You Are Who You Believe You Are – You Are Who You Surround Yourself With

You Are Who You Believe You Are

It is amazing how much one can achieve just by believing that they can do something. It is important to believe in your capabilities just as it is important for those people around you to be positive people who believe in you, people who believe that you can achieve whatever you put effort into achieving.

I was reading Mind Powers: How to Use and Control Your Unlimited Potential and I have to say that reading that book was quite eye opening, I learned that quite a lot could be achieved by tapping into your brain whether it was becoming more successful, seeing the world or yourself in a more positive light or even healing yourself from illness just by believing you will get better and that you are healthy.

Stay Away From Negative People

Reading the book further confirmed to me the importance of staying away from negative influences, people who bring you down, people who want you to fail and believe you are good for nothing. Staying away from these negative people is the first step to becoming positive and successful because they make you believe you are good for nothing, and by believing it, you never live up to your full potential. So to start thinking positively getting away from negative influencers can be a great help.

Negative Parents

Sometimes these negative influencers could be your own parents, who constantly remind you of how useless you are and that you can never amount to anything. If that is the case there are a number of ways to go about changing their influence on you, one way is to confront them and tell them that their actions and behaviour are affecting you negatively and that putting you down only serves as a negative. Tell them that instead of putting you down they should be encouraging you to chase after your dreams. If that fails maybe moving away from your parents is your best option, this is if you are old enough to move away from home to start a life away from your negative influencers.

Negative Teachers

Some people are let down by their teachers, the people who are supposed to guide us, the people who mould us into what we are from the moment we start our education. Usually with teacher’s first impressions count and when a student does not do well in a test, the student usually starts disliking the subject or school instead of working harder, because most teachers give up on the students with the lower to average marks and pay more attention to the higher achievers (IMO).

 I had this very same problem, when I was in the 9^th and 10^th grades of high school I used to do very well in all my subjects except in the languages, I did not understand why I was doing so badly in the languages so I just thought I was a math and science kind of student, my English teacher did not have much confidence in me and soon I had no confidence in myself I ended up ignoring the language subjects altogether which made sure my marks never improved but they never decreased either. I was always a c student in languages.

However this started to change in the 11^th grade with a change of teacher, this teacher seemed to care a lot about my progress and it was obvious that the teacher believed I could get higher marks than I was currently getting if I put more effort into it. The teacher always gave me a hard time and I was irritated at the time because I always got in trouble with her, she always seemed concerned. Later upon reviewing the 11^th grade I realised that teacher really cared and in turn I started caring about my work as well which led to and increased interest in the subject especially in poetry and short stories. My marks increased a little I progressed from a C student to a B+ student.

Finally in the 12^th grade I made the conscious decision that I was going to become an A student, my changed mindset   coupled with the fact that I had a great English teacher that I was fond of made it easy for me to attain my goal of getting that A. At first I was surprised at the results I was getting, the teacher had confidence in me and that further boosted my own self confidence. I also started reading a lot more which helped me improve my language skills.

I believe that most teachers start out loving their jobs thinking they will be appreciated by students, but most students suck and do not appreciate their teachers, this lack of appreciation and the low salaries teachers earn  leads to teachers hating their jobs and not being the most positive influencers. Only teacher’s pets and top students get the right kind of attention and encouragement/positive reinforcement from teachers to get the best out of their education. Teachers reward interested students, they like it when students ask them questions and show interest in their subject, that is the reason they became teachers in the first place. So to get the best out of school the best thing to do is start showing interest and ask questions, if that does not change, the student teacher relationship then maybe a change of teacher could do you some good. You want to be taught by someone who sees potential in you and helps you reach your full potential, not someone who sees you as good for nothing and a waste of space.

Image By: h.koppdelaney

Negative Friends

Perhaps this is something that could hold you back the most, because your friends are a representation of who you are. We usually hang out with likeminded people or so I would like to think. Hanging out with the wrong type of friends could be disastrous; many people have been led to a life of drugs and crime/gangs because of their friends.

One of my favourite shows at the moment is Suits, one of the main characters Mike Ross is a genius who was kicked out of university for helping others cheat of their tests. The reason he got into trouble most of the time was because of his friend Trevor. He was always helping Trevor out in some sort of illegal scheme and he always seemed to be affected by the negative consequences of those actions. In Trevor’s latest scheme, Mike was to help him sell a suitcase full of weed but what Trevor did not tell Mike is that he overheard the drug dealers he was dealing with saying that the deal could be a set up and that whoever was caught with the weed would spend a long time in prison.  Had it not been for the fact that Mike was very smart; he would have been caught and taken yet another fall for his friend Trevor.

Old friends from back when you were doing not so well and friends like Trevor are usually not good friends especially if they are still in the same messed up situation you left them in. They do not like to see others progress, they always want to bring you back down instead of trying to improve themselves.  Stay away from such negative influencers for they are not true friends, they are like a disease you need to be cured of.

Believing is a step towards being

Imagine your dream life, believe that it is attainable and work towards achieving each goal towards that dream and slowly but surely your dreams will come true. Do not let negative influencers into your life, surround yourself with what is positive and you will in turn become a positive person with self belief powering your motor. 

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Ferrari making the sexiest super cars since 1929

Ferrari has dominated motor-sports over the years, it has created beautiful red beasts known for both their speed and beauty but lately you hardly ever see them creating a road car to compete in terms of speed with the likes of the Bugatti Veyron’s of this world in the hyper-car division. They create beautiful fast cars but it seems design is more important to Ferrari then having the title of world’s fastest car. If they create a world’s fastest car I am sure it would be one of the sexiest hyper cars deserving the title, world’s sexiest fastest car.

Ferrari’s legendary and fastest road cars

Now don’t get me wrong, even though I have said that they care more about the design and looks of the car than chasing after speed records, Ferrari have made some pretty fast super cars in their time. Let me take you back to the  1980’s, when Ferrari produced their best super car ever at the time, it was their most powerful, fastest car and also most expensive car that was sold to the public by Ferrari. Yes if you love your cars, you know I am talking about the Ferrari F40 which was produced between 1987 and 1992 (1335 of these were produced).

