though his body was being dragged
forward and his legs had to flail around underneath it, landing wherever
they could find room. It wasn’t so much a walk as a collapse, indefinitely
postponed.

– (Terry Pratchett, Maskerade)

Instead, people would take pains to tell her that beauty was only
skin-deep, as if a man ever fell for an attractive pair of kidneys.

– (Terry Pratchett, Maskerade)

After you’d known Christine for any length of time, you found yourself
fighting a desire to look into her ear to see if you could spot daylight
coming the other way.

– (Terry Pratchett, Maskerade)

I AM DEATH, NOT TAXES. I TURN UP ONLY ONCE.

– (Terry Pratchett, Feet of Clay)

There were no public health laws in Ankh-Morpork. It would be like
installing smoke detectors in Hell.

– (Terry Pratchett, Feet of Clay)

“Just because someone’s a member of an ethnic minority doesn’t mean they’re
not a nasty small-minded little jerk [...]“

– (Terry Pratchett, Feet of Clay)

Getting an education was a bit like a communicable sexual disease. It made
you unsuitable for a lot of jobs and then you had the urge to pass it on.

– (Terry Pratchett, Hogfather)

“Real stupidity beats artificial intelligence every time.”

– Bursar 1 - Hex 0
(Terry Pratchett, Hogfather)

Everything starts somewhere, though many physicists disagree. But people
have always been dimly aware of the problem with the start of things. They
wonder how the snowplough driver gets to work, or how the makers of
dictionaries look up the spelling of words.

– (Terry Pratchett, Hogfather)

“Give a man a fire and he’s warm for a day, but set fire to him and he’s
warm for the rest of his life.”

– (Terry Pratchett, Jingo)

PEOPLE’S WHOLE LIVES DO PASS IN FRONT OF THEIR EYES BEFORE THEY DIE. THE
PROCESS IS CALLED ‘LIVING’.

– (Terry Pratchett, The Last Continent)

Lancre operated on the feudal system, which was to say, everyone feuded all
the time and handed on the fight to their descendants.

– (Terry Pratchett, Carpe Jugulum)

Sam Vimes could parallel process. Most husbands can. They learn to follow
their own line of thought while at the same time listening to what their
wives say. And the listening is important, because at any time they could
be challenged and must be ready to quote the last sentence in full. A vital
additional skill is being able to scan the dialogue for telltale phrases
such as “and they can deliver it tomorrow” or “so I’ve invited them for
dinner?” or “they can do it in blue, really quite cheaply.”

– (Terry Pratchett, The Fifth Elephant)

As castles went, this one looked as though it could be taken by a small
squad of not very efficient soldiers. For defence, putting a blanket over
your head might be marginally safer.

– (Terry Pratchett, The Fifth Elephant)

“Don’t put your trust in revolutions. They always come around again.
That’s why they’re called revolutions. People die, and nothing changes.”

– (Terry Pratchett, Night Watch)

- “You’re Hells Angels, then? What chapter are you from?”

- REVELATIONS, CHAPTER SIX.

– Death in conversation with a biker
(Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman, Good Omens)

Death was Nature’s way of telling you to slow down.

– (Terry Pratchett, Strata)

AIRPORTS: A place where people hurry up and wait.

– (Terry Pratchett, Wings)

SCIENCE: A way of finding things out and then making them work. Science
explains what is happening around us the whole time. So does RELIGION, but
science is better because it comes up with more understandable excuses when
it is wrong. There is a lot more Science than you think.

– (Terry Pratchett, Wings)

“You’re not allowed to call them dinosaurs anymore.” said Yo-less. “It’s
speciesist. You have to call them pre-petroleum persons.”

– (Terry Pratchett, Johnny and the Bomb)

“He’s a man of few words, and he doesn’t know what either of them mean,”
people said, but not when he was within hearing.

– (Terry Pratchett, The Carpet People)

I’ll be more enthusiastic about encouraging thinking outside the box when
there’s evidence of any thinking going on inside it.

– (Terry Pratchett, alt.fan.pratchett)

I think perhaps the most important problem is that we are trying to
understand the fundamental workings of the universe via a language
devised for telling one another where the best fruit is.

