Khan Academy Challenge!: A Lesson A Day...

Ever since I blogged about the Education system in this country, I started to think that maybe I should actually try to relearn some of the things that I know I've forgotten as an adult.  The video above is a Brain Teaser that I watched today.  It involved Aliens and taking over the world.  I know, right up my alley.

But this got me thinking that if I tried to watch one of these videos a day - I could sharpen up my brains and get a REAL workout going.  The Brain is an important muscle of the body, even though it's just fat tissue that isn't a muscle at all.  But you know what I mean!  I'm going to start watching a Khan lesson a day and try to build up the lost learning that I've suffered from not using all my potential.

60 Day Khan Academy Challenge, here I come!

Part 2 to 30 Day challenges.

So I'm doing the physical 30 day challenge with regards to the 3 short exercises each day.  I'm also doing a black coffee challenge.  Today was my last day of coffee with cream, which felt nice.  I also decided to try to finish off my nights with green tea and/or peppermint tea.  I use the Bigelow brand, which is my favorite.  I like add a squeeze of a lemon, which I hope adds some relaxation effects to when I'm winding down my day.  I don't know too much about tea other than you put it in hot water and it tastes good.  The last thing I hope to achieve is to get my sleeping hours up to 8.  I know my friends love going out a lot during the week, but I need to make peace with my body first.

Part 1 of my next 30 day challenge:

I think this is kind of hard to figure out this calendar.  But there are no more breaks every 4th day, its now every 6th day.  I'm going to do this everyday for the next 30 days.  Hopefully something comes of it.  I don't know what Jack-knives are, might need to look that one up.  But I think if I did this with maybe 30 minutes to an hour of cardio every day would really help me lose weight.

Also, I'm thinking of switching to black coffee with no milk or sweetners in it.  I usually make a cup of Keurig Dark Magic in the morning with cinnamon.  P.S. Cinnamon in coffee is pretty god damn delicious.  Also, I might just put almond milk in coffee at home and just get it black when I get coffee other places.

I have a K-cup adapter and use the Marylou's Mocha Mint if I don't feel like cracking open a Dark Magic.  It's pretty good.  I don't always use it because sometimes the flavor is diluted, but when you compare the prices of a pound of keurig coffee to a pound of Marylou's at the store, it's $60 compared to $10.  So there's that reason to never buy Keurig coffee.

I did contemplate doing the No-Meat-Month.  I think it would be kind of hard, but I could just track the number of times I eat meat and what kind of meat it is.  I've been doing the same thing with Alcohol, Soda, Chinese Food, sit down Restaurants, Pizza, and Fast Food.  The good news about Fast Food is that I can't remember a time when I went to McDonald's for food instead of the coffee.  Yes, I go there for coffee, and it's delicious and mostly $1, which Dunkin Donuts can't beat.

Day 30: Your Goals for the Next 30 days

So, this is a milestone!  I reached 30 days of consistently blogging, while also doing a 30 day crunch schedule.  My goals for the next 30 days though?  I have no idea.  I'm looking back at some of the pictures of 30 day physical challenges as well as mental challenges and it's hard to decide.  Here is my previous physical challenge for 30 days:

Now I did make a list of possible list of ideas to either sacrifice or add-on to my daily regimen and they include:

• Learn a software within 30 days
• No Meat
• No Coffee
• Gym everyday, including weekends (60  minutes of cardio)
• Pushups (I have a pushup app that has been dormant in my phone)
• Write for 30 minutes on either my story or screenplay until finished
• No alcohol for 30 days (might be the toughest one)
• Write a short skit that could be used in sketch comedy everyday
• Learn a new language or re-learn spanish
• Read a book that is sitting on my shelf for 30 minutes a day.
• (still thinking of more)

That's a short list, but I'm sure there are a lot of other things I can be doing in my life.  I'm trying to find myself and figure out what I want to do with my life.  I really don't want to have to stick around here and become a plumber or an electrician.  I'd like to move to another city, but until I settle my debts, that is just a (not saying pipe dream because it relates to plumbing) light at the end of the tunnel.

