1. Cheese
2. Cartoons
3. Sunshine
4. Beer
5. Peaceful afternoons
6. Riding bikes
7. People with accents saying awesome shit. Moyses of brazilian death metal band Krisiun got asked how he sweet picks so fast. He said “much practice for speed metal brutal attack!”
8. Accomplishing something before the microwave hits 0:00
9. A good book
10. Hot tea & spicy food
11. Freshly cleaned sheets on a bed! feels so good
12. Lots of blankets when its cold
13. Checking your bank account after payday
14. A smile from a hot chick
15. Waking up on your own, seconds before your alarm goes off
16. New socks
17. Pulling up to a store parking lot and someone backing out of a good space as soon as you arrive.
18. Freshly squeezed orange juice
19. Driving cars
20. Eating hot food
21. The yawn-stretch.
22. Random nature stuff is always interesting to me. Like look at these little fellers!
    
23. Going to the grocery store and having the exact amount of change in your pocket, down to the penny.
24. Falling asleep when you are really tired
25. Finding no urgent emails on a Monday morning
26. Running late for work, and being the first one there.
27. Fried Chicken
28. Hugs
29. Driving with little to no traffic
30. Hearing an old song on the radio that ‘takes you back’
31. Actually remembering to do something that you’d usually forget
32. Hearing that UPS truck pull up to drop off a package you’ve been waiting on
33. Coming out of the shower feeling clean
34. Mirrors in the bedroom
35. College throwback: Finishing a test first and walking out like WHAT, while everyone is looking at you
36. Beating all the red lights en route to somewhere.
37. Hitting play on the dvr at the perfect time when fast fowarding commercials
38. Finishing a good book or video game
39. Protein Shakes
40. The smell of new sneakers
41. That first drink of water after a run
42. Going down hills on a bike
43. Taking the plastic off an album you just bought
44. Long Island Ice Tea
45. Noticing someone getting a very inside joke, that was only intended to make yourself laugh
46. Turning someone on to a new song or artist that you love
47. Finding money in your pocket when wearing a pair of pants you haven’t worn in a while
48. A bunch of really good songs in a row when the mp3 player is on shuffle
49. High school throwback: The teacher telling you to open your books to page xyz, and you open up the book to EXACTLY that page
50. Old-school music.

Add your own

What are some more things that in themselves are nothing special, but make you feel like the king of the world whenever they happen to you? Post yours in the comments.

Last Christmas, I decided to make myself a gift I’ve long been putting off: buying myself an external audio interface to further my ambition of becoming a music producer. After much deliberation and a good, hard look at my bank account, I decided to buy the Tascam US-144mkII, because it was part of a bundle at Musician’s Friend. And once again, I realized that you get what you pay for.

The sound quality is very good. However, the interface crashes at random intervals throughout the day. On a fresh install of Windows XP SP3, I frequently got the Blue-Screen-of-Death blaming tascusb2.sys. There was no warning. Computer could be on for hours before doing it, or not. I haven’t been able to discern a pattern as to when it happens — it happens most often when I listen to music, but sometimes it will crash when I’m doing nothing at all with it.

Installing the newest drivers from the Tascam Website actually made my system crash more often than the old drivers. The interface also takes 20% of CPU power to run on a Core 2 Quad Laptop, even when I’m doing nothing with it. The Interface actually crashed my PC once while I was writing this review!

Appearantly, this is a problem that existed with the previous model of the US-144 as well. Google it; there are hundreds of reports online of people having the same — unresolved! — issues as me, and thousands of reports regarding Tascam’s worthless customer support. The instruction manual is also littered with typos.

Support is the worst ever, telling me to disable my antivirus software and firewall (not an option due to security concerns, but even when I did do it for an hour, my system crashed again), and outright lying to me, saying that Mac users don’t have issues with the Tascam Audio Interface, when there are documented cases of problems getting it to work on a Mac. I have never, ever dealt with less capable customer support. They might as well hire a bunch of baboons to copy and paste their crappy cookie-cutter responses.

