Business

I haven't blogged on here for a while. Business has shifted over to the lifestyle blog for the time being. Glory will be had.

-Michael

Michael lifestyle redux....

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Michael lifestyle experiment...

As I'm already doing a 30day challenge pertaining to economy. I'm fascinated by what will happen by cutting out alcohol and spending over the course of the next 27days.

-What effect will this have on my state of mind?
-What effect will this have on my bank balance?
-How will this effect mu social life?
-How will this effect my weight?

27 days until I garner the answer.

-Michael

Temptation is a bitch...

Temptation is a bitch. I was almost tempted to spend £30pounds or so on books. Even though I'm completely unmotivated to read.

I downloaded an eBook containing many Bukowski poems. It is fabulous. After this I think I shall read the poems of Joyce and then about the universe.

I think I will also download Nirvana lyrics. I like the way Kurt Cobain thought. Apart from thinking it was clever to do smack. Obviously.

I'm in desperate requirement of creative inspiration.

In the morning I think I shall have a red meat breakfast. That will be swell.

-Michael

2008: 30day challenge number 1.

This is something I've decided I'm going to do this year. Set challenges in certain areas of my life in which to accomplish.

The first challenge of the year is therefore to become more economical and have my incomings surpass my outgoings.

My current bank balance at time of writing is £-315.

Day one:
My spending today was £34.54
Today I worked and earned £20.58.
Which leaves me a deficit of -£13.96

My plan of action pertains to stopping drinking, which I believe will save me approximately £150 this month. [Between 13/12/2007 and 11/1/2008 I spent £266.59 on nights out. Actually. It's quite worrying. Over the course of a year that would be s £3199.08 spent on alcohol.]

Of course there's other substantial benefits to not drinking. The economical reasons are what I'm mainly interested in at the moment.

As of this moment. I am no longer a drinker I intend to save thousands of pounds and hundreds of thousands of empty calories this year.

Commuting. I have a lazy habit of getting taxi's. This is also being cut out.

As an aside: I believe I'm owed more money by ASDA. I look forward to getting it very much.

I thinks I'll start saving my pennies this year too.

2008. It's all about the lifestyle.

-Michael

''Speak no English'' (repost from Benrik for posterity)

Woah dude. After the slowest start to the week ever. I was feeling angry. Depressed. Fricking cynical.

It's all turned out pretty cool in the end.

My friend Kay is a professional photographer and asked me to do photoshoot with her. Here are the results:




























The last one is the tightest shit I've ever seen son.

I went out for short while last night. Didn't drink. Only notable for my new pickup line.

It started on monday when me and my uni friend Sara hadn't paid on the train. The arguing foreign couple was born. We got away without a fine.

This has spawned the 'Hungarian tourist who speaks no English' pick-up line. It's pretty freestyle. I was in the club last night and was fucking bored due to not drinking. So I'd meander upto a group of girls and start speaking absolute nonsense. Ask for directions to local landmarks and things like that. Pretty solid.

I got one number. Should be interesting to see how the ensuing phone-call goes. ''Szopd le az anyad faszat. We szha go to beach. Sjazs long as you show me direcztion.''

My loser friend whose 21 and still hasn't kissed a girl. Thought this was hilarious and even he started trying to talk to girls.

Michael Dave Chappelle Lifestyle Coaching was born yo.

''Wanna know how to meet girls on the moon? No problem..... our team of experts has dealed with these problems many times and we can solve your sticking points in a *snap*! Michael Dave Chappelle Lifestyle Coaching. We're there to care.''

I've already completed this weeks task. So erm make of this what you will.

Love you all very very much.

-Michael

Michael Photoshoot Glory

My friend who I work with gave me a FREE photoshoot yesterday. It went very well. She is a very talented photographer indeed. The one above I like very much. Very mean and moody.

After we went to the Panda and ate lots and lots of food and icecream. It was glorious. Then we looked at guns and went to HMV and talked of dvds. A wonderful time was had.

I'm considering going off somewhere in the world all by myself and not telling anyone where I'm going until I come back. I have to have some freedom and free space.

-Michael

Quitting is hard

people mistake
comfort
for happiness
the drinking helps
make you feel
comfortable
for a little while
just
long enough
until
you have
your
next drink

it makes you forget
what
a fucking
fag loser
you really
are.

