Thoughts on Beverage: Sobe Green Tea

This is the best drink on the planet!

I recently spent a relaxing Saturday afternoon with my buddy Pat at the Winter Haven library which now sports a pretty neat little coffee shop with free wi-fi (B not G unfortunately).

It was a pretty hot day, and after drinking a few Daisani's I spotted a fridge with a whole rack of these babies:
http://www.sobebev.com/product_info/exotic_green.shtml

I've drinken this before, but having it again in a "thristifying" moment is such a wonderful thing!
It has the usual green tea "tang and gulp", but also has some mint along with other flavors to offset the usual bitter aftertaste of the tea. Overall it gives are very refreshing feeling, and leaves your tongue sighing.

Hak's Scale of Awesomeness: HOLY FUCKING SHIT YOU GOTTA DRINK THIS!!

Thoughts of Food: Chili's

We just returned from dinner at Chili's, and I have to say i'm plesantly surprised. Normally Chili's is a place which I have completely avoided like that skank jailbait you don't EVER want to get caught inside of (teeheee), but I went there because Constance (now 'The Fiancee') has been craving a special salad they have there.

One dish....one dish has completely changed my mind about my original opinion of Chili's.
ONE DISH!

Tonight I dined on Chipolte Honey Glazed Chicken Crispers, and baby. That was THE SHIT!

The Sauce? It tasted mostly of sweet, sweet honey. Ohhhhh so sweet
The Chicken? Fried to perfection with such a juicy and tender texture.

BIG appaluse to the cooks at the new Chili's on International Drive! You guys kicked fricking ass on this one!
(And the Baked Potato Soup also rocked! Which i'm hoping isn't a really ironic thing to say..... a la Fight Club)

I will definitely go back there again!

Trivial Tutorial: Just feel the drive!

Time again for another trivial tutorial, number two of an unnumbered series of tutorials meant to help you enjoy things that you normally wouldn't think about.

In our day to day rush to get from place to place, we sometimes forget the immense joy of being able to cruise along at speeds well beyond our human capabilities.

**Side Note**
At least beyond our capabilities if you're not the Bionic Man, Superman or any other kind of "man"/ "noun-verb" that can be used as a moniker for, "Holy shit look at what I can do faster than the rest of you putzes!"

Further examples: "The Flash", "Quicksilver", "Super Atomic Mega Ultra Ass Kicker Man now with 500 times the speed of a regular human times Infinity! (and beeeeeyyyyouuuuunddd uuunnndd uuuun nnnndddduuuunnnnddddddddddd)"
**END Side Note**

In addition, here in Florida we basically cruise around using air conditioning, so we particularly end up being a little detached while riding around.

Trivial tutorial today? "Just feeling the drive".
Caution: This should only be done if you are already a decent driver (if you're inattentive or inexperienced then you could risk having an accident or two while you daydream :P)

Best to do this when you have an hour or two to not worry about anything as you'll feel less stress overall.

1) Find a road or area which is kind of a "back road".
By "back road" I mean a road in which you don't have to be worried about being pushed along by aggressive drivers with occasional patches of trees and shade.

Note: This will be easier for those of us who don't live in huge cities

2) Open up your windows. Yes I mean ALL of them! If you have a sunroof, so much the better as it will help you move a lot of air inside of the car.

3) Find a comfortable speed to follow along the road with around the speed limit.
Stick with it for a time. Don't concentrate on acceleration or deceleration too much, just let the car cruise along at a steady pace so you don't have to make a lot of adjustments or feel the transmission jerk into different gears.

4) Take a few breaths and enjoy the scents and the air going by. Hopefully you're not near a cow field or something...that would stink....

5) Look around at the various things along the road and don't think particularly too much about them, just enjoy how they look or how the light goes off of them. I'm getting kind of mumbo-jumoish, but you know what? It works.
You never really get to enjoy anything nowadays since it's mostly just, "Oh I've got to get here!" or "I've got to get there!" This is time to just relax and actually see how fast you go in a car.

6) If you feel like it, turn on some music. Nothing hard core, or particularly fast.
Just put on something that is enjoyable to listen to while letting yourself enjoy the ride. Classical, oldies, acoustic guitars, hip-hop or pop. Rock even!

I personally like to hook up my I-pod and play some Incubus.
"Make yourself" being one of my favorite albums with a little bit of "A Crow left of the Murder" for a couple of other songs I love.

er...now that i think of it, it's kind of ironic I listen to "Drive" while driving
:P

7) CAUTION: Don't let your mind wander too much, you still need to pay attention to the road!