– (Terry Pratchett, alt.fan.pratchett)

That’s all of them that I wanted to share, I hope I’ve inspired you to check out some of the books because they’re really fantastic reads when you’re looking for something light-hearted and entertaining.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with an author named Terry Pratchett, you’d do well to become acquainted with some of his work. He writes what can be called fantasy, parody, humour, satire, philosophy…it all depends what you take from it. He is the man responsible for the infamous Discworld series as well as a number of other works.

I mention him because I want to offer you a series of humorous and sometimes thought-provoking quotations from his Discworld book series.

Tourist, Rincewind decided, meant “idiot”.

– (Terry Pratchett, The Colour of Magic)

- “Pull me up, then,” he hinted.
- “I think that might be sort of difficult,” grunted Twoflower. “I don’t
actually think I can do it, in fact.”
- “What are you holding on to, then?”
- “You.”
- “I mean besides me.”
- “What do you mean, besides you?” said Twoflower.

– (Terry Pratchett, The Light Fantastic)

- “If you’re going to suggest I try dropping twenty feet down a pitch dark
tower in the hope of hitting a couple of greasy little steps which might
not even still be there, you can forget it,” said Rincewind sharply.
- “There is an alternative, then.”
- “Out with it, man.”
- “You could drop five hundred feet down a pitch black tower and hit stones
which certainly are there,” said Twoflower.
Dead silence from below him. Then Rincewind said, accusingly, “That
was sarcasm.”

– (Terry Pratchett, The Light Fantastic)

For animals, the entire universe has been neatly divided into things to
(a) mate with, (b) eat, (c) run away from, and (d) rocks.

– (Terry Pratchett, Equal Rites)

“It would seem that you have no useful skill or talent whatsoever,” he
said. “Have you thought of going into teaching?”

– (Terry Pratchett, Mort)

There were a few seconds of total silence as everyone waited to see what
would happen next. And then Nijel uttered the battle cry that Rincewind
would never quite forget to the end of his life. “Erm,” he said, “excuse
me…”

– (Terry Pratchett, Sourcery)

Of course, Ankh-Morpork’s citizens had always claimed that the river water
was incredibly pure. Any water that had passed through so many kidneys,
they reasoned, had to be very pure indeed.

– (Terry Pratchett, Sourcery)

It wasn’t blood in general he couldn’t stand the sight of, it was just his
blood in particular that was so upsetting.

– (Terry Pratchett, Sourcery)

The Ephebians made wine out of anything they could put in a bucket, and ate
anything that couldn’t climb out of one.

– (Terry Pratchett, Pyramids)

Nature abhors dimensional abnormalities, and seals them neatly away so that
they don’t upset people. Nature, in fact, abhors a lot of things, including
vacuums, ships called the “Marie Celeste”, and the chuck keys for electric
drills.

– (Terry Pratchett, Pyramids)

Lady Ramkin’s bosom rose and fell like an empire.

– (Terry Pratchett, Guards! Guards!)

- “There’s a door”
- “Where does it go?”
- “It stays where it is, I think.”

– (Terry Pratchett, Eric)

- “So we’re surrounded by absolutely nothing. There’s a word for it. It’s
what you get when there’s nothing left and everything’s been used up.”
- “Yes. I think it’s called the bill.”

– (Terry Pratchett, Eric)

The gods of the Disc have never bothered much about judging the souls of
the dead, and so people only go to hell if that’s where they believe, in
their deepest heart, that they deserve to go. Which they won’t do if they
don’t know about it. This explains why it is so important to shoot
missionaries on sight.

– (Terry Pratchett, Eric)

By and large, the only skill the alchemists of Ankh-Morpork had discovered
so far was the ability to turn gold into less gold.

– (Terry Pratchett, Moving Pictures)

“If you put butter and salt on it, it tastes like salty butter.”

– Popcorn comes to the Discworld
(Terry Pratchett, Moving Pictures)

“Why’s it called Ming?” said the Archchancellor, on cue.
The Bursar tapped the pot. It went “ming“.