I don't know if I'm going to do all or any of those, but I will certainly try my best to keep myself busy to push my strengths and myself forward into the career I want.

Also, if you want to comment or suggest anything, I'm welcoming any and all input.  I'd love to hear back from my readers, even if you are just reading this for the first time.

Day 29: List 10 People Live or Dead You Would Invite to Dinner and Why. Include the Dinner Menu.

This is what I'm talking about!

I would love to a throw a dinner party with a list of historical figures in mind.  So I'm going to try and make it interesting and not include too many of the same kind of people in the same dinner party.  Now to be fair, I'm not going to dive deep into an encyclopedia and rip out some philosopher that I have no goddamn idea who he or she is or what they stand for.  I did some history on some message boards to find out some ideas.  Everyone is apparently really into dining with Ghandi, Jesus, Buddha, and Joan of Arc.  I am not interested in any of those people.  I don't think Ghandi would eat anything because he starved.  Buddha would probably eat too much.  Jesus and Joan of Arc would probably find each other in a separate room and then die tied to planks of wood.  Interesting how those two died in similar fashions.

So I'm mentally making a short list of people I liked in history and would want to sit down and eat with them in an intimate setting.  I figure that I would need to have a big enough house and a nice enough career to let all of their personalities exist in the same area.  I have neither of those right now.

Stanley Kubrick
Director

For one, he is the unofficial greatest director of all time.  Why?  Because he is responsible for some of the most amazing films ever made in cinema.  He didn't make them unless everything was meticulously done his way.  I would figure that such a film buff like myself, I would want to have a nice meal with him, and also get to know a little more about the man responsible for A Clockwork Orange, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Full Metal Jacket, The Shining, and Paths of Glory.  If he were alive today, what movie or movies would he have made after Eyes Wide Shut?  He spent nearly a decade making the film and he kept redoing things until they were just right.  I'd like to know if there was anything really going on with him and the Illuminati or NASA or any other of the mythical things that are intertwined in his film-making.  Plus I would ask for some of his techniques in film-making and how he actually thought about making some of the films that he did.

George Carlin
Comedian, Humorist, Actor
He is the greatest stand-up comic to ever live.  Period.  I'm sure that you can make a case for all the comics that don't go dirty or swear.  But George is the reason that comics are now shown on television.  He did his time as the hippy-dippy-weatherman, but he evolved into the funniest person on the planet, churning out stand-up specials like they were nothing.  If anything, I would want to have him at a dinner table, just to be able to crack jokes and keep discussions moving along.  If you ever watch a George Carlin stand-up or listen to the numerous albums he put out over a 50 year career, you will be impressed in how he managed to not only keep track of all of the Words You can't say on Television over the years, but how he kept adapting it and extending it to all his audiences.  I never got to see Carlin during his last years, but I knew a couple of people who did, and I was instantly jealous.  After he died, I turned to Louis C.K. for most of my stand-up because he is the only one that similarly resembles Carlin's format and extensive discussion of "Stuff".  If there was ever a time when he felt like a comic that was struggling, I'd love to find out how he got over those years and what he learned from them.

Tom Hanks
Comic, Actor
There are very few people who have attained the kind of success that Tom Hanks has.  He started out as a baby comic starring in TV Shows like Bosom Buddies and Family Ties.  He then went on to do small 80's comedies that were very clever and very memorable.  One of those 80's comedies, The Burbs, is one of my favorite childhood movies.  It centers around a cul-de-sac of neighbors that are suspicious of one neighbor and it leads down a very funny and very frightening road.  It's actually one of the few comedy-horrors that I love.  It wasn't until the 90's that he really broke out into superstardom.  He starred in A League of Their Own as Jimmy Dugan, a hilarious women's baseball managers.  He starred with Meg Ryan in Sleepless in Seattle, one of the few chick flicks that I actually loved (You've Got Mail is another, also with Meg Ryan).  And then he went on to star in Philadelphia, a movie that earned him his first Oscar.  His second Oscar, was for Forrest Gump, which is a lot of people's favorite movie of all time.  Tom Hanks is one of the few people who go from a comedic background into serious acting and manages to stay in contact with his comedic roots.  It's a hard line to walk, but I would want Hanks at my dinner table.