The legendary F40 is one of the most loved super-cars ever, it was the first road car to cross the 200mph (320km/h) speed, and it held the record for being the world’s fastest production car from 1987 -1989 with a top speed of 201.4mph (324km/h). It had the ability of going from 0-100km/h in 3.8 seconds on the road.

image from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferrari_F40

Most recently its most promising sexy beast was the Ferrari 599 GTO; this beauty became their fastest road car ever in 2010 powered by a V12 engine, 493kW Power @ 8250rpm and 620N.m of torque @ 6500rpm. Ferrari claims this car has a top speed of 208mph (335km/h) and can go from 0-100km/h in 3.35 seconds.

599 GTO

In 2012 the Ferrari 599 series has now been replaced by the Ferrari F12 Berlinetta as Ferrari’s top car. The F12 is now Ferrari’s most powerful car with a V12 engine producing 690N.m of torque @ 6000rpm and 730hp @ 8500rpm. The F12 Berlinetta can go from 0-100km/h  (62mph) in 3.1 seconds, and has a top speed of  over 210mph (340km/h).

Ferrari's newest top dog

Ferrari still has a long way to go

Ferrari is really improving its supercars in terms of power while still keeping the excellent design they are famous for, but they still have a long way to go if they are to compete with the Bugatti Veyron SS’s  and Ultimate Aero’s  of this world which have top speeds of well over 400km/h.

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Importance of Writing Down Your Goals

Goal setting leads to success

Many times we say we are going to do something, we often end up not doing it because we forgot about it. It is because we never made a real commitment to begin with, so it becomes easy to let things slide.

Why You Should Write Your Goals Down

To make a commitment, writing your goals down is like signing a contract with yourself a promissory of sorts. 

When you write your goals down place the piece of paper where you write those goals down where you see it every day, so you are constantly reminded about what you set out to achieve. This makes it impossible for your goals to slip your mind.

Writing down a long term goal into smaller short term goals which together get you to your long term goals, will let you see you progress as you tick or scratch off all that you have achieved, this also lets you see how much work you still have left for you to accomplish your goals.

If you write down the reason you wanted to achieve you goals in the first place, you are inspired and motivated everyday by the memory brought about by the visual stimulus which is the promissory note/contract with yourself.  

The written goal also serves as reference in the end when you evaluate your progress, you can look at your list of goals and check which goals you achieved and which ones you failed to accomplish, upon analysing you can then write down what you think you did wrong and what you can do to make sure you correct the mistakes you made the first time around. Even in failure you will learn, so you know that you did not waste time but gained valuable experience.

Also apart from writing your goals down you should tell people what you want to achieve and when, so that they can hold you accountable if you do not do what you publicly shared with others. You should share it with your friends and family members. Anyone that will make you feel like shit if you fail at what you set out to achieve.

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Farewell London - The end of a great Olympics

London 2012 Was Awesome

Micheal was shocked he lost by mistiming his touch and Chad had his perfectly timed with a strong finish

So the Olympics have come and gone, and they have left us with many memories. I can’t wait for 4 years to fly by once more so that I can witness the Brazil Olympics. A lot of records were broken during these Olympics from the pool to the track, and it was all exciting to watch, it amazing how 2 weeks vanishes in a flash, it’s amazing how 4 years of hard training ends in the making of sporting legends and how other fail when it comes to the main event when they have been dominant in the years coming up to the Olympics.

America had the most medals, that was to be expected from the sporting super power, they dominate most events, especially the pool, basketball and track and field events. Australia had a disappointing Olympics this time around, the gold medals seemed to elude them especially in the pool, but one great swimming countries fall means other smaller fish get to rise to the occasion. And the smaller fish did rise to the occasion this Olympics saw France dominate the men’s freestyle events, it saw South African Cameron Van Der Burgh win gold and break the 100 breast stroke even though his speciality was the 50m breast stroke, this Olympics saw future swimming legends born when 20 year old Chad le Clos from South Africa won gold in the 200m butterfly, beating Michael Phelps the greatest Olympian of all time who had dominated the pool for more than a decade, Chad then went on to take silver in the 100 butterfly final, this time the legend made sure he won.

Chad agrees to go with girl to her matric dance which is like prom 

Michael Phelps became the greatest Olympian of all time in London 2012, with a total of 22 medals and 18 gold medals; no one comes close to matching him. Sadly for us this is said to have been his last Olympic games.

The high light of this Olympics for me was again just like 4 years ago, the 100m dash final, to see who the fastest man in the world is, and with no surprise it was once again the legend, Usain Bolt. The man is a beast, no one can catch him or even come close to him, it was as if he was racing himself and the rest were in their own race for 2^nd and 3^rd position. It was good to see that Jamaica have an even stronger sprinting team now. They are going to dominate athletics for a long time, I tell you. When they broke the 4*100 relay they stamped their speed authority, the U.S.A team was good but not good enough. With Yohan Blake and Bolt in the same team (2 fastest men in the world), there was no way any other team would win that relay final. Bolt and Yohan Blake finished 1st and 2nd for both the 100m and 200m sprint events, which shows just how awesome the Jamaican sprinters are.

I do not know about other countries but our (South African) athletes arrived today and were greeted by tons of proud supporters at the OR Tambo international. There is plenty to be proud of, I know the athletes who won medals are getting cheques, but I hope they get proper funding in the way of sponsorships so that they continue to do great work and I hope that sports such as rowing are now promoted and funded since the sport has gained some media coverage since we won gold in the men’s light weight 4 men rowing.

Oh and before I forget Great Britain did really well during these Olympics, using their home ground advantage effectively, so well done to the Brits and the city of London for putting on a great show. 