-Michael

Focusing on happiness

Somewhere in the world hot girls are getting ready to party at some stupid club. There are boys and girls drinking cheap vodka in some squalor halls and residences ready to unleash their glory. Somewhere in the world an 80year old man is railing some hot girls who are decades younger than him.
I'm lying here. I always thought it was best to maximise the positives and minimise the negatives. Unfortunately, most people with similar philosophies spend too much of their time focussing on what they don't want than what makes them happy.

I've decided to write a list of things I like and would like to focus more time on:
-Ripped abs
-Muscles
-Cardio workouts
-Cultivating a rock-staresque lifestyle
-Girlfriend
-Reading cool shit
-Science fiction
-The Beatles
-Motley Crue
-Cool music
-David Lee Roth
-Money
-Enjoying myself
-Cool dvds
-Video games
-Myself
-Schwinn bicycle
-Eating

The realisation is that I have to step back from people and focus entirely on myself for a while.

-Michael

Goal setting...

This is something I always overlooked because I thought I just intuitively knew what my goals were when it came to women and dating. I'm currently re-reading 'Double your dating'. As DeAngelo puts it: a ship without an exact course is just a ship floating at sea.

So what are my goals with women and dating?

Put simply they're simply to be naturally good with women, so I can have more options and more sex and fun. Eventually when I meet the right woman. A nice girlfriend too.

DeAngelo is correct on the principles of goal setting. Without knowing where you want to go. You'll never get there.

He talks about giving yourself permission to make mistakes. This is true as I actually think a lot of my personal growth has came from overcoming fuck ups.

I also agree that you should constantly keep documenting what you're learning and be CONSTANTLY improving yourself. With women. Everytime you talk to a girl YOU'RE improving. Everytime you do weights your getting more ripped and stronger. Everytime you work and then resist the urge to buy junk, you have more money.

Basic fundamentals. But they should never be overlooked let alone forgotten.

More on this ebook later.

-Michael

Tom Venuto: Burn the fat feed the muscle

The ultimate compendium in fat loss glory. Venuto dissects the art of losing fat very thoroughly. It is so thoroughly researched in fact that I can only muse that Venuto is either the most vain or most anal retentive man in the world. Or perhaps some emalgamation of both.

He provides you with a solid approach. Sets out the mindsets required for burning fat clearly. Then goes into absolute mind boggingly specific detail about setting up perfect meal plans, meal times. Venuto brooks no disrespect when it comes to gastronomy. He then sets out clearly every do and don't in fat loss. Even cracks the occasional wittiscism.

After this. No secret or trick is spared in the ensuing 15 chapters. To cap it all off he gives you solid workout plans suited to your specific body type, a several page list of foods to eat, a complete FAQ, calorific content for commonplace foods organised by their type, a complete bibliography and a chart to log your process.

The only downside is that now I put whey protein powder on my weetabix on a morning. Which I think is a bit odd. Perhaps I am becoming self absorbed, and anal retentive like Venuto. This shit be to shedding your flabby trunk what Atom bomb be to Hiroshima.

Oh well, onto myfooddiary.com to complete my macronutrient ratios for the day.

A+

-Michael

Who am I?

It's a philosophical question which has been asked for thousands of years. Now in our petty ego driven society. The question of who you are is even more confusing than ever. Most people spend there days perpetually confused by a sense of conflicting identity.

I'm a big fan of Eckhart Tolle and Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj whose principle philosophy is one that eschews ego. You're not anybody; you just are. I suppose this correlates with that old Taoism thing. ''A tree isn't a tree. Once you call it a tree; it ceases to be a tree. Tree is only a word. A symbol representing something else.''

It's a very long, arduous and complicated thing, all of this ego business. The gist of it is: you are born with self-esteem, and all of the requisite tools to survive and procreate hardwired in your brain. Once your natural self-esteem takes a bashing in nursery and then in the playground, you start to create a story for yourself. Your story about yourself will be good or bad, and you'll look for things in the environment that will corroborate your story of 'who you are'. This is your ego. Now this for a lot of people is where it all gets very confusing.

When you're young, you begin to look for people to identify with. Cliques. You make and accept judgements which define 'you'. Then after a few decades in the most extreme case scenarios you end up in some shrinks office paying hundreds of pounds an hour for ten years. Just to come out with a huge dossier. Like the results of a MySpace quiz times a thousand. And also about a thousand times more confounded than you went in.