Ken Griffey Jr.
Baseball Player
He is by far, my favorite Major League Baseball player of all time.  He had a sweet swing and has never ever been associated with steroids.  He dominated the outfield with his defense and bullet-throws to the plate.  His swing was so monstrous, that it almost didn't seem natural.  He hit so many huge home runs for the Mariners when they were in the days of Randy Johnson, Jay Buhner, and Alex Rodriguez. In fact, the more I think about it, the more I become suspect that if everyone around him was doing steroids, how does he not?  I don't want to know.  But I think it's always nice to have a superstar sports player at a round-table of interesting people.  I don't really have a favorite football player that I relate to.  I thought about involving Michael Jordan in this "dinner", but by the way he dresses, I thought otherwise.  I have come to realize that Michael Jordan may have been a huge success on the court, but he has been nothing but a misplaced owner/GM of a terrible basketball team.  Ken Griffey though, has been a perfect role model and I just would want to find out everything I could from him.

Banksy
Artist
The first time I remember hearing about Banksy, I was at work, listening to a podcast about movies, and I heard about a documentary made by a street artist about the world or street art, or as many people call "graffiti".  The documentary, "Exit Through The Gift Shop", was probably the best documentary that I saw that year.  It was unbelievable to see someone compose all of the street artists that were unseen and unheard of by everyone else and put into a legitimate story.  I had never heard of Mr. Brainwash and just the idea of a person with so much footage or people tagging buildings and storefronts and making statements is ridiculous to think about.  There was another documentary about Banksy made, called Banksy Comes to Dinner, which is exactly what I want to happen here.  I think he's the coolest artist out there because he speaks from the heart and his medium is out in the open.  It's absolutely amazing to think about him, let alone his accomplishments.

Hunter S. Thompson
Writer, Hell's Angel, Bad Ass
If there is one person I would want to sit down with and talk politics, sports, drugs, experiences, or drinks, it's the good Dr.  He is one of my favorite writers ever.  His book Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is one of my favorites and the movie is just as awesome.  His style of writing, Gonzo Journalism, is such an original idea.  It was the kind of idea that only a drug-riddled gun nut who had a penchant for going on Ether binges would do.  I would think that his coverage of the Nixon campaign is one of the best ever.  I can only imagine the kind of discussions and participation that would happen at a table including the most influential journalist of the last 30 years.

Meryl Streep
Actress
It wouldn't be a propper dinner party without the most talented actress of all time.  She is just a huge success.  I would mostly want to ask her about her upbringing and her relationships along the way.  I think there is something to be said about someone who has so much success while being a Mom and having a relationship with one of the most important actors of the 1970's (John Cazale).  She is such a class-act and is always considered a delightful person to work with.  I have no idea, but I would absolutely love to get to know her.  She's played so many wonderful roles in timeless movies.  I think one my favorite roles of her's in actually in The Devil Wears Prada.  That would be another chick flick that I am comfortable saying that I enjoyed watching thoroughly.

Aisha Tyler
Comedian, Actress
I've be recently listening to her podcast, Girl on Guy, and I've found it to be one of the best podcast's out there.  Her interviews are usually very candid and very honest.  I love when she talks with her guests about things that other hosts would not talk about.  I also love her as Lana Kane on Archer.  Her wit and humor is great.  Her tastes in music, movies, and video games don't really fit the profile of a typical female talk shot host.  I was listening to her podcasts and realized that she grew up listening to hard rock bands like Metallica.  I was floored when I found out she was into video-game playing.  I don't have an Xbox, like she does, but I think that it's awesome that fans of hers can game with her.


Dave Chappelle
Actor, Comedian
The funniest stand-up comedian who isn't in the spotlight anymore.  I know he's out there doing stand-up, but he isn't doing huge events and television shows like people think he should be.  I don't know if you know that, but I do.  I know he's saving up some of his best material to make a comeback, but he's going to have to do it on his terms.  I'd also just love to find out what happened with him and Comedy Central, why he stepped away entirely from comedy for such a long time, and really what he's been doing in the time he's stayed out of the limelight.  I totally understand someone getting a whole bunch of money and then just going off to raise his kids.  That's the virtue of "F-U Money".  If he ever plans on doing movies or specials I would want to know.  Plus I'd love to see him and George Carlin at a dinner table.