8) Do this for a bit, and just enjoy the sensations of going down the road without a care. I've done this a few times when I've got a weekend coming up with nothing else planned (which is rare nowadays) It really does help!

I particularly like roads with several twists and turns, a straightway and then some shady forests/woods to let some cool air come in. Smells great! and the buzzing from insects is oddly relaxing.

This exercise also has an added bonus of airing our your car.
Which is probably already pretty stuffy because you never open the windows....right?

YES YOU! *finger pointing*


Enjoy!


-Hakai

Trivial Tutorial: Breathing to slow down perceptions

I woke up this morning and suddenly had an idea to create a series of simple tutorials for trivial things which can change your mindset and let you just enjoy living.
I figured, what the hell the world is made up of much worse ideas, why not?

SOOOOOOOO I'd like to start off with part one of an unnumbered part series I'm going to title as "Trivial Tutorials" *cue space music and eerie echo*

Trivial Tutorial 1:
"Breathing to slow down perceptions (and enjoy life a little more! Because you need air! And it sucks without it! I love 20 fragmented sentences with exclamations....!!! :) ) "

CAUTION: Only attempt this if you are comfortable with swimming in a "deep" area. (deep meaning an area where your feet do not touch the bottom of the pool)

1) Find a swimming pool that allows you to submerge yourself and sink for a bit.
Caution: NOT too deep that you can't push off from the bottom to quickly jump back up!

2) Float and breathe several times to expand your lungs
Note: Make sure to breathe with your diaphragm and not your chest.
Using your diaphragm is like letting your stomach stick out while breathing in...if your shoulders rise instead of your stomach while you breathe in you're NOT using your diaphragm!

3) Close your eyes and breathe out slowly while you sink, letting bubbles go up slowly.

Some may find the, "Oh god I'm going DOWN so I should life my arms straight up and make myself sink faster!" position VERY useful in this manner.
This is also known as the "TOUCHDOWN!!!!!!" position - which also can signify the death of non-swimming football teams in certain situations. (and possibly you if you were dumb enough to bet on the OTHER team with money you don't have... :P )


(Diagram 1)

("Blub Blub!")
Translation: "OH FUCK! I needs me some O2!!"

~~~~~~~~
" <=== *Bubbles*
"
'
'
\ 0 /

/ \
==========

4) Once you reach the bottom kick up so that you raise at a steady rate (but not too fast otherwise you'll never enjoy the rise!)
Caution: If you feel VERY out of breath, do it quickly! No point in doing this if you're going to drown yourself. :P

5) Once you break surface take a breath (or a few if you're feeling short) and repeat so that you sink again.

6) While doing this exercise, mentally imagine the air leaving your lungs and what little bubbles look like going toward the surface. Then concentrate on every ticking second or heartbeat, you'll notice everything kind of slows down for a second or two...I think this is pretty neat!
(If you're like me you always have your swimming goggles so you can actually WATCH the surface...it's like a big shiny, wavy mirror!)

7) If you really want to appreciate this, every time you come back up, only allow yourself a very quick "normal breath". The rapidly repeat.

Note: Normal in this case is defined as "NOT one of those huge ass gapping breaths that everyone seems to love taking right before they go under water and they go, 'hhhhhaaaaawwwwwoooooooooooo!' like a fricking siren..... I mean good lord man...you realize you make it HARDER to hold your breath when you do that?!" kind of normal.

8) Once you feel tired or ready to stop, resurface and just breathe normally with deep big breaths. You'll notice that you now focus on and appreciate being able to breathe much more (at least I do!)

I personally feel this is a very simple way to mentally "slow down" time to give myself a moment or two to appreciate several things, or to solve a particularly problematic issue.
It is possible to also do this while sitting in a chair, or laying down (breathing exercises are the usual for mediation) but I like to do this while in the water quite honestly.

I like to feel the sinking and rising sensation while going up and down in a pool on top of being able to "sense" the light being reflected to the bottom.

It makes for a very interesting experience overall since NOTHING makes you appreciate the two molecules of oxygen which make up most of your air more than being surrounded by a ton of single oxygen molecules attached to two hydrogen molecules which you CAN'T USE to breathe!!

Too technical? Lets try this....
"BREATHING is not possible for us in WATER!!"

:P

Overall this is a very trivial exercise (as in you don't NEED it or anything) but it's something useful to help yourself enjoy every breath you take, and to just concentrate on every second instead of hours and days.

After a while you get this zen-like feeling of understanding the power of a single second.....and to think we let 60 of these things go every minute!

Dammit!
THERE THEY GO AGAIN!

COME BACK!!!!!!!!

Enjoy! :)

-Hakai