– Discworld archeology revealed
(Terry Pratchett, Moving Pictures)

In retrospect, Victor was always a little unclear about those next few
minutes. That’s the way it goes. The moments that change your life are
the ones that happen suddenly, like the one where you die.

– (Terry Pratchett, Moving Pictures)

“Dock-a-loodle-fod!”

– Dyslexic roosters are a sad sight
(Terry Pratchett, Reaper Man)

The Yen Buddhists are the richest religious sect in the universe. They hold
that the accumulation of money is a great evil and a burden to the soul.
They therefore, regardless of personal hazard, see it as their unpleasant
duty to acquire as much as possible in order to reduce the risk to innocent
people.

– (Terry Pratchett, Witches Abroad)

Racism was not a problem on the Discworld, because — what with trolls and
dwarfs and so on — speciesism was more interesting. Black and white lived
in perfect harmony and ganged up on green.

– (Terry Pratchett, Witches Abroad)

“You can’t go around building a better world for people. Only people
can build a better world for people. Otherwise it’s just a cage.”

– (Terry Pratchett, Witches Abroad)

Guilt was the grease in which the wheels of authority turned.

– (Terry Pratchett, Small Gods)

“Slave is an Ephebian word. In Om we have no word for slave,” said
Vorbis.
“So I understand,” said the Tyrant. “I imagine that fish have no
word for water.”

– (Terry Pratchett, Small Gods)

In the Beginning there was nothing, which exploded.

– (Terry Pratchett, Lords and Ladies)

The Monks of Cool, whose tiny and exclusive monastery is hidden in a really
cool and laid-back valley in the lower Ramtops, have a passing-out test for a
novice. He is taken into a room full of all types of clothing and asked: Yo,
my son, which of these is the most stylish thing to wear? And the correct
answer is: Hey, whatever I select.

– (Terry Pratchett, Lords and Ladies)

If the Creator had said, “Let there be light” in Ankh-Morpork, he’d have
gotten no further because of all the people saying “What colour?”

– (Terry Pratchett, Men at Arms)

More to come later, that’s all for now folks! If you like what you’ve read, check out the Discworld series on amazon or pick some up from your local library and give them a read.

It seems to me that the world is becoming more and more morose these days. It’s not entirely surprising with the news advertising more and more violence and killing and terrorism and war…it’s depressing. I mean, I miss those days when a story about cute little polar bears still made headline news. Oh wait, such a headline DID make news today! Here in Canada, in fact:

http://www.canada.com/globaltv/national/story.html?id=394c1167-3ad5-45be-805d-32ae19be9545

Apparently, little (26 year-old, 1200lb “little”) Kunik the polar bear was euthanized because of an infection with West Nile. So I stand corrected, polar bears DO still make it into the news.

Regardless, a blanket of depression seems to be descending and I think that it’s detrimental and more damaging than some people may think. An outlook on life is a very influential thing when it’s negative and shared by a good percentage of people.

As a cynic myself, I can understand why it’s easy to go the negative route in your thinking, but you’d be surprised at just how benefitial it can be to keep a good dose of humour in our lives. Cynicism is fine, but if you completely remove any sort of enjoyment from life then you just end up completely depressed and then you may as WELL commit suicide because you’re wasting oxygen.

That’s why it’s good to keep your sense of humour alive, happy and healthy, even if you’re not. This can be achieved in a few different ways. Some people resort to video games, others resort to drugs.

My favourite method is to find yourself a webcomic (I suggest Ctrl-Alt-Delete, Order of the Stick…look around and find your favourite) or an internet site that offers good humour on a daily basis, and then make sure that you work it into your morning routine. If you use Firefox, set it as one of your homepages so it opens in a tab when you start up, or set it up as part of your schedule for the absolutely fantastic add-on called Morning Coffee (https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/2677/). If you don’t use Firefox, you’re dead to me. No, just kidding; in that case you can still set it to your homepage or use Internet Explorer 7 and then have it open in a tab almost like in Firefox.

So don’t forget to take a break from life here and there for a good laugh. Just because there are depressing things in this world, it doesn’t mean you should let them take you down with them. Remember that laugher truly is the best medicine.