Who am I then? Well with all of this in perspective. It becomes tougher to answer. I admittedly have a huge ego. As a child I used to actually believe in my head that under my chubby little bowl haircutted exterior that I was actually a child prodigy and a genius. My grades and class marks said otherwise. My lack of distinct popularity in the playground only served to enforce my vociferous ego. Rather than viewing it negatively. I viewed myself as an outcast due to my prodigious nature of course. A miniature Gallileo.

I carried this with me for years. Always believing to the point of absolute delusion and actually making up lies to reinforce the story of 'who I am.' When the lies weren't enough fuel for my ego, which by seventeen was like a bullimic at a buffet. I resorted to schadenfreude and the classic 'emotional defence mechanism' of I don't give a shit. Or some other permutation of this. I was percieved as arrogant. Of course my ego viewed this arrogance as confidence. I still had the story in my mind that I was an overlooked superhero, sex-god from beyond time who could do anything. No amounts of insults, rejections, or the fact I was grotesquely overweight, had lied my way into university and failed the course were going to change this.

At some point. I can't remember exactly when. I finally realise and accept the hopelessness of my situation. My entire vicarious existence. From then on it was time for a total transformation. Time for action. Time for glory.

Six months at the gym and I start to get on track. My own arrogant insecurity is becoming replaced with a more acute self-awareness. The ego is there. Obviously. Only time and dedication will remove it from me entirely. To get back to a place of total self-esteem. Like when I was a child. The ego is riddled with traps that will catch you offguard. As Tolle says in 'A New Earth': ''It maybe impossible to lose the ego completely. Perhaps the best you can do is just be aware of it.''

I feel it's diminished somewhat. I know these days I'm not so judgemental and reactive. I'm more aware. Last week rather than being what is traditionally considered 'egotistical' and asking what they like about me. I asked them what they didn't.

The conclusion? Well, obstinately: I'm a self-aggrandising, vain, completely self-absorbed, untrustworthy when drunken, Matthew McConaughey obsessed ignorant cunt who talks about himself alot and tends to get angry at people and possibly inanimate objects, says chode a lot, thinks he’s cooler, more intelligent and mature than he actually is. Also spends too much money on protein shakes, but I suppose that falls in with being 'vain.' A cock, a swine and a little shit.

Which isn't quite how I saw myself through my ego. An internet friend of mine off a forum I go on who I've never actually met in real life said this: ''I'd hazzard a guess that Michael is an intelligent guy, not afraid to speak out on any subject whether or not he knows a thing about them, demonstrating his individuality by wearing his hair in a horizontal halo, getting blindingly drunk at every given opportunity, a terror with the girls and an all round wilful wild child who is bewildered when he is called out for it. Peel that thin top layer off him and I reckon that there is a decent, caring bloke with an inborn sense of fairness and concern for others and a wide streak of uncertainty and emotion that he is fighting to hide from the rest of the world in case it takes advantage of him.''

So does any of this help me uncover who I really am? Not really.

Most of it merely defines my outer image as percieved by others. Whilst perception is reality, as they say. Surely without delving deeply into the realms of metaphysics; whilst I accept all of the things bad and good. On the grand scale of things it means fuck all. Like the analogy I used earlier about the psychiatric patient. I'm none the wiser.

To summise. Descartes' famous quote said ''I think therefore I am'' and whilst this is a grand sentiment and would be a brilliant marketing syllogism for the magnificent and almost limitless capabilities of the human mind. Perhaps it's the lesser known Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj who comes closer to the more profound truth. It's when I don't think. ''I just am.''

-Michael (or whoever)

2008: lesson number one

Rebecca is not conducive to ANY of my goals.

Hindsight is a wonderful and glorious thing.

I'm completely shutting myself off for the next four weeks. Minimal internet. No MSN. No chode social networking sites. I have to get myself back on track. For me. Fuck socialising.

I feel inside my own head is the single place where I'm most comfortable right now.

-Michael

Getting back on track...