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The London 2012 Olympics are underway

This weekend the Olympics began, they began with an opening ceremony just like any other world competition. I was not that impressed by the opening ceremony but it had its moments of awesome entertainment like when Mr Bean was doing what he is famous for (making people laugh). I also enjoy it when all the athletes from all the participating nations walk into the stadium. The big teams like America, China, Great Britain and other countries have hundreds of participants thus increasing their probability to win more medals, whilst the smaller sporting nations have fewer participants. South Africa, my country does not have a lot of participants as always but hopefully we are going to get more medals than in the last Olympics in Beijing.

Some events like rowing, tennis, badminton, hockey, soccer, basketball, archery, gymnastics, cycling and possibly other sports which are not that popular have already began with China and America leading the medals(no surprise there). Oh I forgot to mention that swimming has also been one of the main attractions on the early days; there have already been a few finals and Olympic/world records broken.

How South Africa Is Doing So Far

4 years ago South Africa only managed to win 1 medal and it was a silver medal. That was a very disappointing year for us. This year on day 2 we have already managed to win 1 gold medal in the pool. Last time no medals were won in the pool even though the swimming pool is one of our strongest events.

The South African soccer team Banyana Banyana managed to qualify for the Olympics, being only one of two African representatives at the London Olympics. Banyana Banyana is the lowest ranked team in at the Olympics so basically the odds were stacked against them. They were beaten 4-1 during their opening match against Sweden, and then beaten 3-0 by Canada, they face Japan tomorrow, and it is not looking good for the South African ladies as the Japanese ladies are the current world champions. They were unlucky to be grouped with teams that are all in the top 7 in the world when they are not even ranked in the 50s.

South African Swimmers

A few of our swimmers managed to do well in the heats in the first couple of days on to do badly during their semi-finals and finals.  But the highlight of the London Olympics so far has been Cameron Van Der Burgh who became the first home-bred male South African to break a swimming world record. He got better with each round, he broke the Olympic 100m Breast stroke record and went on to break the world breast stroke record during the final to win South Africa’s first gold medal during the London Olympics. The South African 100 relay team did well during the qualifiers and were neck to neck with the French, who eventually won the gold in the final, but South Africa’s performance during the final was disappointing and they did not win a medal.

That is all for now, let us hope there are still more medals to be won by South African Athletes in the coming events.

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Glee has become too Gay

I loved the first season of Glee, because I am a musical person at heart, it was a awesome to see people of different backgrounds, from the cool cheerleaders and football players to the less cool gays and theatre hopefuls hanging out together. It was cool to see music bringing different cliques together; it was even more amazing to see them sticking together even when the rest of the school was against them.

hit TV show glee too gay

I know that the show is far from being realistic just like a bollywood movie, life is not a musical, but it was sort of more realistic in the first season then it is now. Most of my male friends do not watch this show because it s a bit on the gay side, they prefer watching something like supernatural. I am a series guy in general hence I watch most series.

There are a few things I disagree with in general with the direction the show has taken in the most recent two seasons. They give people the impression that all boys only private schools are filled with gay guys or atleast that the guys in the glee clubs are homosexual which is actually not true, I have friends who went to all boys schools and were in choirs and they are certainly not gay( not that there is anything wrong with being gay). In Glee they makes Kurt’s boyfriend (Blaine) who used to be the leader of that all boys school private school glee club gay, they also make his replacement gay as well.

They also make the big bully guy (karofsky) that used to bully Kurt gay. I know that they are trying to say that it is okay for kids who are gay to come out of the closet, and they are trying to show them they are not alone but I do not think it is the right direction to lead the show. The last time I checked I thought the show was about music and not sexual orientation, I feel that the show could potentially put off a lot of straight guys from being in glee clubs if that gives off an impression of being gay, kids are not nice especially to gay kids (I know the show is trying to stop bully especially because of sexual orientation but I feel this leads to more bullying).

Oh and one final thing they also make the Santana chick a lesbian and her girlfriend Britney who really does not know herself is bi-sexual since she swings both ways, making a large portion of the regular cast homo sexual which is not a true representation of the real world. I still like the singing part of the show but I do not get the direction they are taking with the show.

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Cool 20 minute series on TV

I love television, I love watching documentaries especially those by National Geographic Channel, and I love watching cool movies every now and then.  What I love the most is watching series especially those 40 to 50 minute series such as True Blood, Vampire Diaries, Secret Circle, Supernatural, and Homeland and so on. I like series because do not need to cramp the whole storyline into only two ours; we get to explore the story and understand the characters. Series leave us wanting to see more, there are always mysteries and unanswered questions that keep us coming back for more week in and week out.  When I do not have time to watch hour long series there is nothing better than watching something for just 20 minutes and then going back to which ever urgent matters demand my attention afterwards.

As I said before I am a series guy, and if there is a series old or new that I have not watched I will watch it to see if I like it, often I will watch my favourites first, then when the shows are still in production I will catch up on series that I have never watched before, For example I only started watching Boston Legal last year and I have since watched all 5 seasons and I thoroughly enjoyed watching it. I only watched lost for the first time last year and I enjoyed the first couple of seasons until it started getting boring for me. There are so many awesome series out there waiting to be watched, there are so many of them, that you can’t really watch them all at the same time.

When I am bored and have watched all my favourites I give other series a chance and may end up enjoying them. I am not a critic I do not really compare series, I appreciate what the writers were trying to portray.

Going back to the 20 minutes series or whatever you call those I would like to mention some of my favourites at the moment.

JESS YOU cute Dork YOU

Okay here goes my favourite at the moment has to be New Girl; this series is based around a dorky girl Jess who catches her weirdo hippy like boyfriend cheating then moves out. She then moves into a loft with 3 weird single guys (Nick, Winston (who replaced Coach), and Schmidt). Jess has a hot model as a best friend (Cece).

SHELDON YOU GENIUS YOU

My other favourite 20 minute sitcom is the popular Big Bang Theory which is about the lives of 2 geniuses (Sheldon and Leonard) and their friends. It is very funny and sees the world, dating, fun and friendship through their eyes. My favourite character there is Sheldon by a long short, his comments always make me laugh and the fact that he does not understand sarcasm is very amusing.