In my constant search for better things to do with my time (i.e procrastinating), I tend to come across a variety of interesting and sometimes very useful websites. I feel obliged to share some of them with you, dear readers, so that you can all enjoy some of the lesser-known gems of the internet.

• http://gpsinformation.net/exe/harvest-moon.jpg A very interesting decorating idea for those of you still busy preparing for Halloween; I’d recommend perhaps adding a small spotlight from below to enhance the effect and make sure it’s visible in the dark.
• http://www.asifproductions.com/systems/world_systems.html Fed up with real life? This is a fairly extensive list of avatar-based virtual worlds; places on the internet where you can create a virtual identity and engage in various activities. Some of them can be a good escape.
• http://www.paradoxes.co.uk/ I, for one, love to hurt my brain occasionally with some riddles and paradoxes. Sometimes, it’s a very good exercise in lateral thinking. That’s why I recommend that you take a look at this site, it’s got a whole list of paradoxes which make for a very interesting read-through.
• http://www.mailtic.com/ Brilliant little service here that allows you to create a free email for use as a disposable address when signing up for a new account somewhere. It helps avoid unnecessary spam and keeps you from having to keep track of excess email accounts. Say goodbye to the “forums” email address!

That’s all for now folks, stay tuned for more as I come across them.

As more and more people are turning to the internet to make friends, some important issues come up which must be addressed. In recent news stories, we’ve been seeing that what starts on the internet doesn’t necessarily stay on the internet, so while some people make some very good friends and end up with a nice family, others make some very bad ones and end up on CNN.

I feel it’s important to put forth a set of guidelines to abide by for telling whether or not your budding relationship is something to worry about. Remember though that the internet is the den of uncertainty and the best place in the world to be anonymous, so no matter how careful you are, there will always be people who can trick you into believing them.

1. Screen Name: Most online meetings and discussions happen in the comfortable confines of either an internet chatroom or an instant messaging conversation. In both of these cases, the person you’re dealing with will have what’s known as a screen name; essentially their alias. As such, it is supposed to represent them in the online world, and we can make use of this fact to get a first impression of how our friend-to-be actually is. Here are some examples to illustrate the point:
• Safe Screen Names: If your target friend-to-be has a username like “Albert Weesly” (their actual name), “Sunshine ‘N Lollypops”, or “Puppy_Lvr992″ (cute and harmless), then chances are you’re dealing with a nice person who won’t give you any trouble in the relationship. Unless you’re allergic to dogs.
• Bad Screen Names: If, on the other hand, their screen name resembles any of the following: “Herp_ezâ€?, “Rap(p)erâ€?, and “Charlie McPredatorâ€?, then chances are you’re making a major mistake. While I understand that some of these may simply be attempts (sad ones) at humour, you have to stop and think for a minute if you really want to be pursuing a relationship with someone who’s got that kind of sense of humour.
2. First Chat: This is it; the big moment. You’ve met this person through heated discussions on your favourite soap opera plot discussion forum and now you’re ready to make the big move and talk to them one on one. This is a big moment because two vital things are going to be happening; first off, you’ll be able to get your first glimpse of what this person is “really” like, and secondly, they’ll be able to get their first impression of you (keep this in mind, it’ll be useful later on if things go rotten). If they seem friendly, courteous, polite and respectful right off the bat then you’re on your way to a good thing. If, on the other hand, they seem rushed, impatient, pressing or rude, then you’re going to want to nip things in the bud and move on. One vital thing to look for is them being open about themselves without being extremely pushy about getting to know every little detail about you. In this category I should also offer a warning: look out for the ones that work on the eye-for-an-eye conversation method; they tell you something about themselves and then ask you for your equivalent piece of information immediately. It’s a cheap trick, so don’t fall for it. They should talk about themselves comfortably, without blatant bragging. Then, when you mention something about yourself, it’s a good sign if they seem interested.
3. Follow-Up: So, after a pretty encouraging first chat, you’ve gone about your normal life until you and Prince Charming (or Princess Charmoiselle) decide to have another little chat. The way that this and other subsequent conversations go will give you the final bits of information you need before deciding whether or not to keep talking to them. The person in question should continue to be just as courteous and polite as they were in the first conversation, while maintaining an open attitude and a healthy interest in the things you tell them. Having said that, make sure the interest is focussed on how you feel about those things or how they affected you and other positive, healthy interests instead of focussing on where you’ll be next and what you’ll be wearing. If all goes well then you’re probably on your way to a great friendship.