Bottom line: When the thing works, it outputs some nice, clear sound for the price. Unfortunately it’s nearly unusable due to constant crashing, latency issues and worthless support. Stay away until they put out some new drivers, which they have been promising for nearly two years. Actually, stay away from TASCAM. They are the worst company ever.

It is tempting to keep all of your existing social circles around you, no matter how little they contribute to your current life pursuits – because none of us like to “cut the cord” of a relationship or friendship that we have had for a while.

But to be successful, you have to be ruthless with the social circles you maintain. There really is something to the phrase “You are who you hang with” or “Birds of a feather, flock together”. Every once in a while, you should take a look at all of your friends and ask yourself, “Are these people contributing to my life in a positive way?”

When you start improving aspects of your life, a lot of people who are not good in that aspect either, and are uninterested in improving that area of their life will hold you back. They may criticize you, judge you and even attack you aggressively for evolving into a different direction from them. This is not going to make the work you need to do easier!So be ruthless with the people you choose to spend your time with. Life is so difficult already – you rarely get anything in life without fighting for it – so why would you want excessive conflict in your social circle?

I’ve noticed that I switch social circles approximately every 3 – 5 years. It’s not something I jot down in my calendar, it just happens, as my view of the world and personal goals change. I change pretty often, and most people don’t, so I guess it’s pretty natural to move away from people that you no longer mesh well with. This doesn’t necessarily mean that I tell them they are negative losers and that I don’t want any part of their loser-lives anymore, it just means that I am careful with how much of my time I devote to maintaining those relationships.

When wondering if one of your friends is a loser you should stop spending time with, consider the following points:

1. They talk about problems instead of solutions

Do you ever sit around with certain people and discuss issues in current affairs, your jobs, your relationships etc.? Have you ever noticed that most people are quick to offer their analysis of “what is wrong” with something, without actually offering a solution on how to fix it? A classic example is that a lot of people are quick to criticize the way an established government runs the country without offering alternative solutions. People literally spend hours talking about this. What a waste of time.

Unsuccessful people love to criticize and offer their perspective on why something isn’t the way it should be. They do this because it helps them to feel intelligent and secure when other people listen to them and agree with their “expert analysis”.

The truly superior man isn’t concerned with appearing intelligent or having others listen to his wandering thoughts: he focuses his time on devising solutions instead of talking about problems.

Don’t hang out with people who complain and criticise a lot. They are problem-focused people and unlikely to amount to much in life.

2. They focus on staying the same instead of growing

If you’re not growing, you’re dying. That’s a rule of nature: anything that isnt growing and contrubuting, is whithering and will be eventually removed and replaced. In my opinion, one of the secrets to true happiness is constantly striving to achieve new goals: growing further and learning new things.

Many people think that if they can just get that one thing — that promotion, that house, that car, that girl — and maintain it forever, they’ll be happy. Unfortunately, that’s not how the world works. Every moment in life is either a test or a celebration, and it never ends. Life never stands still.

We evolve over time and what we want changes. We should continually set the bar higher and try to learn and achieve new things. If you spend time with people who work to maintain the status quo of their lives, you will notice that they seem listless and bored. Avoid these people and spend time with those who like to grow.

3. They want what others want / don’t know what they truly want

If you ask someone why they want something, whether it’s a particular career, a harem full of beautiful women, one true love, or anything else, they should be able to tell you exactly why they want it.

If you keep asking, “Why?” of them and the final answer is, “Because that’s what I should want” or “Because I have always wanted that,” then the only real reason they want it is because society has conditioned them into thinking they need this. This is a telltale sign of a loser: he isn’t inspired by his own, inner goals and dreams, but what he thinks he needs to keep up  with and impress the people around him. One day, these kinds of people will realize that their life has been wasted, chasing other people’s goals. That’s one of the reasons why so many old people are miserable?

Surround yourself with people who are working hard but understand why they are working hard.

4. They justify themselves to people that don’t matter

When you reject or question the status quo, people around you will typically challenge you and criticise you.