Chris Farley
Actor, Comedian
I think since I have started this blog, I'd have to at least dedicate a small section to Chris Farley.  He was the funniest person I saw in movies.  When Napster was first around, I downloaded many clips of his SNL skits.  His Mick Foley skits were awesome. His movies alongside Adam Sandler and David Spade were perfect.  His career lives in the 90's and it would've been a hell of a time to see him in comedies today.  I never really got tired of every laughing at him.  And there's something to be said about the funniest guy in the room at SNL.

Dinner Menu:

First Course - Tomato Soup with grated cheese

Second course - Bacon Wrapped Shrimp or Coconut Shrimp

Third Course - Spinach Salad with Mandarins, Pecans, Onions, Strawberries, and Blue Cheese

Fourth Course - Bacon wrapped Filet Mignon with Asparagus and Garlic Mashed 

Final Course - Key Lime Pie and an Espresso

Day 28: Something You Miss

There are many things I miss.  But if I had to pick one: college.  I miss college, much like every 20-something.  College is full of so many memories.  Sure when I think about how much money people spend on degrees and if they end up using them after college is another issue.  But the times spent with people between classes, on weekends, walking to classes, SPRING BREAK, and everything else is just an awesome memory. 

You never meet people like the ones you lived with, drank with, partied with, slept with, and laughed with in college.  Life after college becomes a little harder to handle.  You begin to feel like your role in life is getting less and less from what it once was.  You begin to feel like Stan felt in that episode of South Park when he feels everything is turning to Shit.

But that's the time in your life when you have to find out a way to make yourself happy.  Hobbies get picked up.  Hopefully you found someone you can connect to emotionally either during or after college.  College used to be considered a four year endeavor.  Now it's spilling into a five year plus adventure for everyone turning 18 and wanting to explore every avenue of life before they think it leaves them.  If college was a 7 year adventure, there would still be people turning it into a 10 year venture.  When people have most of their utilities paid for, they will do just about everything possible to squeeze every last drop of juice from that delicious fruit of youth.

I really miss college.

Day 27: Problem(s) You Have or Had In the Past

There are many problems that I've had in the past.  Overcoming them is a tireless task.  This blog, for one, was one of the hardest things to get started and then continue on a daily routine.  When I first started blogging back in 2005 or so, I just regurgitated Bill Simmons articles and random thoughts on Sports.  I'd do so much rambling that it was just boring as hell to read.

But I've learned to cope with some of the problems I've had and continue to have:

Problem #1: Keeping Routine

Since starting this blog and using the continuous reminders on my cell phone, I've managed to complete 2 30-day challenges that I didn't really have any faith in completing.  I know it's only 60 days, but that's more than saying you're going to lose weight for a New Years Resolution and then just sit at home during every month after January.  I'm proud of myself for at least moving forward with this kind of routine, as menial as it sounds.  Solution: This blog

Problem #2: Speaking Up When I Have the Chance

Whether it's been at the dinner table, in a classroom, in a sport's game, or at work, I'm known for staying quiet when I should be speaking up.  I don't know if it's me being passive or my inability to act, but speaking up is something I wish I did more of.  My Mom always told me to raise my hand more often in class because most of my teachers didn't know how smart I was until I did it more often.  I think there was some point during my education that the more I raised my hand, the more I'd get questions wrong thus I would shy away from participating in class.

This has carried over into my adult and professional life.  I shy away from asking my boss questions, and future employers questions.  I shy away from talking to most women I don't know.  I know that if I feel like I'm being talked at instead of being talked to, I won't even bother with responses.  If people don't understand that last sentence, they may be the kind of person that talks at someone and doesn't even know it.  Solution: None yet.

Problem #3: Starting Too Many Things Without Finishing One

This might just be a problem of me wanting to lead too many lives.  Like taking a bite of a bunch of different foods, but never finishing just one.  It's lead down a long road of emptiness.  I feel I always need to have tried something, but I can't say that I've finished something.  It sucks.  I've started several screenplays, but have never finished anyone of them.  I've started writing other stories, but I've never finished them.  I don't know how, but my real life, family and friends seem to be getting in the way of the life I want.  Solution: None.