My reading list for the next three weeks is:

1. Burn the fat feed the muscle by Tom Venuto
2. Double your dating by David DeAngelo
3. Journey into the end of the night by Celine
4. Diamonds are forever by Ian Fleming
5. Go tell it on the mountain by Baldwin
6. The Rum Diary by Thompson
7. Barcelona Plates by Alexei Sayle
8. Pimp by Iceberg Slim
9. A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking
10. Memories, dreams and reflections by Carl Jung

2008. No slip ups.

-Michael

2008 goals so far.

Little in the way of incident has happened in the '08 thus far. No new girls. No crazy drunken shenanigans. No fights. No drama.

I intend to keep track of how my New Year missions are going week by week.

Gym.. thus far I'm going pretty much every day. I missed a few days. I'm totally back on track towards ripped abs now though.

Diet... so far I've been disciplined. I'm doing well on this one.

Everything else I'm pretty much failing on so far. I've drank on two occasions in the last six days and smoked. Whilst this hasn't rendered me in idiotoc situations. I know it's stupid. I should develop some kind of self-punishment. Something very masochistic and brutal. Silly Michael.

Dropping out of the skeevy seduction 'world' this shouldn't be too hard. The whole 'community' has pretty much gone down the pan now anyway.

No travel or anything yet. Possible trips to Amsterdam [obligatory] in the next few weeks. Ireland and Barcelona are possibilities.

Reading a book a week. I'm already slightly behind on this. I'll make up for it though. This is due to my incessant choding around last week. I'll finish the Tom Venuto book tonight and then get started on something stimulating.

The blog. Little has happened which is noteworthy thus far. It will get more and more glorious though.

Word.

Social networking sites? Losing interest in them already. Sort of.

-Michael

A short story...

2009.

They always had you believe that the future would be full of new innovations. Orwell predicted that the world would be completely changed by 1984. Now it's 2009. We're in a state of regression. Every city looks the same. The people look the same. The last creative genius has ostensibly died out.

These days. You're lucky to get in a knife fight. Let alone zap someone with a phaser. Everyone wants to be a cage fighter. People don't even fight properly anymore. I remember when people used to be obnoxiously drunk. Say imaginative things. Then beat the shit out of each other. This is not a good world to live in. Why's the life expectancy going up? I don't understand this. Why would you want to live longer. In this world. Everyone is a fucking bore.

I wish I could time travel away from all of these dreary people. Maybes back to the dark ages. Times of yore with which hunts. I could find some bitch and nail her ass to the wall. ''Witch, you're a witch. You have no rights. You looked at me the wrong way. Now I'm nailing your ass to the wall.''

So there I was. Thinking. I want to time travel. And then holy deux ex machina, I was zapped up in a incredible bolshy stream of lightening and transported onto a space ship in the year 2342.

I hide behind some kind of wall. There's a lot of corridors on this ugly fucking space ship. And they're all a dreary yellow colour. I walk along. Some kind of intruder alarm goes off. I'm being chased by a slew of boring white robots. Similar looking to daleks. Maybes they were modelled on daleks from the 1960's. Wouldn't surprise me. Everything is probably even less creative in the year 2342. I start thinking about life. It flashes before my eyes. I think about Ayn Rand. That fascist. That bitch.

Then. One of the dalek look-a-like robots stops me. He says Hello. Asks me how I am. He's like the people back in 2009. I tell him the truth. I'm awful. I ask him where the nearest airlock is. I feel bad having to ask.

A few minutes later. I'm standing before the open airlock. Ready to throw myself out in the bleak vast dark abyss of space. Well it's better than living isn't it.

-Michael

2007 brief recap.

Mistakes:
I made a lot of mistakes throughout 2007. They were mainly in the first half of the year. I was severly overweight. Obnoxious. And trying very hard to identify with extremely poor role models. I spent half of the year sitting around on the internet. Wasting time reading pick-up bullshit. On chat trying to attract ONE girl. Excuse me, but that is FULL chode behaviour.

The one girl I tried for almost half of the year to ATTRACT. I eventually lost through being a belligerent drunken psycho. A bad theme that would resurface as the year progressed.

What did I do which was right, and in what?
My first revelation of the year came after I'd started going to the gym. We were out playing a game to see who could get rejected by a girl the fastest. Obviously, we were trying to amuse ourselves. Hence why we had a lot of success that night.

The gym. Working out, and having a good body to me gives me a much clearer perspective on everything. And whilst I'm still a naiive young kid in a sense. My relationships with people in all walks of my life have definitely prospered by simply improving and looking after my body. Which in turn gives me more confidence. Which in turn allows me to offer more value back. Kind of like a circle.