It’s tempting to defend your viewpoints to anyone who challenges it, but when you do so you accept their view as more important than yours. But This is your life, therefore their view of your life is less important than your view of your life. This is a mistake that I often made in the past, especially when I started a new project in my life: I would tell everyone about it, in hope of getting their approval and understanding. Unfortunately, most people don’t have the vision and attiture to be supportive of any goal that exceeds their limited horizon.

A superior man doesn’t waste time explaining his endeavours, thoughts and passions to those whom they do not recognise a similar or higher level of achievement in. You are not here to persuade others around to share your viewpoint, you are here to achieve your goals – regardless of whether the rest of the world shares them or not.

5. They talk a lot about what they are going to do

Unsuccessful people talk a lot in the future tense. They always have plans, ideas and outlines for what they are going to do, but spend very little time implementing these plans.

Don’t talk constantly about your plans, and don’t ever talk about your plans with losers . The more time you spend talking about them, the less time you are spending actually implementing them.

The world is full of unsuccessful people with great ideas and seemingly high ambitions, but very few people put in the time and energy that is necessary to realise those ideas and ambitions. Avoid people who talk a lot in the future tense!

6. They value instant gratification over long-term goals

Unsuccessful people seek short-term relief from their unhappiness by distracting themselves from their problems rather than addressing them with sustainable and real solutions.

Excessive drinking, smoking, and promiscuity are often symptoms of this. I am not judging people that engage in those things: I know plenty people that are very successful that do enjoy an occasional cigarette, drink or like to have casual sex. But they are doing it because they enjoy those things, rather than as distractions from other problems they may have.

Long-term solutions to problems take effort to implement, but are ultimately worth it. Anything you use to distract yourself from the problem will give you a few moments’ respite, but leave you unsatisfied in the long-term.

7. They lie, cheat or steal as a solution

People who lie, cheat or steal in order to achieve a goal do not really achieve it, but have simply manipulated a false outcome. The outcome will not be sustainable, or it will not give them the real happiness they sought.

Don’t hang out with people that use these methods to achieve their goals. They may seem successful at times, but their success is precarious and short-lived. Inside, they are deeply unhappy people and know that they will never achieve real success.

Be careful whom you spend your time with. Unhealthy influences pervade the world. Learn to recognise them and steer clear of them – your success in life depends on it.

The fun started before the concert: We were all paranoid and pissed because we were late to get to the arena, and thought we wouldn’t get a good spot up front. There were two lines: one large one at the main entrance, and one smaller one off to the side, that by the size of it looked like it could have just been the line to the bathrooms. We asked the securities which line we had to get into, and they said that it didn’t matter, both lines lead to the same spot, so they gave us the brilliant advice to step into the smaller line with less people. Apparently, the wisdom of the crowd just automatically lead most people to stand in this huge line at the main entrance.

So we head over to the smaller line off to the left, and since it’s not a very cramped up line, we walk past a bunch of people, all the way to the front. Right as we are in the front row of people, and some guy behind us begun complained about us getting ahead of them in line, the securities opened up the gate and we could go in! It felt like VIP treatment — and we managed to get into the first row of a Prince Concert that 25,000 people attended.

The concert itself was the best show I’ve ever seen live: Prince was almost on-time and played for almost three hours. Sheila E was there too, and together they put on an inspiring show with more energy than I have ever seen from two 50-year-olds. I really hope I’m that open, fit, and free when I reach my 50s. The background singers and players and more talented than many well known artists. The only thing that was slightly disappointing was that he didn’t play a single song from the past 15 years: none from his new album, or from Musicology, or from 3121. I love Prince’s old material, but I can better relate to the music that was released in my youth and adult life. Those are the songs that I know by heart and associate many feelings with, while the older material is more of a history lesson to me. But I guess Prince just knows his audience: Most Germans know Prince as “That guy that did Purple Rain and Kiss”, and don’t even know Prince has released anything new in the last 15 years. Next time, I’m going to visit him in another country.