Of course, things could also go terribly wrong. Perhaps your wannabe-buddy turns out to be a complete creepy weirdo who just wants to take advantage of some honest friendship; what do you do then? Well don’t worry, I have some helpful pointers for dealing with your problem. The first thing to do is start simple; tell them you don’t want to talk to them anymore and/or block them on your instant messenger. If you’re going back to that forum, you may want to consider using the “ignore user” function to, you guessed it, ignore your buddy. Sometimes though, you’ll find yourself with a very persistent little bugger who has a deficiency in the “Getting the Message” department. Congratulations, you have an online stalker.

Now it’s time to get creative. If they made another IM account to talk to you on and they keep doing that, I have a perfect way to get rid of them. Make yourself look unattractive to them. Remember when I told you to keep in mind that first impression business? Well now’s the time to bring that back up. If trying to avoid them doesn’t work, try a radically different tack and talk to them. But instead of being the good, attractive you, do some acting and scare your stalker away. Here’s a conversation to illustrate:

Stalker: Hey…I heard you’re gonna be in the area tonite; dinner?
You: Didn’t I tell you to leave me alone?
Stalker: Yeah, but I know ur just playin hard to get lol you want me
You: Yeah, you’re right. I’ve been waiting for someone to help me with this quilt for AGES. I mean, I keep trying to finish on my own but the wool sometimes gets tangled and I’m not much good at it…
Stalker: lol what?
You: You know, my quilt. I want you to help me make it!
Stalker: how bout we have some fun under it instead?
You: Hey, that’s a great idea! We can pretend it’s a cape and play Captain America while watching the cartoon on TV. I LOVE that show! And then we can show mum and dad our skit; I’m sure they’ll like you.
Stalker: Uhh…
You: Except we might have to wait a few days, the hospital only allows me three visitors per month..:(
Stalker: *logs off*

It’s all about being creative. Avoid them, and if that doesn’t work then fight fire with fire and creep the creeps away. Hopefully though, with this guide you’ll manage to weed out the bad relationships before they actually happen so you can enjoy your online friendships and let them blossom into positive experiences.

Happy eFlirting!

Well, this is it. Just another ten days or so and another wonderful installment of everyone’s favourite pan-american horror celebration will be in full swing. The stores are bustling with pumpkins and pumpkin-themed paraphernalia which is offset by an equally large concentration of crappy costumes.

I’m serious, you all know it’s true. I’m talking about those costumes you find at all the stores that basically consist of a thin, plastic pair of pants, a thin, plastic shirt and then a mask so cheap it makes paper plates look like aristocratic items.

This year, I’ve done some digging around the internet to give you some alternatives to the “Hobo Halloween of Horror”.

• http://vampfangs.com/shop/index.php This is an absolutely fantastic site with a grand variety of items to add to your costume. It focuses mainly on items geared towards vampire costumes, but besides the innovative fang system (not the mouthguard-wannabe variety), they also offer coloured and patterned contact lenses (with or without a prescription in tons of great designs), jewellery, make-up, and even prosthetics. Great content and reasonable prices make this a good stop for costume accesorizing.
• http://www.gotfog.com/ What’s the coolest part of Halloween? Fog machines! Well, maybe it’s the candy…in fact, I’m pretty sure it’s the candy, but fog machines are still pretty darn cool so make sure to drop by this webpage on during your shopping spree; it’s got everything you could ever want to know about them as well as a very convenient buying guide with product reviews and pretty pictures.
• http://anniescostumes.com/deluxe.htm Annie gives us a fantastic variety of good costumes on this page, all of them of professional quality. There’s some pretty creative stuff on this site and the prices are fair for the quality of the items.
• http://www.hauntedplanet.com/ Last one for costumes, this is another great one for top-quality costumes with the addition of a seperate and equally developed section focussing solely on masks. And they give you free presents every time you order! What can I say, I’m a sucker for freebies.