After wasting a lot of time reading absolute bullshit. I discovered a few good role-models. How to actually get laid. I got laid. I discovered that rejection doesn't matter. It's irrelevant and something you actually learn from. I'm now on a path of self-actualisation. Things at the moment are looking pretty bright.

What lessons can I learn from 2007?
-Don't waste time procrastinating on the internet.
-Actually talk to girls.
-Be cool and don't say anything stupid.
-Amuse yourself.
-Recognise your ego.
-Read more.
-Drinking is a waste of time.
-Work out. To paraphrase Tom Venuto: ''Being lean feels better than you can eat tastes.''

Time to read some more. Workout, then hit up some girls later on tonight.

-Michael

New Year, New... Nothing

"Tell me what a man finds sexually attractive and I will tell you his entire philosophy of life" -Ayn Rand. Quote of the day.

The first few days of 2008 have been pretty much incident free after it's explosive start.

I'm setting aside all of tommorow afternoon to catch up with my reading.
Morning is frenetic gym. Lot of hard work is going to go in tommorow.

I'm reading ''How to win friends and Influence people.''

I'll do a recap when I've finished. I'm going to write a feature article on influential male characters from movies and literature. Mainly movies though. I may do a piece on 'self-improvement books' as they're the basis for my novel. That one might have to wait a while.

I'm on talking terms with Rebecca who was heavily featured on here during november. There should be a few incidents within the next few days.

I'm out.

-Michael

Michael's lost New Year's Eve

So I'm on a romantic date. The girl I'm with actually tells me she wants a relationship. ''You'd be a great boyfriend. You're hot and very charming.'' It was at this point I was starting to get very drunk. ''Bitch. What're you talking about? I'm not hot and charming. I'm a belligerent drunken psychopath.'' The idea of a relationship terrifies me. I hate the phonecalls.

I phone up Butcher and conspire with him to send me texts saying I have to go early. The girl has the audacity to ask to come to the party I'm supposedly going to with Ben. No. There's more chance of the fucking world ending tonight, than this girl coming to the party. I bid that dumb bitch adieu and meet Ben the Butcher at mine at 7:30.

It was in the comfort of my very own home that shit really started to spiral out of control. We drink a few cans of Fosters and half a bottle of Aftershock. Great. We leave. I don't remember how we left. The next four hours are literally lost.

I wake up in some strange bed. There's a woman standing over me. Disgusted. Apparently her and Butcher carried me in the fucking house. I'd passed out in the taxi. Puked the fuck up outside, and sweared at her a lot. I can't remember. My whole recollection of these hours is gone. Like Jason Bourne.

After a while. I go downstairs. There's a group of people there. The womans husband. He frowns at me with disdain. I go into my typical spiel. I start winning this group of fucking people I've never seen in my life over. They give me more beer and cigarettes. At first I drink slowly. With caution.

Gradually the group of people starts to decline. Eventually there's just me.

I open up a bottle of red-wine and meander up stairs. Butchers lying in bed with the blonde he's seeing. I tell them that I have permission from the owner of the house to drink whatever's in the fridge. Then I go into some kind of addled Bukowki routine. 'What would a man be without drink'? I ask philosophically. Then I go back downstairs. Drink more wine. Talk to myself.

The woman who I originally offended wakes me up in the passageway. She seems to have quite taken to me. She walks me up the stairs and puts me back in the bed I was lying in before.

I regain conciousness at 12:00. Butcher left the fucking house without me. Fucking douche. I go down stairs and talk to the woman I offended the night before and her daughter whose ostensibly Butchers new girlfriend. I regale them in my best Matthew McConaughey voice. I tell them that I can't remember anything. The Aftershock vanquished everything from my mind. We all laugh.

I get a taxi and come home.

I spend the afternoon trying to repiece my memories. Apparently between leaving my house and waking up in the strange bed. We went into town. Couldn't get in a single bar. He saved me from falling face flat into concrete. Stopped me being assaulted by a group of girls after I apparently wouldn't relinquish my drunken 'claw.' He informed me at some point he bought me a bottle of water and a sausage sandwich in a vain attempt to sober me up. Naturally, I don't have the vaguest memory of any of this.

Welcome to 2008.

-Michael