Day 26: How Would You Spend $1,000,000 dollars if You Had Such a Thing?

Ok.  So let's figure out that I have $1M in cash to spend, and not the usual $600,000 because of that after-taxes bullshit.  Okay, so here we go.

I'd take about $400,000 of it and put it into some sort of savings situation where I could live off of dividends and build some wealth.  Leaving me $600,000.

I would pay off all of my debts, which would be around $13,500 from school loans and roughly $3,000 I owe various people.  So that leaves me with about $584,500.00.

Over half a million with no debt, cars and stuff paid off, and still things to do.  I think I might do some travelling and knock off some destinations that are on my Thrillist.  I would consider doing some serious traveling, maybe visit Dorado Beach, maybe visit Refugia Chiloe, Iceland's Luxury Hotel, definitely will do some traveling with AirBNB.com, especially if I can get places to stay like this. 

And I think I might even go to an Ideas Island.  Yes, it's a real thing.

Given that all that traveling might take me about a year to successfully do, I would put the cost probably close to $100,000.  That would be if I did A TON of traveling too.  Who knows where I could go with so much time and money.  If I flew everywhere foreign, the trip to Chile and Iceland would probably cost me around $15,000 together.  The private Idea Island costs $1000 to charity, plus getting to and from the island, which would probably run about $5000 to be serious.  The trip to Dorado Beach could be the most expensive coming in at $1200 per night.  So for a month, without the trips with AirBNB, I would looking at about $30,000 if I didn't go anywhere else other than those 4 places.  Maybe closer to $50,000.  So that leaves me with about $530,000 to be fair.

With that money, I would continue to travel far and wide suing AirBNB.  I would search for any and all places to stay for maybe two to three nights per place.  I would travel all through Europe.  I would travel to portions of Asia and South America.  Maybe stop in to see my In-Laws in Ecuador.  I would also absolutely want to visit down-under Australia as well as New Zealand.  I would surely visit some of the places I wish I could see, like Zihuatanejo Mexico (the destination famous from Shawshank Redemption):

As I'm looking at some of these places, I am becoming so in love with AirBNB.  I would love to stay in the Frank Lloyd Wright houses for a couple weeks.  I would love to visit historical places of significance, as well as all around the world just soaking in everything.  To travel to some of these places, I would probably expect to spend close to $150,000.  I'm not including food since that's just too hard to calculate.  

I would try my best to pick up as many languages as possible.  Meet as many people as possible.  Soak up as much of this world as I could.  I would check in with family and friends every so often as to see what I'm missing or what they have planned for their futures. I would check on my investments to make sure that I am making some money while burning through a good chunk of it.

Then when I get tired of travelling, and get homesick, I'll come home.  I'd come home and make sure that I had enough money to move someplace and push myself into doing some of the things I wanted to do: like writing, maybe some acting, or standup.  I'd make sure that I would feel like I needed to succeed, so I'd have to put a larger chunk of money away so that I couldn't touch it for a while.  

Actually, if I documented most of this travelling, I would've made a pretty successful travel blogger. I would not spend money on cars or houses or whatever people would do to make them seem hood-rich. I certainly would not buy everyone in my family a brand new car. I think having the first step be putting away a ton of money in dividend paying investments is the safest way to make this journey enjoyable. I'm not a fool, so I know that money will come and go, but experiences, memories, and friendships will go a long way. So if I spend through a majority of the $400,000 I had left to myself, I'd dedicate it to obtaining a craft and becoming a jack of all trades and a master of one main craft.

Day 24: Your Favorite Movie and What it's about....

I don't know if I can answer this question: What is my favorite movie?  I've seen Caddyshack the most times.  I've analyzed the Shining a lot.  I've loved Blazing Saddles since the first time I saw it on VHS.  I loved The Burbs when I was a kid.  I felt like A Beautiful Mind was the best movie the year that Denzel won Best Actor and not Russell Crowe.  Although I think my favorite movie has be Pulp Fiction.  It's hard to argue.  It's a movie that is like no other.