Community bunch of weirdos

Another show I love watching, that cracks me up is Community, this show follows a group of friends in community college, one of whom used to be a hot shot lawyer (Jeff), another is an old sort of racist white man who is rich and always says wrong offensive things (Pearce). I loved the first season of this show it was killer, especially the characters of Troy and Abed, I like the second season but not as much as the first.

oh TEDDY boy when will you meet the mother

Oh and how can I forget How I Met Your Mother, yes this story follows Ted as he narrates or tells his kids how he met their mother, the show follows him and his friends, Lilly, Marshall, Robin and Barney. Barney is by far the most entertaining character on the show, the guy is Legend.....wait for it...ary! All he does is make up rules about getting women and the Bro Code. He is a womaniser but I’m sure even girls grow to love him as he is a good person. Also Barney Always wears a suit unless other people are wearing a suit or in sad situations.  

Old 2 and a half men crew

My other favourite show used to be Two and a Half men – The show that used to be based around Charlie Sheen as Charlie, his brother Allen and Allen’s idiot son.   Charley is basically like his real life character, drinks too much and uses women and also solicits prostitutes.

SCrubs

I used to love Scrubs as well, Doctor Dorian is a legend. I still re-watch Scrubs when I have got nothing better to do just because it was so awesome. It followed a Doctor with a very active imagination and his unusual bromance with Turk his best friend , the show went downhill in its final season when Doctor Dorian who made the show what it was, was no longer the main character.

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Ways to Use Tumblr – How to Increase Visitors on Tumblr

Tumblr is a blogging/social network on the rise. It owes its popularity to the fact that it acts as both a blogging platform and also like a social network. Short image posts are what works best on Tumblr, but   text based post work as well especially if the text is made into an image or printing on top of an inspiration background. Tumblr has a very viral nature and if people love your stuff they reblog it and your message spreads like a wildfire and followers follow suit.

Get traffic, followers and monetize your Tumblr

There are lots of ways in which you can use Tumblr, such as using it as a mini-blog to increase your blog network and get your message across to a different audience.  You can use Tumblr best if you are an image based blogger, to spread your photography around the web for more people to see with a link back from you the original source. With enough followers and traffic you can monetize your Tumblr blog so that you make some coffee money while social networking.

How to Grow Traffic and followers on Tumblr

First I will tell you how I began using Tumblr, I was trying to do some back-linking by creating little web 2.0 satellite sites. I posted only one article at the time which was a long text article (not knowing that the Tumblr audience favoured image posts) with a link pointing to my fitness blog. I had no idea of the viral nature of Tumblr’s reblog function. I later on posted a more image based post with some text, Upon check my Tumblr a few months later I realised that my post had been shared and that my links in the post were still intact in the other people’s Tumblr’s, I also realised I had gotten followers.

From then on I saw the value of Tumblr to promote my non-Tumblr fitness blog. I decided I would be more active on Tumblr. At first I would post once or twice every week and would notice that every time I posted I would get more followers, I also realised that not all posts got reblogged the same, some were more popular than others. In fitness blogs the inspiration quote on an inspirational background was the most popular amongst fitblr (which are fitness bloggers in Tumblr language), also images of aesthetically muscled guys and fit hot babes were a hit. Once you get to a certain number of followers on Tumblr they reblog everything you post (I am yet to reach that stage, I just recently started working on increasing my efforts on Tumblr).   

I realised that the most reblogged and followed Tumblr’s posted very often more than 5 times a day sometimes, they also follow a lot of other people (some people follow you, if you follow them), popular Tumblr blogs also like a lot of other peoples posts and comment on other peoples Tumblrs. It is also important that you reply to messages from your followers to build a great community environment.

Another way to build Tumblr traffic is to not focus all your efforts on activities on Tumblr alone, try to target search engine traffic and rank for your key word. You can do this by mixing the types of posts you make from images, to text to video and quotes. (If a lot of people ask you question that could be a lot of helpful content when you are having question and answer sessions).

Try link building outside Tumblr and doing article marketing to promote yourself where you share your Tumblr in your author bio box. Going back to your onsite work, you should have static pages like your about me where you can write long text descriptions to help people know where you are coming from and why you do what you do, also you can make other static pages where your non-image content can be shared. Make sure it’s long, descriptive and well optimized for search engines then you could build backlinks pointing to those static pages. If they rise in the search engines, more people will be exposed to your blog. Your static pages could include links to your other social networks that you use and your main blog.    

Ways to Monetise Tumblr

Tumblr is tricky to monetise, and let me tell you why, it is more of a social place so people might not like to have ads show when they visit your Tumblr, it could chase away visitors or followers, and secondlyfollowers hardly ever need to visit your blog after they follow you because Tumble shows all updates to blogs you follow in a dashboard format which does not show blog format, but only the post itself. A way to make followers click so they actually go to your Tumblr would be to post image based pictures in sets with post describing the images so that followers would have to click to view the whole thing.

One of the most popular ways to monetise Tumblr is using ad networks like Google Adsense,  if you use Google adsense it would serve you well to read some of the suggestions I made above so you can get more search engine traffic as its more targeted traffic then traffic from within Tumblr.  If you are a text based Tumblr you could use ad networks like infolinks to advertise. There are a lot of adsense alternatives you can find if cannot get approved for Adsense such as Bidvertiser, Exit Junction, Chitika, Clicksor, I am not sure if they cater for Tumblr blogs but they are worth a try.

Also you could be an affiliate for a Clickbank product if you are into affiliate marketing, make sure your Tumblr does not look made for that affiliate product though, that is frowned upon and may get your Tumblr deleted. You could have a reviews of products and have some affiliate links (not every post though, but maybe one of your static pages) or banners on your side bars.

You could also sell your own services on Tumblr, especially if you become a Tumblr pro-blogger. You could sell your own product on Tumblr to your loyal and growing followers.