Well those are all the sites I’ve got for now. I’m always on the lookout though, so if anything else interesting comes up in my search I’ll post a link to it.
Anyway, with those links and some basic sense of style, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t be able to put together a fantastic set-up for Halloween.

Good luck!

Tip of the Day: Pace Yourself!

Picture this: You live the normal, active life of an ambitious, savvy person. One day you’re offered the opportunity to do something that you absolutely love after work twice a week. It’s not a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity or anything but, knowing that you’d really like to, you accept and promise that you’ll do it. Then the next day you recieve another similar opportunity to do something you would love. Again, you accept because it’s something you’d really like to do. If the cycle continues too far, you’ll have a schedule so packed with activities that it’ll be impossible to keep up with; even though you like the stuff.

One of the biggest problems facing people these days is that they let their ambitions cloud their judgement and impair their perception of what they can manage. Since hobbies are becoming more and more accessible, people are participating more. By focussing blindly on all of the things they want to do, they fall into a dangerous trap; running out of time to do it all in.

That is why one of the most important things to keep in mind is time management. If you can’t manage your time among your work, and activities then you’re going to waste too much of it and end up being able to do even less of the things you’d like to. The problem is that sometimes we want to do something so much that we just accept it and make promises.

I can give a personal example of just how problematic this can become and did become for me. As a composer for video games, I work from project to project on contracts. Sometimes, these projects overlap and I end up working on more than one at a time. This happened to me at one point last year to the point of excess.

Specifically, I had been offered the opportunity to write the music for a large-scale mod (modification of an existing game, usually adding new content, levels, etc) of a popular RPG title and, eager for more experience, I accepted. The work load was certainly manageable and I was happily producing their music for a few weeks. Then I got another offer from another large-scale mod to write their music. Again, I was eager for more experience and more of an opportunity to get my music out there and further my career, so I accepted.

By the time the third game project rolled around, I was starting to have some major problems. I was needing to balance between work on these game projects, my school work, my other extra-curricular activities, and essential bodiliy functions like eating and sleeping. Even though I loved the work I was doing for these projects, I simply couldn’t keep up with everything. It was too much on my plate at the same time and it started to show in degrading marks at school, and physical and mental exhaustion on my part after too long of staying up until 3:00am composing.

I learned a valuable lesson, which I am sharing here today, which is to pace yourself even when it comes to the things you love to do. No matter how much you enjoy them, overloading your schedule will do nothing except detract from your operating efficiency and tire you out.

So keep things balanced!

• You need time to get all work done and leave some margin for unexpected problems that might arise.
• Then you need time to do a comfortable number of extra activities and hobbies which serve as pleasant leisure; not exhaustive effort. Remember, these are things you love that help you keep your brain from rotting after the tedium of a work day, they shouldn’t make you more tired.
• You need time to relax! This isn’t being lazy, it’s being smart. Time to relax lets your body and your mind unwind a bit.

What you want to aim for is the schedule set-up that keeps you active, but rested so that you’re operating at your peak efficiency. Sometimes you’ll just have to say no to those tempting opportunities to keep things in check, so just keep in mind that it’s for the best.

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Note to self: prepare for Halloween. And this time, use a shorter candle in the jack-o-lantern to avoid having to clean up pumpkin char stains…

As of right now, it is! So welcome to Life Tips Daily!

Today is the first day of existence for this little realm of mine, and I must say that I’m very excited to finally see it up and running. I logged onto the system this evening and put in all my profile details and looked around the place; you know, breaking it in.

This post is just an introductory one, as my later ones will probably be set up in a specific format with my daily life tip presented prominently at the top. I will be trying my very best to stay on topic, but I fear that I am notorious for random tangents so the section of the post following the life tip of the day may very well be an unrelated discussion on things I’m thinking about, my philosophies, my experiences and what I’ve learned from them…maybe even video games.

Tune in tomorrow for the first “real” post.