I remember seeing this movie much later than when it was released.  I think the first copy I bought was the 10 year anniversary one.  It was just such an awesome movie cover to cover.  It's the movie that made me want to get involved with writing and movies in general.  It's a summation of suburban ugliness.  It has gangsters, it has fights, it has cool music, it has drugs, it's got unforgettable characters, it has mesmerizing scenes, and it's never really been duplicated as a film.  Every time I've seen this movie, I've been comfortable after the two and half hours and just thought "I could've watched that for two more hours."  It's the only movie that I will watch and never get bored with.  I think that's the best thing about a director that you can say.

If I were on a deserted island or paralyzed for the rest of my life, I would watch this movie over and over.  It's script is perfect and it never really gets tiring.  This is my favorite movie.

!!SPOILER ALERT AHEAD. DON'T READ ANYMORE IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN PULP FICTION!!

To summarize Pulp Fiction is pretty hard.  It's a gangster film.  The opening scene begins with "Honeybunny" and "Ringo" sitting in a diner eating breakfast and talking about how they robbed a convenient store instead of a bank.  They then pop up and yell "Everybody be cool, this is a robbery!  Any of you fucking pricks move and I'll execute every fucking last one of you!"  We move to another scene, the main honcho, Marcellus Wallace, sends out two hitmen, Jules and Vincent, to take care of an issue regarding a payment that Wallace was owed.  The film then jumps to Marcellus Wallace making a deal with a boxer, Butch Coolidge, to take a fall in his upcoming fight.  We see Jules and Vincent walk in the background, but they are dressed differently from before.  The film then jumps again to a situation where Vincent, has to take out Marcellus Wallace's main girl, Mia, out for dinner, while not making any moves on her sexually.  They go to dinner and win a dancing competition, which is one of the most entertaining yet woefully repeated scenes in other movies.  Mia finds her way into Vincent's little bag of drugs, which she thinks is Cocaine, but we're to believe that it's Heroin, based upon the drug dealing scene that we saw prior to Vincent picking up Mia in his car.  In order to save Mia, Vincent rushes Mia to his dealer's house and they perform an unforgettable scene on Mia's body.  After this scene, we learn a little more about the life of Butch Coolidge, and what he's actually fighting for and running from.  One segment, which is a wonderfully done scene with Christopher Walken, is about Butch's Father's Gold Watch, which his wife forgets while they are trying to pack up and leave town.  Butch has to return to his old apartment and get his watch back, but he finds a certain person we've met before that's reading a pulp fiction book in his bathroom when Butch walks in.  Butch tries to return to his wife unscathed, but is met by Marcellus Wallace at an intersection, which turns into a rundown and leads to one of the most originally horrific and mesmerizing scenes in cinema.  Butch and Marcellus find themselves both tied up and in someone's basement about to be gang-raped.  I won't spoil what happens, but it's at this point that Butch comes to a personal choice to save his business partner from being raped or face being raped.  We jump back to Vincent and Jules back in the apartment from the beginning of the movie.  They find themselves faced against a guy who pops out of the closet and misses Jules and Vincent with all six shots he fires from a hand cannon.  Jules thinks he has been blessed with divine intervention and considers leaving the business of being a cold-blooded gangster.  Vincent asks the kid they have in the backseat of their car if he believes any of it.  I don't want to spoil anymore, so just go watch the movie and see for yourself.

Day 23: Post 5 Pictures of Famous People I Find Attractive...

Finally something more entertaining than me.  Here's where I get to point out what kind of people I find attractive.  So I went over to the Maxim Hot 100 to get some ideas about who I find attractive.  I'll be blogging about the Maxim Hot 100, because I have some problems with it.  But for now: here's who I find attractive.

Olivia Wilde

Allison Williams

Alison Brie

Christina Hendricks

Emma Stone

Other people I find attractive:

Gillian Jacobs

Aubrey Plaza

Katrina Bowden

Sarah Hyland

Isla Fisher

Anna Kendrick

Lizzy Caplan

Lake Bell