That is all for now, I will update this post should I acquire more information in the near future, good luck in your blogging endeavours, I hope I have been helpful.

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Citizen of the world

Many people will grow up in a certain town, state/province and then they will get married to someone from there and never move away from that place, I do not agree with that kind of a life where you live your life not having seen anything not having explored your country or even other countries. I am not saying that there is anything wrong with living like that, I just think is boring and we have got to see more of the world since we only have one lifetime to live, so we have to see as much as we can and live life until our battery goes empty.

There are many reasons people never move away from the place they are born, but the most common is that many people cannot afford to, they live from “pay check to pay check” so moving and travelling can be a difficult task. Others just enjoy being in their comfort zone, within reach of family members, where mommy and daddy can lend a hand. They need to know that should any problem arise then they will have the family structure to support them. The place or area where you grew up is also the place where you have child hood friends who you have known forever and you trust they also form part of your support structure.

the globe is a big place but its much easier to travel now

Another thing that always keeps people from seeing the world or even their country is the traditional structure of life, people simply finish high school, find a job or go to university then finds a job and pretty soon they have kids and get married and it’s all downhill from there, you will never really do anything you wanted before you had all this responsibility, you are now caught in the parenthood trap (although many people aspire just to be good parents). If you get a great job you might still be able to travel with your family but it rarely happens.

For some it’s going to university that lets them see a different part of the world far away from home, which will give them a new perspective and they will probably never go back home because they now know just how backwards or boring home is. They recognise that there are more opportunities for growth both financially and personally elsewhere. For many other people university is not an option (as my friend ED once said “university is a privilege”). People who do not go to university are most likely to stay in their home towns or states/provinces doing menial jobs that do not afford them the opportunity to see the world (and that are a shame). They are also more likely to get caught in the baby trap much earlier than university goers which in turn will make life more difficult and make it harder for them to pursue their dreams.

I am not saying this is true for everyone but these are just generalisations based on what I have seen. I do not want to live in one place for a long period of time; I want to see different places, to experience different cultures. I do not want to get caught in the baby trap before I have lived as an individual, I want to find myself first before any major life changes, and I also just do not agree with the norms, maybe I just like to be the outcast all the time. 

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Increasing nudity in social media

I am fascinated by how people behave and what drives them to behave in certain ways. I like reading and watching series and documentaries based on past events and era’s, for example it is interesting watching series like Spartacus which are sexually explicit and extremely violent, depicting Rome at the height of its power. It is evident that ancient people were very open about sexuality, and nudity was something people were not ashamed of.

You've got to love motor sports and it's babes. That chick is nude in clothes.

Somewhere in between then and now someone had this brilliant idea that nudity was not acceptable and that people should be self conscious and covered up and it worked. Maybe it was because of religion and its rise to power throughout the world, it turned acts of sexuality into sins and people who went against it would be named and shamed.  Ancient statues showing nudity and even paintings depicting sexual acts where common in the past and would even be put in public places, but the world has changed now, people have changed their way of thinking but have they really?

This takes me to the real topic at hand, with the rise of social media it seems like people are going back to their ancient ways following the footsteps of their ancestors. When you think about it how many times have you seen people posting inappropriate pictures on Facebook without shame, girls clad in scanty outfits posing in questionable poses? How many people have Tumblr blogs that are about sex and how many more people have tumblr blogs made for the sole purpose of exposing themselves to the public? Some are not ashamed and even show their faces, some still afraid that someone they know will find out so they hide their identity.

Most of these people mostly girls also chat on webcams with fans and those who are smart enough make a living from exposing themselves. They start personal blogs which are monetised or they start membership sites where you have to join to see their explicit content. The less technically gifted girls earn most of their money using donations from their fans and getting gifts from fans.

It is not only Facebook and Tumblr but Twitter is also sort of like a porn site, with things like titty Tuesday, wet Wednesday,  twitter after dark, ass Wednesday, thong Thursday, thongless Thursday and many more twitter hash tags used to encourage nudity and sexuality.

Social networks give otherwise normal people a chance to get attention, be it sexual or what-ever else, it give couple and other likeminded couples a chance to find each other and explore their fantasies. You would think that the world is a conservative place but it really is not, many people are more wild then you would imagine, you never know that conservative next door neighbour of yours might be one of those people with one of these adventurous accounts posting anonymous pictures with their face covered up, some even revealing their face which is even more risky.

Even people is respectable jobs are into this exposure, I once watched an episode (I don’t remember if it was Oprah or another daytime show) where this teacher was fired from her teaching job because she had nude pictures online. Even though she was not inappropriate with the kids, I think many parents felt uncomfortable with her teaching their kids.

I do not know whether it’s the celebrities who have encouraged nudity and sexuality in the past few years with things like sex tapes and deliberate public nudity but this kind of behaviour is on the rise on social networks and everyone is doing it I mean from teenagers to old married couples. I am not against it in fact I feel that it provides and alternative for the over photo-shopped images you find on pro porn sites, the amateurs are doing it themselves now. 

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Are Athletes worth all that money?

If you look around at all the popular sports in the world or even in America alone, in the NFL, the NBA, the English Premier League or the La Liga, the athletes in those leagues make a lot of moola. The guys at the top of their game make even more money, they bag some more cash with sponsorship deals and their names become brands.

A lot of people say that athletes do not deserve so much money, or that they do not need so much money, that it’s no longer about the love of sport but that sport has become a business. A lot of people say that all that money should be spent on worthy causes like charities and helping the under privileged.

Christiano Ronaldo Real Madrid Player

I am sure that a lot of the points people make about the money athletes make are valid but they are all subjective just like this post. We all see things from a different perspective. Here is one way of looking at things, we all grow up having hobbies when we are kids, most people do not get the chance to make their hobby their source of income. Most people end up doing something they dislike just to make ends meet. If you could make money doing something you love you would too.

Athletes are entertainers, that is what they do, they train hard to be the best at what they do. Every time they train or get onto the play ground they risk injury and their careers have a time limit, unlike most careers they could lose everything in a second and have no source of income and even if they do not get permanently injured they always to be in the best shape of their lives because there is always someone younger, stronger or faster waiting for the opportunity to take their place.

The entertainment industry is full of money, because we all want to be entertained and we are willing to pay good money to make sure we are entertained. I do agree that they make too much money but they deserve that money, they work for it, they did not cheat anyone out of it. Athletes are entertainers just like movie stars and other celebrities; they all make a ton of cash that is the way of life.

Athletes fill stadiums with paying fans who buy their merchandise, which makes them a lot of money. Their faces are put on products and those products sell, who do you suppose takes all that money made from using their talent and image? People complain about athletes making too much money when children are starving, I say athletes do donate to worthy causes and start charities and development centres, but what of the politicians whose job it is to make sure there are no starving children who chow our tax money and line their pockets in positions of power?

I do acknowledge that athletes make a ton of money and I am fine with that, they work for it, if you could do the same thing (use a talent to make money) you would, if not that is your own thing. This is life everything revolves around cash, tell me when that changes.

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It Hardly Ever Snows In Africa

Africa is known for many things, its beauty, which are its wildlife, which include all the animals and plants as well as the coastline and the marine species found all around African ocean area. Its the culture, which is still alive and well because Africa is not as developed as the western world, we have so many different tribes even within my own country, and each have their own customs. We have many languages just like any place with a lot of colourful clans desperate to keep their own culture and language in a modernising world.

Pictures of winter

The thing about Africa well most of it anyways is that it is always hot, its hot all year round in most places, or it does not get as cold as other continents. There are few places in Africa that actually snow, so most African people do not know what it actually means to feel cold or have a white Christmas. I have only seen snow once in my life and where I live it may snow again after 20 years maybe because of some unusually cold weather. The only places that really always experience snow and where people get to Ski in the winters are areas that are mountainous such as the Drakensberg  Mountains here in SA and other mountainous areas in Lesotho, the other place I know in Africa that people can go for a Skiing vacation here in Africa is in Morocco.

As I was saying we really do not have white Christmases and I do not get why people still advertise Santa Claus in his made for winter costume when Christmas is always in the middle of summer here. We have a tradition of having a braai here in SA unlike the indoors stuff done in cold countries or should I say since we can’t have snow man we have BBQ’s (braai’s), we are a meat loving nation, you can tell by working around the street by the amount of out of shape people.

More traditional people slaughter cows, goats or sheep during festivals including Christmas where friends and family or even the community come to feast and enjoy the day together.  Watching movies made overseas which is what everyone does since not many movies are made here, I am sure lots of people want to know what it’s like to ski, to take part in winter sports, but I’m pretty sure some are happy with the warm climate and would not be able deal with snow storms where there is so much snow that you are trapped under piles of snow and cars can’t start and roads are not even visible so people are stuck in their houses.

I hope to visit some place where it snows some day, and be able to do some skiing and make a snowman and throw snow balls but I feel it’s better that we do not have such cold weather, there are too many poor people whom I feel would be ill-equipped for extremely cold weather.

Till it snows here or global warming does some crazy shit we shall continue to enjoy this warm climate, and mildly cold winter temperatures.

UPDATE 2012/09/08

Towards the end of winter its was snowing in places all around South Africa (places in KZN, Gauteng and the Freestate and other provinces that I cannot recall), some people for the first time got a chance to make snowman, family's were stopping on freeways where it was possible to do so just to take pics in the snow. Winter is over now here in the southern hemisphere, we have now experienced some rain to welcome the spring (3 days in a row without stopping, glad it was gentle rain though or else there would have been floods). 

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Most attractive girl/skinny girl/curvy girl/fit girl/fat girl

I would like to think that I am a fit guy, I workout and I have what may be referred to as a lean muscular body (even though at the moment I am trying to gain more muscle). I as a guy who works out do not expect  a chick who I am interested in or even involved with to go to the gym, heck most chicks I and most of my friends are attracted to are normal chicks who do not even workout. Being a black guy I have a preference of course for women who are curvy (not that all black guys prefer curvy women). And when I say curvy I do not mean fat girls, I am not into fat girls I feel they are unhealthy and should seriously consider a change in diet and maybe consider working out.

Joelle as beautiful skinny fitgirl

Some of these curvy women may be considered fat by others because from a certain stand point they may be slightly overweight but I have no issues with that. Girls with a little cellulite and some fat on their belly are normal and I still find them attractive, they have that hourglass or pear shape with wide hips that makes them look attractive because that whole shape makes them different from males.

I am not usually attracted to skinny girls as well because they lack shape and vital features that appeal to me (breasts that are average or bigger, butts that are shapely and not flat), they look more like teenage boys to me but since this is just my opinion I know that there are guys out there who like the skinny chicks.

Having an athletic chick that works out and has a nice shapely body is a dream for most dudes including me but having a tight athletic hot babe body alone is using unless it’s not a serious relationship you are looking for. Since I love being in shape and working out a fit chick could be a good match.

Going back to the fat girl topic, I do not give fat girls the time of day, nor flirt or give them any reason to think I am attracted to them. I do not like being an asshole especially to nice people, so I will be friend’s maybe, but not to the point where I lead a fat chick on. In bodybuilding forums the fat chicks are referred to as WHALES (mean, I know – Gym guys are douche bags, I am one I should know). Fat people come up with all sorts of excuses like low self esteem (who do you suppose should change that for you?), comfort eating (eating to solve your problems creates more problems so why do you continue to do that? Are you an idiot?), and they call them self shapely and curvy as a excuse (the curvy guys speak of is a shape like pear shape and hour glass figure not irregulars troughs and crests of skin folds all over the body).

 I know it’s a bit mean (I did say I was a bit of a douche bag) but you are responsible for your own health and well being, excuses get your nowhere. Unless you have some medical cause for why you keep piling on weight, you have no real excuse, you are just lazy and do not care enough for your own health.

Being obese increases the chances of you getting health problems and I am not attracted to people who do not care about how they look or those that do nothing about it but make it worse. Your body is your temple it’s your own responsibility to look after it.

I got a little side tracked there; my point is the average chick could be the most beautiful girl to me, because personality trumps all other things. I have been into more normal chicks than hot tight fit chicks because I found that in super hot chicks there is often some attitude issues (again this is just my opinion, you can make up your own mind). Moreover I like girls who can stand up for themselves and not just take my shit. Chicks with more than just looks are the most attractive, looks pull you in but they do not keep you interested even through the B.S. And I am not saying I could not fall for a fatty, all I am saying is I would never be happy with the way she looks, her body would disgust me even if I was attracted to her personality which is not a good thing.

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For the love of violence

I love fighting, I love watching people fight, I love being in fights (with only ones body as a weapon), I love beating people up and them beating me up much the same. In a world where people are crying out for piece violence still reigns supreme. The world will never be at piece, there is always someone bombing and killing people somewhere around the world. I love fair fighting but I do not support violence using weapons with the intension to kill anyone.

We all have violence in our blood, perhaps I more so than some of you, for I come from a warrior bloodline where young boys would be taught to fight and face each other on a regular basis. Sadly this does not happen much in my generation, it ended with my father’s generation.

Mike Tyson once the worlds most dangerous man

As a kid I would watch movies, action movies and martial arts movies from china, at the end of the movie I like any other normal boy would be so pumped that I wanted to try out some of the moves that I saw in the movies. I could not wait to visits a friend and practice the moves with him. My friends and I which was basically all the kids in our neighbourhood would host fighting competitions to see who the best fighter was and just to have fun kicking each other’s asses.  I ruled for a while amongst my age group and others a couple years older but everyone gets their ass kicked even me.

I liked facing guys that I felt would challenge me, not weaklings who I could easily defeat, that was not fun. That’s why I liked facing older guys because I knew they were stronger than I was and would possibly kick my ass, and I always did my best and got better with practice.

Many times if I beat someone up and it was at their backyard I had to run home since I got in trouble with their parents especially their mothers. My mother had no problem with me since I never complained to her. Plus if I told her anything about someone beating me up, she would go to that person’s house and embarrass me and that was not what I wanted, I wanted to be seen as a badass not a sissy.

I was a good student in school I mean so I would eventually go the library and get books about fighting and read up and practice those fighting techniques. I read about different styles of fighting from Karate to Judo and everything in between.

The problem with me is I loved fighting, I was shy and soft spoken and one of the smallest kids around so new kids would try and pick on me only to have their asses kicked. I did not really know how to solve conflict, so if someone was irritating me, swearing me or making fun of me I would simply kick the ass. I realised that kicking peoples asses was not the right thing to do because martial arts teaches you self control, but I never ever started conflict so that was the excuse I always had after kicking someone’s ass and I always had a 3 warning system whereby I would warn you 3 times if you were doing something that made me angry and on the 3^rd strike I would kick your ass without any further warning.

I was not a bully because I did not go around beating innocent people up but I did have anger issues and I had a bad way of resolving conflict which was fighting. Funny enough after fighting with most guys, we would become friends afterwards. I beat up many kids and I got beaten up a few times myself either by my opponents or their older brothers but I always had a never give up attitude, I fought even when the odds were against me, till the end which was mostly when people usually adults came and stopped us.

I am older now, I do not fight as often because I practice self control and use other methods of conflict management but there are still some situations where a serious ass kicking is needed. My most recent fight after many years of not fighting was last year when my varsity friends and I were at a KFC drive-thru and we were attacked by some random violent idiot who was later joined by other idiots in what eventually became a street brawl. All I can say is, people got hurt, guns were involved (not shot was fired only threats until the issue was resolved), shoes got lost (lol, my friend lost his sandal when we were being chased by armed idiots), cops were involved. In the end it was one of my most adventurous nights out, at some point I thought I was going to die.

Anyways the world is a violent place, there will never be peace, you can try however hard to bring peace to earth but that is not possible. I love wrestling, I love MMA, I love boxing/kickboxing and so do a lot of other people, I love GOD OF WAR and other violent games and lots of people love those as well so that is my 2 cents on violence. 

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Increasing blog traffic – alternative strategies

As a blogger I am always on the lookout for ways to increase blog traffic. There are methods that were used in the past that are no longer as effective now, post goolge panda/penguin. Needless to say I am not a big time SEO guy or a problogger, I pick up ways of growing traffic by reading major blogs like problogger.net, smartpassiveincome.com and a whole lot of other blogs.  I also learn by not only reading about ways of growing traffic but implementing them and seeing what results I get from several methods.

Back in the beginning about 6 months ago, I was using updating my blog regularly as my only strategy of growing traffic and that was going well and it has been proven to work well but, It was going to take a long time to get a lot of traffic and I am a one-man team so I cannot keep posting regularly without sacrificing quality, which counts more than quantity if you plan to retain viewers. I do not post often for this blog but I try to post as much as I can for my fitness blog.

rise through all the challenges and come up ahead

I started blog commenting  but I was not doing a lot of that, so I have not seen much progress from that yet, maybe I need to increase the amounts of comments I make to maybe 5-10 daily comments to blogs in related niches. It has worked for many others before and its works now even during these google updates.

As I said in my other post about things I have learnt in a few months blogging, I realised that other fitness bloggers had steady daily traffic and yet they only post a couple times a month. 

So I started trying to build strong back-links using eZine Articles, squidoo and hub pages. What happened next is that my blog disappeared for 2 weeks probably because of what’s called the google dance. I had built too many good back-links in a short space of time and I was punished because it did not look natural. At a later point I decided I will no longer submit to eZine Articles except for maybe once or twice a month.

Hubpages was bringing me some decent traffic and Squidoo as well, these types of sites seem to be doing well after the google updates. I plan to submit more articles to these sites (when I find the time), but I read somewhere that if you want your Hubpages or Squidoo  pages to do well you need to build back-links pointing to them, that will help both your pages and sites rankings and increase your traffic.

I have guessed posted a couple of times to a related fitness site, which is one of the top fitness sites on the web. I got some traffic from those posts on the day, still waiting a few weeks to see the effect of all these back-links on my traffic.

I was hit slightly by the updates luckily my blog was still new and I have been working my way back ever since but things seem to be looking up now, the problem then was that I was relying of blog content only and I had no back-links.

I have found an awesome way to get back-links and traffic to my blogs, Using Tumblr. You see Tumblr has a viral effect and if you create related content in the short most viral form like images and smart little quotes, you can get a lot of back-links through reblogs and more people can be exposed to you blog that way by placing relevant links in your content.

Plus using Tumblr is fun, I prefer it over twitter but I do both. I will create a Facebook page for my fitness blog when I have enough traffic, for now I will learn more about using Facebook to drive traffic, and how to build effective Facebook pages. Oh and I almost forgot I also use Google plus, I share all my post there but I am still not sure how to get more people using it. One person can only do so many things by themselves, I think its best just specialising in getting traffic using 1 or 2 social networks.  

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Sort of new awesome series to watch on TV

I love watching television but ever since I went to university I have not been watching normal television shows, all I watch these days are series and movies and most of the time I watch them on my laptop. I have only gone to the cinema a couple of times in the past three years, I am not a fan of watching movies I prefer watching series because series last longer and they seem to have a certain flow, series tell the whole story whereas in movies the story is often compressed in that one and a half or two hours.

Most of the times I like to watch full seasons at a time because I cannot stand to wait seven days just to watch another episode. I like watching old complete series by watching them from season one till the end for example I had not watched Boston Legal before so last year I got seasons one till five and watch the whole thing within two weeks.

Last year was a good year for series there were a lot of new awesome series to come out as well as other series which were continuing. I am going to tell you about the series that I liked that came out last year.

List of awesome new series:

Game of Thrones – This is an awesome new medieval fantasy based in the Seven Kingdoms of  Westeros that chronicles, the violent power struggles among the kingdoms noble families over the Iron Throne . For additional information go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_of_Thrones_(TV_series)

Homeland – This fantastic show follows two main characters a CIA agent whose job is tracking down terrorists and a US Marine who was believed to be dead for 8 years, and has now been returned home. The CIA agent suspects that the marine was turned and is now working for the terrorists. The series follows how the CIA agent Carrie obsesses over proving that Brody the marine was turned. She finds a way to get closer to him and develops feelings for him later on in the season. The show keeps you guessing you are never really sure if Brody was turned or not until the final few episodes of the first season. For additional information go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeland_(TV_series)

Suits – This Series has two main characters Harvey Specter a top lawyer at a top Harvard only firm who has just been promoted to senior partner at the law firm. As a senior partner he has to hire an associate that is when we meet Mike Ross the second main character, he is a young genius who got mixed up with the wrong crowd and got kicked out of college. He cheats for other people by taking the LSATs for them. Harvey Hires Mike as his associate who not only did not go to Harvard but does not even have a law degree. For more information go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suits_(TV_series)

Teen wolf – Teen wolf is an amazing new supernatural werewolf series which follows the main character Scott McCall who is a high school student and social outcast who is bitten by a werewolf while looking for a dead body with his best friend Stiles in the woods. His life is transformed after the bite; he becomes faster and has better senses which make him better at lacrosse which increases his popularity.  He meets a new girl soon after he is bitten and falls in love with her not knowing that she comes from a family of werewolf hunters. For additional information check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teen_Wolf_(2011_TV_series)

Boardwalk Empire –Although this show came out in late 2010 I only found out about it in 2011, It has completed two seasons already now. This show is based on the story of Enoch L. Johnson a political figure who rose to prominence in and controlled Atlantic City in New Jersey in the 1920s-1930s during the years of the prohibition. The character based on him in the series is Enoch “Nucky” Thompson. In order to rule Atlantic City Nucky interacts with all sorts of characters such as politicians, mobsters, government agents, and the public who look up to him. The government also investigates Nucky Thompson’s connection with illegal activities in Atlantic City. For additional information check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boardwalk_Empire

Well that is all the new series that I found interesting and had time to watch last year, im sure there are other great new series waiting to be discovered.

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One of the most beautiful and fastest super car ever – The Zenvo ST1

The Zenvo ST1 is not well known to the general population who are not in love with fast cars, especially super cars. They are no longer calling cars like the Bugatti Veyron Super sport and the Zenvo just super cars, they have coined the term Hyper-cars to distinguish them from other supercars. If cars had god’s hyper cars would be the Gods, supercars the demi-gods and luxury cars the royalty and the privileged.

Talk about elitist, there are only 15 of these beauties available and they are manufactured by Danish company Zenvo Automotive which was only founded in 2004. It was about time someone not from, Germany, Italy, Britain, or America made a car that challenged for the world’s fastest car. Only a few road cars can g0 from 0-60mph in less than 3 second and have more than 1000hp and the Zenvo ST1 is one of those select few.

Zenvo Front view, amazing supercar

The Zenvo ST1 has a 7litre V8 engine which is both Turbo and supercharged. It produces 1.104 horsepower and 1.430Nm of torque. This beauty has a top speed of 233mph and can go from 0-60mph in 2.9 seconds. Like other hyper-cars this baby does not come cheap, it is as exclusive as it gets at a base price of $ 1 225 000, the cost of the US based model is $ 1.8million which includes a free watch worth $50 000, plus the US model  has 1250hp compared to the other models sold elsewhere which only have 1104hp.

The Zenvo ST1 side and rear view, awesome supercar design

The Danish have done an outstanding job, both in performance and design, it is not often that such a fast powerful car looks so beautiful, just look at the ultimate aero, it is ugly but superfast. This just shows that you do not need to sacrifice looks for performance; this reminds me of another super car manufacturer that makes beautiful powerful cars Aston Martin.

Go to net car show to see other awesome supercars

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